Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1918 — Why United States Is Fighting [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Why United States Is Fighting

Evidence of German Duplicity and Aggression That Has Grown Ever Stronger m the Great World Conflict Has Progressed

By BOOTH TARKINGTON

EVERY ordinary man can remember that during his boyhood there was one vital point upon which he always insisted whenever he was threatened with discipline for getting into a fight: “He began it !” Boys realize that justice rests upon the question,' Who was the assailant? And almost every boy has more than once suffered under the sting of an adult injustice which, declining to investigate, punished him for “fighting” when he had been merely defending himself. Of course, self-defense does not consist entirely of warding gestures, for if it did it could not defend. A person attacked must either be beaten or take his choice of running away or of striking back; and if the assailant is the speedier, running away is a mere postponement of being beaten. But spectators of a conflict (especially if they have not noted or comprehended ita beginning) almost always take a superior position of disgusted impartiality. “Brutes 1” they say. "Fighting! They ought to be ashamed of themselves!” I remember such a case. A boy friend of mine, an awkward but spirited ten-year-old, was returning alone from an afternoon’s skating when a sturdier, shorter boy the same age, opposed his progress, and addressed to him the provocative formula, “Who you lookin’ at, you dern fool you?”. My friend replied placatlvely that he wasn’t looking at anything, whereupon the stranger demanded hotly: "You call me nothin', do you?” and, striking him suddenly upon the mouth, snatched his skates and turned to make away with them. Enter the Peacemaker. My friend managed to trip the little thief, however, and the latter, risin.', struck out fiercely, whereupon a fight of some duration took place. It was interrupted by an elderly pedestrian, shocked and indignant. “You scoundrels!” he said. “Fighting! Stop it!” Then for emphasis he struck my friend a sharp blow across the face with an umbrella, and forced his way between the combatants. “But he’s got my skatesl” my friend cried. “Shamel” was the response. "If I knew your fathers and mothers I’d see that you were both whipped for fighting. Shame!” My friend tried desperately to dodge round the peacemaker, hoping to recover his skates from the other boy, but he failed, for the elderly man seized him by the collar. ‘“You would, would you? Trying to get at him again, you little beast I No, you don’t I I’ll teach you to stop fighting when I tell you to!” Thereupon my friend got the shaking of his life, and, though he tried throughout this martyrdom to convince his shaker that he "didn’t begin it” and that the other boy had his skates, and was'now running away with them, he was unsuccessful in removing the impression that all belligerents are wicked. “There!” said the elderly man, releasing him at last; “let me catch you fighting again and I’ll give you a worse one! Go on home! Get out Of this neighborhood I I don’t want to listen tq you 1” So, bloody and dizzy, my friend went on his way, and the elderly man proceeded,. convinced that he had conducted himself in a manner beneficial to public morals. What Every Boy Understand#. Now, as any boy understands that the most Important question about any fight is “Who started It?” so any boy also understands that the question next In order and next in importance is "Why did he start it?” Any boy understands that a just peace cannot be made unless it takes these two questions Into vital accounts, and that disciplinary measures not founded upon them are arbitrary and unjust and vicious. Any boy understands that a peacemaker or disciplinarian who places both belligerents upon the plane is not only unjust but, in effect, stupidly partial to the cause of the guilty belligerent—for one belligerent is guilty. When the war began in August, 1914, all those neutrals who wished to understand the right and wrong of the matter, that their opinions might not be unjust, began to seek every source of Information which might help them to learn who started it and why. At first—as the sources of information were not immediately at hand —there seemed room for argument, though on the face of things it was apparent that Austria first declared a war upon Serbia and Germany then declared war upon Russia and France. We saw plainly that "Serbia had been begging and squirming to avoid war and that Russia had been working for peace. Austria and Gerinany were the countries that declared war, and, of course, until somebody did actually declare war or actually make war there was a chance of peace. What Documents Disclosed. As soon as the diplomatic documents were published we all saw—any person who could read was able to see — that Austria had been bent upon war with Serbia and that Germany had wanted Austria to make such a war, and, under a rather careless pretext of .wishing to preserve the peace, had factually prevented peacemaking on the

part of other governments. It was clear, too, that Russia had been bound to protect Serbia from Austria, and that Germany understood this and knew that Austria’s attack on Serbia meant war between Austria and Russia, which also meant, of course, war between Germany and Russia and between Germany and France, since the latter was Russia’s ally. Nothing could have been more significant than this, that Germany, being herself already prepared—down to the last buckle —for Immediate war, declared war on Russia for the alleged reason that Russia was getting prepared for war. We know this sort of talk of old In a thousand trials for cold-blooded murder in our own country. “Self-defense!” shouts the murderer’s attorney. “The deceased made a motion toward his hip pocket.” Germany stood with a bright new automatic revolver in nand, and Russia made a motion toward the hip pocket —where there was later found a penknife with two blades broken. “Selfdefense,” Germany claimed loudly through her attorneys. “He made a motion toward his hip pocket; so I had to shoot him.” The German chancellor declared in the reichstag that Russia made this fatal motion toward the hip pocket in spite of England’s effort to keep peace. Russia “began it,” said the chancellor —and then a few days later all Germany* began shouting that England “began it!” This was when England fulfilled her oath to Belgium, and Germany broke her own. Evidence Grows Stronger. The evidence went more and more against Germany, and there were some vicious sidelights which made the case

stronger against her. The German army was sent into the_peaceful little country of Belgium, which it turned into a slaughterhouse, with the owners for victims, and the German government said that the German army did this because it would help Germany to conquer France. At the same time the Germans in authority told a great number of lies to excuse themselves. They said that they knew they were doing a wrong thing, and that they were breaking the law and violating their oath; and nevertheless they claimed that they were justified because the Belgians were a wicked people and France intended soon to behave (in respect to Belgium) as Germany was behaving. Altogether, the trickiness and cruelty of Germany in the Belgian matter caused our opinions of the German government (concerning who began it) to become much darker. So far as Belgium went, the Germans Were finally and absolutely convicted in the plain sight of all men; convicted of lies as odious as they were stupid; convicted of the most abominable, cold-blooded plotting; convicted of a selfishness not seen on earth since the seventeenth century and of a cruelty not known since the sixteenth. Of course, men who were capable of these things in regard to Belgium were of a character distinctly capable of having plotted the great war; and, as they lied about Belgium, they would lie about the rest of it. Evidence Leaves No Doubt. Since then evidence has piled upevidence not circumstantial but so direct that it leaves no doubt. This evidence is colossal and conclusive, and is almost all German. It is no longer possible to debate the question, and the court has decided —the court consisting of the nations of the world. That court found that Germans plotted to dominate the world and decided and attempted to kill the men and women and children of certain other nations, and to continue the killing until these nations submitted to German domination, after which all remaining nations would be compelled to''Submit. It seenSsd incredible that there were such ideas left over in the twentieth century world but there is no longer

any doubt of it It is the preposterous but undeniable truth that there exists a large and powerful group of Germans —prosperous people and of high attainment in certain specialties—who decided to. have great numbers of sim-ple-minded men under their orders go out and kill their fellow men, and continue to kill them in order to increase the power of the plotters. The great, majority of the men who did the actual killing would obtain no benefit whatever for themselves, and many of these German soldiers might have brought little enthusiasm to their task if they had understood it, so they were told that they were fighting for the “existence” of the “Fatherland” and that “Russia began it” and “England began it.” Of course, a government which believes in violating oaths —that is, violating the honor of the nation which it represents or controls —such a government would lie to its own people. (It made Germany a perjurer, for the German government stands before the world as Germany and acts as and for Germany—until the German people remove it, and only by removing it can Germans regain for Germany something of lost honor.) This government deceived its own people first about the immediate causes of the war, then about the historical causes of the war, and then most vehemently about the character and intentions of the allies opposed to Germany. Germany's Lies.

Is there a doubt anywhere that the German rulers will lie, in any manner whatsoever, if they believe the lie will result to their own advantage? Then take one lie “with which they have filled Germany: That the president of the United States and the American congress, with the American people behind them, declared the United States to be In a state of war with the German empire because the American munition makers wanted to make more money, and Mr. J. P. Morgan was afraid of the depreciation of his loans to England 1 There are two significant things about this lie. One is the state of mind of the German • politician who puts it forth, and the other Is the state of mind of the unfortunate German subject who believes it. The politician must necessarily count on an abysmal ignorance as well as a loyal credulity in the subject; and the politician who uses such lies is of a type we know in our own country, in certain lower forms of slum-precinct manipulation. But in Germany this type—better educated, incomparably more powerful, but nevertheless the moral twin of one of our corrupt precinct committeemen of the slums —is in actual high control of the German destiny and has, as its obedient machine, not ward heelers from the barrel houses, but the most terrible army known in history. And if the German spirit truly manifests Itself through such an agency, it is a •spirit so sinister and of such mighty ill omen to us that we must either exorcise it by high explosives or be its slaves.

Voice From Germany. For this is the voice that we hear from Germany: “We Germans," ft trumpets, “we are God’s chosen people. His special favorites, and God is German himself. God rules over us in the person 'of our kaiser, whom he appointed for that purpose. We are better than all other people of the earth; we are wiser and purer and nobler and more industrious and more learned and stronger and cleverer and kinder and braver and more spiritual and more warlike than all others. “We are so much greater than they that whatever we do to advance our own interests, at the cost of theirs, is right and praiseworthy. If we kill a great many of them, those who survive will in the end be improved, because they will work for us and learn something by observing us. Any deceit is proper and morally correct if-it benefits us; and when we practice a policy of terror upon those who oppose us it is really philanthropy and shows how gentle we are, because the survivors learn through our cruelty that it is useless oppose us, therefore they the sooner submit their wills to ours. We cannot do wrong, no matter what we do, so long as all that we do is for our own benefit And, since our nature is wartike, war is beautiful and necessary. We study in peace times how to use every man of us in time of war, and that is our great glory. By our bright swords we will take possession of the earth, which ought to belong to us, because we are Germans. We believe in the heaviest possible breeding of babies, that they may grow up and be trained to carry liquid fire and poison against any opposition to us. And, all the same, we are Hie only real peace lovers in this malign and prejudiced world, which, except for us and the Austrians and the Bulgarians and the Turks, is composed exclusively of stupid ruffiqps who were so jealous and envious of us that they forced this war upon us, hoping to make some money put of us by annihilating us. We love peace, and are fighting for our mere existence —that is, the right to adjust our frontiers so that they will Include the countries which we have conquered by the’ sword. For Instance, we must never again be threatened by an invasion through Belgium. We prepared for this* war as no country ever before preparetf—not even in 1870, when we made war on France—-and we were forced to begin it because we. had to begin it before somebody else did.” Protests Are Weak. That Is the German voice as we hear it clamoring with the hundred and hundred thousand tongues of books, of pamphlets, of editorials, of sermons,

documents.” of kalserty' and tkwn princely and governmental and legislative speeches and writings—a voice whose import is a thousand times confirmed, day after day and year after year, throughout thia age of slaughter by the actions of the Germans and their government. Here and there a German cry of protest is heard; there is a sound as of something human wailing for humanity bn the vast wind of Germanism. Sometimes for a moment a name is heard out of the fatuous hurricane —a name like Haase or Liebknecht or Harden —and there seems to come the murmur as of a troubled multitude who do not ride the wind; but the sounds are uncertain and come to us but weakly. We can only hope “that there is some one there.” Woodrow Wilson has called to them in a loud voice, but they have not known how to answer if they would—or could.

Would Divide United States. The German kaiser has really thought persistently of all non-Teuton-ic countries in terms of destruction, and when he has spoken his private thoughts, his speech has always been: "Let us find the best way to weaken and injure them.” Those real thoughts of his came out characteristically when, on his yacht at Kiel, he said that Europe had made a great mistake in not strongly favoring the South during our Civil war, for thus two weak countries might have been created to take the place of the powerful Uniop. Something might be hopedJ for even yet, he went on, if the East and West could be sufficiently stirred up against each other. There is the kaiser’s foreign policy and the order of his mind and of his heart. What he meant was that it would be a good and beneficial thing if the people of our Eastern and Western states could be brought to kill one another in great numbers and thus the Union yet be divided. The kaiser twice played wantonly and without the slightest provocation on the verge of war with the United States —once on the coast of Venezuela and once in Manila bay. While Germany was in a state of friendship with England, he proposed to Russia that Russia and Germany attack England; and while Germany was In a state of friendship with the United States he proposed to England that England and Germany seize Mexico and destroy the Monroe doctrine. His agent Zimmerman, asked Mexico to propose treachery to Japan, that the two together might dismember and plunder the United States. His diplomatic agent, resident in Buenos Aires by courtesy of the Argentine government, makes treacherous use of the Swedish legation to send word to Germans how to destroy Argentine ships and "leave no trace.” This phrase, with which we are familiar mainly through the impossible “villains” of the “movies” and Of old-time dime novels and melodramas—“leave no trace,” meaning “sink the ships and murder every soul on board” —this message is not that of a “stage or movie villain." Not at all! It is a German governmental message regarding ships belonging to citizens of a friendly power, and is sent by a German nobleman in the German diplomatic service to other officials of the German government. More, it is a characteristic work of the German governmental kind. And it is an actual snapshot of the ality of the German government The government of the United States and the governments of the world are literally unable to make peace with the people thus revealed. Why We Entered War.

The people of the United States would have borne almost anything from Germany if they could have believed that the German’s cause was originally a good one or that the war was “forced upon Germany.” But, knowing what we did, when the Germans, after murdering great numbers of our fellow citizens and quibbling for many, many months about these murders —when they told us to keep our ships In port or they would sink them; we found that Germany’s conduct toward us was not to be distinguished from making war upon us, and we decided that our citizens should not be killed continuously by a, country which was “at peace” with us, and we would not take orders from Germany to remain In port and away from the high seas. Germany does not make and enforce the laws of and for the United States —not without encountering some resistance from Americans. So we disobeyed Germany, and would not paint the commanded yellow stripes upon the hulls of the one ship a week which was to be permitted upon the Atlantic ocean.

We found ourselves in a state of war because the German government, having forced a war upon Europe with the object of dominating that continent and subsequently the world, including the United States, and having carried on the war with unnecessary cruelty and the employment of treachery whenever it considered treachery useful, we found ourselves in a state of war because the German government was killing our citizens as a means of enforcing its will upon us. That would seem to be war —killing us to make us obey—no? American citizens have their own government and prefer to live' under their own' laws. That is why we began to fight. We continue our beginning because the German government is the same government that it was a few months ago when we found that it was making war , upon us—and we no choice but to fight it until either *t is thoroughly whipped or some better kind of Germans—Germans of good sense, good feeling, and of an honorable reliability—get control of Ger many. . /. ~ < Peace will come a* soon as they do.

Booth Tarkington.