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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



is better to call out the full power of the 

 people when the emergency comes than 

 it is to keep them weighted down for 20 

 years in order to do one year's fighting. 

 As a rule, people do one year's fighting 

 out of each 20 years of their actual ex- 

 istence. We have done less, of course. 



Which would you rather do — fight 

 Prussia now, with France and England 

 and Russia to help you, or fight her later, 

 when she is foot-loose, by ourselves? 

 You have got to do one or the other. 



A whole lot of people tell me that the 

 nations of the Entente are bound to win 

 the war in Europe. I tell you they are 

 not. I tell you that with that line, almost 

 like a right-angle triangle, with a salient 

 here, with Robert E. Lee behind that line, 

 with a capacity to reinforce one part of 

 it from the other, while the enemy has to 

 go all around, he would win that war. 



I tell you, furthermore, that the Italian 

 barrier cannot be protected if there are 

 enough German people put in, and when 

 once it is broken France will be attacked 

 upon the south — unfortified and unde- 

 fended — on the Italian side. 



I tell you, moreover, that if Germany 

 does win that fight upon the Continent of 

 Europe — with Belgium already a vassal 

 State, Holland to become one, France 

 likewise, by defeat — with all their forts 

 and naval stations and shipyards open as 

 well as her own, she will begin to get 

 ready to whip us, unless England's fleet 

 prevents it. 



Now, Great Britain can, by sea-power, 

 defend herself almost indefinitely — de- 

 fend herself long enough for us to get 

 ready to help her defend us. You can 

 put it in your pipe and smoke it — this 

 fact : whether you are going to fight Prus- 

 sia now, with assistance, or whether you 

 are going to fight her later, when we have 

 no assistance, you have got to fight her. 



THE OTHER NEUTRAL NATIONS 



Then the Senator says that "the other 

 neutral nations are not taking the course 

 that we are taking." No ; they are not. 

 But why ? There is Norway, the land of 

 the free and the brave, and the true coun- 

 try whence the Normans came and 

 whence almost all the blue blood of Eu- 

 rope's rulers came. Why does not Nor- 

 wav resent these insults ? Oh, Mr. Presi- 



dent, it is a sad and tragic thing; but 

 Norway is too weak. Why does not 

 Denmark act? Because her very hands 

 are in the mouth of the mad dog. 



Why does not Holland act? Again, 

 because she dares not. German troops 

 are lined, across her border, ready to walk 

 over her prostrate body as they walked 

 over the body of Belgium; to shoot her 

 civilians if they express sympathy for 

 themselves against the German enemy ; to 

 burn down her schools, her libraries, and 

 her cathedrals, as the Germans burned 

 down those in Belgium. Holland is 

 cowed. 



A brave race are the Dutch. They 

 faced Spain in its pride and power, with 

 the help of England. They fought and 

 died for liberty to speak and to worship. 

 But, Mr. President, almost any people in 

 the world, no matter how brave, now and 

 then can be cowed and for a time act like 

 whipped slaves. It is the most tragic and 

 pathetic thing in all history when that 

 happens either to a man or to a nation. 



I have spoken of France ; I have spoken 

 of Great Britain. How about Russia? 

 Up to a short time ago, so far as Russia 

 is concerned, any animadversions that the 

 Senator chose to make would have met 

 with a good deal of sympathy upon my 

 part ; but once more I see a people throw- 

 ing off their shackles, who have at last 

 "declared" that they are free. Time will 

 test the question whether they can prove 

 that they are worthy to be free or not ; 

 but they have at least expressed. the desire 

 and the intention to be free, and, as a 

 rule, where the desire and the intention 

 go, the fact exists. 



We have got to go into this war now, 

 and we are going into it for all we are 

 worth, for all our capital is worth, for all 

 our bodies are worth, for all that we have 

 and all that we are ; and I, for one, hope 

 that we will never make peace until the 

 universal decree of the civilized world 

 has gone forth to the effect that the 

 Hapsburgers and the Hohenzollerns have 

 ceased to reign. 



The Hohenzollerns have been able ; 

 they have been efficient ; they have been 

 all that ; but a race infected with the 

 poisonous idea that it is ruling by divine 

 ordinance is crazv. 



