Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1918 — THE TWO SWORDS [ARTICLE]

THE TWO SWORDS

By Lewis F. Crawford.

, President State Board of

Regents, North Dakota

(“The Hymn of the German Sword” appeared in a German paper published itn Leipzig, Germany, and has been widely copied in papers of other countries. ,A copy which came to the attention of Lewis F. Crawford, Sentinel Butte, N. D., president of the state board of regents, impressed him so strongly that 'he prepared “The American Sword," as a contrast to the spirit shown in “The German Sword.”) * HYMN OF THE GERMAN SWORD It is no duty of mine to be either Just or compassionate; it suffices that am sanctified by my exalted mission, and that I blind the eyes of my enemles with such streams of tears as shall make the proudest of them cringe In terror under the vault of heaven. I have slaughtered the old and the sorrowful; I have struck off the breasts ;«f women; and I have run through the bodies of children who gazed at me with the eyes of the wounded lion. Day after day I ride aloft on the shadowy horses In the valley of Cypresses and as I ride I draw forth the life blood of every enemy’s son that dares to dispute my path. - It Is meet and right that I should cry aloud in my pride, for am, I not the flaming messenger of the Lord Almighty? Germany is so far above and beyond all the other nations that all the rest of the earth, be they who they may, should feel themselves well done by when they are allowed to fight with the dogs for the crumbs that fall from her table. When Germany the divine is happy, then the rest of the world basks in smiles; but when Germany suffers, God in person is rent with anguish, and, wrathful and avenging, he turns all the waters into rivers of blood. THE AMERICAN SWORD I am the American sword. I have never been unsheathed except in the cause of Justice and humanity. . ,— _ - I punish only under solemn and compelling obligation. In my presence national perfidy and dishonor never go unchallenged. I opened in. generous trust to all nations the portals of American opportunity and gave equal rights to all In the inheritance created by the toil and blood of our ancestors. In me everything that is good finds approval, everything mean meets rebuke. My people are enticed to love me by the gentle persuasiveness of my life. I am the visual enchantment of the downtrodden and the oppressed; the emblem of national honor; the embodiment of the world’s hope. In me is linked the command of duty with the love of Calvary; it is mine to trace the hidden equities of divine reward and connect national wrong-doing with its swift retribution; under me fulfillment adds splendor to the gorgeous Mosaic of our dreams. O kaiser! obsessed with power, drunk with passion, enemy of peace and right and freedom throughout the world, .slayer of age and infancy, ravisher •of virginity,' spreader of contagion, fiend incarnate! Against thee barren fields cry out in protest; venerated works of art and architecture, hallowed by the centuries, thou has crumbled under shells of frenzy; thou art wasting the flower of the world’s manhood in red ruin spurred on by the grim reaper of Hate. Thou international brigand, enslaver and robber of Belgium, looter of Servia, betrayer of neutrals! thou art a pirate running mad on the pathless sweep of oceans, plundering and murdering on the world’s highway. I Diplomatic intriguer, thou has faithlessly broken age-old treaties, thou has torpedoed hospital ships, bombarded defenseless cities and unleashed liquid fire and poison gas—outlaw demons of destruction. In this epilepsy of the world’s horror thou art not bowed with a sense of unfathomable guilt and sodden shame; thou, the arch gutter-snipe of civilization, art more unsparing than Torquemada, more Nero, more atrocious than Caligula, more crafty than Geronimo; thtffi'hast loosed the hosts of ill upon a peaceful world and darkened the heavens with blasphemy. i Thou art chased by the maddening billows; the deeps in malice open to receive thee; ashen faces turned toward flame-lit skies, appeal for vengeance. My presence gives courage to endure the appalling strain and omnipresent peril of battle. I I bestow superhuman nerve, sleepless caution, capacity for sacrifice, and the justice of my cause palsies the hand of brutal might and insensate ambition. . I pity the victim, not the violator; the sorrows I bring wear no weeds of mourning. i I open a new era in history; I fire the human soul with new daring and new hope; I will survive this conflict and pronounce its sentence. When the name of kaiser shall have lost its stench and been covered with the dust of countless centuries, I shall still be glorified as the mainstay of de-mocracy—-the peacemaker of the world.