The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-11-08
CAUSES OF WARS.

! like the Deutschland.
CAUSES or WARS.
The causes of wars-this war OF the worio
included-are Of more than one KIND. lhefe
! are the proximate causes, the immediate I'M
/ polling incidents or motives which are known
! perfectly well to the man or men whose de-
:, cisive action or determination at a given mo-
: ment puts an army on the march. BEHIND
these are the remoter causes which history IN
her backward glance upon them is often aple
to explain Still behind these lie deeper causes
dimly glimpsed by the few that seek them, lot
in them lie concealed profound problems OF hu-
man evolution and the mystery OF life.
! The Smelling Of Sumpter was the lmmedlate
cause or incident which began our civil war.
/ Back of it was the greed of an ohgarchy wmch
throve on slavery, and troubled conscience,
revolving at injustice, which gave the north no
peace The decision of an autocrat or the Will
of an ambitious oligarchy which forced his
hand, to make the murder Of an archduke the
pretext for long planned conflict was the I'M
mediate cause of the war which now convnlses
the world
! The remoter larger causes Of the European
conflict had been for years so clearly sensed by
statesmen of vision that they had come to con-
slider it unacceptable soon or late These causes
were many, but perhaps the underlying, most
compelling of them, was the feeling Of the
leaders of German thought that the economic
competition of the nations had become SO fierce
as to foreshadow the possibility that the pow
ers of earth-Great Britain and others-whlch
controlled great part of the globe might de-
eide to reserve their markets for themselves
and close them to outsiders by tariff walls.
England had not done this but she might and
to offset this Teutonic statecraft determined
| to bring eastern Europe and western Asia I'M
der it's control.
| These appear to be the nearer and larger
causes of this bloody strife and are recognized
| by thoughtful men. The obscure deeper
causes cannot be set forth with certainty, for
1 thew lie at the hidden root of the mystery Of
things.
4 We are beginning to know the function OF
pain and how it is nature s thorny hedge along
the path Of life, warning us when stray
from the way Of health. We look behind the
happenings of an hour to the habits of a year
when we seek the cause of a disease; and we
look still further back to the mistaken theories
and conceptions Of life-to the thoughts and
desires in which those habits were born. We
see when spiritual growth is at standstiil
how grief and sorrow come to teach us that the
material fabric we gave our life to fashlonlng
ana WHICH we COuS1ueIeU SuluC1eLI LII ltScli,
was built upon the sand. Who does not see
that in 1860 we had come as nation to the
I point where the progress of our republic to
fuller liberty and a leading part in the affairs
of earth were conditioned on our leaving the
appalling injustice of slavery behinda We
paid in blood and dearly for national
righteousness, but do we not as individuals
pay as dearly in pain and sorrow, in humiia-
ton and disease, whenever we permit error OF
evil to hamper our physical or spiritual
growth? Is not that the law7
Is Europe now facing the same alternatives
that we did, Has the time come when she can
no longer bear the torch of human freedom
forward without bursting the trammels which
cramp her spiritual life9 May it be that she
has reached crossroads and must now tend
backward towards night of barbarsm or cure
the inequalities and iniquities which exist in
all her lands The prayers and groans and de-
spairing cries Of crushed and sodden masses
, in her slums, beneath the shadow Of her pal
aces, 90 up to heaven The few must lead and
carry the many with them upward into richer,
tlovelier lives or all go down together. France
Learned this in 1893, and is Europe now to
learn that this is Gods immutable, eternal
law'