Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1914-10-21
CHAPTER III.
Tho Last War.

stand and it would be tedious
to follow the motives that plunged
mankind into the war that fills the
histories Of the middle decades of the
twentieth century.
It must always be remembered that
the political structure Of the world at
that time was everywhere extraor-
dinarily behind the collective intel
ligence. That Is the central fact Of
that history. For 200 years there
had been no great changes in po-
htical or legal methods and preten-
sions; the utmost change had been
certain shifting Of boundaries and
slight establishments Of procedure.
while in nearly every other aspect Of
life there had been fundamental revo-
buttons, gigantic releases and an enor.
nous enlargement Of scope and out
look. The absurdlhes Of courts and
the indignities of representative parlia-
mentary government, coupled with the
opening Of vast fields of opportunity In
other directions, had withdrawn the
best intelligences more and more from
public affairs. The ostensible govern
ments Of the world in the twentieth
century were following in the wake Of
the ostensible religions. They were
ceas1ng to command the services of
any but second rate men. After the
middle Of the eighteenth century there
are no more great ecclesiastics upon
the worlds memory; after the opening
OF the twentieth no more statesmen.
Everywhere one finds an energetic,
ambitious, shortsighted, commonplace
type in the seats Of authority, blind to
the new possibilities and litigiously re-
liant upon the traditions of the past
Perhaps the most dangerous Of those
outworn traditions were the boundaries
OF the various sovereign States" and
the conception of general predomi-
nance in human affairs on the part Of
some one particular. The memory of
the empires Of Rome and Alexander
squatted, an unla1d carnivorous ghost,
In the human imagination-1t bore into
the human brain like some grisly para
site and filled it with disordered
thoughts and violent impulses. For
more than century the French system
exhausted its vitality In belligerent
commissions, and then the infection
passed to the German speaking peo-
pies, who were the heart and center of
Europe, and from them onward to the
Slavs. Later ages were to store and
neglect the vast insane literature of
this obsession, the intricate treaties,
the secret agreements, the infinite
knowingpesses of the political writer,
the cunning refusals to accept plain
facts, the strategic devices. the tactical
maneuvers, the records Of mobiliza-
tons and counter notifications. It
ceased to be credible almost as soon as
It ceased to happen, but in the very
dawn OF the new age their state crafts
men sat with their historical candles
burning, and, in spite Of strange new
shadows, still wrangling and planning
to rearrange the maps of Europe and
the world.
1t was to become a matter for subtle
Inquiry how far the millions Of men
and women outside the world of these
specialists sympathized and agreed
with their portentious activities One
school Of psychologists inclined to
minimize this participation, but the
balance Of evidence goes to show that
there were massive responses to these
suggestions Of the belligerent schemer.
Primitive man had been fercely COM
bative animal Innumerable genera
tons had passed their lives in tribal
warfare, and the weight of tradition,
the example Of history, the ideals of
loyalty and devotion fell in easily
enough with the indictments of the in
ternational mischief maker. The politi-
cal ideas of the common man were
tically nothing in such education as he
was given that was ever intended to
ft him for citizenship as such that
conception only appeared, indeed, with
the development Of modern state
ideas), and it was therefore a COM
paratively easy matter to fill his va
cant mind with the sounds and fury
of exasperated suspicion and national
aggression.
For example, Barnet describes the
London crowd as noisily patriotic
when presently his battalion came up
from the depot to London to entrain
for the French frontier. He tells of
children and women and lads and old
men cheering and shouting. Of the
streets and rows hung with the flags
of the allied powers, of real enthusi-
asm even among the destitute and I'm.
employed. The labor bureaus were
now partially transformed into enroll
ment offices and were centers of holly
patriotic excitement. At every con.
venient place upon the line on either
side of the channel tunnel there were
enthusiastic spectators, and the feel
ing in the regiment, if little stiffened
and darkened by grim anticipations
was none the less warlike.
But all this emotion was the tickle
emotion Of minds without established
ideas. 1t was with most of them, Bar
net says, as it was with himself, a nat
ural response to collective movement
and to martial sounds and colors and
the exhilarating challenge of vague
dangers. And people had been so long
oppressed by the threat Of and prepa
ration for war that its arrival came
with an effect of positive relief.
The plan of campaign Of the allies
assigned the defense Of the lower
Meuse to the English, and the troop
trains were run direct from the various
British depots to the points In the Ar