Returning to Macedonia, Philip craftily began taking an interest in Greek affairs—for he was a subtle politician—and at the same time turned his whole people into one vast fighting machine. His unit was the Macedonian Phalanx. First came twenty-four men, with short spears; then came a second twenty-four, with spears of six feet; then a third twenty-four, with spears of eight feet in length. The last tier of men in the company had spears twenty feet long, resting upon the shoulders of the men in the front rank. These bristling spears were invincible. The terror of the Macedonian Phalanx went out into all the earth. Demosthenes was the one man who had vision. He called the people together upon the public square and assembled them in the great theatre. He mounted the rostrum upon Mars Hill and warned Athens. He called the attention of the people to the fact that between Athens on the south and Macedonia on the north were three buffer states. As the Macedonian army moved southward, these states organized their army and went forth in defence of their homes and their firesides. But Demosthenes insisted that these buffer states were fighting not only their own battles, but also the battles of Athens. If they fall, if their armies are defeated, then Athens, single-handed, must meet the entire force of the victorious host. Nevertheless Athens delayed, and would not be persuaded. The noblest orations of the greatest man of his time, Demosthenes, were of no avail.
When he crossed his southern frontier, Philip made himself terrible. The flames of the burning towns at midnight lighted up the land as a terrible warning. Thirty-two towns that had flourished as commercial communities vanished from the face of the earth. These border states above Athens, answering to our modern Belgium, were made into a desert. Terrorized into submission, the Greeks threw down their arms and opened the gates of their cities to Philip's soldiers, who brought with them women and children in fetters that the spirit of Athens might be utterly broken.
Has there ever been in historic times any parallel quite so striking as that between the organized militarism of Macedonia with the subsequent ruin of Athens, and the present systematized militarism of Germany, now attempting the ruin of Belgium, France and England? Listen to Professor von Stengel, the German authority on International Law: "There will be no conference at The Hague when this war is over. The one condition of prosperous existence for the natives is submission to our [Germany's] supreme direction. Under our overlordship all international law would become superfluous, for we of ourselves, and instinctively, will give to each nation its own rights."
What it Means to America
The acuteness of our peril was well set forth in a conversation that took place last year between an aged German officer of the Franco-Prussian war and a French officer who won his medal in the same campaign, both of whom had sought a rest in the village of Vevey upon the banks of Lake Geneva. For weeks the two old men on their wheeled chairs had passed each other without recognition. One morning, it is said, the German officer saluted. After expressing sorrow over the losses of the war, solely "for the purpose of making conversation," as he claimed, the German officer raised a question. First of all he insisted that he spoke merely as a private citizen who loved his fellow men, and represented in no sense the rulers in Berlin: "Suppose the German armies were to withdraw from Belgium and France, and agree to restore the devastated regions and repay England for her sunken ships. Do you think the Allies would then return to the conditions of 1914, granting the Fatherland the trade privileges that then were hers? For," added the officer, "it is quite certain that Germany could never raise the billions of indemnity involved in the restoration of Belgium and France, and England's ships, unless she was free to buy raw material, kept her factories intact and also her three thousand and more passenger ships, freight ships, sailing vessels and her battle-ships to protect her fleet."
To all of which, it is said, the Frenchman answered, in substance, as follows: "What you really mean is this,—that if France and England laid down their arms, and allowed Germany to keep her land uninvaded, her fleet intact, that so far from raising ten or twenty billions to restore Belgium and France and recompense England, the Kaiser would simply load one or two millions of his veterans on the three thousand of his ships, and sail away to New York, and assess the twenty or fifty billions on the American people. You must remember," said the French officer, "that England and France do not betray their friends. They do not count their treaties 'scraps of paper.' My country will never consent to hand the United States over to the armies and the battle-ships of Germany."
The genuineness of this brief discussion is beyond all doubt. The time has fully come therefore for every American and manufacturer and merchant, every farmer and financier, to realize that we have got to win this war, otherwise there will be no United States. We are unprepared for war or even self-defense. After ten months of war Secretary Baker tells us frankly that thus far we have not one single machine gun completed, that not until April will there be one rifle, for each of a little army of a half-million men, while the other investigations have brought home the fact that it is the French and British army that stand between us and the Kaiser's troops, and that it is England's battle-ships that hold the Kaiser's war fleet behind the Kiel Canal. It is the British bulldog that keeps the German rat in the Kiel hole. On one side of the American silver dollar we have written these words, "In God we trust," and on the other we should write these words, "And in England's battle-ships."
Edmund Burke's Words
Burke once spoke of civilization as a contract between three parties, the noble dead, the living and the unborn. The English statesmen held that our fathers have a great stake in this republic. It could not be otherwise. Washington and Hamilton, Webster and Lincoln, who struck out the free institutions of this country, are vitally interested in their preservation and their future. The merchant who founds a great business, the educator who establishes the academy or college, the architect who rears some capital or cathedral, the patriot and soldier who gave their life-blood to preserve their institutions, the parents and teachers who have reproduced themselves in their children and pupils,—all these have a great stake in society. Of necessity, each Franklin or Edison follows with solicitude the tools invented for the redemption of men from drudgery. Are not the Pilgrim Fathers interested in the outcome of their ideas? Has the great Emancipator no regard for the black race whom he redeemed? Can the husbandman lose all interest in the orchard and vineyard he has planted for the support of succeeding generations? Little wonder that the Gothic legend represents the fathers drawing near to the battlements of heaven to watch every assault upon liberty in the plains beneath! From time to time the illustrious souls, redeemed out of the body, pluck the red roses from the tree of life, and fling them down upon those who are struggling on the plains. When the roses fall upon the arms of the enemies of liberty they turn to coals of fire, that burn the hands of tyrants and make them drop the sword unsheathed to promote oppression. When the roses fall upon the gashes of those who fight for humanity they become medicines that heal all wounds. Our children, and our children's children to the last generation also have a great stake in this republic. Our own generation is at best a trustee, whose duty it is to safeguard the institutions won by our fathers, and then to hand them forward, unimpaired and greatly enriched, to the generations that come after us. God weaves the ages upon a loom. Civilization is a solid texture, that belongs to the noble dead, to the living, but chiefly to the unborn. Every motive, therefore, of reverence and loyalty to our fathers, and of affection for our children, bids us dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour to the overthrow of autocracy and militarism, and the establishment upon abiding foundations of the institutions of our fathers.
Our Obligation to England