NEGIE LIBRARY,

FOUNDED 1904

MARYVILLE, MO.

VOLUME XVI

Editorial Notes..

Leading Editorials

Contents

239

241 244

245

.H. Sidebotham 247 .Alvin Johnson 248 251

The Training of the A.E.F..Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant London, Midnight (Verse)....... John Gould Fletcher 253 The Education of Joan and Peter...... .. . H. G. Wells 254 A Communication.

Correspondence...

Reviews of Books

Creative America.

A Book of Souls.

National Self-Government.
Dostoevsky Stories..

T

. Arthur O. Lovejoy 257

HE issue of the summer's fighting in France will be decided within the next two weeks. At the end of that time we shall know whether the Germans will settle down for the winter on the old Hindenburg line, or whether they will be forced back to a shorter line nearer the frontier. If the Allied armies are to succeed in rendering the old line untenable before the winter sets in, they will have to strike at an early date a series of more powerful and successful blows than those which they have been able to strike recently. The task may be beyond their strength. The English army has given a superb exhibition of resiliency and sustained fighting power during the past two months. The French army has done equally well. But the cost of the whole summer's fighting must have been terrific, and if they prove to be spent it would be only natural. Our own guess is, however, that General Foch has the resources to strike before the winter sets in, and that he will strike hardest with the English at one end of the line and with the Americans at the other. The political advantages of a further German re

Number 204

treat would be enormous. It would bring to a head all the accumulating depression, anxiety and anti-governmental agitation in Germany. It would give much more reality to the concessions which Central Europe will during the next four months offer for the sake of securing peace. Finally, if Foch is unable to strike hard enough to penetrate the deep and dangerous German system of defense, we may be sure the German army will counterattack in force some time soon. A successful military reaction would be as helpful to the German government during the coming winter as a further retreat would be disastrous.

A

LLIED operations on the Macedonian front are proceeding with a degree of success that affords a hope that Macedonia may in the near future be cleared of the enemy. If the UskubSaloniki railway line is cut, the Bulgarian and Teutonic armies before Saloniki will have no safe alternative except to retreat to the passes of northern Macedonia. Such a turn of events would be extremely discouraging to the Bulgars. When they entered the war they believed that after a short campaign they would have established themselves permanently in Macedonia. The war has already dragged out far beyond their expectations. So also has it exceeded the expectations of everyone else; but the Bulgarians, as a people of peasants, with every man needed at home, are in a much worse position to endure a protracted war than are the industrial nations. If the Allies can put adequate force behind the thrust against Macedonia, there is little doubt that Bulgaria can be put out of the war. She accepted peace promptly in the second Balkan war as soon as the war was going against her. She will not hold out indefinitely now.

naissances which neither side has been sufficiently master of the air to prevent. But in Palestine the British mastery of the air was absolute. General Allenby was able unobserved to concentrate men behind the Turkish army, and to give the Turks the surprise of their lives by cutting off their retreat. His victory is another token of that general crumbling of the enemy which has been going on since July 18th. The process will not of course be uninterrupted on all fronts, but there is every reason to hope that it will gather volume month by month. In Palestine itself the interruptions will probably be few and not serious. Turkish rule in that country is nearing its end. And no treaty of peace will restore it.

A

CCORDING to the Washington dispatches of last week, the President himself was responsible for the action of the Post Office Depart ment in permitting the issue of the Nation of September 14th to pass through the mails. If this report of the President's interference is true, we trust that he relieved himself of the need of further interference of the same kind by formulating more definite rules for the exercise in the future of the Post Office censorship of opinion. Whatever may be the justification for the criminal prosecutions for sedition under the espionage act which are being undertaken by the Department of Justice, they conform to legal process and give to the accused his day in court and a public hearing. But the Post Office censorship in its method of operation constitutes an extreme case of the exercise of an arbitrary administrative discretion. An editor who may wish to criticize certain aspects of the government's policy without violating the law cannot insure himself against the danger of suppression. In the case of the Nation of September 14th, most of the people who read the number attributed the threat of condemnation in the beginning to the article on civil rights rather than to the article on Mr. Gompers. It is an ironical fact that just when the American Post Office was threatening to suppress the issue of a journal for criticizing the activities of Mr. Gompers in England, Mr. Gompers himself was offering a resolution to the Allied

Labor Conference in favor of an international guaranty of freedom of speech.

N relation to freedom of publication there is a story told about Lord Northcliffe which is pertinent to the situation now existing in this country. Early during the war an English labor paper was temporarily suppressed for printing articles which drastically criticized the war policy of the government. During the period of suspense Lord Northcliffe wrote the editor of the paper stating his positive detestation of that gentleman's opinion, but

adding that if the labor paper were permanently suppressed he would adopt the cause of the labor paper as his own and fight for its right to continue publication. Considering Lord Lord Northcliffe's opposition to any government censorship of opinion the story is plausible. Before the war one would have expected many American editors to have adopted the same attitude. The American press was violent and unqualified in its opposition to the restrictions on freedom of utterance proposed in the first espionage bill. If there was a tradition which seemed firmly es tablished in this country, it was the tradition of permitting even during war the publication of erroneous and perhaps mischievous opinions. It was based on the knowledge that when opinion is suppressed, the agency of suppression is irresistibly tempted to over-reach itself and act in arbitrary ways. It was based on the principle that the only way to safeguard the dissemination of truth was to permit the dissemination of doctrines which seem erroneous to prevailing public opinion. Some day this principle will be restored to its former authority. In the meantime we should like to see some conspicuous editor follow the example of the editor of the New York World and declare himself against the suppression of utterances which he profoundly dislikes but which, no matter how erroneous, unpopular or opposed to the policy of the government they may be, are not accompanied by obstructive acts.

S

O far as can be judged from this distance and with as yet inadequate information, Samuel Gompers's visit to England and his attendance at the Trades Union Congress and the Inter-Allied Socialist Conference has on the whole had the effect of diminishing the division between British and American labor. The Socialist Conference did, indeed, reaffirm its belief in an inter-belligerent conference in spite of American opposition, but there does not appear to have been any other serious disagreement. The American delegates joined those of France, Great Britain and Italy in recommending an inter-Allied conference on war aims, and when their European brethren proposed as the guiding principles of the proposed conference Mr. Wilson's non-imperialist and non-punitive programme, the Americans had, of course, no reason to object. There is evidence also of real caution and discretion on Mr. Gompers's part in his attitude towards the existing cleavage in the ranks of British labor. Many Englishmen feared that his visit, like that of the first American labor mission, would operate to widen the breach between the Labor party and the so-called pure trades-unionists headed by Havelock Wilson. Mr. Gompers must have sympathized with the latter, because he is in

favor of direct rather than political action on the part of labor, but in his speeches and published statements he carefully refrained from interference. Although we cannot feel sure of the truth of the impression until the mail brings fuller accounts from England of the conferences in which he participated, it looks as if he had succeeded in doing nothing to embroil and something to assuage past differences and misunderstandings.

C

ONSTITUTIONAL stirrings in Germany lend themselves to a cynical interpretation. What could be more natural than that Germany should strive to break the will to war of the democratic nations by presenting a specious appearance of reform? But this is certainly not all there is to German political unrest. The German government may need to share power with the people in order to make peace. It will certainly need to share power with the people in order to carry on a war that is plainly entering upon its defensive stage. Whether Germany is yet anywhere near the condition in which the popular parties can hope to snatch the power away from the feudal autocracy we have no means of knowing. But we can confidently predict that Germany will approach this stage. What will exhibit the change will be a far more thoroughgoing programme of the Reichstag majority than that of 1916. They will demand They will demand control not only of the civil administration, but of the army and foreign affairs. They will propose terms of peace that not only leave to the peace conference the revision of the Eastern treaties-which, it is reported, Hertling is now ready to do-but will accept the democratic principles on which alone those treaties can be properly revised. When the Reichstag majority can give such evidence of popular control over the government, it will be time to stop talking of "peace traps" and address ourselves seriously to the discussion of peace.

A

CCORDING to an Associated Press dispatch dated September 21st, "Secretary Lansing today reiterated that the efforts of American troops at Vladivostok and Archangel were solely to aid the Czecho-Slovaks to leave Russia for the western front and not to establish an eastern battlefront." It is not easy to harmonize this "reiteration" with the earlier declaration of the State Department, issued on August 3d by Mr. Polk, that the United States had "proposed to the government of Japan that each of the two governments send a force of a few thousand men to Vladivostok, with the purpose of cooperating as a single force in the occupation of Vladivostok and in safeguarding, so far as it may, the country to the rear of the westwardmoving Czecho-Slovaks." At that time these

Czecho-Slovaks were strung along the Siberian railway from the Urals to Lake Baikal, and if their object had been to get to the western front as soon as possible their obvious course was to strike out for Vladivostok by the eastern Chinese railway across Manchuria. Their only purpose in moving westward instead of eastward must have been the establishment of an eastern battlefront, an enterprise in which Mr. Lansing now says the American troops in Russia will not help them. The only way of reconciling Mr. Polk's statement with Mr. Lansing's is by imputing to Mr. Polk the expectation that the Czecho-Slovaks west of Lake Baikal would move westward on the Trans-Siberian, reach Vologda, and finally leave Russia by Archangel.

UCH an expectation would be odd enough to

SUCH

justify us in supposing that Mr. Polk never entertained it, and that the discrepancy between his declaration and Mr. Lansing's is to be explained on the assumption that the State Department has changed its mind. It now sees the function of the Czecho-Slovaks in Russia as more restricted. Their business is to get out of Russia by the quickest route. This later opinion is also much sounder. No one can measure in advance the misery that the Russians will suffer this winter, but all observers agree in fearing that millions may die of starvation. German agents in Russia will of course do their utmost to convince the Russians, who know there is plenty of wheat in the country, that it is the Czecho-Slovaks' stoppage of railway traffic from Siberia and the Volga territory which is responsible for the famine, and that the Allies are responsible for the Czecho-Slovaks. The sooner we can help the Czecho-Slovaks out of Russia, the less will be the success of this German propaganda, the less and the less lasting the Russian feeling against us and our Allies.

Economic and Political Unity Among the Allies

T

HE recent Inter-Allied Labor Conference in London approved, as it was bound to do, the rejection by the Allied governments of the Austrian proposal for a secret preliminary conference, but it accompanied its approval with an important positive recommendation. It urged the Allied governments to question their enemies as to some of the specific terms on which the Central Powers will make peace, and it wished them also to encourage such a statement by a joint declaration of their own war aims. It is by defining their own war aims jointly with the United States and with the same precision and clearness," says

the report of the committee," that the Allied governments will give to the workers of the world the conviction that they are resolved to continue the struggle, not in order to meet the aggression of the Central Monarchies by undertaking in their turn a war of conquest, but for the single purpose of establishing on an unassailable foundation a peace which will be just and lasting and in conformity with the aspirations of international democracy."

The reason given in the committee's report is not the only reason which entitles the recommendation to serious consideration. The statement of Mr. Arthur Balfour, published immediately after the appearance of the Austrian note, attributed the desire of the Austrian government for a conference to an expectation on its part of securing in this way an opportunity of sowing dissension among the Allies. The accusation is doubtless true, but so far as it is true it indicates a dangerous weakness in the political unity of the Alliance and in its future ability to write a satisfactory peace. As long as the Allies fail to adopt a joint statement of war aims, they will always be exposed to diplomatic intrigues of the enemy, designed to sow dissension among them. If they do not cure this weakness in their position, a peace conference a year or two from now would be subject to the same dangers as a peace conference today; and these dangers would not be alleviated by military victory, no matter how decisive. France was decisively beaten before the Congress of Vienna, but her defeat did not prevent Talleyrand from taking advantage for the benefit of France of the divergent policies and interests of her conquerors.

The failure to agree upon a statement of war aims and upon a joint economic and diplomatic policy is a grave flaw in the war policy of the Allies, and the chief obstacle to their prospects of a final and permanent political triumph over Prussianism. If they can agree, as there is every reason to believe they can agree, the sooner they take advantage of their unity and embody it in a joint programme the better it will be for their military success and their powers of moral endurance. If they have difficulties in agreeing, these difficulties should be faced now, when they feel the pressure of urgent motives for preserving a united front, rather than at the peace conference when these motives will not be so powerful.

As to many important parts of the Allied peace programme, there are only insignificant divergencies of opinion. It will not be difficult to forge a joint policy with respect to the territorial conditions out of the proposals suggested by the InterAllied Socialist Conference of last February. The divergence of interest and opinion and, conse

quently, the difficulty of reaching an agreement, exist chiefly in regard to the kind of political and economic system which different states in the Alliance and different parties in all the states of the Alliance desire to see brought into existence as a result of the war. If they can reach an agreement with respect to these differences, based on the principles already laid down by President Wilson, the western democracies will both forestall the further development of embarrassing ferments of opinion within the fold, and also lay the foundation for a joint diplomatic and economic policy, which will assist their armies in bringing the war to a successful conclusion.

Take, for instance, the matter of AustriaHungary and the Balkans. There is implied in President Wilson's principles an Austro-Hungarian and Balkan settlement which would promote the happiness of the near-eastern peoples and the security of Europe, but the status of these principles in international politics is not essentially different from that of the Monroe Doctrine before America entered the war. They have not been accepted by European and Asiatic governments allied with America, and there are ambiguities in their meaning and application which impair their effectiveness as a programme. Do they imply a dismemberment of Austria-Hungary? If not, how can the refusal to dismember Austria-Hungary be reconciled with the independence of the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs? If Austria-Hungary is to be dismembered, what international arrangements do the Allied governments propose for the protection of the minority alien nationalities which will survive in all the new national states? How can the independence of these states be guaranteed, unless the guaranty is made contingent on the observance of certain general rules of international good behavior? If so, what are they? Are any provisions to be inserted in the settlement which will promote interstate trade in eastern Europe and prevent the revival of vexatious economic discriminations by one state against another which are certain to develop into pretexts for future wars? Finally, what will be done to satisfy those national aspirations of the Grecian people which are compromised by Italian ambitions in the Aegean?

The answers to most of the questions suggested in the preceding paragraph depend ultimately upon the kind of world which the Allies propose to create at the peace conference. They will demand one kind of answer in case the western democracies intend to restore and to re-affirm the old system of exclusive competing national sovereignties. They will demand another kind of answer in case they convert themselves into an international constituent assembly for the creation of a new society of inter

dependent nations. The most dangerous flaw in the political unity of the Allies arises from disagreement upon this fundamental matter. In their published declarations of policy, America and Great Britain have attached much more importance to a League of Nations than have France and Italy. The major task of any inter-Allied conference would assuredly be the discussion, and, if possible, the removal of this difference. Assuming that they could reach an agreement upon the need of forming such a League as the only sufficient guarantor and foundation of their proposed structure of international justice, their next most important task would be to reach an agreement as to the sacrifices and the responsibilities which membership in the League will impose on the participating states. Here again grave differences of opinion exist among statesmen and publicists who are agreed upon the desirability of the League itself. Some of them consider it necessary to insist upon a League of Free Nations and, consequently, favor a continuation of the war against Germany until the Germans agree to subject their army and foreign policy to parliamentary or popular control. Others consider such conditions to be unnecessary or irrelevant. A similar difference of opinion exists as to the use to which the Allied governments should put their power of economic discrimination against Germany. How far should the economic weapon be used as a threat? If it is used as a threat, in what respect will its use aid or injure the project of forming a League of Nations?

The removal of these differences and ambiguities in the particular policies of the several members of the Alliance will, as we have already suggested, contribute considerably to Allied military victory. We have recently had one striking illustration of the truth of this assertion. The vicissitudes of the Italian army during the past year prove sufficiently the military disadvantages of the pursuit by one member of an alliance of aggressive and dubious national ambitions, not cordially approved by its allies, and the military advantages of doing away with this particularism. Early in the fall of 1917, the Italian army was occupying an exposed position in enemy territory, a position into which it had been pushed by doubtful political rather than strictly military reasons. The Italian government cherished certain territorial ambitions in Dalmatia

and elsewhere which interfered with the national ambitions of the Jugo-Slavs and which some of Italy's allies disapproved. The Italian government was straining every effort to secure military occupation of this territory, because it was not sure whether it could obtain a defensible title in any other way. But this isolated and aggressive military policy weakened the chance of victory.

It

operated to consolidate Austro-Hungarian enemies. The Slavic troops of that empire, who deserted when employed in Serbia and Galicia, were willing to fight against the Italians, who like the Hapsburgs were opposed to the realization of their own national aspirations. The same cause impaired Italian domestic unity by encouraging socialists to agitate against Italian imperialism and this agitation was sufficiently serious to bring about disaffection in the army. Finally, it provoked in the governments of the other Allied nations an indisposition to lend Italy as much assistance as they were capable of rendering. All these causes contributed to the defeat of the Italian army and their costly retirement to the Piave. The disaster forced the Allies to adopt a more unified military organization, but the defeat and the closer military cooperation had also a salutary political effect. It exposed and discredited the Italian political particularism. Some months later liberal Italy reached an agreement with the Jugo-Slavs which abated the grievances of that people against Italian national policy, and this agreement at once increased dissension in the ranks of the enemy and allayed the disaffection at home. When the Austrians launched another offensive about the middle of June, it was they who suffered from disaffection and treachery. The New Europe of August 15th published an Austrian communiqué of July 27th which attributed the failure of their attack to the betrayal of their plans to the Italians by Czecho-Slovak and Jugo-Slav spies and deserters. Thus Italian defeat in the fall was born in part of unsound politics, and Italian victory in the summer sprang from a new political policy which brought moral and political assistance to the power of the Italian armies.

So it is with the anti-German alliance as a whole. If, in the near future, the Allies can achieve political unity on the basis just suggested by the war socialists in London-that is, President Wilson's programme of last January-they will have erected an insurmountable barrier against future German and Austrian intrigues, and they will have accelerated and assured their own military and political victory. By accelerating military victory we do not mean that inter-Allied political unity will create disaffection in Germany just as the more liberal Italian policy succeeded in creating disaffection in the Austro-Hungarian army. The common inter-Allied policy indicated by Mr. Wilson and defended by the war socialists will have to be imposed in spite of the most tenacious resistance from the German nation. But the announcement of such a policy would teach the Germans what at worst to expect, and it would provide a basis of ultimate reconciliation, which the German working classes are likely to appreciate as soon as they face the fact of actual defeat. The