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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
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In honor of the seventy-three Atlanta Journal
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try. The two white stars are in memory of
Captain Meredith Gray and Captain James S.
Moore. Jr., Journal men, who gave their lives
for our country in France.
The End of a Criminal Alliance.
THE breaking up of the Quadruple Alliance
gives wonderful freshness to the old saw,
-When thieves fall out just men have their
dne.” The only bond between Germany and her
accomplices was a common greed. There were no
principles amongst them, no fraternity of convic
tions and ideals, no faith on which they could trust
one another and fight in glorious union to the end.
They were simply four brigands in league for plun
der. Turkey counted upon taking Egypt, Persia
and portions of Russia; Bulgaria, upon ruling the
Balkans; Austria-Hungary, upon gathering more
millions of land-stripped Slavs, Rumanians and
Italians into Hapsburg subjection; and Germany
counted upon dominating all these after seizing a
lion’s share of the loot. The scheme was entirely
one of brutal aggrandizement, an unprovoked and
utterly conscienceless plot to trample down the
rights and take away the property of the innocent.
Is it to be wondered that so criminal a coalition
Broke and fell crashing apart under the test of
’urreme danger?
The dissolution set in when the apparent success
of the scheme was highest. -Russia and Rumania
bad been betrayed; their rights and riches lay at
the soulless conqueror’s feet; the division of spoils
(a mere prelude to greater gorging, the accom
plices thought) began. And the gods lafighed, for
they knew that the sundering of the robber league
had commenced. Germany and Austria, character
istically enough, let their greed outrud their
prudence so far as to arouse keen resentment in
Bulgaria and Turkey. At the same time, the latter
pair, from the outset mutually suspicious and
hating, grew more and more antagonistic to each
other as well as more distrustful of Vienna and
Berlin. Month after month these sullen moods
smouldered and burned while Allied pressure in the
West grew continually more formidable. When it
appeared at length that the utmost for which Ger
many could hope was a negotiated peace and that
certainly there would be no territorial spoils for
her to parcel out, the sole incentive that brought
Bulgaria and Turkey into the war was snapped.
There was no principle for them to be loyal to,
no right for them to defend. As the more
frankly mercenary of the two, Bulgaria was
the readier to get out of the contest on any sort
of terms; and finally, with invasion thundering
upon her borders, she welcomed unconditional sur
render itself. This made the collapse of Turkey
foregone, and left that of Austria-Hungary a ques
tion merely of time and manner.
It is safe to assume that these dissolved part
ners in brigandage now detest one another more
thoroughly than they ever hated their intended
victims. The three lesser conspirators- detest Ger
many for having induced them to follow a leader
ship which promised marvels at the outset, but
which proved at last to be empty of all things but
shame; Germany detests them for having deserted
the standard to which they flocked so eagerly when
the future looked fat with booty; and they all de
test one another, severally and collectively, because
they know that honor was never amongst them and
that at heart they meant as ill to themselves as to
the world. The Entente Allies stood in unshakable
union through long years of darkest peril, and un
loubtedly they would have fought in solid phalanx
the end, even though it had been to defeat.
Serbia and Belgium were crushed, but they never
wavered in fidelity to the common cause. Italy was*
threatened with irretrievable disaster, but she stood
magnificently resolute and loyal. The bond of
sympathy and purpose between France and Eng
land grew stronger as danger deepened about them.
The covenant of faith between America and all
those gallant nations burned the brighter as the
shadow of Germany’s supreme offensive rolled to its
blackest foreboding. Those who fought for free
dom went steadfastly together to the goal; those
who fought for gain fell coweringly apart at the first
great test. Recalling Germany’s one-time boast,
‘"ihe more enemies, the more honor,” the New York
Tribune splly quotes as descriptive of the real Hun
spirit these lines written in the hey-day of Prussian
ism by that "most clear-sighted of living Germans,”
•
Dr. Wilhelm Muhlon:
"They are like barbarians, who become in
toxicated with victory, even if it has been
achieved at the expense of defenseless oppo
nents. With wild hurrahs they are already
distributing in their tents the treasures and the
men taken as booty. But if a strong, courageous
enemy of whose approach in their hour of
victory they had no warning should surprise
them they would again take hasty flight to
their swamps and forests and would be as con
tent with these as they were formerly eager to
roam all over the earth, mere vagrants without
any understanding of distances or world rela
tionships.”
•
In his hour of ultimate trial the Hun s braggart
fortitude forsakes him like his allies, because, like
their fealty, it rested on gross materialism
alone. But from the wreck of these brutal and
sinister ambitions for which the Quadruple Alliance
stood, rises the hope of a world order of justice and
good will.
’ourna
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1918.
Secession in Germany?
QUITE unconfirmed though it ts, and perhaps
altogether groundless, the report of a se
cession movement in the German Empire
offers tempting food for speculation. Bavarian dep
uties. the rumor goes, are planning to form a
new State, entirely divorced from Prussia, com
posed of Bavaria. Wurttenberg, Baden and prob
ably German Austria. No fnentlon is yet made of
Saxony, but it could be counted upon, in the event
of imperial disruption, either to go with the south
ern confederation or to declare itself independent.
These kingdoms and duchies are undoubtedly
weary of dancing to the Hohenzollern fiddle. They
constitute the more pacific and tolerable elements
of th- j'i-1 <nt Empire. They had less inclination
to the war, realizing as they did that if it were un
successful it would hazard their amplj prosperity
and that if it were successful it would but
strengthen that Prussianism which was a menace
to their autonomy and a burden upon their re
sources. By the sword Prussia won her leadership
of the German States, and in the spirit of the
sword has she ruled them. But stripped of mili
tarism, she will be, in deeper essentials, the least
potent of them all. It is in no wise inconceivable,
then, that they would grasp an opportunity to es
cape the odium that hangs upon Prussianized Ger
many and to set forth upon new paths for their re
demption before the world.
They have an impelling example in the Dual
Monarchy whose component States are going their
several ways in search of freedom and of wise ad
justment to a new world order. Hungary has
severed, or is preparing to sever, all connection
with the Vienna Government. Bohemia, as the
stronghold of the Czecho-Slovaks, is manifestly lost
to Emperor Karl’s dominion, as are also those
provinces which aspire to unite under the proposed
Jugo-Slavia. German Austrians, accepting the in
evitable. are organizing a German-speaking State.
As far as the rights of the divers peoples are con
cerned, they will be far better conserved than they
were in the conglomerate Hapsburg Empire; and
at the same time the world will be quit of an old
menace to democracy and peace.
Though the situation in Germany Is not
analogous to that in Austro-Hungary, there being in
the former a racial solidarity which the latter lack
ed, the South German States might gain a vast
deal in freedom and prestige by breaking away
from Prussian tyrr.nny and shame. But the ques
tion is yet entirely speculative. In the profoundly
changeful period now at hand many things may
happen in the German Empire, many overturnings
and conversions; one of which may be the seces
sion of the Southern kingdoms but none of which
is safely predictable.
If the kaiser runs for president of Germany, we
know six votes he'll get. But it will take more
than his own family to elect him.
The Chivalry of the Turks.
There is no doubt of the justice and moral
necessity of blotting the Turk’s rule out of
Europe. Yet it is worth noting, as a corre
spondent observes, that “the soldiers who are
driving him into seclusion in Anatolia like him
better than any of his allies.”
Mr. Masefield astonished an Atlanta audience
some months ago when, in the course of a lec
ture on Gallipoli, he told of the British leaving
little gifts for the Turkish soldiers who were
to take possession of the trenches abandoned by
the Entente’s ill-starred expedition: the Turk had
fought so fairly that the British sense of sports
manship instinctively sought to express apprecia
tion. Many witnesses bear like testimony to his
chivalry as a warrior. "He poisoned no wells,”
they remind as, "violated no flag of truce, used
no liquid fire or poison gas.” In combat he
proved a thousand times more humane than the
Hun, and in all military dealings a thousand
times more honorable.
But strangely enough when he faced helpless
civilian populations he became a monster after
the Hun’s own heart. Some students of the Turk
attempt to explain his horrible callousness in
massacring the Armenians by pointing out that
for centuries his fathers have been persecuting
Christians so that now he acts by sheer habit.
This construction of the case, incriminating as it
is for the Turks of the past, cannot absolve those
of today. True, there is more extenuation for the
barbarity of this people than for the barbarity of
the Prussians, but not enough to warrant the
civilized world in leaving them any chance for fu
ture outrages.
Confined to their ancestral and rightful do
main, the Turks in time may work out a destiny
that will be worthy of their better traits; indeed,
they may come to feel the regenerating impulse
of a new world order. But first of all they should
be made powerless for future harm.
In the last analysis, the only argument the Re
publicans have for their election is a desire to be
on the inside looking out.
Chanticleer ’s Crow.
It was extremely inconsiderate in Bulgaria and
Turkey to ignore Colonel Roosevelt so far as to sur
render unconditionally without waiting for a formal
declaration of hostilities from the United States.
The Colonel insisted In his Ipse dixit manner that
the Washington Government could not be true to
the country’s cause or loyal to the Allies, could not
play a worthy part in the conflict or make American
power and influence count for their due unless it de
clared war upon Bulgaria and Turkey ‘‘without the
loss of an hour.”
It seemed never to occur to him that in effect we
were waging potent war upon the lesser as well as
the greater members of the Quadruple Alliance in
every blow we struck on the Western front and in
our every act of assistance to the Entente nations.
It seemed, moreover, never to occur to the Colonel
that the Washington Government was employing
keen and silent weapons of diplomacy as well as
thundering military blows and that like Foch In the
field it knew the peculiar value of flanking move
ments as distinguished from frontal attacks. Despite
the oracle of Oyster Bay the Bulgars and Turks suc
cumbed, and Austria swiftly followed. There were
no reservations to their surrender; it was uncondi
tional, just as Germany’s will be.
What marvels do we see! The war has been won
contrary to Teddy’s advice. The sun has risen with
out Chanticleer’s crow.
Richer Than We Knew.
How much greater than was generally com
puted are America’s resources of available wealth
is indicated by the fact that the subscription to the
Fourth Liberty Loan exceeded by more than eight
hundred million dollars the colossal sum of six bil
lions which was asked. That excess itelf, authori
ties point out, is "nearly three times as great as
the proceeds of any public loan raised in a single
operation prior to this war.” It was, of course,
the cause that inspired this wonderful outpouring.
To the rank and file of the vast army of sub
scribers the impelling consideration was not the
four and a quarter per cent interest nor even
the incomparable security, but the fact that their
money was needed to win the war. In all those
millions of hearts patriotism burned with steadier
flame than ever before and urged to intenser
service. Yet the most ardent will could not have
created those billions of wealth out of hand. The
resources were there. It was love of country,
glorified in man. instances by heroic sAf-denlal,
that brought them forth as an offering In freedom’s
name; but antec&ting this were the energy of
character and the fertility of nature that mark
America as a nation peculiarly blest. We are
richer than we knew.
THE SYMPATHY CURE
By H. Addington Bruce
HAVE you ever tried the sympathy cure for
your nervousness? I can assure you that
it has worked like a charm in innumerable
cases.
What is that you say? You wish you had a
chance to try the sympathy cure, but the fact is
you cannot find anybody who really will sympa
thize with you?
That is not exactly what I mean. To try the
sympathy cure it is not at all necessary to find
other people to sympathize with YOU. What is
necessary is for you to sympathize with OTHER
PEOPLE.
Instead of requiring others to sacrifice them
selves for your comfort and convenience, instead
of perpetually demanding and never giving, in
stead of insisting on being forever helped bj’
others, try the plan of making yourself helpful
to others.
There are countless ways in which you can
do this, both inside and outside your home. You
will find it a pleasant change from your present
tedious habit of sitting around doing nothing ex
cept to think of your nervous aches and pains,
your indigestion, your insomnia, your obsessive
fears.
Hasn't It ever occurred to you that if you
could find away to forget these for a time you
might feel a great deal better?
One way, one most admirable way, is to call
to mind the fact that other people have troubles
as well as you, and then bestir yourself to help
lighten somebody else’s burden.
This you will find is good medicine. It is such
good medicine that it has benefited, even cured,
people much worse off than you are.
In a certain hospital for the insane there Is
an interesting organization known as the Society
of the Helping Hand.
Its membership is made up of unfortunates
who have had to be committed to the hospital be
cause of mental breakdowns. Mentally diseased
though they are, they busy themselves in altruis
tic activities.
On certain afternoons every week they meet
to work for other patients. They make hoods
and slippers for the tubercular insane who have
to keep outdoors, mittens for the snow shovellers,
and so forth. On at least one occasion they sent
to Dr. Grenfell in Labrador a large box packed
with useful articles they had made.
' As a physician who has seen them at work in
cisively expresses It, “They act like ordinary human
beings.” And the joy of it is that their work for
others is of really curative value to themselves.
You are not insane, you are merely nervous.
But are you now acting like an ordinary human
being?
Surely to sit around in idleness day after day
is extraordinary behavior. And remember, too,
ordinary human beings prefer to be helpful rather
than to be eternally helped.
Make a start tomorrow in the sympathy cure.
Lend a helping hand to somebody, and rejoice to
lend it. Good results mill not be long in coming
to you.
(Copyright, 1918, by the Associated Newspapers)
“GINA”
By John Breck
4 4 INA of the Chinatown” is the tale of a
I y dancer who lived out the. tragedy of a
grasshopper life in the murk of a London
slum. They are happy spirits w’ho carry enough
sunlight in their to lighten the hearts of those
about them; enough to help them to refuse the
agony of apprehension, and to bring a resolute face
to the inevitable end.
Even now that the trees have cast their gar
ments to the winds and garden leaves droop with
the frost, the grasshoppers still dance beneath the
sun whenever he warms their blood. I feel the
chill wind more keenly in peace, to sleep away
the last sparks of that vitality beneath the first
snow?
Then I found my Gina. She was one who re
fused to dance. There on the edge of a new
ploughed field she sat. She let me lift the frayed
skirts of her wings, reaching her anxious antennae
toward my hand, but she would not move. And
then I saw that at this late hour she was rounding
out her life by maternity. She was laying her eggs
in the soft, mellow earth.
Gently I loosed the tiny clods above her and
watched. The segments of her body, usually tele
scoped on each other, were drawn out to their full
est extent; she was two inches long. And she had
thrust this lengthened body into the ground, brac
ing her forelegs to drive it deeper as I raised the
covering.
Through the transparent skin, between the
horny bands I could see her eggs, held together
by a white froth, slowly moving. And among them
were infinitesimal black worms that wriggled at
each effort on her part. Parasites of some sort,
they were—enemies within to daunt that blithe
spirit as well as all her enemies without.
I sat down beside her until she should have
completed her task. There in the stillness, except
for her singing mates and the crickets that raised
their translucent wing covers and played their
mahogany fiddles, we were the only living things
my eye could see.
I gazed off at the distant woods, brown and sere,
with only a dash of color here and there where
autumn’s gorgequs plaid had lately hung; below
ran a little stream, nested in russet cat-tails and
the gray cloud of seeded goldenrod. Red osier
stems echoed the lacquered stripes on her once
agile legs. Then I looked back.
Death stood beside her before her spider had
her. She struggled stubbornly, not to save her
self, but to finish what was so nearly accomplish
ed. And he, se.ious and terrible, showed no rage,
but only a doggeu impatience to have done witn
some instinct imposed duty of his own. He bowed
his furry body to the strain, tugging her this way
and that, unsettling her braced feet as fast as she
got her grip again. There was science in the way
he used his weight. Slowly, surely he drew her
forth; now she showed her weakness. As soon as
her spent body left the earth she toppled to her
side, kicking ineffectually at the empty air.
A moment more and he had reached his lair,
and backed down it, dragging his burden, limp and
stift. The windblown leaves of the grass closed
over it.
So was the parable of Gina s life played out,
save that only I knew where to find her grave. Did
her lover still ply his fiddle in the orchestra whose
tune suddenly seemed like the playing of those
who must play, whatever tragedy wtrs in their
hearts? Or had some sparrow snatched him long
ago? Time matters not; but I patted down the
earth above those eggs and gave her that last
chance of eternity.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
Robert W. Chambers, the novelist, was talking
to a literary critic.
"I heard a jolly good one, my boy, about a
member of your craft," Mr. Chambers said. "The
chap had roasted a popular woman novelist, and
he met her that night at a party.
"I think it was awfully mean of you to roast
me," the novelist said to him, ’specially when you
know that I have three children and a husband,
who Is a literary critic, to support."
It was at the "bull ring” in one of the French
bases—where the new drafts undergo their final
hardening process. The "sick, lame and lazy" had
fallen out, and there paraded before an unsympa
thetic M. O. a rare speclme of the genius lead
swinger.
"It’s my feet, sir. They’re all right while we’re
running, but as son as we halts they 'urt something
cruel.”
‘ Well, my lad," replied the M. 0., “when the
company halts you go on markin time."
WANTED —MORE FARMERS—I. The Farmer and Cost of Living—
WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 4.—Every respon- j
sible American citizen who wants a farm
shall have one, fully equipped, provided
he can pay the government as a first installment
a small percentage of the value of the land. He
will be given a long time to pay the rest of the
price, and that price ■will be based upon the ac
tual producing power of the land, and not upon
a speculation as to its future value. The farmer
shall further be given every possible assistance to
make his farm pay.
That, in brief outline, is the method by which
the present administration expects to solve, after
the war, the problem of feeding America, and also
in part that oi replacing in civilian life the sol
diers returned from Europe. The plan upon which
it is working, through the department of the in
terior, is based upon oue which has proved suc
cessful in Australia, and also as a state measure
in California. Dr. Elwood Meade, chairman of
the California Land Settlement board, has been
called to Washington by the secretary of the in
terior, and is now here studying the problem of
applying the Australia-California plan to the whole
United States. At the same time, the interior de
partment has several land experts in the field,
studying arid, cut-over and swamp lands which
may be reclaimed and made fertile for this pur
pose. The department has an appropriation of
$200,000 for carrying out these investigations. And
independent study, but also under government aus
pices, is being made by Benton McKaye, an ex
pert in forestry, whose studies look to the appli
cation of this colonization scheme to lumbering and
mining as well as farming. Several measures have
been introduced into congress which embody the
general idea, but these will undoubtedly be su
perseded by an “administration” bill, prepared by
the experts who are now studying the problem.
Although this land settlement plan goes under
the name of a measure to provide farms for sol
diers, it is really a great deal more than that. It
is a plan to forestall food shortage in the United
States.
It aims to do this by establishing a scientific
ally planned system of rural development, which
will in every possible way insure the success of
the farmer and thereby the productivity of the
farm. ’ Heretofore we have had no ordered system
of rural development.
The country is awakening to the fact that it
cannot feed itself much longer by the haphazard
method. The war has shown that there are limi
tations to our resources, so often called boundless.
The American people have experienced want. Yet
we undoubtedly have the land to feed a population
much larger than our present one. The trouble,
then, must be in the way the land is cultivated.
It is.
Land in nearly every sta|e of the union lies
uncultivated or partly cultivated, or wastefplly cul
tivated, because good farming in many parts of
this country does not pay. There are two prin
cipal reasons for this. In the first place, the price
of the land is so high that an investment in land
cannot possibly pay. In the second place, our sys
tem of distributing the products of the land is such
that a fair share of the price paid for them does
not reach the man who produces them.
The price of land alone is enough to check the
development of farming which is necessary to feed
the United States in the future. The difficulty 13
IS THIS AN ECONOMIC WAR?—By Dr. Frank Crane ji
-- - - —— ■■ ■ ■■—
The American Economist uses the„ following
language, according to the New York World:
"In the great issue of 1918, far more is in
volved than‘the release of nations from the tyr
anny of Germany. True, that is the rally ground—
the reason why the Allies and the boys from Amer
ica are fighting so desperately.
"But back of all the shouts for liberty and free
dom is the bare, cold fact that this is an economic
war, a war for national supremacy and security."
Continuing, the Economist says:
“A conclusive and satisfactory peace in 1898
needed that undivided support of the American
people. A conclusive and satisfactory peace in
1918 would likewise need the undivided support
of the people, provided nothing but liberty and jus
tice were involved. %
“But the present war is now an economic
This is a pretty fair glimpse of the snake we
will have to scotch at home hi settling up after
this war.
If the suggestion of the Economist is to be
adopted then we are to follow our armed conquest
of Germany by a surrender to German ideals.
When we went into this struggle it was with a
flourish of trumpets announcing that our aims
were lofty, that we sought only justice, that we
THE FIRM FOUNDATIONS I
History is making with dizzying rapidity.
World-changes fairly crash upon us in each day’s
news. Events that singly would daze are moving
.forward in phalanxes. In Central Europe the very
mountains seem to reel and nothing to stand fast
upon the earth. Results which the enemies of
Germany had thought of as possible only after long
struggles and delays that make the heart sick are
now fairly rushing upon us. We are almost los
ing our capacity to be astonished at what we read
in the dispatches. And though we all are filled
with a kind of wondering and solemn joy at the
great fruition of our hopes, we are not, and may
not be for a long time to come, able to measure
the significance of the mighty transformations
sweeping upon the world.
A good way to get our bearings is to go back
to our state of 'mind four years ago. Then we
stood aghast at the spectacle of a great interna
tional crime attempted which we feared might
succeed. The moral sense of mankind was suffer
ing from a shock which seemed as if it might over
turn the whole rder of ideas and convictions
which had become a part of the common conscious
ness. It would help to clarify our thoughts to
day if we would turn back to such an article as
John Galsworthy wrote in Scribner’s a month or
two after the war broke out. It was the pouring
out of the heart of an idealist, an international
ist, a Christian, overwhelmed by the apparent de
struction of all that he held dear. Yet he would
not abandon hope. He cast about for desperate
resources of comfort. One of them was the like
lihood that such a bold and wicked act of aggres
sion by a military nation would arouse among
non-military nations a spirit that would never sub
mit or yield. Thic implied prediction we have seen
marvelously and gloriously fulfilled. But Gals
worthy went deeper and, in that hour when the
ruthless might of Germany seemed resistlessly
sweeping on to brutal triumph, dwelt upon the un
shaken assurance given by a belief in a fixed
moral order of the, universe. If we were not to
curse God and die, we could not admit the pos
sibility that w’anton crime could enthrone itself
ov.ir outraged justice.
This it is, we can now see—the conviction that
our cause was righteous—which was a firm foun
dation beneath our feet even when the floods of
iniquity were rising highest. That was our ulti
mate reason for stubborn optimism though the
heavens hung black above us. A world given over
to domination by the sword seemed absolutely un
thinkable. We knew that we would all rather
die than have to live in such a world; and from
that thought we rose to the confidence that such
a thing could never come to pass. The indigna
tion mingled with the invincible hope of the
prophets we took for our stay. We read new
meanings into the poets of indomitable resistance
to tyranny, willing to make our own Shelley’s
flaming words and to ‘‘hope till hope creates from
its own wreck the thing it contemplates.” It was
not a question of one country or race going up and
another going down. The British empire might
go the way of the Roman, for all we knew; but
that was not the pain that gnawed at our hearts.
I tha’t land is commonly held at a price based upon
what it may be worth in the future, due to changed
conditions, and not on what it will produce now.
Thus, if a man buys a hundred acres of land for
SIO,OOO, he will do exceedingly well to make a
net profit of SI,OOO a year by farming it. If his
time is considered to be worth only S6OO a year,
he has then made on his investment only s4o*
or about 4 per cent. He could invest it in a first
mortgage on city real estate and make twice that
amount. This case is hypothetical, but typical. It
is usual to say that the farmer’s thousand dollars
is worth more than the same amount in the city;
that he feeds his family with the products of the
farm, and so on. But this is sophistry. Figuring
in every possible factor of profit, the fact remains
that the farmer cannot make both day wages and
a fair return on his investment. The natural re
sult is that he quits farming and goes to a city.
Or else he stays from force of habit, farming as
best he can, financially crippled. Or else he sells
his farm and rents land, which enables him to
make more money, but quickly exhausts the land,
which he does not own, and about which he cares
nothing.
The problem of distribution is not so simple.
It is generally admitted that the farmer does not
get his share. Even now, with the prices he gets
for staples regulated by the gover:ntent. he oft
en does not get his share, though he sometimes
gets enough to make him temporarily prosperous.
The “middleman” and the "profiteer” are gen
erally blamed for the farmer’s losses in distribu
tion. There is aot much in this. The middleman
is generally a necessity, and the profiteer a myth.
The trouble is that the forces of distribution are
organized and the farmers are not. An organized
force will always and inevitably exploit an un
organized force.
For these reasons, then, the farmer is quit
ting the farm. Even now, when farmers are pop
ularly supposed to be making money hand oyer
fist, there is a steady flow of young men from.the
country to the cities. The fact that thousands of
young countrymen would rather run street ears
and work behind lunch counters than farm shows
about how attractive farming is to them.
All serious students of the problem have long
recognized this state of affairs. They have Seen
plainly enough that farming is a losing game—
much more plainly than have most farmers. They
have realized that men will not stick to an oc
cupation which holds forth so little hope of ma
terial comfort or leisure. And they aTso realize
that it will not help to give the farmer free nas
turtium seeds, free literature or free hog cholera
serum. It will help, but will not solve the prob
lem for the government to lend him money. The
only thing that will solve it is tb give him the land
at such a price that he can make a fair return on
his Investment. That is fundamental necessity for
any business. •
The administration plan is simply a recognition
of these facts, with a special reference to the re
turning soldier. For unless a considerable per
centage of these soldiers are enabled to cultivate
the land instead of going to the cities for work,
the future for food production in America is not
bright.
The details of this administration plan, so far
as they are worked out, will be presented in a
second article.
were not fighting for money but for principle.
Are w’e now to take all this back, and, with
consummate hypocrisy, declare that we were mis
taken when tve said that "nothing hut liberty and
justice were involved,” and that we now reveal our
true purpose, that "the present war is now an eco
nomic war?”
We hardly think that the American people care
to soil their record with such German duplicity.
Speaking of the thousands of mothers whose
boys have given the last full measure of devotion,
the World says: "We wonder what they think of
the claim that their sons have not been fighting
for human freedom, have not been fighting for the
liberty of mankind, but have battled merely for
economic gain, for dirty dollars stuffed into the
swollen pockets of Steel and Wool and Cotton.
How many of those patriotic women would like to
stand beside the garves that dot the fields of
France and be told that these dead did not die for
justice and civilization, but for Schedule K!”
All along, German propaganda has been busy
circulating the slander that America went into the
war merely at the connivance of her plutocrats,
merny for the advantages of material profit.
All along we have said that this is a filthy lie.
Are we now going to say that it is true?
(Copyright, ISIB, by Frank Crane.)
The fear that beset us that the whole process of
civilization might suddenly be proved a ghastly
mistake; that the slow conquest of science and ed
ucation and religion might be squandered In one
mad reversion to barbarism.
Today we rejoice in the shining evidence that
those apprehensions were needless. The world
is to be habitable, as we thought of it before the
Germans threatened to make a madhouse of It.
This is the uplifting assurance into which we have
entered. It is worth more than any military vic
tory, however splendid; and makes all mere talk
of bloody vengeance seem cheap and tawdry.
The world-settlement is at hand, and it means set
tling some things forever for all those who are
hereafter to inhabit the woild. It Is settled that
the conscience of mankind cannot be acronted
without due punishment falling upon the gutlty. It
is settled that the foundations of human progress
and human faith rest too securely on earth’s deep
est strata to be overthrown by marauders Insane
with ambition. It is settled that the world is
meant to move in the serene orbits of peace, and
cannot be madly whirled into space at the. whim
of war lords. Throughout the whole human so
ciety there will be, as a consequence of the right
eous ending of a war that began in unrighteous
ness, an enormous strengthening of the forces that
make for morality, for stability, for good faith be
tween nations, and for belief in the divinity that
( shapes the ends of mankind. Devil-worship has
received a deadly blow. We feel that the unceas
ing purpose running’ through the ages has been
demonstrated and vindicated. Compared with this
mighty achiever..e._t for the whole race, triumph
ing over a beaten foe seems petty. The victory at
tained is indeed as the call of a trumpet to faint
hearts, but it is a call’to lift up the eyes and see a
new world, compact of justice and buttressed by
peace, rising above the tears and blood and tor
ments of the past four years.—New York Evening
Po*t.
4.
THE EDITOR-MAN
When you reject our flowing verse,
Wo mark you for a downright snob;
And call you names that sound much worse.
And wonder how you hold your lob;
With heart and soul both waterlogged
You sit upon your sanctum chair;
A “gloomy Gus” with brain befogged,
And owlish eyes that coldly stare.
O editor-man, you are the devil!
That’s straight goods now and on the level.
But when you print our simple wall,
No matter how uncouth or rough,
We tell the world a different tale —
We can’t find words of praise enough;
A massive brain, a tender heart,
A sense of Justice—fit and right—
A soul that understands pur art,
A being filled with holy light.
O editor-man, you are most dear.
And all the world holds not your peer.
—JOHN WINGFIELD
