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

Andrew Carnegie for taking the WORT
out of the mouth of the Saviour and
contributing millions of money to
spread it's blessed portent throughout
the world.
Before the war in europe the cause
of arbitration as an international
agency was making srogress. But the
voluntary Disarmament of the ma
lions was obviously long ways on.
It seemed to most eople an irrides-
cent dream. W. Swhat is going
forward it become east a POSSIBLE
ity.
What shall be o. attitude? Shall
we speak for civilization, shall it rise
for the Christian -eligion which we
profess, standing uncovered to the
sun in robes o. alg light, or -hal'
we appear, like cap-a-pie, in
full armor, the old mad specter of
fury and force? Shall we say to
Europe, Fight No more'-henceforth
the world shall be at peace and it
shall be written over the portals of
every people, they shall beat their
swords into pIowshares and their
spears into pruning hooks; nation
shall not lift up sword against ma
ton, neither shall they learn war any
more"
There is hope that something may
come of it. Germany beaten-per-
haps ground to the dust even as Bel
GUM is-will be, must be, disarmed.
Then, why not the rest? The debts
will remain to be paid The men will
be needed in the fields. But if to get
a party issue in America a group of
baffled political leaders are permitted
to Prussianize our army system un-
der the plea Of national defense, lay
ing the foundations for a militariat
at Washington like that at Berlin in
the interest of corrupting murder
mills and ambitious soldiers, it will
be but question of time when what
is happening there will happen here.
In short and in fine, a question the
people should begin to consider is,
shall we fall in with Senator Lodge
and Representative Gardner to wor-
ship at the shrine of Krupp, even. to
the footstool that holds the kaiser's
feet, or follow the genius of the Amer
lean republic up the steps of the
throne of God?
Even the Prussian militariat, with
the kaiser at it's head, must begin to
see the futility of its pan-German
scheme of world conquest When all
is lost they will fully realize it. For
ty years the Germans have been
taught by their philosophers to believe
that war is the state of man. Forty
years their professors and historians
have told them it was the hope of
Germany. During these years the
armor-makers and the saber-rattlers-
who derive a profit from war and for
whose benefit myriads of good men
are fed to powder-were preparing
for war.
1t will not do for any German now
to put up a poor mouth and to at
tempt denial of this. That there was
proyocation-espectaIly in England
and Frence-may be true enough.
Germany had been commercially put
in pocket. There was sore need of
colonial expansion. The mistake lay
in the idea that war was a remedy,
that it was inevitable, and that, if it
was bound to come, Germany was
best prepared for it, England suppos-
ed to have her hands tied in Ireland
and no one suspecting the Belgians
of such power of resistance.
1t was precisely the mistake that
Napoleon made. Two years before
his fall Napoleon could have secured
world peace and the confirmation OF
his dynasty, with a larger France
than he had found. He refused it and
went to his finality. All his calcula-
lions failed him as all the kaiser's
have failed him. The
very elements rose against him as
they have risen against the kaiser.
1t seems a doom fixed upon God-de-
flying ambition. Il
Let US agree that no such opportu-
nifty was offered the kaiser as was
offered Napoleon. Let us even allow
that the kaiser felt himself obliged
to fight, and that the defeat of his
wondrous preparedness is not pun
ishment, but a destiny. All things
apart, to what end if not to the sub
sanitation Of the truth that war is
not remedy for any earthly evil, or
wrong; that it is organized and legal
lied murder; and that, quite destroy