D570 .15" D 570 .15 .B3 Copy 1 0uv Jftgftt for tfje heritage of itomamtp & Sermon to Rev. William E. Barton, , D. D., LL. D. in tKe First Congregational CKurcK of Oak Park, Illinois Sunday, April i 5. 1917 H < << Published by TKe Men's Bible Class First Congregational Church Oak Park J\S7o . \5 .ZB3 Jforetoorb The following sermon by our Pastor made a strong impression upon the men of the Church ; and a com- mittee of the Men's Bible Class was appointed to wait upon Dr. Barton and request a copy of the manuscript for publication. We present it herewith to members of the congregation, with a request that they mail it to their friends in other places, for we believe it is a sermon that will do good. E. W. PRATT, President of the Men's Bible Class. Oak Park, April 19, 1917. 0uv Jf tgf)t for tfje heritage of Jtomanitp r Text: And Moses said, Shall your brethren go to war, and ye sit here? . . . And they came near unto him and said, We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones; but we ourselves will be ready-armed to go before the children of Israel, until we have brought them unto their place. . . . We will not return unto our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance. — Numbers 32:6, 16-18. Of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, rather more than three- quarters made their home in the region west of the Jordan, but the two tribes of Reuben and Gad and half the tribe of Manassah settled in the land first conquered, the land that lay east of the turbulent river, where the country, somewhat less valuable for agriculture, was well adapted to their principal business of grazing. The tribes of Gad and Reuben made their appeal to Moses that they might dwell in this land and not be compelled to cross over the river with their brethren of the other tribes. Moses answered them with sorrow not unmixed with indignation: "Shall your brethren go to the war, and shall ye sit here? And wherefore dis- courage ye the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which Jehovah hath given them?" The answer of the two trans-Jordanic tribes was immediate and positive. They would not remain permanently apart from the struggle of their brethren. They would tarry east of the Jordan until they had provided for the safety and sustenance of their families, and then they would put themselves in the very van of the allied forces, and fight with them for a common cause. Moses was a little afraid to trust them. If they were permitted to settle down in security, to acquire vested interests that were in no imme- diate peril of invasion, he feared they would forget the common obligation that rested upon them with the other tribes ; and that their failure to enter the struggle would result in the discouragement of the allied forces, and possibly in the collapse of the whole plan for the occupation of Canaan. The promise of God to Abraham awaited as a condition of its fulfillment the united loyalty and endeavor of all the children of Israel. The spiritual destiny of the world depended, it might be, upon whether Reuben and Gad entered whole-heartedly into the conflict or got so —3— OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY interested in the sheep and cattle business as to forget the peril of their brethren. The two tribes made a solemn covenant with Moses that their isola- tion should not involve their failure to participate in the conflict. The security of their homes and children would be to them a reason why they could enter more unreservedly into the very front of the battle. Moses accepted their promise, but warned them that if they withdrew from the conflict before the rights of their brethren were secure, their sin would be great before God. It was on this occasion that those memorable words were spoken, "Be sure your sin will find you out." America is entering into a world-war. It is not to secure our shores from invasion, not to avenge the death of our countrymen who went down on the Lusitania or the Sussex, not to extend our boundaries, or to participate in the distribution of spoils. We are entering this conflict to make the rights of humanity more secure. We are engaging in a fight for the heritage of humanity. The United States has been at war with Germany since the sixth day of April, 1917. Germany has been at war with the United States ever since the day when by an act of deliberate piracy she sunk the Lusitania and murdered more than a hundred peaceable American citizens. She has been at war with humanity since the day when she violated her own sacred promise and invaded Belgium, her armies spreading terror in their front and desolation in their rear. Notwithstanding all the wrongs we have witnessed and endured, I have earnestly hoped that America would be able to maintain her neu- trality. I have hoped this not because I did not believe we would be justified in going to war, but because it seemed to me the world needed one great nation calm enough to endure even a provocation sufficient to warrant a belligerant declaration, but determined not to issue it so long as any other course remained that was compatible with our national honor and our regard for the rights of humanity. For this reason I have been glad of the attitude of President Wilson toward the European prob- lem, glad of his patience, of his willingness to be misunderstood, and of his determination to remain at peace, if that should be possible, in a time when the world had gone mad. Of his sincerity I have no shadow of doubt; of his love of peace I am thoroughly convinced. It was my good fortune to meet him for a few minutes by appointment in the White House on the afternoon of the 31st of January, and in a brief conversa- tion to hear from his own lips an affirmation of his ardent and confident hope, not only that America might be kept out of the war, but that his own address before the Senate, delivered a few days before, might have some part in promoting the peace of the world and defining some of OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY the essential lines along which measures looking toward that end must probably proceed. It was only a few hours later, on that very night, that he received the German note, announcing that on the following day, February 1st, Germany would resume her ruthless warfare, sinking neu- tral ships without warning. I believe that few men were more surprised, or smitten with deeper sorrow, by this virtual declaration of war than the President of the United States. I believe that in the course which he has followed from that day to this he has been animated by the noblest motives and the sinceresl devotion to what he believes to be his solemn duty. I am preaching this sermon because in coming months it will be necessary for me to make frequent reference to the war. Precisely what I shall say must be determined by events as they occur, and I am seek- ing to formulate, partly that I may define it to myself, the background against which particular utterances must be outlined. I am not preaching this sermon through any fear that you will misunderstand me, either now or hereafter. This congregation has known its minister long enough to be reasonably certain of his attitude in a crisis of this character. But some of my utterances hereafter are likely to be fragmentary and inci- dental, and I should like this morning to devote this entire sermon to a consideration of what I believe to be our fight for the heritage of humanity. I am a lover of peace. I have been earnestly hoping that our nation never again would enter into a great war. I was at one time a director of the national organization of the American Peace Society, and for a good many years was one of its vice-presidents. While I have no present connection with that organization, I believe in peace, and am a member of the National League to Enforce Peace. Earnestly and with all force of persuasion which I have been able to employ, I have pleaded for the cultivation of the ideals of peace. I still cherish those ideals, but I believe that if those ideals are to be preserved and handed down to pos- terity the time has come when we must fight for them. Deeply as I deplore the necessity of war, I believe that no other honorable course is open to us as a nation than to prosecute the war which we have entered upon to its complete and successful consummation. I bear no hatred in my heart toward Germany or her people. I do not believe that the German people are inherently brutal or inhuman. The people of German birth whom we know in America are many of them among our best citizens, and those of us who have traveled in European countries must think of Germany with a peculiar affection. For myself, I feel much more at home in I Germany than in France. I love Berlin far more than I love Paris. The German people are an affec- OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY tionate people, a home-loving people, and not by nature either a degraded or an inhuman people. Nevertheless, we shall make a great mistake if we suppose that we have to fight only the German kaiser. If the German people as a whole had not supported the German government, the present war would have ended long ago. Those of us who know who have been the teachers of the men now leading in German politics and in the German army cannot deceive ourselves with the illusion that we are fighting only the kaiser. Who are the men whom we must fight in Germany? I must men- tion four of them, two in the realm of philosophy and two as military authorities. One of the men we have to fight is Heinrich von Treitschke, who was born at Dresden in 1834 and died at Berlin in 1896. He more than any other one man has molded the present German mind ; and has carried with him the leaders of German thought in their attitude toward world- politics. He was not only the chief supporter of the Hohenzollern throne and the Prussian military spirit, but in his advocacy of colonial expansion he disseminated hatred of Great Britain and of all that opposed the progress of German world empire. Back of Germany's aggression lies a philosophy and a spiritual attitude. Treitschke was a historian of unusual ability, and an interpreter of the philosophy of history which has come to be accepted as the spiritual basis of Germany's dream of world empire. He was the most popular lecturer at the University of Berlin, and his work on history occupies an undisputed place in German teaching. His philosophy led him to support the government in its legislation enacted to subdue the Socialists, Poles, Catholics and Jews, and to inculcate a bitter hatred of all things British and incidentally of things American. When he thought of America he thought of her demo- cratic spirit as a certain check upon Germany's plan of world empire ; and he never ceased to declare "that the civilization of mankind suffers every time a German is turned into a Yankee." Inevitably Treitschke's vision of German world empire involved the certainty of war, and I want to read just one paragraph from him, which defines his conception of the spiritual aspect of war; for beyond all question it is Treitschke's philosophy which furnishes the spiritual basis of Germany's present thought of war. We have learned to recognize the moral majesty of war just in those aspects of it which superficial observers describe as brutal and inhuman. Men are called upon to overcome all natural feeling for the sake of their country, to murder people who have never before done them any harm, and whom they perhaps respect as chivalrous enemies. It is things such as these that seem at the first glance horrible and repulsive. Look at them again and you will see in them the —6— OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY greatness of war. Not only the life of man, but also the right and natural emo- tions of his inmost soul, his whole ego, are to be sacrificed to a great poetic idea; and herein lies the moral significance of war. Another man whom we must fight is Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, who was born near Leipsic in 1844 and died in 1900. I need not quote him at length, because his teaching is much better known than any of the others to whom I am now referring. His revolt against the Christian faith and morals made him the preacher of a new morality, which deposed all the Christian virtues, counting them as weakness. He scorned democ- racy, and declared with an intensity of passion which ultimately mani- fested itself in utter insanity that the vast body of human beings must exist to serve a much smaller group who by process of natural selection and dominant overlordship shall ultimately produce a race of the super- man. Now, Germany does not confess itself to have accepted the phil- osophy of Nietzsche, but there can be no denial that these principles have experienced tremendous growth, and an influence far beyond what Ger- many as a whole has been willing to confess. This philosophy, if it were established, would drive out all the gentler virtues from human life and exalt those that make for military strength and the acknowledgment of the rightful tyranny of the strong. I have quoted two philosophers, the spread of whose teaching in German no thoughtful man will deny. I am about to quote two author- ities in which these principles are definitely applied to the theory and practice of war. I am doing this because every recent act of German aggression has been defended on the basis of military necessity. Last Sunday some one stood at our church door and handed to members of this congregation as they passed out this four-page folder written to show us how Germany has always been devoted to the principles of peace, but has been reluctantly compelled to turn her pacific inventions to the grim uses of war because of the wickedness of Great Britain. I will read one or two paragraphs The U-boat was invented for a mail and commerce boat. But they have compelled Germany to make it a war boat. They have compelled Germany to make it a weapon of destruction, instead of a means for doing good. England would like to hinder us from getting first class advantages of new resources and new conveniences. It is the same with the Zeppelin. It was made as a quick means for mail and commerce; but they had to turn it into a war craft. These declarations, of course, are absurd. What I now propose to show is that the principles of Nietzsche and Trietschke have their logical expression in indisputed military authorities whose works were issued before the present war began. —7- OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY Friederich von Bernhardi issued his readable book, "Germany and the Next War" in 1911. His book is notable because there is not very much which Germany has done in the present war which he did not predict would be done, and he justified the doing of it. He said in his introduction, "I must first of all examine the aspira- tions for peace which seem to dominate our age and threaten to poison the soul of our German people, according to their true moral significance. I must try to prove that war is not merely a necessary element in the life of nations, but an indispensable factor of culture." Holding as he did that the soul of the German people was poisoned by aspirations for peace, he unblushingly declared that the making of war was a duty, and that it must be done at the time and in the manner when the greatest possible advantage was to be gained by it. Quoting Bismarck, who repeatedly declared before the German Reichstag that no one should ever take upon himself the immense responsibility of intentionally bringing about a war, Bernhardi can find no other defense for the man of blood and iron than that he probably did not mean it and certainly did not live up to it, and Bernhardi declared that — The greatness of true statesmanship does not shrink from the conflict which under the given conditions arc unavoidable, but decides them resolutely by war when a favorable position affords prospect of a successful issue (page 39). Bernhardi was not talking at random, but definitely considering what he regarded as a near and certain war against Great Britain and France, when he said that — The lessons of history confirm the view that wars which have been deliberately provoked by far-seeing statesmen have had the happiest results (page 45). Bernhardi's work was not unrelated to the philosophy which we have been considering. His book is sprinkled with quotations, especially from Treitschke, and the text and theme of Bernhardi's contention was this central axiom from Treitschke's "Politik": "Among all political sins the sin of feebleness is the most contemptible; it is the poltical sin against the Holy Ghost." These three names are more or less familiar to all of us. The fourth is Carl von Clausewitz, who was born in 1780 and died in 1831. You will read all about him in any encyclopedia and you will find it stated that his work as an exposition of the philosophy of war, "is absolutely unrivaled" in Germany and considered by the whole German military organization as "the essential basis of all serious study of the art of war." The book from which I am about to quote is "The Reality of War : An Introduction to Clausewitz" by Major Murray of the Gordon High- landers. It was published in London in 1909, and the significant thing about it is that it was not published to be refuted. Major Murray accepts OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY Clausewitz, not only as the undisputed authority in Germany, but the authority which must be reckoned with and ultimately adopted by all governments. In this sympathetic translation Clausewitz sets forth the three prin- cipal objects to be gained in carrying on war : 1. To conquer and destroy the enemy's armed force. 2. To Rain possession of the material elements of aggression, and of the other sources of existence of the hostile army. 3. To gain public opinion. It is in this recognition of the military value of public opinion that Clausewitz stands supreme. What did Clausewitz mean by the gaining of public opinion? He meant, of course, that a government must have behind it the moral backing of the nation's own population ; but that was not all he meant. He meant two other things. First, "'The moral pas- sions which break forth in war must already have a latent existence in the peoples'' (p. 32). That is to say, international hatred must be sedulously cultivated as the basis of successful war. He meant one other thing by his emphasis upon public opinion. He meant the inauguration of systems of terrorism such as "to force the enemy's population into a state of mind favorable to submission"' (page 33). Clausewitz was in no uncertainty of mind concerning the methods by which this was to be done. He flouted the notion of philanthropy that there could be any skilful method of disarming and overcoming an adversary without causing great bloodshed, holding this to be a dan- gerous error and that of all errors in war "those which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst." Clausewitz held that "to introduce into the philosophy of war a prin- ciple of moderation would be an absurdity." This was his axiom, his definition, his fundamental proposition, "War is an act of violence, which in its application knows no bounds." (Murray, page 39; Vom Kri book 1 , chapter 1.) Where in the theory of Clausewitz does international law come in? The answer of Clausewitz is that it is "hardly worth mentioning." He declares that power and expediency are the only rules to be recognized in the practical relations of nations. He says there are just two ques- tions which a nation must ask, and the first is "Have we sufficient power to do this?" and the other, "Is it expedient for us to do this?" I p. 5 What about treaties? What reliance are we to place upon the sacred pledge and plighted honor of a nation? His answer is, "None whatever." "Only in ourselves can we trust." All treaties in his theory are on their OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY way to the waste-basket, and a treaty is valid only so long as it is to the interest of either nation to regard it so. Now, I must ask you to believe that I am not quoting from an isolated teacher, whose theories are obsolete. These are the theories of the acknowledged teacher of all the German generals. More than that, there is imminent peril that they will come to be accepted teachings of the armies of the world. I place here on the pulpit these four books; — Treitschke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, Clausewitz. I have quoted from them truthfully some pass- ages that fairly represent their spirit and their fundamental teaching, and I say deliberately that the great question now to be settled in this present war is whether the future is to be dominated by the ideals of these four books, or this other one, the Holy Bible, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The reason I quote these authorities at length is this. I want to make it plain that the acts of frightfulness in which Germany has engaged, including the desolation of Belgium, a full moral share of responsibility for the massacres in Armenia, the sinking of the Lusitania, and her present ruthless submarine warfare, are not the result of an after-thought, or a grim necessity forced upon her unexpectedly by the exigencies of war. They are the logical and normal expressions of the kind of warfare which every German officer has been systematically taught. When the German fleet approached the coast of England and bombarded unfortified towns, knowing that the shells were killing non- combatants, including women and children, that was a part of what Clausewitz had taught all German military and naval authorities to regard as the most effective way to wage war by exciting terror among the enemy's population. When Germany sends her Zeppelins by night to drop bombs on sleeping villages, far from camps and naval stations, knowing that the people killed will largely be women and babies, she does not do it because military necessity forces her to drop bombs in other places than on forts and warships. It is entirely untrue that Germany sought to wage this war humanely and was compelled by unexpected events to adopt ruthless methods. She has taught all her officers that ruthlessness is an important element in successful warfare. I do not forget that the British and French also have been guilty of terrible deeds. Neither do I forget that we are dependent to a large degree upon Great Britain for our information concerning the actual atrocities which the Germans are alleged to have committed, but the writings I have been reading to you are not the product of British prejudice or misinformation. I have read from authorized translations that were made before the war. —10— OUR FIGHT FOR THE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY But we are not wholly dependent upon translations, nor upon the possible misinterpretations of the British. I have here a yellow poster. It is an exact fac-simile of the proclamation which General von Emmich distributed among the civil population of Belgium on August 4, 1914, the day the German army violated Belgian neutrality. It is in French, and you will not find it difficult to read, if you know even a little French. It says this, among other things : I give formal pledges to the Belgian population that it will have nothing to suffer from the horrors of war, that we will pay in gold for the provisions that must be taken from the country and that our soldiers will prove themselves the best of friends to a people for whom we feel the highest esteem and the greatest sympathy. That promise was a scrap of paper. Before the end of that month this is the kind of placards that were posted in the villages of Belgium. I show it to you in this orange-colored poster. The village of Luneville is required to furnish within 48 hours 100,000 cigars, or 200,000 cigar- ettes, 50,000 litres of wine, 1,000 kilos of tea or cocoa, and other articles which you may read, and it i- expressly stated that all appeals will be null and void. Here is another poster on paper the same color, printed on the same press four days later, demanding of the same population by nine o'clock on the third day thereafter 650,000 francs. Now, here is an interesting thing about these two posters. The first of them is dated August 29, 1914, and the second September 3, 1914. In this second handbill a reason is given for this large indemnity, namely, that on the 25th of August certain inhabitants of Luneville had fired upon the German soldiers. If that was true, why was there no mention of it in the proclamation of the 29th? Apparently the heavy requisition for tobacco, wine and other comfortable articles was met so promptly that the Germans knew they could have more for the asking. The first requisition was in direct defiance of the 52n