The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1914-04-25
A BROAD LOOK AT MEXICO.
Situation in the Republican Calmly Con-
sidered in Many Aspects.

| 1t is with profound regret and O sink
| ing of heart that every thinking citizen
of mature years contemplates the spec
taele OF the United States at war. This
| feeling is evidenced by many readers of
| this newspaper and is verified wherever
men talk together. There viii be temp
tation for some to despair of the ulti.
mate triumph OF the cause of peace
but this need not be. Poignant present
regret is natural, but the cycles of Gods
good are long ones. Those OF us who
had direct knowledge of the dark years
of the Civil war, and the later-b born who
saw the conflict with Spain from its be-
ginning to the conclusion of it, are with
out enthusiasm for armed conflict. War
is not light adventure, but deep trag
edy, and in its trail follow mnltitudes
of evils affecting powerfully and unfa
yorably the business of the people and
the well being of their government.
1t is by direct experience that genera
tions of men gain, each one for itself,
knowledge of war Illustrative of the
taught and the untaught was the stu
dent demonstration at Yale the other
night, and very impressive was the talk
of ex-President Taft to the band of
marching boys. Gathered there were the
uninitiated and the man who had had
his initiation-the ardor of youth on
the one side, sober experience on the 9TH
err. IF war should come" said Profess
sor Taft. 'it will not be trail of glory
lit will be trail of woe" There new
er was truer depletion. We who nave
seen woes burned into the national life
throughout its wide reach can testify
out of knowledge. Take the glamor off
Of history and the residuum of war is
dismally eloquent of woe. The losses
in blood in treasure, in human suffer
ing testify; so do the indirect evils that
wars fasten on the body polite, and no
less the pension rolls that speak the
gratitude of the nation toward those
who fight for us, but as well irrevocably
fasten upon the public treasury a bur-
den that never reaches maturity and dis
charge. Wars are never paid for; gen
GRAFTON after generation pays in Turn,
and the legacy of debt goes on.
No honest student of public opinion
can reach the conclusion that the Amer
lean people desired or desire war with
Mexico. 1t is distinctly otherwise. No
public man speaks the public mind when
he implies that we have cast envious
eyes upon Mexican territory, No po-
litical leader worthy the name imagines
party advantage to lie in the promotion
or prosecution of a campaign against the
people of the neighboring country. Their
good, and not their hurt, is the desire
of the people of the United States, and
even the hotheads should bear this in
mind and keep it at the front. 1t is a
50 - -, he
plate the death of Daniel A. Haggertv
of Cambridge, corporal of marines, the
Massachusetts man whose name went on
flames roll at Vera Cruz. booked for re-
membrane as long as the story of this
conflict of April, 1914, shall be read. We
are all asking how many more names
of regulars, mayhap of volunteers, are
to be added to the six first killed. The
grim record has been inaugurated more's
the pity.
1t must be the watchful concern of
the president and of Congress-of all in
authority-to see that the outcome of
woe in lives and governmental democrat
ization is circumscribed as narrowly as
possible. Let no one doubt that this is
the sober desire of the American peo-
pie. The navy and the army of the
United States will obey orders to the
Iimit-they win do what is demanded of
them The people pray that every move
may be conceived wisely, and prove to
be contributive, in the hands of Provi-
denee. to the establishment of settled
conditions in Mexico. BY tradition and
purpose we are the friends of genuine
democracy and when that is a compli-
Gated matter, as it must be in Latin
American countries. we shall have to do
the best we can in any given case. Ex-
pediency has its uses. We must be the
friend, not the dictator. Beneath the
Mexican disorders that exhibit so much
primitive passion is the stirring and
cropping OF that republican spirit which
is manifesting itself the world over, with
no country in the world free from the
yeasting in one form or another. Across
our southern border there are exeesses
and the erossest abuses upon the side of
aristocraey and of democracy. 1t is not
and viii not be easy to line up the thing
most desirable for us to do at any given
moment, but of one thing there should
be no shadow of doubt-that the United