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

new doctrine-a nation could be too proud
to fight; it might possess the new and SUI
perlative merit Of enduring murder without
resistance. This was possible; it was pos
sible in 1915, when rights rather than
lives were at stake; it was possible IN 1901
when rights were discernible on either
side of Mason and Dixon's Line. SO far
Mr.. Wilson was on solid ground, although
new ground in American history.
But he then had recourse to still another
policy. He asserted and maintained that
there was a virtue in words as SPECIFIC
for assassination, that by phrases neatly
turned and laws exactly quoted the dagger
might be snatched from the hand OF the
assassin. and those who came to stab would
linger to apologize. He asserted doctrine
Of moral influence in world of force, and
bv his course proclaimed his faith in high
sounding pretensions which represented
the slight cost of ink and postage.
This doctrine failed to convert the leu
tonic naval authorities until there arrived
a time when, British anti-submarine actlv-
ity having made Germany's campaign OF
murders perilous beyond all possible profit,
Germany gladly welcomed Mr. Wilson's
protest as a cover for its retreat and a
pretext to escape confession to the German
people that the campaign Of Won Tirpitz
had been a lamentable failure.
So far the thing is still tolerable, even II
humilating, but at this juncture there
enters new element. We were as peo-
ple fat and prosperous. Out of war con-
tracts and war conditions we were making
profits beyond ali past conception. when
our countrymen had been murdered we
had consented to talk about the crime; we
had accepted, not without protest, but still
we had accepted, the policy which was for
us least expensive. We had found 1t easier
to argue than to defend. We had chung to
our profits and our prosperity-this was
Ineligible.
But now comes the claim of superior
virtue. We had been too good to fight.
We had followed the easiest pathway.
Where our ancestors had dared and died
we had written notes and kept business
as usual" but now we proclaimed that we
were better than our fathers, better than
those who had made America by their own
sacrifice. We had kept honor, won brill
liant diplomatic victories, and--all impor-
tant detail-we had done it on the cheap
we had done it for nothing. There was
virtue in being safe which passed all the
merits of risking life in other days.
This is the sham and the FOOLS paradise
of The New Americanism. The sham was
no longer to be concealed when the crime
of the Ancona was committed. 1t being to
Austro- German profit to kill again-there
was more killing. But as pretext for
American non-intervention the Austrian
flag replaces the German. 1t was as if
the Austro- German alliance, which is in
all essentials German. had said: I'VE I'M
derstand you Americans; we know you are
too proud to fight, but you need pretext
on which to hang your notes, your express
sions of The New Patriotism. Well take
the Austrian flag and we'll take the Amer
lean lives. If we give you a chance TO
talk you cannot grudge us our toll Of
lives"
And in the last analysis this is what
cowardice always comes to before 1t IL
exposed. The men Of 1775 went down to
the Concord Bridge, rife in hand, not be-
cause they wanted war, but because they
knew that life and liberty were purchas-
able on no other terms. You may not have
liberty, your rights or even your life, If
you are not ready to defend them, and you
do not deserve liberty if you do not feel
that it is worth all that you have to give
for it.
Mr.. Wilson's German policy was sham
because it was founded on the notion that
you can get something for nothing. What
we Americans have our fathers and our
grandfathers paid for in blood and suffer-
ing. What the children of any nation
have their fathers have sacrificed to win
and earn, and upon them devolves the duty
of defending it.
1t is false and futile charge that those
who would defend Mr.. Wilson now bring
against his critics-the charge that they
desired war. The question Of war or
peace was never question that had place
in our German problem. If Germany pur-
posed to murder Americans, war was in
evitable, not by American making, but Ger
man. Our course was simple, plain, ineluc-
table. We had duty and that duty re-
r1ains. We shall not escape it in the end.
We shall not escape it because there is no
escape in cowardice.
Mr. Wilson has taught that the word is
the law, that all that is demanded of a
man as the price of the inheritance that
has come to him from the generations which
suffered and died that their country might
- . ho.+ar and nohIer nation is the word