The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-12-25

or unalloyed pleasure.
SHALL oU7 AMERICAN REPuB
Lie BE PRUssIANlzED?
.sDear God and Father of US all,
Forgive our faith in cruel lies,
Forgive the blindness that denies
Cast down our idols! Overturn
Our bloody affairs! Make us see
Thyself in Thy humanity!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
San Inquiry Into the State of the
Nations Defenses"-the high sound
ing soubriquet of the movement start
ed by the platearmor combine to
rob the people and fathered by q
Massachusetts congressman-were
more fifty and accurately entitled "a
Plan to Put Woodrow Wilson In q
Hole" and for other purposes, the
"cther purposes" being taking issue
and campaign funds for the republi
cans, along with galore of personal
exploitation for the spreadeagle ora
tor whose favorite stunts is ito wrap
the flag around him, march down to
the footlights, fire two hoss-pistols
and die, like son-of-a-gun!"
The scheme presents three distinct
aspects for the consideration of re-
fiecting men; first its fraudulent, part
isan character: second, it's empty
patriotic appeal; and third, its un-
timely PRONUNCIATION of wicked prin-
eiple.
II am very much afraid" says Mr..
Gardner, eager to get in his work and
unable to restrain his partisan in
tention, "that the president means to
lay the cold hand of death upon the
whole movement"
But how could the president do
that? The movement" is for the
congress, not for the executive. Even
here, however, the Gardner prejudg,
ment of the president is supplement-
ed by the charge made in advance
that the rule committee will not al
low it. Thus, before the assembling
OF congress, we had proof that the
proposed Inquiry Into the State of
the Nations Defenses' was not an
emanation of patriotic solicitude, but
play for party advantage.
Coincident appears yet more sin
lister figure upon the scene This is
an association calling itself sThe
National Security League" It's arriv-
al would be sucpiciously prompt even
IL we did not know tina every job big
enough to pay it's way along the turn
pixies and through the tollgates of leg
islation always re-enforces its in
visible lobby with marching club
OF willing dupes of the
drum and the fife-who dearly love
TO carry torchlights and are ever
ready to rally around bon-fires and
pie-counters.
The nation to all such is in per-
petual peril. If it were not, what
would become of the professional
life-savers? Sixty years ago, accord
to the Know Nothing rescript, the
pope was going some dark night to
swim the Atlantic, and ike duck
upon june-bug. swoop down upon
the helpless Stars and Stripes. These
ten years, since Japan licked Russia,
it has been the Mikado, who, like a
submarine, was going to swim the
Pacific and swoop down upon China
Town. Statesmen with; osculatory
inteliects and twenty-five inch col
lars, seeking to establish a system of
paternalism, based upon woman
suffrage and prohibition, have never
weried of depicting the te9rors of in
yasion and rum. Year inl and year
out they have held up the nation by
the tail as a horrid example of un-
preparedness and depravity. To
whom the CourierJournal has said,
as it now says to representative
Gardner and the National Security
League adopting the words which
Captain Sxmon Suggs on a memoir
OF IN addressed to PaFson
d the m9ur-