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care of himself and does not need the assistance of The Outlook. This journal is concerned, however, in Mr. Glynn's slings and pebbles because he included The Outlook in his attack. Several correspondents have called attention to the fact that in his speech at Syracuse Mr. Glynn quoted from an article by Mr. Roosevelt which appeared in The Outlook of September 23, 1914-aquotation which makes it appear that on that date Mr. Roosevelt agreed that Mr. Wilson was right in making no protest about Belgium. "How do you explain," they ask, "the inconsistency between the position that Mr. Roosevelt [according to Mr. Glynn] took in September, 1914, with regard to a Belgian protest and the position which he takes to-day in declaring that Mr. Wilson failed in his duty to humanity and to American principles when he failed to make such a protest? Does not such a glaring inconsistency prove that Mr. Roosevelt is a turncoat, and therefore unreliable as a leader of public opinion?"

The answer is very simple. Mr. Roosevelt neither entertained nor expressed the views which Mr. Glynn alleges he held in September, 1914. To substantiate his allegations Mr. Glynn presented to the Democratic State Convention a mutilated quotation from Mr. Roosevelt's article in The Outlook, omitting certain sentences from the passage quoted so as wholly to change its meaning. Mr. Glynn is the unreliable leader of public opinion, not Mr. Roosevelt.

Mr. Glynn's logic appears to me to be something like this: Mr. Root says that Mr. Wilson is to be condemned for a breach of moral and Presidential duty when he failed in 1914 to protest against the invasion of Belgium, and urged that the people of the United States should be not only neutral in act, but in heart. But how can that be if in taking this position he adopted the standards of Theodore Roosevelt? For I am sure, my Democratic fellow-citizens, that you do not ask your President to be measured by any higher standards than those afforded by the official acts and public utterances of the greatest of living American statesmen !

To substantiate this striking compliment (which, however, in all fairness to Mr. Glynn, it must be admitted, was involuntary or at least subconscious) Mr. Glynn proceeded to read the following extract, which he said appeared over the signature of Theodore Roosevelt in The Outlook of September 23, 1914. In order not to fall into the error of misquota

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tion I have obtained from the Democratic State Headquarters in New York City an official copy of Mr. Glynn's speech, and reprint the alleged Roosevelt extract exactly as Mr. Glynn gave it:

"A delegation of Belgians has arrived to invoke our assistance. What action our government can or will take, I know not.

"It has been assumed that no action can be taken that will interfere with our neutrality. It is certainly eminently desirable that we should remain entirely neutral and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our neutrality and taking sides one way or the other.

"Of course, it would be folly to jump into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose and very probably nothing we could have done would have helped Belgium. We have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her and I am sure that the sympathy of this country for the suffering of the men, women and children of Belgium is very real.

"Nevertheless this sympathy is compatible with full acknowledgment of the unwisdom of uttering a single word of official protest unless we are prepared to make that protest effective; and only the clearest and most urgent national duty would ever justify us in deviating from our rule of neutrality and non-interference."

Mr. Glynn, who is an accomplished newspaper proprietor and editor, did not add that, while these words were all written by Mr. Roosevelt, their arrangement and juxtaposition are due to the editorial skill of Mr. Glynn himself in handling the proverbial scissors and paste-pot of the newspaper sanctum. Nevertheless, as the Buffalo" Inquirer "remarks, the words which Mr. Glynn put into Mr. Roosevelt's mouth made the Democratic State Convention happy, for they proved to the satisfaction of the delegates that "Roosevelt thus is completely canceled by Roosevelt; Contributing Editor Roosevelt provided the silencer for Tear-'im-to-Pieces Roosevelt ; with their peculiar sense of humor, the American people are just the folks to enjoy that revelation."

Depending upon "the peculiar sense of humor" of that portion of the American people who happen to read The Outlook, I now proceed to print the passage from Mr. Roosevelt's article as it originally appeared in these pages, putting in italics those sentences which Mr. Glynn conveniently omitted in his alleged quotation:

A deputation of Belgians has arrived in this country to invoke our assistance in the time of their dreadful need. What action our Govern

ment can or will take I know not. It has been announced [Mr. Glynn changes the word announced into assumed] that no action can be taken that will interfere with our entire neutrality. It is certainly eminently desirable that we should remain entirely neutral, and nothing but urgent need would warrant breaking our neutrality and taking sides one way or the other. Our first duty is to hold ourselves ready to do whatever the changing circumstances demand in order to protect our own interests in the present and in the future; although, for my own part, I desire to add to this statement the proviso that under no circumstances must we do anything dishonorable, especially towards unoffending weaker nations. Neutrality may be of prime necessity in order to preserve our own interests, to maintain peace in so much of the world as is not affected by the war, and to conserve our influence for helping toward the re-establishment of general peace when the time comes; for if any outside Power is able at such time to be the medium for bringing peace, it is more likely to be the United States than any other. But we pay the penalty of this action on behalf of peace for ourselves, and possibly for others in the future, by forfeiting our right to do anything on behalf of peace for the Belgians in the present. We can maintain our neutrality only by refusal to do anything to aid unoffending weak Powers which are dragged into the gulf of bloodshed and misery through no fault of their own. Of course it would be folly to jump into the gulf ourselves to no good purpose; and very probably nothing that we could have done would have helped Belgium. We have not the smallest responsibility for what has befallen her [I interpret this sentence to mean that we have not the smallest share in the guilt; a man may not be in the slightest responsible for the murder of a neighbor and yet have a deep responsibility to share in the work of apprehending the murderer], and I am sure that the sympathy of this country for the suffering of the men, women, and children of Belgium is very real. Nevertheless, this sympathy is compatible with full acknowledgment of the unwisdom of our uttering a single word of official protest unless we are prepared to make that protest effective; and only the clearest and most urgent National duty would ever justify us in deviating from our rule of neutrality and non-interference. But it is a grim comment on the professional pacificist theories as hitherto developed that our duty to preserve peace for ourselves may necessarily mean the abandonment of all effective effort to secure peace for other unoffending nations which through no fault of their own are dragged into the war.

A simple comparison of the garbled text presented by Mr. Glynn and the actual

text as written by Mr. Roosevelt is sufficient to show the pit which the Syracuse champion has digged for himself. Leaving him to scramble out of it as best he can, I ask the reader to have patience with me while I do a little expounding of my own.

I happen to know what Mr. Roosevelt's views were in September, 1914, not only because they are expressed in the article in question, but because they were also expressed in many private conversations in The Outlook's office. At the time that his article was written Mr. Roosevelt, as well as The Outlook, in common with all other patriotic citizens of the country, desired to give the President of the United States a full and free opportunity to formulate his policy with regard to all the international questions involved in the war. Mr. Roosevelt-and The Outlook agreed with him-at that very time believed that an official protest against the Belgian invasion was demanded both on the grounds of good morals and good Americanism. He hoped that the President was going to come to this view, and he did not desire to put obstructions in his way, although he reserved the right to criticise the President if he failed to condemn the Belgian invasion. It was in this spirit that Mr. Roosevelt made the allusions to Belgium in the article which Mr. Glynn misquoted.

The article was not written, however, for the purpose of urging action with regard to Belgium, but for the purpose of urging the importance of military preparedness upon the American people at a time when Mr. Wilson was calling all talk of preparedness hysterical. The article was entitled "The World War : Its Tragedies and Its Lessons." Just before the passage which Mr. Glynn mutilated Mr. Roosevelt said: "I wish it explicitly understood that I am not at this time passing judgment upon Germany for what she did to Belgium. But I do wish to point out just what was done, and to emphasize Belgium's absolute innocence and the horrible suffering and disaster that have overwhelmed her in And I wish to do spite of such innocence. this so that we, as a Nation, may learn aright the lessons taught by this dreadful Belgian tragedy." And Mr. Roosevelt further added that the chief lesson is that such a state of things as prevails in Belgium "can be abolished only when we put force, when we put the collective armed power of civilization, behind some body which shall, with reasonable justice and equity, represent the collective

determination of civilization to do what is right."

Even to Mr. Glynn, or to the editors of Harper's Weekly" and the Buffalo "Inquirer" and the Chattanooga "News" (all of whom, so I learn from several correspondents, have been as pleased as Punch at the thought that Mr. Roosevelt indorsed Mr. Wilson in 1914), it must be apparent that in these words Mr. Roosevelt reserves the right to protest against the invasion of Belgium in future articles. Moreover, if these gentlemen are capable of understanding irony they will find in the italicized sentences, which Mr. Glynn omitted from his Syracuse version of Mr. Roosevelt's article, some ironical comment which I should hardly think could be accepted with much rejoicing by Mr. Wilson's supporters as an indorsement of his views. For example: "Neutrality may be of prime necessity to maintain peace, but we pay the penalty of this action on behalf of peace for ourselves, and possibly for others in the future, by forfeiting our right to do anything on behalf of peace for the Belgians at present.'

Or, again: "Sympathy is compatible with full acknowledgment of the unwisdom of our uttering a single word of official protest

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unless we are prepared to make that protest effective."

And, finally : "But it is a grim comment on the professional pacificist theories as hitherto developed [by Mr. Wilson, let us interpolate] that our duty to preserve the peace for ourselves may necessarily mean the abandonment of all effective effort to secure peace for other unoffending nations which through no fault of their own are dragged into the war." I submit that any fair-minded judge in a court of law would rule that Mr. Roosevelt in these sentences had laid the foundation for his argument in later speeches and articles against the whole policy which the Government of the United States has pursued in regard to the international crime committed by Germany in the rape of Belgium.

Mr. Glynn has a perfect right to defend the Belgian policy of President Wilson; to commend his official appeal for neutrality of act and neutrality of heart; and to argue that the safety of this country demanded that we should pass by on the other side when Belgium was stricken. But he has no right to claim Mr. Roosevelt as having been one of his colleagues in holding these views.

LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT.

The Front.

This letter comes from the trenches in France, and the writer is a French soldier who has a special sympathy for American problems and American ideals. I have read The Outlook for the last few years, and even now the paper is sent to me quite regularly by relatives in America. Your contributions to The Outlook, always interesting to foreign observers of the American attitude toward religious questions, evince in these times of tribulation a well-marked character of consolation and encouragement; they are a balm to souls stricken in their most cherished ideals. Many among us feel shaken, not in our faith in God's mercy, but in our belief in human kind and civilization and man's perfectibility. And here you come, sir, with this great deed of yours, with this stanch optimism preached in such winning manner in spite of all that is happening, in

spite of our bitter deceptions. I wish to tell you my gratitude for the hope that still lives in my heart, thanks in great part to the serene wisdom of your philosophy.

This letter is prompted more specially by your article "Whither?" in the issue for December 15, in which you vindicate so convincingly the religion of the present generation. This reading made me anxious to know your opinion about the doctrine of sacrificial atonement considered in relation with the innocent victims of this war, be they civilians or combatants. You say that you can explain to a skeptical friend "a doctrine of sacrificial atonement, and it will seem to him a mere scholastic theory, and perhaps it will be, as I state it, nothing more than a scholastic theory. But sacrificial atonement is not merely a historic fact, it is a present experience." Further you speak of "the reality of a continually repeated Gethsemane."

These words recalled to my mind an incident which was discussed in the French papers in 1897, when a famous preacher in Notre Dame Cathedral created a sensation by expressing from the pulpit a view of the question of atonement which seemed shocking, tactless, and too mediæval for modern ears and feelings. It was upon a solemn and sad occasion, at the funeral service for the victims who had found a terrible death in the fire of the Bazar de la Charité. I was a mere boy then, but I believe the eloquent Dominican said in substance: These ladies of high rank have not deserved such an end met while engaged in charitable work; but God used them as innocent victims, and sacrificed them to make atonement for the wickedness of skeptic France.

A similar incident occurred at the front not three months ago, when a military chaplain, speaking at a funeral, said that the fallen officers and soldiers were known to him to be faithful Christians, and that was the very reason why God had chosen them, the best among their fellows, to die and serve as redeemers of a pagan world.

In both cases the untimely end of virtuous people is assimilated to the voluntary sacrifice of Christ, the suffering of the just, with or without their consent, being an atonement for the sins of the unjust.

Both cases caused a scandal in the lay papers, and in the last instance the Government was even urged to censure and to punish such unhuman utterances. The Catholic press upheld the incriminated opinions, saying that the blamers only showed the utter ignorance of the pure Christian doctrine so prevalent in modern French society.

I wonder how many people in France are ready to subscribe to such an interpretation of the Gospel? It seems to be a very stern doctrine which antagonizes sharply the common ideas of justice. It is true that justice becomes quite a conundrum in face of what we see every day out here. Why so much suffering? Do we deserve it? Can some good ever come out of such evil?

For many of us the only way out of this maze of enigmas is the theory of solidarity; we cannot possibly escape the solidarity which enchains us to our fellows; we surely gain through their qualities, and we must suffer through their faults, present or long past. But this is the scientific solution; what is the Gospel's? Believe me, sir, very sincerely yours.

*

That the innocent suffer for the sins of the guilty, that the wise suffer for the folly of the foolish, is undoubtedly true. But that God, who has told us to forgive our enemies, refuses to forgive his own, that he visits the penalty on the innocent that he may excuse the guilty, that he who has condemned the law "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" exacts as a condition of pardon an equivalent in suffering for every offense against his laws, is to me unthinkable. I hold this doctrine in all its forms and phases to be unscriptural, un-Christian, irrational, and its effects on thought and life immoral.

Your explanation, if it does not solve the unsolved riddle of life, at least throws light upon it: "We cannot possibly escape the solidarity which enchains us to our fellows." We cannot; would we wish to? While you in the trenches are fighting the battle for the rights and liberties of mankind, some of us in America are doing all the little we can do to arouse our slumberous fellow-citizens to realize that there is something better for America than to escape the solidarity which enchains us to our fellows. We do not wish that America should enter the war, because we do not believe that this would be the best thing she could do to promote the cause of liberty and justice, which we have at heart. But we do wish that all Americans shall be thinking of something else than how they can harvest prosperity for themselves out of their neighbors' tragedy, and shall do what in them lies to protect, not merely their own lives and interests, but the lives and interests of all non-combatants, whether neutrals or belligerents, whether on land or on sea. In our enforced isolation we almost envy you who are in the thick of the battle. As you know, Americans have testified to their desire to bear their neighbors' burden by entering the military service, and some of them by their service in the hospitals and in the Red Cross.

unwise are benefited by the wisdom of the wise.

If it were not so, there could be no real progress in the community, and no brotherhood. The fact that we suffer for each other's faults and are benefited by each other's virtues gives us an interest in each other, compels us to consider each other's welfare, and inspires in us the desire to make the community wise and virtuous. This solidarity makes us one family, each seeking to understand his neighbors' opinions, to weigh his neighbors' judgments, and to consider his neighbors' well-being.

I have a friend who has developed in her village a boys' club. It is organized in four Indian tribes. These tribes are in competition for a cup which is given at the end of the year to the tribe which has the best record. No boy is individually rewarded for any service which he renders-it is credited to the tribe; no boy is penalized for any fault or failure-it is charged against the tribe; and no tribe reports against another tribe-each tribe keeps and reports its own record. The result is, not a mutual responsibility but a communal responsibility; not each member of the tribe responsible for the conduct of his fellow, but each member responsible for his tribe and the tribe responsible for each member. club has enacted a rule against cigarette smoking; and whereas five years ago cigarette smoking by boys on the village streets was very common, it is now almost unknown. The joint responsibility has banished it from the club, and the club has made it unfashionable in the village.

The

The history of America illustrates on a large scale the operation of this law of solidarity of which you have spoken. Sixty years ago half our Nation was dominated by the slave power. The majority of the people in the North tried to ease their conscience by disavowing to themselves and to others all responsibility for slavery. They washed their hands, saying, We are innocent of the blood of the enslaved Negroes. A small minority urged them to rid themselves of their responsibility by withdrawing from the Union and leaving slavery to perish, as they believed it would perish if unsupported by National authority. It took years of public agitation and the shock of a great war to convince the people of the free States of the solidarity of the Nation, to convince them that they were responsible for the crime of slavery, and could

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not rid themselves of that responsibility by consenting to a dissolution of the Union. In Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, almost his last words to his fellow-countrymen, he put this solidarity of the Nation, this inescapable responsibility for its wrong-doing, solemnly before the people :

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

The solidarity of the family, the community, the nation, all point to the solidarity of the human race. Frenchman, Belgian, Englishman, Italian, lishman, Italian, Russian, Pole, Servian, Hungarian, Austrian, German, Americanwe are members of the one great family of nations, bound together, blessed in each other's heroism, shamed in each other's dishonor, suffering each for the other's wrongdoing. No one liveth to himself, no one dieth to himself. As in our American Revolution our fathers fought to win for all mankind the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; as in the War of 1812 they fought to insure the right of all peaceful commerce to sail the sea unhindered and unmolested; as in our Civil War we fought, not only for the preservation of our Nation, not only for the emancipation of our slaves, but that government of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the earth; as in many a European battlefield in England, France, Italy, Greece, Hungary, our battles were fought, and the sons of the heroes of these campaigns have come to America consecrated to liberty by the blood of their fathers; so now you and your compatriots are fighting, not for France only, but for the whole race of man. . In the name of many millions of Americans who cannot speak I send you their message of reverencing love, of confident hope, and of an assured faith that the libations of blood poured out on French soil will not have been poured out in vain, that from your sowing in tears will spring up a harvest of justice and liberty in other lands to bless generations yet unborn. The Knoll, Cornwall-on-the-Hudson