New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-22

in the Flemish city, there was disclosed
one more peril to human liberty, to the
liberty Of men to believe, to think, to live.
II was no longer war of nations; after
Iouvain it had been translated into war
of ideas, a war for the preservation Of all
that man had accumulated in the centuries
that stretch from the Persian invasion to
the day when Won Emmich's advanced
battalons crossed the Belgian line.
"Do no: attempt TO talk more about Bel
GUM" the advisers of the German propa-
gandists in America are disclosed as coun-
selling in the recent exposures. So much
single year has meant, so much few
months Of knowledge and appraisal OF
Louvain have meant to a remote neutral
American people 40 not attempt to
argue about Belgium" it is easy to hear
succeeding generations warning those who
would still defend Germany. As well de-
fend the murders Of st. Bartholomew. As
well might Cain have hoped in his time to
explain away the murder that earned him
that brand which has been recognized as
the portion Of shame Of all murderers
since that day
And after Louvain the world knew wnal
il meant. this German outburst, this new
and terrible onrush out Of the north of
barbarism. of a savagery which sought to
conceal its character by pointing to ma
terial splendor, when the shame of its
spiritual nakedness was written over the
whole face of the Belgian plain.
One more crime there was lift to COM
pete the cycle to make final the demon
stration of the true extent of German
madness. For us in America removed
from the field of the struggle, confused
by the din of the conflicting issues,
there was needed that revelation which
came when our women and children
were scattered over the sea, not dis
honored in DEATH happily, for there was
that bit of mercy in their taking of, but
Iwantonly, brutally murdered, because they
came between a German commander and
his purpose. In the massacre of the Lusi-
Itana there was found for us the proof of
all that we had doubted. The last shrill
German denial of the crime of Louvain
sank with the Lusitania and left Ameri-
cans convinced by the evidence of their
own senses of the truth of all that Europe
had charged against the Germans.
Now, after a year, it is easy and it is
necessary to recall once more this tragedy
of Louvain. Not in battle not in the
splendor of victories, of magnificent
strategical combinations carried forward
by supreme tactical skill, is the meaning
or the end of this struggle to be found.
Not all the skill, the genius, the courage
of a nation whose military achievement
wall endure could remove the stains or
win clear of the burden of shame which
the Belgian invasion brought. To believe
Germany could win would be to lose faith
in all that religion and history alike teach.
It would be to believe that barbarism could
permanently destroy civilization that the
whole course of human history was to be
turned backward, that in place of the gos-
pei of sweetness and light there was to be
set new gospel, which justified murder
by efficiency, dishonOr by achievement
crime by success.
1t was the knowledge of the crime of
Louvain that nerved the French soldiers
at the Marine; their women and children
were the stake for which they fought. 1t
was with the vision of the mutilated moth
ers and outraged daughters in their eyes
that the British at Ypres held their line,
when, had it been broken, the storm would
have approached the shores of Britain it
self. The horror of the Lusitania reused
| Italy and served to bring her into the ALI
of the evil days in Belgium which, more
than ambition, fear, hope, holds fast the
alliance of the enemies of Germany in the
present hour of Allied depression.
There are things that are worse than
death for nations as for individuals. There
are causes that call forth the last breath
of human strength. There is an infamy
with which no man can compound, form
of outlawry which unites all men and all
tribes in a common struggle to preserve
by battle what is lost unless the foe be
beaten. This, after Louvain, was the Ger
man estate in the minds of mankind. Not
alone hope, but faith must compel the con-
victOn on the anniversary of Louvan,
when the memories of that terrible day and
night are recalled to minds of an unfor-
getting world, that German defeat is in
evitable, however long delayed.