The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-10-09

suffer less from German triumph. To
the average American, who considers
the institutions of his own country as
distinguished from the institutions of
Russia, the car appears as though a
brilliant personality, or odious despot.
His government is, to our seeing, the
sum of all iniquity. Who believes in
it cannot believe in the government
of the United States.
How much truer would have rung
the words of Col. Watterson had they
been applied, in the first instance, to
Russia instead of Germany. To Rus
STA is where these words belong. Why,
indeed, should Col. Watterson blame
us Germans for sticking I'D for our
Vaterland? Why, may be permitted
to ask, does Col Watterson ''whoop
things up for savagery that is being
hurled against German civilization, as
If he were in st. Petersburg, or To-
kIo, or Timla, instead of Louisville,
Kentucky? Should the Germans, too,
be muzzled when they seek conscien-
tiously to give the American people
the truth, that the goose-quill of an
other may have the field undisputed?
Do the American people wish both
sides of the shield, or but one? And
therein lies the angle of distortion
that we German sympathizers object
to-
Why should upon us be placed the
defense of that elementin the Ger
man government that all upbuilders
of democracy object to?
If it comes to question of Germna
rule or Russian mis-rule, can there
be the slightest choice? If he main
tains that it is a choice of evils, then
I must say, for Gods sake choose the
lesser
The position of the Courier-Journal
may be summed up in Col. Waiter
sons own words. 1t conceives the
war of the kaiser to be the assertion
Of arbitrary power against popular
government, and holding the German
autocrat and autocracy most respon-
sible for this. It's opinions go with
its sympathiZers, for those who, what
ever their composite character, and
in the case of Russia, their question
able companionship, are yet fighting
the battle of liberty against despot-
ism. Clean-cut and incisive, these
words have no double meaning. They
leave one, however, so completely in
the dark as to the facts upon which
their authors conception is based as
to lead to the suspicion of the arbi-
trary and the autocratic.
The war is characterized as "the
war of the kaisers," and for all the
horrors which it involves the emper-
or of Germany is inferentially to be
held responsible by those who have
chosen to, call him the German au-
tocratt.'
What are the facts in the case?
The policies of Germany have been
dictated, not by one man. but by the
politico-geographical conditions which
have surrounded her. She has suffer
ed from militarism, but her sufferings
have been imposed upon her by her
enemies from without, not by her own
government from within. 1t is the
limit of the illogical to assert that a
sovereign who has consistently work
ed for the economic uplift of his peo-
pie should, from motives of personal
ambition, impose upon that same peo-
pie the terrific burden of Germany's
military system. 1t is equally illogi-
cal to deny the duty of that sovereign
to prepare for eventualities which in
his far-sightedness he could not fail
to see would result from the increase
of Germany and the avarice of her
neighbors.
The present war is not result of
German autocracy," but vindica-
ton of the German clearness of Wis
ion.
Does the colonel think that it would
have been better for Germany and for
the world that the German people
should have met the mongrel millions
that are driven against her from the
ends of Europe and Asia, with a
broomstick?
What is this autocracy of Germany?
The emperor? The German govern
ment? If it is the duty of a ruler to
rule, it follows as corollary that it is
virtue to rule well. The test of
this virtue should rest with the sub.
jects. The story of Germany's last
thirty years could not have been
written under the guidance of an en-