The Natchitoches enterprise., 1917-02-15
range. That feudists should not be

strange. That feudists should not be
allowed to put the lives and property
of their neighbors in jeopardy while
fighting among themselves is easy OF
comprehension; that neutral nations
should want to apply the same principle
in world war causes bewilderment.
That citizens should live under the pro-
lection of police regulation in a COM
munity, or under tie protection of a
militia in State, or under the protec-
ton of army and navy in a nation, is
an applied law of human freedom. But
that this same law should be applied to
higher form of government in which
nations look to a justly constituted
power, backed up by armed force for
their protection, is called chimerical
That this union should have a consti-
tuition enforced against the lawless by
armed might in the hands of the gov
eminent is obvious; that the peoples of
the earth, from whom the citizens of
| this nation have come. should volun-
tarily enter into some higher govern
ment conceived in the common rights
of the governed and born in the com
mon need of rest from armed usur-
patton of right which has plundered the
earth to the detriment, distress and
death of the masses of the various
tongues, kindreds and tribes, seems
wildly Ethiopian.
That a few leading families in
community should not in the settlement
of personal quarrel eliminate all the
general rights of community is axio-
matte. That a few warning nations,
armed to the teeth and declaring war
to the knife, should not eliminate in
their peace the rights of the rest of the
nations of the earth is principle which
seems to receive all the opprobrium
possible.
Wherein has Mr.. Wilson offended?
That man should have the legal ex-
preston of his innate right to worship
God according to the dictates of his
own conscience is unspeakably just in
America; that man in Europe should |
crave, demand or have the same right |
seems preposterous.
Mr.. Wilson has declared conviction |
in the solidarity of the race. He has
put the world on notice that this world |
believes fundamentally that no govern |
ment can endure which denies the COM
mon right of the common people. That
this nation will bare the sword to pre-
serve this government; that this nation
will faithfully witness to the world by
giving o reason to all nations for the
faith within it; that this nation will
follow the course of its being and pre-
serve the bent of its destiny; that this
nation will shake hands of fellowship
with all peoples for the common good;
that this nation will declare its place
by right and sustain it by power in the
good government of the world is Mr.,
Wilson's declaration. That this nation
will not enter into any covenant that
does not take into full consideration
the rights Of the peoples of the new
world; that this nation will refuse to
ndorse any 'equipoise of power" that
will further subject any nation any
where to the predatory attack of the
powerful; that this nation will not enter
INTO any unholy alliance Of armed
night, blood and iron, naval supremacy
)r huge armament for the acquisition
If territory; that this nation will not
,olerate continuation of the old poll
lies of fraud, trickery and oppression,
) the warning set forth in this supreme
document of human rights.
MIR. Wilson indeed realized what all
he seers of human liberty have real
zed, and that is, that all wars and
umors of wars with the shed blood of
men and the starvation OF women, and .
he burning of homes, and the death
f babes, and the impoverishmont of
'eoples constitute the throes of a new \
ay, and that the world will not, can ,
lot, and ldare not retrace the bloody
teps of battle to the old heights of |
eitishness. And last, in speaking as
n individual but also the chief execu-
i've of the nation, Mr.. Wilson has so '
poken because he knows there is q
coming from the aching hearts
# the "silent masses" who will rise {
p now or in the future, but inevitably !
ise up, to call him blessed,