NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1917 Copyright, 1917, by Charles Scribner's Sons Published November, 1917 [Illustration: Scribner's Logo]...

This brief series of chapters is not a tale   "Of moving accidents by flood and field,   Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach." Some dangers I have passed through during the last three years, but nothing to speak of. Nor is it a romance in the style of those thrilling novels of secret diplomacy which I peruse with wonder and delight in hours of relaxation, chiefly because they move about in worlds regarding which I have no experience and little faith. There is nothing secret or

It takes a New England farmer to note and interpret the signs of coming storm on a beautiful and sunny day. Perhaps his power is due in part to natural sharpness, and in part to the innate pessimism of the Yankee mind, which considers the fact that the hay is cut but not yet in the barn a sufficient reason for believing that "it'll prob'ly rain t'morrow." I must confess that I had not enough of either of these qualities to be observant and fearful of the presages of the oncoming tempest which lu

Through all this time the barometer stood at "Set Fair." The new Dutch Ministry, which Mr. Cort van der Linden, a wise and eloquent philosophic liberal, had formed on the mandate of the Queen, seemed to have the confidence of the Parliament. Although it had no pledged majority of any party or bloc behind it, the announcement of its simple programme of "carrying out the wishes of the majority of the voters as expressed in the last election," met with approval on every side. The "Anti-Revolutionar

I must get back from this expression of my present feelings and views to the plain story of the experiences which gradually made me aware of the actual condition of affairs in Europe and the great obstacle to a durable peace in the world. The first thing that disquieted me a little was the strange difficulty encountered in making the preliminary arrangements for the third peace conference. The final resolution of the second conference in 1907, unanimously recommended, first, that the next confer

The man who was also a Werwolf sat in his arbor, drinking excellent beer. He was not an ill-looking man. His fondness for an out-of-door life had given him a ruddy color. He was tall and blond. His eyes were gray. But there was a shifty look in them, now dreamy, now fierce. At times they contracted to mere slits. His chin sloped away to nothing. His legs were long and thin, his movements springy and uncertain. The philosopher who came to pay his respects to the man who was also a Werwolf (whom w

In the days immediately before and after the breaking of the war-tempest, the servants of the United States Government in Europe were suddenly overwhelmed by a flood of work and care. The strenuous, incessant toil in the consulates, legations, and embassies acted somewhat as a narcotic. There was so much to do that there was no time to worry. The sense of an unmeasured calamity was present in the background of our thoughts from the very beginning. But it was not until later that the nature of th

The truth about the choosing, beginning, and forcing of this abominable war has never been told by official Germandom. Now and then an independent German like Maximilian Harden is brave enough to blurt it out: "Of what use are weak excuses? We willed this war, … willed it because we were sure we could win it." (Zukunft, August, 1914.) But in general the official spokesmen of Germany keep up the claim that their country was attacked and forced to fly to arms to protect herself. "Gentlemen," said

The house was badly wrecked by the struggle which had raged through it. The walls were marred, the windows and mirrors shattered, the pictures ruined, the furniture smashed into kindling-wood. Worst of all, the faithful servants and some of the children were lying in dark corners, dead or grievously wounded. The Burglar who had wrought the damage sat in the middle of the dining- room floor, with his swag around him. It was neatly arranged in bags, for in spite of his madness he was a most method

From the outset of this war two things have been clear to me. First, if the war continued it was absolutely inevitable that the United States would be either drawn into it by the impulse of democratic sympathies or forced into it by the instinct of self-preservation. Second, the most adequate person in the world to decide when and how the United States should accept the great responsibility of fighting beside France and Great Britain for peace and for the American ideal of freedom was President

The trouble with the ordinary or garden variety of pacifist is that he has a merely negative idea of peace. The true idea of peace is positive, constructive, forward-looking. It is not content with a mere cessation of hostilities at any particular period of the world's history. It aims at the establishment of reason and justice as the rule of the world's life. It proposes to find the basis of this establishment in the freely expressed will of the peoples of the world. The men and women who do th