The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1917-03-29


In its editorial columns, declared that
the policy which Mr.. Wilson was pur-
suing would end by involving us in
war after the national conscience had
been stilled and the national appre-
citation of the real facts of German
policy had been dulled. Time and
again since then has The Tribune as
serted that we should end by drifting
into a war which we sought to avoid
BY closing our eyes to fact and shut
ting our ears against the cries OF our
women and children slaughtered by
German submarines.
We have come to that time we
have drifted into war. We are at war.
And we are facing the spectacle OF
nation going into war without
thought of the consequences and
without realization of the fact. Never
in human history has great nation
come to the edge of war with so little
understanding of the dangers and the
responsibilities.
Must the condition which has en-
dured for so long continue after for
NAL declaration of hostilities trans
forms the legal, but not the actual
fact of our relations with Germany?
Are we not now, at last, to have some
leadership and some intelligent guild
ance which viii chart for the future
the course, the duty and the RESPONSE
bilities of American citizens in the
presence of war?
The time has passed for recrimina-
ton; the time has passed for all eriti-
cism directed at the failures of the
past: but no American can patiently
endure a continuation of present con-
litions or tamely face the prospects Of
the future.
We are at war with Germany; we
have been at war with Germany for
many months. Our citizens have been
murdered; our rights have been in
vaded. Treason has been plotted by
German agents within our frontiers
and German intrigue has sought to
loose against us our neighbors south
of the Rio Grande and beyond 1.-The
Pacific What are we going to do
about 1t now! ,sas
How much longer are we to be per-
mitted to go on, ignorant of the facts,
blind to the necessities deprived of
leadership, deprived of advice, desti-
tute of all knowledge? Today mill
lions of Americans are ready to per-
form their duty, to support their gov
eminent, to make any sacrifice which
Is required of them in the presence of
war and foreign threat.
viii not Mr. Wilson now mobilize
the patriotism of the country? Will he
not now lay aside that policy of
'watchful waiting" which has proven
as fatal to America as did the wait
and see" policy which for two years
imperiled the very existence of the
British empire and sacrificed untold
lives at Galipoli and In Flanders?
For two years we have been lulled
into sleep by the belief that war was
impossible, even in the presence of
the fact of war. Are we now to be
lulled to sleep by the assurance that
war itself is nothing and that coun-
try can be both at peace and at war?
Are we now to have a policy? Does
not the administration now consider
that the time has come when we
should Join hands with the other ma
tions which are lighting against Ger
man brutality and barbarism in the
world? Does not the simple question
OF future safety require that we
should make common cause with the
rest of the world and not find our
selves one day still asleep, left to face
Germany freed fro mthe complica-
tons of Europe and at peace with her
present enemies?
When the Lustania was sunk The
Tribune said that the president should
act, that it was the time to end the
German danger, either by war or by
German submission to international
law. When the Arabic was sunk,
when the Ancona was sunk, when the
Sussex was sunk, The Tribune said
the same thing. Time and again The
Tribune has pointed out that peace
in the world was impossible so long
as the German government asserted |
the right to murder and pursued the
policy of assassination without re-
gard to the rights of neutrals. We |
have lodged, twisted, turned, shut our |
eyes to the truth hoped and believed |
that If we could only avoid action for |
a little while we might escape action |
forever. And relentlessly and re-
duty has overtaken us
and we have found that we have es-
capped nothing of duty or of danger
and lost much of honor and many pre-
cious lives. And in the end we have
come to war.
The duty that came to Mr.. Wilson at
the time of the Lusitania comes to
him now in form a thousands fold
more difficult because it was not faced
then. We have got into the war we
sought to escape at all COSTS shall we
now in war pursue the same policy of
evasion of the years that have gone
BY?