POISONOUS TEACHING
Glory and honour never accompany the creed of selfish Materialism, which is the “Kultur” of Germany. What a miserable man was he who wrote down in cold blood these words: “I condemn Christianity. To me it is the greatest of all possible corruptions. I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one immortal shame and blemish in the human race!” This was Nietzsche—poor, sickly, egoist, Nietzsche! He died mad—yet he was the “guide, philosopher, and friend” of modern Germany! How has his teaching worked? Let the slaughtered thousands of his countrymen on the battlefields reply. And let us take heed that we in our turn be not infected by the poisonous breathings of such insanity! Our nation—our Imperial Britain—has been dangerously far along the road to similar madness—let us hope devoutly that we have been pulled up in time! But—“we have done those things which we ought not to have done”—as, for example, we have thrown the sneer of “Jingoism!” contemptuously in the face of many an honest patriot—and now we are loud in our expressions of wrath and astonishment at the “want of patriotism” displayed by certain tribes of working men who “strike” for more pay, indifferent to the country’s needs! What have these working men been taught for the last twenty years? Why, that Money is the only god, and Self the only master! When we reproach them for unpatriotic conduct, we should reproach ourselves still more for the encouragement and applause we have systematically given to every new or revived doctrine of selfishness and materialism that ever infected the world with its sickly symptoms of decay. Patriotism is a mental and spiritual attitude—as heroism is—as love and faith are. Such things cannot be taught; they are the result of ennobling influences brought to bear on life and its environment. Considering how little our educational system holds of such subtle and delicate training, we have reason to be proud of the splendid response of our men throughout the Empire to the call of “King and Country,” and of the real national “grit” which in every Briton underlies his surface show of levity and indifference.
But have I, as a woman, nothing to say of the war, save in its ethical aspect? Oh, yes! I, as a woman, could say much, in a woman’s way. Of the agony of parting from men dearer to us than life, and seeing them disappear behind a veil of impenetrable silence for weeks or months, their fate or fortune all unknown! I could weep all day and night for the cruel loss of young and gallant lives crushed out and left bleeding and festering on the awful fields of contest—and I long to speak words of consolation and hope to the dear women who wait in strained suspense for news of their husbands, fathers, lovers, and sons! I know all they feel; and the aching throb of their unuttered misery strikes on my own heart with keenest pain! But with all the sorrow and all the suffering, I would not, if I could, hold back one man from taking his share in the noble struggle for the betterment and future peace of the world! One can die but once; and “Greater love hath no man than this—that a man lay down his life for his friends!”
“ALL WE LIKE SHEEP”
A PEOPLE’S PATIENCE (First published in the “Sunday Times”)
The words “people” and “popular,” viewed by academic dark-lanterns of literature, are opprobious epithets. Any person designated as “popular,” or favoured by “the People,” falls at once outside the pale of mutual-admiration societies—ergo, is not an academic dark-lantern for the blind to lead the blind, so that both fall into the ditch. Yet it is well understood that those who affect to despise the People and “popular” opinion are the very ones most influenced by both, inasmuch as not one among them but knows that in the long run the People alone are the arbiters of national destiny. Sometimes it hardly appears as if it were so—yet so it is. Though at this present fateful moment of time it would seem that the People of the British Empire are stricken dumb. They are a voiceless multitude, rendered inert by the knowledge that if they speak every effort will be made to silence them, and that though they have much to ask they will not be truthfully answered. For they are only “the People”!—the ruck of taxpayers—the grist that goes to the mill!
But what a People! Consider them as they are to-day, straining every nerve and sinew in the work necessary for the carrying on of a wicked and barbarous world-war, wherein they truly, as a People, sought and desired no part, but into which they were plunged unsuspectingly, without fair warning or honest preparation; and now, being involved in the struggle for justice and right, do most nobly acquit themselves—a People who are giving up their sons, their life-blood, their All for which they have worked through years of anxious toil—a People who, when their little harmless children are torn to shreds by enemy bombs falling from hitherto beneficent skies, are told by a fatherly Government that “no material damage was done by the raid”—a People who are cozened with lies and flattered by false news—a People who in the gallant thousands of their slaughtered men are dying that Britain may live!—or, shall we venture to say, that Cabinet Ministers may “take their salary and continue to take it!”—an historic utterance which will ring through the vault of posterity like Nelson’s “England expects”—only with something of a difference! How long will this splendid People endure in sheep-like patience what the Press justly calls “Waste and Muddle” in high places, without giving vent to their forcible but natural outburst known as “popular” feeling?
We read in one of the columns of a sane and non-party daily journal the following:—“No one can say that the nation is satisfied with the way it is governed.” This expresses in one clear phrase the apparent situation. The word “apparent” is used advisedly, for in many spectral things of recent statesmanship some of us feel with Macbeth that “Life’s but a walking shadow.” The present Government, being of a sometimes severe, sometimes indulgent parental character, seems to look upon the public, or “the People,” as a sort of promising Child, that sits quietly waiting to be told things, no matter whether the things are false or true. Wedged in a nursery chair with a bar across its bulgy waist to prevent it tumbling out on the floor, this Child is supposed to smile and suck its finger all day long in a state of blissful belief in nonsense rhymes and fairy tales. It is a wonderfully good Child, and Papa Government is pleased to find how easily it can be played with. Its simplicity is delightful! Things printed in large type catch its eye and tickle its fancy, because occasionally (though more in the past than in the present) it fancies that large type means something of national importance. But with all its guilelessness it has a vast amount of natural intelligence, and it begins to understand that it is not, and never will be, allowed to learn the drift of Governmental tactics, or the true state of parties in politics. It is hazily becoming aware that it is kept in its nursery chair to be gulled, not to be enlightened. In happier moments it has shown that it likes to be amused, thrilled, startled, horrified, or moved to indignation, and, so far as the “Censor” permits, the gagged and bound Press tries to do its best on these lines, and dances for its entertainment as well as a poor bear in chains can dance, though growling sotto voce all the while! But, considered as a Child, the public is not thought fit to be told the truth. Its opinion on national affairs is neither sought nor wanted; all that is required of it are Silence and Obedience. These it gives, with what result? Why, as Mr. Asquith said, “Wait and see!”
Yet surely the waiting is long? “All we like sheep are gone astray;” but possibly we have been led astray more than we have gone of our own accord. All peoples have a certain sheep-like tendency; they follow a lead. Where the leader goes the flock goes likewise. This is sometimes set down as evidence of weakness, but with the British people it marks both duty and discipline, obedience to law and order, love and maintenance of home and country. Yet—let us suppose NO leader! That is—NO leader capable of leading anywhere save into quagmires and pitfalls of “Waste and Muddle”!
“The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly.”
Rumour has it that on our East Coast the inhabitants have been “prepared” for a “German landing,” and have been told where to go inland as “refugees.” Whether true or false, such a report should never have gained currency; the word “refugees” should never be even whispered as likely to be applicable to British subjects. Similarly on the East Coast it is openly said that during the last enemy air-raid two Zeppelins were “within easy gun-shot” and could have been brought down, but that our anti-aircraft men were “forbidden to fire.” By whom? Ah! There we touch upon secrets not to be disclosed by Papa Government to any inquiring Child! Though when half a secret comes to light the other half is not far behind! Let us not forget the warning given by the greatest of all Teachers:—
“A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”
It is idle to deny that there are traitors in our own camp; men of position and influence who are more pro-German than British—who would not scruple to pave the way to any dishonour provided they could serve their own personal ends. Is any one so intellectually blind and bereft of common sense as to suppose that even with certain of our statesmen financial interests do not outweigh their patriotism? Time is a merciless revealer of facts, and in its record of this war some strange things will be written!
To those who have eyes to watch and brains to understand, the advent of Mr. Hughes, Premier of Australia, is a wonderful, almost touching, circumstance. Here is a Man at last!—a man who loves his country and is not afraid to say so—a man who appeals to the right spirit of the nation straightly and truly, with courage and conviction. “The People” answer to his voice: that “People” whom snobs abhor! Snobbery is apt to speak of the fine Younger Race of Imperial Britain as “Colonials,” with a touch of contempt, as though they represented something small and negligible, instead of embodying as they do the future power and stability of the Empire. This “Colonial” Prime Minister shows strength, boldness, and sincerity; he is a leader, and “All we like sheep” are disposed to follow him, if he can show us a way out of the thickets where we wander, torn and bleeding. Pray Heaven he be not wearied by specious talk, or repelled by still more specious hypocrisy! or hampered and discouraged by the working of the “wheels within wheels” which move with such secret and perplexing intricacy, crushing honest effort and smothering honest speech! Surely the British people can be trusted to know what their foes know, what their Allies know, what America knows? Are they alone to be deceived?—even into purchasing goods “from America” which are German? Mr. Hughes needs to speak yet more forcibly; he must rouse the slothful and the unthinking, and tell them that if they would conquer their skilful and insidious Teuton foe, they must equally conquer themselves; and that when the markets are open for British labour, British labour must not fall back in energy or stint its output. Business must go hand-in-hand with industry and quickness, for “the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong!”
“All we like sheep” are waiting, not for compromise, but for conquest; conquest full, splendid and lasting! The “People” are patient and submissive enough, but they seek to put their confidence in a Government that shows confidence in itself. If they feel that they cannot do this, what then? Should not the following words of Carlyle be remembered?:—
“Urge not this noble, silent People. Rouse not the Berseker rage that lies in them! Do you know their Cromwells, Hampdens, their Pyms and Bradshaws? Men very peaceable, but men that can be made very terrible! Men, who like their old Fathers in Agrippa’s days, have a soul that despises death; to whom death, compared with falsehoods and injustices, is light! Yes, just so godlike as this People’s patience was, even so godlike must its impatience be!”
WANTED—MORE WOMEN!
AN APPEAL (Written for the London “Daily Chronicle”)
Women! You are wanted by the Nation! In the words of the recruiting posters “Your Country calls!” It calls even You—you, who for centuries have been the “weak vessels” of man’s passion and humour, are now needed to strengthen man’s hands in the terrific business of a world’s battle. You have helped them already; but you must help them still more. Now is the day and hour to prove your “undaunted mettle,” and not only your mettle but your generosity, your magnanimity, your forgiveness! For in peace times man has denied you the very possession of ordinary common sense; he has thrust you out of intellectual and academic honours; he has grudged you any place in art, literature or science, and he has made you the butt of every cynic, comedian, and caricaturist ever since he arrogated to himself the “everything” of life. You have been and are the grist to the mill of the comic press; your fathers have often been glad to sell you in the marriage market to the highest bidders; your lovers have played with you and deserted you as bees the flowers whose honey they have stolen; your husbands have often been faithless and perjured; and in certain of man’s legal forms, you have been classed with “children, criminals, and lunatics,” but now!—now, you are wanted!
You, so often despised, are prayed not to return scorn with scorn; you, with your patience, doggedness, and strongly determined zeal for attainment, are asked to come forward in your willing thousands, and let the men go! For the cry is “havoc!—and let slip the dogs of war!”—war, bitter, merciless, bloody and more savage than the crudest wars of ancient days; war in the air, on the earth and under seas—war that is as stupid, as blind, as criminal and as selfish as are all the acts which men commit when they have so far brutalised woman as to check and restrain her highest impulses, kill her idealism, obstruct her intellectual aspirations, and treat her as the slave and tool of a degrading animalism. Had they from the first dawn of civilisation made her their mental and spiritual equal, by this time there would have been no wars. Her love would have constrained and educated them, her instincts guided them, her inborn maternity shielded them from the wrongs their ambitions and jealousies persuade them to wreak upon each other. Now, in the very midst of the combat which they have brought upon themselves, they are caught within a black cloud of almost superhuman disaster, where but one ray of the veiled sun shines through—that Divine sense of Justice for which all true peoples are bound to fight if indeed they be not wholly given over to the devil of Materialism.
In this, women are, and must be, with them; they, who from the legended days of Eve have laboured under the sense of utter injustice, will be eager to help in any struggle for the Right against Might, because it is their own cause—the very essence of their own existence.
Right against Might, women! Be with the men now in their manliest, most pressing time of action! Forget their petty carping and cavilling at “the female element” in workmanship and endeavour; laugh at the rough and childish hands that beat and batter the woman’s breast with all the petulance of spoilt children; fling every other thought aside but the will and intent to help them on to victory! Make, and buckle on their armour—let your hands prepare them for both attack and defence. Nothing nobler will you ever find to do than this!
In old Arthurian legends, many were the fair women eager to buckle on the armour of the peerless Knight Lancelot; but to-day there are a million and more Lancelots in the field—young, brave, dauntless—heroes all! Arm them, women!—and by arming them, defend them! Thousands of you, strong and willing, are already at work—but we want thousands more! Even you “toy-women” who dance half-nude o’ nights at restaurants and in basement saloons of “fashionable” hotels, wreaking a sly vengeance on men by poisonous lure and seduction, even you can be brave and helpful if you will! Give up your foolish sensualities, and take to sturdy, sensible Work; wash the paint from your cheeks, the dye from your hair, and clothe yourselves as fit women who mean to help, and not to destroy men.
And you, too—you who turn your private homes into “Bridge Clubs” where “officers on leave” may become members “without the payment of a fee”—rookeries, where silly young subalterns are “rooked” indeed, of every penny, losing not only cash but honour—can you not give up this unprincipled and unwomanly “way of doing business” and come out of your dens? You have hands deft enough for something better than “Bridge”—and eyes that can see how to make shells for killing the enemy, which is better than studying how to change a card that shall cheat a friend! Put these ephemeral nothings of an ephemeral “society” aside, and WORK! Work is the saviour of both body and soul!
I admit that as Women, we have long and old scores to settle with the men who have denied us any place in their counsels, and who elect of themselves to treat us merely as “toys” and fools. We shall have our revenge upon them, but not now. Now is the time when we have the chance to show our ability, our powers of organisation, our reasonableness, our courage, our industry, and patience. Let us not fail! The curse of the Jew who wrote Genesis and swore to Eve “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow” has been upon woman ever since the days when courteous old Abraham yoked her with his cattle and drove her with his sheep; but there are evidences nowadays that the modern Abraham will not always triumph, even though every true son of Israel who attends religious service in his synagogue still says with Pecksniffian fervour:—
“Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman!” (See Authorised Jewish Daily Prayer Book.)
But, despite this most manly thanksgiving, it is paramount that now, whether Jew or Gentile, men want the women!—not for pleasure, not for fooling, not for seduction, not for betrayal, but for work! Man’s work must be done in the absence of men. For men must be set free, like uncaged wolves and lions, to fly at the throat of the foe and strangle him for good and all! Therefore, man’s work must be accomplished by women. O women, be glad and proud of this! Lady Frances Balfour, who has a brain sufficing for three of our modern statesmen, has recently written on “The Discovery of Women,” describing it wittily as similar to “the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.” She reminds us of Lord Lansdowne’s “early Victorian” pronouncement that “the place for women is the home.” But the worthy peer forgot to mention that it is not given to every woman to have a home, or to run the cooking, the child-bearing, and general washing-up business for any special one of the male sex. On the other hand, there are thousands of women who not only earn the money to make a home and keep it, but who also have the affectionate unwisdom to keep a lazy loafer of a man also; some drone who finds as many plausible excuses for idleness as he does for living on the woman’s work. He, by the way, is generally the sort of fellow who speaks of woman with sniggering contempt, and while taking her earnings with the left hand stabs her in the back with the right. But even such rogues as these have to go forth to the battle to-day; so let us not grudge the buckling on of their armour if we can inspire courage in cowards! Just now, when omens and portents are thick in the air, and unnatural threatenings hover above us like shapeless spectres of evil, our Ministers and statesmen are chattering for all the world like the feeblest “patriarchs of the village” that ever waggled grey pates over pipes of tobacco. They who complain of women’s “talk” are talking the heads of the nation off into impatience and fury; let women not talk, therefore, but act! Come to work, women of all classes!—the more the better!—the more silently, the more swiftly! There is a great climax at hand; the “push” is about to begin. Every Able-Bodied Man Is Needed to Ensure Victory. Let us make no mistake about that! Every woman is likewise needed, to put her hand to the plough, and NOT look back. Munitions must not fail us. Show your resolve, brave women of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and nerve your slender hands to the task of turning out the weapons of attack and defence that shall flame our conquest of the foe on land and sea and in the air! And—when the war is over—when “Peace with Honour” shines once more above us like a glorious rainbow after storm—shall we—we Women who have worked, sink to our old footing of debasement and exclusion from the counsels of men? No! To paraphrase a famous Asquith utterance: “We have taken our place, and we shall continue to take it, and to keep it!”
THE QUALITY OF MERCY
AN APPEAL TO AMERICA FOR SUFFERERS IN THE GREAT WAR (Written by special request for the American “Committee of Mercy”)
There is no greater virtue in the human character than mercy; it is the nearest attribute and approach to the Divine Perfection towards Whom all creation instinctively moves. We, the offspring of that infinite Thought and Will, are still far away from such sweet and strong attainment of power as can find infinitude of joy in the infinitude of Giving—but we can in some measure bless and purify our brief poor lives with somewhat of that everlasting plenitude and beauty by an effort, no matter how feeble, towards a God-like perpetuity of grace and pity. The golden opportunity for that effort is Now and Here; we may never have so great a chance again. For Now and Here, in the fair days of spring and summer, when singing, blossoming Nature breaks out in its Te Deum of thankfulness for yet another space of time wherein to express the gladness and glory of life, we are confronted with the hideous, ravaging spectacle of War; War, in its most cruel, pitiless, and appalling shape—War, to the grimmest death! The groans and shrieks of wounded, tortured, and dying men are forced upon our ears; a monstrous Devil of Self, black with the crimes of treachery, lust, and murder, stalks abroad seeking what it may devour of faith, freedom, and civilisation—a demon possibly born of mankind’s own neglect of the highest ideals, and indifference to countless blessings long bestowed.
And the most evil part of this evil visitation is that the terrific whirlwind of disaster sweeps over the innocent as well as the guilty, and men of valour and worth in all the nations now at war with one another are driven by the force of a barbarous necessity into the agony of wounds and death for no fault of their own, but for the mistakes and aggressions of their governmental rulers. They are as falling leaves blown before a storm—as smoke before fire—drifting into darkness! Yet every one of them is moved by the inspiration and love of liberty—by the sense of right and justice—and by the desire to help in doing what is good and true for the larger benefit of the whole world. And in this sense every one of them is noble; each life is worth our grateful care. We, who appeal for them, take no part in the contest. To us they are all our brothers in humanity; their mothers, wives, sisters, children, and lovers are ours also! We wish to lift them in our helping arms out of the blood and mire of battle, and by our impartial love and tenderness, to comfort them as much as we may, and relieve their bitter need.
We want every American citizen to help us in this great, this divine, work; for so best shall we prove the largeness of our thought, and the wideness and scope of the civilisation of the Republic and it ideals; so shall we best display the spirit of the young New World, uprising on the waters of this deluge like another ark of the covenant, sending forth the dove of hope and promise to those who are struggling for life in the overwhelming waves. We would like to write the noble words of Man’s universal Poet, Shakespeare, across the doors of all our fellow-countrymen upon whom we now call for aid, convinced of their generous response:—
“The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown—
... We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.”
In this mind and mood we appeal for help: for ungrudging, tenderest, quickest help!—the help that brave persons would instantly give if they saw children drowning. For every man disabled, sick, or deprived of his strength is as a struggling child in the flood of adversity, and indeed more pitiful than a child, for the child’s day may be yet to come, while his is past. Moreover, he has been snatched from all that made life pleasant and useful to himself, to fight his country’s battle, for which he, personally, is not responsible, but which he enters upon for the sake of a duty which is purely heroic self-sacrifice. Let us therefore accept this free gift of his manhood in the cause of Right and Justice and Freedom, with no less cheerful and willing gifts and self-sacrifices of our own; let us give and still give, in the all-beneficent spirit of the daily sunlight which pours itself out unasked over the fields and pastures to bless and fructify them! And let us never weary of giving! From every man and woman of the teeming population of the United States we ask a donation for our Holy Cause—our new Crusade of the Lord’s Sepulchre—for such it is, inasmuch as we seek to raise from the grave of silence and despair those who have been giving the best of their lives in suffering the horrors of this terrific War. Be the gift small or great it will add to the sum of what we hope to make the most wonderful and munificent gift and act of homage to martyred heroes that has ever been known in the world! We are a Committee of Mercy, and we make this Appeal to all the merciful, in God’s Name, and for the sweet uplifting of a Star of Hope in the darkness!
STARVING BELGIUM
AN APPEAL (Written by request for Mr. Hoover’s “Belgium Relief Fund,” and circulated through the United States Press)
“Six million of people are on the verge of starvation in Belgium!”
Such news as this writes itself across the brain in letters of fire! Great Goddess of Liberty, think of it! You, America!—you, who represent that goddess, with the light of an ever-widening glory on her brow, think of this shame to the very name of Freedom!—this blot on civilisation—this degrading result, as it were, of our long-boasted intellectual supremacy and scientific advancement! Six million people on the verge of starvation!—through no fault of their own, an industrious, peaceful, marvellously heroic little nation, deprived of its honestly-earned right to live, and dragged from its altars of prayer to weep in the dust of beggary and famine! You, America!—you, Star-crowned States of Freedom that have already done so much and are doing so much for this broken and bleeding victim of bitter circumstance—you cannot stay your hand now!—you cannot—you will not! You will do more!—and still more! You cannot see a brave nation die of sheer hunger!—it is not in your heart to look on at such a frightful thing unmoved; therefore you will listen to all unprejudiced appeal—even to mine, though I have little claim to your hearing save that of the affection freely given to me by thousands of my readers in your country—an affection gratefully accepted and as warmly reciprocated! I have naught to do with the quarrels and murderous onslaughts of men filled with blind fury and lust of world-power; all that I can see or hear is the sorrow and suffering befalling those who are innocent of any quarrel—the wives, the mothers, the young girls and boys, the little children—the helpless and bewildered old people! Cruel famine is already torturing these piteous and patiently enduring souls, on whom such a black cloud of unmerited disaster has fallen that it seems as if it would never lift! All who have power to visualise their unparalleled distress must and surely will take every possible means to soften and mitigate the horrors of their situation. Generous America!—you have done and are doing much!—you have worked and are working strenuously to relieve the burden of Belgium’s heavy affliction, but work to you is the very pulse of your large life, and bigness of conception in noble deeds is your breathing power! Therefore, no hesitation need be felt in asking you to go on Working and Doing all you can for the tortured, half dying people of a devastated country—a people whose magnificent heroism has blazoned itself in a chronicle of glory for the wonder of the future years—a nation that has faced her foes unflinchingly in the simple defence of her freedom, and whose noble King, a hero to the manner born, has not uttered one undignified word of complaint against the sudden and harsh calamities meted out to him by the cruel caprices of a cruel destiny. To America all grand things are possible—America, as yet aloof from combat, can accomplish what other nations, involved in difficulties at this juncture, can barely attempt: America can approach Germany with the ease of one at peace in the midst of strife, and can with humane forethought and certainty secure such distribution of food supplies to the Belgian civil population as may save them from the sufferings which now confront them every day. This is what America can do and with all our hearts and souls we pray that it may be quickly done! We, in Great Britain, are never weary of helping, to the best of our ability, those exiles who have lost their homes and means of livelihood—we strive to make their hard lot less bitter—and to one and all we accord a welcome as to those of our own blood and kindred. But we are at war, and though our Government is using all the means available to prevent the threatening disaster of millions of non-combatants, women, children, and the aged, being sacrificed to what is called “military necessity,” such means are not enough, being perforce obstructed by the difficulties of the situation. The grim idol of Militarism must have its burnt offerings—that pitiless god of Battle so aptly and magnificently described in Lord Byron’s Childe Harold:—
“Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deep’ning in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;
Restless, it rolls, now fix’d, and now anon
Plashing afar—and at his iron feet
Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done;
* * * * *
All join the chase, but few the triumph share,
The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,
And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array!”
Time presses! The wolf of famine is at the very doors! Our hearts grow cold with terror and with pity as we see once prosperous and happy Belgium, a land of prosperous and happy people, shadowed by the fearful spectres of Hunger and Disease. And while we do all we can and all we may to keep back these menacing destroyers of the innocent, we clasp hands across the sea with America, and look to her reasonableness, her boundless compassion and benevolence, for wider, more continuous help, feeling that she can, and will, most assuredly move the German administration in Belgium to see to the free distribution of food, and to guarantee that such distribution shall be made for the benefit of the Belgian civil population. I believe the Germans would willingly consent to this, if they have not already consented, for it cannot be even to their own advantage that disease should be sown broadcast in Belgium, and the entire industrial population decimated by famine. Indeed, as a matter of fact, Mr. Whitlock, the American Minister at Brussels, has made definite and official statement to the effect that he is satisfied by close investigation on the spot that not an ounce of food sent in by the Commission for Relief is being appropriated by the Germans. It should, perhaps, be considered that Germany has a heart somewhere! There are natural emotions in the mortal composition of a German as well as in a Frenchman or a Briton—differently strung, no doubt, and differently placed—but no man of any nationality whatsoever is made solely of “blood and iron,” according to that hackneyed catch-penny phrase which seems to have been coined by some tall-talking journalist. I am not one of the many who “thrill” over the various and sensational reports gotten up by the world’s press, whether such reports emanate from Great Britain or the “Wolff Bureau.” I am as doubtful of statements circulated by British journalism as of those which are unblushingly “made in Germany.” Each newspaper proprietor has his own axe to grind, and not always does honesty or unsullied patriotism have much to do with the grinding. More mischief than can be easily calculated is caused by irresponsible journalists who are allowed to print their wholly useless and unnecessary personal opinions on some great world-crisis in leading newspapers. When Edward the Seventh ascended the British Throne he had something to say on one occasion to “the gentlemen of the Press,” and he expressed the hope that they would “do their best to foster amity and good-will between the British Empire and other nations.” That the “gentlemen” have not so acquitted themselves is a sad and sober fact; and in these very days of the most terrific contest the world has ever seen, many of them show an unworthy eagerness to “work up” suspicion and ill-feeling between the combating parties, rather than to hold the balance equably and with dignity. Insult, cheap sneers, and vulgar jesting are all out of place in the present tremendous clash of conflicting powers; when the gods grasp their thunderbolts it is no time to listen to the chattering of apes. And when we are told by the Irresponsible Journalist of more battle horrors and outrages than seem humanly possible of occurrence, it does us good to learn through plain, unvarnished fact conveyed in simply-written, straightforward letters from brave men at the front and in the “firing line,” that, left to themselves, the Germans and their Allied foes would be glad enough to play football together, if allowed, like healthy schoolboys, and that even as it is they give each other cigarettes across the trenches, proof positive that when not acting “under orders,” they are human, normal, and friendly, and have no thirst for each other’s blood. I quote the following from the letter of a brave young Englishman serving in the Third Battalion of the Rifle Brigade:—
“On Christmas morning some of us went out in front of the German trenches and shook hands with them, and they gave us cigars, cigarettes, and money as souvenirs. We helped them to bury their dead, who had been lying in the fields for two months. It was a strange sight to see English and German soldiers as well as officers shaking hands and chatting together. We asked them to play us at football, but they had no time. I got into conversation with one who worked at Selfridge’s in London, and he said he was very sorry to have to fight against us.”
Reading this and various other letters of similar tone from men in the very thick of battle, all bearing ample testimony to the same truth, I cannot believe that the foe is so utterly a monster as to wish to see six million innocent people slowly starved to death; for such a dire business would serve his purpose little, while strongly intensifying his immediate unpopularity. War is war; and if, after all, civilisation is so poorly advanced that war must still play its barbarous part in the world’s policy, then of course there must be exigencies of war which can neither be ameliorated nor minimised. But the deliberate starvation of six million innocent human beings, more or less useful to their kind, does not and cannot come under the head of “military necessity.” Therefore, it should be the proud privilege and duty of “neutrals” to do all that is possible to soften and mitigate the fearful conditions of life as at present lived in unhappy but undaunted Belgium. The Commission for Relief, acting in London, and comprising representatives of the Spanish, Dutch, and Italian Embassies as well as the American, has undertaken a task which is almost herculean. Work as they will—and there is no pause and no shirking—it is like coping with the waves of an engulfing sea. The needs of the people become more urgent every day that the fierce tug-of-war grows closer and more insistent: Great Britain has found it imperative to stop the importation of grain into Belgium, and all this is coupled with the fact that under the Hague convention the German army has the right to requisition food supplies, and is not bound (save morally) to feed the enemy’s population. Nevertheless, common sense and diplomacy, as well as mercy and justice, may here step in and show that starvation and sickness may breed evil among the Germans themselves as well as among the Belgians, by sheer force of contagion—evil of a kind which might just as conveniently be avoided. Any starving nation claims instant help and compassion—the sufferings it is compelled to undergo are too awful to contemplate with any degree of calmness, and may make even the sternest “Teuton” shudder. Therefore, if any of us can, or dare, call ourselves Christians in the face of this un-Christian warfare, which neither religion, science, nor “New Thought,” spiritual or intellectual, has been deep or sincere enough to hinder, let us gather up the fragile fragments of our faith and try to piece them together in one heart-whole, soul-strong effort to save from impending misery the brave little nation, rich in historical splendour of renown, artistic beauty, and industrial progress, whose hard-working people have desired nothing but peace and freedom to attend to their own business unmolested. If Christianity is worth anything in the world we would not let one starving creature go unfed from our doors—shall we leave six million to such an undeserved fate? If we do, then well may the great Powers Invisible chastise us to our own doom, and vengeful Furies whip us to a hell of shame and oblivion! Let us hold out rescue at once with no uncertain hands, and let our practical aid be swift, and “of good measure, pressed down and running over.” In all such deeds of love and sympathy and charity Great Britain and America have led the world by their splendid example. There has been no grudging, no paltry personal discussion as to ways and means. For every good and worthy cause gold pours out as from a magical horn of plenty; the more the demand, the greater the supply. And now? Now—when a nation starves! Shall not a veritable argosy of gold make its way across the miles of ocean which divide the Fortunate from the Unhappy, and bridge the gulf of tears and sorrow, striking light from darkness, and hope from despair? This can be so if America wills it! Shall not a radiant Angel of Consolation appear within the deepest gloom of battle, stretching out hands of blessings and sustenance, lifting the fallen, cheering the desolate, soothing the dying, and shedding heavenly sunshine on a sorrow-clouded land? This can be so if America wills it! Shall not the true brotherhood of humanity be re-affirmed and strengthened in the rescue of one nation by another?—in the succour of the smaller by the greater?—in the full acknowledgment of a brave fight for freedom by a power that is more than free? This can be so if America wills it!
“O Liberty! what crimes are committed in thy name!” were the last words of Madame Roland, heroic victim of the French Revolution—but we would say: “O Liberty! what love is perfected in thy name!” when starving Belgium is fed!—because America wills it! Hear my appeal, O Star-crowned States of Freedom!—hear me!—hear all!—Let no pleading voice pass you by un-heard! For the brave Nation that is dying must live!—shall live!—if America wills it!
“THE TIME OF OUR LIVES”
OUR WOMEN IN WAR (An answer to an American misjudgment)
“You women over here seem to be having the time of your lives!” said an American friend to me the other day. “You lunch and dine at all the restaurants with whatever men ‘on leave’ you can pick up; you go with them to music-halls and theatres and supper dances, and ‘peacock’ about in extravagant clothes as if there were no such thing as a war on!”
My American friend, being a man, took, as is often the case with men, rather a one-sided view of things; but what he said is true, and I fully endorse his statement. I am proud and eager to assure our American sisters “on the other side,” that most surely we are having “the time of our lives”! No doubt about it! But, do you understand, you women of New York, Boston, Chicago, and every other great and growing city in the United States, what that “time” exactly is? Are you able to measure it and give it your true understanding? I think not! It is easy to sit as spectators in your vast amphitheatre of across ocean and watch from comfortably-cushioned points of view the struggle in the world’s arena between Men and Beasts; the contest is terrific, revolting, yet sensational—and provides “thrills” for those who are not actively engaged in combat. But for women whose husbands, lovers, and sons are being mauled and crushed and torn by the teeth and claws of ravening and unreasoning brutes, it is a spectacle demanding “nerve,” to say the least of it. This “nerve”—this power of valiant endurance is what Great Britain’s women are displaying in “the time of their lives”—the time of loss and sorrow, danger and difficulty; and I doubt whether the true history of this indomitable pluck, cheerfulness, patience, and resignation will ever be rightly known! They have been, and still are—magnificent!—a glory and an honour to their sex! “The time of their lives” will be recorded in the country’s annals as among the most sublime things witnessed and proved in a century. They have grudged no sacrifice, no pain; they have sent their best and dearest to the great slaughterhouse of Flanders with smiles on their lips, restraining the sobs of agony in their hearts—they have not shrunk in one single instance from any clear duty, however difficult or apart from their own ways of life. Where men’s places have needed to be filled, they have filled them most ably, conscientiously, and loyally, without grumbling or complaint; and though some of their male employers, too old to fight, but never too old to “bully,” have occasionally made things uncomfortable for them by coarse words and coarser actions, they have held their peace for the sake of their men at the front, and are content to bear with insolence and insult in silence rather than interrupt the routine of the work they have undertaken in order to “release” the men, such “release” often meaning for themselves sheer heart-break and desolation. Oh, yes!—we are having “the time of our lives”!—a time such as this world never saw, and which we all pray it may never see again!—a time when wives toil in munition works to “release” their husbands, knowing that such “release” may mean their own widowhood—when mothers part bravely from their sons, conscious that they are going into such a hell of barbarous slaughter as never was known even in the days of the Roman butcher, Nero—when girls “release” their lovers, and bend their own slight bodies to the heavy toil usually undertaken by the physically stronger sex, and say nothing of their own fatigue, suspense, and sorrow! There are thousands of such splendid women to set against the few hundreds who “dine at restaurants” and “peacock about,” and even these latter are not so abandoned to self and vainglory as they seem. True, there are women who push their own ends under cover of professing charity, and are never so happy as when they see their own portraits in the lower grade press—this class has always existed in every country and will no doubt continue to exist. And there are plenty of female “decoys” for men “on leave”—who dine and dance at public restaurants in un-dress that would disgrace a savage; but, again, these have always existed, and will probably continue to exist. The good Bishop of London seems to have only just discovered them, which is a great testimony to his guilelessness. Then there is a particularly unfortunate section of the pictorial press which seeks to attract the public eye by indecent pictures of half-nude “women of the town”—dancers, actresses, and titled dames who are equally at one in a voluntary outrage of morals and modesty, and though the public Censor might very well put a stop to these offensive illustrations, he is apparently one of those “blind who will not see.” But you, our sisters in America, do see, and rashly pass judgment accordingly! Then there are the ridiculous fashion-plates used as advertisements in newspapers and in the catalogues of leading drapers, which represent women as the merest caricaturess of womanhood, looking more like cockatoos and chimpanzees than feminine humanity, in costumes presented as “the fashion,” but which no decent woman ever dreams of wearing. All this is “the scum of the pot” which rises to the top, thereby becoming noticeable—but it does not represent the actual Womanhood of Britain—the great, Silent Force of patient, brave, unwearying workers. These are scarcely heard of, for they give no chance to the tongues of Rumour, and the press cannot get at them either for portraits or personalities. As noble and exclusive as that noble and exclusive lady, the Duchess of Portland, whose good works are legion, they make no clamour—they are too busy to contend with the already opposing masculine spirit which is beginning to demand of them, “Are you going to dare do our work after the war?” The main fact with them is not the Afterwards but the Now—the resolve to hold together the working necessities of Commerce and Agriculture in Britain—Now!—in time of need—thinking nothing of themselves or of the pleasant little vanities and frivolities dear to them in days of peace, but bracing up all their energies to oppose trouble with valour, patience, and faith. No women in all the world’s history have ever risen to confront a world’s crisis so splendidly and cheerfully as the British—except the French! French women are superb in their magnificent patriotism!—superb in their steadfast hate of the foe. We are often told that the British do not “hate” enough—and that if we were better haters we should be better lovers. It may be so, but the general tendency among us is more to despise than to hate. A “Tommy,” for example, would hardly think it worth while to “hate” anybody. Good-nature is the Briton’s strong point; good-nature and a cool, easy, “happy-go-lucky” disposition. These virtues or failings led him into the German traps whereby he was losing his hold on the commerce of the world. He could not be brought to believe that his progressing friend “Fritz” could stab him in the back while he stood unarmed and unready for attack; and, even now, when he is up and full face to the combat, his good-nature still moves him to sing and whistle along the fire-swept path to death or glory, and to stop, regardless of self, among a hail of bullets to give first or last aid to a dying foeman. Is such conduct foolish or sublime? A higher verdict than ours must give answer! In any case we know and may take it for certain that the “Silent Force” of women who are “having the time of their lives” is a great lever to lift the men up to the utmost pitch of their native-born courage and resolution, and to help them meet Death as a fellow-soldier, taking the hand of the grisly skeleton as fearlessly as children might run to look at some attractive novelty. For, back of us all, men and women alike, there is a strong Faith which our enemies have lost. They talk of “Unser Gott” as glibly as though the Almighty were solely exercised in serving their whims and passions—but though our deepest religion be not of the Churches, we cannot so trifle with the Holy Name! We are too conscious of “The Truth that makes us free,” and in the Cause for which we and our Allies are fighting, we can best pray with Shakespeare’s Harry the Fifth:
“O God of Battles! Steel my soldiers’ hearts!
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of numbers!”
For our Cause is the Cause of Right and Justice, Freedom and Civilisation. We are not out for personal gain, either in gold or territory. We have enough of both and to spare. We endure “the time of our lives,” and its wanton and wicked slaughter of the innocent, because we are fighting for all Humanity that it may never be so savagely tortured again. We are fighting for a surer, more impregnable Civilisation—one that cannot be pushed back a thousand years by the ferocious and blind stupidity of any temporary autocrat. Is it possible that there can be people of even average intelligence in the States and elsewhere that do not entirely understand this? The British intervention in the dastardly attack of Germany on Belgium and France was to protect and defend unoffending and peaceable peoples, and in this defence of others we have found Ourselves. We were beginning to lose ourselves among the dreary verbosities of theorists and agnostics and atheists and all the swarm of destructive insects which accompany a setting-in of decadence; we have discovered once again our true spirit, our old and valiant mettle, our pride and love of country, and all the mighty heart of resolution which has made the British Empire what it is. And we cannot but feel that the young and strong heart of America beats in tune with our own—that, despite financial interests and pro-German intrigues, Right and Justice prevail with the men and women of the United States as with the men and women of this “little isle set in a silver sea”—and that they very well know that they, too, must benefit by the clearance from the world of a monstrous Militarism whose ethics are opposed to every principle of Christian truth and human equity. A great, strong Faith is at the back of us all—a Faith which believes in the utmost triumph of Good over Evil—and this it is which inspires the women of Great Britain and gives them strength to part with their nearest and dearest, so that they endure “the time of their lives” without flinching, knowing that they who endure to the end shall be saved!
THE WORLD’S GREATEST NEED
AN APPEAL TO THE SANITY OF GOVERNMENTS ’Tis a mad world, my masters.—J. Taylor
What is the most urgent need of the world? What would stop war and ensure peace? What would push forward all that is highest and best in our civilisation, and cause men and women to realise that they are not created to brutalise, degrade, and destroy each other in sordid struggles for place and power, but that their purpose in living at all is to educate and uplift each other to noble aims and ends? The great Need stares us in the face at every point of social law and political government; it clamours in our ears and pushes its problem to the front of every question. What is it the world demands in every form of policy, legislation, and statesmanship? A simple thing—one would imagine it to be a natural thing—yet almost undiscoverable in any period of history—Sanity! Sanity, which means health of both brain and body; Sanity which recognises self only as a portion of the greater Whole; Sanity which knows instinctively that mankind must obey the laws of God or else suffer extinction; Sanity, which combines with reason and judgment a comprehensive sympathy for every unit of the human race in its struggle upward from the brute period to the highest realisation of intellectual and spiritual worth.
Judged from this point of view one may doubt, when reading history from its known or traditional beginnings, whether Man, taken in bulk, has ever been entirely sane. Something of the freak, the monster, or the only half human, seems to taint his blood, displaying itself in follies and excesses of the most violent or pitiful nature, which, when dispassionately narrated in the chronicles of centuries, show him to be a crank or a fool at the very time when wisdom might most be expected of him. Some few individuals, notable examples to the race, have stood out in splendid isolation as sane and self-sacrificing teachers and helpers of humanity; but, in the aggregate, from the very beginnings of what we are pleased to call “progress” down to the present day, the desire to trample upon each other and wallow in blood and slaughter seems to prevail with more force over the minds of men than the clearest arguments of reason. Nevertheless this desire is an insane impulse, and if we had any true perception of the laws of right and wrong, we should check it in its very first beginnings. Any man, any body of men, seeking to violate the peace and progress of the world should be dealt with by combined international forces of the Law and Medicine, not by armies—and should either be shot like mad dogs as incurable and dangerous, or imprisoned for life in asylums for the criminally insane. No one man or group of men can be considered in sound mental condition if their actions imperil the existence of their fellow-creatures.
Certain natural laws have been discovered, and proved by physiologists who make the subject their study, as to persons who may marry, and those for whom, through consanguinity or inherited disease, marriage is nothing less than a crime. In the “arranged” unions of royal houses these laws have been deliberately set aside with deplorable results. The mad dog of Europe, William of Hohenzollern, is the diseased product of several royal intermarriages, where human convenience and popular complaisance ignored the divine natural law; and as this law is one which prevails “unto the third and fourth generation” we have now a Monster-Abortion of conscienceless cruelty raging loose in the world, who ought to have been smothered in his cradle. There are plain rules of health and sanity which are for ever being disobeyed by civil and social convention; but because they are so disobeyed, we must not flatter ourselves that they do not recoil in vengeance upon the rebels. The Designer of this wonderful and complex universe is proved to be a vastly Mathematical Intelligence; everything great or small, down to a grain of dust, is balanced to the nicety of a hair’s breadth, and do what we will or may, we cannot alter the balance. Our futile efforts in such directions merely display insanity, of the type of an uncontrolled temper in a child which screams itself hoarse because it cannot reach fruit on a tree too high for it to climb. If, therefore, we would have sane peoples, with sane rulers to govern them, we should see to it that they are born and bred sanely, according to the laws of health and mentality which have existed among the “lower” animal creation since the foundation of the world. Every crime is an insane impulse. No healthily organised brain could contemplate the murder of a single individual, much less the wholesale slaughter of millions.
The Almighty has for ever had one gate of Heaven set ajar for humanity to peer within and push open a little wider with each succeeding generation—a gate opening to that fair pleasaunce of wisdom and beauty which we call Science. A great logician has written “The basis of all science is the immutability of the laws of nature.” Would that we remembered that “immutability” more often! Yet, while sane pioneers in medicine and surgery are patiently and devoutly following as best they can these complex but beneficent “laws of nature” for the saving of human life and the healing of human injuries, the insane section of the community have been and are still employing all their distorted energies of brain and hand in fiendish ingenuities of invention for weapons of war that shall destroy human life more quickly than it can be saved. And while thus engaged, other insane persons shout in the press and the market place wild warnings about “declining birth-rate,” reproaching unhappy women for their lack of duty in not producing sons for some future slaughter! The Car of Juggernaut was scarcely worse than this! To appeal for a multitude of births during the making of a multitude of guns, which mow down the flower of young manhood like corn, is an insult to bereaved mothers, making their vocation appear less valuable than that of the beasts of the field. For why should they bring forth and rear sons, only that they may go to their deaths at the bidding of this or that Government? The very proposition is an exhibition of stark staring lunacy, combined with a brutish lust of degradation and reckless destructiveness which could only emanate from deficient mental organisms.