And so I hold that, without betrayal of trusteeship, without shirking the elementary defense of beliefs coiled within its fibre, or beliefs vital to the future welfare of all men, my country could not stand by and see the triumph of autocratic militarism over France, that very cradle of democracy.

I believe that democratic culture spreads from west to east, that only by maintenance of consolidate democracy in Western Europe can democracy ever hope to push on and prevail till the Eastern powers have also that ideal under which alone humanity can flourish.

And so I hold that my country is justified at this juncture in its alliance with the autocratic power of Russia, whose people will never know freedom till her borders are joined to the borders of democracy.

I do not believe that jealous, frightened jingoism has ever been more than the dirty fringe of England’s peace-loving temper, and I profess my sacred faith that my country has gone to war at last, not from fear, not from hope of aggrandizement, but because she must—­for honor, for democracy, and for the future of mankind.

Hard Blows, Not Hard Words

By Jerome K. Jerome.

From The London Daily News.

In one of Shaw’s plays—­I think it is “Superman”—­one of the characters hints, toward the end of the last act, that the hero is a gentleman somewhat prone to talking.  The hero admits it, but excuses himself on the ground that it is the only way he knows of explaining his opinions.

Times of stress and struggle, whether individual or national, afford men and women other methods of expressing their views, and a large number of our citizens are, very creditably, taking the present opportunity to act instead of shout.  There are the young fellows who in their thousands are pressing around the door of the recruiting offices.  They are throwing up, many of them, good jobs for the privilege of drilling for the next six months for eight hours a day.  Their reward will be certain hardship, their share of sickness and wounds, the probability of lying ten deep in a forgotten grave, their chance of glory a name printed in small type among a thousand others on a War Office report.

There are the mothers and wives and children who are encouraging them to go; to whom their going means semi-starvation.  The old, bent crones whose feeble hands will have to grasp again the hoe and the scrubbing brush.  The young women who know only too well what is before them—­the selling of the home just got together; first the easy chair and the mirror, and then the bed and the mattress; the weary tramping of the streets, looking for work.  The children awestruck and wondering.