The New York Times/1918/11/11/Topics of the Times
TOPICS OF THE TIMES
A Precaution Hard to Understand. So difficult is it to imagine any real reason why the German "plenipotentiaries," as they call themselves, should have been blindfolded on reaching the French lines, that one's inclination is to suspect that the thing was done simply out of regard for ancient custom—that it was the conventional "gesture" without which such a reception of delegates from one army in the field to another would not be in accord with the established proprieties.
Marshal Foch could hardly have had anything to hide from the German visitors, for they could have seen only that he was thoroughly well provided with men and weapons for the effective continuance of the war. The military members of the delegation knew the ground in and around the town where the momentous interview was held at least as well as the French, as they had occupied and studied it for more than four years, and there were no secrets of the terrain for them to learn. On the other hand, the more they saw of French strength—of which there must have been much to see—the more likely were they to realize the hopelessness of getting what the Germans calla "good peace."
Viewed from this distance, therefore, the blindfolding seems to have been little or nothing more than a formality, and that it was performed with great care does not seem very probable. Certainly the situation was very different from the one that often exists when enemy envoys are admitted within opposing lines or a beleaguered city. But this is reasoning based on less then full knowledge of the facts—always a dangerous process, and one especially dangerous when it concerns a man who knows his business as thoroughly as does Marshal Foch.
More safely, perhaps, can wonder be expressed at the use by the German envoys of the word "plenipotentiaries," as they did, in a wireless dispatch to the Imperial Chancellor and the German high command, announcing that a courier had been sent to get further instructions. Men who have to do that evidently are not intrusted with plenary powers and in effect are little more than couriers themselves. With their authority so limited there is some justification for doubt that their mission had any other object than that of gaining time for their principals—a device that would have all the familiar characteristics of German diplomacy.
Pacifists Grieved by Peace. Anybody with available sympathy for which he has no other use might well devote it to the little group of Americans whose conscientious objections to going to war were so strong that they quietly but hurriedly departed for Mexico, going, as the saying is, "between two days." These victims of a self-imposed exile could not have fled to a country where their mental peculiarities would be less understood or less respected than in Mexico, for, whatever other faults the inhabitants of that land may have, one of them is not either the fear or the disinclination to risk life and limb in any cause they consider good, or even promising of profit, and there is hardly a Mexican who would not interpret pacifism as cowardice, and judge it, as cawardice always is judged by people to whom war is something between a national sport and a business, at least better than hard work.
Naturally, therefore, our conscientious objectors, who knew all this, went ot Mexico because they had nowhere else to go, and it is natural, too, that neither their antagonism to the American Government nor their oblique support of Germany was enough to make them welcome visitors, even to the Mexicans, who disliked the United States and liked the one way the Germans have had to win foreign friends. From the beginning the experiences of these fugitive Americans in Mexico have been unpleasant and humiliating, and it is not surprising to learn from the dispatches that the near approach of peace has made their situation still more difficult. To go home is to face a trial, the almost inevitable result of which will be a conviction carrying a long term of imprisonment, for it will be long before the evasion of military service will be regarded here as a venial offense. It is reported that where they are nobody will give them employment, and that for associates they have only one another—a companionship which apparently they do not much enjoy, probably because no two of them are of exactly like minds and they are folk of the kind that magnify differences of opinion into chasms unbridged and unbridgeable.
What is to become of them is a mystery. Over the clearing up of that mystery not many will lie awake o' night in desperate search for the key. For the leisure class, however, it has interest.
Docility Under Compulsion. Considerable light on what conditions in Germany as regards food have been is thrown by the brief comment made by the Vorwärts of Berlin on a story about a conscientious German professor that had come to its attention. This estimable person, it seems, had determined from the very beginning of the war strictly to observe all the restrictions imposed by the Government on the distribution and consumption of foods, and he and his family have gone so through all the weary years. That such an exhibition of virtuous docility has been more than rare in Germany, and rare in more than one way, is closely indicated by the Socialist paper's exclamation, "Good Lord, is this man still alive!"
Therein lies not only a confession that obedience to the governmental regulations meant starvation, or something close to it. Also the words show that practically no Germans did abide by those regulations except from inability to evade them. That being the case, what a revision must be made of the belief that Germans are notable respectful of authority, that they heed "verboten" signs as other people do not—in short, that they are well disciplined and therefore superior to the lawless folk in other lands!
Always, however, there has been some reason to doubt the truth of that belief. Germans here are at least as fond of personal liberty as anybody else and as vehement in resenting infringements of it. The chances are that their docility, at home as abroad, is much like that of the rest of us—perfect when resistance is impossible, and shading off in exact ratio with the weakening of authority.