New-York tribune., 1917-07-15

Of belief as to all governmental and social
institutions. The, fact must be plain that
while they have not learned to hate the
German idea less, they have come to per-
ceive the limitations, the weaknesses, the
fallacies, of a system of government which
hurried them unwarned and unprepared
into the great tragedy which is the world
war, and through months and months
demonstrated its incapacity to provide
them with the weapons of war or to pro-
tect them against the sufferings which
flowed from neglect, stupidity, ignorance.
No generation of mankind since the
French Revolution has passed through
such a terrible storm, such an uprooting
of institutions and ideas, as the present.
Is it likely that it will be more possible to-
morrow to restore the world of 1914 than
il was to bring back the Europe of the
old regime when at last peace came in
1915? Socialism, democracy, autocracy
as they existed in 1914, all demonstrated
their inability to deal with the facts. Under
the strain they all broke down. Millions
of men are held in the trenches to-day by
a common determination to prevent Ger
many from imposing upon them her ideas
and her ideals But it is not less likely
that these men are resolved, having abol-
ished the German peril from without, to
sweep away the shams, the lies, the fulfill
ties, which have cost them so dearly in the
past three years.
More and more it becomes apparent
that we are on the threshold of new
world-not at the point of returning to
the old. The Russian Revolution day by
day comes to have a greater value IN the
minds of thoughtful men, and is the first
authentic sign coming from the men who
are fighting and expressing in some fash
ion, however disordered and exaggerated,
certain convictions born of suffering, OF
sacrifice and of service.
There is very real danger at this time
that we shall close our eyes to the fact
that a new world is at hand. We have all
enlisted TO fight the German peril. We
shall all fight on until that peril is abol-
ished. There can be no diminuton of
that peril until Germany is defeated on
the field or until unmistakable internal
changes in Germany produce a new spirit
which expresses itself specifically and def
nitely in peace proposals which contain
remuneration of the old, vicious and alto
gether evil policies.
But it must be manifest to everybody
also that the war is taking course totally
unforeseen, and day by day the millions
who have fought the war are more delib
erately and unmistakably insisting upon
directing those affairs which the states
man failed to administer, and conduct
those operations in which the soldier was
lot able to bring a military decision.
The military aspect of the war becomes
daily less and less important. A revolu
ton is taking place in the minds and
hearts of all the nations and of all the
people who are fighting. A new world is
coming, and every sign that we can see
points to the fact that it will be far differ
ent from anything that was or anything
that any of US, with his little system and
his futile measuring rod, had prepared for
There was never time in the life Of the
people now on the earth when it was more
necessary TO keep an eye to the future
to be freer from prejudices belonging to
the past--than now. The German peril
and the German idea which we have been
fighting and with which we are at war is
on the point Of being defeated That we
must fight it until it is defeated is self
evident. But as to the difference be-
tween the real issues of the war as deter
mined by the men who are fighting and
those which obsessed the minds of polti-
clans and generals three years ago there
must be no misunderstanding.