New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-11-03
An Old Admirer of the Germans He Finds Their Warfare
Collective Murder Pillage and Arson

ing at the leash, as it had; we saw it
eager and ready-the readiness that ia
the fruit of long generalization and
preparation. II was as clear as day
light that il felt the thrill and the JOY
of its predetermined mission. 1t had
been created for this and now its day
had come. How remorseless and re-
sistless il swept on; how the gods of
war must have made their Nalhalla
ring with their approval! The iron
brute Bismarck must have stirred in
his grave. The gay, chivalrous, and,
as we often think, frivolous people over
the western border were hurrledly pull
ing themselves together to resist the
unprovoked onslaught, and their ally
across the Channel was as hastily mar
shalling her forces TO rush TO the res
cue. What a spectacle il all was! Who
can ever forget those early August
days. One of the most efficient and
admirable people the world has ever
seen in the grip of merciless military
autocracy, welded and hardened into
such a weapon of destruction as the
world had never before seen, and aimed
at a neighboring nation who would
have been glad enough TO have lived
forever at peace with all the world.
Poor La Belle France! How has she
been slnned against both by her own
rulers and the rulers of other natiOnsl
And little Belgium (the home of
Maeterlinck), who dared TO bar her
doors against the titanic nation de-
spoiler and robber, and who now lies
PROSTATE, bleeding and furnishing. Her
wrongs cry TO heaven.
Is it any wonder that we in this
country give our sympathy without
measure to the Allies and their cause ?
We instinotively look upon the German
army as simply a vast machine rushing
with blind fury upon the civilization OF
the world. We do not think of its in
diyidual units, as made up Of the al
together modest, Industrious human
and admirable PEOPLE of whom we know
50 many We see nothing human in il,
and we see nothing admirable but its
terrible efficiency. II is as regardless
of life, of property, of things beautiful
and precious, of the rights of the innO-
cent and the unofending as IS any
other machine 1t is not expressive of
the spirit of the Germany that we know
the Germany to which. we owe so
much in literature, in music, in philoso-
phy. in science and in the art of ra-
tional living, the Germany of Goethe,
Schiller, Kant, Hegel and a hundred
others. IL is rather the outcome Of the
Germany of the blood and iron Bis
marck, and OF the gospel of war that
has been so assiduOusly preached By
her recent savants and philosophers
the tense, abnormal Nietzsche and of
the hard, calculating Won Bernhard,
and of her ruling classes-the helllsh
gospel that might makes right, that
small. nations have no rights which
great nations are bound 10 respect,
the bygone feudal doctrine Of the di-
vine right of kings, and that the legltl-
mate upbuildng OF one nation can
only be by the pulling down of another
nation; the gospel OF armed conquest,
OF the rCbber baron, of the pirate on
land or sea; a gospel which sGeers a,
treaties as scraps Of paper and throws
international morality to the winds
a doctrine which our own nation has
done much to discredt by refusing "a
seize Cuba and Mexico when there was
none to say nay; a doctrine 10 which
let US all hope, this war will put an enc
forever.
War as now waged by the Kaiser
against Belgium and France is but q
high sounding name for the collective
murder and pillage and arson of a vast
organized band of outlaws, and for my
part | believe 1t is the last spectacle
Of the kind and on such a scale that
the world will ever see.
JOHN BURROUGHS.
' West Park, y. Y. Nov. l, 1914.