The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-09-25
THREE MEN ON A RAFT

Ia ss,,rary power. The good of the
NV unconsidered, the absolutism
~ u', ,hs few the only stake at Berlin, at
- vnsnna and Petrograd. Hope for man
w IN the fall of the Kaisers, the
JILL but a little behind the Ho-
ssnzollern and the Hapsburg!
Courier-Journai.
A. the outset of the War of the
rsisers the Courier-Journal showed
how II was largely what the country
.,ae calls an Gin and in" affair-"all
i the family" as it were-blood kim
ship marking the trail of the Lords
a,o,nted between Dan and Beersheba,
and mite all the way from hell to
breakfast, or words to that effect; but
~ one could read certain letters in
coruorated a few days ago by Field
MARSHAL Herman Won Rider in his in
teresting pan-American reports with
ont having the circumstance recalled
- his memory and urged upon his re-
lection.
The letters in question passed
mainly between Prince Henry OF
prussia and King George of England
first cousins, grandsons both of the
late Queen Victoria-but they en-
braced references to others of the
royal circle, and gave a glimpse of
the domestic habit and prattle which
nreyail among them zen dishabile" as
ve French say. One would fancy
himself with a nursery. King George
Of England is George" The Ger
man kaiser is willie" The car of
all the Russias is Mickey" Dealing
with nations they chatter like chill
dren over their toys. Disposing OF
the lives of millions Of human beings,
they play at hide-and-seek and blind
mans buff.
To the pan-American mind of Field
Marshal Herman Won Ridder 1t seems
natural and charming-the amiable
atutoyen" of the Right Divine. But,
10 the understanding of the rest of
us. we poor, plain peasant Americans,
It Is horrible. 1t places directly be-
fore the minds eye, the full meaning
and portent of the pretension to
kingship and kaisership and czarship,
involving the sovereignty Of one fam
lily, of one man over myriads of men,
illustrated by the war of the kaisers,
precipitated upon the world by a
group of cousins, tracing back to sue
cessful land-piracy a few hundred
years ago.
We read Of the Man on Horse
back" We hear of another Gin the
saddle" A few OF us recall something
about Sitting in the Rocker"-but
let that pass. They all amount much
to the same thing; preferment, pat
ronage. power ''the best of it." Je-
rome X. Jerome once wrote book
called three Men in a Boat, Not to
Mention the Dog" When this war
is over the Courier-Journal is going
to write book entitled Three Men
on Raft, Not to Mention the Bear"
II.
There lies before us the latest of
the German white Papers," narrat-
ing, to quote it's title, "How Russia
and Her Ruler Betrayed Germany's
Confidence and Thereby Caused the
European War" 1t makes pretty
case We are quite ready to believe
as much evil of Mickey" as of "Wil-
ne not forgetting "Uncle Franz Jo-
SER This White Book" is all about
the Balkans, the Slavs and the Serbs,
Hussias scehmes against Turkey,
aand, finally, the assassination of the
Archdue Franz Ferdinand and his
VIE, by a member of a band of Ser
wan conspirators prepared and
aOetted in Belgrade with the co-opera-
uon OF Servian officials, and executed
with arms from the Servian state ar
senal."
bismarck once said of the Schles-
"lg'Holstein question: "Only two
men ever understood it. One of them
y IN the lunatic asylum. / am the
O'ner" If as many as two men ever
understood the Balkin question, we
w not claim to be either of them. All
mat we know is that over there on
'ne Danube they are devil of set
aud can raise more kinds of hell to
me square inch than can be raised
auywhere else on earth outside of
Mexico.
mat Mickey" fooled "Willie" is
ai'Ogether likely. That Georgia"
.OOk advantage of the scrap between
"iiiie' and Mickey" to get in his
sofS, may be also true. The Courier
journal is against the whole feather
Ucu OF them NNIak ..,au 49, l..