The Days of a Man 



1919 



A Council of Civilization' 1 (not a disguised Balance of Power) 

 ofCiviii- having no element of force and no suggestion of 

 penalties, military or economic, the American people 

 would be most hospitable. And such, I imagine, is 

 the form the League of Nations is sooner or later 

 bound to take. 



A profoundly sad feature of the war was the suffer- 

 ing it imposed on the brave men and women who 

 stood out against the action of the Central Powers. 

 One of the most influential was the eminent Aus- 

 trian, Lammasch. 1 When hostilities began he resigned 

 from all official relations, and went to the mountains 

 at Salzburg, whence he sent me occasionally through 

 Switzerland pamphlets inscribed Herzlicher Gruss. 2 



never belies his keen mind and big heart) vigorously addressed his readers in the 

 Empona Gazette: 



"HAPPY NEW YEAR! 



"If you like a world where 14 wars are waging, enjoy it. If you are pleased 

 with a world where 100 million people are near starvation, laugh and sing and 

 be gay. If your heart is warmed by the fact that kings are coming back into 

 power in Europe and the ruthless plutocracy which was whipped to a finish by 

 Roosevelt is returning in America, jump up and crack your heels together three 

 times. If you like the kind of a world where crime waves are washing over the 

 cities and hard, grueling times are pinching the farmer hurrah for it, you've 

 got it. If you like a world gone mad, where finance is topsy-turvy; where every 

 one is rich and no one has credit, where we can only pay our national debts by 

 canceling what other nations owe us, where we can only get foreign trade by 

 selling to people who have nothing, and lending them money to pay for what we 

 sell them yip and kioodle! Here's your financial madhouse controlling the 

 commerce of the world. If you like sitting on a volcano of four big possible 

 wars, and if you like a great armament program to eat up taxes that should go 

 to schools and the betterment of humanity, rejoice and make a glad noise, for 

 your millennium is here. 



"So on this bright New Year's Day, with all nature smiling, and the angels 

 laughing their heads off and crying their eyes out at the stupidity and folly of 

 man, in this beauteous New Year season, with every man on earth merely an 

 outpatient of the vast boobyhatch of a jaundiced and disorganized life, on this 

 bright New Year's Day we wish you with all our heart a happy New Year!" 



1 See Chapter XLIV, page 521. 2 "Hearty Greeting." 



C 764 3 



