I

HAVE been greatly interested in your account of American neutrality in the present European crisis. I must confess that I had seen it in a somewhat different light before and that some of the facts under our notice still appear to me as hardly concordant with the magnificent attitude of impartiality, nay, not even with the international duties of neutrality, which intellectual and official America professes to keep.

We cannot explain to ourselves that a neutral power should suffer the selling of arms and ammunition by its citizens to one of the belligerent parties, when no such selling to the other party is practically feasible; we cannot understand why America should meekly submit to the dictates of England, declaring all foodstuffs and manufacturing materials contraband of war, with not even a show of right and with the clear and openly proclaimed intention of starving Germany and Austria-Hungary; why, on the other hand, America should use an almost threatening language against Germany, and against Germany alone, when the latter country announces reprisals against the English trade, which, under given circumstances, can be considered only as acts of legitimate selfdefense against an enemy who chooses to wage war not on our soldiers only, but on our women and children, too.

With all the respect we feel for the United States, we cannot find this attitude of their Government either fair or dignified. I offer these remarks in no spirit of uncalled-for criticism, but because I see how much the moral authority of the United States and their splendid situation as the providential peace

makers of some future-alas! still far off-day has been impaired by the aforementioned proceedings. We cannot help considering them as so many acts of illdisguised hostility against ourselves and of compliance with our foes. How can you expect, then, to have your good offices accepted with confidence by both belligerent parties when the times are ripe for them? It seems like the throwing away of a magnificent opportunity, and I think that those who, like yourself, cherish for your country the noble ambition of being some day the restorer of peace, should exert themselves to prevent practices which, if continued, would disable her to play any such part.

In your letter you strike the keynote of what I cannot help considering the partiality of Americans for the Entente powers. It is the idea that "in the western area of conflict, at least, there is an armed clash between the representatives of dynastic institutions and bureaucratic rule on the one hand with those of representative government and liberal institutions on the other." I can understand that it impresses some people that way, but I beg to enter a protest against this interpretation of the conflict.

Liberal or less liberal institutions have nothing to do with it in the west; the progress of democracy in Germany will not be stopped by her victory, it will rather be promoted by it, because the masses are conscious of bearing the burden of war and of being the main force of its vigorous prosecution, and they are enlightened and strong enough to insist on a proper reward. Rights cannot be denied to those who fulfilled duties involving self-sacrifice of the sublimest kind with unflinching devotion.

No practical interest of democracy then is involved in the conflict of the western powers.

As to their representing liberal institutions in a higher or lower degree, I am perfectly willing to admit England's superior claims in that respect, but I am not at all inclined to recognize such superiority in modern France, republic though she calls herself. The omnipresence and omnipotence of an obtruding bureaucratic officialism is just what it has been under the old monarchy; religious oppression has only changed sides, but it still flourishes as before. In former times the Roman Catholic religion was considered as a State religion and in her name were dissent and Freemasonry oppressed; today atheism is the official creed, and on its behalf are Catholic believers oppressed.

Separation of Church and State, honestly planned and loyally fulfilled in America has been perverted in modern France into a network of vexations and unfair measures against the Church and her faithful servants; the same term is used and this misleads you to cover widely different meanings. In a word, it is a perfect mistake to consider modern France as the "sweet land of liberty" which America is. A German citizen, with less show of political rights, enjoys more personal freedom than is granted to a French one, if he happens to differ from the ruling mentality.

drew France into it by offering her a bait which that poor country could not resist, she created the situation which England considered as her best opportunity for crushing Germany. I must repeat it over and over again: it is in its origin a Russian war, with a clearly outlined Russian program of conquest.

Here, then, you have a real clash between two principles; not shades of principles as these may subsist between Germany and her western foes, but principles in all their essential features; not between different tints of gray, but between black and white, between affirmation and negation; affirmation of the principle of human dignity, liberty, safety, and negation of the same; western evolution and eastern reaction.

I wonder why those prominent Americans who are so deeply impressed by the comparatively slight shades of liberalism differentiating Germany from England and France are not struck by the absolute contrast existing between Muscovitism and western civilized rule as represented by Austria-Hungary and Germany; that they overlook the outstanding fact that while in the western area the conflict has nothing whatever to do with the principles embodied in the home policy of the belligerents, in the east, on the other hand, these principles will in truth be affected by the results of war, since a Russian victory, followed by a Russian conquest, would mean the retrogression of western institutions and the corresponding expansion of eastern ones over a large area and large numbers of men.

It is the consciousness of fighting in this war which has been forced upon us, against the direst calamity threatening our kind and on behalf of the most precious conquests of progress and civilization, which enhances our moral force so as to make it unconquerable. The hope which I expressed in my first letter, that Serbia's doom would soon be fulfilled, has been prostrated by the mistakes of an over-confident Commander in Chief; but that means postponement only and does not alter the prospects of war in their essentials.

Good progress is achieved in the campaign against Russia; a chapter of it may be brought to a happy close before long. The spirit of the country shows no symptom of weakening; it is really wonderful what a firm resolve pervades our whole people, though every man between twenty and forty-two stands in the field, and though the losses are frightful. Economically we hold out easily; the expenses of war are defrayed by inner loans, which give unexpected results; every bit of arable land is tilled as in time of peace, the old, the women and the half-grown youths doing the work of their absent supporters, neighbors assisting each other in a spirit of brotherhood truly admirable. In cases of urgent need we have the prisoners of war, whose number increased to nearly 300,000 (in AustriaHungary alone) and to whom it is a real boon to find employment in the sort of work they are accustomed to.

The manufacturing interest, of course, suffers severe losses; but the number of the unemployed is rather less than usual, since a greater part of the "hands" is absorbed by the army. In a word, though the sufferings of war are keenly felt, they are less severe than had been expected, and there is not the smallest indication of a break-down. The area of Germany, Austria, and Hungary taken as a whole is self-supporting with regard to foodstuffs. The English scheme of starving us is quite as silly as it is abominable. England can, of course, inflict severe losses on our manufacturers by closing the seas against their imports and exports; but this is not a matter of life and death, such as the first reprisals of Germany, if successful, may prove to England.

Generally speaking, it seems likely that England will be caught in the net of her own intrigue. She did not scruple to enlist the services of Japan against her white enemies, but this act of treachery will be revenged upon herself. The latest proceedings of Japan against China can have one meaning only-the wholesale expulsion of the white man from Eastern Asia. The Japs do not care one straw who wins in Europe; they seized upon their own opportunity for their own pur

poses. England only gets her deserts; but how do Americans feel about it? Can America be absolved from a certain amount of responsibility for what may soon prove imminent danger to herself? Has not her partiality for England given encouragement to methods of warfare unprecedented in the history of civilized nations and fruitful of evil consequences to neutral nations?

To us, in our continental position, all this means much less than it means to you. It does not endanger our prospects. We feel comparatively stronger every day. Our losses, though enormous, are only one-half of those of the Entente armies, according to the Geneva Red Cross Bureau's calculation. The astounding number of unwounded prisoners of war which Russia loses at every encounter, and even in spaces of time between two encounters, shows that the moral force of her army is slowly giving way, while the vigor of our troops is constantly increasing. After six months of severe fighting our military position is certainly stronger than the position of the Entente powers, though the latter represent a population of 250,000,000, (English colonies and Japan not included,) against the 140,000,000 of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. Who can doubt on which side superior moral power fights? Who can doubt, therefore, what the ultimate result promises to be?

rors

If it takes more time to bring matters to a decision-and a decision must be obtained at any price, if there is to follow a period of permanent peace-part, at least, of the responsibility for the horof the protracted war, for the slaughter of many hundred thousands more of human beings, rests on America. But for the American transports of guns and ammunition, the power of Russia would give way in a shorter time, considering her enormous losses in that respect and her inability to supplement them from her own workshops.

It is very edifying that American pacifists are exerting themselves against the current of militarism which appears to spread in their country; but wouldn't it be better still, more to the purpose and certainly practically more urgent, to insist