New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-05

raine. In Austria and in the Balkans
some millions Of Slavs, Serbs, Czechs,
Poles. of Greeks, of Italians, Of Ruma-
mans, will be condemned to a servile con-
dition. deprived Of the right to use the
language of their own race, to exercise
the rights which we in America bestow
freely upon all men of every race Of
Europe that come TO us and fulfil the
formal conditions of our own laws.
In the world Germany, the Prussianized
Germany which we know, has from the
outset Of its great history demonstrated
it's contempt, its utter lack of respect, for
the word or the spirit Of a treaty the mo-
ment the treaty has ceased TO serve a
German end. From Frederick the Great
in the Silesian time to William the Second
at the frontier of Belgium last August,
Germany policy, German method, have
been the same. Belgium is but the last
Of many victims; she in her turn has
been sacrificed to the German determine
ton to possess that place in the sun
which satisfied German conception of the
Teutonic sphere.
We shall do we'll in America to recog-
nize the grandeur Of that conception we
shall do well to appreciate the self-immo-
lation. devotion, constancy, Of the Ger
mans to their IDEAL, to their idea. Human
history has seen few, perhaps no example
Of national solidarity, Of the complete
fusion Of a whole nation and of all classes
If people. comparable with that the
German people are to-day giving the
world. We shall do we'll to Danish per-
manentlv the old, absurd notion that a
minor fraction of the German people had
been able to drive millions to war We
shall do we'll to recognize, to remember
the nobility. the tragic grandeur, of the
German people in ths great hour in which
we now live.
But the frank and complete recognition
Of all this must not blind US to the other
side. Again and again it is necessary to
ask ourselves what the triumph Of the
German idea will mean to the world to
us. to our own idea, to the purpose which
moved our ancestors to begin III this re-
mote continent and amidst conditions
which seemed beyond the control Of man
the experiment which is the United States
of America. For let us recall at all times
that if there Is a German idea there is also
an American idea, that if Germans are
diving bravely, living splendidly, for con-
cention Of their own race Americans over
r,qrv generations have made the same
sacrifices for their ideal of national great
ness.
Now. to the American ideal the assault
upon Belgium is utterly foreign. To carry
fire ana sword, murder and pillage into
neaceful nation. to resolve deliberately by
inetituting a reign Of terror, regime OF
SLAUGHTER. in a land whose neutrality was
Guaranteed and whose weakness made self
defence impossible, in order to crush ma
tional spirit-this can have but one effect
Dnor . people whose history goes back to
Concord and Lexington, whose liberty is
due TO a revolt against far less intolerable
conditions than those Germany sought to
imnose on Belgium a year ago. The men
Of Concord and Lexington, under the
German military law, were assassins. Lou
vain was a smaller offence than Lexington,
vet neither the women nor the children Of
Niddlesex County were compelled by Brit
ish soldiers to pay for the patriotism OF
their husbands or fathers in shame or
blood.
As for the Lusitania, the thing itself
was so unthinkable, the crime against man
kind so terrible, that after the passing Of
weeks it remains, as it will ever remain,
a landmark in human infamy. Yet to the
German idea it was an incident. German
scholars, journals, statesmen find ready
paliation in the fact that there was am
munition to be used against Germans on
board the ship. And because Of this
American citizens, American women and
children, were massacred. Because Belgian
men and women were in the pathway of
Co~,,,or coroues+ they were murdered.