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Last week Miss Helen Keller made an address before the Labor Forum of New York City on "Militarism and the Workers." Miss Keller is a distinguished American not merely because, despite total blindness and deafness, she has achieved literary and intellectual accomplishments of a high order, but because she is well entitled to be called one of the leaders in the great humanitarian endeavors of the day. The Outlook shares in the general admiration of her personality, character, and spirit. It therefore regrets that it must totally dissent from the views which she expressed in the above-mentioned address. She appears to believe that the European war is wholly a "capitalistic war." She asserted that the movement for National defense is wholly a capitalistic movement, and is reported to have said in support of her assertion that the firm of Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co. had created the agitation for their own selfish interests. Not even Helen Keller has a right to make such an accusation without at least endeavoring to present some concrete evidence to support it. Such sweeping unsubstantiated allegations greatly weaken her influence, for even the capitalist is entitled to justice and to demand the evidence on which he is condemned as an enemy of mankind.

It is not, however, Miss Keller's errors of language and emotion which we most deplore. We think her fundamental philosophy is erroneous. She said:

Let no workingman join the army that is to be organized by order of Congress. . . . No conqueror will beat down his wages and wreck his unions more ruthlessly than his own fellow-citizens of the capitalist class are doing. Nor will a union of the capitalists of the world be able to oppress him more than the masters of his own country have done.

In other words, democracy has done nothing in the United States. We have no political or social philosophy which differentiates us from the military autocracies of Europe. We have no institutions the fruits of which millions have come across the ocean to enjoy. A free press, free schools, and a free church mean nothing. We have nothing to defend, for "if this country were conquered by a foreign foe the workingmen could not be worse off than they are now."

If this is really Helen Keller's view, we believe she is as recreant to the welfare of her country as she believes Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co. to be. Our fathers won for us at great cost religious and civil liberty on this continent. We shall not win industrial liberty by indifference to those who fight here to maintain, or in other lands to win, for themselves and their children the religious and political liberty which our fathers won for us. We shall win industrial liberty by maintaining, at whatever sacrifice of life and blood may be necessary, religious and political liberty against all assailants. From the vantage-ground of that victory we can best go on to secure the extension of liberty to industrial vocations.