The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-08
Our Minds Must Adjust Themselves to Minds Torn
 By Terrible Sufferings
SORROWS HAVE NOT
 COME TO AMERICA AS ] IN ALLIED NATIONS
Many Mems Minds Are Not Nor nal Because of the Awful Bays They Have
 Lived
By EDWARD MARSHALL


 z London November 15.-The peace del- egates are gathering in Paris as write; by the time this article is print , ed they may be at work "conspirlng against war" In that beneficent con- spiracy America will lead-thank God! The worlds hope is that she may lead with wisdom, and above all with pa- tience.
 have seen one peace conference.-the first at The Hague which, held when no great war was thought to threaten and discussion was more or-less academic, had slight result, apparently, for sew ,a eral small wars quickly followed and 15 years later the whole world was at war. This one, al Versailles, will not be academic, for now the whole world demands lasting peace-demands it desperately.
 The fact that at that first one I, victim of the Spanish American war. limped about on crutches, helped me to appreciate it's real significance. This winter tens of thousads of crutched men, hundreds of thousands of widows - and orphans, millions of soldiers \ graves, to say nothing of whole great \ areas quite devastated, will help the < whole world to appreciate the true sig 2 nificance of that which will be held in old Versailles. A
 And this article urges patience, care- ful study. exact adjustment of American minds to the minds which will work there.
 By the time this, article is read I be- slieve the world will recognize Ameri can leadership in the whole peace idea If so, to save the world that idea must be broad and ever kept in mind it must keep peace at the peace conference; it must produce justice at a time when minds are far from normal and when honest men, torn by great wrongs very vehemently disagree. On every hand I hear things clearly indicating that the x presence of Americas President was de- @cided on as absolutely necessary to the worth while conclusion of the conclave
 Without lack of respect to MT. Will son l believe that I may call his a tribute rather to the spirit of America than to the man. America, which during the wars early stages was regarded as a shirker, by these Europeans who quite excusably could not understand our attitude, now becomes the arbiter in truer sense, probably than will de- yelop technically at the conference.
 Why? Because in bygone years, while Europe studied war while both the sinner Germany, and the allies, the sinned against, the one by choice, the others of necessity, worked constantly at vast expense of time and money over problems of offense and of defense. America studied peace.
 AMERICANS HATE WAR
 Americans never have wished war. We always have wished peace; ever we have gone to war Reluctantly, never have we gone to war without success. We don't pick fights-but when we fight we fight. These are comforting re- Elections to the American upon this side who shas seen this sanguinary struggle at close hand, who has seen the mud and strain and waste and death along the firing lines, who has heard the crashing of air bombs above civil ian populations and wondered when a charge of high explosive would destroy his own roof-tree and family. But they must not make us feel superior.
 I myself have heard buildings falling on three sides of my hotel in Paris dur ing an air raid, have heard them fall on two hides of my home in London during an air raid. I was aboard the Sussex" when she was wrecked by a torpedo and within 15 minutes saw the cold sea full of drowning babes and women, close at hand but quite beyond i. the reach of any aid which could be of fered. But America as whole has been spared, mercifully, these experiences.
 It is my firm belief that you in the United States who read about the peace conference cannot by any stretch of the imagination estimate it's real import ance to humanity as those on this side will be able to. You can guess 1t in the abstract only, and indefinitely. It will be less a personal thing to you and perhaps to the American delegates than 1t will be to European citizens and Eu- ropean delegates And so it will be cas- Ter for you to think of it with calm, perhaps to be entirely fair.
 fa n vn1 yUh val who have that marvellous opportunity access to a printing press, write; you who can get audiences preach that the peace which shall come out of the meet ing at Versailles shall be a real and not a mock peace, that it shall be a peace backed up by guarantees, that it shall be a peace which will destroy old hatreds and create no new ones, that the American delegates who help to frame it may be given understanding, Knowledge and above all things pa tience.
 A TIME FOR PRAYER
 In all the churches of war-bitten Italy, one Sunday. just about year ago q happened to be there), prayers were said petitioning that Italy might win the war. Now, let prayers be said through all America that the whole world may win the peace,
 War is full of glory in so far as it cAAeis iIcqucHt opportunity TOT the aDne- gation of the individual. his elevation to the spirit of self-sacrifice for common good; but war is far from glorious This war has been. in fact a scrdid. horrid vicious thing It should be Americas 8 nnwavering resolve that the peace which shall, conclude it. shall be beautiful com plete, safeguarded And the thing which believe it is important to remember is that this must be the firm resolve not bnly or the delegates, but of the peopfe back at home.
 It is no shame to the American to feel that his great nation ever has been first Become Thin