South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1916-04-06

place woulc be likely 70 produce mat sort Of
thing
The lists in the geography books are exactly
like the list in the Bah Ballads" OF the pres
ants given TO Pasha Bailey Ben
They brought him onions strung ropes
And cold boiled beef and telescopes
And capstan bars and scales and weights
And ornaments for empty graJes
I had occasion the other day to consult
work Of reference about Bohemia That coun-
,ry may very well play considerable part in
coming events. for it Is the most national %
ne least touched with that unique tenderness
ahich is still felt not for the Hapsburg king
dom. but for the Hapsburg family The HapS
burgs efu probably survive the Hohenzollerns
and they will endure, not BY being efficient
but rather by being inefficient
Well the only fact that clings 10 my mind
out OF all the closely written facts which !
read on that occasion Is that one OF the 30
hemian products. sandwiched between some
thing like tooth picks and something Ike pig
iron, was the manufacture or the turkish Iez
The fez is not made at Fee apparently. any
more than Stilton cheese is made at Stlton
There are morals, OF course. even In THIS
minute fact. It is Just like the Turks to refuse
70 make even their own headgear IL they can
get anybody else 10 do IT,
Not few nations have suffered from the
profound religious belief OF the Turks that
heaven helps those that help themselves. And
perhaps the Turks have an equally austere
rrOdestv and cannot call their feZes their own.
Why even then they should be made in 30.
hemia ! cannot conceive. The Bohemians
would seem 10 be heaping Goals OF IRE, or at
least something almost rs fiery, on the heads
OF those who defeated them at Mohacz But |
ONLY mention the matter here as an Illustration
OF the unsvmbolic and Unnational character OK
these detached fragments OF information
TO average reader can form any picture OF
q country from the fact that IL has all the
materials for mailing a fez When l opened
the work of refer cuce I knew almost as little
abCut bohemia g, Shakespeare did. Now |
have closed It. ] recall wildly that it can make
fez Surely Il might be possible 10 give a
-0-~--7 -f~.--~0 - country that should leave
on the mind a somewhat clearer outline It's
landscape, such an outline as / would under
take to give 10 any Bohemian child about the
difere ice between North England and SOUTH
always supposing could talk Czech huently.
But those througing thousands o. poor Eng
lishmen who are now fighting Tor the free ira
dtions OF Europe are really seeing what coun-
tries are like: they are in the framework OF
living geography, as in the framework of
living history They are. indeed, in those
noble words of the marching medieval hymn
Coheredes ct sodales
In terra viventium.
In those words is expressed as weu as can
be expressed the truth that is taught IL battle
felds-nay even in bvOuacs and Cdnteens-
better than it is taught in most OF the schools.
That history far back to It's first beginnings Is,
and was. made Of men like ourselves; that
landscape over the better part OF this earth is
made almost as much by nan as by nature;
that the most interesting things about people
are not the things Il makes and exports, but
the things It makes sld consumes, and, above
all that the true bond Of nations is neither IN
commerce nor diplomacy, but in a common
facing Of the facts of being, a common
love OF life. common pride OF death:
Comrades and soldiers in the land OF the
living"
There is one kindred characteristics OF the
English which is very subtle and is easily eX-
pressed wrong but which plays a very great
part IN practical things OF this kind. / know
not what 10 call II. except. perhaps somewhere
eIse-ness Ii is a sort of distant optimism. II
is a refusal TO accept final the facts imme-
distely in front of us-a strong belief in the
other side of the world, or even the other side
OF the moon. 1t rather pOmpously ex-
pressed in the phrase about the never
setting on the British Empire. The same
thought much more sincerely expressed in
the popular ejaculation. Somewhere the sun Is
shiningl'
This came. I think. from one of our noble
comic songs and used 10 be uttered by people
when they broke valuable teapOts or put their
feet into cucumber-frames. Its excess was
well satirized by Mr.. John Burns when he sum-
med up Imperialism under the text. The eyes
of fool are IN the ends of the earth" And IL IS
true, as OF every true national characteristic,
that 1t has the defect OF its quality, and often
goes with an undue laxity about the rights OF
our own field or the laws of our own parish.
But it goes also with more imaginative
generosity about remote lands like Bulgaria or
Japan than is common in more closely logical
countries. And there really exists many city
clerk who Is more concerned for bombs in Pei.
GUM than for bombs in the city.
repeat that will have nothing TO DO with
Dragging about these good qualities as if they
we've he only good qualities. II is not su
periOrity, but a defect In us that We do not
understand the French revanche. il only means
that have not longenough memories -
make tyrants and enemies keep their promises
And though our people generally strike Sps
right note, our papers sometimes strike 10
'c-aby wrong one
saw an Illustrated paper the other day. witt
photograph Of German soldiers bathing; an,
statement in cold print that 1t seemed curl
Gus that Germans should condescend TO sucl
English sports. That is the OF thing q
make England's foes chuckle and her friend
grind their teeth.
The suggestion was, apparently. that tn
English discovered water, that Leander an
HOratius we're unacquainted with swimming
and that men, and fishes for all / know, ha
first learned 20 keep afloat in one OF the publ
baths. In fact. such public baths are muc
more de rgueur in Germany than in England
IL would be much better 10 be DrOud of flea