New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-12


There is no law but German law to her
people; there is no right but the German
right to her statesmen.
1t is not accident that the application
Of this German law to foreign affairs has
resulted in a world conflict in which the.
Teuton is assailed by the Frenchman the
Italian, the Angio-Saxon and the Slav;I
that apart from the negligible Turk and
the enmeshed Magyar he has no ally. In
fallibly, if the German continues to act
upon his idea, he will be faced by ether
nations and other races. If German sub
marines again sink Americans, if German
statesmen adhere to their view that it is
the right of Germans to murder Americans
when it serves their purpose, we shall ulti-
mately join in the war, not upon Germans,
but upon the idea Germany now person.
ifes. The Greek the Rumanian, the Bull
garian, even the Hollander and the Scan
dinavian, will ultimately be brought into
the anti-German field if the German with
equal impartiality applies to all mankind
his extra-legal doctrine, his superhuman
idea.
If Germany prevails, if she establishes
by her arms her doctrine that there is no
right but her right, and that right rests
upon arms, not treaty, convention, common
acceptance of humane principles, the world
will be left with the choice between COM
plete relapse into barbarism and new
strife. This war, unless it ends in the
complete subjugation of the world, will be
but the prelude to more wars. The peace
that comes will be as ephemeral as the
brief truces that interrupted the Napo-
leonic wars while the nations of Europe
gathered up their strength for new resist
ance to Napoeon's dream of world power
and universal dominion.
With Germans themselves the United
States has no quarrel No desire ana no
business of ours is it to contribute to the
conquest of the Teuton by the Slav or the
Latin, if the Teuton's cause does not i'm
peril the American, if the Teuton makes
war not upon civilization but upon a
Slavic rival of many centuries. But this
the German does not do. He is assailng
not Slav rights, not French rights, not
British rights, but the rights of all r1en;
he is making war upon the idea which
underlies all our common civilization. One
by one the nations of the whole world are
joining in the defence of these rights.
The hopeless thing in our own issue with
Germany does not lie in the circumstances,
terrible as they are, of the Lusitania cpl
sode. We shall never forgive that wanton
Staying; generations Of Americans will re-
call it as an act of hideous barbarism, but
we do not desire to fight about it. We are
perfectly willing to discuss with Germany
any arrangement that can be made subject
to the operation of international law,
within the boundaries of right and human
Iity. But Germany begins by wiping these
out. She talks, not about our rights, not
about the rights which all civilized nations
have conceded as binding upon themselves,
but of German rights, which have no ether
existence than in her own mind and under
her own peculiar system.
1t is this fact that all of US must r3cog-
nize. 1t is this circumstance in world war
that we must grasp. The battle of armies
/ is of minor moment. The battle of ideas is
what is of permanent meaning. We rave
no sympathy with the territorial ambitions
Of Germany's enemies. We regard with
open disapproval the platform which pro-
claims the future partition of Germany.
We recognize the great things that Ger
many has done for herself and for man-
kind. But we Americans must also recog-
nize that this German idea, now revealed
to us in its unmistakable form, is destruc-
tive of all that we love, believe, have
fought for and must be prepared to fight
for again if necessary.
But in grasping this fact we must also
realize that the German idea precludes all
possibility of diplomatic arrangement with
Germany Of our own differences. Conceiv-
ably Germany, already assailed by many
nations, will yield to the United States
rather than enlist a new foe. But to the
American idea she will not yield, because
her idea is utterly, irrevocably, ineffably
different. The rights we urge she does
not recognize, the laws we cite she mas
abolished, the humanity we plead she has
exchanged for her own, which applies only
to Germans. Deutschland aber Allies is
with Germany no longer a song; it is a
religion and law above all other laws
Car,,;no, Qualification