Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-12-24
UCTORY WITHOUT HATRED
~ TAKES some fortituae to measure W

#IT TAKES some fortituae to measure up
E b the true Christmas spirit this year.
We have been so 'cng a people without
!. enemies and without hates. When this
magic season came around at each years
G3oee we could feel free to rejoice with.
Q1nt qualms of conscience. When we had
sGiven all we could spare to the helpless
j ana healed personal quarrels. there fell
( ~ shadow Of hypocrisy over our celebra.
<len " Life's birthday and its promise of
! birth for all of us. Professo. Ferrero and
\ Anbassador Gerard, discussing this coun-
10y at their meeting in Paris, remarked
upon the absence of hate in America
4. Anncricans seemed never to have learned to
i hate. they agreed, as European peoples
O6dld hate. Isolated, we CO Id feel we'll
y 1inposed toward nations that could not
hurt us: we were perhaps too self-satished
= ana Indifferent to the foreign world: but
" least we did not hate.
3 This even temper is now menaced. Into
6ur Christmas cheer there creeps the chill
06 bitter feeling. Young children, who
think world at war is the normal state
of Affairs, having neveS known any other
Mind Of world, are not easily taught to love
their enemies and discriminate nicely be.
tween the German lutocracy and the Ger
man people. especially after hearing some
one read with high glee some such dispatch
- this from Saturdays newspaper:
I2 vorwaerts. the Socialist paper of Berlin,
# - . plain-spoken attack on the system of
RI l1orr Won Waldow. Food Controller, de-
M 4Inroe that great masses of German people
10y are hungry, but are literally
I-I lvIhg Forty millions of the
"a 1sees are starving and are unlikely to sit
<$4Glu1t We might have within a month an
#140D(Dlute catastrophe in Germany and a
Q6lIopse even worse than Russias, result
IN German defeat and loss of the war.
|esl rQood news! Hurrah They know
tAsy're licked" But the imaginative
r; GhI1d. to whose mind some queer, distorted
*B,cturo of women with shawls over their
<z6o6s aid ragged babies-a whimsical, but
Horhaps. essentially true picture-has pene-
i 4raxsd. does not see the joke Or it may
q ~. this child does come to think it is a
h Good thing to starve out ragamuffins in
Gensrai and German ones, for the present,
4 = particular.
II 10 safe to say that until now there has
& not been much sympathy in America for
etarving out the German women and chill
~ dron, II we can trust to our war litera-
tpre. the speeches soldiers letters, books.
: magazine articles and press comments, the
\ Sonsral sentiment is for a swift. clean cut
q 4Ght 'pver the top" with American
3 ox,sn' anship. grit and daring, and not
E$ftnxSation. as the ways and means of VIC
sE<oey Hate and malice hav, no part in the
&tng Of a great soldier. Who could
l(nVo been more free from them than Grant
~ Lee7 We can easily trust to our SOL
& <1sfa and sailors to maintain chivarous
uDer hoping not to Sneak a victory
E}yough Germany's kitchen door. but to
IN openly in the field against her sol.
Dut here at home it takes strength of
4 HGotE 10 put cur faith entirely in our man.
VA for the simple reason that our best
Il 1nhcod has gone to war The civilian is
6{wnys in danger of getting arnished with
<h6 ''win-in- any old way-y ou-can" spirit
hfSh is q twin brother to the "holier.than.
xnnr spirit. The average American is no
~ than the average German. so far as
- tall. Would the aver age American
oade any better nght fo- liberty than
scht made in the Reichstag? Have
~, after all. still to prove that we OF
1>neration are made Of he same stuff
(oeefathers Of 1776 were made Of? In
Yoar that starts next week we are tc
1G1<od In the crucible We have still
U<ove that we can fight really as 'ths
~ of the German people. as they will
ny see u.s." This ideal Is higher
20 We have ever been summoned tc
II is only the Lincoln spirit tina,
~ US safely through the year ant
~ Deserving Of another Christina,
1hen this one.
rnG thing the Germans could dt
~ b to teach US to hate as the,