Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 248, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1914 — WHO STARTED THE WAR? [ARTICLE]

WHO STARTED THE WAR?

Everybody has been explaining how the war in Europe started, but thus far the most lucid description of the causfes, remote and direct* has been furnished by the Glen Elder Sentinel, a paper out in Mitchell county, Kansas. The Sentinel’s version is to this purpose: “As we understand it, a Servian socialist, who was partly sane when sober, got drunk and killed an Austrian noble and his noble escort. Austria, observing the unseemly incident, addressed herself sterply to Servia, somewhat as follows: ‘See here, kid, no rough stuff. I propose to be. a father to you. Come in to the woodshed.’ ‘Hold on,’ said Russia, ‘don’t you dare lay a Anger on that kid, Austry; he’s my kid,’ says he, ‘and anyhow, youM make a fine father for anyone—l don’t think,’ he says. ‘Think again, you big slob,’ says Austria, ‘if you can think twice in one day,’ he says, ‘and while you’re thinkin’, think what Fm telling you,’ he says. ‘I don’t like Hfe color of your eyes, and your nose offends me, and you feet don’t track; besides,’ says he, ‘and I Can lick you’, he says, ‘and I will, to,. ‘Good boy** Austry’, sings out Wilhelm; ‘I can lick him myself; I can

lick anybody T-why, I can lick everybody,’ says Wilhelm. ‘We’ll take him on together and show him’, says he. So Germany starts for France and slips by, incidentally landing with both feejj in the middle of Belgium. ‘Get off me stummiek,’ wails Belgium, ‘or I’ll bite your leg off,’ says he. ‘Ouch, he patient, Belgy,’ says Wilhelm. ‘Beg pardon; I’ll get off when I have to,’ says. he. ‘Excuse me, or I’ll soak you’, says he. ‘Now watch me paste Gaston one.’ ‘No fair,’ says France. ‘I wasn’t looking, anyway,’ says he. “Take that, says he, slipping Wilhelm a hot one. ‘I hate a Aght,’ says England, ‘hut I can bust the jaw of any guy that slaps my dear friend Gaston, whom I don’t like at all, he will defend till death,' he says. ‘You don’t hate it worser than me,’ says Japan, standing hack for an opening. ‘Anyhow, you started it’, says Wilhelm to Nicholas. ‘You started it yourself,’ yells everybody to everybody else, sticking out their tongues. Then they all clinch and the little fellows dance around, watching for a chance to get in a punch and run. “Moral: If you want to Aght, all you have to do is to say so.”