New-York tribune., 1918-12-03
Our Peace PeriIs
Not Obvious Ones.
Says III. C.. Emery
Prussianizing of the Spirit
Threatens Nation, For
mer Prisoner in Germany
Tells the Economic Club

Peace perils which the United States
faces, Henry Crosby Emery told the
Economic Club of New York last night
at its dinner at the Hotel Astor, are
not the obvious ones which come glibly
to the tongue of every cIaptrap orator.
The United States is not in danger of
becoming miltarized, he asserted, it is
hot IN danger of autocratic centralized
government. What threatens the ma
ton, now that victorious peace has
come, he said, is PrussianiZing of the
spirit "tEat ovcrweening conceit, self
satisfaction cockiness-call it what you
Wlll--of the German which made him so
irritating even in his peaceful moods. "
That and lowering of ideals. a loss o.,
the sincerity with which the nation en-
barked upon is great adventure are the
most ominous perils the future would
offer, he said.
Mr.. Emery, who now is connected
with the Guaranty Trust Company of
New York, was in Russia on a govern
ment mission, when he had to flee from
the Bolsheviki and was captured by
the Germans.
American Word Believed
Perhaps my stay in Germany made
Germanic accent in anything bordering
on trickerv or deceit" he said. 81 can
not, however. refrain from telling you
what solemn pride it was to me to
lind how the German took it as a mat
ter of course that the American gov
ernment meant exactly what it said; :;
that no one, outside the Pan Germans,
questioned the sincerity of single
phrase in an American state docu-
ment."
1t is still question, MIR. Emery con-
tinued, whether the force that de-
stroyed militarism is powerful enough
to crush Bolshevism it might be nee
essary, he thought, to continue to aid
in guarding democracy, not now against
kings, but against m n crazy from a
release from the resti ANTS of law and
order.
Besides Mr.. Emery he speakers we're
Henry Morgenthau, president of the
club, who presided; Major General j.
Franklin Bell, DR.. Charles W. Eliot and
Darwin P. Kingsley. The guests of the
club were Lorenzo Giovanni, of the
Italian High Commission; Henri La
Fontaine. ex-senator of Belgium, and
N. G. Kyriakides, president Of the
Committee of Unredeened Greeks.
about 1000 attended the dinner.
CTeeuOlIt OI the oSdS
A closely-knit Anglo Latin Federal
ton, not league Of sovereign nations,
was advocated by Mr.. Kingsley as the
only certain method of preserving the
peace of the world. He warned Amer
leans against future dangers lurking in
the cryptic phrase 'the freedom of the
seas"
"If | understand what President Will
son means by the freedom Of the seas
and | sometimes wonder whether any
one understands it-Great Britain will
never agree to it, and can never agree
70 it," he said.
"As a consequence the basis OF grave
differences between Britain and our
selves is likely to be laid down at the
peace table. The contest in sea power
that went on so long between Great
Britain and Germany and fnoly cul-
minated in this war is apparently about
TO be transferred to the British Empire
and the United States. Could anything
be more stupid not to say criminal"
Mr.. Morgenthau outlined the oppor-
tunties % humanitarian service
which, he said, would enable America
to occupy new position as the great
est nation in the worlds history. "Un-
less we show the world we possess The
highest qualities of unselishness,' he
said, eve are apt to sink back into the
materialism which so many observers
formerly attributed to u.s.