The Penn's Grove record., 1917-06-15
Democracy is At Stake
lFrom the Nav York Morld.l

From the New York World.)
Let no man who registers under the
new Army law think that he is to be
taken to fight in a European war in an
alien cause. or that the issue of the con-
1ict is less vital to the United States
than to the other free nations that are
battling against German autocracy.
Answering the question, why are we
fighting Germany" Secretary Lane, in
a speech made in Washington said that
the brief answer is that ours is a war
of self-defeuse." The fact that our
danger is more remote and less immed-
late than that of Belgium and France or
Great Britain does not alter the case.
1t is not only a war of self-defense as
against Germany's indiscriminate sub
marine campaign against American lives
and American property, but 1t Is a war
of self-defense in the broadcast and most
essential meaning of the term. 1t is a
wal in which our turn would inevitably
come next should the German Empire
emerge victorious.
Already the German Government has
consolidated its alliances and its CON
quests into a mighty empire that sweeps
from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf.
If it accomplishes the other objects of
its war the world is beaten to the knees
and will henceforth be dominated from
Berlin. Should that happen, both
Great Britain and the United States
must take their place among the minor
powers. So far as we are concerned,
the Monroe Doctrine will become a
scrap of paper, Latin America will be
at the mercy of Germany and the Uni
ted States will cease to shape the des-
tiny of the Western Hemisphere.
The clash between German autocracy
and democracy was made an irrepressi-
BILE conflict by no act of dIrs. We did
not invite it. On the contrary, we
sought to evade it and might have sue
ceeded for the time being if Berlin had
not forced the issue. That we could
have succeeded permanently is out of
the question for that is something that
German ambition would not have per-
mitted. Having crushed the democra-
cies of Europe, the next advance of Ger
man imperialism would be against the
democracies of America.
BULLETS OR BALLOTS.
When the President said in his war
address to Congress that we must
make the world safe for democracy
he wa not indulging in an idle and
pleasing literary generalization. He was
u~ttering one of. the most profound
truths that civilization has ever faced.
Unless we manage to make the world
safe for democracy, we shall leave it safe
fou a11fooraou rrhfnb ,ao1- tlo -,
premacy of government by bullets over
government by ballots.
AS the wal has developed, Belgium
and France stand revealed as the out
posts of Great Britain and the United
States. Great Britain in turn is an
outpost of the United States. If they
go We go. If they fall we fall. We
cannot survive without them, as they
can no longer lIrvive without us.
Measured in distance, the German
guns are still far from us; but measur-
ed by the menace to free government,
their thunder must ring in the ears of
every American who is alive to the dan
gers that threaten the Republic.
No war in which the American peo-
pie have fought, not even the Revolu-
ton itself, was more truly in self-de-
Tense than that in which the country is
now engaged, and the men who take the
first step today can fight only in de-
Tense of their country and the institu-
tons by which it lives. That is the
only cause in which their Government
has enlisted, and unless it wins, we our
selves will be chained to the chariot
wheel of the German ~conqueror.
Instead of complaining that the wal
is so far from our shores, let US be
thankful that we have perceived the
peril in time and that we can combat it
before a triumphant autocracy can be-
siege US at our very doors.