Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-08-02
THE LANsDOwNE LETTER
The Old Order Would Insure Its Safety With
the Help Of the Beast

without a perception of its inner signifi-
canoe would be most unwise. The letter
reveals one of the odd dramas of the
war. 1t speaks for shamed and dis
credited order. 1t is the voice of a man
helped to create and crying out against
the retributive forces of destiny.
The logic of barter and balance. COM
promise and sale, fear and secrecy for
which Lord Lansdowne is the insistent
propagandist has failed appallingly since
the beginning. 1t has whipped mankind
through the wretchedness and misery of
all wars 1t afflicted the earth with
hatreds and suspicious and ignorance.
1t has piled upon the nations the mount
ing horrors of this war of wars. And
still there are those who look to the
ancient system for peace and salvation!
For Lansdowne is not alone. His type
is familiar here as well as in Europe. 1t
represents the men who have been left
behind. whose reason is not adequate to
world is fighting for.
The acorld has outstripped them. It
is ont thuudcyiUg At the lcdIis that they
set mp, 8enrchiNg for its soul and its
freedom end the light they denied it.
Those 1cbo hore been left behind are
afraid. They are the old order. They
must chGnge or die. And since they do
not irish to do either they 1coHId be con-
tent 0t this crisis in humdn history to
settle the 1cdr by cOmprOmjse-t0 let
the ,roupdcd beast 1cithdrd1O to rccorer
and fdtten and sharpen his fangs!'
Beneath the seeming humanity of the
Lansdowne theory of adjustment of
aims lies the crueest of all PHILOSOPHERS,
the error that has darkened all human
history. 1t is founded upon disbelief
in justice and human reason and de-
pendence upon the easiest eXpediencies.
1t is the philosophy that Lansdowne HIM
self helped to promulgate in the days of
his activity. Men of his sort have
always either feared or refused to sense
the inevitable consequences of such doc
trines applied in international relations.
And it is not surprising to find them now
willing to be spared at any cost the
sight and the consciousness of the things
they have done.
1t is the part of charity to view Lans-
downe as one of the British newspapers
views him-as tired, rich old man"
not quite up to the spirit of his days.
Yet it is significant that Bethmann-
Hollweg, who was Chancellor to the
Kaiser when the war began, has arrived
in Holland with Won Kuehlmann, pre-
sumatly upon a peace mission at the
hour when Lansdowne's letter demanding
a reinstatement of war aims" and criti
cizing, by inference, President Wilson's
attitude, was issued to the press. The
Hollwegs and the Kuehlmanns, the
Kaisers and the Lansdownes have COM
mon method of reasoning. 1t is hard to
make them understand that the world is
done with them-that it was done with
them year ago.
You will look as vainly in the Lans
downe letter as you would look in a
pronouncement of the Kaiser's for a
word or a glimmer to show that he un-
derstands the state of mind of civliza-
ton at this hour. Lansdowne still lives
in the Victorian age-the age when
dplomatists prayed and plotted and
guessed and hoped and lied-d,ld shrGnk
from future 1rhich they made intoIer'-
able.
If there is one thing in the latest
| appeal of the British pacifst adequate TO
rouse resentment rather than mild dis
dain it is the alluson to the indefinite
ness of President Wilson's four peace
| conditions. The President in his most
recent statement made the issues plain.
| He declared against secret diplomacy
and the habit of furtive bargaining by
nations. He demanded justice for ma
tions, irrespective of their size; he asked
that the interests of the people be con-
| sdered above the ambitions of dynasties,
and he sought to provide the rule of rea-
son and justice in cases where force has
ordinarily forced decisions.
The German Government, on the other
| hand has made no declaration. 1t still
brags of coming destruction and the
bloody sword. The difference in atti-
tude is plain. The aims of humanity are
plain. Germany can accept them or
perish.
If wars are ever averted faith, jus
tice, wisdom and imagination will avert
them Euripides knew this more than
two thousand years ago. All observers
of war have always known it. Every
body hne,O it b"t the dipion'atists who
| drore the a0orld to rltin and still refuse
in the midst of the cGtdciysm to adnit
that they cere 1cromg. But the minds of
men like Lansdowne and Wilhelm of
Germany and innumerable others have
citadels in the past. When those cita-
| dels are DESTROYED the world will be safe.