The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-08-05
PREMATURE PEACE

The glorious news which comes
from France. telling of how our
troops and those of our Allies have
beaten back the army of invaders
who have cursed every foot of ground
over which they have trod, may well
give heart to the nation and to all
civilization. It would, however, be a
serious mistake for US to imagine
that this means the ending of the
way from Berlin, and until the Am
erican flag flies over Berlin as a con-
quered city, and the terms of peace
are written there, and the Hohenzol-
lerns, the Hapsburgs and their lead
ers in this world horror have paid
with their own lives the penalty for
their unspeakable crimes, it would be
premature to do much shouting.
The fight is yet long and desper
ate one.
We may rest assured that before
our troops cross the Rhine and break
down the barriers ahead of us there
will be fearful losses, and we shall
have to steel our hearts to full
realization of the magnitude Of the
task.
Germany, the blacklist criminal in
the worlds history, will, through eve
.ry influence which it can exert in this
and every other country, seek to Sc
cure peace whenever it's military
leaders find that they are doomed.
We shall have peace talk from some
weak-minded ministers of the gospel,
but, thank God! their number is few.
We shall have peace talk from many
papers-some moved by pro-German
influence, some by sickly heurotic
sentiment against punishment of
crime-and wherever pro-German
deviltry can carry on its work we
may rest assured it will be done, for
many men, claiming the livery of
heaven, will be engaged in the work
of the devil.
Many will seek to create an inn
preston that Germany must not be
punished and that it's people are diff
ferent from its military leaders,
when every intelligent man who has
studied the situation now knows that
the people and the military leaders
are one and the same in the support
of this war.
The unspeakable individual crimes
which marked the movement of the
German army through Belgium and
France, crimes which blacken the
pages of human history as they were
never blackened in the past; crimes,
to recount which Secretary Lansing
recently said would sicken tiger"
were not committed individually by
the kaiser or the military leaders,
but by the people themselves in the
armies of Germany, encouraged
thereto by the military leaders as a
part of Germany's campaign of
frightfulness. These people must be
made to realize that sin must be
punished and that crime must be
atoned for or else the blood of the
millions of soldiers who have died
will have been shed in vain, and the
broken-hearted women, who have
suffered as no other women in alt
human history, will go unavenged.
Inc great DANGER WHICH laCeS Ifiio
country today is that there will be
persistent effort to bring about a
premature peace; a peace without
punishment, which, if ever made,
would be deep stain on the honor
and chivalry of this nation.
The nation which condones inter-
national crime is akin to the crimi-
nal, as the individual who condones
crime becomes in effect participa-
tor in the immortality of the criminal.
It behooves every honest-hearted
man and woman in this country to
make certain that neither in the pull
pit nor in the press nor in private
conversation shall there be the light
est word said in favor of peace until
that peace is written in Berlin, after
the criminals have paid the full meas
ure of penalty for their crimes.
"On to Berlin!" should be the UNI
ceasing demand of every honestl
hearted man and woman, and he who
does not take that view of the situa-
ton is false to all honor and false to
all civilization, it matters not who
he may be. or what his position in