[Charles William Eliot (1834- ), a graduate of Harvard and its president from 1869 to 1909, has wielded a great influence on American education, especially in securing the adoption of the elective system in colleges. He has written largely on education and public affairs, and is one of the clearest thinkers on the problems of American life. Since the beginning of the World War he has written extensively on its issues and problems. His best essays are "American Contributions to Civilization " (1897), especially "The Working of American Democracy," and "The Modern Definition of the Cultivated Man" (1903). The present article, a few paragraphs of which have been omitted, presents perhaps as comprehensive a survey of the war from a liberal point of view as can be found.]

In a few weeks or months the American people will begin to sacrifice their sons by the thousand in the most savage and cruel war that has ever been waged. They have already begun to expend the savings of generations on preparations for fighting and destruction, and they have stopped innumerable forms of expenditure which contributed to their welfare and that of their descendants. Under these circumstances it is fitting that the voters and their political leaders review the war situation as it stands to-day, and take account of the gains for human liberty and the democratic form of government which have already been secured.

The principal features of the war situation are as follows: (1) The two principal contestants the Central Monarchies and the Entente Allies have demonstrated that each can hold the other in trench warfare; so that no considerable, well-defended areas can be conquered by either party. In open country where the means of communication

1 From New York Times, August 5, 1917. Reprinted by permission.

are scanty or difficult each can successfully come back against the other after defeat or withdrawal, and neither side when occupying new territory has thus far been able to disarm or extinguish the opposing army. The Belgian, Serbian, and Rumanian armies are still on foot in large numbers, and no considerable body of German or Austro-Hungarian troops has thus far been forced to surrender. In three years neither side has won a military victory in the old sense. There has been no Austerlitz, or Waterloo, or Sedan, or Yorktown; and there is not likely to be. In this sense, President Wilson was right when he used the ambiguous phrase "peace without victory." It has been a war without victory on land and without any victory on sea of the Nelson sort.

(2) Industrial and financial strength having been proved necessary to the acquisition and maintenance of great military power, it appears that the manufacturing nations are the only ones that can endure long wars; because they alone can create and maintain inexhaustible supplies of munitions and of the modern means of rapid transportation on land and water for both men and supplies. An agricultural or pastoral people engaged in serious war will require the aid of a manufacturing people. Hence, ultimate success in war will go to the side which has been made wealthiest and strongest by successful commerce, agriculture, mining, and manufacturing ; provided that this wealth and these industrial achievements have not impaired the public morality and energy.

(3) The success of Great Britain and France in developing under the most trying circumstances a greater efficiency than that of Germany in the manufactures indispensable to modern war has settled the question whether despotically ruled peoples have an advantage over free peoples in warfare in which every resource of modern science is utilized, and settled it in favor of the freer.

(4) The war has also proved already that violations of treaties on the ground of military necessity and oppressive exactions on the population remaining in conquered territory

do not profit the conqueror in the present state of the civilized world, except as he appropriates for immediate use machinery, fuel, foods, and raw material, but on the contrary are disastrous to him and his cause. In other words, the war has proved that the moral and physical forces which can be rallied to the side of international justice are sufficient to make acts of international injustice inexpedient and unprofitable.

(5) It clearly appears that all the nations of Europe now recognized as such can command the services in proper proportion to their population of soldiers who are robust, brave, and patriotic, and that there is no nation in Europe so degenerate morally or physically that a strong and healthy nation may rightfully seize it and govern it for its own good. Both sides exhibit full capacity for acquiring the skill needed to use artillery, airplanes, telephones, photographs, and motor trucks; and all are capable of hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, swords, knives, and hand grenades. The primitive savage with all his hunting and fighting instincts reappears to-day in civilized white men as well as in Turks, Turcos, and Gurkhas.

(6) As the war has gone on the conviction has gradually penetrated all the governments and peoples concerned that the redressing of three great international wrongdoings must be included in any terms of settlement which are to have a fair chance of leading to durable peace. These wrongs are the partition of Poland (1772), the wresting of Alsace-Lorraine from France by Germany (1871), accompanied by an attempt to "bleed France white," and the Treaty of Berlin (1878), which outraged Russia and planted seeds of fierce discord among the Balkan peoples. All thinking people have come to understand that no permanent peace for Europe or any relief from competitive armaments can be obtained without disinfecting these festering sores. And yet this disinfection cannot but prove a very difficult task.

(7) The war has greatly strengthened the conviction, held by most publicists who have had occasion to consider the

causes of grave international disputes, that the peace of the world would be much more secure if nations which possess few ports or none could obtain, under firm international conventions, free access to the seas and oceans through the territories and ports of other nations. An interior country, like Serbia, or a great interior sub-arctic region like the Russian empire or Canada, needs for its own free life and growth access to the seas and oceans through the ports of other countries, if it has few or none of its own. For the full enjoyment of such rights durable peace is necessary. Remove from the European world, or the whole world, the apprehension of war, and the dread that an insular population, or a population confined within an interior area, naturally feels lest it be deprived of an adequate supply of foods or raw materials, and a principal cause of war would be removed. The Germans' dread of such compression and such deprivation, coupled with an extraordinary belief in the superiority of German civilization to every other civilization, seems to have been the underlying cause of the present war.

(8) Although the strength and endurance of the belligerents are by no means exhausted, there is a new disposition to speculate and talk about peace ever since President Wilson requested the Central Monarchies on the one side and the Entente Allies on the other to state the terms on which they would consent to make peace. Although the two parties are still wide apart in regard to the preliminary terms or conditions on which negotiations for peace might be opened, and although the present condition of Russia has raised new hopes in the minds of the German oligarchy, the disposition of the several governments to talk about terms of peace is an important feature of the present situation. It is supported, if not induced, by the state of mind among the soldiers of all the nations at war. It will be a dire calamity for the human race if peace negotiations are opened before the Central Monarchies publicly repent of the invasion of Serbia, the violation of the neutrality treaties on behalf of Belgium, the sinking of

the Lusitania, and the Prussian-Turkish treatment of noncombatants.

Two new implements of warfare have been developed during the war the airplane and the submarine; but the capacities of neither for destruction have been fully revealed. Both violate in practice - by necessity - most of the rules which international law has tried to establish for the protection of non-combatants and the mitigation of the horrors of war. Those who use them require singular skill, courage, and endurance; but neither mercy nor chivalry can often influence their deeds. Those, too, whose duty is to destroy either airplanes or submarines must do so without the least regard to their human occupants. The submarine forces on everybody, assailant or defendant, the policy of killing at sight. Drown or choke your adversary without giving any chance of escape. Take no prisoners. These policies or methods are not yet publicly and avowedly adopted on land. The airplane involves single combat, or combat in small groups, under very dangerous conditions for both parties, and with little chance to surrender for either side. It is kill or be killed. "Bombing" by airplanes means miscellaneous destruction of life and property without taking good aim. This kind of warfare is peculiarly revolting, in spite of the extraordinary bravery and fortitude of the men who engage in it. The use made of submarines by Germany proves that during war à l'outrance between great powers neutrals have no protection against being sunk while passing between neutral ports. This is a new barbarity in war. All nations with exterior trade are interested in determining now, if possible, the future of the submarine.

Such is the formidable scene in which the American people are about to become one of the principal actors. As they enter on this fearful task they can reasonably draw inspiration and hope from the great gains for liberty and democracy which have been already achieved through the war.

The war has brought about extraordinary progress for democracy in Europe, especially in Great Britain and Russia.