young statesman. It admits that he has done his work well. But this makes the regret all the greater for some of the expressions in his recent speeches.

Insulting references to the German fleet are not needed. They are the more objectionable since the officers of that fleet have, with rare exceptions, shown a spirit which should shame their fellows of the hand forces. The English Admiralty has once, at least, had occasion to acknowledge their courteous conduct of the

war....

It was deplorable to talk about "digging out the rats." And seldom or never was swagger more signally rebuked. Even as he spoke some of the skulking rats of his imagination were putting out to sea for an enterprise of conspicuous peril. On the day that his speech was reported we heard also: the result of this high venture, mourning the loss of three fine ships and many priceless lives. Let us at least respect the courage of the men who could strike such a blow at our immense preponderance of force. As we brace ourselves for the stern prosecution of the struggle to a victorious end, let us be glad that some at least of our opponents are not unworthy of our steel, and that in Germany there is a nucleus of men whom in after years we may be proud to count as friends.

In such spirit the editors of England are inspiring the best men of England quietly, resolutely, to war.

English editors also feel for themselves and their readers that the times demand great expression-if possible, poetic expression. And so, as never before, they seem to be throwing open their columns to all who can rhyme-and to some who can not! For, as that satisfying sheet, the

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Manchester Guardian," puts it, people's

minds are forced to the height and heat of emotion at which the perfectly fit poem or the subject of their emotion would come to them with something of the power and charm of a great fulfillment or sudden release. And yet, as the "Guardian " adds, "the very heat that makes us thirsty makes the streams run dry."

Finally, as to what is going to happen after the war is over, English editorial opinion is summed up in this statement from the Liverpool" Post:"

In the negotiations following the war we shall be moved by a common impulse-the establishment of a Europe on the principle of nationality and with a tender regard for small nationalities; a Europe. . . free from the causes of hatred and unrest which have poisoned the comity of nations and ruptured the peace of Christendom.

English opinion is not always reflected by the English press. When not, it may be had by word of mouth. This was the case regarding the lesson to America from the present crisis. No British newspaper, so far as I know, reflected what I heard from one British statesman. He spoke as follows:

"Over-emphasis on nationalism is an

It is seen in America. You talk too much about Old Glory. You wave the flag too much. You are in general too much puffed up with your national self-importance and your self-sufficiency. And so, in particular, you think you must compete with the Powers of Europe in point of arms! You are not Germany, hemmed in on all sides; she has had to be armed to the teeth. You are independent. Your geographical location is your security. No one is going to attack you, not even the Japanese. You do not need, therefore, a large army and navy. You need only a few gunboats to protect your citizens in some South American country which may happen to be in the throes of revolution. You do not need a great navy even for police protection, and hence as a species of national insurance. You do not realize that you are living practically in a fireproof dwelling!"

Quite the contrary opinion is expressed by another English statesmen. He says: "The Germans are after us now. They will be after you next. We had a treaty with Germany. How much did it protect us? How much did it protect Belgium? Was it of the slightest use? Where would we be if we were not in a position to sweep the seas? Our navy has always made us great and always will, no matter how many gallant deeds our little army is doing. Be warned in time. Make your navy strong too. You, too, have thousands of miles of coast to defend. You, too, have now oversea possessions to defend. And you always have the Monroe Doctrine to defend. Make your army efficient too, not only in numbers but in ammunition. Have you enough guns? Who knows? But you ought to know. Be prepared."

Here are two counsels. They come from friends of America and from men eminent in the work of civilization. They simply show how doctors can disagree.

Whom shall we follow ? For there is an evident lesson for us in this war. Let us heed it. Are we to be unready or ready for a possible foe? If ready, we are less likely to have the foe!

begin to oppose armaments and war; that to vote against this new taxation for military purposes would have only a moral value, as the taxes would be passed anyway, in some form, in spite of Socialist opposition; that if the Socialists did not vote for new military taxes to be levied against the rich, the other parties would vote for new military taxes to be levied against the poor; and, above all, that the precedent of graduated taxation, an innovation for the Empire, could be used later to raise money from the upper classes for the purposes of social reform.

Against this reasoning the Socialist minority pointed out that the rich and well-to-do would rather pay the taxes than forego the armaments of which they got the chief advantage, and that if they felt the burden shifting too rapidly onto their shoulders they would seek a solution by hastening the war to which so many of them looked forward. They argued that every minority must first offer an opposition that gives moral rather than practical results before it can hope to become a majority. They showed how the Government itself-largely for militaristic reasonsfavored throwing the latest military burden on the shoulders of those best able to carry it without injuring the nation's industry. And they concluded that not all the social reform in the world could justify surrender to the arch-enemy of democracy, militarism.

But these anti-military arguments had no weight with the majority. For their real motive was not disclosed until the Socialist Congress held several months after the vote in the Reichstag. A leading editorial of "Vorwaerts pointed out that two of the most eminent leaders of the majority, Fischer and David, had publicly admitted that one of the majority's motives was the fear that if the Socialists did not vote the military taxes their representation in the Reichstag would be reduced from 110 to 40.

Here, then, is their whole case. Militarism is highly popular among many classes in Germany. If the Socialists opposed it, the sixty or seventy Socialist Reichstag members of the majority faction would lose their seats. Only the forty-odd members of the minority, representing the most industrialized districts, where live the working people (who now compose the majority of the population of Germany), could have been sure of being returned at a new election fought on the issue of militarism versus anti-militarism. For, because of Germany's unequal election districts, the rest

of the Socialist members owe their election not to the anti-militarist laboring masses but to "progressive" votes given them for the most part at the second ballot. That is, they are dependent on the lower middle classessmall officials, clerks, and conservative artisans-who hold the political balance of power. These classes are either pro-militarist or very hesitant anti-militarists. By failing to satisfy such voters and losing their seats, the Socialist majority would at the same time lose, not only their careers (which may have influenced some of them), but also their power to advance those social and democratic reforms they have so much at heart (which doubtless influenced all). In order to be in a position to win these reforms for the people of Germany, they were ready to support the Kaiser in his preparations for a possible war against the people of other countries. That this was their position in 1913 will be clear to any one who takes the trouble to consult the proceedings of last year's Party Congress. That it is their position this year, in supporting the war itself, is evident from the statements of Scheidemann, Suedekum, and other leaders printed in the American Socialist press.

The division within the party is nearly the same now as it was last year. Karl Liebknecht, the leader of the minority, assures us that the meeting of the Socialist caucus on the 3d of August witnessed a discussion "of a violence hitherto unknown" in the party's history; and he and sixteen other Socialist members of the Reichstag (a large number being absent) stood out to the end against the war. These are the members from the most populous election districts, and they are in the closest touch with their constituents. The representatives of at least a million German voters, then, stand as opponents to the war. There may be militarist minorities in their districts, but we can be sure that there are at least as great antimilitarist minorities in other constituencies.

"Vorwaerts has always represented the main current of Socialist opinion, and it is highly probable that it represents the main current of Socialist opinion now-or certainly that of a very large faction. During the whole of the past year it has been conducting the liveliest kind of an anti-militarist agitation, which has frequently figured in cable despatches. In fact, this was its chief work for many months before the war. It was "Vorwaerts," for example, that published the Krupp scandal, as well as Karl Lieb

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knecht's second revelation concerning the wholesale selling of titles. And in the weeks immediately preceding the war it was filled. with the agitation of Rosa Luxemburg and others against the army. After the notorious Zabern affair she had said that cruelties committed by officers were an every-day affair in the barracks. The Government proceeded to prosecute her, and the Socialists responded by securing thirty-two thousand certified cases of recent acts of cruelty and over a thousand witnesses. "Vorwaerts was still leading this campaign with the greatest bitterness in the middle of July.

As the war approached, about July 25, this anti-military agitation became even more intense, and finally turned into an anti-war demonstration of the first magnitude. Influenced, no doubt, by the radicalism of the Socialists of Greater Berlin, who furnish most of its readers, "Vorwaerts " took an especially fearless stand. Day after day it warned the Government, in thinly veiled terms, that a declaration of war might lead to defeat and to revolution. It put the chief blame for the impending war on Austria, and declared that the German Government knew that to support Austria's outrageous demands against Servia meant war. Even Russian mobilization, it showed, was a natural and unavoidable result of Austria's actions. As late as July 31 Vorwaerts" declared that the French Government sincerely desired peace and that the Russian Government, "in spite of its mobilization," was ready for far-reaching concessions.

On July 29 the Socialists held gigantic war demonstrations throughout Germany. At one single meeting of the twenty-eight called by Berlin Socialists on this day, seventy thousand persons were present. In Berlin, Cologne, and elsewhere riots occurred, and it is claimed that the anti-militarists usually got the best of the "patriotic " mobs, except where the latter were aided by the police. In the Kingdom of Wurtemburg the Socialist party of that country, which was holding a Congress at the time, adopted a revolutionary resolution, proposed by Clara Zetkin, which clearly suggested a general strike.

Even since the declaration of war, under the very eyes of the military censor, and in the presence of the terrors of martial law, "Vorwaerts" has cleverly managed to continue its anti-military agitation. Frequent cables have shown the general recognition of the value of its work, and its anti-war trend

The article points out that shortly before war was declared Russia was in the midst of a revolutionary blaze that was sweeping the country. This menacing general strike had spread until stopped by the declaration of war. The Czarism had been strengthened, then, not weakened, by the declaration of war. When Germany entered Belgium, "Vorwaerts said, significantly: "Now when the war god reigns supreme, not only over the time but also over the press, we cannot say concerning the invasion of Belgium what we would like to say about it." On August 30 it had the courage to declare that the Belgian peasants ought not to be "punished," as they had been, for defending their homes without uniforms, since the German Landsturm was explicitly permitted to do the same thing according to the very words of the Prussian law. The real purpose of this editorial, as of many others, was to call the attention of the German soldiers to the fact that they were fighting a war of aggression. In Germany it raised a storm.

When it became a well-established fact that Italy had decided to break with the Triple Alliance, every "patriotic" German cried out against Germany's former ally. But "Vorwaerts," instead of condemning Italy, spoke enthusiastically in favor of its maintaining the position of neutrality.

When the Socialist leaders Guesde and Sembat, with the unanimous approval of their party, became members of the. French Cabinet, "Vorwaerts" pointed out that this proved that the French proletariat regarded it as a people's war, and that Germany would be able to conquer only by conquering the French proletariat.

Guesde and Sembat, we are told, not only

did rightly to enter the Cabinet, but are the finest types of Socialists. Guesde is described as "the old fighting companion of Marx and Engels, the founder and organizer of the Marxian tendency in France, the most uncompromising partisan of the idea of class struggle, the sworn enemy of every kind of opportunism." As to Sembat, "Vorwaerts " cites his speech of the 2d of August, in which he defined the present war waged by France as one which was aimed neither at conquests nor at the destruction of German culture. This leads" Vorwaerts" to remark:

The French nation is defending its existence, its unity, and its independence.

Our comrades did not refuse the grave responsibility of this momentous hour. They felt that the independence and security of the nation are the first conditions of its political and social emancipation, and they did not think it was possible for them to refuse their aid to that country in its struggle for life.

Could this be plainer? German territory and culture are not even attacked, but France is struggling for existence. No wonder the "Vorwaerts" office was mobbed by "patriots" shortly after the printing of this editorial!

Surely this approval of the attitude of the French, Belgian, and Italian working people justified the indignation of the German antiSocialist press, which rightly pointed out that such talk was no way to insure success in the

war.

But "Vorwaerts" ignored the attacks of its militarist enemies which twice led to its suspension and for two solid months continued to use every weapon in its journalistic arsenal against the supporters of the war.

Another editorial that must have infuriated the militarists was that of August 25, in which, ably avoiding every possible deadlock with the military authorities, the Socialist organ yet succeeded in pointing out that the supposed justification of the war, that it was a war of defense against Russia, had fallen away and that it had become a war of aggression.

If, after a series of defeats, the position of "Vorwaerts" becomes the position of the Socialists generally, and so of a large part of the German nation, the importance of this declaration cannot be overstated. Here are the two leading paragraphs:

When the war broke out, the word went round, "War against Czarism!" That was the cry that made the war seem inevitable even to those who were against it. . . . To military experts it appeared an unavoidable necessity that France must be first overcome, in order to advance

with Austria against Russia. And to this necessity even those who mourn the frightful fate which drives two civilized peoples into this murderous struggle must resign themselves. From the military point of view the first necessity is to overcome France.. On the other hand,

politically, the most argent necessity is the over

throw and destruction of "Czarism."

If we should not succeed in overcoming "Czarism," if the strategic necessity should push the political necessity into the background, then, whatever the intentions of the rulers, the final result might lead to a return of the "Holy Alliance," in which "Czarism" would once more hold the dominating influence, instead of a union of the civilized nations. . . . Then this war would lose its justification. [My italics.]

In other words, there is no moral justification for a war with France, and the Kaiser may soon find himself in another "holy" alliance with the Czar. This would scarcely surprise the readers of the Socialist press. For until the outbreak of the war the two monarchs, as their published correspondence shows, were on the terms of the greatest friendship, and German Socialist critics of the Czar were under prosecution this very year, precisely as if they had committed lèse majesté against the Kaiser himself. Socialists have

been reminded of all this since the war.

A special full-page article of September 26, two days before the second suspension, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the "International." In the course of the discussion of the main subject it recalls the fact that Bebel and Liebknecht had opposed the Franco-Prussian war to the very end, and it knows that these two names still carry more weight with the German masses than those of the Socialist leaders who are now with the Kaiser. Next, it reminds the reader that the French and Belgian Socialists have organized an armed resistance against the invading enemies of their countries"-and the German reader knows that every Socialist discussion has reached the conclusion that the

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progress of Socialism requires that every invasion should be repelled. And, finally, it concludes that the "Social Democrats of the rest of the world"-i. e.. all those outside of Germany and Austria-see the war, before all else, as the invasion of neutral Belgium and republican France." And "Vorwaerts," by an eloquent silence, indorses this opinion. But it was only on the next day, September 27, that Vorwaerts" reached the climax of its audacity.