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CHAPTER 5
INTERNATIONAL DUTY AND HYPHENATED AMERICANISM
DURING the past year the activities of our professional pacifists have been exercised almost exclusively on behalf of hideous international iniquity. They have struck hands with those evil enemies of America, the hyphenated Americans, and with the greediest representatives of those Americans whose only god is money. They have sought to make this country take her stand against right that was downtrodden, and in favor of wrong that seemed likely to be successful. Every man or woman who has clamored for peace without daring to say that peace would be a crime unless Belgium was restored to her own people and the repetition of such wrongdoing as that from which she has suffered provided against, has served the Devil and not the lyord. Every man or woman who in the name of peace now advocates the refusal on the part of the United States to furnish arms and munitions of war to those nations who have had the manliness to fight for the redressing of Belgium's wrongs, is serving the Devil and not the Lord.

As for the hyphenated Americans, among the very many lessons taught by the last year has been the lesson that the effort to combine fealty to the flag of an immigrant's natal land with fealty to the flag of his adopted land, in practice means not merely disregard of, but hostility to, the flag of the United States. When two flags are hoisted on the same pole, one is always hoisted undermost. The hyphenated American always hoists the American flag undermost. The American citizen of German birth or descent who is a good American and nothing but a good American, and whose whole loyalty is undivid-edly given to this country and its flag, stands on an exact level with every other American, and is entitled to precisely the same consideration and treatment as if his ancestors had come over on the Mayflower or had settled on the banks of the James three centuries ago. I am partly of German blood, and I am exactly as proud of this blood as of the blood of other strains that flows in my veins. But—I am an American, and nothing else!

The German-Americans who call themselves such and who have agitated as such during the past year, have shown that they are not Americans at all, but Germans in America. Their action has been hostile to the honor and the interest of this country. The man who sings "Deutsch-land iiber Alles" means exactly what he sings. He means that he puts Deutschland above the American flag, above the honor of the United States, and above the well-being of Americans as a whole.

The Americans of German origin have been a peculiarly valuable element in our population. I believe that they are, in overwhelming proportion, thoroughgoing Americans. As I have said, I am partly of German blood. A large number of my closest friends, a large number of the men whom I most respect and honor in American life, are Americans of German parentage or descent or of German birth. One such American, a descendant of one of Blucher's colonels, sat in my Cabinet; and he sat beside another American, a descendant of one of Napoleon's brothers. But each was an American and nothing else! The scientific book of which I was proudest, I wrote in partnership with a close friend, a naturalist who was with me in Africa; he is of German parentage; but he is an American and nothing else. The man who was closest to me politically during the ten years of my service as Governor and President was of German parentage; but he was absolutely straight American. Some of the best men in my regiment, including my orderly and one captain, were of German birth or descent; but they were Americans, pure and simple. Among the clergymen, philanthropists, publicists, good citizens of all kinds, with whom I work in heartiest sympathy, an unusually large proportion are of German descent and some of German birth. I get on with these men and women exactly as well as I do with the men and women of Colonial American descent. But I get on with them because they are Americans and nothing else.

I stand for the American citizen of German birth or descent, precisely as I stand for any other American. But I do not stand at all for the German-American, or any other kind of hyphenated American. When I was President I was brought into close contact with many officers of the army and navy. Col. George Washington Goethals has done the best work done by any American of recent years. He is of Dutch parentage. But he is no more a Dutch-American than I am. He is just plain American. Among my military and naval aides were Lee, Grant, Sheridan and Osterhaus, all descended from generals who fought in the Union or Confederate Armies. Two of them were of old Revolutionary stock, Scotch or English. The grandfather of the third was born in Ireland, and the grandfather of the fourth in Germany. But they were all Americans and nothing else. General Wood, of Revolutionary stock, started Cuba on the road to self-government; General Barry, of Irish parentage, commanded the army that rescued Cuba from revolution; and one was exactly as good an American as the other. Among the admirals upon whom I leaned were Dewey, Evans, Taylor, and Cameron Winslow, of Revolutionary stock; and O'Neil and Schroeder, one of Irish and the other of German descent; and the last two were exactly as good Americans as the other four. It would have been a crime as well as a calamity to endeavor to divide all these and all the other fine and gallant officers of our army and navy on lines of birth or national origin or creed. It is no less a crime and a calamity to attempt to divide our citizens as a whole along such lines.

There was never a better American than Jacob Riis, who was born in Denmark and whom I always thought about the best American I ever knew. The Americans in whom I believe include Jews and Catholics and Protestants. They include men of old native American descent and other men of recent German, English, Erench, Irish, Italian, Scandinavian, Magyar and Slavonic descent; but all are Americans entitled to be treated as such, and claiming to be nothing else. I as emphatically condemn opposition to a good American who happens to be of German birth or descent, because of that fact, as I condemn action by such a man designed to serve not the United States, but some foreign power. I speak against the German-American who seeks to use his American citizenship in the interest of a foreign power and who thereby shows himself an unworthy American. I should speak exactly as quickly against the American of English or French or Scandinavian or Irish descent who was guilty of similar conduct. The following letter which I recently wrote explains itself:

I am very sorry but I cannot sign that appeal. I do not approve of it. You are asking Americans to proclaim themselves Anglo-Americans, and to sympathize with England on the ground that England is the mother-land, and in order to make what you call 'hands across the sea' a matter of living policy. I do not believe that this is the right attitude for Americans to take. England is not my mother-land any more than Germany is my father-land. My motherland and father-land and my own land are all three of them the United States. I am among those Americans whose ancestors include men and women from many different European countries. The proportion of Americans of this type will steadily increase. I do not believe in hyphenated Americans. I do not believe in German-Americans or Irish-Americans; and I believe just as little in English-Americans. I do not approve of American citizens of German descent forming organizations to force the United States into practical alliance with Germany because their ancestors came from Germany. Just as little do I believe in American citizens of English descent forming leagues to force the United States into an alliance with England because their ancestors came from England. We Americans are a separate people. We are separated from, although akin to, many European peoples. The old Revolutionary stock was predominantly English, but by no means exclusively so; for many of the descendants of the Revolutionary New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians and Georgians have, like myself, strains of Dutch, French, Scotch, Irish, Welsh and German blood in their veins. During the century and a quarter that has elapsed since we became a nation, there has been far more immigration from Germany and Ireland and probably from Scandinavia than there has been from England. We have a right to ask all of these immigrants and the sons of these immigrants that they become Americans and nothing else; but we have no right to ask that they become transplanted or second-rate Englishmen. Most emphatically I myself am not an Englishman-once-removed!    I am straight United States!

"In international matters we should treat each nation on its conduct and without the slightest reference to the fact that a larger or smaller proportion of its blood flows in the veins of our own citizens. I have publicly and emphatically taken ground for Belgium and I wish that the United States would take ground for Belgium, because I hold that this is our duty, and that Germany's conduct toward Belgium demands that we antagonize her in this matter, and that we emphatically and in practical shape try to see that Belgium's wrongs are redressed. Because of the British attitude toward Belgium I have publicly and emphatically approved of her attitude, that is of Great Britain's conduct in living up to her obligations by defending Belgium, even at the cost of war. But I am not doing this on any ground that there is any 'hands across the sea' alliance, explicit or implicit, with England. I have never used in peace or in war any such expression as 'hands across the sea,' and I emphatically disapprove of what it signifies save in so far as it means cordial friendship between us and every other nation that acts in accordance with the standards that we deem just and right. On this ground all Americans, no matter what their race origins, ought to stand together. It is not just that they should be asked to stand with any foreign power on the ground of community of origin between some of them and the citizens of that foreign power. [Signed Theodore Roosevelt.]"

We of America form a new nationality. We are by blood, and we ought to be by feeling, akin to but distinct from every nationality of Europe. If our various constituent strains endeavor to keep themselves separate from the rest of their fellow-countrymen by the use of hyphens, they are doing all in their power to prevent themselves and ourselves from ever becoming a real nationality at all.

An American who is loyal to this great American nation has two duties, and only two, in international matters. In the first place, he is bound to serve the honor and the interest of the United States. In the second place, he is bound to treat all other nations in accordance with their conduct at any given time, and in accordance with the ultimate needs of mankind at large; and not in accordance with the interests of the European nation from which some or all of his ancestors have come. If he does not act along these lines, he is derelict in his duty to his fellow-citizens and he is guilty of betraying the interests of his country.

As for the persons who base their actions upon greed in such a crisis as this, little needs to be said. The beef baron or the representative of the cotton interests who wishes to ignore the butchery of our women and children, and the sinking of our ships by German submarines, and to take sides against the Allies so that he may make money by the sale of cotton and beef, is faithless to every consideration of honor and decency. It is entirely fitting that the sheer materialist should on such an issue stand shoulder to shoulder with the professional pacifist, the peace-at-at-any-price man, and with his sinister brother, the hyphenated American. These men by their actions seek to condone the murder of American men, women and children and the trampling of Belgium into bloody mire. They are false to the cause of humanity. They come perilously near being treasonable to this country. It is hard to decide which is the most abject quality; the greed of the mere materialists or the short-sighted cowardice of the professional pacifists. As for the hyphenated American, he endeavors to serve his foreign Fatherland without exposing his own wretched carcass to the danger which would come to him if he served in the trenches beside his fellow-countrymen who have stayed at home —and who at least pretend to no divided allegiance.

I am not willing to admit that this nation has no duty to other nations. Yet the action of this Government during the past year can only be defended on the assumption that we have no such duty to others.

Of course, it is a defensible, although not a lofty, position to deny that there is such a duty. But it is wholly indefensible to proclaim that there is such a duty and then in practice to abandon it. It is a base thing to propose to pass all-inclusive arbitration treaties, and to pass the thirty-odd all-inclusive commission peace treaties that actually have been passed during the last two years, and yet not to dare to say one word when the Hague Conventions which we have already signed are violated by the strong at the expense of the weak. I agree with the abstract theory of the men responsible for all these various treaties; for this theory is to the effect that America owes a duty to the world, to humanity at large. I disagree with their practice, because I believe that we should in fact perform this duty, instead of merely talking about it in the abstract and then shamefully abandoning it the moment it becomes concrete.

As a nation, during the past eighteen months we have refused to prepare to defend our own rights by our own strength. We have also refused to say one word against international wrongdoing of the most dreadful character. We have refused to carry out the promises we made in the Hague Conventions. We have been guilty of all these mean sins of omission, we are officially told, in the hope that the Administration may secure the empty honor of being a go-between when the belligerents decide to make peace. The actions of the Administration have tended to create such conditions that the "peace" shall be in the interest of the wrongdoer, and at the expense of his helpless victim. It is not right that this nation should be asked thus to shirk its duty to itself and to others in order to secure such a worthless function for any person whatsoever. Our plain duty was to stand against wrong, to help in stamping out the wrong, to help in protecting the innocent who had been wronged. This duty we have ignobly shirked. Nor is there any immediate probability that the empty honor which the Administration seeks will be granted to it. If it were, then doubtless there would be shallow Americans who would trumpet the fact as somehow creditable to America. But there is not another nation by which the United States under such conditions would be treated as having played any part excepting that of a dupe; or else the part of a cold and selfish intriguer, willing to sacrifice the welfare of humanity to the gratification of personal vanity.

Let our people keep their eyes fixed on the case of Belgium. Belgium had faithfully observed her international obligations. She had fulfilled her duties in a spirit of loyal impartiality. She had neglected no opportunity to maintain her neutrality and to cause it to be respected by others. The attack upon her independence by Germany was a flagrant violation of the law of nations and a crime against humanity. It has been carried out with inhuman severity. There has been no more abhorrent spectacle in history than the revenge visited upon Belgium for her dauntless defence of national rights and international obligations. In all the grim record of the last year this is the overshadowing accomplishment of evil. The American who defends the action taken against Belgium, or who fails to condemn it, is unworthy to live in a free country, or to associate with men of lofty soul and generous temper. Deep though the hurts are which have been inflicted upon civilization by the sacrifice of millions of lives among the bravest and best of the men of Europe, yet deeper and more lasting is the wound given by the blow struck at international law and international righteousness in the destruction of Belgium. This crime of Germany was a crime against international good faith, a crime against the soul of international law and fair dealing. It is to this act of unforgivable treachery that every succeeding infamy is to be traced; from terrorism and indiscriminate slaughter on land to terrorism and indiscriminate massacre of non-combatants at sea. And this crime of Germany has been condoned by the recreant silence of neutral nations, and above all by the recreant silence of the United States and its failure to live bravely up to its solemn promises.

I am not speaking now of the hideous atrocities committed in Belgium and Northern France, as shown in such reports as that of the committee of which Lord Bryce was Chairman. I am not now speaking of the killing of non-combatants, including scores of women and children, in England and Italy, by air-craft and sea-craft. I deal only with facts as to which there is no dispute. In its broad outlines, what has occurred in the invasion of Belgium is not susceptible of dispute. The action being taken at this moment in Belgium is spoken of as follows by the Norddeutsche All-gemeine Zeitung in replying to German critics who were actually asserting that Belgium was being too mercifully treated. The German defence of Germany's "merciful" action in Belgium is as follows (condensed; the italics are my own) :

"The German government is acting in Belgium with the object of preventing the safety and health of our army from being imperiled by famine and disease behind it. For this reason the German government has gladly consented to food being supplied to the starving population by neutral countries in order to insure that our own troops shall not suffer privation. No more coal will be allowed to be taken from Belgian mines than will suffice for the bare needs of the shivering people and enable the industrious laboriously to exist. It is the right of the conqueror and our duty toward our own army to enable the conquered territory to produce the sums which without prejudice to a later war indemnity are withdrawn from the country in the shape of contributions. We demand at present from Belgium a payment of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars to be made in instalments within one year. This sum represents the limit of the present capacity of the country, which has been grievously affected by the war. The loss suffered by Belgium thus far through actual destruction is estimated at a value of more than a billion and a quarter of dollars. To this figure we have to add the contribution, and the whole amount must be earned by Belgium."

And the ignoble pacifists of the United States are at this moment agitating to prevent any export of arms and munitions to be used in redeeming the country which is suffering such hideous oppression! There was a period when Americans were proud of standing for Kossuth and for Garibaldi, when they subscribed for those who had suffered from wrong in Ireland or Poland, when they sympathized with patriots wrongfully oppressed in any land. The Americans of a bygone generation who possessed such sympathies should turn in their graves at the thought that alleged believers in peace now advocate action in the interest of these oppressors who have trampled on the bodies and seared the souls of the men, women and children of peaceful and unoffending Belgium.

If no duty had been expressly imposed upon the United States in this matter, we ought nevertheless to have acted in accordance with the generous instincts of humanity. But as a matter of fact such a duty was expressly imposed upon us by the Hague Conventions. The Convention, signed at The Hague October i8th, 1907,* begins by saying that "His Majesty the German Emperor, King of Prussia," and the other signatory powers, including France, Belgium, Russia and the United States, have resolved to conclude a Convention laying down clearly the rights and duties of neutral powers in case of war on land. Article I runs: "The territory of neutral powers is inviolable." Article 5 states that a neutral power "must not allow belligerents to move troops across its territory." Article 10 states that "the fact of a neutral power resisting even by force attempts to violate its neutrality cannot be regarded as a hostile act." Article 7 states that "a neutral power is not called upon to prevent the export or transport on behalf of one or other of the belligerents of arms, munitions of war or in general of anything which could be of use to an army or a fleet." This Convention was ratified by Belgium on August 8th, 1910; by France on October 7th, 1910; by Germany, the United States and Russia on November 27th, 1909. It has been alleged by individuals anxious to excuse us for failure to act in accordance with our duty under this Convention that article 20 recites: "The provisions of the present Convention do not apply except between contracting powers and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention." In the first place this objection would be merely technical, even if in some other area of the war a belligerent who was not a party to the Convention was concerned; for of course the Convention must be construed with common sense. But even if it is construed in the most technical manner, it applies to the action taken by Germany in Belgium. This action was taken on August 3d and 4th, 1914. Germany was then at war only with France and Russia, both of which were signatories to this convention. Belgium was a signatory. The United States was a signatory. Germany was not at war at that time with Servia or Montenegro or England; nor was Austria at war with Belgium. When Germany violated the Hague Convention to which we were, one of the signatory powers all of the belligerents in the case were signers of the Hague Convention. The case is technically no less than morally complete. 
(footnote)  See pp. 133-140 of "The Hague Conventions and Declarations" [1915], edited by James Brown Scott. Dr. Scott is our foremost international lawyer. He is the head of the division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has practically proved that he is a believer in the peace of righteousness; for he was an enlisted man in the American army in the Spanish War, having left his position as Dean of the Los Angeles Law School, now the Law School of the University of Southern California, in order to serve his country. ( end footnote)

A treaty is a promise. The signing powers make promises each to the others and each to each of the others in such a case as this. Germany had promised France, Belgium, the United States and Russia that it would treat the territory of a neutral power (in this case Belgium) as inviolable. Germany violated this promise. Belgium had promised Germany, the United States, France and Russia that it would not permit such violation of its neutrality as Germany committed. Belgium kept its promise. Germany had promised that if a neutral power (Belgium) resisted by force such an attempt as it, Germany, made to violate its neutrality, Germany would not regard such an act as hostile. Germany broke this promise. When Germany thus broke her promises, we broke our promise by failing at once to call her to account. The treaty was a joint and several guarantee, and it was the duty of every signer to take action when it was violated; above all it was the duty of the most powerful neutral, the United States.

Germany promised that she would not call upon any neutral power to prevent the export or transport of arms or munitions of war on behalf of any belligerent^ Germany broke this promise when she made precisely such a demand upon us. This was a flagrant act of bad faith on the part of Germany. It is especially flagrant in view of the fact, testified to me by one of the representatives at the Hague Conferences, and well known to all connected with the Hague Conferences, that this article was insisted upon by Germany. Mr. Charles Noble Gregory, the Chairman of the Standing Committee on international law of the American Bar Association, in a capital piece setting forth the right of our citizens to sell munitions of war to any belligerent power, mentions the same fact. He states that one of our Hague representatives told him that the chief interest of the German delegates seemed to be in securing this article, because the Krupp works at Essen were the chief purveyors of munitions of war to foreign powers.

A representative of a great American arms manufactory informed me recently that they had been about to abandon their work prior to the beginning of this war, because the Germans systematically endeavored to undersell them in every country. It has been the settled policy of Germany to drive all other countries out of the business of manufacturing arms and supplies because, of course, if this were once substantially accomplished, the rest of the world would be completely helpless before Germany; and Germany has made it evident that she knows no such thing as international morality and looks upon all other nations, including the United States, merely as possible prey. The Americans who are now striving to prevent the sale of munitions of war to the countries endeavoring to secure the redress of Belgium's wrongs, that is, the Allied Powers, are playing the game of a ruthlessly militaristic and anti-American Germany against their own country as well as against the interests of humanity at large. They are profoundly unpatriotic from the standpoint of the interests of the United States. They are committing the gravest possible offence against the cause of international right and of the interest of humanity.

It was Germany which for decades supplied Turkey with the means of keeping the Christians of her European and Asiatic provinces in a state of dreadful subjection. It was Germany which established the artillery in the Belgian forts— and, as one of the men engaged in the work informed a friend of mine, the German War Office was then furnished with blue-prints of what had been done and of the neighboring geography, so as to enable the German armies to take the forts with the least possible delay and damage. Essen has been the center of military supplies to belligerents and has exported on an enormous scale to belligerents in all the modern wars, making vast profits from this traffic even in the late Balkan wars. Germany has consistently followed this course, even when one of the belligerents alone had access to her markets and the other, with which she was nominally in sympathy, had no such access. This was shown in the Boer War, Among the supplies furnished by Germany to Great Britain for use against the Boers were 108 fifteen pounder quick-firing guns and 54,000 rounds of ammunition for them; 65,000 hundredweight of swords, cutlasses, bayonets and arms of other sorts; 8,000,000 rounds of small-arms' ammunition and 1,000,500 of metal cartridge cases other than small-arms' ammunition ; and some 27,000 hundredweight of cordite, gunpowder, dynamite and the like. la short, Germany has thriven enormously on the sale of arms to belligerents when she was a neutral; she insisted that such sale be sanctioned-by the Hague Conventions; she, so far as possible, desires to prevent other nations from manufacturing arms; and if she is successful in this effort she will have taken another stride to world dominion. The professional pacifists, hyphenated Americans, and beef and cotton-Americans; in short, all the representatives of American mollycoddleism, American greed, and downright treachery to America, in seeking to prevent shipments of munitions to the Allies, are playing the game of a brutal militarism against Belgium and against their own country.

Of course, if sales of munitions are improper in time of war, they are precisely as improper in time of peace, for in time of peace they are made only with a view to possible war. To prohibit them is to put a premium upon aggressive nations manufacturing their own ammunition, for it is the non-aggressive nations that do not conduct great manufactories for munitions of war. On November 13, 1870, Goldwin Smith, who was in ardent sympathy with the Germans in their contest with France of that year, wrote to his friend, Max Miiller, upholding the propriety of the action of the United States in selling munitions of war to France, the right to do which had been insisted upon by President Grant. He stated that the Americans were acting in accordance with" the right view of international law in refusing to prohibit such sales of arms. His letter runs in part: "If this were done, a great disadvantage would be given against the interests of civilization to the Powers which during peace employed their revenues in arming themselves for war instead of endowing professors. A moral and civilized people which had been benefiting humanity would be assailed by some French Empire which had been collecting chassepots, and when it wants to provide itself with the means of defence international law would shut up the gunshops."

In our existing treaties with Germany the right to such shipment of arms is explicitly affirmed, as it has also been in the Hague Convention from which I have above quoted. The American government has always maintained the right of its citizens to ship arms to belligerents, president Washington, through his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, and his Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, took this position when France protested against the sale of arms to England in 1793, the answer being that "the exporting from the United States of warlike instruments and military stores is not to be interfered with." President Lincoln, through his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, took this view in 1862, when Mexico complained of the export of military supplies from the United States for the benefit of the French. President Lincoln and Secretary Seward sympathized with Mexico but explicitly informed Mexico that Mexico could not "prescribe to us what merchandise we shall not sell to French subjects because it may be employed in military operations against Mexico." President Grant and Secretaries of State Henry Clay, Bayard, Blaine, Olney and John Hay are among the high officials who have publicly taken the same position.

At this time to alter such a rule during the pendency of a state of war to the benefit of one of the warlike powers would be to place the United States on the side of that power—of the wrongdoing power—and to make it in effect itself a belligerent. The position was correctly stated on January 25, 1915, by President Wilson through Secretary of State Bryan in a published letter which recites that "the duty of a neutral to restrict trade in munitions of war has never been imposed by international law or by municipal statute. It has never been the policy of this government to prevent the shipment of arms or ammunition into belligerent territory;" and in response to the German protest it was stated that our right to export munitions of war to belligerents was settled and assured and it was declared that our government holds "that any change in its own laws of neutrality during the progress of a war which would affect unequally the relations of the United States with the nations at war would be an unjustifiable departure from the principles of strict neutrality by which it has sought to direct its actions."

A great expert on international law has said "that a system under which a peaceful commercial state may not, when attacked, use her cash and her credits in international markets to equip herself for defence is intolerable and in every way pernicious. Rules which interfere with such a right would tend to give the victory in war to the belligerent best prepared at the outset and therefore to make it necessary for peaceful nations to be in a constant state of over-preparedness." Under the German proposal a well behaved state which was not armed to the teeth could not, if wantonly attacked, be allowed to equip herself for defence. The American professional pacifists, in accepting the German position in this matter, are, as usual, playing into the hands of the Powers that believe in unprincipled aggression. The United States, if suddenly assailed by some great military power, would suffer incalculably from the application of the doctrine thus advanced by our silly professional pacifists.
The warlike and aggressive nation chooses the moment of attack and is fully equipped in advance. If the nation assailed cannot replenish her supplies from outside, she must always maintain them in time of peace at the highest point or else expose herself to ruin. The professional pacifists, the cotton-Americans, the beef barons and the German-Americans—in other words, the hyphenated Americans, the greedy materialists and all the mollycoddles of both sexes—advocate the prohibition of the shipment of munitions to the Allies who are engaged in fighting Belgium's battles. They thereby take a stand which, not merely in the concrete case of the moment but in all future cases, would immensely benefit powerful and aggressive nations which cynically disregard the rules of international morality at the expense of the peaceful and industrial nations which have no thought of aggression and which act toward their neighbors with honorable good faith.

From the standpoint of international law, as I have shown above, we have the absolute right to make such shipments. Washington and Lincoln, in fact all our Presidents and secretaries have peremptorily refused to allow this right to be questioned. The right has been insisted upon by Germany in her own interest, more strongly than by any other nation, up to the beginning of the present war. It has been exercised by Germany herself on a larger scale than by any other nation up to the time that she herself went to war. From the standpoint of morality the justification is even more clear. Selling arms to a belligerent may be morally either very right or very wrong. This depends absolutely upon the justice of the cause in which the arms are to be used. This is as true in international as in private matters. It is moral and commendable to sell arms to a policeman in order that he may put down black-handers, white-slavers, burglars, highwaymen and other criminals who commit acts of violence. It is immoral to sell arms to those who are committing or intend to commit such acts of violence. In the same way it is thoroughly immoral in any way to help Germany win a triumph which would result in making the subjugation of Belgium perpetual. It is highly moral, it is from every standpoint commendable, to sell arms which shall be used in endeavoring to secure the freedom of Belgium and to create a condition of things which will make it impossible that such a crime against humanity as its subjugation by Germany shall ever be repeated, whether by Germany or by any other power.