The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1917-07-20
A BITTER CRY
BY Lord Dunsany

Erect, alert, ike a huge animal at
bay, with glittering teeth, the Ger
man stands in France, creeping back
ward now and then, nut so slowly
that not from this can one foresee
the end. Even were that backward
prowl of his continued every week
at it's recent rate, it would still be
nearly year before he was back
again in his native forests, out of
which he fell upon Flanders.
And yet there Is sign.
A cry has gone up, cry of frantic
words, like wild cries under the
moon in desolate lands. The beast
in not unhurt. A deadly hurt is
there, as deep as reason.
That is the meaning of the words
of the "Frankfurter Zeftung,' of the
resolution of the Mainz branch of
the Pan-German league and of the
kaiser's speech.
"The British fleet must be brought
to KEEL" says che "Frankfurter
Zeitung," and 1--WE shall occupy
Portsmouth, Liverpool and Glas-
cow" The MainZ branch of the Pam
German league says "the whole of
the British empire must be annexed
by the KAISER The German kaiser
says, speaking NEAR Arras":: "On
which side the right is there is no
doubt; therefore, this has become
a holy fight"
All this is like a frantic, mean
ingless anger in the cries of some
stricken beast that, knowing silence
II ut
makes the night horrible with his
clamor.
That frantic anger is a sign. 1t
is thus that the pitiless die.
For it is not the anger of one
who kills women and children and
sinks hospital ships out of spite, the
anger of a bad man doing his worst,
planning things that can be done
and, unhappily, are done. It is fran
tic anger; it is crying out, for all the
world to hear, plans that none can
accomplish. For who will bring the
British fleet to Kiel befores our adj
miralty sends it? Who will teach
Canada to wear iron crosses? Or
Australia to bow to the Hohenzel-
lern? Who will believe that right
is on the side of the raiders of Bel
GUM, or that the glory of Rheims
was laid in ashes by a holy war?
Think of monarch passing COM
fortably thru the ravaged, pillaged,
devastated, stolen fields of Flanders,
as the kaiser must have done to come
NEAR Arras," seeing desecrated Ca
thedrals out of the window as he
went, and houses whose children
were lost and houses that were dust.
Think of him making notes in the
train as comfortable gentlemen will,
who have little speech to make at
the end of the journey. Think of
him jotting down near the ruins OF
that wronged land and afterward
speaking in some wasted village OF
France those wild, calamitous words:
ION which side the right is there is
no doubt, and therefore this fight
has become a holy fight.
How long this may be is in Gods
hands"
I think of it, and seem to hear
again the cry of some fierce beast in
Africa, stricken at night. 1t is so
defiant of reason, so pitilessly fierce,
so impotently angry.
It is good to turn away from the
thought of this bitter cry to thoughts
of our own men. They do not need
desperate speeches to conceal from
them any doom. They know that
hard months of great work stretch
in front of them; IL it be years they
will go thru with it. They do not
boast themselves or listen to boast
ers. Out there they take what
comes; at home you see them CHEEKY,
ready to go again, yet nearly always
with a certain look in their faces
that shows them to be no common
men, but the heroes of the terrible
time of earthquake, which will be
recorded in history as the days when
the pedestal of Liberty rocked, but
was not overthrown.
These are dark days indeed, and
the darkness more horrible for the
ferocity of the furious German
threats; but that ferocity is most
clear sign. The light will come and
France will smile again, and bestial
deeds be done in Belgium no more,
and the exiled children Of France
shall come struggling home, for east
of Arras the light is breaking even
now, and the beast in the cold of the
o1,y, hoe ,tfnrnd q hitter nrv