Life — July 8, 1915 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JULY 8, 1515 “While there ws Life there's Hote" 66 No. 1706 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY J. AL Mitcnett, Pres't. A, Mutter, Sec’y and Treas. 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York lish Office, Rolls I HE elevation of Mr. Lansing to a situation in the Cabinet is very satisfactory. Whoever else might have been Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing as the leading resident ex- pert, with his mind already a occupied and conversant sfeow: with all matters in hand, would doubtless have done most of the work, and it is as well to have him occupy the office. As to the late incumbent, his pro- ceedings suggest a curious thought: that this zealous opponent of alcohol is himself addicted to the habitual use of one of the strongest intoxicants— to wit, the approbation of crowds. It may be that no one who makes a first-class popular success in oratory ever fully regains sobriety again. Cer- tainly Mr. Bryan gives evidence of a fairly steady craving for the approval of audiences. While he still continued in office the platform called to him as screen-doors call to the toper. He could not let alone without distress the great stimulant, audible popular approbation, that had kept him up so long. What a craving such as his bring a good man to was shown in his address on June 24th to a great crowd of Clan-na-Gaels and German- Americans in the Madison Square Garden in New York. It was a speech for peace as heretofore. What the speaker said was not so bad. He assaulted the New York newspapers and charged that they never take the side of the American people in any question, but that was fair give-and- . Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. take, for the New York papers have been constant in disapproval of him. The point of the proceedings was that Mr. Bryan addressed a meeting that was overwhelmingly pro-German and that wanted to keep the United States out of the war because that would make it so much easier for Germany to win. His audience did not want peace at the cost of Germany; they wanted it at the cost of the Allies, and they welcomed him as a man on the whole helpful to bring about the result they longed for. The meeting wound up with a resolution against the ex- portation of munitions of war; a reso- lution, that is, against the Allies and against a position which Mr. Bryan himself has officially endorsed and presumably sti supports. 'HAT was no neutral meeting. It was merely a meeting of pacifists- for-a-purpose, the purpose being to help Germany. The meeting pulled the ex-Secretary’s leg, but at least it gave him a good time. If he thinks, though, that he speaks for the Amer- ican people when he speaks for a pro-German peace he has surely mis- counted American voters. They are for peace, but not for any such peace as would follow the success of the most militant government in existence, which has forced on the world the worst war it has ever known, Mr. Bryan's attitude and activities recall the saying of the French phi- losopher quoted by Dr, Hadley in his Yale baccalaureate, that “virtue is more dangerous than vice because its excesses are not subject to the re- straints of conscience.” Mr. Bryan thinks he is right, and he is partly right, and that is the worst of it. But, though virtuous, he does not seem just now to be dangerous, The country at large seems to see the elements in the European situation that he overlooks. WHEN an offender has been duly convicted of some major crime— say, of murder—pains is seldom taken to ascertain and discuss his deviations from decorum in minor particulars. Whether he is careless of the Sabbath, inattentive to his duties as a voter, or even a pilferer or a careless husband, does not matter. The greater offense swallows the less, and so far as con- cerns the culprit’s reputation the tail goes with the hide. But in our observations of the war we keep on discussing details of Ger- man military behavior as they arise, just as though the German armies had never murdered Belgium. To discuss the ethics of gas or bomb-dropping or the sinking of passenger ships as these details transpire is like trying to fasten porch-climbing or bet-welching on a man who had butchered a family. The invasion of Belgium and butchery of Belgians is still the great offense of which Germany has been convicted. To discuss too much the quality and scope of her subsequent offenses tends to weaken the shock made on neutral minds by that first great crime. Belgium is still the great black mark on German character, still the victim whose case cries loudest to Justice and whose cry it is most dan- gerous to leave unappeased. Nothing should be suffered to impair the effectual horror of that cry. It was that that first crystallized public opinion in this country against Ger- many. It was Belgium that exposed the aims and all the appalling possi- comicbooks.com