Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1918 — THE APPEAL TO FEAR [ARTICLE]

THE APPEAL TO FEAR

By RAYMOND S. SPEARS

of the Vigilantes. Nothing is more astonishing than the Prussian belief in the efficacy of fear, of the value of frightening the English, the French, the Americans and the othfer races with horrors twice confounded. To find - Its analogy it Is necessary to turn to the savage races of men, to Indians with their horrid medicine men masks, to the dancing and howling idol votaries of the African tribes, and to the grotesque images of the island peoples of the Pacific ocean. It is most extraordinary that the Prussians should try with science and mechanical ingenuities and splrit-con-jurings to do by complications what the simplicity of the savage tribes tried to do by red and blue paint, the carved heads of dream-land brutes and waving snakes around their heads. We see the wireless used to spread rumors of disasters that never happened, just as the wild men used to shriek of death or torture. The Prussians report horrific engines of death, which are but the same as the ancient poisoned arrows and medicines to make men under test sick and pale. What is the meaning of the* belief that frightening people can serve against the allies? A German professor, with his myopic spectacles and ‘ long discourses on psychology, does de- ! clare that when men are afraid they are easily whipped in a fight. The Teutohs believe the professor, who has advanced no further than the medii cine man of old-who faced strangers with painted masks and incoherent I shriekings. The fact seems to be that away down in the Prussian heart there is a cer--tninty that fear is efficient; knowing what a gripping, cold-sweating thing terror is, he believes the other fellow must be afraid, too, and the great problem of life is to scare the other fellow more than oneself. A bully, believing himself Invincible, does often present a “strong” front, but his appeal is 1 to fear, since he does not himself know real courage.