New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-11-20
The New Americanism.

Wilson: Do you want war! In the SAME
breath the assertion has been made that
the supreme merit of Mr.. Wilson's policy
has been that it has preserved peace, that
by some mysterious fusion of patience and
perspicacty all that Americans couid
demand for their country's honor ana
security had been obtained for nothing
without the mobilization of regiment or
the risk Of a life, as one inspired press
agent phrased it.
Now. it is a matter of common agree
ment that no American desires war. Least
of all does a people which just beyond Its
own boundaries perceives the most terrible
of all confagrations still burning up ana
spreading in new directions. War has no
romantic or sentimental appeal to ma
ton which, like our own, has no consum-
ing idea of expansion, conquest, reorgani-
zation of mankind.
II Mr.. Wilson's policy, without cost in
life or in treasure. has preserved our honor
and assured our safety, there then can be
no warrant in criticising it, no justifica-
ton in challenging it; least of all can 1t be
challenged because it has escaped that
which every sensible human being most
desires to escape, namely, war.
But has Mr.. Wilson's policy preserved
American honor or security? This is the
question that the letter columns OF The
Tribune demonstrate is more and more
disouieting Americans. 1t has so lar
avoided war-but on certain terms war is
always avoidable The men who stood at
Concord Bridge could have stayed at home
and they would have avoided hostilities'
The Minute Men who formed in the gray
dawn on Lexington Common deliberately
invited strife, and some of them gave their
lives.
In 1861 nothing was more easy tnan 10
avoid war, if those who believed national
unity vital question for them and for
their children had been satisfied to warn
the Southern States by notes, alone, of the
immoral and the unrighteous character OF
Secession and the transgression that 1t
constituted against the United States. The
campaign of 1898 could have been escaped
if only Americans had been satisfied to
admonish Spain by post and let the assas-
sination of Cuba continue.
Yet III all our history, as in the history
of all nations, there have been certain
things for which men have been willing TO
fight. In all written and unwritten his
tory we are taught that men, tribes, ma
tons. however much they valued life,
valued certain things yet more highly and
to preserve these went unhesitatingly and
unfalteringly TO battle and to death. AL
ways there is point which having been
reached discloses generation not too
proud to fight" but ready TO sacrifice all.
The sum total of this experience Of ages
demonstrates that this point is reached
when life and honor are imperilled. Men
do not then necessarily make war. We
have hundred incidents to single con-
fct, but at the fixed point the race or the
nation unhesitatingly gives warning that
the things in peril must be saved, that
they are ready to die to save them, if neces-
sary. and the choice Of aggression or re-
treat lies with the other side.
Concord and Lexington, the firing on
Sumter. the destruction of the Maine, these
in our own history were occasions when
the country as a country, the people Of the
United States as a people, responded to
call that was for them imperative. 1t was
for those generations, as they saw 1t, bet
ter to sacrifice all than TO endure any
thing which further passivity would bring
Now, in the ultimate analysis, this read
mess TO fight springs out Of a convection
that only by such action can conditions
which are tolerable, conditions which make
life possible, be preserved. There was no
love Of war in the hearts Of the farmers
who needed the warning Of Paul Revere.
Abraham Lincoln's first call for volunteers
70 save Washington fell upon the ears Of
the most pacific generation our country
has ever seen.
For many Americans the question raised
by the assassination Of more than a hun
dred men, women and children on the Lusi-
tania was wholly comparable TO the cues
lions which had reused Americans of other
generations. II was an aggression. an in.
jury, calculated murder, which found no
warrant either in the laws men have made
or those they have accepted as Of divine
origin. 1t challenged the first right Of q
nation and involved its primary duty, tina,
it protect its own citizens.
At this point what question Of peace oil
war could properly be raised? II Germany
was intent on continuing murder, Their,
could be no peace; war was bound TO come
because war is inescapable when one ma
ton asserts the right Of assassination al
the cost Of another. Granted continu-
ance Of murder, war was ineluctable, but
IL war was avoidable at all, IL could only