The New York Times
"All the News That's Fit to Print."
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NEW YORK, MONDAY, NOV. 11, 1918.
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THE OVERTHROW OF AUTOCRACY.
No great empire ever before came to so sharp an ending, no mighty potentate was ever so ignominiously hurried sprawling from his throne. Germany, the greatest military autocracy on earth, was given over in a day to Socialist revolution, characterized as yet, happily, by no great violence, and even if, by reason of delayed communications, the terms of the armistice be not yet signed, defeat is acknowledged in the proclamation of Prince Maximilian, and of surrender there is no longer a doubt. Whipped by nations devoted to peace in its own special business of war for which it was eternally drilling and arming, jeered at, repudiated and overthrown in the moment of defeat by that proletariat class it had always held to be fit only for servitude and soldiering, the powerful German Empire was already writhing in most undignified throes of dissolution when its humbled emissaries set out for the spot where the firm voice of Marshal Foch was to declaim to them the terms of surrender. And the Hohenzollern, the last of an ancient line, had to receive from the hands of one of the most despised of his knavish tools the summons to renounce his crown and sceptre.
Germany's pride is the true measure of Germany's humiliation. That mountain-high, impenetrable concit of Kaiser, of Junkerdom, of people, and of German wanderers outside the gates was humbled and crushed out in a trice. That is a minor incident of the Empire's disaster, to be noted, certainly, with some natural human satisfaction by men of other races who have so long endured the German haughtiness. But it soon gives way to consideration of the larger aspects of an achievement so momentous in the world's history. Amid the universal rejoicings that victory and peace succeed to long years of combat and misery we may, with a feeling of gratitude even more profound, take note of the great place of these events in the story of human society. They mark the end, not merely of a war and of an empire, but of a contest that comes down to us from the beginnings of history and beyond, the struggle for acceptance between two irreconcilable notions of government, autocracy and the commonwealth, the rule of all by one and the rule of the people over themselves. Out of those opposing ideas grew this great war. Autocracy dies with the Hohenzollern, for the Romanoff and the last puny Hapsburg had already been swept into the dustheap of time. The hour of doom struck late for these lingering adherents of an outworn creed, bu their fate was foreordained. They were fools not to see and understand that the world long ago had outgrown them. They sought to perpetuate in Western lands an Oriental form of government, fit only for the ignorant and superstitious. "Asia begins at the Landstrasse," said Metternich. He was mistaken. Vienna and all the dominions of the Hapsburgs, Potsdam and the whole of Germany—it is even truer of the Germany of our day—were Asiatic, altogether Oriental in their government, in the ideas of their Princes.
When the first bonds of society were fashioned it was a matter of rudimentary political tactics and chicane to make the people believe that the laws laid upon them by the King had divine sanction, were made known from on high to be proclaimed by the Lord's anointed on earth; for so obedience to the King's mandate became a religious duty. In express terms the last German Kaiser preached this doctrine of his authority. German behavior, German jurisprudence, all German institutions, were shaped to the belief that law must come down to the people from the high authority. We have ordered it differently in Europe and America, and some Kings' necks have come under the axe in the ordering of it. "There is only one law, my law, the law which I myself lay down," thundered this little man, now a fugitive from his realm and so impotent, while he still strutted in his military coat, helmet on head and sabre at his side. Stupid, supine Germany believed him. If instead of trusting to a pious fraud and the sword to rule his people he had trusted his people to rule themselves he would still wear a constitutional crown.
It is over. On the splintered thrones of Kings no new thrones are built. The tide of democracy rises, sweeps resistlessly onward, gains the world for its domain. This last struggle and the wounds were terrible, they were not in vain. With the arrogance of a Titan, William of Hohenzollern challenged the world, and the world has made an end of him, for which today it devoutly thanks Heaven. The work of restoring their desolate homes, their shattered edifices, their rend and blackened fanes, will now engage the peoples who have destroyed the Prussian power. In Germany rehabilitation, political and material, will have to await the passing of this new fever that has seized upon the people and stirred them to uprisings in every German city. There are omens of evil in the character of the revolt. The red flag is everywhere, the Bolshevist spirit rages, there is a general strike, and in place of government we see Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils; Socialists are everywhere to the fore. That virus of the proletariat pestilence with which the Imperial Government infected Russia at the cost of millions of marks now courses through German veins. A Socialist is made Chancellor, Barvaria lends ear to talk of a Socialist President of the new republic that is to succeed the ancient Wittelsbach monarchy. Revolt against authority at first takes the form of the class struggle. In spite of the awful warning of Russia, now given over to anarchy and starvation, the German insurgents set out upon the road that leads to the tyranny of one class over all others, that ends inevitably in social disorganisation, the horror of indiscriminate murder and ruit, until reason and law resume their sway. Russing ignorance has no counterpart in Germany; it is to be hoped that the sober sence of the people will set limits to the ravages of the Red mobs. As in the case of Austria, we may presume that the terms of the armistice provide for police protection and the maintenance of order in Germany by the Allies. The war organization of the countries united against Germany must evidently be maintained until the Germans have a responsible Government.
THE UNITED WAR WORK CAMPAIGN.
Judge Hughes sounded the keynote of the United War Work Campaign when he said at the great meeting in Madison Square Garden one week ago yesterday, spiritually the most inspiring of the war, that the raising of $170,500,000 by the federated associations would require the "greatest volutary altruistic effort which any people was every called upon to make." And there can be no doubt that the appeal will not be made in vain. Men and women of all faiths and creeds, "the unified moral forces of America," as Secretary Baker described them, will respond with full hands.
America as a combatant has been fortunate in this war. She has sent 2,000,000 of her young men overseas, the flower of the nation, and with the loss of a small percentage they will return physically sound to the United States, in the event of early peace, which now seems assured. But what havoc the war has played with the manhood of France, Great Britain, Italy, and Serbia! A million and a half Frenchmen, killed in battle or dead of wounds, have been lost to the State, and of the blind and mutilated, who will be of deplorably diminished use to society, there must be a host. Much the same story can be told of Great Britain, Italy, and ill-starred but redeemed Serbia. God in His Heaven has been kind to America. Hers not the supreme sacrifice; hers, in fact, the advantage and the gain, for society and industry will benefit by the ordeal of war.
America's manhood, trained for battle and sent to the field, will be stronger physically and cleaner spiritually for the lessons it has learned, for the discipline it has submitted to, and for the experience gone through, unless—and this is the significance of the response that must be made to the United War Work campaigners—there should be a failure by the American people to guard the health and the morals of their armies up to the very day when the men are restored to civil life and society. War has been an education, war has been salvation to the young men of America assembled in her armies and fighting the battle of civilization on foreign soil.
What a throwing away of splendid opportunity, what a tragedy, it would be if the young soldiers of America were abandoned to the license of the camp because the war draws to a close! More than ever it is the duty of the people at home to maintain the organizations that have ministered to the comfort of our soldiers, helped to keep them clean in body and clean in thought, inspired them to be worthy of the great Republic at all times. These organizations cannot be maintained unless they are supplied with the money asked for. We are all proud of heh American Army in France. Let us prove that it is not a sentiment reflecting only our self-esteem by subscribing generously to the fund of the seven federations, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., the Knights of Columbus, the Jewish Board for Welfare Work, the American Library Association, the War Camp Community Service, and the Salvation Army. It was a happy thought to group them together in such a cause, thereby merging creeds and strengthening the appeal. Who can hesitate to give, be his church or faith what it may?
As was said at the meeting in Madison Square Garden, "there can be but one rivalry, and that is as to which will be first 'over the top,'" Jew or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic. Every dollar of the amount to be divided will be needed and spent wisely, whether the war stops before Christmas or continues into 1919. In any event it will be two years before all our soldiers can be brought home and held in the home camps until they can be honorably discharged from service. Those two years would be the most perilous and critical of all if the comfort, the recreations, and the morals of our soldiers should be neglected by the American people.
JUST HOW JOYFUL ARE YOU?
Are you glad that the war is over? You said so last Thursday, when you gave yourself up to that great tide of brotherhood that flowed irrepressibly through our streets. Was it cheap joy? Or was it real and deep, the kind of joy that seeks earnestly some way to pay for its creation?
And who created it? The soldiers and sailors who offered their lives that your dearly bought freedom might be bought over again. Many of them sold their lives to save that freedom. It was due to them and to those who so freely offered to sell their lives, but who still live, that you were so joyful last Thursday and are so secure and comfortable in your homes now. It is due to them that there are not now and never will be, as far as we can see into the future, any broken Belgiums on this side of the Atlantic. From Canada to the Argentine this hemisphere is safe—thanks to them.
All this you know, and you showed it on Thursday when you raised soldiers and sailors over your heads and paraded them through the thrilled streets. Well, is that all? Does it stop there? Are you going to give them one cheer, turn your backs on them, and leave them, for the year or more that they must remain in Europe, to go to the devil if they choose, at any rate to have no more of the stanch backing they have had from you while yet you were in danger?
That is not the American way. Let it not be said of America that she abandoned her saviors to luck, good or bad, when once they had saved her. Come up to the support of the United War Work Campaign, come up with your dollars, and show whether your joy is counterfeit coin or not. You have lent your money to the Government, now give to the boys; give to the boys who drove the Hun out of France, give to the boys who drove the submarine from our coasts. Give, every one of you, in full measure for their welfare and protection while they remain in a foreign land, idle after having dared the last peril to save America and the world from the new barbarians.
NOT A LOCAL TAX SCANDAL.
The disclosure of the nature and the extent of the tricks played on buyers of real estate in Nassau County has been considered mostly as a local affair, of no general interest. As a matter of fact the sales by tax officials which deprived owners of their property in a manner little short of robbery with official connivance were made under a general law covering the State. Attention is also called to other and graver irregularities of particular harm to this city. In opposing the application for an injunction against the continuance of the sales of property for trivial amounts of taxes, the attorney for Nassau County defended its good name. He informed the court that all which was done was done regularly, under a statute covering the State, and dating back to 1828, with amendments from year to year making the tax sale law of present application. He contended that the law was mandatory, and that the court could not stop its execution.
This defense of the county is an accusation against the State. The court, through Justice Scudder, said that there was no question about the law. The question was whether the law was not executed in a manner shocking to the conscience of the community and the court, in which case the court had power to intervene, especially for the protection of absent soldiers and their dependents. Justice Scudder's words were confined to the cases before him, but all familiar with the tax laws know that they are imperfect, and that they are administered imperfectly. The particular defect is the discrimination between city and country valuations, with the effect of putting the burdens of the State taxes disproportionately upon the cities. The personal questions raised in Nassau County will serve a useful purpose in attracting attention to the public issues raised in vain by too many commissions to leave any doubt of the trouble and the root of the trouble.
As Justice Scudder said, the trouble is more in the administration than in the law. The existing laws could be administered so that there need be no personal scandal, nor any prejudice between sections of the State. Unfortunately the result of maladministration is to encourage a crop of quack remedies, instead of fastening attention upon better enforcement of existing laws. The reformers make all sorts of promises about the good effect of their proposals, blandly ignored the fact that these are as much liable to maladministration as the laws which they propose to displace by innovations of wide and unknown bearing. There have been betterments in administration of tax laws in recent years. There should be many more. The deman increases with the State's demand for taxes. In the nineties the State debt was $660. Now it is a quarter billion, and the State needs revenues by scores of millions. The direct tax, which had disappeared, has reappeared as a permanency. That revives and increases cities' interst in the manner of laying and collecting taxes everywhere. The Nassau County scandal could not have occurred if the taxes had been laid and collected as they should be in every county, and something in the manner shown in the counties of this city in recent years.
MAUBEUGE.
Field Marshal Haig reported on Saturday that "the fortress of Maubeuge has been captured by the Guards and Sixty-second Divisions." So, after four years and three months of war, the British Army is advancing in triumph over the ground where the "Contemptibles" first saw the flash of the enemy's guns and retreated, fighting desperately, before superior forces. If Sir John French had blundered at Maubeuge in the last week of August, 1914, his army would have been destroyed or captured, and through the gap made by its elimination the Germans would have poured in an ever-swelling flood of men and guns, rolling up the flanks of two French armies and confronting Joffre with a problem, the saving of his main body and the defense of Paris, for which he might not have been able to find a solution. Small as was the British Expeditionary Force, consisting of no more than 80,000 men, its units checked the German advance from day to day by tenaciously holding on to positions prepared overnight until scarcely an officer or private was left to tell the story. Never did the British Army, which has always known how to die, fight such stubborn rearguard actions. These covering operations made it possible for Sir John French to save a part of his army, and on Sept. 8 it crossed the Marne by the bridges between Lagny and Meaux. These bridges were blown up by the rearguard.
Maubeuge figured in that critical retreat when Sir John French, engaged in his battle at Mons, his right resting on Binche and his left on Condé, and the fight going against him, received "a most unexpected message" from General Joffre. It was a belated message: the British commander should have known its ominous tidings hours before. While he was defending the Mons position against a force at least twice as strong as his own, the Germans had thrown back the Fifth French Army on his right and were driving across the Sambre between Namur and Charleroi. At the same time the enemy was making a wide enveloping movement around his left at Tournai. The British supports were gone, had been gone for several hours, and when the message reached Sir John French the Fifth French Army was retreating before von Below's Second German Army.
The British commander knew the terrain in his rear intimately, for he was an authority on the French campaigns of the past. His decision was quickly made: he would fall back upon the line Maubeuge-Jenlain, and that very night preparations were made for retirement while he continued to defend the Mons position as if he knew nothing of what had befallen Lanrezac, Langue, and Ruffey. Back went the heavy transport to clear the roads, and the ambulances carrying the wounded followed. In the morning Haig's First Corps counterattacked to cover the retirement of Smith-Dorrien's Second Corps. The feint deceived the enemy, who reasoned from the steady fire of Haig's 120 guns that the British has been reinforced. When Smith-Dorrien had fallen back five miles from the Condé Canal he took up a strong defensive positions, Frameries-Querouble, to give the British right an opportunity to retire to Maubeuge, a fortress of the first class on the Sambre.
To the left of the British force the enemy had crossed the frontier, but the British right resting on Maubeuge would have been secure if the French had made a junction with it. This, however, was out of the question. The Fifth Army was not in touch with it and had no alternative but to retire to new positions. Von Kluck's design was to outflank the British left and tempt Sir John French to give battle under the protection of the Maubeuge forts. That would have been fatal to the expeditionary force without support. It would have been Sedan over again. The British Army was of about the same strength as the French Army that surrendered at Sedan in the late Summer of 1870.
The British commander, left to his own resources by the irresistible "drive" of the Germans against the French on his right, rejected the plan of giving battle on the Maubeuge-Jenlain line and ordered a retreat past the great forest of Mormal, the 1st Corps marching to the east of it, the 2d Corps to the west of it, for in its way the forest of Mormal was as dangerous to a small army as the fortress of Maubeuge. It is not necessary to follow the fortunes of the hard-pressed British Army falling back to one position after another through Le Cateau, Landrecies, Valenciennes, Cambrai, and St. Quentin. The worst was over when the 2d Corps reached the Somme.
The British are at last back in Maubeuge, retracing the line of their retreat. They have passed through the same towns that saw them staggering and bleeding and beaten from the fierce German onslaughts in 1914. They have thrown back the enemy in and around the forest of Mormal. They are again in the vicinity of Mons, where they fought the first battle of the war. They are flushed with many victories. They will never taste defeat again, and the Germans will never know anything else. But it is not to be doubted that if Sir John French had blundered at Maubeuge in those crowded hours in August, 1914, the British would never have returned as victors in the closing days of the great war.
What a spectacle for gods and men! The mightiest military monarch of earth, proud as Lucifer, a most famous swaggerer, he who went his way and trod under food all who opposed him, takes to his heels like a scared schoolboy and takes shelter in Holland from the wrath of his so lately loyal and servile people. And that Son of Thunder, the Crown Prince, accompanies his parent in this flight to a place of safety.
TOPICS OF THE TIMES
A Precaution Hard to Understand. So difficult is it to imagine any real reason why the German "plenipotentiaries," as they call themselves, should have been blindfolded on reaching the French lines, that one's inclination is to suspect that the thing was done simply out of regard for ancient custom—that it was the conventional "gesture" without which such a reception of delegates from one army in the field to another would not be in accord with the established proprieties.
Marshal Foch could hardly have had anything to hide from the German visitors, for they could have seen only that he was thoroughly well provided with men and weapons for the effective continuance of the war. The military members of the delegation knew the ground in and around the town where the momentous interview was held at least as well as the French, as they had occupied and studied it for more than four years, and there were no secrets of the terrain for them to learn. On the other hand, the more they saw of French strength—of which there must have been much to see—the more likely were they to realize the hopelessness of getting what the Germans calla "good peace."
Viewed from this distance, therefore, the blindfolding seems to have been little or nothing more than a formality, and that it was performed with great care does not seem very probable. Certainly the situation was very different from the one that often exists when enemy envoys are admitted within opposing lines or a beleaguered city. But this is reasoning based on less then full knowledge of the facts—always a dangerous process, and one especially dangerous when it concerns a man who knows his business as thoroughly as does Marshal Foch.
More safely, perhaps, can wonder be expressed at the use by the German envoys of the word "plenipotentiaries," as they did, in a wireless dispatch to the Imperial Chancellor and the German high command, announcing that a courier had been sent to get further instructions. Men who have to do that evidently are not intrusted with plenary powers and in effect are little more than couriers themselves. With their authority so limited there is some justification for doubt that their mission had any other object than that of gaining time for their principals—a device that would have all the familiar characteristics of German diplomacy.
Pacifists Grieved by Peace. Anybody with available sympathy for which he has no other use might well devote it to the little group of Americans whose conscientious objections to going to war were so strong that they quietly but hurriedly departed for Mexico, going, as the saying is, "between two days." These victims of a self-imposed exile could not have fled to a country where their mental peculiarities would be less understood or less respected than in Mexico, for, whatever other faults the inhabitants of that land may have, one of them is not either the fear or the disinclination to risk life and limb in any cause they consider good, or even promising of profit, and there is hardly a Mexican who would not interpret pacifism as cowardice, and judge it, as cawardice always is judged by people to whom war is something between a national sport and a business, at least better than hard work.
Naturally, therefore, our conscientious objectors, who knew all this, went ot Mexico because they had nowhere else to go, and it is natural, too, that neither their antagonism to the American Government nor their oblique support of Germany was enough to make them welcome visitors, even to the Mexicans, who disliked the United States and liked the one way the Germans have had to win foreign friends. From the beginning the experiences of these fugitive Americans in Mexico have been unpleasant and humiliating, and it is not surprising to learn from the dispatches that the near approach of peace has made their situation still more difficult. To go home is to face a trial, the almost inevitable result of which will be a conviction carrying a long term of imprisonment, for it will be long before the evasion of military service will be regarded here as a venial offense. It is reported that where they are nobody will give them employment, and that for associates they have only one another—a companionship which apparently they do not much enjoy, probably because no two of them are of exactly like minds and they are folk of the kind that magnify differences of opinion into chasms unbridged and unbridgeable.
What is to become of them is a mystery. Over the clearing up of that mystery not many will lie awake o' night in desperate search for the key. For the leisure class, however, it has interest.
Docility Under Compulsion. Considerable light on what conditions in Germany as regards food have been is thrown by the brief comment made by the Vorwärts of Berlin on a story about a conscientious German professor that had come to its attention. This estimable person, it seems, had determined from the very beginning of the war strictly to observe all the restrictions imposed by the Government on the distribution and consumption of foods, and he and his family have gone so through all the weary years. That such an exhibition of virtuous docility has been more than rare in Germany, and rare in more than one way, is closely indicated by the Socialist paper's exclamation, "Good Lord, is this man still alive!"
Therein lies not only a confession that obedience to the governmental regulations meant starvation, or something close to it. Also the words show that practically no Germans did abide by those regulations except from inability to evade them. That being the case, what a revision must be made of the belief that Germans are notable respectful of authority, that they heed "verboten" signs as other people do not—in short, that they are well disciplined and therefore superior to the lawless folk in other lands!
Always, however, there has been some reason to doubt the truth of that belief. Germans here are at least as fond of personal liberty as anybody else and as vehement in resenting infringements of it. The chances are that their docility, at home as abroad, is much like that of the rest of us—perfect when resistance is impossible, and shading off in exact ratio with the weakening of authority.
'Community' Peace Celebrations.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
By this time the least optimistic must be convinced that peace is near at hand. Without doubt the conclusion of the greatest war in human history—a conclusion which is likely to be reasonable satisfactory to the American people—will be welcomed by nation-wide celebrations of victory. It should not be regarded as premature to suggest that these celebrations be community affairs rather than the getting together in large centres of population. We have gained our victories because every one has helped, and one of the finest things about the entire situation has been the manifest purpose of the smallest communities to do their share. When the proper time comes let us have a celebration in every city, village, hamlet, and plantation in the United States. Where the population is only a few hundred or a few score it would afford a lesson in patriotism never to be forgotten if the community should get together for such a purpose.
Citizens would not be lacking who could speak of the origin and development of the war, and the thoroughly unselfish part our country has played in it. Let us have a nation-wide celebration in which no community shall be lacking.
University of Maine, Orono, Nov. 8, 1918.
Robert J. Collier.
To the Editor of The New York Times.
Some ten or more years ago the American weekly reached its height of artistic excellence, and Robert Collier was the first one to foresee that the old illustrations of the olden days were not in keeping with the modern spirit. Young and enthusiastic, Mr. Collier with rare intelligence gathered about him the best painters and draftsmen of America. His high-spirited enthusiasm helped them to produce the most brilliant artistic pages in the history of American weekly journalism. Robert Collier fought for high ideals, good art, good reproductoins, and better printing. He championed the fine arts and not commercialism. The American artists owe him a lot. Proudly they lay a wreath at his bier.
New York, Nov. 9, 1918.
WITH PEACE IMPENDING.
Our valorous dead who, cleansed of littleness,
Like rain have fallen that their world may live.
Nor shall I hate him for the metaled heel
That ground the breasts of Belgium soft with milk:
For all the poppied wheatlands left a waste,
And desolated cities where the cry
Of homeless children greets the dull-mouthed guns,
And rivers red with blood, and Rheims in ruin;
Nor yet for women torn between the claws
Of lust. I hate him, nor for midnight bursts
Of death upon the unguarded tents of pain,
Nor brutish laughter where the lordly ship,
Stricken, goes down, and leaves the lonely sea
More lonely with the last sob of a child,
Incredulous that men strike thus and live.
Nor must my hatred feed on him they took
In battle, black with smoke—him over whom
The maple leaves once sang—and held aloft
And spitted close against their blood-red wall,
Slow-writhing, on the Cross invisible
Whereby we dreamed such things could never be,
A blade of Rhenish steel through each torn hand,
And through the bleeding feet twin blades of steel.
Are dead and far above our rancor sleep.
Wounds may be left to silence and to time,
And over buried wrong the ivy runs.
Yea, in the years to come these riven lands
Once more shall laugh with poppy and with wheat,
And pure again shall flow the streams of France,
And on the plains of Flanders children play.
For thrusting on my soul his gift of hate;
For wresting from my hands life's final flower
Of tenderness, for hurling on my heart
The lust to fight his lust, since as a brute
The brute must still be faced. Yea, back he turned
Our feet—back to the twilight paths of time,
To jungled wraths and fang confronting fang,
And thick-coiled venoms. All against our will
He drags us down to his own hellish depths;
Back to the age of tooth and claw he hurls
All me and mine, and on a startled world
Imposes his black creed. He, e'en in death,
Shall not be worsted, spitting in our teeth
His hates triumphant—leaving in our hand
A blood-stained sword, and wonder in our eyes!
VICTIMS OF THE "BULGARIAN FURY."
The Greek Minister Denies That That Country is "American-Made" or Anything Short of Barbarian.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
On Oct. 26 William G. Shepherd published in several newspapers a curious letter containing some strangely paradoxical statements concerning the Bulgars. For instance: "It is Bibles, not bullets, that have whipped Bulgaria." "As soon as the United States declared war on Germany the people of Bulgaria realized that they themselves were on the wrong side, and from that time on the doom of King Ferdinand was sealed." "Bulgaria is an American-made nation," &c.
No one, of course, can prevent Mr. Shepherd from giving free scope to his imagination, but would it not be better if he would kingly put some restraint upon his utterances? The phrase last mentioned, "An American-made nation," would lead one to conclude that he entertains but a very poor opinion of Americanization, since, if Bulgaria is really American-made, the actions of her citizens do not rebound to the credit of her alleged creator—the United States.
Anything more appalling than the cruelty and bloodthirstiness displayed by the Bulgars throughout the war cannot well be conceived. Indeed, according to dispatches received from Saioniki, the English officers who were prisoners of war in Bulgaria until the recent cessation of hostilities deposed before the British authorities immediately upon their arrival in that city that they had personally witnessed almost unbelievable atrocities perpetrated by the Bulgars upon the persons of Serbs, Rumanians, and Greeks imprisoned or deported by them. Greek bishops were hung by the feet, head downward, above braziers of flame. Serbian parents were nailed to posts while their daughters were handed over to the soldiery and publicly defiled. Mutilations of the most revolting character and all manner of tortures, including eventration, are among the "details" contained in the reports of these honest officers, who were powerless to interfere or even to plead with the torturers at work on their pleasurable and varied undertakings.
A delegation of the Red Cross Convention of Geneva that has just returned from Eastern Macedonia has also brought back heartrending reports of the devastations of the "Furia Bulgarica." Villages were burned to the ground after being ruthlessly pillaged of every vestige of foodstuff, growing crops in the surrounding fields and gardens were wantonly destroyed, cattle were carried off or else uselessly slaughtered, and the wretched owners were left to starve where they once lived in comfort and plenty. As a matter of fact, if help is not procured at once for these unfortunates, shelter, food, clothing, and medical assistance—for pestilence has followed in the track of famine—the complete extermination of whole populations, so efficiently planned and confidently expected by the Bulgars, will shortly be accomplished.
How in the face of these facts it is possible to express the opinion that the American spirit is the inspiring power among the Bulgars and that it is "Bibles, not bullets, that have conquered" these savage hordes must remain a mystery between Mr. Shepherd and his Maker! The splendid influence exercised by the United States in Cuba and the Philippines superabundantly proves that Mr. Shepherd's assertions go for nothing at all and are likely only to do much hard to those who are ignorant of the real question under discussion.
It would be better to admit that the missionaries sent by the United States to uplift Bulgaria found that this undertaking was far beyond any human strength and skill. Her sluggish atmosphere is refractory to any wind of civilization, and it is idle to pretend that today, though defeated and disarmed, her people are other than the fierce barbarians they always have been. As the Turk found them so the Turk left them!
Equally false is the declaration that Bulgaria changed her politics as soon as the United States entered the field in 1917. She has just surrendered to overwhelming force, after having lost, besides thousands upon thousands of killed and wounded, 90,000 prisoners and 2,000 cannon. She never, until compelled to do so, altered her political aims nor abated one single item of her Teutonic program of loot at any time since she joined forces with the Huns.
Because she has benefited so greatly by the American missions and has become so conversant with the American Bible, (a book, by the way, that has about as wide a circulation within her borders as a snowflake in the infernal regions,) Bulgaria is to be relieved from all the blame of her evil courses. That blame is to rest solely upon King Ferdinand and not at all upon his gentle and delicate-minded subjects. Does Mr. Shepherd realize that, until his projects resulted in utter defeat, the entire Bulgar nation stood solidly behind their King, and without one dissenting voice from press or people—save only and excepting the silent voice of M. Panaretoff, the Bulgar envoy to the United States, who appears from his own statements to have supported the sordid and treacherous schemes of his sovereign, though hoping all the while in his innermost heart that they would miscarry?
The Bulgar is sick, so the Bulgar a monk would be! His case is so bad that he and his friends would fain beguile the good sense of the American people by flattering their religious predilections and fulsomely praising the work of the American missionaries. Can they not pursue their propaganda with a trifle more dignity and a little more regard for the truth?
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Greece to the United States.
Nov. 5, 1918.
A WORKABLE LEAGUE.
The Present Allied Powers to Organize it.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
It has been said that there is no clock which strikes the passing of historic eras, but not many of us will accept that view after peace has been made with Germany on the Allies' terms. That will mark a greater change than did the capture of Constantinople in 1453, for it will mean nothing less than the end of attempts to create another world empire, the end of autocratic government and the beginning of an age of security for free States, great and small. The clock of the eras is striking loudly, and should announce one thing more—a mighty league of nations as a present fact.
With a reign of terror in Russia, with disturbance elsewhere and with the task of drawing new national boundaries on its hands, the world will not lack grave problems, but the greatest of them all is whether it will have a league of nations that can preserve the peace which the war has won. This league is usually thought of as a great new human institution that has been dreamed of for centuries with small hope of being realized. We now hope that we may soon be able to create it, but we still think of it as a thing of the future almost too great and good to be gained. If we have already worked for it, this is because it is so supremely important that we ought to lavish time and labor on it, though there were not one chance in twenty of success.
This whole attitude seems strangely wrong. We have realized the dream of the ages and do not know it. Events have given us our league and the problem is whether we shall keep it. We may easily let it slip away, although the chance of keeping it is worth infinitely more than that of forming any new union. The present league is supremely good, vast, and firmly united. The Entente—meaning the union of nations fighting Germany—is far greater and better than anything that a single one of us would have dared to hope for a few years ago. Most of the population of the world is now in it and, if we could be sure that it would never break, the peace of the world would be assured. The "balance of power" in the world would have taken a very simple form—on the one hand a great combination devoted to peace and, on the other, detached nations too few to think of opposing the peace-loving combination. To let the close bonds which now unite the Allies become weakened and the combination dissolve would be the most criminal blunder that statesmanship is capable of committing.
The weakest of possible leagues would be one composed of elements that repel each other as do French and Germans, Italians and Austrians. There is small doubt that the war will end leaving the German Empire incapable of being at once combined in an intimate league whose members must trust each other. It may be brought into a combination of some sort that will serve a good purpose during an interregnum and that may conceivably ripen later into a closer league, but according to all appearances a goodly number of years will be required for the ripening. The Entente nations cannot today afford to form a league with their present enemies, except under the same conditions that are necessary for an armistice—the Entente must keep its preponderance of power. Until it can trust Germany it can make only such a compact with her as enemies make when both of them wish to stop fighting. All the belligerents might join in adopting a plan for arbitration and a world court, and this provisional measure might help to keep the peace for a score or two of years. The hatred of Germany for her savagery and the distrust excited by her treachery might gradually disappear, provided the wrongs and the treachery were not repeated. To go further now and establish many common institutions—to try to direct the commerce, industry and finance of all the warring countries in a friendly, live-and-let-live way—would be a crowning achievement indeed, but it would absolutely demand a reform of Germany that would reach her heart and life as no formal change of her imperial constitution will do. She must become just, human, trustworthy and more than formally democratic.
Democratizing Prussia may do more than democratizing the empire, but both of these together would fall short of the change that is needed to make Germany a fit member of a brotherhood of nations—a close union cemented by confidence and good-will. WE have that now without Germany. Not till she has passed through a period of probation will it be safe to have her in our family. If democracy shall gradually cause conquering ambition to disappear, the situation will be radically changed and there will be a place in the intimate circle for Germany; but we need positive evidence that it has so disappeared before trusting her. A sham repentance and temporary changes in her Government would be quite in her recent line. It would be dealing recklessly with the future of the entire world to stake lives and fortunes of nations on any unproved assumption as to what the changes now in progress will do. When humanity embarks in one ship of State it must know what materials it is made of. There must be proof that its keel was well laid, its "ribs of steel" well wrought. If we know that a part of the material already "made in Germany" is full of flaws, our course is clear—we must wait till she can give us something better. We must wait till democracy has done its work and not stake our fortunes on the chance that it will do it.
The Entente is not as yet a treaty-made union. England was not bound by a formal compact with France or Russia to go into the war, still less was America so bound, and Italy had a defensive alliance with the common enemy of these three countries, from which she was quickly absolved by the open aggressions of the Central Powers. Nearly a score of nations that have fought shoulder to shoulder are held together by something deeper and stronger than a formal bargain, namely, a common sense of justice, common interests and great peril impending over them all. United by these ties they have become a brotherhood in arms and have fought for and won the freedom of the world. To break up their union would be to risk—probably to sacrifice—what they have shed their blood to gain, namely, peace and freedom for States great and small. No treaty that could today be made with Germany could create such a union as the Entente is, though it were fortified by as many scraps of paper as there are people in the empire.
There is no measure the value to the world of the union that has evolved through the war or the calamity that would follow a breaking or weakening of the bonds that hold it together. The problems of peace will at best be difficult enough to test any league and, in advance of their appearance, we have golden moments in which to consolidate the Entente and develop its power. Ultimately we shall need Germany in the league, and immediately we should make treaties of arbitration with her. That will put her in the vestibule of the home of fraternal nations. Good friends, questionable friends and enemies may go as far as that, but only a clear proof of a change of heart can make the present Prussia or the empire that she rules a safe member of the family about the hearth. the priceless opportunity that is now with us and will not long wait is the opportunity so to strengthen the league of nations that has won a war for freedom as to fit it for meeting all coming dangers. What was has joined together let not peace put asunder.
New York, Nov. 9, 1918.
