The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1918-03-09
MIN, WOMEN
AND THINGS

embalmed in the encyclopedias.
Take the four words, "a scrap of pa
per" This was the summing up of the
great German chancellor's argument as
to why Engand's ambassador at the
Kaiser's court should show England the
foolishness of fighting to prevent the inn
perial war machine from marching on its
conquering way to Paris through Bel
GUM
It seemed inconceivable to the modern
Teuton mind as voiced by it's represent
alive spokesman that Just for a word
neutrality-a word which, in wartime,
had so often been disregarded; just for
scrap of paper Great Britain was going
to make war" Germany was willing to
throw to the winds her plighted word.
scrap of paper! This phrase, applied
with shrug of the shoulder and SNUG
smile Of unfeigned wonder is destined to
stick like Nessus shirt to the memory
of the unfortunate Won Bethmann Hol-
veg it's author, his imperial master
w lllldnly anu 10 0eT1ndn1d until SUCH
time as history will last as the indict-
ment of a Satanic kultur, which sought
to overturn the underlying morality upon
which civilization was built
l can never forget the impression that
the Illuminating work, Ancient Law"
of Sir Henry Maine made on me when
Sc
ago. I saw in it as never before the
long road which had been Travelled by
man from status to contract. 1t opened
before me as in vision that the primal
source of the inner cohesive force which
holds the elements of society together is
faith in the plighted word. Destroy con-
tracts and you dissolve the cement which
binds organized society.
A mans word should be his bond, but
for. permanent record contracts are
made in the business world and treaties
between nations. Millions in Wall street
pass safely at the nod of head, for
who goes back on even the dumb man
ual is placed outside the pale and can
never again trade on the stock exchange.
The business of the country is undergirt
with credit because men rely on credit
and contracts.
Shall it be said that when we get out
OF the range of private morals into the
higher atmosphere of national morality
that the Sermon on the Mount is out of
date and that the Ten Commandments
are suspended? 1t brings up the whole
question of right and wrong and sets
up the dicta that while an individual
good book, a state to advance it's am
billions can unloose it's plainest precepts
and twist them into compliance with it's
necessities.
DIR. E. j. Dillon, one of the acutest
students of international affairs, wrote
in 1911, "Since Europeanism was killed at
Sedan and buried at Frankfort on-the-
Main, over 40 years ago, international
treaties have been steadily losing their
binding force" This showed remarkable
provision in the light of what happened
in the summer of 1914 by the masters OF
diplomacy in Wilhelmstrasse when they
tore in pieces treaty with Belgium and
flung it at the feet of England with
sheer and a threat.
! The mask was torn from the face of
Prussian statecraft, and she stands be-
fore the bar of justice today with as bad
case as was ever staged in modern
times, for she strikes with mailed fist
in unfolding policy of blood and iron"
and fights a crude, naked might struggle.
in which war lust and brute force are
pitted against the sacred and impre-
scriptabe rights that. according to DR..
Dillon lie at the verp tap roots of Or
ganized society. It's bad enough for her
to wage an unrighteous war of conquest
without disappearing by pretending that
hers is a righteous cause, and that she
is but an instrument in the hands of
God to spread a kultur that will replace
the gospels.
Kaiserism went mad with the obsession
that Germania was above law when any
peoples stood between her and her right
full place Sin the SUM-" She is giving the
world lesson writ in blood that woe be
unto any nation. small or great. who
casts a shadow on her ambitions to rule
Europa. Treaties may be alright for
weaker nations, but Germany having the
nowar will call tharn .sscranS NJ na par',
and tear them up at will.
Now, let's get it into our minds that
Germanys entrance into the world war
was not an accident of diplomacy. which
could have been smoothed over. Ger
many went into battle array because she
had made war her chiefest aim for a
half-century, and felt that der tag"
had arrived when she was ready to go
on her plundering way of Pan-German-
ism, because she felt that she was ready
and her neighbors were helpless to stay
her robber hands.
Does any sensible student of history be-
lieve for one moment that Germany
would have taken up arms because a
Serbian student fired shot that killed
the crown prince of Austria and by
tearing up sacred treaty arouse Europe
unless she was firm in the belief that
had struck and that at last she had
within her grasp the dream of empire,
which had haunted her ever since she