New-York tribune., 1917-07-15
The New World

In a recent number Of The New hepuo-
hco there was printed an arresting arti-
Gle. reporting a conversation of French
soldiers returning from the front and
their comments upon certain suggestions
If the American who heard the conversa-
,:on. In sum, these soldiers expressed
the feeling that democracy as 1t existed
before the war had proven itself only less
satisfactory than that autocracy which
thev were fighting and, as they plainly
indicated, purposed to fight to the end
This is only one Of thousand evidences
that one may find both in the American
rress and elsewhere of the growing ap-
ureciation everywhere that the man at the
front who is actually fighting the war has
in three years of struggle and suffering
ord sacrifice reached conclusions quite
different from those he held when ne went
to war. and quite different from those held
by the people behind the line who are stlll
in the mood of August, 1914. And all
over Europe it is beginning to be appre-
cjated that when the man at the front
comes home he will come home with a de-
termination to do certain things which
NAV change the whole character of ma
tional and social life.
We have been accustomed in this coun-
try TO think of the Russian Revolution as
something having its origin and deriving
its character from conditions peculiarly
Russian. We have cheerfully, If bllndly,
accented the notion that after period OF
unrest and violence Russia would lay
aside the extreme ideas of her radicals
and accept a form of democracy like our
own and like that of the other democratic
countries of the world.
Yet is this quite certain? Is 1t not pos
sible that much that the Russian soldier
has already adopted expresses the feeling
of the soldiers of all the Allied armies?
After all, the Russian Revolution is the
first great outcome of the world war
which expresses ideas and ideals born of
the struggle itself, just as Kerensky is
the one man in the public life of the world
who has been produced by the war, and
speaks as such, while all the other states
l@men and leaders remain men who were in
power and public life when the war began
and who are committed to the ideas Of the
ante-bellum world.
We see very clearly the horror Of the
4 German idea. We have entered the wal
H 10 crush that idea and with the French
and the British and the Russian and the
Il Italian, we are resolved TO continue the
war until that idea shall be finally abol
ished as a peril TO the present and to the
future. But is it quite safe to conclude
4 that the German idea will be the only one
) abolished by the war or that the institu
tions Of the democratic nations will sur
i've unchanged after the struggle?
The soldier in the trenches perceive!
with great clarity that the German idea
4 is a menace against which he must fight
Even the Russian revolutionist has recog
B r.zed this fact and gone back, at least
temporarily, TO the trenches. But there
81 is an unmistakabe tendency all over The
world to question the wisdom, the justice
and the efficiency or the forms Of democ
acy which existed before the war, anC
a he soldier in the trench, who has resolved
= that the German idea must be destroyed
may easily be only less determined tC
eradicate the evil and have done with the
weaknesses Of the forms of democracy a.
disclosed by the war.
No man can safely dogmatze on wha
is to come after peace. No man can safel,
foreshadow the changes. But neither !,
II in any measure wise or safe 70 believ,
that when German militarism has beer
defeated and German purpose bake,
the people in the nations fighting Ger
many will consent to 20 back 10 what was
or that the German people, liberated from
the German idea, will gladly and enthu
sisstically embrace form Of parliamen
tary democracy which existed in th'
enemy countries three years ago.
The truth IL that in the millions Of mer
who have been hghting-who have suf
fered incseulsble agony pain, torture
hardship-there has been an unmistaka