rs ago
Bismarck said that he had reduced France to the level of a fourth-class
nation, and that henceforth France did not count; while as for the
Balkan States, "the whole Eastern question is not worth the bones of a
Pomeranian grenadier"--Bismarck was quite wrong. The present Kaiser has
no imagination. A man of any prevision of the future might have foreseen
that any attack upon England would settle the Irish question; that any
treaty with Turkey would force Italy, as Turkey's enemy in the late
Italian-Turkish war, to break with Germany; any man with the least
instinct for diplomacy might have known that the twentieth century man
is so incensed by an enemy's trespass upon his property, that Belgium
would have resisted encroachment, and so cost Germany the best three
weeks of the entire war. If the history of great wars tells us anything,
it tells us that the first qualification of the statesman and diplomat
is an intuitive knowledge of a future that is the certain outcome of the
present. There has been no foresight on the part of the makers and
advisers of this war. Years ago, when the Austrian Emperor visited
Innsbruck, the Burgomaster ordered foresters to go up on the mountain
sides and cut certain swaths of brush. At the moment the man with his
axe did not know what he was doing, but when the night fell, and the
torch was lifted on the boughs, the people in the city below read these
words written in letters of fire, "Welcome to our Emperor." Today the
demon of war has been writing with blazing letters certain lessons upon
the hills and valleys of Europe, and fortunate is that youth who can
read the writing and interpret aright the lessons of the times.

The people of the republic now realize for the first time what are the
inevitable fruits of imperialism and militarism. One of the perils of
America's distance from the scenes of autocracy is that our people have
come to think that the forms of government are of little importance. We
hear it said that climate determines government and that one nation
likes autocracy and another limited monarchy, that we like democracy
self-government, and that the people are about as happy under one form
of control as another. This misconception is based upon a failure to
understand foreign imperialism. Superficially, the fruits of autocracy
are efficiency, industrial wealth, and military power. But now, after
nearly five months of constant discussion, our people understand
thoroughl