The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-12-23
fNTUg.ER.iEIE NEUTRALITY.

The most startling remark that Secretary Lansing made with refer enca to the peace note is that the neutrality of the United States was becoming intolerable.
 Now that will be news to the average man. To him neutrality has not been so intolerabl2 that you could easily notice it. It has not presented such uncharming features that the average man wanted to get of to the shambles of Europe and come back minus leg or an arm or an eye.
 1t may be that some who are not the average man have been like Alexander. signing for new worlds to conquer, but surely to the people Of the country this neutrality looked mighty good, especially if the war scenes that they saw from time to time in the pictures or the re- ports which they occasionally read of, had even an adumbraton of the truth.
 Why Lansing should think that the neutrality of the United States had become onerous and irk- some is because of the fact that he does not speak for the average man. The average man is not sitting in at game where millions are at stake and doubtful war loans and muni- ton bills and the like are gambled away overnight. The average man is staying at home nights not shipp- ing as freight, passenger or super cargo on ships entering into the war zone with contraband of war.
 The average man, the people, is quite satisfied that the war cloud is afar off, and that so far it has not lowered upon the national house ana most decidedly and most assuredly had Wilson declared that neutrality was wholly intolerab ble and that it would be necessary to enter the War before election, then Wilson would have failed of election for second term.
 That has been the trouble with the average men. They live life of delusion. They are the victims of myths They are obsessed with vain dreams and fancies and they imagine things which are not so.
 The Great War is the dispeller of visions. It is the great game ot many millioned gamblers. It is a right royal pastime not for the com mon herd who are merely the chips cast as a stake. And the fact that the neutrality of the United States has been becoming intolerable to the many-millioned ones whose millions are at stake: that is all the more reason why there should be concern in the country Il is showing that there is a complete and well defined cleavage between the popular view and the popular sentiment and the popular ideas concerning this war and this neutrality and that shared by the government and the admi- nistration It is surely worth while noting that fact.
 The neutrality of the United States has been the boon that all the 1I fn that it came their way. That it was not a financial or war intuition neutrality cuts but little figure. The country was at peace under it at any rate, and the people are not swashbucklers and fire eaters who detest the name of peace. They arc not Crookbacks who weep the pip ing times of peace and lament that the war clouds are in the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
 They were one and all extremely glad that Mars took back seat over in Europe and hied him from this continent. They knew all about that God: his bloody altars and his sav- age priesthood. They know war is hell. One of their best and bravest and brightest and most daring gen. erals had told them so in language he could fearlessly utter from ex- perience.
 Yet this is not the administration view. The administrators view is the view of the duellist concerned about codes of honor when the dollar