New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-05-03

little boy in Senlis, the little boy with
wooden gun. This gun he pointed at the
German soldiers and said, Bang" Then
he was shot The Frenchman is fighting
with the people who killed the women IN
the cellar at Sommeilles, killed them by
shameful abuse. He is fighting the people
who do certain things, he is fighting them
because they do these things. These things
are expressed in international affairs by
the invasion of Belgium, but they are eN-
pressed in the ordinary material OF human
life by the tragedies which have occurred
in the little French villages all over the
North of France.
If one is to understand why there is
no talk of peace now and mighty little
thought of it in France or Great Britain
land a great deal less, so one hears, in Rus
sia). one must understand the mental atti-
tude Of the French and the British. The
things that the Germans did in France are
most Of them unspeakable, some Of them
are lust nauseatingly beastly, but many OF
them are savage and hideous. They eX-
press an idea, they express point OF
view. they express a temporary or per-
manent frame of mind in Germany. There
is nothing to do while this point of view
prevails in Germany but to fight; that
fight is not for provinces or power or
profit: it is a fight for existence, for the
existence of what is worth preserving IN
human life.
The Frenchman feels that he is fight
ing for civilization because there is writ
ten all over France the handiwork of the
German. He sees it in the defled and
ruined churches. What was beautiful,
tender. weak in human form or in the
of his towns has been ruined
because there seemed to be a certain wild
Joy in the German heart to destroy these
things. If the German could get on into
new regions he might do the same thing
over again. He might make all France
desert, as he has made much Of it now.
Why talk about peace, then? What peace
can you talk about with such a foe in the
field?
If the German goes back TO his own
country. if the German lines rest on the
German frontier, then there may be
of a talk Of peace next winter
or next spring. Europe is terribly weary
of the blood-bath of the recent months.
But there is no prospect of German re-
tirement. and there is not the smallest
suggestion anywhere that any one will
give over the fight until the German dan
ger is laid. Men are fighting for their
that these children may not have
to know what their fathers and their
mothers have known. They are bound to
establish the essential fallacy Of the Ger
man assertion that power is everything,
and that the weak have neither the right
to exist if they be nations, nor to follow
their own lives if they be individuals.
It has cost Germany above a million
lives to invade Belgium and France. It
has cost Germany between three AMI
four million casualties to burn Louvain
and plumber and ravage and outrage III
France and Belgium. When the Germans
have learned that these things cannot be
done, that they don't pay, that their cost
is beyond all possible profit, then there
will be a prospect of peace in Europe.
Otherwise there can be no prospect Of
peace save in consequence Of German
triumph. Germany must establish her
gospel of lust and violence and terror
in London and Paris Or abandon it in
Berlin.
There is another question that is asked
Of the returning traveller: "Do you still
feel that the Allies are going 10 win?'
No one can feel otherwise either in Great
Britain or France. No one can feel that
there is any outcome of the war possible
except the destruction Of this terrible
German idea which has brought the world
to such agony. In fact, the thing that one
feels in Europe is that Germany has been
beaten. that the German idea has been
proven impossible, that it was proven i'm
possible at the Marine, and that Ncrdun IS
only a later confirmation of fact al
ready become absolute.
But if one asks, "Will the Allies write
their terms of peace in Bcrln?" that,
again, is approximate nonsense. France,
Belgium, Serbia are going to emerge
from this war as they began it, indestruct-
iblc and safe. The nations and the peo-
pies that arc fighting Germany will not
make peace while there is any profit for
Germany in what Germans have done in
France or Belgium. If it could be proven
profitable TO murder, TO destroy wantonly,
whether human life or human habitation;
10 rob women of their honor or churches
of their beauty; if terrorism and brutality
could be demonstrated TO pay, then there
would he an end of civilization. There
would be an end Of France, and the
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