Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 65, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1917 — WILL MATERIALISM INCREASE? [ARTICLE]

WILL MATERIALISM INCREASE?

What will be the effect of the great conflict upon the inner life of the peoples affected? Will the oldtime ideals and aspirations for something above and beyond w’hat earth can give survive or will the world be engulfed in a wave of (materialism that shall undo and nullify the efforts of the seers and prophets of the ages? Wars among Christian nations are as fatal to the higher life < f the people affected as is apostacy to the community. The failure of a people to live up to the highest of their ideals, spreads in other peoples a contempt for those ideals. Will this be —the outcome of the present conflict?

We for one do not believe it will. We do not believe it, for the reason that the world—or at least the greater part of it—is today fighting maerialism in its most dangerous form. We insist that in those responsible for this war, the 'higher life- is a negative quantity, or at best so dwarfed and warped by false views of life as to be entirely overshadowed by the baser nature. The world has pretty well arrived at a definite knowledge of the fact that William of Germany is the source and inspiration of the conflict. True he was aided and abetted by kindred spirits, but those spirits were powerless without his word. ■ What, then, is the nature o’ Kaiser William? First, he is a monarch who throughout his whole reign has insisted that he rules by divine right. So ruling, he, in. his. ©pinion, can do no wrong. His j rights are to him bounded and tircumacribed only by his own desires.! That those desires relate to his own i

glory and that of his close follow-j ing, there can be no doubt. The masses of the German people have been dazzled by the glittering display of militarism and the bright promises held out to them in the event of victory, but the radiance of those visions is fading, and soon they will pass away, leaving the German people to face the coldly material fact of defeat. Fortunate will they be when if they can grasp the full extent of the unworthiness of the cause in which they have been fighting. But among the allied, peoples the knowledge that they are fighting to preserve the highest and noblest phases of life, takes deeper root as the conflict progresses. Their victory must be. they fully realize, a victory over materialism, and materialism of the crashest kind. They have no dreams of world empire—simply a consuming desire to live their own lives according to their highest lights.We believe that when the smoke of the conflict shall have passed, the world, shocked and horrified at the results of materialism, will decree that never again shall it prevail, and that mankind shall be free to pursue its way onward and upward to the great destiny awaiting it.