The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 | Page 8

food, but a large number of Russian cities organized permanent aid
committees for the benefit of the war victims in Poland. Street and
house-to-house collections were organized, and considerable funds
have already been collected. Not only Russians, but also the Armenians,
the Jews, and other nationalities of Russia have shown a deep and
substantial sympathy for the Poles.
Prince Trubetskoï's appeal emphasized the political side of this
campaign of succor, while Mr. Konovalov has given prominence to the
human side of it. Prince Trubetskoï's appeal follows.

I AM FOR PEACE!
By LURANA SHELDON.
I am of New England! A daughter of mountains, Wide-stretching fields,
broad rivers that smile With the sun on their breasts. I am of the hills--
The great, bald hills where the cattle roam. The peace of the valleys
still clings and thrills, And the joy of the tinkling fountains, Where the
deep-creviced boulders pile. I am of it, New England, my home!
The tenure of conflicts, the feeble thriving, Are lore of the past. Now
the giant peaks May sleep and sleep. Their watch is ended. The beacon

towers may crumble and fall. So well have my people defended-- So
well have they prospered through striving-- Today her triumph New
England speaks In the mantling calm that envelops all.
They have come to New England, the woeful invaders. The hills
attracted, the valleys lured; They have sowed their seeds of disturbance
and fear. They wrought for destruction, but all in vain. They were told
that order was master here. The hills turned censors, the streams,
upbraiders. No war of men should be fought, endured! They need wage
no battle for peace again!
Like my native hills, my strife is ended; Like my sleeping hills, I have
earned life's calm. The sun that smiles on New England's streams Bids
human conflicts forever cease. Let those who must, writhe in their
dreams At thought of days with horror blended. For me, the meadow's
gentle balm-- I am of New England--where all is peace!

United Russia
By Peter Struve.
[From The London Times.]
Prof. Peter Struve, editor of the monthly, Russian Thought, is
recognized as one of the most acute political thinkers in Europe. He
was one of the chief founders of the Constitutional Democratic Party
(the Cadets) and was member for St. Petersburg in the Second Duma.
He is also known as an economist of great erudition.
PETROGRAD, Sept. 16.
The future historian will note with astonishment that official Germany,
when she declared war on Russia, was in no way informed of the state
of public opinion in our country.
This is all the more astonishing because not a single country to the west
of Russia maintains so close a communication with Russia as Germany.

The Germans, better than other peoples, could and should have known
Russia and her material resources, her internal state, and her moral
condition. When she declared war on Russia, Germany evidently
counted, above all, on the weakness of the Russian Army. There was
nothing, however, to justify such an estimate of the armed forces of
Russia. Certainly Russia had been beaten in the Japanese war, but in
that war the decision was reached on the sea, and after the fall of Port
Arthur the land war had no object. The Germans have probably
convinced themselves already how superficial was such an estimate of
the forces of Russia, but in reality their mistake was due to an entirely
superficial view of the national culture of Russia and an extremely
elementary idea of our internal development. The Germans did not
believe that there is in Russia a genuine and growing national
civilization, and did not understand that the liberation movement in
Russia had not only not shaken the power of the Russian State, but had,
on the contrary, increased it.
Not understanding this, they thought that any blow from outside would
tumble over the Russian State like a rotten tree. German aggression, on
the contrary, united the whole population of Russia, and by this alone
strengthened a hundredfold her external power. This, of course, would
have been the natural effect of any attack from without upon any sound
people or any State that was not in decomposition. But in this case
there was something else. Such a war as this could not fail to take on at
once the character both of a world war and of a national war. That is
why in this struggle with Germany and Austria-Hungary, elemental
forces united in one impulse and spirit both the Russian Radicals, with
their tendency to cosmopolitanism, and the extreme Nationalist
Conservatives. Nay, more than that, all the races of Russia understood
that a challenge had been thrown out to Russia by Germany that
morally compelled her, in the interests of the whole and of