New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-07-08
The Beginning

army in France must have had a meaning
and value beyond all else in their lives
Il must have been a realization of an ideal
long cherished and in recent years almost
lost.
For these Americans there existed
United States created by the men and
women who sought to found upon this side
of tho Atlantic a nation in which all that
was impossible Of liberty, of justice oil
equality in Europe should be the common
right of all. For these Americans the
country which was settled by those VINO
left England to escape tyranny, religious
ond political. and who bore the privatlons
and the hardships of the colonial days;
the country Of those who fought at Con-
cord Bridge and suffered at Valley Forge;
the country Of those who on either side OF
the Mason and Dixon line fought for
their conceptions of liberty and democ-
racv-this country was their fatherland.
II was a country dedicated to liberty and
consecrated by the sacrifices and the sui
ferings of many generations.
That this America which they knew and
loved and believed in Should have been
silent and passive in the face of the mon
strous German peril, threatening all that
America had meant, all that democracy
had meant, all that civilization had meant
was an intoerable thing, and through all
the months of American quiescence there
was for these Americans sense of loss,
sense of disillusion, a sense of bitterness.
Some. perhaps, lost faith too soon; some,
perhaps, cried out too loudly.
But with the coming of the American
troops to France, with the entrance of
America into the war, the nightmare OF
these Americans was ended. Suddenly
they saw and realized that ideal which
was their country. They saw their nation
laying aside selfshness, laying aside folly,
facing the truth as it was, at last, and
returning to the work and to the cause
for which their fathers and their grand
fathers had fought and dared and died.
We are all richer Today in our own
country because to-day our country once
more stands forth clearly as nation
which serves the truth unselhshly and
Loyalty, recognizing that when there is evil
in the world, when there is such mon
strous evil thing as Germanism in the
world. there is no other duty than to fight,
to make common cause with all mankind
which serves civilization and opposes bar
barism.
But what has now come is only the be-
rinning. We see clearly now that unless
the German thing is destroyed it will an
initiate all that we love at home and in
the world. We perceive, still dimly per-
haps, yet with growing clarity, that there
can be no compromise with purpose
which is barbarsm and a people which
have surrendered themselves to the doc
trine Of force and TO the policy of violence.
We shall not easily and without cost TO
ourselves escape from the German menace.
1t has destroyed the youth of Europe. 1t
has turned the temples of God into charnel
houses. 1t has dehled the affairs. 1t has
violated the sanctuaries. Il has spared
neither sex nor age. To terrorize mankind
it has murdered children, it has dishon
ored women, it has sought to enslave the
spirit and it has enslaved the body.
Vaguely now we hear coming from Ger
many suggestions Of peace, but in these
suggestions Of peace there is no hint Of
recognition Of the wrong that has been
done, there is no whisper Of renunca-
ton Of the gospel Of the sword, there is no
promise Of surrender Of the idea and the
ideals which arc written from Liege to
the walls Of Paris, which have transformed
Northern France into a desert and Bel
gum into land Of human slavery.
We cannot compromise with a Germany
which merely recognizes that material rea-
sons have prevented for this time that
complete success hoped for, striyen for,
almost attained. We cannot compromise
with a barbarian which remains faithful
TO It's principles and has merely been con-