Evening journal., 1916-08-05

As the third year of the Great War
opens mems eyes and their thoughts
are fixed upon the tremendous con-
flicts going forward in France. in
Russia and in Austria. The world Is
still under the spell Of battle. and
Judgment Of results is deferred till
the time when the verdict on the bat
tlefeld shall be definite.
And yet the truth is-the truth that
Will impress those who come here
after and look upon the battle and the
suffering with the calm eye permit
ted to those who view things from a
distance-that the vital things for
which the war has been fought, the
things that count most for all time.
have already been preserved, estab-
llshed, placed beyond the danger of
that destruction which two years ago,
and even one year ago, seemed i'm
pending.
For more than forty years before
Armageddon came there had grown.
year by year. a menace to the whole
fabric and foundation of human life
and human institutions. One nation.
one race, had boldly. persistently.
brutally affirmed that there was no
other right in the world than that
which was bestowed by force and
earned by the sword
For more than a decade before the
Austrian ultimatum to Serbia un-
chained the floods and the storms the
world had been uneasily conscious OF
a peril, of a threat, of danger. which
at one time \seemed SO unreal as to
insure universal conflict. In all
this time the world was torn by two
utterly different views as to the Ger.
man menace.
To all of us, to men of all races
save the Teutonic. It seemed incredi-
bic that the doctrines preached by
German scholars. soldiers, statesmen
could be an actual expression of no
litical and moral faith held by those
who preached Despite all that Ger
mans said the rest of the world de-
clined TO believe that in the Twen-
tieth Century a nation giving every
outward manifestation of civilization
could actually be following the ex-
ample and accepting the principles Of
that barbarism which had more than
once swept Europe. coming out of the
darkness beyond the Rhine and the
Danube
And yet with the opening years OF
the new century the German voice
grew ever more shrill and the Ger
man tone ever more violent. Year
after year Europe was more and more
brought into the presence OF the Ger
man doctrine; what seemed an absurd
and exaggerated national conscious
ness. a ridiculous and almost insane
conception OF national policy and
purpose. became more and more un-
mistakably the solid fact of GermaY
minds Reluctant to believe that any
people could hold to doctrines so vi
cious and so brutal. the world was
still each year compelled to recognize
more clearly that what seemed alb
surd, ridiculous. beyond belief. was
the dominant idea in a nation Of near
ly seventy millions.
Again and again this German gos-
| pei brought the world to the edge oil
war. Again and again this wholly in
describable German idea that it was
! the mission and the duty of Germany
to destroy nations, rob neighbors
crush small powers that Germany
might expand and German power and
influence in the world increase, was
brought forward, and a new world
crisis warned statesmen and students
Of contemporary history that the
German nation had become the great
est peril to our common civilization
that had existed in centuries.
Despite all these warnings, de-
spite all the outward manifestations
OF German purpose which precipit-
ated the crises from Tangier through
Bosnia to Agadir, despite all the in
ward revelations of brutality that
made Saverne a byword the world
over, the fact remains to puzzle and
to plague future generations that no
one Of all the nations threatened by
the new German doctrine could quite
bring itself to believe that what Ger
man writer's and teachers said was. in
truth, the faith of the German nation
and the program Of a mighty people
So. at the last. Germany took the
world unawares. Often warned. Eng
land and France were unready In