New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-24

try mas marched with the mass IN making
its sacrifices and in accepting its share of
the burden.
Americans, speaking with their French
and English friends, have long hesitated
to use optimistic phrases lest they should
exaggerate the value of America as an
ally. Americans have been confused and
puzzled, put TO shame and filled with doubt
by much that has happened in recent his
tory. Yet nothing is clearer in this world
than that pessimism and doubt have no
longer any place. The country has made
up its mind and it is going forward, and
the absolute failure of the Papal message,
despite all the circumstances in its favor,
to win support or capture any fraction
of the majority of public opinion in this
country is one of the Illuminating circum-
stances of contemporary history.
It is true that the voices of treason are
still heard on the street corner and that
the agents of Germany still proclaim their
doctrines in the public prints Of this coun-
try. But if one reads these German
American utterances of the present hour
with any care he will discover that even
among these men there is a growing rec
ignition of what has taken place and an
increasing fear of what may happen when
casualties abroad shall direct attention
to treason at home and the death Of
American soldiers in France shall con-
centrate attention upon the utterances
and actions of German agents in the
United States.
Already a thousand and one minor in
cidents here and there over the country
have revealed the unmistakable fact that
American patience has its limits, and that
with his mind made up the average
American citizen will not long permit his
purpose to be baked, his effort lessened,
by those who exist only by his permission
and through the tolerance and protection
of the country they are seeking to under
mine and destroy.
We shall not for any long time put up
with what we are now, with mistaken
patience, enduring. The day is not far
distant when the word that comes from
foreign battlefield will silence for the
duration of the war voices that now
clamor in the market place, and that effec-
tive censor, that censor which is alone
effective-public opinion-will draw its
pencil through the type which seeks to de-
stroy American unity.
We have much to do to dispose of those
who are either corruptly traitors or
frankly servants and citizens of another
country. But there is no occasion for
despair or for great anxiety. This task
will get itself done, and it may be that it
will be done by people who anticipate their
government, as the American people have
on other occasions supplemented law by
ruder justice.
The great fact that ought to be recog-
nized in the United States, that ought
even more to be recognized in France, in
Great Britain, in Russia, in Italy, in Ger
many, is that the people of the United
States have made up their minds. They
are no longer to be reached by appeals for
peace which are based either on traitor
Gus desire to serve Germany or on an
honest eagerness to put an end to blood
shed. The recognition of the necessities
of the Civil War, the recognition that
now, as in 1864, it is necessary to go for
ward, that the principle which is at stake
is vital and all else minor-this has come
home to the American people, and it has
come nome IN suCH d IdSHlOH ludI OIIe may
90 out through the streets, one may go
wherever men gather together now, and
feel sense of unity and hear voice of
calm, quiet optimism such as was not to
be heard here one or two years ago.
The older sense of unity is reasserting
itself in the United States. ItIis giving
its strength and its support to Mr.. Wilson
and the present Administration in every
thing they are doing to maintain national
integrity and to contribute to the abolition
Of international danger. Wherever the
Administration shows disposition to lead,
the readiness of the country to follow, to