civilization, Germany has been enslaving huge populations, setting them to forbidden tasks in order to release every German for her armies. Without that slavery Germany could not have raised such armies or endured so long. Not to Germany, but to England and to France, which—while enslaving no nation, have given twenty per cent of their entire population to this war, is honor and reverence due! And this Germany wants peace because she is already dreaming of another war. Frederick Nauman, member of the Reichstag, tells us that she will build barns and granaries to hold a supply of food sufficient for her entire population for ten years; that she will build concrete entrenchments, impregnable lines of defence, along all her frontiers. Germany has already enforced a dreadful kind of concubinage, to avoid a worse term, upon the women of the occupied territories, and now we have evidence that she is enforcing that same dreadful system upon the women of her own land in utter disregard of all ethics, religion and the dignity of womanhood. At any expense Germany means to have boys that, twenty years from now, when France is still exhausted from this struggle and before England shall have regathered her strength, Germany shall have a new army to send over the Rhine, through spent Belgium and unrecuperated France. Then there shall be no halt before the walls of Paris, no battle of the Marne, no failure at Calais!

And let America keep in mind the fact that this Germany has expressed the greatest hostility for America. "Let America look out when this war is finished," and "I will stand no nonsense from America after this war," said the Kaiser to Ambassador Gerard. In 1898 Count von Goetzen said, in substance, "About fifteen years from now my country will begin a great war; in a few weeks we shall have taken Paris; in three months we shall occupy London; then we will turn to America. We will take some billions of dollars from America in indemnities; we will put you in your right relation with Germany and we will take charge of the Monroe Doctrine for ourselves." "We are keeping books on you Americans," said Major Liebster. "It is a long account, and we have not missed a detail. We are keeping the account in black and white; rest assured that it will be presented to you some day for settlement." In 1901 Freiherr von Edelsheim of the German General Staff wrote a book on sea power, in which he briefly outlined a German plan for the conquest of America and said: "Germany is the only power in a position to conquer America." If once we and our allies let go our grip, if we grow soft, if we falter and fail, be very sure we and our children shall pay to the full the penalty.

I heard Major Murphy say that the Captain of the Arabic, who had gone down with his torpedoed ship and had been rescued from the sea, told him that as long as he stayed on the bridge of that sinking vessel, every time he rang a bell to the engine room he got the answering signal. I know no story of heroism in all this war that moves me more than this. Have you ever been in the engine room of a great liner where the sides come close together and you can put your fingers on the steel plates and know that just a fraction of an inch beyond, the deep green waters of the sea are running? Then take your stand with these thirty or forty stokers and engineers; the ship is sinking, you know that the life boats are putting off, rafts are being launched and men are leaping into the sea. Now turn and look up that narrow and twisting iron stairway and watch for the first green gleam of foam-flecked waters to come cascading down, and then every time the bell rings give back the answering signal.

Our Ship of State has pushed out into a stormy sea; the officers are on the bridge, the lookout at the prow; the fortunate men are at the gun. To us, far in the interior, there comes the humbler task of keeping the fires burning on which depends the vital element of speed, but wherever you stand, whatever your work, see to it that when your call comes you can give back the answering signal.

And there is so much that we can do.

In the first place this war has been made possible only by the ghastly education which Germany has been giving her children through the past forty years. Dr. Van Dyke said that there was an American professor, I think of Columbia University, who had written a life of Goethe. When he was in Germany the Minister of Education sent for him and asked permission to translate that Life into German for use in German schools. Permission having been readily given he said: "But there is one chapter that must come out before we can put that book into the hands of German children. You have a chapter on Goethe as a lover of liberty; we would like that omitted from our text book." To the credit of America let it be said the book never was translated nor has it yet appeared in German schools; but it is significant that German children must not be taught that a great German could be a lover of liberty. Professor Kusian, of Hollins College, Virginia, said that in his day William Tell could not be read in German schools. There is a song that German school children are singing to-day that was written by a school master and this is the translation: "Over there in the cowardly trenches lie the enemy, and no one but a dog will say that mercy should be given to-day. Shoot down everything that cries for mercy; kill everything like dogs; more enemies, more enemies, be your prayer in this day of retribution."

Can you imagine teaching children lessons like that?

There is a juvenile paper published in Germany that recently contained an article whose substance follows: "War is divine, it is glorious. When the soldier falls upon the battlefield, his spirit goes directly to the gates of Paradise, where all good soldiers go, but none of those old women in petticoats who say that war is brutal; there a Prussian Lance Corporal throws wide the door." (It is worth noting that St. Peter has lost his job, that a Prussian Lance Corporal now bears the key and determines who shall be and who shall not be allowed to enter.) "While old Fritz leaps from his golden throne to welcome each home-coming Prussian soldier." It sounds blasphemous, but it appears that Prussian militancy has dethroned even the Lord God Omnipotent, and has placed the Thief of Silesia on the Golden Throne. I wonder how he ever entered in. We are told that "Nothing that worketh abomination or maketh a lie can ever enter in," and it was old Fritz who once said "If it pays us to be honest; let us be honest. But if it is necessary to lie, let us be cheats."

There is, then, this that we can do. We can see to it that every child in our schools, in our churches, in our homes, nay, that every man and woman, too, in all America shall be brought up to love and reverence every star in our flag, to such a consecration of life to all for which that flag stands as shall produce a devotion and loyalty that shall outmatch the best that Germany can do.

Our Flag!