Volume 6, No. 2, June, 1918

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But
Page eighteen The Internationalist
merely an apt statement of the teaching of Jesus) "Be not
overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." If the Christian
people of this nation would demand that our government
spend the same amount of time, and money, and energy, in
seeking for a solution of this problem in a Christian way that
it has spent in prosecuting the war, then the way would be
found. But even when the nation as such has chosen to go
the other way, we still believe that it is incumbent upon disciples
of Jesus to be true to their Master's method. Practically
all religious leaders admit war as a moral evil. "War
is hell," and to use it in the defence of good is to call upon
"Satan to cast out Satan," a course of procedure which Jesus
very frankly held up to ridicule. Therefore, if we are to use
such a method, let us make honest acknowledgment that it is
necessary to quit being Christian for awhile until we get the
world straightened out. For one thing is absolutely certain,
and that is, that war, with its "brutality, inhumanity, and intolerable
inconsistency" can never be reconciled with a Christian
program.
Our friends are mistaken, too, in thinking that the pacifists
of the country are acquiescent or passive at
the present time.
We are far from it. We are fighting for the protection of
democracy, for the establishment of those principles which
alone can make possible a permanent
peace, for the freedom of men before
God, and for the alleviation of suffering,
in what seem to us the only ways
open to Christian men ; and we believe
that in the methods we are using we
are accomplishing more for those ends
than would be possible if we gave the
nation our support in the prosecution
of the war.
There is another fundamental issue
which ought to be brought up at this
point. We suppose that there are few
Christian leaders in this country who
hate war more than Dr. Chas. E. Jefferson
of the Broadway Tabernacle,
New York, and yet now that America
has entered upon this struggle, he
writes, "We cannot wash our hands
and say. 'We will have no part in this
business.' For we are citizens. We belong to the Republic.
We arc cells of a great organism. We are part of a huge
bundle of life. When a nation is at war, every citizen is
involved. Every citizen has duties which make sacrifices
which are not called for in ordinary times. It will not do to
say, 'I had nothing to do with bringing on the war,' or 'I am
opposed to all wars.' The war is here, and no matter what
we think or wish or feel, it is the duty of all citizens to do
all in their power to bring the war to a victorious finish."
A part of Dr. Jeffersons's conclusions we are entirely ready
to accept. It is true that we cannot wash our hands and
say that we will have no part in this business. There is no
one of us who is not in part responsible for the condition of
things which made war possible. We have all been guilty
at times of that spirit of suspicion, of intolerant criticism, of
self-seeking, which is the real cause of the war. Therefore,
we owe it to our God and to our fellowmen to make all possible
sacrifices at this time in behalf of a better world wherein
the spirit of Jesus shall rule.
the mistake of Dr. Jefferson and of others who take his
position is in failing to recognize that war is not the only
method whereby men may seek to overcome the evil forces
which just now threaten our civilization. It is possible to
CHRISTIAN pacifists are fighting
for the protection of democracy,
for the establishment of those
principles, which alone, can make
possible a permanent peace, but
they believe that in their methods
they are accomplishing more for
those ends than
would be possible
if they gave the nation their unqualified
support in the prosecution
of the war.
of our Republic, without participating in
what we consider a
mistaken method of accomplishing that end. We believe in
sacrifice too, but for the Christian the cross, not the sword,
points the way to conquest. The way of the sword provokes
and intensifies the very evils which it would overcome. When
the war is over, we shall have all of the old problems to solve,
and shall find ourselves in a worse position to meet them than
we were before the struggle began, inasmuch as we shall
labor under the curse of ten-fold more suspicion, and intolerance,
and selfishness. As a matter of fact, it is probable
that only the passing of this
present generation and the birth
of a new one which has forgotten something of the bitterness
and hatred engendered by the war, will make possible any real
solution of the problem.
If it were not for the moral blindness which afflicts the nation
for the time being, we might see that the very spirit
which we have deprecated in Germany is fast coming to rule
our own land, brought on by the satanic method \vhich we
are using to fight Satan. Dr. Edward A. Steiner, who has
certainly won the right to be trusted as a good American, has
given ample proof of the correctness of the foregoing statements
in his article entitled, "A Wrong Strategy" which appeared
in the "Outlook' for January 2, 1918. Surely the
"Outlook" need not be suspected of
giving publicity to any misstatement of
facts in connection with such an issue
as the present one. Dr. Steiner says
(speaking of the treatment which loyal
German-Americans are receiving at the
hands of our state and county officials)
"I know what is going on in the hearts
of the men who have been cruelly
treated and maligned. If I were not
so throughly an American, and if I
did not sense the American spirit at
its best, the treatment I have received
would make an anarchist of me. I
am pleading for a new strategy, for we
are unmaking good Americans, and
not making them. . . . Frankly,
I am fearing for the future of our
country after the war, not while it
lasts. I fear that the breach will grow
the greater as the war proceeds, and as it exacts from us
greater sacrifices. I fear that we who were alien born, and
Were born again into Americans, will be made into aliens
again. Where I am writing, we are being controlled by a
Prussian cast of mind; we are fast becoming that which we
are fighting, and the alien born are finding themselves in the
midst of the very conditions from which the fled. We need
a new strategy, else we shall lose more than we shall gain."
(Emphasis in this quotation the present writer's).
Any man who knows anything at all about what is really
happening in our country at the present time, knows that Dr.
Steiner's words are true, and that he has stated the truth
mildly. We do need a new strategy, the strategy of Jesus as
over against that of militarism; the strategy of the cross, as
opposed to that of the sword! This new strategy each individual
Christian who has faith in "the way" can help to put
it into operation. America needs protection at the present!
moment from the despotism on her own shores. She needs'
mien who with Christian devotion will show our foreign born
population that there is still something of the old Americanism
left
Ẇe agree with Dr. Jefferson, too, in his statement that "We
are citizens. We belong to the Republic. We are cells of a
work for the victory of righteousness, and for the protection great organism." We are, indeed, citizens of the Republic of