New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-12-31
THE SAVING REMNANT
By Arthur Gleason

rifce, that these young men Of whom nave
told have gone out to be wounded and to die
This mockery of the "backened page and
"blood-smesred pages" Of Europe has stung
many thousands of Americans into action.
The record of their service is protest
against such gloatng. These fighters and
rescuers and workers would not have served
Germany with an equal zest. Neutrality be-
tween France and Germany is impossible TO
them. Those who fail to see the difference
between France and Germany in this war are
not OF our historic American tradition. They
are un-Amercan.
Meanwhile our friends at home, pacifists'
neutrals and cosmopolitans, are summoning
America to an artistic rebirth, so that the
new forces in our arts may advance they
write: THE soldier falls under the COM
pulsion Of the herd instinct and is devoted
by his passion to a vision out of which de-
struction and death are wrought" To one
who has heard the guns of Verdun this pip
ing is somewhat scrannel Art is not some
thing that exists in a vacuum beyond space
and time and good and evil. Art is the ex-
pression of a belief in life and that belief
takes varying forms, according to the place
and age in which it falls. 1t may be the
expression Of a surge of national feeling, as
in Russian music. 1t may be the response
TO a redscovery of ancient beauty, as in the
Renaissance. 1t may be the quickening re-
ceived from fresh discoveries Of territory
and strange horizons, such as touched the
Elizabethans. In America We have long tried
by artificial stimulants to revive art. We
have omitted the one sure way which is a
deep nationality, achieved by sacrifice, re-
assertion of national idealism. Out OF that
soil will spring worthy growths which the
thin surface of modern fashionable cosmo-
politansm can never nourish. The sense OF
the true America has laid hold o. these young
men Of ours in France. BY living well they
create the conditions Of art. The things they
do underlie all great expression. Already
they are writing with tone and accent when
have long gone unheard in our America
Ny lot has cast me with young men at their
heroic moment For the first months OF the
war it was with Belgian boys, later WIN
French sailors, finally with these young
Americans They have made me impatient
Of our modern cosmopolitan American Who IN
the words of Dostoievski, "esn be carried on
his feet positively carried of his feet, by noble
ideals. but only if they come Of themselves
il they fall from heaven for him, if they need
not be paid for
The reason Why pacifsm is Intellectual Is
because it is an intellectual theory which
does not build on instinct. mans love OF
his home and his nation Is an instructive
thing. full Of rich emotional values and NOV
inc with the vital current of life itself. Our
pscif.ts would clear their thinking II they
came under she'll fire. All that is sound in
modern radica! thought has been strength
ened BY this war The democratic movement
in England has become an overwhelming
force But the unsound elements in radical
thought. those elements introduced by intel
leetual theorists who scheme a world dis
tasteful to average human nature, have been
burned away In the fire. One OF those I'M
sound clements WAS the theory OF pacifism
and internationalsm. Many Americans have
no belle. in the idea Of our country They