The American-Scandinavian Review Volume 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 Excerpt: ...and they are now read and loved by all classes. Archibald Cary Coolidge is professor of history at Harvard and director of the university library. He has represented Harvard as lecturer at the Sorbonne, and as exchange professor in Berlin. THE American-Scandinavian Review Volume V JULY-AUGUST ' 1917 Number 4 Not Feeding Germany UNDOUBTEDLY the American people have a legal right to forbid all exports to neutral countries in order to draw the blockade tightly around Germany. Their moral right rests on more complicated issues, and when we come to consider the question of practicability that is a knot to be untied patiently by experts, not cut with a sword of chauvinistic eloquence. The five small neutrals have all rendered great service to the Allies, Holland by receiving Belgian refugees, Switzerland by caring for prisoners of war, Sweden by transporting invalids and forwarding comforts for the soldiers, Denmark by furnishing food, Norway by keeping open the highways of the sea, and one and all by carrying on, so far as the belligerents have allowed them, the pursuits of peace. They have already suffered far more than we and lost far more in men and treasure. To harass them beyond the limits of human endurance would not only cripple them permanently, but would be a blow at the civilization they have striven so valiantly to preserve in a world at war. Is such action necessary? The idea that the five neutral nations are channels through which good American food is pouring into German store-houses may be dismissed at once. It rests on dense ignorance of what has been going on in Europe for the last three years. As for the three Scandinavian countries, England is in a position to control their imports by sea, and every shipment from the United States has to be ac...