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Bernard Shaw as a Patriot.

From The New York World, Nov. 17, 1914.

Bernard Shaw has written for our neighbor THE TIMES an elaborate three-page thesis to maintain: 

1.  That Great Britain was abundantly justified in making war with Germany.

2.  That the explanation given by the British Government for making war against Germany was stupid, hypocritical, mendacious, and disgraceful.

3.  That he alone is capable of interpreting the moral purpose of the British people in undertaking this necessary work of civilization.

4.  That the reason the British Government’s justification of the war is so inadequate is because no British Government is ever so clever as Bernard Shaw.

5.  That even in the midst of the most horrible calamity known to human history it pays to advertise.

Various patriots have various ways of serving their country.  Some go to the firing line to be shot and others stay at home to be a source of innocent merriment to the survivors.

"Shaw Empty of Good Sense"

By Christabel Pankhurst.

Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES.

His reputation for perversity and contrariety is fully maintained by George Bernard Shaw in the ineptly-named article, “Common Sense About the War.”  At home in Britain we all know that it is Mr. Shaw’s habit to oppose where he might be expected to support, and vice versa.  For example, should he speak at a prohibition meeting he would most likely extol strong drink, or if asked to defend the sale of liquor declare dramatically for prohibition.

He sees himself as the critic of everything and everybody—­the one and only man who knows what to do and how to do it.

Mr. Shaw charges his compatriots with intellectual laziness, but they are not so lazy as to leave him to do their thinking for them.  That he sometimes—­and oftener in the past than now—­says illuminating things is true, but firm reliance cannot be placed upon his freakish mental processes, exemplified in his writings about the war.  He has played with effect the part of jester to the British public, but when, as now, his jests are empty of the kernel of good sense, the matter gets beyond a joke.

The truth is that in face of this great and tragic reality of war the men of mere words, the literary theorists, are in danger of missing their way.  Certainly women of deeds are more likely to see things aright than are men of words, and it is as a woman of deeds that I, a suffragette, make answer to my irresponsible compatriot, Mr. Bernard Shaw.  And yet not a compatriot, for Mr. Shaw disclaims those feelings of loyalty and enthusiasm for the national cause that fill the mass of us who live under the British flag!