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 CHAPTER II

THE PEACE TABLE

The Price of Peace—The First Days After the Armistice—Ferocious Treachery of Germany in this Country—The Test of the Citizen—The New America.

To the merely morbid mind, the white faces of the starved, the moans of the maimed, the black habiliments of those who mourn, may be thought parts of a drama whose terrible appeal has found no counterpart in the human emotions. For the average man, soon to settle back to the grim struggle of making his living, perhaps even these scenes will fade, the world turning from them because the world can endure no more. But someone must make the peace, must bind up the wounds. Someone must point out the future to the staggering peoples, dizzy from their hurts. And it is not alone Europe which has a future to outline. Our own history is not yet written; our own problems lie before us still.

What shall a just peace be? If it must be tempered with mercy, to whom shall we show mercy—to the foe whom we have beaten, or the coming generation of Americans whom that foe has done all he could to betray and ruin? Shall we fight this war through now until it actually is done; or shall we face an indeterminate future, with possible further yet bloodier and more appalling wars?

Now the dead arise and demand their justice. The world leans over the rail of the arena, cold-faced, thumbs down, pitiless of the armed bully who lies vanquished and whimpering. A race which would fight as Germany has fought, and for such reasons, will fight again when possible. Such a race understands nothing but force. Mercy is mistaken with a people which knows not the meaning of mercy. Britain has a huge war bill against Germany; that of France is larger still. What of our own bill? And what of the total of all these sums, added to that which the war has cost Germany