Page Prussian Poland and North Schleswig fare little if any better. The three and a half million Poles in Prussia have been subjected in recent years to more severe persecutions than their compatriots in autocratic Russia. They have, of course, been deprived of their own laws since 1815. More recently, their religious liberty has been restricted, and the Polish language forbidden in education, in public business, and (with certain temporary exceptions) in public meetings, though the great majority of the Polish people understand no other language. As a supreme effort at assimilation the Prussian Government has been trying, partly by vast expenditure of money and partly by force, to compel the Poles to sell their lands and to introduce German colonists to take their places. This interference with the Polish laws, religion, language, and property was not provoked in the first instance by disloyalty, though the Poles have become disloyal in consequence of it. Nor have the 150,000 Danes in North Schleswig been saved by their inoffensive obscurity, their Lutheran religion, or even their Teutonic blood, from similar persecutions, with similar results. If left in German hands Belgium may expect to be another Schleswig, another Poland. In Austria-Hungary the situation is even worse. The South Slavs and the Roumanians in Hungary have been deprived of the right to vote (although guaranteed to them in 1867); their educational institutions have been hampered or closed, their economic development interfered with. And this is the work of the Hungarian Government which has Germany's warmest approval in all such measures. 146. 19. The German cruisers, the Goeben and Breslau, took refuge in the Dardanelles at the outbreak of the war. Instead of interning these fugitive ships in accordance with international law, the Turkish Government, already under German influence, pretended to buy them. In this manner the German Government became master of the situation and Turkey lost whatever independence it may still have had; for the German admiral and crews remained on board and a German element was introduced into the remainder of the Turkish fleet. It age was this Turco-German fleet, under effective German control, that forced Turkey's reluctant entrance into the war. By order of the German admiral, it bombarded Russian Black Sea ports, without provocation, without warning, without previous authorization of the Ottoman Government, and contrary to the desires of a majority of its members. (Diplomatic Documents, Carnegie edition, part ii, pp. 1057-1205 and 1385-1437.) 20. The Imperial Government will continue to maneuver for peace, but, in its present spirit, for a peace to be arranged in conference at a "green table," with Germany holding as trumps the overrun territories now in her possession, and not for a peace guaranteed "by the major force of mankind." When the Reichstag voted for peace without annexations, the recent chancellor, Michaelis, spoke vaguely at first, but then hastened to reassure the alarmed Pan-Germans. When the Pope's proposals were brought forward, he welcomed them, but remained hopelessly indefinite as to whether Germany would assent to the details. 17. 21. The rapid industrial development of Germany after the war of 1870, though due to economic causes, greatly enhanced the prestige of the military classes, who assumed the credit for it. Their present position on the war map is highly advantageous to them from an economic point of view, for they now control the chief centers of European industry outside Great Britain. They hold the greater part of Belgium, one of the most highly developed industrial centers of the world. They are exploiting the chief mining and manufacturing part of France, the oil and wheat fields of Roumania and one of the few important manufacturing districts of Russia. They have secured the Balkan corridor to the Near East, with its boundless possibilities of commercial exploitation and of further political aggression in the direction of Egypt and India. If they can retain these conquests they will be permanently enriched at the expense of their impoverished neighbors. If they can capitalize their present advantageous positions on the war map, whether by annexations or otherwise, this war also, like that of 1870, will appear in the light of a profitable Page 148. business adventure. War itself will indeed have become one of the greatest of national industries, with the military caste necessarily in supreme political control. In such an atmosphere democracy cannot develop. Nor can the triumph of democracy be expected in Germany till the prestige of the military caste has been destroyed. The celebrated Prof. Hans Delbrück, of the University of Berlin, wrote early in 1914: "Anyone who has any familiarity at all with our officers and generals knows that it would take another Sedan, inflicted on us instead of by us, before they would acquiesce in the control of the army by the German Parliament.'' 22. America no longer occupies a position of charmed isolation. In this war, navies have transported great armies thousands of miles. The wireless has kept Germany informed almost constantly of developments in the United States. German submarines have appeared in our ports and have sunk ships off our coasts. Already we are within the menace. Let disaster come to the British and American navies and the war may be brought within our borders. Today more than ever before we face the problem of defending with a real force or with adequate guaranties our traditional policy-the Monroe doctrine. The facilities of the entire Holy Alliance in 1823 for the violation of American territory were small as compared with the power of Germany alone today. If Germany emerges from this war victorious and unreformed, then we, like France, Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland during the past decades, must prepare indeed for self-defense. We must shoulder a burden of military preparedness in time of peace such as America has never known. 23. See note 20. 24. The terrifying bitterness of the struggle between the Imperial Government and the Social Democratic Party came to light in a speech by the Kaiser to the army recruits in 1891, in which he referred to his political opponents as "the internal foe,'' and said: It may come to pass that you will have to shoot down and stab your own relations and brothers." Upon another occasion he said: Page 157. To me every Social Democrat is synonymous with an enemy of the realm and of the Fatherland." At the outbreak of the war the Socialists abandoned their opposition to the Government and the Kaiser announced that there were no longer any parties in Germany. "In time of peace this or that party has attacked me; I forgive them now with all my heart." Nevertheless some Socialists who subsequently adopted an independent tone are now in jail. The majority seem content to be the cat's-paw of the military authorities in working upon the Russian Socialists for a separate peace. The hollowness of the reconciliation and the Government's insincerity in permitting the use of Socialist peace formulas (see note 20) may be inferred from a passage in Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg's speech of July 7, 1917, in which he is reported to have said that it was impossible to accept the socialist propositions in behalf of peace "because they had proved unsuccessful in Russia." FRANKLIN KNIGHT LANE (1864 Franklin Knight Lane, born 1864 in Prince Edward's Island, Canada, removed in childhood to California, where he was educated at the State University. After a successful career in the law he entered politics and became later a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission, until appointed Secretary of the Interior by President Wilson. WHY WE ARE AT WAR 1. See Flag Day Address, Note 4. 158. 2. In the Revolution and the War of 1812. 160. 3. At the beginning of the ruthless submarine war by Germany von Bethmann-Hollweg explained that the reason it had not been entered upon earlier was because Germany was not ready. In other words, the promise to respect international law in this matter made by Germany at the time of the Sussex case was merely a dishonest piece of temporizing. 4. The Treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium, so called by von Bethmann-Hollweg in a speech in the Reichstag at the opening of the war in 1914. Page 161. 164. 165. 5. For the Zimmermann Note, see War Message, Note 22. 6. In the feudal system there was no such thing as political equality. The vassal was bound by fealty to his lord and forced to render certain dues including war-service. The lord did as he willed, the vassal had to serve him and obey. 7. This is the German adaptation of the political maxim of absolutism, “The King can do no wrong. The Emperor who tells his people that he rules by divine right alone and not by the will and sanction of his people and parliament, still acts on this principle of irresponsibility. 8. On the departure of the German troops for China in July, 1900, the Emperor addressed them as follows: "If you come to grips with him (the enemy) be assured quarter will not be given, no prisoners will be taken. Use your weapons in such a way that for a thousand years no Chinese shall dare to look upon a German askance. Show your manliness. Open the way for Kultur once for all!"' Elihu Root, born 1845 in New York State, and graduated from Hamilton College in 1864, rose rapidly to recognition as one of the greatest legal minds of his day and one of the foremost interpreters of our Constitution. He filled with distinguished ability the posts of Secretary of War under President McKinley and Secretary of State under Roosevelt. In 1917 he was chosen by President Wilson as Head of the American Mission to Russia. THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN 1. See the Preamble to the Constitution, Appendix. Indeed, it will be well for the reader to read through the Constitution in connection with this address, made by one of its greatest interpreters. 2. Constitution, Article I, Section 8. 3. Constitution, Article II, Section 2. 4. The Senate voted 82 to 6 for war and the House of Repre |