The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-06-21
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

Pacihcl
 Not the ocean.
 But the people who remain calm in spite of German insolence and aggres- sion.
 Unfortunately there are lot of neu- trals even after war has been declared who by their pacifism would have America try and pacify the Prussian militarists if they had their way.
 They are pacifsts. Physicians tell us that it is harmful to give babies paci- fters, and yet there are a lot of over grown American babies who are crying for pacifers, and few sentimentalists are willing to supply them to keep them quiet.
 The root cause of Americas unpre- paredness comes from the fact that we let the peace-at-any- price politicians lul1 us to sleep and every time any of us began to wake up they passed out the pacifiers and we grabbed them and stuck them in our mouths and quietly dozed again.
 Lulled to sleep by false sense of security on account of our splendid isola- tion we were brought up in the pacific creed that Americans could afford to sleep comfortably in their beds because, thanks to civilization, war had been finally relegated to the barbarous past. And long after 1t burst in all it's sa- tanic fury, filing Europe witfS rivers of blood, the pacifsts shouted themselves hoarse-that is, if such ladylike gentle men could be accused of doing any thing so virile-tellng us that no crim- son stain would ever surge against our shores
 And long after the blood red waves from the Lusltana claimed the bodies of American men. women and children, the pacifsts kept up their peace poems about German kultur and strove to stay the rising flood of anger that was sweeping across the land of the free and the home of the brave. The hyphenated Americans were backed in some instances by lawyer politicians who, 1t seems, cared more to placate the aliens than they feared the wrath of true born Americans, and so few glib tongued, lawyer congressman preached unhealthy doctrines of flabby cosmopoli- tanism.
 It was such unpatriotic utterances, coupled with false sense of security by fat years of prosperity. that made the public close It's ears to the soldier seer whose keen intuition read clearly the German writing on the wall and knew 1t meant war.
 General Wood kept crying "get ready" but the people were taking a siesta and vote-loving politicians manipulated and controlled by certain subsidized papers, and German emissaries, kept them auiescent. The people heard him not and the pacifists mocked him to scorn.
 
 wise publicist well says. "A people may be known to some extent by the leaders whom it has chosen to follow" This Is where the shoe would have pinched us here if Birmingham had failed to do her duty on Registration Day and in buying liberty loan bonds
  And Birmingham is going to give fur ther proof of her loyalty and patriotism by raising the S15o00O for the Red Cross fund. To do this the energy and money of all of our citizens must be mobilized to show we are not pacifists.
 The story of the Red Cross is full of glory. Not the military kind that gets reward in the way of decorations, but the kind that finds It's reward in re- lieving suffering. It came into being a little over a half-century ago. but since that time 1t has written history whose many pages are filled with deeds of chivalry, of tenderness and brotherly sympathy unequaled in the records of the world
 The Red Cross has dried the tears of hundreds; 1t has eased the sufferings of myriads, it has saved the lives of thou sands. Today it lifts its banner on every battlefield. Its emblem has been re- spected by every country save one and now ifs America's mission to show the mad miltarist of Germany that the Stars and Stripes will protect it. cAgxIkzCazNl19apse6T