E-text prepared by Al Haines
by
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1915
Copyright, 1914 and 1915, by the Boston News Bureau Company
Copyright, 1915, by Clarence W. Barron
All Rights Reserved
Published February 1915
Suppose 't were done!
The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun;
Into the wheeling death-clutch sent
Each millioned armament,
To grapple there
On land, on sea and under, and in air!
Suppose at last 't were come—
Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumb
And arsenals and dockyards hum,—
Now all complete, supreme,
That vast, Satanic dream!—
Each field were trampled, soaked,
Each stream dyed, choked,
Each leaguered city and blockaded port
Made famine's sport;
The empty wave
Made reeling dreadnought's grave;
Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell
'Neath bomb and shell;
In deathlike trance
Lay industry, finance;
Two thousand years'
Bequest, achievement, saving, disappears
In blood and tears,
In widowed woe
That slum and palace equal know,
In civilization's suicide,—
What served thereby, what satisfied?
For justice, freedom, right, what wrought?
Naught!—
Save, after the great cataclysm, perhap
On the world's shaken map
New lines, more near or far,
Binding to king or czar
In festering hate
Some newly vassaled state;
And passion, lust and pride made satiate;
And just a trace
Of lingering smile on Satan's face!
—Boston News Bureau Poet.
This poem has been called the great poem of the war. It was writtenjust preceding the war, and published August 1 by the "Boston NewsBureau." Of it, and its author, Bartholomew P. Griffin, the followingwas written by Rev. Francis G. Peabody: "The English poets, Bridges,Kipling, Austin, and Noyes, have all tried to meet the need and allhave lamentably failed. I am proud not only that an American, but thata Harvard man, should have risen to the occasion."
The Scotch have this proverb: "War brings poverty. Poverty bringspeace. Peace brings prosperity. Prosperity brings pride. And pridebrings war again." Shall the world settle down to the faith that thereis no redemption from an everlasting round of pride, war, poverty,peace, prosperity, pride, and war again?
But it was not primarily to settle, or even study this problem that Icrossed the ocean and the English Channel in winter. As a journalistpublishing the Wall Street Journal, the Boston News Bureau, and thePhiladelphia News Bureau, and directing news-gathering for thebanking and financial communities, I deemed it my duty to ascertain atclose hand the financial factors in this war, and the financial resultstherefrom.
I found myself on the other side, not only in the domain of the financeencircling this war, but unexpectedly in close touch with diplomaticand government circles. The whole of the war, its commercial causes,its financial and military forces, its tremendous human sacrifices, theconflicting principles of government, and the world-wide issuesinvolved, all lay out in clear fact