The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1916-04-06

| economic, religious, educatlOna 81, pSy cnOl-
| ogical, and philosophical issues involved
in just these two school fights! And sup
pose that at every point in the tight we
shot 400 school-teachers, children, or
parents who disagreed them! In the
end, l suppose, we'd have to acclaim that
side right which had shot away the
greater number of alimentary canals on
the other side!'
Colcord did not reflect Lindsay's ironic
grin.
"You seem to think that death is the
most terrible thing that can happen" he
said, slowly and seriously. "You forget
that nothing teaches so wildly as death.
Girls burn to death in rat-trap of a
factory, and the others get better fac
tories to work in as the result! A Ii
tanic goes down with thousands of lives,
and the result is more life-boats and less
speeding for records on other liners
John Brown dies on the scaffold and a
million souls live and fight the more WV
idly for it! A man dies for his faith and
his cross becomes the conquering symbol
of word religion! Is there any more
vivid revealer of the spirit than death?'
"Yes-life!' Lindsay replied. "When
the minds of men were cruder, death
may have been the more effective way of
impressing them. But the day has come
when man can do more by living for his
faith than by dying for it. Martyrdom
never was proof Of truth. It's just as
hard, if not harder, to live for a cause, if
that cause is not popular, as it is to uie
for it-and you have to suffer longer for
/ it. And between the two, it seems to
me, living gives you a longer chance to
reveal the spirit and to propagandize.
| Colcord again insisted that only the ex-
ceptional individual finds a spiritual sub
stitute for war in times of peace. The
rest live in a miasmic swamp of material
deterioration which only war could drain
and sweeten again.
Look at Belgium" he said. "When
it was at peace it thrilled the world with
horror with its exploits in the rubber
forests of the Congo. Such hellish
cruelty, such fundamental dishonesty,
such colossal selfishness-all for dollars
Then came war! Belgium again thrilled
the world. But this time by its heroism,
unselfsh devotion to the cause of the
spirit! And the story is the same of
France, of Russia, and the other bellig-
erents. tell you, the highest object of
life is not peace and material wealth,
but the spiritual character! There are
virtues born to the spirit IN war infinite
ly more precious than contentment and
rest and prosperity of the body. What
our own America needs most of all is
war! America, supremey materialistic
on the surface, too successful, too rich,
has built too high buildings of material
wealth to pull them down in safety when
the day comes to pull them down! We
will require the dynamite of war for the
job"
Lindsay cheerfully agreed with much
of Colcord's arraignment. ''But the So
luton and substitute is not war but
votes" he insisted.
mot till the voting is intelligentW
"But shooting is not intelligent"
Lindsay retorted. Il tell you it is the
height of the ridiculous to bind the world
together with ties of cables, ships, post
al systems, telephones, and then sever
again with war. War between nations
is as ridiculous today as war between
Ohio and Indiana would be. Mark my
words, the Hague Tribunal is going to
be the center of history more and more
from now on The history of the Unit
ed States of America will be the history
of the United States of the World. War
will be supplanted by the International
Constitution of the World!'
$50? And what will back up the man.
dates of that constitution" Colcord
asked
'An international police"
but suppose your international court
decides against your country. Suppose
the decision substitutes for the only cut
ture your people will tolerate, foreign
culture under which you cannot survive.
to die out?"
Such supposition is becoming more
and more impossible every day. The
different cultures of the world are grow
ing together, blending in the crucible of
greater understanding, of Strengthening
bonds, of greater interdependence! Right
in our own country, the melting pot of
races is both the prophecy and the veri-
ticatlon of the passing of nationalism and
the coming of internationalismp'
And the war proves to me just the
contrary Colcord maintained. at
tells me that we are getting farther
away from intern tionalism than ever
Consider the most internationally mind
ed people in the world-the Socialists.
Before the war the Socialists of Ger
many, of France, Belgium, and the other
countries were ready to join hands in an
international war against the capitalists
Of their own countries. Today these
very men-or the survivors-are fighting
each other in the trenches! What must
the non-Socialist masses of the different
countries feel toward lpternationaIism7
And do you suppose they will feel any
more like it after the war when they
count up their dead? No, l don't see
The slightest hope for the blending of
peoples in view of what is going on over
there"
cit is precisely what is going on over
there that makes me sure of the passing
of nationalism!'' Lindsay replied. think
what long standing rivals and foes the
English and French were! Of the in
tense rivalry and suspicion between
England and Russia! Remember Napo-
leon and Russia! Consider the severe
thrashing Germany once administered to
Austria! And yet see these one-time
bitter enemies now mingling their re-
sources, their hopes and fears and
dreams of the future, their very blood,
when in the past they slashed at each
others Threats! If they could forget
and combine so for slaughter, how much
more certain that they will be ready for
peace, for npbuilding, for progress!'
The two men had come to deadlock.
They appealed to the referee for decis-
ion, responsibility which he promptly
lodged.
Both of Won seem TO find in the mast