The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-07
SOLDIERS WILL CONTROL

| And that will be our experience, here l and in France, when this vast body of soldiers come back to civil life They will | be the great controlling factor of our l civil and public life. all of them proud of
 their service and inspired with common sentiment. It will be even d gl eater in- | f1uence than that of the returned soldiers | in civil life in the United States, for we l are sending six men to the front for every one man you sent, yes six. AL | ready there have been three million men 1 sent forward, and with those in process of enlistment and to be brought forward 1 it will be six millions. And they are the young and middle-aged men, the men of the future, those who will come back into our civil life and be the controlling influence of public opinion Those will be 1 the men who shape our policies for us
 for the future asd will make and un-
 make our ministries and governments. 1 just as they did in America after the civil | war.
 | You remember what Oliver Wendell
 Holmes said about the stacker, the man who failed to respond to his country s
 reed for military service. in his poem on the Sweet Little Man.
 1 Now, then, three cheers for the stav- 1 at-home ranger;
 l Blow the great fshhorn and beat the 1 big pani
 First in the field that is furthest from l danger
 l Take your white-feather plume suae, little man."
 Here was an Englishman drawing analosies from American history, and
 lamilaf enough with an American poet to quote verses which would not be fa-
 mlliar to a good many Americans. ] And peace?" was the query put to Lord 1 Northcliffe.
 Peace! Before we are really ready for
 war; he exploded, with an emphasis of
 disgust. Why, anyone who would af- tempt to talk peace on the streets of l London or in any public place would he
 mopbed Quaker tried to make a ! peace speech the other day and was srenced by an angry crowd No. sir the
 word peace has disappeared from the
 EhgHsh vocabulary. And that is a deep chderlylng conviction in the very heart :
 or the people who do not want peace
 ana Will not listen to any talk of peace
 until this war is fought to a finish and Won honorably won and the score with 1ermahy settled for all time Ii is inc same m France, a deep-rooted feeling nj the plain French people-not the poIi- uclans and public men-that the very av-
 lstehce or their race depends on the win. l Siiio Wal l HIS OVGTW bnImip O
 ieellng is well recognized over here. and u needs no official envoys from tba ! united States to gather it. for if is ner-
 lectly apparent for anyone to see" WAR WILL BE LONG 1 Then the war will be long?' was sue- gested 9us
 Yes, very long," was the re,1,.
 nose who talk of ending the war in d Few weeks or months do not reaIiza
 e cne stupendous character of this con ! Illct and the vital issues of nationa, ! ana facial existence back of it. Really, | It IS not war at all, in the ordinary
 sense that We speak of wars. It is one oI those vast upheavals of the human l race, like the great racial mierations { the Moslem vasion of Europe which 1 tasted S0O years in Spain and is stilI l allVe Tn the near east No, this is no l ordinary war which can be brousht to
 an end suddenly by one campaign or | one great victory or any series of de- 1 clslVe events in any one field The i issues Of national and racial existence are far too great for any such sudden ehdlnS 1t will go on, I believe, for | long time, very long tme In the end it may be narrowed down to q
 war between England and Germany l the supreme issue, which must be | fought to a finish. Instead of endinp
 soon or suddenly, the war is more | likely to go on and on, and then grad
 ually abate by slow processes, here 1 and there. as localities pass through l trelr ordeal and emerge with a wish
 to take breathing spell. But for
 the time being it is not only a war Of Europe, but world war You can see its effect in the most distant parts of the world The assassinations in China the other day were but se- quel to this conflict. Even the blood shed Tn Mexico is in way related to this war"
 You referred to tine supreme issue