Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1914 — An Obvious Moral. [ARTICLE]

An Obvious Moral.

Nov. that the European war has gone so far it must, apparently 1 , be fought through to its end, we may as well make up our minds that many things will be done by all parties to it that will shock humanity. These things must be accepted as the natural concomitants of a state of war. Perhaps it would be better, for the present at least, for the American people to learn the lesson than to criticise others. One lesson is already written in flaming letters, .and that is that no people can trifle with war as a possibility without sooner or later making it an actuality. Ihe people of Europe—-we are speaking of them as apart from their rulers—-are the victims of a system designed, avowedly, to maintain peace, but which was certain to bripg war. Vast armies and navies, the military spirit which was sedulously inculcated, secret and intricate alliances, and the pernicious teachings that you could not build up a profitable trade with a country unless you owned and ruled it, all played their part in bringing Europe to the brink of dissolution. In the nature of things we can not be so cursed. And yet we also have our dangers. There are. in this country, which has no foe to fear, our shriekers for a big army and nayy. Many have, argued in all soberness, that it was necessary for us to arm against an invasion by .Japan, sixthousand miles away. The Monroe doctrine has been extended and expanded till its author would not recognize it. A German warship can not appear in a harbor in the West Indies, or a Japanese cruiser within h thousand miles of Magdalena bay without sending cold shills up and down the spines of our jingoes. We have heard talk of the United States as a world power that did not differ greatly from that of the most

imperialistic statesmen of Germa.iv or Great Britan. And today twothirds of our expenditures, exclusive of the postoffice, are for wars past and to come. Is there not something in .this to give us pause? Surely the war in Europe should stir us to some searching of heart We are without justification that our friends abroad have, for we are without secret alliances that might drag us into war against our will. We have no powerful rival just over the frontier, waiting for a favorable opportunity to attack us. There is here no such thing as the balance of power which has for years been responsible for so much evil abroad—except as our jingoes have conjured it up in connection with the Monroe doctrine. Yet the spirit of militarism is h»>re —that very spirit that has driven hundreds of thousands of people to our shores-—and it is poisoning oir thought. We have had a hundred years of peace with the only European power that could formidably threaten us, and we may forward with confidence to another hundred years. The nations of Europe all earnestly desire our friendship—as does Japan. Yet there are men supposed to be authorities who would have us go armed to the teeth. Europe in time of peace prepared for war—and she got it. It is always so. Wte ought to disregard the squawking of the Jingoes aud go about our business in a sober and dignified way-—that business being the cultivation of the arts of pea •e. Thus we shall save ourselves numb sorrow-, and at the same time set an example to the world which it sorelj needs.-—lndianapolis News.