The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1918-12-13

| arc W VIC iuducs
A Junker wants spoils and he fav-
ors wars as the surest means of pro-
viding these spoils. The Junker is a
| grabber; he advocates force or any
other means that will add to the ter
ritory of the nation of which he is a
part, whether such ACKNOWLEDGEMENT is
just or unjust.
And, it would appear from what
Lloyd George says, that allsthe Junk
ers are not in Germany.
Maybe there are Junkers right here
in America, but we trust that this is
not the case. We think We are free
of them, but we are not so certain that
there is not class in this country that
fails to grasp the profound vision of
this great hour.
If there be a man in all America
today who thinks still that wars are
necessity, let him hold himself in
patience until the boys who went
cover there" and who endured the hell
of Chateau Thierry and the Marine
come home.
Let him ask them whether they
think wars are necessary and whether
abolition of wars forever.
Wars were never necessary. 1t was
simply impossible to prevent them,
that's all.
But, it is not impossible to prevent
them in the future. The opportunity
to do SO has come at last, after all the
ignorance and squalid hatreds~engen-
dered by the mistakes and misunder-
standings of the past.
Perhaps we shall never see the
time when the heart of the individual
man will be free of hatreds and ami
mosities. That no man shall hate an
other man because of his race or re-
ligion or politics or his good fortune,
is perhaps too much to expect.
But, nations are bigger than indi-
vlduals, and more important, and they
can do what the individual may not be
expected to do. They can put an end
to animosities between one nation and
another, and now is, the acceptable
time.
Before the world had the experience
es of this war, the contentious here
put forth were laughed at as the
moon-gazings of idealists. Now an
innumerable company of practical"
people have Joined the idealists' ranks. :,
There is no man, high or low, rich
or poor, strong or weak, who has es-
capped the agony and the sorrow of the
war which has just now ended. In
the wide sweep of its sufferings and
cruelties it gathered the universe in
its whitening arms.
And who shall say that in this
Gods purpose is not plain? Who
shall say now that "an occasional
war is advisable and good for the
world 2"
Those who said it before were those
who had not tasted the bitter fruits
of war. Now, all have tasted those
fruits. Wherefore, the task of the
statesman should be, in a way, easy.
There will be many problems to be
solved at the table, and some of them
will be extremely delicate, but they
will all lead up to the main problem
universal peace that will be lasting.
The militaristic nations OF yesterday
will have nothing to say in these set
Elements. The old Germany is a thing
of the past. Austria-Hungary, Tur-
key and Bulgaria are also things of
the past. Democracies have already
risen from the ashes of those once
proud autocracies.
The peace-table decisions will be al
together in the hands of the conquer
ors, and these are America, Great
Britain and France. The fate of the
world is now in the hands of the
statesmen of these nations.
There have been enmities between
them in the past-enmities between
France and America, even They have
all warred upon one another.
But during the past four years,
through common cause and common
sufferings and the blood that they
spilled in common, and their sons that
went down to death in common graves
together, they have been united in a
bond that is stronger and holier than
any welded by the blood of men be-
fore.
United, they have swept autocracy
from the face of the earth. They have
freed countless millions from subiec-
ton. They have set the world again
in the sun.
Shall they now forget all this and
sit down to quarrel between them
selves at a peace table? Shall they
rise from that table and leave the |
sword still unbroken; the helpless peo-
pies still helpless?
If so, then a million graves in
France are filled with British dead in
vain; Serbia, Greece, Italy, France
America and all have poured out blood
and treasure for naught.
And America, whose honored dead
he flower of all the world--sleep to-
lay between the Vosges and the
Marine and in Flanders fields, will she
rise from the peace table and leave
he world again "a prey to war?-Los
Angeles Times.
Nine hundred and seventeen news
'apers, more or less, have gone out of