The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1918-04-20
SOME TYPES IN CONTRAST

The Tribune is grateful to some unknown friend for a
newspaper clipping in which some unknown author has pre-
sented a series of historical comparisons that must leave ls
impress wherever read. Would that we had space for IL III
The study, for such we will call it, was written on St Patrlcks
day and deals with the values of leaders and the influence II
ideals. And Irelands great missionary was the authors IN
spiration. ~ a.
"Tbe good old saint" says the author, did more than
drive out the mythical snakes; he created Ireland and he gave
the Irish people an ideal that has lasted throughout centuries
He put the religious stamp on a people who mad been hVln9
in paganism. even barbarism. So thoroughly did he do this
work that the influence and the stamp of him have not ceased
to be, even in this date. AS he was a missionary s ne mace
the Irish essentially a missionary nation.
s
And then the author calls up before us the leaders among
other races and nations. Look at France" he says, "undoubt-
eddy the most glorious country on earth To-Day a country u
chivalry, courage and a nobility of sentiment We cannot es-
cape the calculation that a woman known In history as Joan
of Arc had much to do with it, There was a France and there
were French people before her time, but she lifted up her ma
ton by the most wonderful. influences that have ever been ex-
erted in the world. Even Mark Twain, the scoffer, took off his
hat and bent his knee at her shrine, and out of his alteration ne
wrote the best in a long list of his writings. IL seems &c IS
that her spirit passed into the French people when they burneo
her as a hereto at the stake-the cruelest death that was ever
inflicted upon a mortal being, and it seems to us that hr
spirit passed into the people of France as the spirit OF SAINT
Patrick passed into the people of Ireland. Unconsclously, II
may be, but they had an ldeal OWarc Which, Hey puI' q P0o
pie and a nation
In similar vein the writer discusses William Tell of Swift
erland and asks, HAS not every true Swiss been a relncarna-
ton of that brave man who resisted tyranny" And William
of Orange is cited as another around whose character a nation
was built. This latter William has been called tne HrSt great
moralist among statesmen. His ideals were the highest IN
modern or medieval history, and exactly the qualities OF when
he was the expression have continued in the people he led.
The people of Holland have made morality, IN Its broader
sense, the fetch of their race, and the Irish have made rellg-
ion the supreme expression of theirs. The rights and duties
of combatants in civilized warfare on land and especially at
sea. were first written in Holland and their code has been the
essential law of all nations-until Prussians, led by a Hohen-
zollern. appeared upon the stage of Europe. And here we
have the authors view of Prussia:
Turning o to Germany. or rather Prussia, which is more
Asiaic than it is Teuonic, We find such leaders Ideals
lacking entirely 10. The Hohenzollerns. who came ut If Bran
denberg and started with intrigue, absorbed Prussia a russia
afterwarC absorbed Germany, we're brutal, coarse and blood
thirsty from the beginning They followed a and loved loot
and plurder. The greatest shaping force was Frederick, who
was called the great, and is alsok known IS the greatest liar in the
diplomacy of Europe. Carlyle when he wrote his life confessed
that sometimes he studied fol days to separate the true ron Inc
false in this mans statements-he a the most consummate of
liars also. From his halfimbecne father he received a testament
that contained the statement that without the shedding Of blood
no member of the house of Hohenzonern could advance the
glory of the family. And Frederick himself wrote that he
started a certain wr to be talked about-he, too, wanted to be
"famous'-and that particular "a devastated large portions of
Europe-s that n paranoiac might be talked about
Lying, intrigue, gross dishonesty in all the relations Of life,
in the life of such a IA the foundations of a world nation
yer laid and the stamp of him is still upon Prussiaa as tn stamp
of ST. Patrick is o Ireland. the stamp of Joan of Arc on France,
the stamp of William Tell on Switzerland, the stamp of William
of Orange IN Holland. What mn in early times we're taught
to look up to and to idealze has become embodied in them and
in their nations.
What a field for study is here opened up to us, and we
can only wonder whether it occurred to the author to look a
little further back than he has, to look beyond Frederick the
Great, to Attila, king of the Huns and "Scourge of God,' whom
the descendant of Frederick now on the throne not many years
ago directed his own soldiers to emulate.
The world had been aflame with war for nearly three
years before we entered the conflict, and yet we find a man
at the head of one of The important war bureaus rejoicing that
we were not prepared. Well, the country is not rejoicing, nor
our soldiers nor our allies. And if Mr.. Creel wants to cele-
brate he had better do it in private life.