the greatest of men have striven all down the ages,
in the name of the very honor of your Germanic
race, Gerhart Hauptmann, I abjure you, I challenge
you, you and the intellectuals of Germany, amongst
whom I reckon so many friends, to protest with all
your energy against this crime which is recoiling
upon you.

If you fail to do this, you will prove one of two
things: either that you approve what has been done
--and in that case may the opinion of mankind
crush you--or else that you are powerless to raise
a protest against the Huns who command you. If
this be so, by what title can you still claim, as you
have claimed, that you fight for the cause of liberty
and human progress? You are giving the world a
proof that, incapable of defending the liberty of the
world, you are even incapable of defending your
own, and that the best of Germany is helpless be-
neath a vile despotism which mutilates master-
pieces and murders the spirit of man.

I am expecting an answer from you, Haupt-
mann, an answer that may be an act. The opinion
of Europe awaits it as I do. Think about it: at such
a time silence itself is an act.

Journal de Genève, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1914.

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