The Farmington times., 1917-02-02
THE COLONEL INDIGNATES

Splred prophet ana laIneIIaIoT mas
been wrought to high pitch of in
dignation over President Wilson's
much discussed world peace proposal.
A Maryland preparedness delegation
visited him at Sycamore last Thurs
day, and the Colonel was asked his
opinion of the Presidents address.
Any mention of President Wilson in
his hearing, like touching the fuse of
a cannon cracker with a match, is
sure to cause a combustion and loud
report.
One expression of the President
fairly sets the Colonel ablaze with
passionate phrase, "peace without
victory"-and with a perversion of its
application and meaning as interpret
ed by its author, he spits out his ex
pletives and proceeds to classify him
with men too cowardly to fight and
'to be spurned by all men of lofty
soul, by all men fit to call themselves
fellow citizens" Now, we all know
that the Colonel is lofty of soul" and
a brave, a very brave, man, for he
acknowledges it himself, and he is
nearly all the time spelling for a
fight. We gather that he holds to the
theory that there can be no peace
apart from a victory of arms-that
is, the force that enables the strong
to overcome the weak in a contest be-
tween nations, for it is not the side OF
right and justice that always prevails
If victory is the only door to peace,
then force is the only means by
which it may be attained, and right,
liberty, humanity, may be crushed and
mangled beneath that hideous jugger-
naut. May there, then, be no appeal
10 the moral sense of nations, as to
the moral sense of the individual,
when reason is swept away by pas
sion? The Colonel's logic is that of
the primitive mind that constitutes
itself sole arbiter and judge and relies
on force-rule or ruin. With such a
sense dominating the world there
could never be any peace worth hav-
sng.
And the Colonel quotes scripture
to emphasize one of his dogmatic
declamations against the President
We seem to have heard of another
parsonage who is reputed to have en-
tertained a strong prejudice against
the doctrine of "peace on earth, good
will to men," ever since he was hurled
from the battlements of heaven, who
could probably discount the Colonel at
Scripture quoting, and like the Colon
els quotation his are so subtly used
as to fool even the elect. But for the
Colonel's scriptural citation:
"Curse We Meroz, said the angel of
the Lord; curse ye bitterly the inhab-
itants thereof, because they came not
to the help of the Lord, to the help of
Fhe Lord against the mighty"
Thus chanted the prophecies Deb
orah in her song of victory after Is
Tael had overcome and dispersed
Cisera, because the inhabitants of
Meroz had not come to IsraePs help
in the battle; and the Colonel, in his
self-appointed roll of the Lords pro.
phet, presumes to apply that curse to
the President in this bitter indict-
ment: president Wilson has earned
the curse of Meroz, for he has not
dared to stand on the side of the Lord
against the wrong-doing of the
mighty" When and how did the man.
tie of Deborah or any of the Lords old
seers descend upon the Colonel, that
he presumes to speak ex cathedra for
Jehovah and pronounce curse upon
the President, and the people who ap-
prove his policy, because he did not
thrust our country into that mael-
strom of hate, blood and destruction
across the waters?
Who will assume to say that either
side engaged in that hellish work is
the host of the Lord? 1t is true that
the rulers of the warning nations,
with the possible exception of France,
claim to reign by divine right, and
none put up stronger claim to this
right than the Kaiser. We don't be-
lieve that either of the belligerents
has any special claim to being on the
Lords side. But speaking of the
Meroz curse, might not the Kaiser, in
the fanaticism of his belief pf his
divine right, have presumed to apply
the curse in drastic way to Belgium,
when he turned his guns on that brave
little buffer state, because it refused
to "come to the help of the Lord, that
is, allow the Kaiser's armies to take
a short cut through it's territory to
get at France.