Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1914-09-01
POLAND.

POLAND.
Philadelphia North American:
Out of the bloody cataclysm hopes
spring; hopes for larger liberty for
the struggling masses, hopes for a
republican Europe, hopes for an in
dustrial democracy, hopes for the
end of rule by divine right"
1t seems impossible to believe
that the social order can be so shak-
en- to it's very foundation without
it's moving forward in the readjust-
ment. And, in the general hope for
freedom, no people have so clear a
right of expectancy as have the
Poles. For, in all the area involved
in the war, there is no people whose
hopes are SO founded on eternal
right and the demands of an uncon-
querable spirit.
There is grim and vengeful sat
isfaction in watching the frantic ap-
peals that are now being made to
the Poles by the three governments
which for century and a half have
perpetuated the most cowardly and
the most brutal national crime in
all history.
AS cynical, cold blooded assas-
sination the partition of Poland
stands alone. Three autocracies,
Prussia, Austria and Russia, ceased
their warning, entered into an
agreement of international brigand-
age, fell upon great, free, enlight-
ed neighbor and tore it limb from
limb, dividing the body among the
despoilers.
In doing this they committed the
most horrible kind of murder-the
murder in which the victim though
dismembered, refuses to die. The
insistent life in dead Poland has for
$50 years been a constant reproach
to her assassins and constant in
centive to the renewal of the crime.
Every day that Poland has been
kept under the tyrants her murder
has been repeated.
And now the car is at war with
the two kaisers. And every one Of
the autocrats in his extremity pleads
with the Poles in his domain to help
him in the fight.
The specter of murdered Poland
rises before the troubled eyes of the
tyrant; and he tries to allay the
ghost with promises to grant a
measure of alienation for Poland's
wounds. Yesterday every sugges-
ton for even the slightest conces-
sion to the Polish national spirit
was depressed with the iron hand or
the knout. Now the robber govern
ments say to their victim: Help
me against the other robber, and I
will give you back a small part of
what we three have wrested from
YOU"
The motive which prompted the
rape of Poland was not mere cupid
ity. Poland at that time was the
advanced guard of the Slavic people,
with all the Slav's idealism. She
was great in arts and great in learn
| ing. She had been the bulwark Of
Europe against the Asiatic hordes
and had beaten back the Turk from
the very gates of Vienna.
But she was greatest in her devo-
ton to the principles of liberty.
While all about her nations had
sent their necks under the mythical
yoke of the divine right Of heredi-
tary monarchs, Poland kept alive
the principle that nation has the
right to select it's own ruler; that
government derives its just powers
from the consent of the governed.
1t was this principle of liberty in
Poland that the autocrats feared;
and it was this fear that induced
them to accommodate their own
jealousies and to unite for the pur-
pose of numbering Poland.
But she has not been killed.
Though shattered in body, her spirit
lives. 1t has never, in Prussia or
Russia or Austria, submitted to ty-
ranny. 1t has never ceased to hold
out the hope that some day Poland
would rise from her tomb, again to
shine before the nations a torch
bearer of art and letters and liber-
ty.
In the present crisis of civilization
this hope is held forth in renewed
vigor, and is Polands answer to the
whimpering of the tyrant nations
that fear her now, $50 years after
they vainly imagined they had
stamped the spirit of liberty from