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Various

"The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 What Americans Say to Europe"



In Peril of the Whirlwind.
This ought to be a very sobering spectacle, but it seems to arouse the
delighted enthusiasm of an American majority. For such an aberration
there is but a single and efficient remedy: absorption in our own
affairs, the discriminating study of efficient methods to prevent our
being caught up by a whirlwind, even the outer edges of which may snatch
us into the vortex.
To change the metaphor, we revel in the pleasant propulsion of the
maelstrom's rim, unaware that every instant brings us closer to dangers,
escape from which would demand herculean effort. Irresponsible emotions
are, like those of the novel and the stage, when intensified to excess
utterly incompatible with action. And just such a paralysis seems for
six long weeks to have lamed the highest powers of America.
The proportionate increase in population among the European powers is
overwhelmingly in favor of the Slavs. Their rate of increase by natural
generation is nearly three times that of even the Germans, with the
result that by the introduction of enforced military service into
Eastern Europe, (excepting Hungary and perhaps Rumania,) the military
balance of power has been completely changed.


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