The Wheeling intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1903-1961, 1917-01-05
RATIONAL EDITORIAL 1NTEL11aEFcER
TANNING THE FLAMES
The Exchange of Amenities Between Enemies Makes PEACE
More Difficult
BY LAWRENCE P. JACKS
PRINCIPAL Of Manchester College, Oxfor Editor Of the HILBERT
Jnurn
BY LAWRENCE P. JACK

Since the war broke out nothing
has been more remarkable than the
4, AGILITY and confidence with which
writer's In belligerent countries have
described the characters OF enemy ma
lions. Needless TO say, all the char
acters thus given are bad characters.
They are all constructed on the same
iprinciple--that OF noting the worst
traits of your own country and then
.atlributing them to the enemy. AS
Stunning them all TO be true. it we're
hardly too much TO say that there are
ar least two hundred and fifty million
human beings in Europe who ought to
be eXterminated outright for the sim
pie reason that. as characterized. they
are unfit to live. OF course they are
not true; not one of them is within
speaking distance of the truth. Taken
in the mass, they constitute a collec'
ton of the silliest fables that they
ever imposed themselves on the ere
dulity OF mankind. Were that all.
they would be food for that ineXtin-
guishable laughter Of the centuries.
But unfortunately it is not all; there e
is something more that turns the
comedy into the most appalling trag'
eAy the world has ever seen. 10
not say that these fables caused the
war. No; because when the war
broke out the fables were only halt
developed, and there were other
causes at work. But they have in
famed the war to its present pitch;
they have made it the kind Of war 1t
has turned out to be--the bloodiest,
the cruellest and the maddest Of
human history. Moreover. were it not
for the fables peace could be made
tomorrow They keep the war going
and render human reason powerless to
stop it. When the other day. the Ger
man chancellor. said that the English
were a race Of cyclists and were pre-
pared to sacrifice all nations 10 their
lust Of world dominion. he not only
repeated one of those fables, but
showed himself the victim Of It; and
similar fables being current else
where. the net result of them all IS
that Europe Is now turned into a
Bedlam.
1t is hardly worth while to mention
lin detail any of these "characters'
given by one belllgerent 10 ahu.-,.
because they are all alike mere raE-
ings and babble; both singly and to-
!gether they are utterly unworth dis.
cussion. But since l have mentioned
received from Germany, it is only fair
that l should allude to performance
of our own. We call the Germans a
nation. of "barbarians." Well, there
are about seventy million people in
Germany, and some Of them deserve
the name We have given them. But
how many? Opinions will differ in
the answer. l know for certain of a
few, whom I could name They are
all Of them men who have been
turned into barbar1ans by being placed
in position where they are masters Of
the fates of millions of their country
men, position no man living is fitted
ito hold, but which, If he happens to
have a streak Of barbarism in him, is
certain to bring it out and make him
an Irrational monster and a scourge
TO mankind. But what about the rest
of the seventy millions?
All these concentrations about vast
communities Of human beingS-every
individual member Of which Is an
unfathomable mystery and an aston.
ishment- Of course, sheer non
sense.
The German people have been I'm.
fortunate in their political education.
To begin with, their education has not
been nearly long enough to teach
them more than a fraction OF the les
sons which every great people needs
to learn. United Germany is only
about fifty years old, which, as ma
tions reckon their age, leaves it a
mere schoolboy. It's teachers, more
over, have been, for the post part,
professors, doctrinaires, experts learn