But it is characteristic of the high intelligence of our people that we have recognised that war to be waged effectively must be directed by one head. We know that after the war we shall be able to recover all the powers delegated to the President. We have gained by our temporary surrender all the efficiency of autocracy and risked none of its dangers, and have simply followed the custom of the free German tribes which elected a leader for war and gave him a power never given the chiefs in time of peace.
How much more enduring is our Government! Since the war the government cabinets of England have twice changed radically, that of France five times, and Italy very frequently indeed. Few realise that our Constitution is the oldest in the world to-day. Since its adoption the government of every land in some material particular has changed many times, France, for instance, from King and Republic, then to citizen kingship, then to Republic, then to Empire, and finally to Republic. In England the form has remained the same, but the power passed, in 1830, with the passage of the Reform Bill, from nobles to commoners, as great a revolution as any in France.
And I admire the very inaccessibility of President Wilson. He does not waste time on non-essentials, on useless polite conversation or pointless discussion. This may add to his enemies but makes for efficiency.
When I saw the President on one occasion about German affairs we talked for four and a quarter hours without intermission. In that period he extracted from me all the information he required at the time. He is a wonderful man to have at the head of our nation in war or peace.
Gradually the splendid peace message of our President (Jan. 8, 1918) will sink into the consciousness of the German people.
There are liberal and reasonable men among them striving for peace and for disarmament.
In January of 1917, just at the moment when the military autocracy brought on war with America by their sudden announcement of ruthless submarine warfare, the liberals of Germany were preparing to co-operate with our President in the efforts that he was then making for peace.
A Socialist member of the Reichstag, a man whose name is known throughout the world, wrote at that time two articles to be used in the effort for peace, and I print them in order that those outside of Germany may obtain a glimpse of the mind of one of the leading Socialists of that country. These articles have never before been published.
I feel that now when we are at war with Germany perhaps it would cause embarrassment to this man should I publish his name. In a country where a man may be sent to jail for speaking without respect of some act of the Kaiser's ancestors, committed more than four hundred years ago, it is dangerous for any German to put his name to utterances which might not march with the wishes of despotic Germany.
It has always been the desire of the Kaiser's government to draw the Allies into a peace conference with the hope of detaching some of the Allies from their combination. Perhaps these articles, although written by a Socialist, were part of a clever governmental peace propaganda to which the majority Socialists so readily lent themselves during the year 1917. But on the other hand I think these articles represent the sincere real expression of the writer who is still a member of the Minority or Haase faction of the German Socialist Party. Though written a year ago they discuss points still unsolved and which must come before the peace conference that settles the war: