The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-16
PUTTING OUR HANDS DOWN
By ELLIs pARKER nurLER

Clean, unadulterated nonsense can all ways get laugh from me. love it and so do most Americans. l remem- Der one bit of Weber and Fields se- rousy acted nonsense that always left mo gasping for breath. It was the silliest most inconsequential bit of act ing that genius ever dared to put in a show that cost the spectator s2 a seat. It was a prize fight between Weber and Fields, and one of those matchless com edians showed the other how to do it. They put Up their money and put on the gloves. and immediately the rank ann atelr began to batter the wise one over the head, but that was not the way to do 1t, The wise one explained that that was not at all the proper way to do it, He explained that he would show the poor amateur the right way. He stood the poor amateur just where he wanted him, turned his face at the proper angle and then arranged his hands He stepped off and considered the poor amateur, but he did not feel just satisfied. He arranged the hands again, placing them down at the sides of the poor amateurs legs. Then he told him to keep them there. Then he stepped up quickly and hit the poor amateur a whale of a blow in the face and knocked him clear across the stage and into the wings. It was aWfully funny; everyone in the house screamed with joy. The poor amateur was such fine example of simple minded, confiding idiocy.
 have to laugh in the same uncon- trolled way when 1 see the confiding manner in which some Americans are letting the willy but treacherous German peace propagapdists convince them that We ought to let our hands hang at our sides, turn our faces at the right angle, and stand i'll idiotie poses until we get the blow in the face that will knock us into the wings. For pure, unadulterated noneSense the act being staged by the wise German agents and the simple minded peace lovers is enough to make anyone sick with laughing.
 On the one hand, Is a. Germany in arms, with millions of veteran soldiers and an armament such as no man dreamed of 10 years ago, and, on the other hand, our simple-minded peace lovers would have us pose as the poor amateur. Stand here, turn your head this way, put your hands down at your sides say the German agents, and the purchased or infatuated peace propa- gandists echo, Stand here, turn your head this way, put your hands down at your sides..' A fine future for fhe great American nose if we did it!
 If America keeps her hands down, she will be knocked not only into the wings, hut off the stage and off the earth. With America out of the war, the best that can be hoped is a drawn battle, ending with a "hands" peace, and leaving Ger many, as the saying is, ''all dressed up and nowhere to go.' Germany's "all dressed up'' will mean aJGermany dressed in hardened, veteran armies, in trained commanders, in the finest possible mili- tary equipment, and with an untouched navy, vast air force, and no one knows how many submarines. The nowhere to go'' will mean Africa and Asia, where Germany wanted to gain dominions. But there will be one place where Germany, ''ail dressed up," can so. She can come to America. She can come to South America first, or to Mexico, and that is where she will come and where she has planned to come.
 What happens when German agents even partially convince a. goodly number of persons that the right way is to turn the cheek and hold the hands down can be seen in Russia. Russia is not well trained actor. She would never get job playing a Weber-F'ield bur1esque in q s2 theatre. She will not keep her hands down when the German agents tell her