The Way to Peace
AN INTERVIEW WITH JACOB H. SCHIFF.
One of the leading American financiers and noted philanthropist; founder of Jewish Theological Seminary and of Semitic Museum at Harvard University; a native of Germany and member of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., bankers.
By Edward Marshall.
American as I am in every fibre, and in accord as I feel with every interest of the country of my adoption, I cannot find myself in agreement with what appears to be, to a considerable extent, American opinion as to the origin and responsibility for the deplorable conflict in which almost all of Europe has become involved.
For many reasons my personal sympathies are with Germany. I cannot feel convinced that she has been the real aggressor; I believe that war was forced upon her, almost as if by prearrangement among the nations with whom she now contends; I cannot but believe that they had become jealous and envious of her rapid and unprecedented peaceful development and had concluded that the moment had arrived when all was favorable for a union against her.
Although I left Germany half a century ago, I would think as little of arraying myself against her, the country of my birth, in this the moment of her struggle for existence, as of arraying myself against my parents.
But while I steadfastly believe this war to have been forced upon Germany against her will, I also believe that circumstances which were stronger than the Governments of England and France, her present enemies, were necessary to overcome an equally definite reluctance upon their part.
In other words, I cannot wholly blame the English Government, or the French Government, any more than I can wholly blame the German Government.
Let us see how the great tragedy came about. It is safe to pass rapidly over the Servian-Bosnian-Herzegovinian-Austro-Hungarian complication which served as the immediate precipitant of hostilities. It has been detailed repeatedly in THE TIMES and other American publications.
It had reached a point at which the Austro-Hungarian Government felt compelled to take extreme measures by means of which to safeguard the integrity of the empire.
The firm but fatal ultimatum to Servia followed, the reply to which, suffice it to say, was unsatisfactory to Austria, who could not accept the suggestion of an investigation into the circumstances attending the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand through a commission or court on which she was not represented.
Like Maine Case.
The situation really was analogous to that which existed between the United States and Spain when the Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor. In order to fix the responsibility for this dastardly affair we then similarly demanded an investigation by Spain, to be carried out with the assistance of representatives of this Government. Spain, too, then offered to conduct an investigation, but she peremptorily declined to allow us to take part in it.
This attitude on her part quickly brought about our declaration of war against her. It is important that Americans should realize the similarity in the two situations and the likeness of the Austrian action of 1914 to that which our own Government took in 1898.
As soon as Austria had rejected as unsatisfactory Servia's reply to her ultimatum she prepared to undertake a punitive armed expedition against Servia, and Russia at once declared that she would rank herself as Servia's protector.
Indeed, without any further parley, and to give effect to this threat, Russia immediately mobilized her army. Since then it has been averred that this mobilization had been in progress for several weeks previous to Servia's rejection of the Austrian ultimatum.
This made it obligatory upon Germany to go to Austria's aid, under the provisions of their treaty of alliance, although she was well aware that such an action would bring France into the conflict under the terms of her alliance with Russia. Indeed, an unsatisfactory reply had been received from France as to the latter's intentions, but Germany endeavored to secure at least an assurance of England's neutrality. This proved to be impossible.
How the German Government could indulge for a moment in the hope that in a war with Russia and France on the one side and Germany and Austria on the other, England could be induced to remain neutral passes comprehension, but that it did believe this seems a certainty.
The English Government, no doubt, correctly felt that without the aid of its immense resources, and particularly without the operations of its great navy against Germany and Austria, the latter nations would find it not so very difficult a task to dispose of both Russia and France.
English statesmen very promptly must have become alive to the probability that a Germany which had subdued Russia and France, and thus had made itself master of the Continent, would be unlikely long to tolerate a continuance of England's world leadership.
So, even if the neutrality of Belgium had not been violated, other reasons would have been found by England for joining France and Russia in the war against Germany, for England would not risk, without any effort to protect them, the loss of her continued domination of the high seas and her undisputed possession of her vast colonial empire.
Germany Fighting for Life.
I am not defending the violation of Belgian neutrality. This, undeniably, was a most unjustifiable action, in spite of German claims that she was forced into it by the necessities of the situation. But I am explaining that, even had it not occurred, still England would have gone to war.
That was the situation.
Germany is now fighting for her very existence, and I, who am not without knowledge of German conditions, am convinced that never has there been a war more wholly that of a whole people than is this present conflict, as far as Germany is concerned.
Any one who has been in even superficial touch with German public opinion and individual feeling in any part of the empire, since the war began, must know that there is hardly a man, woman, or child throughout the empire who would hesitate if called upon to sacrifice possessions or life in order to insure victory to the Fatherland. Seventy million people who are animated by unanimous sentiment of this sort cannot be crushed, probably not subdued.
And England is confronted by the certainty that her world leadership is the stake for which she is fighting; that her defeat would mean the end of the vast dominance which she has exercised throughout the world, since the time of the Armada, through the power of her great navy.
Is it not apparent, therefore, that these nations, if left to themselves, inevitably must continue the war until one side or the other, or both, shall become exhausted—an eventuation which may be postponed not for mere months but for years?
In our own civil war Grant for almost two years stood within a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles of Richmond, the heart of the Confederacy, and was not able to sufficiently subdue Lee's forces to enable him to get possession of the city until the complete exhaustion of the Confederacy's resources in men and money had been accomplished.
VISCOUNT JAMES BRYCE
(Photo from George G. Bain.)
DR. BERNHARD DERNBURG
(Photo by Campbell Studios.)
DAVID STARR JORDAN
JOHN GRIER HIBBEN
(Photo by McManus.)
While that situation may not offer a true parallel in all respects to that in which we find the belligerent forces in the present European war, it nevertheless may be taken as a precedent proving that frontal encounters of powerful opponents generally do not yield final results until actual exhaustion compels one side or the other to abandon hope.
Such an exhaustion hardly can be expected within measurable time on the part of either one or the other of the combatants in the existing European conflict, and this means the probable continuation for a long period of the merciless slaughter which has marked the last few months. We hold up our hands in horror at the stories of human sacrifices in the early ages when, after all, these were, perhaps, less brutal and less appalling than the wholesale slaughter of the flower of these warring peoples of which we now read almost daily.
As I see the situation there really are only three contestants in the war—England, Russia, and Germany. France, Belgium, and Austria are important auxiliaries, but they are playing to a certain extent secondary rôles.
England's real object is the utter defeat of Germany—nothing more nor less than that—and if this is accomplished England will have control of Europe. It must be remembered that the English Government and English people frequently have asserted that they would not be satisfied with mere defeat of Germany's armed forces, but that her power must be permanently paralyzed.
If England should accomplish this, with Germany, its army and its navy, thus wholly out of the way, no one would be left for England to fear in future upon the high seas.
That might be the chief significance of England's complete victory, and its complete significance would be that every nation in the world would have to do the British bidding, for should any one refuse she could completely destroy its commerce and shut off its overseas supplies.
In the cases of most nations overseas supplies include material vital to the continuance of life and happiness; to every nation, in these days of a developed and habitual foreign trade, overseas supplies are actually essential, even when they do not necessarily include meats and wheat and other foodstuffs.
The effect upon the United States of such an English victory would be most disastrous.
The alliance between England and Japan is likely to be permanent. That is something which Americans cannot afford to forget for a moment.
England needs Japan in the Far East, especially as an ally in case of need, which at some time is certain to arrive, against Russia; and Japan for many reasons needs the strength of English backing, without which her financial and political situation soon would become most dangerous, if not collapse.
Such a permanent alliance would have this consequence upon us, that without even the probability of difficulties with either England or Japan—and, personally, I do not believe that such a probability need be feared—we nevertheless year after year would be compelled to increasingly prepare for what may be defined as the disagreeable possibility of the eventuation of a disagreeable possibility.
Certainly we should be under the necessity of notably and, therefore, very expensively, increasing our naval armament; we should be under the necessity of large expenditures for coast defense.
Corollary military cost would be enormous and burdensome. The preparation which would be imposed on us as a necessity by such a permanent alliance would be sufficiently extensive and expensive to burden our people heavily and handicap our national progress.
It might involve, perhaps, even a greater hardship in our case than militarism has involved in Germany. It is improbable that the average American realizes the part which absence of such burdens has played in our national development so far; it would be difficult for the average American who has not studied the whole subject carefully to estimate accurately the part which the imposition of such a burden would be sure to play in our future.
We have been measurably a free people. If we were under the necessity of supporting vast military and naval establishments we should be that no longer, no matter how completely we adhered to our democratic political system and ideals. It is not Kings, but what they do, which burdens countries, and the most burdensome, act of any King is to load his country up with non-productive, threatening, and expensive war machinery.
The Real Peril.
I fear that the American people as a whole have visualized only slightly, if at all, the real peril involved in this contingency; but I cannot feel otherwise than sure that soon they must awake to the great danger that militarism and navalism may be imposed upon them through no fault of their own.
American impulses trend away from armament toward peaceful development along industrial lines, but even now political leaders in Washington begin to see what may be coming. The propositions which already have been made for considerable increases in our naval and military forces may be regarded as only the forerunners of what is to be expected later.
My sympathies and interests, in other words my patriotic sentiments, are definitely American. I must repeat that I am of German origin, and that as regards the present struggle I am pro-German, yet it would be impossible for me to say that I am anti-English, although I am anti-Russian for reasons that are obvious.
I already have expressed the belief that the complete humiliation of England would be disastrous to us. Now, it seems to me that if Germany should be completely successful, if she should be able to wear out the Allies, break down France, hold Russia in check, and cripple or even invade England, (which many German leaders actually believe can be done, incredible as it may seem to us,) Germany would acquire a position such as never has been held by any nation since the beginning of history. Not even the power of the Roman Empire would approach it.
The advance which has marked the development of every means of communication, transportation, manufacturing, &c., since Rome's day would give Germany, in the case of such an eventuation, a power which would have been inconceivable to the most ambitious Roman Emperor. It would make her a menace not only to her immediate neighbors, but to the entire globe.
Could she be trusted with such power? Notwithstanding my personal sympathies, which I have taken pains to clearly outline, I must admit that I cannot think so. The German character is not only self-reliant, which is admirable, but it readily becomes domineering, particularly when in the ascendency.
In the rôle of a world conqueror Germany would become a world dictator—would indulge in a domination which would be almost unbearable to every other nation. Particularly would this be the case in respect to her relations with the United States, a nation with which she always has had and always must have intimate trade and commercial relations.
Should Germany make England impotent and France powerless we should become more or less dependent upon German good-will, and it is highly probable, indeed I regard it as a certainty, that before long, in such an event, the Monroe Doctrine would cease to exercise any important influence on world events. It would become a thing of the past—a "scrap of paper."
You see that while I am not neutral to the extreme, while I fervently hope and pray that Germany may not be wrecked and that she may emerge from the war with full ability to maintain her own, I cannot believe that it would be good for her or good for the world in general if she found herself absolutely and incontrovertibly victorious at the end of the great struggle. In other words, I wish Germany to be victorious, but I do not wish her to be too victorious.
This brings us definitely to the question as to what can be done to stop this war. Its continuance is infinitely costly of men and treasure; its prosecution to the bitter end would mean complete disaster for one contestant and only less complete destruction for the other, and it would give to the victor, no matter what his sufferings and losses might have been, a power dangerous to the entire world.
How shall it end? We do not want its end to mean a new European map. Anything of the sort would include the seed of another European war, to be fought out later and at even greater probable cost, with all the world-disturbance implied in such an eventuation.
What the United States should desire and does desire is an understanding between these nations, of just what they are fighting for, which I almost believe they no longer know themselves, and a conference between them now, a pause to think, which at least may help toward stimulating each side to make concessions, before the ultimate of damage has been done.
Such a conference might be called even without any interval in warfare and induced without definite outside intervention from ourselves or any one else. I believe it not to be beyond the bounds of possibility that if this course could be brought about importantly enough, a way out of this brutal struggle and carnage might be discovered even now, and I know I am not alone in this belief.
The situation is unprecedented. No congress such as in former times more than once has settled wars and brought about peace by the give-and-take process could be of avail in the existing circumstances. Something far higher than such a conference is needed. This peace must not be temporary. It must mark not the ending of this war alone but the ending of all war.
Some means must be devised and generally agreed to which, after the re-establishment of peace, will do away with jealousies among European nations, so that the continual increase of armament on land and sea no longer will be necessary, and humanity will be freed from its tremendous burden.
It is not at present possible to point out any concrete means by which these things may be accomplished, but it is not impossible that, when reason shall be returned to the Governments now at war, they themselves may suggest to one another plans and ways and means how this may be effectuated.
Toward this end America may help tremendously, and herein lies, it seems to me, the greatest opportunity ever offered by events to the American press.
Let the newspapers of America stop futile philosophizing upon the merits and demerits of each case, let them measurably cease their comment upon what each side has accomplished or failed to accomplish during the tragic four months which have traced their bloody mark on history.
Let them begin to stimulate public opinion in favor of a rational adjustment of the points at issue—such an adjustment as will leave each contestant unhumiliated and intact, such an adjustment as will avoid, as far as may be possible, the complete defeat of any one, such an adjustment as will do what can be done toward righting wrongs already wrought, and such an adjustment as will let the world return as soon as may be to the paths of peace, productiveness, prosperity, and happiness.
In suggesting that America should regard this effort as an obligation I am assuming for this country no rights which are not properly hers. We, a nation of a hundred million people, laboring constantly for peace and human progress, have a right to make our voice heard, and if we raise it properly it will find listeners among those who can help toward the accomplishment of what we seek. But if we would make it heard we must be earnest, be honest, and be ceaseless in the reiteration of our demand.
Have we not the right to insist that the interests of neutral nations, of whom, with our South American cousins, (for the better intercourse with whom we have just spent several hundred millions upon the construction of the Panama Canal,) we form so large a percentage, shall before long be given some consideration by the nations whose great quarrel is harming us incalculably?
Americans Should Speak Out.
The interruption of our economic development already has become marked and the war's baneful influence upon moral conditions in our midst shows itself through constantly increasing unemployment and, as a logical consequence of that, the rapid filling of our eleemosynary and penal institutions. May we not reasonably demand that this shall speedily be brought to an end?
It probably is true that under the rules of the game the President of the United States cannot offer his good offices again to the belligerents without first being invited by one or the other side to do this, but the people of the United States have a voice even more powerful than his; if that of the people of South America should be joined with it, and if the combined sound should be made unquestionably apparent to the warring nations, it could not pass unheeded.
Public opinion in the United States should firmly seek to impress upon the warring nations the conviction that nothing can secure a lasting peace except assurance of conditions under which not mighty armies and tremendous navies are held to be the factors through which trade expansion and the conquest of the markets of the world are to be obtained, but that this can be accomplished better and more lastingly through rigid adherence to the qualities and methods which generally make for success in commercial or any other peaceful competition—fairness, thorough efficiency, and hard work.
The concentrated power of the American press and people would be tremendous. I am sure that, in this instance, it is possible to concentrate it for righteousness and the future good of all humanity.