New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-01-15

and Wien-tell US why. Haeckel, the
friend and disciple of Darwin, SPEAK
ing in the spirit that now animates his
nation. wants London destroyed and
England made a German colony. In
this attitude Of mind does he feel that
he is the same man who has drunk 50
deeply at the wells OF British science
and philosophy and VINO has fought so
nobly and successfully the battle o.
evolution against its enemies IN church
and state? Does Eucken feel no incon-
gruity between his own lofty idealism
and his stimulating ethical teachings
and the pleasure his countrymen seem
TO take in the destruction of Belgium
and the slaughter of defenceless women
and children by the German warships?
The unanimity of the German people
is easily accounted for and proves
nothing but the unanimity. They are
trained from infancy to revere and
obey the state. The state is divine
institution. Their Kaiser rules by di-
vine right. They never question the
states authority or its yeracity. What
IL tells them they accept as law and
gospel. The Kaiser says his people are
the salt of the earth, the chosen Of the
Lord, and in their souls they believe
il, and act upon it. He told them the
sword was forced into his hand, and
they believe il, and echo and re-echo
il: when ne knew, and the correspond
ence with Austria shows would show
il published that one word from him
TO Emperor Francis Joseph, the word
"arbitrate," would have saved the situa-
ton. But he spoke word OF another
kind. In our vernacular he said, go
ahead. and | will back you up" That
precipitated the avalanche, and now
they are fighting for their life, as IS
every dog that runs amuck among a
pack of dogs, each member of which Is
as large a. he is, and lucky he is If he
escapes without being torn limb from
limb.
II was not their individual wills that
wrought this havoc upon their neigh
bors; il was the will OF the military des-
potism that has them in its grip. When
we consider all the factors IN the case,
the psychological change which taxes
place in the attractive and orderly and
industrious citizen when he becomes a
part of a ruthless and constituencies
war machine like the German army Is
not hard TO understand. He is now
only a cog or bolt or a blade In an
engine of destruction. Never was the
triumph of drill and rigid discipline
more marked. The German soldier IN
the ranks knows nothing but obedience.
His behavior is that of an aptomaton.
He apparently has no more fear than
the swarming locusts, or the migrating
Jennings, or than a charging herd OF
bufFaloes. The German sailors stand
in line on the decks of their sinking
ships and 20 down with their vessels
singing the glories of the Kaiser. The
gospel of valor can no further go. On
land. when beaten, they sometimes sur
render like men-their human nature
asserts itself, but upon the sea their
chiefs have a tradition TO make, and
they die like the fires in the engines
of their ships. An ideal army? Yes,
so far as an army is necessarily ma
chine, but one of the penalties Of
mechanizing human beings is seen in
the conduct of the army.
The Germans, echoing their Kaiser.
unanimously declare that they did not
want the war. that it was forced upon
them, etc. If they could blot out the
evidence of their long and exhaustive
preparation for war, if they could
prove 70 us that they had turned a
deaf ear to the teachings and preach
ings of their prophets of war, or II
we could believe that such men as
Bernhard and Tretschke were not a
legitimate outgrowth of International
spirit, if they could show us that such
work as Professor Usher's Pan