Bisbee daily review., 1918-08-30
Too Much Optinlisns

American public that 1t IS too easily swayed by its emotions Only short quick step is needed to bridge that distance between optimism and that station that is the abid- ing place of the pessimist. We blame too quickly and we praise too highly. Hope and despondency chase each other across our minds like the shadow and sunshine across a field in summer. This Is especially so in the war A local victory is chronicled upon the western front and we say in our haste that the war will soon be over.
 How many citizens, office and business men as well as worker and clerk, read the war news carefully and thoroughly and turn to a map of Europe once in a while to learn something about the actual cause and effect of victory or defeat? Surely not many, if one should judge by the ex- pressions one hears on the streets these days And not alone in the Warren dis trict, but from every section of the country the more thoughtful writers and speakers are urging us againsct the error of an oph- mism that comes too soon and IS brighter and stronger than the war news can pos sibly warrant
  ington only last week and talked and bought supplies for his factory on the sup position that the war would soon be over. Asked upon what he based his judgment, and he replied that 1t was upon the victories Foch was winning east of Amiens. He thought the river Rhine was only few steps eastward of Foch' s advancing legions,
 If he had looked at his map he would have noted at a glance that Foch Is one hundred and sixty-five miles from the Rhine. He would have also seen that Foch has reconquered only little more than half of the French land lost this year before the German drives If he had studied the fig ures of the war, he would have known that the Germans have not yet used all their re- serves and that they had massed for another drive
 In other words, Foch has simply wrested the offensive from our enemies and is striking him some sharp blows and beating him on local sectors one after the other and driving him back to the old Hindenburg line, the line that stopped the allies dead last year and cost them so many brave men in fruitless attacks.
 It IS true that it is different this year. We may well pass the Hindenburg line in the next fortnight and force a great retreat and inflict much more severe losses. But again we may not It Is only conjecture and hope based it may be, too, upon proba- bilities. But in this war both Germans and the allies have rallied time and again from defeat and driven forward to victory. The chance, however, against the Germans be- ing able to rally again are many and dark. He lacks the men. He has no other Rus sian front from which to draw them But he IS far from beaten. No vital blow has been delivered against him. He IS not in rout or panic. He IS withdrawing hastily and is losing many men and guns, but he Is fighting savagely all along the line
 Newspapers more than week ago an nounced that Bapaume had fallen An nOunced in black headlines foot high And yet Bapaume only fell yesterday. We were held up there until the Germans could get most of their men and guns and stores away. Many times lately great newspapers have announced across their front pages the startling but unfounded facts that the allies had from two hundred to four hun dred Germans in a trap. We have never trapped more than two thousand Germans at time during the present drive. We threatened them with flanking move ment and pocket it Is true, but the threat is not the accomplishment They have al- ways fought well enough to keep the pine CTS apart