New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-05-18
The Presidents Speech.

haps not all his speeches combined, has
served so clearly TO indicate his own point
of view as TO the American relation to the
world war as that published yesterday
and delivered at the National Press Club a
day or two earlier. In this speech Mr.
Wilson defines two things. an official atti-
tude and an intellectual attitude, a neu-
trality Of action as President of the United
States and a neutrality of thought as a
citizen Of the United States.
The Presidents own words were as fol-
lows:
"There are two reasons why the chief
wish of Americans is for peace. One is
that they love peace and have nothing TO
do with the present quarrel, and the other
is that they believe the present quarrel
has carried those engaged so far that they
cannot be held to ordinary standards Of
responsibility, and that, therefore, as some
men have expressed it TO me, since the rest
of the world is mad, why should we not
simply refuse TO have anything to do with
the rest Of the world in the ordinary chan
nels of action? Why not let the storm
pass, and then. when it is all over, have
the reckoning"
Now, it seems fair to say at the outset
that on the whole this probably repre-
sonts American opinion-so far as it is not
influenced by racial ties with European
nations-more accurately than anything
that has yet been said. 1t represents what
may be termed the parochial point of view,
using parochial in no invidous sense. It's.
precisely the same view as found express
zion in such British papers as "The Man
chester Guardian" until almost the final
moment before Britain entered the Great
War.
If the European nations, if the nations
allied against Germany, are to understand
American sentiment. they will do we'll to
consider this declaration Of the President,
and, speaking as a newspaper which holds
On opinion Numerically opposed to Mr..
Wilson. The Tribune frankly recognizes
that his opinion and not its own is largely
leld in America. II is a fact that most
Americans regard the whole war as a
niece of collective madness. 1t is true that
they do not differentiate between the Ger
man and the anti-German causes and that
this view determines their attitude in all
questions.
The mistake that is made in Europe,
made in France particularly, but also in
Great Britain, is the mistake that is nat
ural for men at war to make. There is an
assumption that the American people, gen
orally speaking, understand the German
attack upon liberty and civilization as the
British and the French perceive it, look
ing out upon it as they do from amidst the
ruins Of their churches and cathedrals and
with the knowledge Of the German atroci-
ties spread before them. There is pro-
found conviction that American men and
women i'm large numbers are actually sin
ring against light which they perceive
and ignoring facts that they secretly
realize are facts
This is not true. The American people
have not visualized the war as Germany
has conducted it in France and Belgium,
and they have not, as a people, understood
or believed things which are understood by
all who actually perceive on European
soil, in France and Belgium, the manner
in which the Germans have made war.
But the question for them is not Of the
method in which the war has been con-
Quoted primarily. What Mr.. Wilson says
is true as TO the main fact: the majority
Of the American people believe that the
war itself was an act of supreme madness
which resulted from an insanity which
seized simultaneously upon all European
nations and drove them to conflict. Given
this conflict, given this supreme madness,
the minor, relatively minor, details are
natural consequences.
An opposite point Of view is the point of
view held by a minority, 20 which The
Tribune belongs To US it seems that the
present conflict resembles not wars of va
rious centuries, but two great outbreaks
which represented landmarks in human
history and the clash between different
ideals and different conceptions of life it.
self. TO us it seems wholly analogous to
the Reformation and the French Revolu-
ton. an Intellectual and a moral conflict, a
war of ideas before it is war of nations
or races.
The French Revolution was fought to
establish the doctrine Of the rights Of man.
The Great War, so it seems to minority
of Americans to which The Tribune be-
longs, is a war to establish the right of
nations. the right of the French, the Bel
cians and the Serbian, to exist. 1t is the
rcpudiation of the German conception that
the best organized and the most efficient
people. by their organization and efficiency,
establish claim to supremacy and to DOM