Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-05-17

ment which would subject the world
to militarism, that curse of modern
times, with the spectacle OF the leader
of a great republic, alone, but not
alone, in his study, wrestling with the
problem of saving a nation from war
and, as someone has said, "curbing
forever the Unsuitable luster Of the
frenzied combatants Of Europe" Prob
ably not since the day of the great
Abraham Lincoln have we had a
President who has applied the laws Of
religion and morality with such effect,
upon SO gigantic problem as Presi-
dent Wilson has attempted to solve. II
orr people as q nation can rise to the
idealism that we see displayed by the
| President we shall not be plunged into
a useless war, and if there is any pow
er Of sane imagination left in the mind
Of the Imperial German government,
there will be a change in its conduct
Of the war, as it affects nom COMBAT
ants. *There is no need OF our
| fghtifg Germany. She must now fight
a deadly internal foe; the accusing con-
| science Of millions of true-hearteo
| Germans will do what shot and shell
| can never do. No atOnement.
no promises for the future can save
! no vision worthy Of the name; it had
no imagination capable Of seeing the
moral consequences which rose with
the bodies of those innocent men, wo-
men and children from the wreck OF
the Lusitania. Men will now be tempt
ed" it is said, ito say of the Kaiser
| what Coleridge said Of Napoleon, when
Bonaparte had declared that the in
| terests Of small states must always
succumb to great ones: Thank God!
he has sealed his fate; from this mo-
| ment his fall is certain.
1t is not because some hate Germany
and love the Allies that the civilized
world grows tense with it's feeling over
the German crime. 1t is rather because
humanity sees one of its proudest men,
bers running amuck,' just as an ap-
parently respectable individual member
of society may suddenly become Grim
inal, committing a crime which betrays
the results of slow moral and spiritual
degeneration. Militarism, sustained by a
greedy commercialism, has shown the
cruel heart, the thick mind which cares
nothing for the CHASTITY toll it's victims
must pay that wars may wage.
But let us not condemn Germany as a
people. They are not all by any means
in the same class. The collective German
conscience were 1t not held in the mill
taristic leash is as good as ours. just
as active as that of the Allies. But the
leaders have forgotten that civilization
is not a survival of the tittest.
Have we not our jingoe5 and our colonies.
who SO lack imagination as to be willing
to set our country at war now with Mex
leo, now with Japan, and even with Ger
many herself? Who infiame our minds
with the thoughts Of war, without ever
picturing, if they can, what are the hor-
rors that would result? Have we not
our ruthless commercialism which is only
held in check by the strictest law and
the severest of penalties? Have we not
our Dives-like Indifference to the suffer
ings of the poor and the oppressed?
!, It has been we'll said that the evil OF
the world is due not merely to bad hearts
but also to languid imagfnations. for
languid imaginations mean indifference
and responsibility. They affect every
branch, every phase of human society
Without the efforts of the Imagination
there can be no religion, no morality
no art, none Of the things that sweeten
. and beautify our human life.
, So when people neglect their religious
duties, lower the standards of their NOR
atty. become extravagant, pleasure-mad
obtuse to the obligations they owe So
ciety. everyone should know that grea,
and disastrous change has come over the
minds and hearts Of such people.
Most people live in rather circumscribed
worlds They move in grooves; grooves
of thought, grooves of action. Think
how the great war has increased our
vision and knowledge of Europe; how the
! sinking Of the Lusitania has stirred and
aroused our emotions. Such events shake
us out of our thought routine. They stil
our sluggish imaginations. Belgium
crushed arouses our pity; sets US al
work to send relief. For the moment we
are swayed by the influence Of new sem
stations, new impulses, new emotions
Then we settle back into old routine, and
here in this same. commonplace routine
IL where the test of our imaginative pow.
er, of our idealism, is made.
/ It Is not hard to respond tc a new and
exciting mental stimulus. That is the
reason why the moving picture is so pop.
ular. You receive swift, changing and
, vivid impressions. But they lead you no.
| where, no matter how fine or elevated
in tone, without some effort on your part
, to recreate in thought and action some
. picture or ideal that lifts you above thu
common run Of life. : If you saw
there upon the screen the sordid picture
, of the life that Is led by hundreds o.
women who earn their living making
, garments for starvation wages you nigh
, realize what lack of imagination pre-
! vents many from thinking about
If you saw pictures Of the life miner.
and their families endure, you might un
derstand why there are strikes and lock
outs, armed guards and the shooting o
innocent women and children.
But the imagination that has the mos
influence In daily life, which produce
the idealism that commands and guides
. the best Of human life. is the creative
that which builds its world Of life an,
love within the mind. projecting its in
fluence upon the world without.
q When you build house you call in ,