and drift and live for pure beauty; finally desert my own country with the comfortable reflection: Why all this bustle, this desire to excel, to keep in the front rank, to find pleasure in individual work, when so many artistic achievements are ready-made for all to enjoy without effort? For here is the point-an American, the American of today-accustomed to high speed, constant energy, nervous tenseness, the uncertainty, and the fight, cannot cultivate the leisurely German method, the almost scientific and impersonal spirit that informs every profession and branch of art. It is our own way or none for us Americans.

Therefore, if loving Germany as I did, and with only the most enchanting memories of her, I had not immediately permitted the American spirit to assert itself last August and taken a hostile and definite stand against the German idea (which includes, by the way, the permanent subjection of woman) 1

should have been a traitor, for I knew out of the menace I had felt to my own future, as bound up with an assured development under insidious influences, what the future of my country, which stands for the only true progress in the world today, and a far higher ideal of mortal happiness than the most benevolent paternalism can bestow, had in store for it, with Germany victorious, and America (always profoundly moved by success owing to her very practicality) disturbed, but compelled to admire.

The Germans living here, destitute as their race seems to be of psychology when it comes to judging other races, must know all this; so I say that they are traitors if they have taken the oath of allegiance to the United States. If they have not, and dream of returning one day to the fatherland, then I have nothing to say, for there is no better motto for any man than: "My country, right or wrong."

S

O sang Clemens Brentano in the year 1813. To-day, we once more realize that the attempt to remain neutral through a conflict which is deciding the history of the world not only brings great spiritual difficulties, but is even felt to be a downright moral impossibility, just as the poet saw it a hundred years ago. Legal neutrality is, of course, a simple thing. Every state can itself practice it, and impose it as a duty on its citizens. One may even think that modern states should go further in this direction than they do. The indifference of the Government toward the business transactions of its citizens with foreign states is a political anomaly, comprehensible in an age when foreign policy in war and peace was viewed as something that concerned the ruler only, but contradictory in a democratic age, when wars are peoples' wars. To-day, in all civilized states, the Government is morally answerable for those activities of its subjects which have international results. The American policy which permits the supply of weapons to England but allows England to prevent the export of grain to Germany, is a bad neutrality, morally untenable, a mere passivity, which lacks the will to do right. Such a standpoint. might exist in a despotically governed state, but in a democratic Republic it it incomprehensible. For, from a genuinely democratic point of view, it does

The Devil is neutral."

not signify whether the government or the citizens intervene to help or to hinder in an armed conflict. If we venture to speak at the right time of the development of international law, this, before all, must be demanded: that neutral states shall forbid the export of weapons, and that belligerents shall not hinder the import of foodstuffs for civilian populations.

Meanwhile the insecurity of the international attitude of neutrals is only a symptom of the difficulties to which neutrality of view is subject. These begin with the outbreak of the war. Each belligerent government believes itself to be in the right, and publishes a collection of documents which seem to it fitted to prove this right. This literature appearing in all the colours of the spectrum is really aimed at neutrals. For the belligerent nations themselves have weightier matters in hand than to sit in judgment upon their own governments. But the neutrals find themselves to decide which side is right. Yet this whole idea of a "just war" (coming to us from the moral philosophy of the Schoolmen) which shall expiate an injustice, as the judge punishes crimes, is antiquated. When, in the middle ages, the citizens of a town were maltreated or robbed by the authorities or citizens of another town, and the guilty party refused satisfaction, then the consequent feud might be viewed as a modified crim

inal case, and the right of the wronged town to help itself must be recognized. In exactly the same way, differences over questions of inheritance between independent states could only be decided by force, where, as in a civil suit, each party was convinced of its own justice. But the great wars of our time arise from causes which are different from their immediate occasions, from opposed interests which can only be decided by discovering which side has the power to enforce its will. If one wishes to ascribe the blame for a war to one of the parties, one need only ask which of them pursued an aim which could not be reached through a peaceful understanding. In the present war, we Germans have clear consciences, for we know, concerning ourselves and our government, that we strove for nothing but the maintenance of our position as a world-power, bought with heavy sacrifices, and the free, peaceful expansion of our sphere of action in the world. On the other hand, Russia desired to get to Constantinople ahead of Berlin and Vienna, France desired to win back Metz and Strassburg, England desired to destroy our sea-power and commerce -goals which could only be reached over prostrate Germany. On this understanding, it would not be difficult for neutrals to arrive at a clear and just judgment. But as the belligerents themselves did not announce their purposes, but much rather took pains to turn public attention from the causes to the occasion of the conflict, the judgment of neutrals is affected by this, and if they are really impartial in their view, they suffer morally under the burden of an insoluble problem. But if outspoken sympathy draws them toward one of the belligerent powers, then their judgment is as little objective as that of the belligerents themselves. Their pretended neutrality gives to their expressions a loathsome Pharisaical aspect, because they come to a decision according to their opinions as if they stood on a height above the contestants and, from this lofty standpoint, were holding an anticipated Last Judgment on kings and

statesmen.

The same phenomena show themselves with regard to judgments concerning methods of warfare. It goes without saying that each belligerent party reports all the atrocities which are committed by its opponents and is silent as to its own shortcomings. Once more, neutrals feel compelled to form a judgment, and therefore, if they are conscientious, read the reports of both sides, and, as a result, find themselves in a desperate situation, because it is impossible, from the assertions and counterassertions of the belligerents, to ascertain the actual facts of the case. In practice, mere chance decides which set of reports one comes across. And the exact proof of details is impossible to the most zealous newspaper-reader. Therefore one's judgment remains vacillating, and one is likely to come to this conclusion: to believe nothing at all. Naturally, the case is different here also, if one is previously in sympathy with one party. Then one believes the reports coming from that side, and leaves out of consideration those that stand against them. In this case, again, neutrals become as one-sided as belligerents, without having the indubitable right to be one-sided which the belligerents have.

And finally, in the decisive question, neutrality is excluded. Whatever judgments one may form as to the cause of the war, and as to methods of waging it, the final outcome is always the decisive factor. Only a completely demoralized and stupid man can boast, in cynical indifference, that the result of the war leaves him cold. Where spiritual life functions, wishes and prayers, hopes and fears, are passionately involved in the course of the mighty conflict. For it is not a question whether this or that nation shall experience more pleasure or pain, but the form of all Europe and of the world, for long periods to come, will be fixed by the decision of this war. That cannot be a matter of indifference for any thinking human being. An equilibrium of view, a real neutrality is as little possible here as it would have been in the Persian or Punic wars, or, a hundred years ago, in the revolt of Europe, against the domination of

O see it, our legendary and marvellous French basilica, to bid it farewell, before its fall and irremediable crumbling to dust, I had made my military auto make a detour of two hours on my return from completing a service mission.

The October morning was foggy and cold. The hillsides of Champagne were on that day deserted; with their vines with leaves of blackened brown, damp with rain, they seemed all clad in a sort of shining leather. We had also passed through a forest, keeping our eyes alert, our weapons ready, for the possibility of marauding Uhlans. And at last we had perceived the immense form of a church, far off in the mist, rising in all its great height above the plots of reddish squares, which must be the roofs of houses; evidently that was it.

The entrance to Rheims: defences of every kind, barriers of stone, trenches, spiked fences, sentinels with crossed bayonets. То pass, the uniform and accoutrements of a soldier are not enough. We must answer questions, give the pass-words..

...

In the great city, which I had not visited before, I ask the way to the cathedral, for it is no longer visible; its silhouette which, seen from a distance, so completely dominates everything, as a giant's castle might dominate the dwellings of dwarfs, its high gray silhouette seems to have bent down to hide itself. "The cathedral," the people reply, "at first straight on; then you must turn to the left, then to the right, and so on." And my auto plunges into the crowded streets. Many soldiers, regiments on the march, files of ambulance wagons; but also many chance passers-by, no more concerned than if

nothing was happening; even many well-dressed women with prayer-books in their hands, for it is Sunday.

Where two streets cross, there is a crowd before a house, the walls of which have been freshly scratched; a shell fell there, just now, without any useful result, as without any excuse. A mere brutal jest, to say: "You know, we are here!" A mere game, a question of killing a few people, choosing Sunday morning because there are more people in the streets. But, in truth, one would say that this city has completely made up its mind to being under the savage field-glasses ambushed on the neighboring hillsides; these passers-by stop a minute to look at the wall, the marks of the bits of iron, and then quietly continue their Sunday walk. This time it was some women, they tell us, and little girls that this neat jest laid low in pools of blood; they tell us that; and they think no more of it, as if it were a very small thing in days like these. . . Now the district becomes deserted; closed houses, a silence, as of mourning. And at the end of a street, the great gray doors appear, the high pointed arches marvellously chiseled, the high towers. Not a sound, and not a living soul on the square where the phantom basilica still sits enthroned, and an icy wind blows there, under an opaque sky.

It still keeps its place as by a miracle, the basilica of Rheims, but so riddled and torn that one divines that it is ready to founder at the slightest shock; it gives the impression of a great mummy, still upright and majestic, but which a mere nothing will turn to ashes. The ground is strewn with precious relics of it. It has been hurriedly surrounded with a solid barrier of white