The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-01-24
PEACE POLICIES.

It is impossible to express any opinion or to make any fair judg- ment upon the proposed peace po- lfcv Of President Wilson until his statement to the Senate is read in full. Yet it will be admitted that there is something very elevatins however Utopian in the proposal to have the United States enact the role of peace maker throughout the world
 It shows how the opinions of people run as to the causes of wars, when such a conception is possible, and TO- mantle as it may be, it shows how ideal can be the views held by prac- tical men who deal, or believe tEey deal with material facts. Surely, no one would think of denying the fact that an experienced statesman like President Wilson, who has brought the theories of academic life to the aid of the man of affairs, is anything else but a practical man, and that therefore his ideas are anything else but the ideas of man basing his views upon the everyday experiences of an important official position.
 For that reason it is astonishing that in this day and age it could be held as possible that commerce, unbridled commerce could be pro- longed for any length of time with out international rivalry culminat- ing in the logica, development of such industrial, commercial and financial rivalry, namely war.
 The popular but none the less grotesque idea that war is some monstrosity that establishes over night. spontaneously. an abnormal condition of things is a hard thing to kill and so many fine phrasers and makers of "weazel words" have lent their intellects to support this delusion. the notion prevails with wonderful universaHty.
 But the plain fact is that war it. self is only one of the many pheno- mena of our social evolution and it demands and premises for its ma nifestation and naturalization a system of industry begotten in ex- ploitation and rivalry and competi- ton. The man who attempts to con ceive of peaceful competition is gull ty Of trying to conceive the imposs- ible. and even the corner groceries would be at daggers drawn were 1t not for the fact that public opinion, popular convention, police authority and legal codes are erected to pre- vent the rivalry of trade terminal ing in a village personal war. Yet even in the village community we know that rival interests can tear that community asunder into rival factions which will result in the most unpleasant friction and in- terruption of the even tenor of the social way by reason of that rival diseord.
 Between the nations, no race or people willingly delights in or would shed the blood of rival. But elements of trade of commerce. profr-making in a word promote hostility between the races, prosti- ute nationalism and patriotism to their ends. and compel wars over which the people have no control whatever.
 Wars. all wars, we except none, have an economic basis which are lost sight of during the war and which are usually hidden from the popular perception in the records Of such hostilities. Popular histories do their level best to prevent the economic facts at the basis of the struggle coming to light.
 As a peace maker the United States of America does not enter the lists like a Bayard sans peur ct sans reproche-without fear and without reproach. The United 1 States is held responsible by other | nations not for the wishes, desires hopes and aspirations of the people, | but for the activities of what few | of them have been. The United | States that the belligerents have in | mind is made up not of people |