turesque, and saleable news features from big events. Details of
war's atrocities and destructions are to most people of the greatest
human interest, and rightly so. As a country we have no international
policy, and European politics and policies have never interested us.

Germany is buttressed by tariffs and commercial treaties on every side.
Years ago I was told in Europe that the commercial treaties wrested
from France in 1871 were of more value to Germany than the billion
dollars of indemnity she took as her price to quit Paris. But I did
not realize until I was abroad this winter how European countries had
warred by tariffs, and that Germany and Russia were preparing for a
great clash at arms over the renewal of commercial and tariff treaties
which expire within two years, and which had been forced by Germany
upon Russia during the Japanese War.

German "Kultur" means German progress, commercially and financially.
German progress is by tariffs and commercial treaties. Her armies, her
arms, and her armaments, are to support this "Kultur" and this progress.

I believe I have told the story as it has never been told before. But
the facts cannot be drawn forth and properly set in review without some
presentation of the spirit of the peoples of the European nations.

If all the nations of Europe were of one language, the spirit, the soul
of each in its distinctive characteristics might stand out even more
prominently than to-day.

Then we could see even more clearly the spirit of brotherhood and
nationality that stands out resplendent as the soul of France. We
should see the spirit of empire and of trade, interknit with
administrative justice, as the soul of Great Britain. We should see
Germany an uncouth giant in the center of Europe, viewing all about him
with suspicion, and demanding to know why, as the youngest, sturdiest,
best organized, and hardest working European nation, he is not entitled
to overseas or world empire.

But few persons on this side have comprehended the relation of this
great war to the greatest commercial prizes in the world; the shores of
the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, with its Bagdad Railroad headed for the
Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia with its great oil-fields, undeveloped and a
source of power for the recreation of Palestine and all the lands
between the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and Asia.

The greatest study for Americans to-day is the spirit of nations as
shown in this wa