The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-10-25
OurEnernies
WHAT WE ARE
FIGHTING AGAINST
By NEWELL DWIGHT HlLAAS

Among the supreme tragedies of
earth we must make a large place for
the spiritual suicide of great men and
nations. There has been no century
nor race but has held the story OF
| some great man tor city which has
! committed moral suicide and gone to
i the rubbish heap of creation.
/ The pathway of history is strewn |
/ with the wrecks of dead cities. Stad- |
/ ing upon the shores of Africa, the |
! traveller finds the waves tossing the |
! seaweed upon the ruined steps Of |
! marble palaces Lingering upon the |
shores of the Nile, the pilgrem stoops |
! to pick up the fragments of pottery |
| that belonged to Thebes, once glor- |
iousI with its twelve gates on either |
side.
History is the graveyard Of nations
se1f-slain. 1t, is idle to talk about
Time an the great destroyer. Time
has no tooth, Time has no hammer,
who destroys. The square blocks of
marble, found in the quarries near
Athens, have not been Injured by
/ Time. hods no flame. It is the man
wind or weather, through twenty cent
4 uries, and this tells us that but for
Il mans hate and sin, the marbles and
temples and PAGES, coming out of
the centuries. would have made our
earth kings palace Of beauty and
delight. P
Il Not time, but man, is the great de-
stroyer. Mans hates Is the hammer
that srnites. mans envy is the flame
that consumes, and the fall and de-
cline of states is a decline of the soul
Material civilization on the outside is
on the inside The golden age of each
city is ushered in by the coming of
men of genius and spiritual manhood.
Her poets, prophets, heroes, reformers
with there visions of a better social
order, made Palestine splendid, and
when her great men fell and became
spiritual apostates. her temples. towers
and palaces began to crumble.
The beginning of Germany's apost-
asy was her military success. The
i simple, gentle processes of the farm,
the field. the factory and the shop
] brought small returns of FIVE or SIX
and eight and ten per cent. upon the
investment. But early in her mill
4 tary career Germany learned that
\ war was a national industry that pays
thouands of per cent. upon the invest
d ment. Her little war upon Denmark,
u weak, without army or navy, gave
Germany her Kiel Canal, spoiled Den
q mark of her richest provinces, left
4 her permanently handicapped with
Al her Danish subjects trritated and out
II ragged for the asst fifty years by German
s. methods which all Danes to this day
81 consider outrageous. Big Germany
d attack on little Denmark represents
q the school, bully stealing a Christmas
a present or a fountain pen from a
III IiffJa(cbild y
n Germany's war on Austria brought
81 rich treasures, and her deliberate and
81 avowed plan to irritate France to the
~ point of war, that she might rob the
d people of her iron resources in AIsace
q and Lorraine, and billion dollars In
Il golds represent other military success
El es. With Germany, crime prospered
as it does for every ysafebreaker until
outraged society takes law into its
own hands.
"A No investment Germany has eve1
b made has paid dividends soS large a.
her wars. For twenty-five years She
@ has been acumulating cannon, bullets
shells. military implements. German,
wanted this war. prepared for thi.
FL war, planned this war, and achieved
enormous rewards. At length bIoot
went to Germany's head like drugget
q wine. For years she has been besid,
herself with military success. For tel
III years she has been the bully among
~ the nations. She has stood swagger
: ing and boasting in the market plac
of the world, crying out. like the tow
braggart, 81 can lick anybody in tn,
r world
= OF necessity, one outlaw, with hi
revolver, is equal to a hundred bust
Id ness men in a railway car. OF nee
1T essity, Germany, with her militar,
er preparedness, should have been equa
y, to a score of countries like France
il Belgium and Great Britain, but littI
prepared. The deadly virus of militar.
10 ism and the fever of greed and avaric
T. by reason of the rewards of war, hav
3 burned ike a disease in Germany
10 mind, even as averice and greed wer
- the first steps in the apostacy Of Juda
= and Benedict Arnod.
MARRIAGE LICENSES