The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1917-08-17
Nv KARL III. Won WIEGAND
staff Correspondent of the Interna
leo.

STAFF Correspondent of the 1nterna-
tional News Service.
New York, Aug. 1.-THE pope
cannot make peace. With all due re-
spect to his craftsmanship, to his great
moral and religious influence, the
pope alone cannot bring a mad world
to its senses. He can aid greatly, In
deed his assistance cannot be over
estimated. He can accelerate peace
AS he very sagely told you two years
ago, peace will not come until all the
world talks peace. The pope can
force discussion of peace. Through
his religious and moral appeals to the
peoples of the different countries. he
can bring pressure to bear on gov
ornments and force the disclosure of
motives for continuing the war. But
his holiness cannot compel obstinate
governments to listen or force sinister
spirits in every country to hesitate in
their work of human destruction.
There has been but one man during
the entire war who could do that, there
is but one man today who can do that
that man is not the pope-that man
is MIR. Woodrow Wilson, president Of
the United States. When President
Wilson raises his hand and says. 1t
has gone far enough. l command
peace the slaughter will cease. The
war will end. There is not gov
eminent which could say no. There
is not one which would dare say no.
The war will end when President
Wilson gives the sikh for It to end.
or go to utter exhaustion or the point
of revolution is reached by the peo-
pies"
Harden's Belief.
This is the statement made TO mo
by Macmillan Harden in the last talk
III H..
many Harden is both famed and ex
coriated in Germany as Wilson'S
friend There is today not even in
the United States a man who has
quite the exalted opinion of President
Wilson or the unshakable belief In
the role destiny has restined for your
president" that Macmillan Harden
has.
Many Germans privately denounced
the sinking of the Lusitania. Harden
was the only man to have the moral
courage to publicly denouuce il. the
keen political Judgment to foresee
and predict the consequences. Presi
dent Wilson's greatest champion here
at home has not fought for the presi-
dent as Macmillan Harden has
fought for him in Germany.
Few foreigners, certainly no Amer
lean, know Harden as intimately as I
do. The contents of three letters
written to me after I left Germany
ciinching cause for the suppression
of his magazine and his drafting TOR
civil military service, as copyist.
Last fall Harden wrote a letter to
me which he published in the Zu-
junft, resulting in the confiscation of
that number and prohibition OF It's
circulation.
1t was to have last talk with Har-
den that I called on him at his little
villa on the Gruenewald (Gree forest).
We discussed the possibilities of
peace. when and how it should come
and ''the logical peace-maker."
II was then that he made the re-
marks quoted:
''The duration Of the war lies in the
hollow of President Wilson'S hand"
declared Harden. When he sees fit
to stop 1t. II ever he does now, he
can do so. The pope Is inf1uentially
morally, but could succeed only when
the stage of exhaustion is reached,
The obstinate governments disregard
ing the cravings of their peoples. will
listen respectfully to the. pope, but be
little influenced by him. Between the
internal pressure of the peoples and
the pressure from the outside from
President Wilson, no government
C0nld resist and remain.
When America speaks through Mr..
Wilson the press may buster and
mock. but the people listen. When
Mr.. Wilson commands cease gring,'
the rattle of machine guns will cease.
the big guns will suddenly become
dumb. And In the sudden and abnor-
mai stiffness and silence the means
and the walls and prayers of suf-
fering and bleeding Europe will arisa
and be heard for the first time, Blind
hatred. artifically created, will dis
appear, passions subside and reason
return. Europe will be appalled, by
what it has done and allowed itself to
be led into peace. Cabinets today
are trembling at the mere thought of
the day OF reckoning.
Il have maintained from the first. I
maintain today, that the fate of the
war and the period of it's duration lie
in the hands of one man-President
Wilson. There will be talk of the
pope. there will he talk of the king of
Spain, and there will he talk OF neu-
trails driven tn desperation, but Presi-
dent Wilson is the only man in the
world who can end the war before it
runs It's course to natural exhaustion
or horror and revulsion of mind and
emotion breaks the hypnotic spell that
enthralls the peoples and drives them
to revolt against their own leaders.
1T is merely n question of when
President Wilson considers that the
moment has arrived where the ma
tional honor of the American people
and the dignity of the American ma
ton make 1t compatible for him to
exercise the power he has and per-
nit him to give the signal cease fir-
ing; let us reason With the gigan-
tic army now In preparation in Amer
lea. President Wilson is dictator at
the peace table. If President Wilson
waits until the war reaches the stage
of exhaustion and revolt. compelling