50

Swartbmore tJLecture.

serving, that it was in the last resort for theLiberty of the German people that they wouldfight and die. To these men Aristocracy andMilitarism, and above all, the spirit of the Prussian" Junkers " seemed to be evil in an absolute sense.Hypocrisy ? Had it been hypocrisy, it wouldhave been powerless.

On the other side the Germans had from thetime of Bismarck lost touch with the ideals of theclassical age of Germany, with both the democratictraditions of Kant and Fichte and the cosmo-politan traditions of Goethe. During the war ashort-sighted militarism seized the political helm,and thus any sympathy with the ideology of theWestern World was excluded, although PresidentWilson had read with strong approval the author'spamphlet " Free Seas," and laid down the freedomof the seas as the first of his fourteen points. WhileWilson strove in close contact with German democracy for a peace without victors or van-quished, the edifice of peace, which House andBernstorff had nearly brought to completion, wasshattered by the die-hards on both sides.

To-day it is the task of young Germany torecover faith in freedom, justice and peace, andthereby to renew sympathetic touch with thedemocratic movement of the West. Nothingstands so much in the waj' of such a spiritualreturn as the absurd consequences of ,a so-calledpeace which every German morally rejects, nomatter what his party. If the fourteen points ofWilson embodied the best traditions of westerndemocracy, the German feels himself the victim of