The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-12-19
POSTWAR POLICIES

Editor Star: In the wake of the
enthusiasm following a great ma
tional military victory, it is vital
that those who can look past the i'm
mediate effects of such victory to the
remote and complex, should use their
influence, whether weak or strong, in
creating wholesome public senti-
ment. So l expect great things from
the Star.
Public sentiment is as volatile as
gasoline, evanescent as the will o. the
wisp and as undependable as the tenn
per of your maiden aunt. 1t is man.
ufactured largely by the press, And
in lesser degfee by the pulpit.
A continual and concerted propa
ganda by both these agencies will
produce any desired reaction as sure
iy as soil, hoe and sunshine will pro-
duce cucumbers.
When Lee surrendered to Grant,
the magnanimity Of all the chief con-
testants in that sad drama might
well have resulted in reunited and
consolidated nation. so potent even
then in effectual resources as to be
invincible. The real people of both
sections were ready to bury the hat
chet and start again. But the whole
immediate moral effect of all that
bloody business was lost because the
victors were misrepresented by
horde of scurvy politicians.
The people themselves went back
to their farms and factories in the
full belief that all was settled, while
the politicians got busy. The result
was the carpetbag regime which en-
gendered more gall and bitterness
than open war had done.
We are again at. the parting of the
ways; our young men have done their
work nobly and the enemy lies at our
feet. He must pay to the last jot and
little in moneys and indemnities for
the destruction he has wrought, and
an outraged world will assuredly at.
tend to that. We have the enemy to
thank that the exigencies of battle
have changed our Uncle Samuel from
a Connecticut Yankee into the cham
pion athlete of the world. And God
forbid that the he ever again advo-
Gates wooden nutmegs.
In the meantime we have tidy
job before us-the rehabilitation of
planet. Ethics, economics, geogra-
ply and history must be rewritten,
a desolated world must be repaired.
When posterity reads the world he
suits flowing from the ponderous
work of the past four years it will be
found to be far more important that
we now seize this psychological
moment to make our potential navy
and merchant marine the mistress of
the seven seas, than that cringing
Hohenzollern be hung. Far more i'm
portant that the torn nations of Eu-
rope be reunited in a manner to make
for world democracy than that the
common people of Germany. long de-
bauched by an outlawed autocracy, be
utterly destroyed. Far more impor-
tant that the ever recurring recrim-
nations between capital and labor be
amicably adjusted so that each gets
its share and the public no longer ex-
plotted by politicians, than that often
sive epithets be applied to loyal Ger
man-Americans who have proven.
their worth to the commonwealth.
1t may be too early to say these
things and / only say them with the
understanding that the hateful Prus-
sian autocracy is forever destroyed,
and that the future of our American
nation depends upon whether we now
demand of our lawmakers qualities of
craftsmanship or revert to yennp
peanut politics.
If we can achieve real statesman
ship at this crisis then no nation ever
before stood at the threshold of such
magnificent opportunities. If we be-
gin again to play at politics we viii
certainly revert to our pre-war i'm
potence.
Inventors or originators are far