New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-26
Germany and America

The Germans have struck out 4 new
conception Of life. 1t is a religion Of
tho win. religion Of self-assertion. The
highest insight Of other races has shown
tsem that there is a power outside them
selves making for righteousness. There
arc many classic statements Of THIS
pan,es will suffice:
I'm His authority we find our peace
German thought has asserted that man
creates God. 1t is a bold attempt to
fashion new religion. 1t explains the
German scorn OF religious buildings, their
hate for religious persons. Nothing is
sacred; for the modern scientific man.
backed by force, has arrived to organize
a world lost in its mystical dreams.
The German peril for us is not that ne
will come and burn our homes and bay
onet our helpless as he burned and muir
dered in Belgium and Lorraine. 1t is
that his conception Of life will continue
20 prevail and extend itself. There IS
much in German thought that Is sympa-
thetic to US. We, too, like to assert that
we are the masters Of life. We, too, are
ant to think because science has certain
provinces where it is in control that 1t Is
destined to take command Of life. There
are three countries in the world to-day
where materialistic conception of life
Governs the main tendencies Of the col
lective will. Those three countries are
Japan, Germany and the United States
That conception is made up of religion
of the human will, an assertion of self
hood. ORGANIZATION as the method Of prog
ress, Efficiency as the end Of being, Science
as answering all the needs of the human
consciousness, Force scientifically organ
ized) as the final master Of human affairs.
The expressions Of this fundamental
conception of life are widely different in
the three nations. Japan has not yet
advanced its thought to the individual as
sertion of the will 1t cultivates the ma
tional will. It's conception of the state
as the power behind good and evil is held
in a religious way, where the German con-
ception is political. We ourselves have
not yet accepted either the religion of the
will or the theory of the state. We are
still busy with the details of applied
science and individual success. We have
not yet reared a philosophy Of force. We
are not predatory and cruel, like Ger
many. We are not mystical and imper
sonal like Japan. 1t is Germany that
has carried all these tendencies to a point
where we can study their path and di-
rection. so sharp is the angle from the
path along which humanity has come
through recent centuries.
Let us be very honest The German
propaganda Of force spreads by bounds
over multitudes of men. II captures them
with vision and a dream, and then
with immense measured results. 1t can
show territory and corpses for each leap
Of its creative imagination. II can point
to results. Ii can look out on the capt
ured kingdoms. II can mark the piles Of
dead. II can summon its enginery. 1t
is rooted in the world Of reality. 1t has
captured science and made il create
strange liquids and travelling clouds and
monstrous engines. II has all the COM
pelling force Of religion The race has
put aside the handicaps Of pity, and
pressed on to a conception Of life so
startling, 50 bold, so fresh that we cannot
but choose to believe Mans will, untainted
by mercy, unhindered by the claims of
weakness, has consecrated itself TO force,
Let US not miss the meaning Of Ger
many's history. There is savage poetry
in what they do. 1t stirs ancestral men,
cries in US that trail back TO the begin
nings Of things. There is something
strange and yet familiar to their acts
They awaken memories which had slept
since Galilee overran Rome We, too,
could easily break through the delicate
end hardly won computations Of the
Christian centuries. Our brute origins
lie close 70 the surface, thinly buried un-
der the layers Of mercy and kindness. The
piles Of stones the Prussians have raised