The weekly tribune and the Cape County herald. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1914-1918, 1916-03-31
Missouri University Professor
Declares We Never Have
Been Neutral.
SEES NO END,TO WAR;
PEACE TALK is BOSH
J. E. Wrench Thinks Germany
Was Forced to Fight to
Save Nationality.

already is taking part active enough
to suit the purposes of the Allies
through an endless supply of NUM-
tions, was the opinion Prof. J. E.
Wrench of the University Of Missouri
expressed last night in his address on
'The Fundamental Problems of the
War;" at the Normal School audi
forum.
An industrial revolution, an ambi-
ton to attain its nationality, and a
desire to keep from being snuffed out
by the Slav forced Germany to fight,
he said.
The United States has not been
neutral because American institutions
are Anglo-Saxon, the speaker asserted,
and he said that now that the United
States has become injected into Euro
pean politics, the question confronting
us is: What are we going to do about
it? and We ought to be able to mean
what we say.
Professor Wrench is professor of
European history at the University of
Missouri and delivered the lecture last
night under auspices of the extension
division of the university. He is
speaking at several towns in this part
of the State and will be in Caruthers-
vile tonight.
He is a man who for three years
travelled and studied in Turkey and
Palestine alone, doing archaeological
research work. He vent through vir-
tually all the territory over which the
armies are fighting around the Oar
danelles and penetrated as far east as
Bagdad in Palestine.
Subsequent to that trip ne travelled
extensively in Europe in 1904, 05, OF
and 08. He was graduated from Cor.
nell and Wisconsin universities.
"Pacifst talk is bosh," he said.
Zone of the fundamental problems
of the war is economic. A change
came over Europe with the industrial
revolution which permits a much in
creased population. With the increas-
ed population and industrial output,
there must be access to the markets
OF the world through an open seapory.
England was the only one of the
big nations with all those things.
Germany and Russia were blocked off.
Germany had to come out Of the
Baltic Sea and Russia's natural chan
mel to the world was through the
Dardanelles.
with the increase in, the popula-
ton there must be room for the diff
ferent nationalities to expand to.
There must be land for their people
to migrate to under their own rule and
national ideas.
France and England have all the
land cornered and Germany had no
room for expansion. Germany wanted
to control Turkey and that checks the
Russian advance through the Darda-
nelles. The clash came.
"The growth of the idea of national
ity presents another aspect Of the
situation. Each country wanted to
realize her nationality. France and
England were doing that, and Ger
many did, but again there was no
place for the German to go without
losing his identity and become allied
under the government of another
state.
"The peculiar hostility between the
Slav and German is an essential fea-
ture. If the Slavs were to increase
at their present rate, so years would
see them number three billions, while
the most that the Germans could ex-
pect to reach would be 100 millions
The Germans had to fight to protect
themselves from being snuffed out in
an enveloping movement of the Slavs.
"The Germans have thought the
matter out to its logical conclusion.
The German thinks of the day after
tomorrow. The Anglo-Saxon thinks
of tomorrow.
"That brings up the point of the two
great forces that are fighting in Eu-
rope: German, recognition Of the in
diyidual person as unit in large
organic body, a cog in machine;
and the Anglo-Saxon view that the
individual person is of prime i'm
portance.
"The German idea is for the devel-
opment of the whole state. The
Anglo-Saxon notion is to let the indi-
vidual develope himself and the devil
take the hindmost-'
HThat's why we are not neutral