The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-04-30

great struggle is fundamentally
struggle for the fundamentals of civil
ization and democracy. The future of
the free institutions of the world is
at stake. The free people who gov
ern themselves are lined up against
the governments which deny freedom
to their people. Our cause IS the
cause of humanity. But we also have
bitter wrongs of our own which II is
our duty to redress. Our women and
children and unarmed men, going
about their peaceful business, have
been murdered on the high seas, not
once, but again and again and again
With brutal insolence, after having for
well nigh two years perSevered in this
policy, Germany has announced that
she will continue it, at our expense
and at the expense of other neutrals'
more ruthlessly than ever. The injury
thus done to us as nation is as great
as the injury done to a man if a ruff
fan slaps his wife's face. In such
case, if the man is man, he does not
wait and hire somebody else to fight
for him; and it would be an evil
thing, a lasting calamity to this coun-
try, if the war ended, and found us
merely preparing an army in safety at
home, without having sent man to
the firing line; merely having paid
some billions of dollars to other people
so that with the bodies of their sons
and brothers they might keep US in
safety.
1 ask that we send a fighting force
over to the fighting line at the earliest
possible moment, and 1 ask it in the
name of our children and our chill
dren's children, so that they may
hold their heads high over the mem
CRY of what this nation did in the
worlds great crisis l ask it for rea-
sons of national morality no l SIS than
for our material self-interest. 1 ask
it for the sake of our self-respect, our
self-esteem. Our children will have
to read the history of what we have
done during this war. Let us make
the chapter that yet remains TO pc
written one that our children shall
read with pride; and they will read 1t
only with a feeling of self-abase-
ment unless they read that in the tunes
that tried mems souls we have shown
vaIor and endurance and proud IN
difference to life when the honor OF
the flag and the welfare of mankind
were at stake.
Not Dollars Alone.
Put the flag on the firing line, and
valiant men behind it; and keep II
there sending over a constantly grow
ing stream of valiant men to aid those
who have first gone.
In the Civil war, there were many
men who went to the front to pay with
their bodies for the high faith of their
souls There were some men who hired
=
Which ones among these men are the
ones to whom we look with pride?
Those who faced the bullets or those
who paid with dollars to buy the
Willingness and ability of other men to
face them? There is no need to an
swer-
In exactly the same way there
should be no need to answer now the
question as to whether we are merely
to spend billions of dollars to help 9TH
erS fight, or to stand in the fighting
line ourselves. BY all means spend
the money. A prime essential is to
furnish the allies all the cargo ships
they need for food and all the craft
they need to help hunt down the sub
marines. By all means aid them with
food and ships and money, and speed
ily; but do not stop there Show that
we can fight, as well as furnish dollars
and vegetables to fighting men. AT
the earliest possible moment send an
eXpeditionary force abroad, snow our
German foes and our allied frlendS
that we are in this war in deadly ear
nest that we have put the flag on the
firing line, and that we shall steadiiy
increase the force behind that flag to
any limit necessary in order to bring
the peace of victory in this great con-
test for democracy, for civilization and
or the rights of free peoples
Now that we are at war, let us make
If a, real war, not a ma ke-DelIeNe WAL
not a war of limited liability. Ger
MANY has been in a state of war with
us for two years; but so far we have
only been at the receiving end of the
game. Some centuries ago the Black
Earl Douglas led a Scotch king and
Scotch army against the English,
and when the battleplace was reached,
the grim old fighter turned to the
young king and said, 81 have got you
up to the ring; and now you must
hop" Let US apply this to ourselves!
We have walked into the ring; and
now we must fight. Fighting does
not mean merely parrying. 1t means
hard aggressive hitting. No fight ever
was won yet except by hitting. A
good rule to remember is never to
hit If it is possible to avoid it; but,
above all things, never to hit soft. We
have gore into the fight; we have de-
termined to hit; and we must not
hit soft.
Three months have passed since we
broke off diplomatic relat.-ns with
Germany. Read the history of the
opening months of the war, and you
will get vivid idea of whs. the Ger
man army would have done to us dur
ing those three months if We sad had
only our own unprepared strength to
defend us. We owe our safety a. this
moment to the British file and the
French and British armies. l. for one,
am not content to rest under that kind
of obligation; and 1 do not believe
that my fellow countrymen are con-
tent to rest under it. 1 wish to see us
owe our safety to our own strength
and our own courage and to the re-
spect we inspire in our fee. We shall
inspire no respect if we merely try to
parry that foes blows and MT to re-
turn them. The only way in which we
can return them is by Immediately
sending in an expeditionary force to
! Icrt1f 70 saf fr-Ef
but steadily increased until it becomes
so formidable that it can end the war.
1t would be a scandal and a shame
| if the war ended now with our part
in it limited to having furnished dol
lars behind the shield of other mems
bodies. We are in the war. Let us
fight it thru ourselves. with our own
strength and courage, to a triumphant