Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-09-14
Worse Than War.

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The drooling pacifst who argues that we can
settle the vast issues of the by merely calling
conference and concluding treaty ignores utterly
the record and character of the German rulers
What faith could be put in those blood-soaked
brigands? What reason would there be to expect
Government which sneeringly describes a most sol
treaty "a scrap of paper to observe any
compact longer than it's sinister interests re-
Quired? What reason would there be to expect just
and honorable dealing from Government that has
ruthlessly trampled upon every law, human ana
divine, and gloried in the butchery of women ana
children? What would it profit America and her
allies to covenant with this monstrous miltarism
which though baked is not defeated, not repentant
not in any wise essentially different from what 1t
ever has been and will be as long as drop
of its savage blood is left flowing?
Suppose concluded a treaty with the present
German regime What then? Could we reduce
our vast ornaments, tighten our stupendous war
tax and return with easy minds to the pursuits of
peace? BY no means What actually would hap
pen is truly outlined by the New York Times:
Immediately, every nation in the world
would begin to increase its armament in prepa-
aration for Germany's certain and inevitable
renewal of the Consumption would be-
a permanent feature of the life of every
nation from Canada to Chile and from Scot
from Egypt to South Africa. To support these
permanent armies every nation would have to
resort to the levying of undreamed of taxes
which would have to be kept up and increased
from year to year. until the tax gatherers took
most of the profits of capital and the wage
of labor; and by of these conditions
the cost Of living would increase proportion
ately. But the guarding of the nations against
Germany's active military assaults would be
only a part of their necessary preparation.
They would be their guard also against
her intrigues. They have learned their les
son to dread these no less than her arms.
Each nation, knowing that the others were
filled with German spies would be watching
not only Germany but also the others. In
trigues would be suspected where they did
not exist. and would exist where they were not
suspected. The world would be constant
ferment of suspicion, and spies and traitors
would have their millennium"
Nations that love liberty and true concord are
not looking for that sort of peace. Americans
who shrink from the thought of their country be-
ing permanently committed to militarism with its
crushing burdens and insdious evils not look
ing for that sort of peace The soldiers at the
battlefront who are fighting for freedom, knowing
war as they do in it's grim reality, not looking
for peace that would mock all their heroic sacri-
fee and leave civilization no securer than before
That sort of peace would be than
America has taken up arms to protect her vital
interests and help make the world worth living
in AS she values the safety of her shores and
her very existence as free nation, she dares not
countenance a mere patched-up truce that would
leave her brutal enemy unrestrained in plots and
preparations for assault. If she should
make terms with a still powerful and unfettered
Prussianism she would have to begin at that very
moment to steel herself to a harsh and immeas-
urably dangerous future. She would have to
transform hitherto tranquil land into an armed
camp, in the midst of that greater armed camp
which would buckle in the whole wide world. She
would have to Sparatanize her people and harden
her children to a ruthless world She would dwell
in a never-liftng shadow of anxiety and suspicion.
She would cease to be the happy republic we have
known and become a huge barracks on a mil
itarized planet. There is but one way of escape
from that barbarous prospect, and that is to crush
once and for all the barbarism of Hohenzollern
Germany. When treat with free German
people then we shall have hopes Of en-
during peace; but from their present masters, we
can expect nothing but treachery and war.