Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-09-17
WHAT ARE WE GOING TODD ABOUT 1T?

By E. E. HARTMAN, of the vigilantes.
This war will end some day. Some folks are
already planning what they will do after it is
over. Are we?
I read the other day that the German and
Austrian prisoners now in Russia had resolved
almost to a man. that they would not go back to
their former homes when the war ended but
would emigrate to the United States and Can
ada What will our twin countries say to them?
Come right along, brother! Make yourself at
home. Take this chair: 1t has higher back and
thicker cushion. Have glass of ice-cold beer with
me. I'll tell the wife and she will cook up a mess
OF sausage and make some biscuits and open her
best canned fruit for you. Let me adjust this
stool under your trench shoes and offer a cigar to
while away the time till the dinner is ready"
Will talk like that? Oh will we?
If we do | shall start out a hike into the
frozen north and begin to live whale steaks and
seal blubber
Isn't it about time for US to begin to plan?
Should go with Ohr job of licking the
Hun and never look ahead to the time when he
is going to become an economic question? Should
let things slide till he is on the sea- coming
over in any old bottom that he rake up, pre-
pared to grab off lot of new world coin and land
and help us make our laws nice and easy for the
Hun at home?
Or will we tell the Hun in Europe to get inside
the Hunnish lines and stay there, while he works
out his salvation? Shall we say to the Hun
who being in America and enjoying its advan-
tages, has elected to go back to Hunland and join
in the frightfulness that has been the backbone
of Kaiser Bits plan, that it than
should be expected and he is welcome to come
home to us?
Shall open internment camps and let
them spew out upon land the rotten messes
they hold? Having clean dish and whole
some food, shall defile it with propagandists
and spies and enemy agents? Having made
bed with clean sheets and p1owslips and blankets,
shall turn the covers back and let the wal
lowing swine from the roadside mudhole creep
within?
There is only line of conduct that
follow with honor and common sense, and that
is the line that will keep our bed and food and
home clean The line that will maintain the pur-
ity that have attained through the refining by
fire We must say to the Hun in Europe, in Amer
lea, in Asia, anywhere he may be found
"Get to work within the confines of your
country! Build up and purify your land. Purge
it of the filth that clogs its spirit Wash it clean
of the evil it has chung to so long. Refine it with
years OF sacrifice and earnest work for the right
Then, after the leaven has worked and passing
decades have carried away the last grain of the
old devsh doctrines and beliefs, then it is pos
sible that the nations may grant you amnesty and
let you go out through the world at large once
more. It is up to you. Get to work on yourself"
Letting the Hun wander at will after this war
is over will be like leaving the line of fuse burn
ing and merely cutting off the dead end after the
spark had crawled inward toward the magazine
Allowing him to have the same old freedom to
come to our shores would be foolish, and as
disastrous in the end it would be to smother
fire with cotton loosely piled.
President Wilson and his advisers have a
great many matters to handle and many questions
to decide. Let not leave them to do all the