The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1917-09-28
is REVOLUTION

We shall better understand this cri-
sis in the affairs of the world if we
stop thinking about it as a war-which
it is incidentally-and begin to think
Of it as a revolution, which it is essen
tally. Whatever it was in the begin
ming, it is no longer merely a question
whether this or that nation shall con-
quer its enemy of the moment; it IS a
question Of remaking the world. So
far the revolution has been chiefly DO
litical in Russia, chiefly spiritual in
France, chiefly economic in England.
In our W country it has not pro-
crossed far enough to disclose its most
significant elements; it seems to par
take systematically Of all three. In
Germany and Austria it promises to
work out fundamental changes in ev-
cry aspect of national life.
When the war is over, there will
doubtless be a good many changes to
be made in the aliases, frontiers will
move back and forth across the map,
countries may disappear and other
countries may gain or regain a nation
al existence. But unless all signs fail
those changes will not be the great
things wrought by the revolution.
When the disillusioned and war-wea-
ry soldiers come home from the trench
es there will be a complete readjust-
ment Of the prevailing views in Eu-
rope concerning war as a means Of ma
tional self-assertion. We cannot i'm
agine the nations of Europe bending
their shoulders again to the burdens
that m~ilitarism lays upon them. There
will be a profound quickening of the
democratic spirit everywhere, for the
people have learned that they are the
basis of national power and the bull
wark Of national prestige. The auto
Gratis and the bureaucrats have blum
dered so often and so stupidity that
they have lost their halos. They will
never be looked up to again as they
have been in the past.
The unheard Of destruction Of
wealth, of economic resources, of the
products of labor, that this war has
caused will make radical economical
reforms necessary. How far they will
go no one can predict. They will tend
toward naturalization Of industry,
toward cooperative instead of Compel
tive methods, toward a league of ma
tions that shall administer the produc-
ton and distribution of the materials
for rebuilding civilization is probable.
The Entente Nations and the United
States have laid the basis of such an
organization; if as we believe, the new
alliance is strong enough to win the
war, it will unquestionably preserve
the machinery that it has erected. To
that economic league the smaller ma
tions, and we hope, a reformed Ger
many and Austria will be attached.
From the greatest Of all wars may
grow the greatest Of all confederacies
and the most hopeful Of all movements
for demolishing the likelihood of war.
Finally, there will be a spiritual, a
religious revival; a revival that may
appear as revolutionary as any that
we have known since the Reformation.
1t may or may not strengthen the ex-
listing churches; it may or may not
deeply affect the theologies that they
teach. But it will give to millions of
men a deeper sense of the meaning of
lie, it will clear their brains of many
ancient superstitions, and it will con-
Wet them Of more than one kind of
individual and national sin. There is
a whirl-wind if fire abroad in the world
When it has passed we shall wonder
at the devastation it has caused in
the framework of things as we have
known them; and then we shall won
der at the vigor and the splendor of
the growth that shall have sprung up
in the path of the fames.-Youth's
Companion.