The World War and What was Behind It | Page 4

where people have the chance to bathe and keep
themselves clean, once more appeared, sweeping away hundreds of
thousands of victims. The strongest, healthiest, bravest men of a dozen
different nations were shot down by the millions or left to drag out a
miserable existence, sick or crippled for life. Silent were the wheels in
many factories which once turned out the comforts and luxuries of
civilization. There were no men to make toys for the children, or to
work for mankind's happiness. The only mills and factories which were
running full time were those that turned out the tools of destruction and
shot and shell for the guns. Nations poured out one hundred fifty
million dollars a day for the purpose of killing off the best men in
Europe. Had the world gone mad? What was the reason for it all?
[Illustration: Fleeing from their Homes, around which a Battle is
Raging.]
In 1913 Germans traveled in Russia and Englishmen traveled in
Germany freely and safely. Germans were glad to trade with

intercourse Russians, and happy to have Englishmen spend their money
in Germany. France and Austria exchanged goods and their inhabitants
traveled within each other's boundaries. A Frenchman might go
anywhere through Germany and be welcomed. There was nothing to
make the average German hate the average Englishman or Belgian. The
citizen of Austria and the citizen of Russia could meet and find plenty
of ground for friendship.
We cannot explain this war, then, on the grounds of race hatred. One
can imagine that two men living side by side and seeing each other
every day might have trouble and grow to hate each other, but in this
great war soldiers were shooting down other soldiers whom they had
never seen before, with whom they had never exchanged a word, and it
would not profit them if they killed a whole army of their opponents. In
many cases, the soldiers did not see the men whom they were killing.
An officer with a telescope watched where the shells from the cannon
were falling and telephoned to the captain in charge to change the aim a
trifle for his next shots. The men put in the projectile, closed and fired
the gun. Once in a while, a shell from the invisible enemy, two, three,
or four miles away, fell among them, killing and wounding. When a
regiment of Austrians were ordered to charge the Russian trenches,
they shot and bayoneted the Russians because they were told to do so
by their officers, and the Russian soldiers shot the Austrians because
their captains so ordered them. The officers on each side were only
obeying orders received from their generals. The generals were only
obeying orders from the government.
In the end, then, we come back to the governments, and we wonder
what has caused these nations to fly at each other's throats. The
question arises as to what makes up a government or why a government
has the right to rule its people.
In the United States, the government officials are simply the servants of
the people. Practically every man in our country, unless he is a citizen
of some foreign nation, has a right to vote, and in many of the states
women, too, have a voice in the government. We, the people of the
United States, can choose our own lawmakers, can instruct them how

to vote and, in some states, can vote out of existence any law that they
the people have made which we do not like. In all states, we can show
our disapproval of what our law-makers have done by voting against
them at the next election. Such is the government of a republic, a
"government of the people, by the people, and for the people," as
Abraham Lincoln called it. In the leading British colonies, the people
rule. Australian citizens voted against forcing men to serve in the army.
The result was very close and the vote of the women helped to decide it.
Canada, on the contrary, voted to compel her men to go. How is it in
Europe? Have the people of Germany or Austria the right to vote on
war? Were they consulted before their governments called them to
arms and sent them to fight each other? It is plain that in order to
understand what this war is about, we must look into the story of how
the different governments of Europe came to be and learn why their
peoples obey them so unquestioningly.
We must remember that government by the people is a very new thing.
One hundred and thirty years ago, even in the United States only about
one-fourth of the men had the right to vote. These were citizens of
property and wealth. They did not think a