Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1917 — EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS [ARTICLE]

EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS

Some people’s bides are so thick you* can take it off layer by layer and they never miss it. We protest, however, that the proposition to conserve used tin cans isn’t fair to the goat. “Disarm,” says By all means, but make the other fellow disarm first. He started it. Strange, indeed, that no one has thought to harness the shark and employ it in submarine warfare. When all other measures fail, we might fill the army up on raw onions and sick them onto the enemy. ~ A contemporary wants to know who took the “pot” out of potatoes. It would be more instructive to know who took the “eat’’ out of wheat. * When a neutral country decides

to enter the war on the sidd of our allies, the next thing to be decided is the size of the loan we are to grant her. “What is life?” inquires an inquisitive reader. And right there we balk. We’re hanging on like grim death and asking no fool questions. President Wilson has decided that conscientious scruples need not disqualify a man fram active service in road building. Right shoulder, shovels! A prominent editor has been threatened with death, in an anonymous letter, because he condemned the draft resisters. He should protect his rear—no danger in front. Having exhausted every other subject for sensational slush, certain newspaper writers are now engaged in the kindergarten pastime of mobilizing the hoy scouts for war. There is nothing strange in the claim of .an European scientist that he can make diamonds from phips. Many a “chip off the old block” has turned out to be a diamond in the rough. Never lend money to a stranger. Steer him gently into the back yard, hand him an axe, and discourse learnedly on the angelic beauties of manual labor. Blit don’t lend him money.

That Dutch scientist who built a room with vacuum walls to give him quiet, went to unnecessary trouble and expense. Most any business house that doesn’t advertise could meet his need. Through the investigations of the railroad war board it h9,s been iiscovered :hat the car shortage i: on a par with most of the other “shortages” in this country—-ready-made for the occasion. Nicholas Romanoff, one-yW czar of all the Russias, has beert sent to Siberia. He may now be able to confirm his opinion of the unreasonableness of his former subjects in objecting to the climate of that country. . 7- r What shall, we do with the fooVi price boosters? There is no place in heaven for them, for that is reserved for human beings. We can’t send them to jail, for that would be cruelty to the other inmates. Hell won’t have them, for the devil refuses to associate with anyone worse than himself. What shall we do with them?

The fellow who will repudiate bis obligation to his country in this supreme crisis of its history will repudiate any other obligation, it matters not how sacred. If he will evade' his duty to his government, he will evade any other duty. If he permits “conscientious "scruples’’ to stand “between him and a performance of his duty, his conscience will work likewise on any other occasion as well. He will bear watching.