Evening journal., 1916-08-05

both democracies the radical and So
cialistic elements had gained an as
cendancy, and both were too busily
occupied with reforming the internal
conditions to give true regard to ex-
ternal perils. Wise words of warning
were spoken by a few, but the mass
of Englishmen and Frenchmen, until
the very closing hours of the final
crisis, continued to believe that Ger
man madness was a madness Of
words, and that behind the violence Of
rhetoric there lay a sobriety Of
thought and honesty of purpose which
would prevail.
Il was not until the war came that
we saw the depth OF the abyss that
opened at our feet. II was not until
the German invasion Of Belgium had
taken place and the treaty which
bound German honor had been de-
scribed by a German minister as "a
scrap Of paper" that men of
other nations understood that Ger
man scholars and teachers had COM
pleted their task and a German ma
tion believed that there was no law
no honor, no right which was not sub
ordinate to German purpose.
But this was only the beginning.
To disregard treaties was to shock
whole class Of men in our world
who had come to believe that paper
has a value that flows from some
thing outside the will and determine
ton and power of those who put their
names to the agreement to make 1t
hold. II was a wholly different order
of things when the German murders
and crimes in Louvain taught all
mankind that Germany had also
meant what she said when she had
declared that it was German right to
crush all who stood between her and
world power.
In the ashes and blood OF Louvain.
in the sordid crime, in the orgy OF
sadism. in all the terrible, the bru-
tai and the beastly that was revealed
by Germans in the opening hours of
the war there was a fresh revelation
of what the German thing had meant
and how grave was the German peril
to all of us, to all that our .civiliza-
ton and our tradition had meant.
or a sudden the pleasant land of
France was transformed into land
, stricken with horror. Once more, as
in the far-off days of the other Huns,
the people fled down the roads. wo-
men and children, fleeing from muir
der and rape. fleeing from the viol-
ence which had written its .indelible
imprint over Belgium and was now
writing il from the Meuse to the
Marne. The weak, the helpless. the
aged--these were the victims of Ger
man might and German lust, while all
that was beautiful and dear to the
world that loved beautiful things fell
beneath the German artillery. 10
needed only the opening salvos of
German guns playing upon the
Rheims cathedral to demonstrate
, anew what the German conception
meant.
And so in the opening days Of Au-
gust and September two years ago
the world at last took full measure OF
the German peril Al last we saw
what Germany had come TO mean in
the world and what a German vic
tory would mean 10 the things that
we loved and to the ideas and the in
stitutiOns which had come down Ia
us from our fathers and represented
l the effort and the sacrifice of many
generations. II was all clear now.
The danger was no longer hidden, nor
could any man or woman fail to ap-
preciate the magnitude OF II.
But when the storm was at last rec
ognized. when we at last saw Ger
many as she was and our own world
as it would be if German might pre-
vailed, there remained the awful per-
iod in which each day seemed to bring
Germany nearer to the realization OF
her dreams and TO bring still closer
to us the ruin of all we loved. Week
after week men and women all over
the world waited anxiously to know
whether the destruction that threat
ened them was to be avoided.
Looking backward after two years,
il is still impossible to forget the
agony and the terror Of those open
ing weeks. the nightmare that lay
between Iiege and the Marne. And
thus looking backward there comes
an appreciation of how far we have
marched from those tragic days and