The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-03-01

things military, imagines his n ing armor. It seems somewhat met and a gas mask. One forest god is likely to be put in the F future or in the village board sc shining armor will loom large within will be allowed to sing. ish war I see clad in less martia with the helmet of the Caesars
 There are two hopeful things about this war. The one is that it is going to end. Sooner or later, the dove will return with the olive leaf in her mouth God will have caused a wind of reason to pass over the earth and the waters of anger and hatred shall be assuaged. Not all the Northcliffes and Reventlows in Europe can eHmi- nate that fact. They can delay the end, but it will come. Today the many-headed howl at those who would hasten peace. Tomorrow the curses will be for those who have pro- longed the war.
 The other is that there is going to be no crushing victory" on either iside. It would almost seem as if a far-seeing Providence had arranged | that the forces should be so evenly balanced as to preclude this possibil- | ity. Any "crushing victory would make mtlitarism triumphant through | the world for the next century. -t would prove it's value and re-establisf l it's prestige as the most efticaciou! arbiter of human affairs. A genera draw will expose it's futility and over whe1m it with the execrations of thu people. No nation, containing the seeds of life, ever has been crushed Wounded and enraged, it but creep away to feed upon it's bitterness an: work out it's revenge After thre: hundred years the Balkan States turl and rend their persecutor. Israel two thousand years after the destruc ton of the Temple, has grown into worldwide power. The Jena of yes terday becomes the Sedan of today and the peace" of 1870 lets 1oos the de1uge of 1914. If our ruler could be taken and. forcibly instructe in history they would stand aghast 2 their own folly. That knock-ou blow, if it were to be delivered, woul
 send all Europe into training for
 still more frightfu1 war. As it is, tn nations. finding the sword has ac
 complished nothing, will be in tn mood to listen to other counsels.
 Preparing the Way.
 On the use that Reason makes 1t
 opportunity during the years imme
 diately following the war, and befor the world has had time to forge
 will depend the fate of mankind fo
 the next ha1f-dozen generations.
 A league of all the nations to CT force a universal peace is a fine ides
 One day it will be reached, and ou
 children will look back with pityin
 wonder to an age when civilized ma
 allowed himself, in all supreme mat
 ters, to be ruled by the law of tn
 jungle. But the ape and tiger will nc
 be driven forth without struggle
 The way will have to be abandone
 by the nations till the instinctive be
 lief in war as a God-ordained institu
 tion shall have been rooted out of tn
 individual man. War will yield t
 the same force that, working throug
 it's salient, unseen processes, has COT ! quered it's twin sister Superstition
 and only to that force-to the gradU
 al rise of Reason.
 If the thinking men and wome Of all the nations work together fc peace, that League of Nations will | accomplished; but not else. The l can form an International that sha need no passports. Their appea will be beyond the reach of any cer : sor. Even the Daily Telegraph at mits that in the enemy countrit : there is a great and growing part of peace convinced that all victorit l of violence are but the defeats of hl 3 manity. It may have found its voit l somewhat late. The reproach is nt confined to the Central Powers. I se no reason for doubting the sincerit U of a convert who has been converte
 from his folly by four years COT temptation of it's disastrous result
 There are those among them WI
 from the beginning never bowed u
 knee to Baal.
 A New Mentality.
 , would appeal to the thinking me S and women in the Allied countries 6 join with them; to help to crea . throughout the world a mentali f that shall render war impossible. - trust that after this foul orgy 2, blood and mud we shall not again Il pestered with a plague of silly poen s and stories glorifying war; that ol
 boys and girls will not again, as
 the past, be fed upon books and pi
 lures designed to increase the app
 tites of the natural man for slaugl g ter. I do not think I am giving a my own profession undue importan Il by expressing the conviction the s, since the advent of the printil ,- press, the worlds lust of warfare h le been chiefly fostered by the write
 of fiction. If that is to continue, V
 can say goodbye to any dream g lasting peace. Unless, after this WE le the writers of all countries, aided l. lesser degree by the musicians al \ the painters, ssrbnait themselves to