New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-03-11

work. All the tissue OF lies, all the eui4iN0
Of intrigue, all the fabric Of dishonor
has now collapsed after two years IN this
country Of ours as it did in England. 1t
has proven impossible permanently to fool
the thoughtless, to deceive the unsuspect-
ing, to intmidate the apprehensive. The
German agents, having exhausted all
their resources, are now leaving the United
States as they left England nearly three
y ears ago, bequeathing to those Germans
who come after them and seek to restore
the good standing Of the German people
in the American community task that
may well stagger even German industry.
Ninety-nine per cent Of the American
people desired to preserve peace with Ger
many two years ago. Even the crimes OF
the German soldiers and statesmen in
Europe left the American people puzzled
and confused in a large measure. Re
moved from the scene Of the deeds, they
were unable to comprehend that in our
own time such wanton acts could have
been performed as the result Of cool cal
Culation and deliberate policy. Even the
Lusitania seemed the act Of madmen, not
of deliberate murderers. In the presence
of their own dead the American people
still hesitated to draw from the evidence
lefore them a conclusion that would shat
ter all the familiar doctrines of civilization.
Unwarned, uniformed, untaught by
other failures, the German continued in
America to work as he had worked in
England, in Belgium, in Italy, in Ru-
mania before the war. He sought to
destroy the safety and the loyalty of citi-
zens, TO undermine their government, to
corrupt or intimidate public men. Blind
ness seemed to him fear, carelessness in
durable ignorance. He believed that in
the end the American would betray his
country, desert his flag, abandon his lib
erty and the lives of his fellow-citizens, if
only the lie were clever enough, the
Vaccination subtle enough, the threat
fearful enough.
And so we have come at last, like the
people Of other nations, to perceive what
the German actually believed he could do
and really sought to do, and perceivlng
these things we have swept the German
out and are prepared, if necessary, to join
what is becoming more and moro a new
crusade, an uprising of civilization
against barbarism more loathsome than
any in modern history. In our own turn
and after long and bitter teaching we have
discovered, too, that it is not possible to
live at peace with nation which believes
and practises the doctrine that the Ger
mans believe and practise.
The Tribune has often said that the
present war was contest between two
ideas, between spiritual forces on the one
hand and material calculations on the
other. 1t has consistently asserted that
the German idea was a threat and men
ace to all civilization, to American ideals
quite as much as to French and. British.
And what American reading now the his
tory Of German activity in America and
German intrigue against American liberty
and integrity in Japan and Mexico can
fail to recognize the fact? Give me my
way or ] shall murder you"-such has
been and is the whole German policy. Il
shall deceive you if l can, but if deceit
fails assassination remains" -this is the
German way.
And now the thing lies in the gutter.
The whole German intrigue has become
like snake upon whose head man has
set his heel. 1t is not less loathsOme now
that its power for harm has terminated.
But for those who believe in honor, jus
tee, good faith, humanity, the failure of
the German method, its failure in
America. in England, in Italy, is one of
the most cheering things in human his
tory. After all, the lie does no prevail;
treachery does not attain its end against
good faith in the longer view. Neither
France, nor Britain, nor our own country
has been conquered by German intrigue;
the thing that has been defeated is the
German method-it has been defeated, it
will be destroyed and the hour of Its de-
struction draws nearer as one more great
civilized nation sees it for what it is
worth and follows the pathway Of all other
civilized nations in resisting 1t.
Kitchen Waste
Il