New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-12-29

shrink back from action in the face Of
menace. but it was worse, infinitely worse,
T. cover the cowardice with brave words
and outwardly noble pretence at cham
pioning, not American lives, but the lives
and the rights Of the weak and the help
less the world over.
Yet this thing the United States govern
rent did At the time when it dared not
act, when the ministers and leaders Of our
government sat covering in fear lest their
own political fortunes should be endan-
Cered by some action in defence Of Amerl-
can lives and honor imposed upon them by
alien outrage, these same ministers ana
leaders pretended, in words that had no
meaning and no purpose that the United
States was undertaking the noble role Of
defender of the faith that is international
law and the humanity which is above and
beyond all law.
That pretence was an empty lie.
Neither Mr.. Wilson nor his advisers, If
such there be, ever intended to defend
American lives or international law.
Never in the face of all their brave words
vas there the smallest will TO act, the
least purpose to defend. The whole per
Torrance was a shameless effort TO ac-
ouire by words alone glory and an honor
which can alone be earned by action, by
sacrifice, by devotion through storm and
stress and at all costs to the principle that
is professed.
The world ha to-day appreciated the
sham and penetrated the lie. From one
end Of this planet TO the other American
notes, American professions, American
pretences have become a thing to invite
scorn and arouse contempt. Men of many
nations laugh a bitter laugh when there
energies TO the daylight one more COM
in writing which discusses in
words modulated to catch each passing
wave of American public emotion the muir
der of American women and children and
N one breath processes friendship for the
assassins and devotion to the laws that in
hibit murder.
Of this contempt of the world many
Americans are keenly aware. 1t would
move them to anger. not grief, if it were
simply the result of a foreign state Of
mind; but this is not the case. What the
whole world beyond our frontiers feels
about the American course in the present
world crisis many Americans feel. The
bitterest thing of all is to stand helpless
and without defence before those critics
whose words wound all that is patriotic,
ell that is American, in our own hearts.
Yet to such silence are Americans con-
demned. What Frenchmen and Britons,
Belgians, Italians, Serbians, even Ger
mans and Austrians, say Of America is in
large part true.
For seventeen months, while the whole
planet has been shaken by a tremendous
convulsion, America. officially, has sought
by every conceivable device to profit at the
expense of the misery in the world about
it to turn into dollars the human agony of
ether races, and in order to take no risk OF
profit the government has declined TO de
fend the lives of Americans upon the high
seas or go beyond the limits Of words To-
bring to justice and 70 punishment those
who have boldly murdered American citi-
zens. We have sacrificed our honor and
cur fellow citizens that there might be no
interruption in prosperity and that there
might be no disturbance to the stream of
dollars flowing into our Golfers from the
rest of the world.
We have done this. and the world knows
that we have done it. We have done it.,
and the facts stand forth beyond denial
and beyond palliation. This is the thing
that men of all other nations say of US,
and in saying it they tell the truth. 1t is
the fact that they do tell the truth that
makes every American who loves his coun-
try mourn at this holiday time, makes him
look backward with humiliation and for
ward without confidence. 1t is the re-
alization of this which makes it hard TO
go out and see along the hillsides the little
flags that mark the graves of those who
fought at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. in
the Wilderness and before Richmond, that
our nation might endure. They did not
fight, they did not dare all and give all that
their country might endure as a factory or
mine. as a place for the making of money
o. the multiplication of profits; they
fought that it might endure as a power
ard a force for liberty and for civilizs-
ton. Their labor would have seemed to
them in vain, their hardships and their
sacrifices useless, if they had believed that
the fruits Of their labor were TO be cow
ardice and selfshness.
Yet in the midst of all the bitter
thoughts that must come now there is
enc that hurts most. After all, there is
no reason to believe that this country of
ours is essentially different from the coun-
try that sacrificed so much half century
100 Ac,ar,copc ara not weaker more