The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-12-26
(By Harvey o'Higgins)

(By Harvey O'Higg1ns)
 t~The Germans their beloved Bis marck said, fare a nation of house servants.''
 His successors seem to have made them nation of army worms
 All their fine qualities of loyalty and service-which Bismarck sum med up so contemptuously- been turned from ideals of domestic peace and labor to the ravaging of their neighbors in devastating war. A na- ton of army worms, led by imperial locusts, they have advanced upon the world in their famous mass forma- tions, gray-green swarm of devoted loyalists, at once admirable and hor rifying.
 And the world has banded against them. Che, by one a score of states have been forced to arm and defend themselves. Not even the peaceful traditions of China or the determined isolation of the United States could save them from the unprovoked as- saults of this submissive people led by ambitious maniacs. The war has become war to rid Germany and the world of Germany's Mad Mullah. And just as there could be no peace a hum dread years ago in Europe, and no freedom in France until Napoleon had been caged, so now there can be no security for any nation and no liberty for the Germans until their Hohen- zollern has been crushed and his loyal victims awakened from their national hypnosis. The free peoples of the earth are battling aganst the last serfs of military autocracy not only to protect themselves, but to liberate their enemy. America is fighting to establish among the nations of Eur ope another such peaceful league of self governing states as our, War of Independence founded on this con- tinent.s It is war against war against international injustice, and predatory ideals of empire, and the slavery of willing slaves assaulting freedom.
 Again and again the nations made terms of peace with Napoleon. It was useless until he made his final terms of unconditional surrender af- ter Waterloo. The French of his day were an admirable. a wonderful peo- pie; but led by military ambition | they became the conquering enemies of mankind. It was his wars that imposed militarism on Germany It is his tradition that now animates the Prussian imperial buzzard. Useless to talk of terms of peace with this new Napoleonism. Useless to plead the virtues of the German people. They have become the outlaws of civiliza- ton, surrounded by posse of nations and fighting desperately at the mouth l of their leave. There can be no en- during peace till they have deposed their robber chieftain and renounced their creed of blood and iron.
 The United States has been com pelled to join the posse. After endur- l ing outrages with a patience that ex- asperated mankind, we have enrolled in the league of peace against Ger many. Our navy is fighting in Eur opean waters to protect our own shores. Our army is going to the trenches in Europe that we may not have to dig trenches in America. We have organized for war because We have been denied peace. We have ac- |cepted conscription against conscrip- ton. We have given our government the powers of a military dictator tc save ourselves from the military die, tatorship of the Most High of Pots dam. We have surrendered all oul peaceful liberties in order to organ ize our country for purposes of war lbecause war can be efficiently waged in no other way. Only with blood and iron can we save ourselves from the Edevotees of blood and iron. Wher death comes into a dispute there k no answer to 1t but death.
 Now that the German war lord sees the sword at his throat, he is willing to use another argument. He offers ! to talk of peace without punish. ment." He is willing to forget oul ] Edead, to forgive our wounds, to over. look our injuries, to bow us out o1 his fortress and repair his defenses and fit a new blade to his old hi1t. Hi: agents assure us that our allies are , not our friends; that this war is no
 our war; that we should never have thrust ourselves into it so unexpected
 They observe with sorrow that WI
 have renounced on the battle field
 and under fire, our inalienable righ
 happiness, They express a pious feal
 that in volunteering for war to mak,
 the world safe for democracy we ma!
 have surrendered ourselves to mill
 tary autooracy no better than thei
 own, Like the wolf brought to bay lby the sheen dogs. they are afrait