The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-03-01
JUSTICE, NOT PEACE,
IDEAL TO BE ATTAINED
ARE SOME QUESTIONS A NATION
CAN NOT CONSENT TO
ARBITRATE.

4 Kansas City Star, in replying to Il
! letter from a reader, sums up in a
strong. dignified and patriotic manner
the position our government should
occupy with reference to Germany:
Justice, Not Peace, the Ideal.
From an earnest woman in Law
renee, kas, who asks. that her name
be not published, comes letter to
The Star protesting against what She
calls 1.-The sneers at pacifists, and the
apparent relish for the possibility of
war, discernble in The Star She
continues:
"A pacifist is one who desires to see
1 human beings confer nationally instead
4 of rending each other like beasts of
/ the jungle. 1t is not true that this
ideal is UtOpian and impossible, any
more than it has proved impossible to
get on without private duelling and
tribal feuds. 1t is possible, if enough
people will it, The question is not
what kind of world we are born into,
but Gas every generation to some ex-
tent remakes the world) what kind of
world we would have our successors
born into.
Count the cost of warm disloca-
in the ruin of individual lives.' To
consent that this should be is to bear
some responsibility for it's existence.
The person who does not consent has
seek earnestly for reasonable methods
Of settling international disputes. If
The Star really cares for the honor
and we'll being and leadership Of the
fluence towards a conference of neu-
ral nations, or an international com
mission, or some other method. even
in our present crisis, which, instead
shall raise us above the moral level of
our own past and the past of Europe
THE newspapers of this country
have issues of life and death partly
the responsibility; either to mean
peace and work for it, or to mean war
and work for that. Use your influence
toward international lynch law (war)
use it toward international organiza-.
lions and conference and you have
chance of Immortality"
This letter is printed because The
Star believes it represents essentially
the views of many people of fine pur-
pose and is entitled to a rejoinder
1t is hardly necessary for this news
paper to say that it has no relish for
the possibility of war" 1t agrees with
the pacifists that war is a dreadful
thing. But it can not regard the great
question at issue to be what its Law
renee correspondent would have it.
The great question is not whether
we shall have war or peace. 1t is whe
.ther justice and righteousness shall
prevail, and whether the United
States shall stand for these princi-
pies.
The issue which confronts news
papers and individuals alike is not
whether to work for peace. or to work
for war, as the letter suggests, but
whether to stand for international JUS
tice. That justice should be obtain
ed without war must be the desire of
every normal person. If it can not be
so attained, then there must be the
appeal to force. Society uses force to
restrain individuals who can not re-
strain themselves. nation must be
prepared to use force for similar ends.
Otherwise the world would be at the
mercy of powerful and INSCRIPTIONS
peoples.
The United States has been and
should continue/to be a leader for ar
bitration in the world. But there are
questions of elemental right that can
not be arbitrated. Napoleon III pro-
posed to Lincoln to arbitrate the diff