South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1917-07-29


APOLEON once said: God Is always on
Y Inc side of the heaviest battalions'-
good. if true. God. then, is a democrat-with
"A small ID" take nOte-nOt autocrat. That
is the way democracy wins its battles: with
THE heaviest battaliOns". IL represents the
will of at least "A pIuraIity-and aims a
jOIty
Bonaparte need not have spoken scornfuIly,
disappointedly, on the point. He was a hun
cred years ahead of his time. Wateroo was a
Waterloo, and st. Helena a ST. Helena for him,
because Europe had not evolved in popular i'm
telligcnce to that high plane where the divine
right of kings'-which lac sought to over
throw.-could he apprecably conferred upon
the masses that fought against him.
Even France was suspicious of popular SOY.
creignty-Iest Napoleon would not have need
cd to proclaim himself emperOr,-but he de.
posted the idea that fomented the French
revolution and France is today republic.
Belgium lent her soil to the defeat of Ma
poIeon's anti-divine rights program on june
18th, 1915, but "A hundred years later she
would gladly have lent to- France-the same
soiI-in the same cause as that against which
she previously Fought.
Perhaps she would not but for the fact that
she was being ravished by the child of her own
preservation, but during that hundred years
autOcacy had grown i'm righteousness as well
democracy had i'm sentiment. and ground
between the upper and neither millstOnes, Bel
gium found il i'm no way difficult to establish
her choice.
England with her Wellington, prided her
self for a century upon the overthrow of the
'presumptuOus little COrsican', scarcely willing
to cOncede assistance from BulOw and his
Prussan fourth army corps, but England is
finding herself crushed beneath a "divine
rights" autocracy which she once regarded rs
sacred TO the memOry-Of Nebuchadnezzar.
Belshazzar and old King George.
Russia, separated not in spirit, but only by
distance, from autOc-aCys allies then, is
bleeding with democracy now.
Even Spain. not i'm the war. is reckless of
her monarchy. II is the world against the
central powers with Kaiser Wilhelm. mightiest
autocrat the world has ever known, heartIess
and Rrm-set leading them on to ruin or to
rule
If the world powers win. democracy tri-
umphs. II the central powers win, autocracy
triumphs. One of these principles must pre-
vail. Both cannot. Between them God hath
set eternal enmity!
TOW different the world has turned to
thinking since the little corporal
crossing the Alps-came over from Corsica?
Looking across the Atlantic ne saw young
America rising i'm her majesty, and wanted as
much France, with all Europe follow.
but not even France, say nothing of all Europe,
was quite ready.
And now the Macedonian cry: "Come over
and help u.s." We've gone. More of
going And we're going. not only to help
Europe-France. England, Russia, and restore
Belgium.-but we are going To help ourselves
No war conquest this, and conquest OF
indemnities. but TO make safe the world for
democracy"-and that is all the seIf-interest
we need You can't rush evolution very far
beyond the bounds of expediency. IL follows
rather than precedes necessity.
Europe at the grave of the Great Napoleon
greater as a prophet than WARRIOR
needed more of the example of America
America both North and South-to see even
the frs, dim light of the new day. and seeing
IL she has called; called as the immediate re-
suit OF an autocratic kick from behind. but
she has called. and called loudly.
And we have listened just in time TO save US
from ourselves IL took more than the sink
ing of the Lusitania, of the Arabic, the Var
rowdaIe affair. even the Zimmerman note cal
culated to embron Mexico and japan i'm
allied war OF conquest against to bring US
TO our feet.
Ii was the overt acts OF Imperial Germany
less than the autocratic attitude that gave
PAUSE The republic was already wOrm-eaten
with enemy spies. The German chancellor
had dened his own promises by declaring them
mere scraps OF paper. There was no honor
longer TO BE- respected. no faith longer 20 be
had. in the head of the central powers
In spite of our neutrality, and without for