New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-19


Public places and newspapers daily
gospel of sedition, to disseminate treason
and poison. We are daily at the mercy Of
traitors, and the policies of the govern
ment and the safety of Americans at home
and abroad are impaired Our system of a
free press was designed to permit all men
of our nation, all Americans, all loyal citi
zens TO speak their mind and to have all
views expressed. But it was based upon
the idea that all Americans would be loyal
70 their conception of American rights.
The German seizes upon this machinery
and makes it the deadliest Of all his weap
ems for undermining national unity, safety,
power for self-defcnce, employs it to utter
treason and to foster disloyalty.
The greatest injury Germany has done
the United States is not in sinking the
Lusitania or invading our rights upon the
high seas. The real wrong is the attack
upon our own unity, the effort to destroy
our national integrity, not by assault from
without, but by intrigue from within. 1t
is not even by offering Texas and Cali
fornia to the Mexicans and the Japanese
that Germany has sinned against us most
hagrantly. The real casus beHi is German
performance within this nation. The true
injury is the attempt to destroy us, to
wreck the American Republic, as the Rus
sian Republic has been well nigh wrecked.
And since we cannot abolish free speech,
surrender the liberty of the press abandon
those institutions which represent our civ
ilization, there is left no other sufficient
weapon save only to fight Germany in
Europe until the German peril in America
is abolished. There are some hundreds of
thousands of American citizens and of res
idents within the United States who are
loyal not to the United States, but to the
German Empire. These hundreds of thou
sands are being used steadily to wreck this
country, and they are being used by the
German government and by those who
make German policies. This is one Of the
duly accepted details of German foreign
.oI;o,, onJ oro ,,,ox, raoJ ;f ono cbooeae
the words of Bernhard, written long be-
fore this war, forecasting what the Ger
man elements within the United States
would do on behalf of Germany if war
came.
Just as long as the German Government
is in the hands Of those who follow the
present policy, just as long as German
statesmen attack the unity and safety of
ether nations, whether neutral or belliger
ent, by the methods used in Russia and in
the United States, it is of first Importance,
it is a question of mere self-defence, for
the United States to fight Germany. Until
the Germans abandon this method and this
policy there is every bit as much reason
for continuing the fight as there is to be
found in the barbarities and atrocities of
German armies in the field.
Let US not misunderstood the fact. Ger
-. 10. so,v, l;cvn;o,, - chic cou5,tr,y
the crop of treason appals those who love
their country most. Things that happen
daily now were unthinkable three years
ago. The whole machinery Of our democ-
racy has been seized upon by German
agents. Newspapers have been bought,
politicians bribed, Representatives in Con-
gress whose constituencies have German
voters captured; the alliance of the Puri-
tan and the blackleg of other days was
nothing by comparison with the fusion be-
tween the Pacifst and the |. w. w. to-day.
Every element of unrest, every area of dis
satisfaction, every faction blinded by
Utopian aspirations or animated by the
passion of class hatred has been turned to
serve a German purpose.
We are no longer a united country, and
we shall not again be united until we have
put a term to this attempt from without
to destroy our national integrity. We can
not and we shall not abolish free speech or
o free press, we shall not become German
to escape a German peril. But since we
will not do this, there is only one thing we
can do, and that is to send our men and
our money to Europe, to mobilize our num-
hers and our wealth and to fight this Ger
man policy and method until the German