Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1916-08-18
FODDER FOR MACHINE GUNS

The following editorial in the
Washington Post has struck a re-
sponsive chord throughout the coun-
try:
If the honor of the United States
can be maintained by peaceful meth
DDS, who shall say that the nation
should go to war?
Those who want war must be will
ing themselves to sacrifice their lives
upon the altar of national devotion.
None but a poltroOn and coward
would fail to make the sacrifice if
the honor of the country were at
stake, but only those who are in full
possession of all the facts in the MeXi-
can situation can decide what the ma
tional interest demands.
What man in public life, what off
cial or orator in the market places,
can say that he is more jealous of
the national honor than are the peo-
pie themselves. The honor of the
nation is safe in the hands of the
American people.
And what are the people saying?
| What are they thinking as they walk
through the streets. What are they
saying about their own supper table
after they have returned from their
daily work. In one of his speeches
President Wilson said:
Il would great deal rather know
what the men on the trains and by
the wayside and in the shops and on
| the farms are thinking about and
yearning for than hear any of the vo-
ciferous proclamations of policy,
which it is so easy to read by picking
up any scraps of printed paper"
Those who are expected to sacri-
flee their lives upon the battlefield,
! the fathers and mothers who yield
their sons and who yield them will
ingly when the honor of the nation
! is at stake, should have something to
say about the question of war.
Two million of the men of Europe
lie in their graves as a result of the
mad war that is still in progress, and
yet the honor of the nations involved
has not yet been satisfied.
At Verdun 100000 of the finest
men of France, Germany and England
lie dead. The toll demanded by Euro
pean craftsmanship steadily is
mounting, md the end is not yet in
sight.
OF the 100000 men who were in
the civil war on the northern side,
more than 100000 were below the
age of u years, and the fathers and
mothers, sisters and sweethearts
were left behind to agonize and
mourn.
1t is not the corporations, the land
owners, or the captains of industry
who have the vital interest in the
question of war or peace. 1t is not
cations of public preparationists or
public pacifists that have the most at
stake. 1t is the average citizen-the
citizen who earns his bread by the
sweat of his brow, the citizen who
! loves his family and wants to con-
tinue giving that family his support
and protection who has the most at
stake.
Those orators who cry out for
given course of action in the name
of the national honor without having
before them all the facts that affect
the national interest in a crisis mere
" demonstrate their lack of RESPONSE
bility and their callous selfishness.
1t speaks well for the wisdom OF
the American people that they have
never elected a president who has
been stampeded into war by false ad-
visers or critics.
Great as has been the horror Of
the European war, strong as is the
desire to preserve the strength of the
United States for the more civilized
purposes of humanity, the American
people as a unit will be ready to fight
and to die if it should be necessary
to preserve the national honor.
on the one side in the nation to-
day, as in all crises of the past, there
are those who, without knowing all
the facts on which the great decision