The Washington herald., 1917-04-02
The Leaven at Work.


ence to the Russian upheaval, and to
the new blaze of Liberalism and anti
Hohenzollernism in Germany.
How curious it is that these pro-
fessors of realpolitik in European
chancelleries, who lately saw nothing
in the President but an academist,
and nothing in his phrases but
dreamy vaporings of the millennium,
should be changing their tune at this
timel
When he made his peace address
to the Senate not more than ten days
ago, they scoffed at him as vision
airy. When he told them that racial
groups should not be traded about
from sovereignty to sovereignty in
diplomatic bargaining to follow the
war, when he said the peoples of Eu-
rope, rather than their governments,
would have a voice in the reorgani-
zation of world polity, they shrugged
their shoulders in polite disdain, and
intimated he should mind his own
business"
Of course, diplomats and militarists
who deal exclusively in facts" and
the realities of force never see much
farther than their own noses. They
live in circle circumscribed by their
own intelligence, and regard such a
thing as a Russian revolution as a
fantastic impossibility until it is actu-
ally fait accompli
That is where such an antrim
perialist as the President, who knows
something about the processes and
the workings of democracy, has a
tremendous advantage over them. He
can work in terms Of the day after
tomorrow while they are only think
ing of today.
The President has consistently
prophesied that the silent masses of
mankind" would become vocal, and
at no distant date. He was laughed
at until the Russ confirmed his
words. Perhaps the Tory is still con-
temptuous, for the Tory rarely learns
anything, even from the hard, solid
fabric of events and of dreams that
have come true"
Today it is Spain where the leaven
is working, and tomorrow it will be
Germany. In the heart of Prussia
we already see the rumblings of a
popular awakening in the new bold
ness of the Liberals and the Social
Democrats, the anxious efforts of
Bethmann-Hollweg to conciliate
them, the loosening Of the censor
ship. Kaiserism is under FIRE in its
own citadel. OF course, it is prema-
ture to forecast a genuine German
revolution, for the German perception
has shown alarming astigmatism in
the past three years, a moral obtuse-
ness which may twist the first i'm
pulses of liberalism into an intensified
form OF centralized autocracy. With
out the army the German movements
are as helpless as babe in the
woods.
But tho mills OF the gods are grind
ing, and there is no telling when
they will stop. 1t ought to be en-
phasized in the mind Of every Amer
lean that the United States has a
very real connection with the inter-
nal situation in Germany in the
present crisis. A vigorous initiative
from America will promote the new
spirit of self-examination in Ger
many, the querulous spiritual unrest
which is expressed in a score of
channels. the new interrogation as to
whether "kultur" is on the right
track in arraying all the democratic
forces of the world against it.
Every friend of liberal Germany
should give the President his strong
est support in the action he is about
to take. War by the United States
on Prussianism is the most supreme
llIDuIlOn VIC SdH llldkc 10 QeI1OC-
racy in Europe. Within the German
Empire it will hearten the spirit of
liberalism everywhere by the reflex
military encouragement it will Gre
ate.
The blind pacifsts flocking to
Washington just now arc not only
enemies of the nation, but unwilling
enemies Of the cause they believe
they are serving. They cannot be
too severely denounced, because they
are wilful victims of their own vanity
and uncomfortable sentimentality.
Pacifsm under conditions confront
ing the United States is nothing less
than a disease. 1t has not even the
excuse of function that the scaven-
ger and parasite have in nature. On
the plans of the Tolstoian doctrine
of nonresistance it may represent a
futile idealism; in the present state
of the world it means nothing but
a danger and a menace.