Does Mr. Beck
realize the seriousness of actual mobilization by Russia at that
critical moment? Not one of the other powers dared to take this one step
which among nations is regarded as tantamount to a declaration of war.
And what did the Kaiser do at this moment? He did the only thing he
could do, and, I dare say, the only thing our American Nation could have
done under the same circumstances. He wired the Czar and stated: "I am
willing to bring my influences to bear upon Austria, provided you agree
to cease mobilization." Was this demand unreasonable? What else could
Germany have done, I ask, with the Russian bear standing on the border
with the sword already drawn? This moment was the crucial and decisive
one in the prologue to this awful world drama.
The only question therefore and the all-important one to be submitted to
the Court of Civilization, is, Whose duty was it to yield? Was it
Russia's, with the sword already drawn against a country which had not
attacked it, not even threatened it, or was it Germany's, with the sword
in the sheath?
In his "conclusion," Mr. Beck speaks of Germany as "beset on every hand
by powerful antagonists.
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