New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-01

The spirit that has turned Louvain into q
desolate ruin, still recalling the shambles,
the spirit that has fired Rheims and loosed
the poison gases of Ypres, the spirit that
sunk the Lustania, violated Belgium, en-
ployed the method f.frightfuness against
the honor as we'll as the lives of Belgian
women, this will be repudiated and de-
stroyed by world which has already suf-
fered deeply ana terribly for the faith that
has come to it through the ages.
The end of the first year of the war is a
time at which to recognize how much we
IN America owe to the men of Belgium and
of France for the battle they have made
for the things that we Americans love.
The Belgian farmers who lookup arms to
defend their homes and their nation were
me brothers of those who at Concord and
Lexington risked all TO defend and assert
the right, but were happy in finding in
heir English fees no such ferocity as sui
led German arms in Belgium.
Above all, as the war continues it is
essential for Americans to remember how
muc more it is war of ideas than of
men, how much more it is struggle of
principles than Of peoples. And there can
be no question as to the interest Of Amer
lea in such war. All that we have loved,
served, sought to contribute to the common
good of mankind in the years of our exis-
=. ,,,t0 tLa nnt of
the European conflict and will be lost if
Germany can win. The German idea is
rot alone destructive of French or British
civilization; it strikes at American democ-
racy with equal deadliness. Our future,
TOO, is to be settled on the battlefelds of
Flanders and Champagne, and if the Allies
FAIL to break the German thrust, we in our
turn, tomorrow or in the long time here
after, will have to go and stand in the
ranks to fight this same German menace,
which is but new and more splendid man
Hesitation of the old enemy of ancient
tyranny, of barbarism in its most deadly
form, the barbarsm of the civilized hand
and the savage heart.
Terrible as has been the burden and the
destruction of this year of universal war,
is it not necessary to grant that until the
German idea was defeated, until civiliza-
ion did put its heel upon the gospel of
terribeness and the cannon repealed the
law Of necessity, there was no permanent
peace for mankind? Not by any means
known to history could a world desiring
peace persuade a nation devoted to the !
gospel of world power and seeing in the
pacifst propaganda of its neighbors the i
promising signs of decadence to lay aside
hose arms in which it beheld the title to
world supremacy. There never was any
chance of peace after the German people
mad surrendered themselves to the belief in
their own superiority, and all that has hap
pened since 1870 has been but a march
toward the present conflict.
At the close of the first year of the
World War the issues then become clearer.
The petty rivalries of the older diplomacy
begin to sink into nothingness. We see
more and more clearly that the struggle is
not one more conflict Of ambitious rivals
rather it is now patent it is another ire
sistible conflict, the rushing together of
spiritual as we'll as political ideas and
forces, something wholly akin to the
French Revolution and the Reformation,
something which will leave its impress on
human history for all time, and will not
be comprehended merely in provinces an
.neXed colonies lost or battles won.
II is well, then, that the world, in recog-
nizing the horror, should not forget the
grandeur and the nobility Of the past year.
Hereafter men will journey from the ut
terrnost parts of the world to Liege and
Louvain, as they have travelled from the
Antipodes to study the Plain Of Marathon.
The field Of the Marine will be as memora-
tie in human history as that on which
France checked Attila or overcane the
Saracens. In our own time, and in news
papers freshly come from the press we
nave read Of deeds that are as splendid as
any in human records, disclosing the read
mess of man to die for his ideal, of peoples
10 sacrifice all for liberty. We have lived
through one of the most splendid as well
as one of the most terrible of years, whose
burden of suffering for the contemporary
world may yet be justified by the gain for
al who come hereafter.
Longer Terms at Albany.