New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-24
To tho Editor OF The Tribune.

To the Editor OF The Tribune.
Sir: Every one who has been In France
since the war began and in any one or the
little villages behind the fighting front, TO
which the inhabitants have clung with pathet-
ic devotion, will recall the surprise at seeing
there old men. women and children, almost
within range of the enemy, performing their
APPOINTED tasks. And yet, watching these
people. it will be perceived that in the midst
Of the performance of their tasks there are
moments when all work suspends These are
the moments when the wind suddenly brings
back with unexpected clearness the rumble
of the distant cannon.
And if one were to analyze the clrcum-
stances Of the recent national campaign IL
would be recognized that similar phenome-
non existed. We were going about the famil-
lar task of election. We were choosing new
President by precisely the machinery and
with faithful obedience to the traditional
forms of an election We were doing things
outwardly in the fashion in which we had
done them for more than century OF ma
tional elections. Yet, frequently, in the midst
OF il all, the wind brought TO our ears, too,
the distant rumble of the world war.
This more than all else explains the failure
of the national campaign-that it has been
failure no thoughtful man will question
Napoleon, in his closing struggle, is reported
once to have said. referring to the French
legislature 81 asked them for men and money
and they talked to me OF the rights of men,"
In some sublminal fashion the American
people realized, both Of their candidates and
their political leaders, that at the moment
Of n world crisis, when the very foundations
of all human institutions were shaken, these
men were talking OF the routine details of
parochial politics.
There are thousands OF Americans who
realize that 1914 was as completely break
ing point in human history as 1889, or the
year in which the demonstration OF Prague"
ushered in the Thirty Years War. The insti-
tutions the doctrines, the ideas under which
the world lived at that time, the forms Of
government and the principles Of human or
ganization were suddenly revealed to have
failed. world system broke down, and not
merely world system but the systems under
which peoples like the British and the Ger
mans TO 20 no further, were living.
Nothing is more impressive in Europe to-
day than the conviction that much Of what
men loved and lived by less than three
years ago was an empty sham, a cruel de-
luson The war has swept away as much
already Of the fabric of human faith in
the institutions of that time as did the
French Revolution of the doctrines of arts
tocracy and divine right. Democracy as 1t
existed in 1914 has been disclosed as quite
as inadequate as the royaism that went
down under the storm Of the French Revo-
luton.
Face 10 face with the realities Of the war
Europe feels this as America cannot. II
Americans suspect the futility Of much that
they believed in and held to, Europe knows
and accepts that futility In France and in
Britain there is no phrase more familiar
than this-"It is finished" The same con-
viction is struggling upward to the light In
Germany and disclosing itself in the midst
of the darkness which is Russia.
Who can be surprised, then, that in Amer
ca the effort to stir men and women by
recalling the issues, the party divisions, the
political divergences Of other campaigns
has failed? Il was necessary that we choose
new President and we have chosen one.
1t was essential that men decide between two
men and two parties which seem to them
the better In the time Of world crisis,
even then, men and women must live the
routine of domestic existence must go on.
But how far all this is from responding
to the clear and emphatic call Of leader
shipl Never in all its history has this
American people more earnestly, more
eagerly turned to those whom tradition made
il appear would be the leaders, those who
would speak with the words of light and