Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-27
THE NEW VAR
America Has Transformed the Purposes Of
the Worlds Greatest Conflict

TT WAS on July 2S, four years ago,
= that Austria declared war upon Serbia
and started the flame that has enwrapped
more than half the world. Tomorrow,
therefore, is one of the black anniver-
saries of history. Yet it can have other
meanings for America.
1t has remained for America TO trans
form all the aims of the ,Car and to
make them glorious.
The war that we are fighting now is
not the war that it was in the beginning.
| All its purposes are changed. All the
| old goals are forgotten-for better one.
| The courage of President Wilson, main
| tanned by the mass consciousness OF
America, has brought the miracle to
pass.
Race hatreds and suspicious, the pre-
medtated villainies of continental diplo-
macy, religious trends, national ego and
trade rivalries were involved at the out
set of the war for settlement by the
Sword!
Over and above the German Govern
ment-and some of the other Govern
ments for that matter--there existed
invisible and superior forces that forced
action and decisions These forces were
rooted not in ndustrialism, but in the
peculiar mania of commercial adventur-
BUSINESS internationally organized, exalted
and in the imperial mood. The Ballins
and the Krupps, the North German
Lloyd interests and the concession hold
ers in Berlin typifed the invisible gov
crnment of the European continent.
They were mobilized in a collective
agency that was more powerful than
government. II cristed ADORE the Cor
crnment-and get it had none Of the
responsibilities of government. Forces
like these held themselves superior to the
State. The poisonous philosophy of
secret diplomacy and the madness Of
kings were their weapons of offensc and
defense.
Indust,y alone cGnpot make State,
because its energy must dhcdys DC
greater than its tCisdom.
Labor alone cannot make a State,
because labor is essentially a cooperative
function.
Labor and industry and commerce and
all the creative forces of work on the one
hand and money on the other must be
subject to the intelligent guidance of
mass judgment as expressed through the
medium of free government for the
common good.
The typical commercial oligarchy in
Europe held itself superior to the State.
It set up checks and balances and sacri-
feed whole peoples to maintain these
balances. 1t deluded weak-minded kings.
1t became an organism of unreasonable
power and rccfulness-without eyes
to see or a heart to feel. This, essen
tally, is the monstrous thing that
| America has set its face against. The
reiterated policy of self-determination of
nations promulgated by America, op-
posed so often, doubted so often and still
| questioned at times even in America,
represents nothing more than program
devised to make this agency Of destruc-
ton forever helpless and forever inactive.
The United States means By erery
| pronounce and agreement that it has
made since its entry into the 'cGr that
| life is more important than the means
of life.
1t has held that the processes of inter-
national commerce must be left to
develop in a course of natural evolution.
| 1t has thrown its matchless strength into
the struggle to insure state of affairs
under which the mass judgment and the
common concerns of all the people demo-
cratically represented and expressed
shall direct the processes of government
and diplomacy rather than the whims of
idiot kings and their confederates.
And it seems that we are indeed a
nation of destiny. Because the conha-
grafton over all Europe frightened
the uncrowned kings into sense
of their own madness when America
entered the war. And they seem dis
nosed for their salvation to accept the
American view and are following our
leadership in most of the things that
we propose and plan.
The fires of war have burned away
many of the barriers that existed be-
tween America and Europe. And the
American people have looked beyond and
they have seen in the stricken peoples
their brothers and their sisters in heart
The triumph of America has been that il
has made this war a matter of the ma
tional will, an adventure of deliverance
upon which the national spirit has gone
out gladly without doubts or fears.