Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1917 — HYSTERIA NOT PATRIOTISM [ARTICLE]

HYSTERIA NOT PATRIOTISM

There are those who would have us believe that because the people of this country are not ablaze with and shouting their patriotism from the housetops they are necessarily not in sympathy with the war program. But no greater ■mistake in judgment was ever made. The American people as a mass have regretted the necessity for going to war. We had hoped against hope that it could be avoided. Even at this day there is an undercurrent of hope that in some way, consistent with honor, the dire con-

sequence® of war as felt by the European nations may be a /puled: But while this hope i< in the national heart, there is also in that heart a grim, deadlv determination that certain objects MUST be attained. even though our sacrifice dqual or exceed that of the others. Our people were slow to arouse, even yet are only partially awake, but in the great heart of the nation there is steadily awakening that inherent loyalty’ to our great ideals that has carried us triumphantly through everv^crisis that has ever; confronted us.Xj’his feeling is not bijilt upon fterfn. It is not the result of and bred ip us and is as much a part of us as our very life blofnl. The attitude of the American people today is that of facing a duty a very disagreeable duty--bot one of, which there can be no faintest thought of our shirking or evading. We* are coming to see before us a gigantic task but a task upon the accomplishment of W-hich depends all we have hqped for and longed for and striven for during the century and a ‘ half of our existence. it is the solemn realization of this task, and the grim, deadly earnestness with which our people are setting abot its accomplishment. that has produced oyer the land a quiet determination that, to the superficial observer, might be mistaken for indifference. . But the man or nation that thus judges is due for an astonishing awakening in the months to come. Americans, aroused- are invincible, and they know it. Hence we have no need for hysteria.