The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1918-11-29
AN INEVITABLE VICTORY

hiOAi Vic JeFIlS imposed at the peace
conference. Armageddon, in short, is
over, so far as the man without eyes
to see knows. But Armaggeddon will
go on unremittingly until the nations
acknowledge the rule of principle. For
the moment, however, the allied world
has descended into its streets. 1t is
proclaiming its victory, sometimes
with wild excitement, sometimes with
more studied decorum. But it is pro-
claiming, for the most part, a great
material victory: and that is exact
ly why Armageddon is not over.
AS the great struggle of the last
four years comes to be more fully
analysed and more deeply considered,
the world will understand more clear
iy the forces which have been arrayed
the one against the other. If the vic
tory is victory of principle today,
then the battle was battle for prin-
clple four years ago. In principle
there is no shadow of turning, and
either the allies were right and the
central powers wrong from the be-
ginning, or else the allies are no near,
er principle than the central powers
today. To those who understand what
principle means, there has never been
one shadow of doubt as to the end of
the great battle, the line of which has
been flung from the North Sea to the
Persian Gulf, and across all the paths
of the ocean. For four years it has
pointed out these columns, without hes
ltation and without wavering, what
the issue was, and what the stakes
to. Nor has there once, in
all those years, been any question, to
this paper, as to what the end would
be. And that, not for any reacon of
human judgement, human judgement
is the most falliable thing on the face
Of the earth, but because, to use a
phrase of Emerson's, when you hitch
your wagon to a star, you know that
the path of your wagon is a safe one.
Just because this is so, there is no
necessity to exult over victory which
was as ineyitable as PRINCIPLE itself.
Every single human advantage lay on
the side of the German Goliath when
lie went out, and walked up and down
before the Allied Armies, and jerred
At them. The fact that the British
Army was as Contemplate" to the
nan who judges by the eyes alone,
as Davidappeared to Goliath, is the
proof that Goliath has polished his
irmor and sharpened his spear, I'M
al he had bekun to believe that the
'nly thing that counted was lace tri-
1lex' and human sinews. 1t never &C.
,ured to him that mind was dominant
'ver these things, and that the hum
IN mind which thought most in accor-
lance with principle was bound to gain
he day. Yet he had Marathon and
Salamis, Agincourt and Albuera to
warn him that, in spite of Napoleon
md all the oracles of flesh. the "big
were not everything. He
night, indeed, have remembered the
essen of Xerxes:
\ king sat on the rocky brow
Which looks on sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations-all were his! |
he counted them at break of day
And when the sun set where were
they?
The fleets and the armies of Cen
raj Europe have proved as powerless |
Is the men who fought at Marathon |
n the ships that battled at Salamis. |
late in the summer of 1914 they went |
tut, invincible in their strength, as |
hey imagined, to the occupation of |
Paris. The entry into Paris was to |
AVE been made on Sedan Day. From
he Channel Ports the German le-
lions were to have sailed, like Caes-
IF, for the shores of England, and the |
contemplate" British army was to
lave shared, in the autumn of the
'ear, the fate of the Britons who
ought with Caesar. AS the gray tide
oiled and rolled across Flanders and
Northern France, it seemed as if |
othing could stop it. And yet, even
hen, for those with eyes to see, it
vas rolling to its doom.
You cannot make war, in the Twen-
leth Century, in the name of scraps
f paper" and win victories against
rinciple. And thus one day the gray
ide faltered on the line of the Marine,
nd began to sob backward in retreat.
Jobody knew what that meant better
han did the German headquarters
taft. The ambassador of the United
'tates in Constantinople has borne
fitness to the fact that so clearly did
he headquarters staff read the signs
the times that they were ready ev-
n then to make peace. But it is cas-?
,r to tear up scraps of paper" than
D paste them together again. The
inter of 1914 passed, and the winter
1915 and 1915, and in the summer
1917 Germany was still suing for
peace no one would make with her,
ven with the Pope's backing. But,
! the meantime, she had become a
ariah amongst the nations, a pariah
tho every day had added a new crime
D the crime of the day before. 1t
'as then that, realizing that she
TODD on the brink of the abyss, she
rganized that terrible offensive of
he spring of 1918; an offensive in
hitch German flesh and blood was al
WED to count no more than if it had
cen carrion. Month after month the
tack continued. But no matter how
eckless the expenditure of life, no
latter how terrific the physical force
rought to bear, the effort always fell
hort, and the German boxer was left
eating the air. Then came the Sec
A r.