The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-17
The Plight Of Autocracy
Fly A. LATADY

.Congratulating with ourselves and with
 tocracy in Germany, Russia, Turkey and
 Austria, may we not fittingly give pass
 ing thought to that upon which this only
 begotten of the worst form of idolatry- man-worship thriwes: to the atmosphere
 in which it spreads. and to the conditions
 under which it propagates itself.
 In our hate we may say that submis-
 sion to it's authority is indicative of low,
 base minds, but is it not the truth,
 rather, that the noblest among the minds
 of those who submit to and revel in it, have become debased that through the recognition of the truth we may our selves avoid the folly so glaringly ap- parent in the conduct of others The hu-
 man mind is naturally prone to some form of idolatry, and it is, therefore set down as the very head and front of all offenses against God.
 Aaron lapsed into it, and some of the
 noblest minds of antiquity of which we
 have record evidences were given to it.
 These men were not abject minds by any
 means but, They exchanged the truth of
 God for a lie, and worshiped and served
 the creature rather than the creator and when by length of time a people be- comes accustomed to such vile usages, that people will, naturally become satur- ated with the folly and glory in it, the brutalities and enormities enumerated by Paul as characterizing such a people being consequential. Solomon, the wisest man that ever this world knew, was given over to 1t, and no one would say that his was a low, base or inferior
 mind: but it cannot be denied that as flies do cause the sweet ointment of the apothecary to give forth a stinking odor, so was this taint of folly to the wisdom for which Solomon is in reputation. By his example the whole Jewish nation fell into this species of degradation, the most insidious and dangerous of all as 1t ap- parently consists with the greatest show of wisdom, learning and worth.
 Into just such pit of baseness had l the whole German people unconsciously | fallen, and as their worship of the Kaiser was. apparently, without prejudice ito their material progress and prosperity
 and no more interfered with their wor- | ship of the true God than the worship of the sun and moon and the hosts oi heaven by Solomon interferred with the officers of the temple, they were quite as dead as he to the degradation into which they had fallen.
 l The process is gradual, but the tain of one generation being transmitted ts lanother the degradation to which the Roman mind attained in it's worship O such beast as Caligula is consequential and it was inevitable that the extrava gant worship of the Kaiser to which tn, Germans were given over should develoI into utter obliviousness of their folly.
 It is upon the emancipation of peopl from such a state of mental degradation that the world should congratulate witl l itself, and it Is to be hoped that the Ger l mans will be aroused from that spirit o | deep sleep which has been poured ou upon then.. and that they will repudiat the abominations which have been taugh them of the precepts of their false phil osophers who, thinking that because the. had formulated this and that recipe o high avail in economics and sastro monies, and had, without ever answer