eign Office settling important diplomatic questions at the same time. Some suggestions were evidently valuable chiefly as relieving the minds of those who made them. Then a request that written nominations for membership on the general committee and sub-committees be sent up to the chairman; finally, Mr. Oscar S. Straus was called upon to speak. He spoke, in substance, as follows:

Fellow-Emigrés, Exiles, Citizens: There is no occasion for alarm. Americans are safe everywhere. There will be a chance for everybody. Be calm. You will all be transported. Americans have least of all occasion to be alarmed. Our one concern is that this calamity be averted-the greatest that has menaced the world since civilization began. The men who began this organization have done well.

This word of reassurance and of indorsement from one whom every one trusted was a great source of confidence.

The next day headquarters were established at the Savoy Hotel, on the Strand, with a special entrance for Americans on Victoria Street. The great ballroom of the hotel was supplied with tables and chairs. Cards were distributed for registration. On each card were blank spaces for the name of the person registering, his foreign address, his home address in America; for the name of the steamship on which he had engaged return passage, and the proposed date of sailing; for a record of any loss of luggage; and for whatever additional information might be desirable. Signs were posted about this room and about rooms engaged on the floor above, indicating the various departments which the Committee had established. In one corner there was a post-office, where letters were received and mailed. In another corner the Sub-Committee on Transportation had its headquarters. There a member of the Committee was in constant attendance to answer questions. Occasionally he would stand on the table and make some such announcement as this: "First cabin reservation on the Campania, sailing August 15, for two ladies;" and immediately some one looking for such reservation would make application for these tickets. This was always the most crowded portion of the room. On one side there were bulletin boards where Americans could post notices of various sortsinquiries after lost luggage, announcements of articles found, applications for transportation home in return for services as teacher or governess, and the like. Elsewhere in

this room and the rooms above were headquarters for a Woman's Relief Committee. which gave assistance to destitute women, and arranged for lodgings for women in safe quarters headquarters for the Diplomatic. Committee, which was ready to answer questions concerning problems that involved international questions; headquarters for the Emergency Assistance Committee; for a committee to receive subscriptions to help defray expenses; for a committee that managed cable messages and cable transfers. After a day or two the Embassy established quarters for representatives who supplied stranded Americans with passports. The American Citizens' Committee was working in full co-operation with Ambassador Page. Before the week was out thousands of registration cards had been filled out and were filed in alphabetical order under a card index system, and a committee was always on hand ready to answer inquiries for people who were thought to be in London and who had registered. Other cards, filled out by the score and hundred, recorded inquiries for people who were believed to be on the Continent, and concerning whom some person might be able to furnish information. In brief, the headquarters of this American Committee took on all the appearance of the offices of a wellorganized corporation. All the work that was involved in this organization was carried on by volunteers. The men who occupied responsible positions in this organization went to their work just as they would go to their offices at home, and kept office hours. The General Committee had regular meetings in a room reserved for that purpose, where problems were discussed and decisions made as if they were the board of directors of a great commercial concern.

The creation and management of this organization is a striking illustration of the way in which democracy meets emergencies. Ordinarily one would have expected the Embassy to undertake the task. As a matter of fact, however, an American Embassy has no facilities for doing what this organization did. Indeed, as was said at the time, whether the embassy of some other country might have attempted to do such work, no embassy of any country could have begun to do what this Committee did. Though democracy has its defects and sometimes seems inefficient, no people but a people democratically trained could have done what these Americans did in London. I can speak the

1914

more frankly as I had little to do with it. Indeed, volunteers were so numerous that, although I offered my services, there was for several days literally no work at which I could be set, and the only work that I found to do during the first week was to copy some names on cards. Every American in London had reason to be proud of the spirit of his country and of the American faculty for selfgovernment which this Committee demonstrated.

Early in the second week the Committee established a daily paper. The fact that there was no newspaper man on the Committee that undertook the publishing of a paper did not deter anybody from the venture. A plan was drafted and the first issue made up by three men, two of whom were lawyers, and the third the secretary of one of New York's best-known public men. I doubt whether any newspaper in London was more thoroughly read than that one. The first column of the first page of the first issue was devoted to an editorial "Foreword," giving general advice. Two columns were devoted to general information-for example, a warning against bogus tickets and a notice that passports would not be necessary for embarkation on steamships. Then there followed a column of personal inquiries, which were continued on the next page. This newspaper contained also a report with regard to lost luggage; a schedule of the sailing of steamships, and other notices with reference to transportation; an official directory giving the names of the Committee-men and the sub-committee-men, and the addresses of the Embassy and the Consulate; and a whole page was given to a list of names registered the day before; and, under the title "Who's Where?" a list of names of people whose present whereabouts was sought. The expense of the publication was assumed, under the guise of a last-page advertisement, by Mr. Gordon Selfridge, the proprietor of a great London department store, who took this means of aiding the citizens of his native country.

Similar committees have been formed in other cities. I have learned from a fellowmember of The Outlook staff, Mr. Elbert F. Baldwin, who has been in Munich and is still in Europe, that in that city two committees were established, one of relief and one of information, and that he, like myself. had been helping to edit a daily paper for the benefit of stranded Americans.

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In the crowd that thronged these rooms at the Savoy Hotel, London, from ten o'clock in the morning to five o'clock in the afternoon one jostled against Western school-teachers who had been traveling with a party of tourists, the president of an American college, the treasurer of a great corporation, the wellknown orchestra performer whose face is familiar to every concert-goer in New York, the executive secretary of an American charitable organization, a college classmate, a business acquaintance who has an office in the same office building with one's self, a fellow-townsman-one after the other. There were men there whose names were known all over the United States, and whose presence helped to inspire confidence. One of these I have already mentioned, Mr. Oscar S. Straus. Another was Dr. John H. Finley, head of the Educational Department of New York State. There were well-known bankers

and business men, such as Mr. W. North Duane, who was indefatigable as secretary of the Committee and whose very presence there materially helped to give stability to the organization. It seems invidious to name any.1

To many of those who undertook responsibility in this organization the opportunity of doing something was undoubtedly a relief. Nothing could possibly have been harder for them than to remain passive at such a time. One young man had come abroad to get relief from a great sorrow that had fallen upon him, only to face the horror of this war. He found relief in being steadily occupied day by day as the head of one of the most important of the departments established by the Committee. Others found in this a gratification for their spirit of adventure; for there was adventure connected with it evening I went with a friend to a hotel to carry some letters which an American had volunteered to take to Paris. This American I found was a fellow of eighteen years or so who was starting off to search for his mother and sister in France. When we called upon him to give him these letters, we found that he was engaged in learning from some girls French phrases which he might use on his journey. He was starting off in the greatest good spirits into France, the field of war,

One

On another page is printed a picture of a group of the American Citizens' Committee. Others who served as members of the Committee but were not present when the picture was taken are James G. Cannon. Francis M. Wells, Lawrence A. Armour, Thomas J. Shanley, S. Stanwood Menken, Robert W. de Forest, Chandler P. Anderson, Harry E. Brittain.-THE EDITORS.

with no trepidation in spite of the fact that he did not know the language of the country, and rather in evident enjoyment of the adventurous prospect.

Here too at the headquarters were gathered people who had had all sorts of experiences on the Continent. One young woman told me of being in Paris without money and without friends; a young man who had been in Germany told me of having had an Englishman who was traveling in the same railway compartment dragged over his knees by soldiers and carried off on the charge of being a spy; another, a friend, who was one of the most gifted of American composers, told me of his experience in going to Leipzig, where there had been an exhibition of the graphic arts which had been arranged by a hundred or more professors in German universitiesa notable example of German scholarshipand of his inexpressible horror at the thought that these very men whose extraordinary mental ability had just been shown would in many cases be sent to war, the prey of rifle and cannon.

Mingled with such Americans as these were also Americans of another and less admirable type. One man, for instance, was insistent that the Government was not doing its duty unless it prevailed upon each of the belligerents to allow the enemy's merchant vessels to convey Americans across the water to their homes. He evidently was firmly convinced of the fact that it was only necessary to call the attention of Germany and France, of Austria, Russia, and England, to the supreme importance of his comfort in travel and the comfort of others like him to insure the suspension of the operations of war. A woman one day appeared at the Committee's headquarters demanding transportation home. When an opportunity was offered her of securing berths for herself and family on a specially chartered steamship, she indignantly rejected the proposition on the ground that she had planned to have five staterooms, and five staterooms she would have. I personally hope that she eventually returns by steerage. There are a great many people returning by steerage who do not need the experience, and she does need it. Such Americans, however, were very scarce. On the whole, the Americans that I saw in London, and I observed them by the hundreds, maintained by their conduct the proverbial reputation of

Americans for good nature and practical

sense.

Among those Americans who had come from Germany there were many who testified to the great service rendered by Ambassador Gerard in Berlin. I have already told, of my first-hand knowledge, of the foresight and efficiency of Ambassador Herrick in Paris.

I should like to add my personal testimony to the efficiency of the American Express Company at this critical time. During the three extra bank holidays, when all banks were closed, this Company's banking department remained open and was cashing its checks, while its credit was so good that hotels were also giving English money for its checks. There may have been other concerns that did equally well-I do not know.

To any in this country who have friends abroad at this time I should say: Allay your anxiety; if there is anything that you can do to help them and you think they need help, do it; it will be a service not only to them, but to the Government and to the many relief committees, who have their hands full. If, however, there is nothing that you can do, there is no reason why you should believe that nothing will be done. If your friends are in any large city, they are in company with others who are in the same predicament, and what I saw of Americans in a common predicament in London leads me to believe that they will show capacity for self-help and for mutual help. If you do not know where they are, you may be fairly sure that they are making their way to the nearest place of security. Fortunately, this country now has the friendship of every nation engaged in this war, and its good will is coveted. There is every reason why the quick passage home of every American in the zone of the war should be facilitated as far as possible. There are certain to be instances of hardship; but most Americans can take hardships with equanimity, in the expectation that some day they will look back upon their experience as worth having. In comparison with what the people of the nations at war are suffering, Americans in Europe are highly fortunate. One of the wonders of this war is the safety and comparative ease with which the great majority of travelers caught in the midst of the convulsion have escaped its dangers.

ERNEST HAMLIN ABBO IT.

nations of western Europe have been compelled to yield to the pressure of economic forces.

"For Germany it is the struggle of Western civilization against Russian barbarism; the conflict between enlightened Europe and the half-Oriental Slavic powers of darkness was inevitable," said Professor Rudolf Eucken at Jena University on the day that the Russian order for a general mobilization put an end to the Kaiser's efforts to maintain peace; and this is the keynote of the public opinion of educated Germany. The recent law for the reorganization of the Russian army and navy, the calling of 600,000 additional soldiers to the Russian colors next fall, was considered throughout Germany as the preparation for the coming attack on Germany by Russia. Since the conflict was

inevitable, according to the German point of view, the German nation must prepare herself for the inevitable and, instead of waiting with resignation for her fate, must gather together all her power and go out and meet the foe without giving it time to concentrate its overwhelming forces.

The tragedy of the conflict, from the German point of view, is that Europe, instead of realizing that Germany is fighting the battle of civilization against barbarism, is uniting to crush the last obstacle to the Slavic advance. But yesterday England was preaching that the standing menace of the Western World was Russia, with its 170,000,000 of semibarbaric people, of whom seven-eighths cannot read or write, governed on absolutist methods by a reactionary bureaucracy which is frankly militaristic. Although a Russian soldier has never set foot upon English shores, England has fought one great war to stop the progress of this nation, to check her march towards English possessions. But it is not in a distant possession that she threatens Germany; it is on her own soil.

You

"Allied with this Slavic power on our eastern frontier," says the educated German, we have an enemy on our west, from whom we have suffered as no other civilized people have suffered at the hands of enemies. know the story of the wars of Napoleon, of the invasions of Louis XIV, who cut off with the sword German-speaking Alsace and Lorraine from the German body, of the Thirty Years' War, and all the rest of them; how our cities have been destroyed by the invader, mainly by the French and the Russian, or his hirelings and allies. You know how they

ravaged our country again and again, and actually, literally, cut our population in half, stamped it into the mud. Try to get the perspective. Picture a score of your finest cities wiped out, not merely that the houses were destroyed, but that every man, woman, and child within those places had perished, and this in not some distant past, but so near to you that your great-grandfather could have told you the story, having got it from the mouths of those who witnessed it.

A

"Of course you cannot conceive, no man can conceive, what the destruction of ten million human beings means. Yet by that number of beings was the population of Germany decreased during these wars. state as populous as England when Queen Victoria came to the throne was in one war reduced to the population of Holland. What has any civilized country to compare with this, to set beside it? When, indeed, has any civilized nation had to watch vast uncounted multitudes of its women and children driven forth homeless, their corpses massed in the country roads, with grass in their mouths, the only food the invader had left? And these same invaders, who have poured in devastating floods over our land to-day, boast that again they will invade us if and when they can. I say boast. Can you find me one French public man who will say that France should abandon the hope of attacking us? It is their declared, their overt policy.

"So that is our situation: on our right and on our left enemies from whom we have suffered as no other civilized country has suffered in modern times. The history of both is a history of conquest-in one case passionate, insatiable conquest-whose ambitions England and Germany have had to resist shoulder to shoulder in the past, and that Power which was the enemy of England for centuries makes no secret of its intention to renew the aggression upon us when it can. It is in the creed and blood of Frenchmen that they will attack us at the first opportunity. Oh, yes, we are a military people. Do you wonder? But we have fought on our own soil, or returned to it as soon as the invader was repulsed."

The facts in the history of the crisis leading to the present conflict which are given in the official documents should be more widely known if the position of Germany is to be understood. The documents show that the German Emperor, by threatening to tear up