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62 11 A Conversation with Bertrand Russell. APRIL 12 The great battle goes on and the Germans are still forging ahead. They are now near the last danger point. Will our armies hold? The Americans are now fighting side by side with the French. It is the supreme crisis not only in this war, but perhaps in all history. At the same time there is a lesser, but nonetheless alarming, crisis in Parliament over the conscription measure. At eleven o’clock I went down to call on Bertrand Russell. I found him in his study on the top floor of his house, surrounded by his books. His eyes, which I did not sufficiently observe last night, are the striking features of his face—large, brilliant, and expressive. He has very small feet, and he sat sometimes in his chair with his legs doubled up under him, like a woman. He has indeed many feminine ways, and a kind of irritable vehemence of expression, not perhaps to be wondered at, for he is to have his final trial upon appeal next Monday, and will undoubtedly have to go to prison. We had a long talk and he gave me an account of his fight, first laying down his general convictions concerning war. He was not opposed to all war. He would have fought in 1860 with the North against slavery. He said that in order to justify war, there must be 1. A truly important issue. 2. It must not be waged at too great a cost. He said that this war offended both of these principles. He said that British foreign policy before the war had been directed strongly toward imperialism, especially to Persia, and that there had been a steady use of secret diplomacy. I asked if Sir Edward Grey was to be charged with these developments. A Conversation with Bertrand Russell | 63 “Not entirely. Grey is lazy and stupid, but not ambitious. A lack of ambition is a virtue, but it tends to laziness.” He said that other men in the government who were notoriously imperialistic had “bamboozled” Grey, although afterwards he qualified his statement: “Bamboozle may be too strong a word.” One of these was Mr. Arthur Nicholson, the Permanent Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, who had been Ambassador to Petrograd, and was a strong imperialist. There could be no important issue in a war fought for imperialistic purposes. “But,” I said, “was there not a strong idealistic feeling regarding the invasion of Belgium?” “Oh yes,” he said, “at first, but I am convinced that the government drew Belgium into the war in order to furnish an idealistic purpose.” “A great deal of the idealistic feeling seems still to exist in England and America,” I said. “Oh yes, many of our simple-minded people feel idealistic. So do the Germans . They believe in their ideals as much as we in ours. Two great nations are destroying each other ruthlessly, and both believe they are right. To feel idealistic is no sign that a nation is right in going forward with a war. Mr. Wilson is going to ruin Europe with his idealistic views. He is simple-minded regarding European politics. He does not see how little the leaders here follow him in his idealistic views. They dissemble their opinions that the American army may come in and help achieve their war ends. Most of the leaders in power do not in the least believe in a League of Nations—as Mr. Wilson thinks of it.” He paused, and then began with renewed emphasis: “It was a great disaster to mankind that the United States came into this war at all. If you had not come in, England would have had to work with the democratic group in Russia , and peace would have followed. The proximate effect of the entrance of the United States was the ruin of Russian democracy. The remote effect will be the complete ruin of European civilization.” Here he became vehement to the point that tears came to his eyes. “A whole generation has been wiped out. Everything that we prize in civilization —art, science, literature—has gone or is going. I have been a teacher. My life has been devoted to the development of thoughtful men. Most of them are dead. After the war, the teachers will all be old, not supple, not resilient, and the world will naturally be forced into more and more materialistic and [18.221.41.214...

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