Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-06-19
Let Government Act First.

Let Government Act First.
The Glass Day exercises at Brown
University, Monday. concluded by a
solemn pledge Of allegia nee to the gov
ernment of the United States by the
senior class, beneath an illuminated
flag on the middle campus. President
Faunce in his baccalaureate sermon
said in part:
The old world-the world of the
Romanoffs and the Hapsburgs and the
Hchenzollerns-is topping into the
dust. What are the new Thoughts and
locals arising out of the welter?
In the new earth for which we look,
the individual man is to have a vastly
larger horizon.-call it world con-
seriousness or the international mind, or
world citizenship, or what you will.
We have been little Americans, we
may as well confess it, but we shall
never retreat into our provincialism
again.
In the new earth society is to be
more closely knit, and the nation is to
have more immediate control of every
L
and methods is advancing apace. Every
citizen is finding new joy in being Of
some specific use to the country at
large. We are dropping the old easy,
flabby, self -indulgent life, we are find
Ing the camp more alluring than the
club, but we must go much further.
We do not yet realize that we are at
war with the best educated nation the
world ever saw.
I'VE cannot talk Of patriotism unless
we are willing to come to the support
of the nation with purse as we'll as
rife, with honest tax-bills as well as
Tags over the front door. We cannot
talk of food production while we con-
tnue to pour hundreds Of millions Of
bushels Of grain annually into the
breweries, and shrink from the war
prohibition into which Russia long ago
led the way. We must drop our Sec
tarianism and party distinctions. Fac
ton is now treason, and pickering is
betrayal of the cause.
In the new earth right thinking is
to be the basis of right action. If we
would cure the world of war, we must
drive straight at the causes of war
false ideas and ideals. 1t is false ideals
irculcated in every school in Germany
for so years that have wrought this
tragedy. We are lat war against
moral insanity which revives the code
of the Asyrians and converts it into the
precepts of religion. We are against
that code and all it's horrid progeny.
THE new earth is to mean inevitably
a league Of nations against any one
hot ho1 into
Gent cruelty and cease to care for
righteousness"
In a personal letter from Mr.. Herbert
c. Hoover, national food director, to the
editor, this paper is urged to use its
influence to enlist church people and
other organizations in the work Of con-
serving food for ourselves and our
allies.
We have replied to Mr.. Hoover that
for months the Kennebec Journal has
been advocating, in plain terms. all
kinds of food production and conser-
walton, has Urged government control
Of food production and distribution,
doing away with market gamblers,
spectators, conerers and market ma
nipulators; and, from the moment
state of war was declared, we have de-
manded that every ounce Of grain and
other food material now converted into
booze" be conserved for food uses.
| And we have suggested to Mr.. Hoov-
err that the response of the people Of
the churches. oranges and other frater-
nal and PATRIOTS organizations will be
more hearty and efficient when the
government takes its own medicine" in
! the conversation line, and does the big
gest stunt of all by closing the distil-
leres ana breweries of the country;
that the people will have more faith in
the sincerity of the government when
! il goes into the business Of saving
without dodge. makeshift or pretense.
! The utterance Of President Faunce
exactly conforms to the Journals posi-
ton since the declaration of a status Of
war. 1t proves that war prohibition is
! a wave that will not subside and the
government MUST meet it. sooner or
later.