Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1915-06-04

rights Of non.combatants, extending even TO the
Withholding Of protection from helpless age, weak
women and innocent babies, is unprecedented, and
without parallel in the annals of armed conflicts.
The savagery being exhibited in the light of
10th century advancement in learning, in science,
in Christianity and civilization, is unsurpassed, if
equalled, by that of any age.
The deeds and doings of Caligula and of Nero
and of the followers of Alarc and Attilla in the
most barbarian periods of their respective careers
were not characterized by more revolving crimes
against humanity than some of those performed by
German subjects, with the approval, if not with
the knowledge and consent, of the mischief-mak
ing, havoc-playing, notwithstanding, heartless
ruler at the head of that Imperial Government. :
On this side of the Atlantic, down in Mexico,
the very devil is to pay, and no where under the
sun. since the morning stars first sang together,
except when the recent murders upon the high
seas were committed and commended by Germa-
ny's billy-be-damned Kaiser, have the sons OF men
conducted themselves in a way more gratifying to
his Satanic Majesty than is being done just across
our Southern border.
There, in a land where the versatility and
prodigality Of Nature are seen in great stretches OF
chaparral or barren wastes. and again in mighty
mountain ranges whose bowels are rich beyond
description with mineral wealth in areas of lower
altitude, where soil and climate unite to produce,
under intelligent agriculture, fruits and overs
and other products of the ground as beautiful and
desirable for the comfort of man as were those OF
Eden in the days of the worlds primeval comfort
and pristine purity in regions, here and there,
such as must have inspired Byron's EXPLANATIONS
ooh! Christ! 1t is a goodly sight to see
What Heaven has done for this delicious land!
What fruits Of ( agrance blush on every tree!
What goodly prospects DER the hills expand!'
One now sees what Milton calls "All hell
broke loose"
He sees "a land rent with civil feuds'' and
"drenched in ~fraternal blood, and within its cap
ital, which the historian advises us, was, as far
back as 1510-in the days of the Montezumas-
"held bv a highly civilized and by no means cow
ardly race, and placed high on the table land, on
islands in the midst of a beautiful lake, was one of
the ~loveliest cities in the world, full of fine build
|ings and beautiful gardens"
He sees in that once happy community a popu-
lation pale and wan. in woe and want. where tens
of thousands, it is said, may be found in the throes
of starvation, while in the surrounding country
millions are about to perish of the famine brought
on through the desolation of fields and farms and
homes and the devastation of property ii the
wreck and ruin engendered by unhallowed war.
There. the situation has become so horrible and
grown so intolerant it cannot be ignored by the
United States, and President Wilson finds himself
confronted by conditions with which he cannot
be dilatory in dealing.
Indeed here is the "devil-and- all-to-pay,"
and between the don't give-a-dam game Germany
is trying to play to Justify the murders she has
committed on the high seas or bluffed her way out
of responsibility for the acts of those conscience
less assassins, the submarines, now scalping the
ocean. and the chaos created by the devil-may-
care leaders of the various dissatisfied, unruly ele-
ments, clutching at each others Threats in that
crime-ridden, distressed land to the south of us.
Between Germany and Mexico-the Charybdis
of imperial ambition and cruel disregard for the
laws of humanity on the one side, and the Scylla
of ignorance, poverty and vice, with the passions,
prejudices, hates and envies, such conditions inev-
itably produce. on the other, President Wilson is
between the devil and the deep blue sea, or as the
more irreverent, with greater emphasis, would
express it, between hell and the iron works.
No Presidents lines in full many a year have
fallen in as hard places as have those of Mr.. Will
son.
Fortunately for him, more fortunately for his
people. and most, fortunately, perhaps, for the
good of all the rest of mankind. he is a gentleman
and a scholar, a patriot, a statesman, a sage, and
a philosopher with keen sagacity. with an exalted
sense Of duty and the lofty courage which enables
him to face it aud perform it, faithfully and with
out fear, as God gives him to see it.
Therein lies his strength. and in his strenoth