New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-04-05
"A War of Ideas
The German Idea and The American Idea as They Seemed
10 The Tribune Tucnty-one Months Ago.

The folIoiCiug er'racts are tokep from
m editorial printed in The Tribune Of
JUly i, I9I5.
The present moment is perhaps appropriate
for calling attention once more to certain
phases of the world conflict now in progress
as they affect the people of our own nation.
Such conflict has two radically different
aspects; it is at once war of nations and
war Of ideas.
To the extent that the Great War is war
Of nations it has no real concern for the
United States. A struggle between Germany
and Austria on the one hand and France,
Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Belgium and
Serbia on the other would affect Americans
as their sympathies might happen to fall.
As we admired France, Germany or England,
we should desire to see the battle turn. In
1870 a majority Of Americans sympathiZed
with Germany; in the wars of the French
Revolution beleagucred France, our old ally
long held American sympathy.
But a war Of ideas is wholly different
thing. Two ideas arc now fighting in Europe
thought and mould all human destiny for gen
crations to come America not less than Eu-
rope. Asia and Africa, as well as the narrower
confines Of the present Continental battle
ground, will he affected dominated by the
idea which triumphs in the contemporary
contest.
The Right to Violate
Now the recent German note to the United
States is an admirable indication Of the Ger
man idea. 1t asserts, emphasizes, declares
that the will Of one nation supersedes the
rights Of all nations. That international law,
the relatively minor conventions that man
across the centuries has devised to mitigate
in some degree the horrors Of organized MUIR
der and collective killing, may be ignored,
abolished, at the pleasure of one nation. Inc
world has established certain privileges,
rIaced them beyond the question of armies
These are the sanctusries, as it were, of civil
ization. and these Germany asserts the right
to violate.
Precisely i'm the same fashion mankind has
proclaimed the neutrality Of certain states
whose smallress takes them out of the area
Of conflicting aims and ambitions of the great
powers. Belgium, Switzerland, until 1914
these were countries by common consent
withdrawn from battle Exactly in the same
way all neutral nations were conceded certain
RIGHTS All this represented the accumulated
gain Of mankind in long centuries. In our
own time it had been the basis Of greater
and nobler dreams of world peace, OF arbItra-
ton. of the end Of war.
Against all these conventions, agreements
rights bestowed upon the weak or the neutral
the German idea frankly makes war. Inc
German Chancellor asserted on the eve of
the invasion of Belgium that the violation
Of faith was justifable only on the ground
of necessity. The German Foreign Minister
now tells Americans that the murder OF the
Lusitania's American passengers was de-
feasible in view of the war made upon Ger
many By England In sum he asserts the
right of Germany to disregard all law when
the law bears down upon German interests
Moral System Repudiated
1t is idle to attempt, as all of US have
done from time to time, to deal with the
German idea on the ground of our con-
ccptons of right of civilization, of morality.
The fact is that the Germans have repudiated
the moral system Of other nations. They
have devised their own code of laws. They
have proclaimed and exercised their right to
live outside the law Of the rest of humanity.
Thev did it before the war in all the con
-iderablo literature Of national thought that
vas created from 1890 to 1914. 1t is as Just
IN quarrel with Il Nahometan and denounce
him for his failure to live in accordance with
Christian doctrines as to assail the German
peopIe because they follow other gods than
We. than the rest of the world.
But there is none the less the necessity
to defend our own gods, to repel the Ger
man idea so far as it nvades our rights,
assails our liberties. We do not believe in
the law of necessity. We do not believe in