New-York tribune., 1917-06-17
Personalities Conspicuous in the News

| surrendered all those Liberties for which We
profess ourselves 70 be fighting? What mas
happened TO our right Of public meeting, our
free speech, our liberty of the press, ever
to our right of trial by jury? In word
/ has not this war forced US TO abandon the
democratic principle OF government which
has been Britains glory for so many years
and obliged us to adopt the Prussian system
of military dictatorship, which we de-
nounce?
Very earnestly did I seek to persuade NJ.
Tscheidze that there is all the difference IN
the world between democracy's deliberate
choice of certain curtailment of its lioer'
! ties in its own general interests, and an ao'
solutist system of government holding in its
iron grip a nation which has never been free
TO decide under what form of government IL
will live.
He saw what | meant, but was not con-
vinced.
His point was that Brtain's action had
acted as a check to the democratic movement
all over the world; that it had tended TO d4s-
credit the democratic principle, and that
those men who were fighting for freedom IN
other nations felt themselves depressed by
Brtain's submission to virtual dictatorship.
"Is it not true" he demanded, chat your
soldiers decide what shall be printed and
! what not|'
"Only in the interests of our strategy" ]
replied, believing at the time that what
/ said was true.
| as it not true" he demanded, that your
soldiers decide what meetings should be held
and what suppressed?'
! made a like answer.
as it not true that your soldiers seize
people and lock them up in prison without
/ trial."
! / fatty denied this, not knowing at the
/ time that Miss Howson, for one, had been so
| treated she has now been nineteen months
! in prison without legal advice and without
trial.
War the Enemy of Freedom
! VI. Tscheidze then held forth to me on
/ the general question. War, he declared IS
| the most dangerous enemy OF freedom
/ Rights are surrendered which may never be
regained The man of thought is displaced
by the man of action. Reason gives way TO
! force The destinies of the human race are
taken out Of the hands of the thinker and
intrusted to the soldier With the soldier
! in power no one knows what may happen
no one is permitted even to discuss what
ought to happen. The soldier thinks only
| in slaughter and distractions. He has no
political instincts, no sense OF statesman
/ ship. His one business Is to kill. He kills,
and keeps on killing till there is nothing
more to kill 1t is not safe to trust the
world to such a man. The thinkers must
continue to think. Discussion must be free,
so that truth may emerge.
/ Now this point of view is important If
we want to be friends with free Russia we
must endeavor to understand it. 1t is a
dangerous policy to dismiss the Russian
| Socialist as dreamer, or to lament, as IS
done in some quarters here, that the people
of Russia have fallen victims TO the sentl-
mental dealsm of Tostoy.
/ We must be very careful how speak Of
| these Russian Socialists Do not let us in
| our natural annoyance say one word which
will make the Russian Socialist think thai
we are Prussian minded He is like to be
/ the firmest ally in the future Of all those who
/ desire the lasting peace of the world. Let
/ us at least try to perceive that it is virtue
/ in him that he should desire to achieve BY
/ conference that which others believe can be
achieved only by slaughter Rightly or wrong
( Is (who shall say0 he trusts German de-
mocracy. He believes that the Germans
/ themselves will destroy kaiserism. He is not,
| believe me, false to our ideals in this war
[ The trouble that he causes springs only from
the fact that he hungers and thirsts with all
the force of his idealism to get what we want
/ by reason and not by force. We may think
him wrong. But do not let US cease to ad
mre him.