New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-12-29
Where MIR. Wilson Has Failed Us.

ating year many thousands Of Americans,
rs they seek to balance the twelve months
account, are to-day cOnfessing TO them
selves that their country has in a very
real and unmistakable degree lost in no
lilitv. in grandeur has in some way
diminished in its hold, not upon their affec-
tons. but upon their respect, in the twelve
months that have passed. To them there
is something less Of pride. of enthusiasm
Of pleasure, in the possession Of American
citizenship than ever before in their lives
For these thousands Of Americans there
is a very bitter consciousness that IN
time of world crisis, in period when men
md women Of every other nation are max
ing the sacrifice of all that they have or
have hoped TO have for principles and for
ideals. their own country and their own
oountrymen have fed duty, avoided obi
,ation. shrunk from honor, have delib-
,rately and in some degree brazenly
chosen the easy path of prosperity, the
untroubled road Of profit and monetary in
terest; have pursued the dollar and let the
thing that Americanism has been through
al, the wears of our national life disap-
near from national and international af-
fairs.
From the morning Of Lexington and
Concord to the days before Santiago and
ir Manila Bay America has meant some
thing to the world. 1t has meant some
thing more than an opportunity to make
money, to live outside the hardships and
restraints imposed upon other nations
and people. 1t has meant to succeeding
generations the promise and the purpose
to stand squarely and unfinchingly for
certain principles, to dare all, to brave all,
TO endure all, that things that were more
than life, than comfort, than dollars, might
endure in the world, and that the great eX-
reriment in democracy which we were
making in the Western world might be an
example and service TO all mankind.
Because principles and ideals meant
something to them beyond life. beyond ease
and prosperity. the farmers rallied on Lex
ington Common, the men of all New Eng
land went to Bunker Hill. the men of the
Thirteen Colonies endured the long strain
OF the Revolution and the terrible hard
ships of Valley Forge. One generation Of
Americans after another. succeeding to the
donors and the estate of their fathers, has
carried forward the tradition. They have
fought at home and abroad. not to add
provinces. not to impose the will of their
country upon alien peoples, but that there
might live at home and abroad those prin-
ciples which were to them the meaning of
their country.
Our great-grandfathers fought that
there might live in the Western Henri
sphere that freedom which their ancestors
bad fought for and won on British fields.
Our fathers fought that the great nation
that had grown up beyond the Atlantic
might continue. that it might endure un-
roken and that within its borders there
should be no human slavery. In our own
time thousands of Americans took up their
arms that there might be an end in Cuba
l. a tyranny beyond defence-an insult TO
the thing that America meant to the world
and to Americans
Out of the struggle and the sacrifice of
nearly century and a half of common
effort, out Of the sufferings and the devo-
ton of millions, there had grown up a
vision and an ideal, something at once
clear and indefnable, something that
America meant to all of its own children,
something that each Of its sons and daugh-
tcrs was resolved that it should mean to
the world. something 10 which they dedi-
Gated their lives and their possessions, a
cause. a purpose and a national ideal.
To-day that which comes home with the
Interest wound TO many Americans Is that
tneir country no longer means TO them and
20 the men Of other nations anything that
j, meant few short months ago. Clearly
they perceive that there has come 10 pass
taat which seemed impossible, and that the
America of to-day has been false to all TO
which the Americans Of other generations
have been faithful, even at the cost of life
itself. The American inheritance, the
American estate, is shrunken and less
ered. not merely or chiefly in the eyes Of
the world, but in the eyes Of Americans.
In the presence Of a great duty, solemn
obligation, at time when the very exist
ence OF liberty and democracy was at
stake. at the moment when little states as
well as large nations were giving all they
had freely in the cause which was the
cause Of American fathers and grand
fathers, the Americans Of to-day skunk
sway from duty and chose to make money
al the cost Of the misery in the world.
Nor is this the main cause Of humilia-
ton. There was one thing baser and our
country did IT, II was bad enough when
prugsian brutality flung at America the
challenge that il had hurled at Belgium
"A -, .,,b,,, oi,r ,yonen and children