The Johnson City comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1916-1917, 1916-01-20

Nit aspect dark and visage grim,
| Colt pulls nit me und / nit him.
Meinself-und Colt!
In these columns we have deal
| with matters of war, appertaining t.
our own country and people. w
have shown the causes and effects o
t-although vile and wicked as /
was, we can thank God, great gooc
has come out of it-instead of bein!
l divided Nation, we are a mos
mighty united nation, standing on
boldly, while the rest of the nations
If the world are destroying eacl
other, and-it seems-America is tt
De the salvation of the world.
We propose to give in this paper
little of the history of the past
leading up to and the causes of the
great holocaust of war now raging
in Europe, Asia, Africa and the
oceans deep.
To begin with, we will call it al
| inherited war-the ambitions of one
generation handed down to another
for the perpetuation of the dominion
Of few over the masses of the peo'
pie, and, the assertion of the "divint
right to rule"
THE KAISER AND "THE MAILED
FIST"
From the pages of history we
CLEAN what is said hereon, of this
most interesting subject, beginning
with the spectres of the past and
now carrying dismay and alarm
among all nations-America not eX-
cepted, as we are on the verge of
war, Notwithstanding the determined
effort of our noble President to sus-
tain our neutrality-but it seems,
the time has come when patience and
forbearance cease to be virtue
the deliberate conspiracies carried
on in our own land in the destruc-
ton of public and private property
at the expenditure of millions of dol
lars, in which, sad to say, some of
our statesmen, members of congress
and judges have been corrupted
the very political foundations of our
government attacked-even to the
of the life of our Presi-
dent-Our rights and liberties as
people to govern our own affairs on
land and sea set at naught by these
war-crazed nations.
Self-preservation is the first law
of nature, and the work of prepared
ness to defend ourselves from these
aggressions cannot be forced too
rapidly as we know not from day to
day when the blow MUST be struck
in self-defense.
We only have to turn back in his
tory to the years contemporaneous
with our war to show the trend and
generalization of the present war,
now on, by the part of Germany.
There is an explanation of the "blood
and IRON policy of Germany, of the
mailed fist" of the Kaiser, of what
has been called by a celebrated wri-
ter, Mr.. H. G. Wells, chat tramping,
drilling foolery in the heart of Eu-
rope that has arrested civilization
and darkened the hopes of mankind
Tor forty years-German imperialism
and German militarism."
The explanation is in the history
Of the rise of Prussia. Bismarck
lifted Prussia from second rate |
member of the German Confederation |
which was dominated by Austria
70 a first place among the German
states, and then formed around 1t a |
new nation--Germany, and made that
nation one of the great powers of
he world. Bismarck believed in
he believed in blood and
ron" in the mailed fist" He achiev-
ID his success by war, deliberately
planned, prepared for, and efficiently
carried out.
Let us look closely at the lessons
If war and diplomacy which En-
,eror William inherits from his
grandfather and the Iron Chancellor.
In 1862, Emperor william I, the
grandfather of the present ruler, was
to get the Prussian Diet