People may call this a small success. In fact it is a beginning, and for the first as such sufficient. The question is now what shall the next step be and how can the debate be directed to positive proposals?
Of course, as these articles were given by this Socialist-Author for publication any one is at liberty to reproduce them.
In conducting the peace negotiations, President Wilson will have the benefit of the services of Colonel House, the one man who, I believe, is best fitted to protect the interests of America and of humanity at such a conference. I, of course, saw Colonel House during the war in Berlin and in America and I consider that no man alive is his superior in either knowledge of the whole situation or in ability to cope with the trained diplomats of Europe. Human nature is much the same and the gentle mannered Texan who has been so successful in American politics will not fail when representing us at the table of Peace.
CHAPTER XXVII
AFTER THE WAR, WHAT?
No one but a fortune teller or professional seer dares to predict the condition of the world after this war. Only mere suggestions can be thrown out, shadows of prophecy as to what may come.
Will the tide of emigration turn from Europe and the United States to other countries or will people of German birth and descent leave America to return to the Fatherland after the war?
I made it my business after I had learned German to talk to many of the plain people in Berlin and elsewhere, to get their views. I found that the common soldiers, especially those representing the class of skilled workingmen in the industrial centres were almost unanimous in saying that after the war and at the first opportunity they intended to leave Germany, to turn from a country capable of perpetrating this calamity on the world, a country where they have been subject not alone to military service but to a cruel and oppressive caste system of discipline. I believe that Germany will enact laws against emigration and that there will be zones of espionage on all German frontiers designed to watch and keep back such Germans as may seek to escape to other countries.
In Austria even more stringent laws will be necessary to keep the unmarried males from leaving.