New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-03-07

US the japanese anu Ihe NeAN'
plot is exposed, and they denounce our
"treachery,' they assail the President OF
the United States, whose only sin, God
knows, has been submitting too long 10
German menace and believing too lmplic-
itly that German policy and people were
subject TO the ordinary restraints OF CIV
! ilization.
! The Zimmerman intrigue is revela-
ton of the whole texture of German
thought and method. 1t is fine example
of the same thing that the invasion OF
Belgium revealed; it is an admirable Illus
tration of the defences that the Ger
mans have brought forward for so many
crimes. If they invaded Belgium-there
was Belgian treachery, like to that Of our
own President in publishing their intrigue
If they burned Louvain 1t was because OF
shots fired by Begians, although Germany
had resolved in advance to carry hre ana
sword into Belgium and by terror over
awe the nation she had wronged.
The German plans crime; he plans
counterstroke to meet the efforts OF his
victim to defend himself; he plans then an
appeal to high moral principle to disarm
the man he means to murder and leave
him not alone despoled of life but of honor.
This is German Kultur; this is what Ger
MANY has done in Belgium and France,
on the high seas and on the foreign shores;
this is what the German ideal means IN
the world of our own generation; this is
the German peril to our civilization; 1t is
the peril of a people who, at the present
hour. have given themselves over to the
worship of force and to the practice OF
violence; it is the peril of people sud
denly appealing to the gospel of barbar-
ism and hurting itself upon all the temples
and tables Of civilization.
And this Europe has perceived. Pres
ident Wilson's words about peace fell upon
deaf ears because Europe realized that
peace was impossible between the barbar-
ian and the citizen of a civilized nation.
Man cannot live half civilized, half bar
barrie. with the frontiers of the two sus-
TENS lying open and marching one with
the other. Peace with Germany is impos-
sible not because of material but of spirit
ual things. The German reserves the
right to murder his neighbor when 1t
serves his purpose; so long as he reserves
this right his neighbor cannot hope to
dwell in peace, save only if he be willing
to accept as peace that thing which in
wolves the surrender of his wife, his chill
dren. his property and his liberty to the
German will.
A day is coming when the American
people will perceive clearly the fact of Ger
man policy. We are getting nearer and
nearer to the truth as the German method
is day by day stripped of one more dis
guise and revealed yet more clearly in its
naked horror.
A time is coming when we shall cease to
talk about peace and recognize what the
French recognize and the British are com
ing to recognize, namely, that the only
thing that remains for this generation of
man is to go 10 the trenches and kill Ger
mans until the German surrenders his
barbaric fury or sinks under the weight
of a united and overwhelming coalition Of
civilized men and nations. We do not hate
Germans and we shall not hate them;
there is only one nation capable of
Hymn of Hate" in our own time, and
that is the German nation. The task is
not one that is TO be carried on with
passion or bitterness. 1t is the operation
of the surgeon, not of the assassin. The
world must cut from its own flesh this
German cancer, and its own suffering will
be great, is great, yet upon the success
Of the excelsior depends the life of civiliza-
ton; all we love will perish if the German
/ is able TO establish in the world the doc
trines which he accepts and practises at
home and abroad to-day
Power founded upon force, dominion
established upon violence, empire achieved
by "ruthlessness"- is the German ideal
to-day, and it lays the torch at the foun-
dation of all that mankind has won in the
long, bitter years of its struggle for
emancipation. We shall go back to the
Dark Ages and TO the day Of those other
Germanic hordes which destroyed Eu-
ropean civilization and overturned Latin
and Greek system. if we do not succeed in
mastering this German attack, in repuls-
ing it and in destroying it.
/ Let US, as Americans, be grateful to
/ Zimmerman. He has contributed largely
to our own knowledge and understanding
of the German method and the German
idea His is the most Illuminating reve-
( lation since the Lusitania Massacre. Shall
we need many more? 1t seems unlikely.
The Columbia Censorship
/ The tide of disapproval among Columbia