New-York tribune., 1917-06-02

women and children at sea with impunity Is
there revolution in Berlin? Is the end of the
war appreciably nearer for all of your wild
vision of conquest by use of your most
plentiful governmental product-words?
Then there is that other straw, the new
Russia, at which you nave grasped. ask;
Would your government have had the
courage TO declare war upon Germany had II
not believed that the Russian revolution
would soon pull down the Hohenzollern. or
at least pour over his borders an irresistible
army of freemen fanatic in their ferocity on
behalf of democracy? The Prussian eagle
now hovers menacingly above the Russian
bear turned sheep.
Discounting Russia
To return to the two s,raws you had made
into a raft. You must now dismiss as
wholly beyond possibility a revolution in
Germany. The sooner you recognize the
complete failure of Russia as an active par
ticipant in the war and discount the possl-
bilty Of Russas becoming neutral. or
perhaps an industrial and agricultural ally
of the enemy, the more gracefully will you
emerge from this eerie business you have
undertaken without adequate preparation.
As both these hopes have failed you, the
question that now confronts you is this:
Shall you be able TO move fast enough TO
carry out your boast and make the world
safe for democracy by helping save France
from disaster, by helping save Great Britain
from a peace without victory, stripped OF
the power longer to defend herself and you,
and by saving yourself from the expensive
humiliation of having to hold the bag for
new and triumphant Teutonic Empire?
Can you. do you think, eXtrcate yourself
quickly enough from your barbed tape and
petty political entanglements to cross the
seas early enough to succor democracy
soon enough 10 make it look healthy enough
20 become once more a respectable form OF
government? l. who these many months
have striven 10 lead, to cajole to push, to
tumble you into a state OF preparedness for
this very emergency wonder wonder
because | was witness to your nearly three
years of sanctimonious blindness; TO your
formal dedication by your Chief Executive
to the policy of unpreparedness-with all the
world about you sAame. | wonder because
still see dominant in your high places the
very nfirmites of mind and character that
led you to the gates of war, your hands
empty Of weapons. How the minds that led
you thus unarmed into conflict can lead you
out Of it unhurt does not appear TO me-
The Price in Blood
Therefore, fear for you; | believe you
are about to learn at the cost of bitter sut-
fering that the making of war, even in the
best Of causes, is the proper business or
strong executives trained scientifically III
military, naval, and business affairs, and not
OF compliant political ofice-holders. To
learn this will needlessly cost you time and
treasure and blood but then you are used to
this. One need only look into your civil and
military burying grounds to estimate the
price at which you have ever preferred to
buy the wisdom that history and other ma
tons offer you gratis
Some of us believed you had learned from
others the lessons of this war; that when the
storm should break you would instantly
gather 70 your government the strongest,
the wisest, the most experienced spirits. IN
order that you might be given safe conduct
through the valley of death into which you
will now lead your sons. But it is plain that
YOU have learned nothing from the dead and
nothing from the living; that your youth
must now be sacrificed in order 20 teach you
the age-old lesson that without needless
preliminary educational hecatomb a Daniels
for instance, cannot guide a navy to victory,
nor Baker an army. That those who have
been unable to prepare for war are unfit to
conduct war. To learn this will cost you the
tears of your every village. But you have
willed it; so be 1t.
Going BIindfold
And now, TO cover up the costs OF your
governments schooling you must furnish 1t
with a harlequin's mask of invisibility. The
machinery and men by which your sons,
your brothers, your husbands are to be used
as the cutting edge of the tools Of war are
not to be revealed to you at work. You are
to be permitted neither 10 make sure in ad-
vance that the machinery is sound and the
men able and trustworthy, nor to watch the
engnery of war in action, so that you shall
be able to detect and remedy its defects
Blindfold you are to so into war.
At this critical hour when, the enemy
knowing ALL all should be made equally clear
to you, your President seeks to bind your
eyes. Blindfod you shall fight. You shall
not be permitted to know the grim conse-
duences which are about to follow his hav-
ing kept you unprepared for war. II this
also be your will, so be il. In due time there
will spring from the sod your harvest Of
folly. white tablets bearing invisibly the
dedication: Died, not for country, but for
the education of a fatuous government in
the arts of war. Loving you, | shall gricve
with you, having first done my duty in tell
ing you the truth.
New York, May 81. 1917.