The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-04-11
No Ruler Will Dare Make Peace
Without Soldiers Sanction.
And, He Says, Men on West
Front Know What Wars About.
WILL STICK TILL WARS THRU
SfOrehOuse Employees File Past
and Shake Fighters Hand.
"Whatever You Do, Don't
Strike" Wildly Applauded.

IF you should read in your papers
today that the eastern coast of the
United States had been invaded by
German lesions. would you stand
ready to take in fifteen or sixteen of
! the refugees and feed and clothe them
for an indefinite time? Ask yourself
this question and if you can truly
answer I would then in my estima-
ton you are true patriot"
IL was the principal point of Private
| Peat's short talk to the force of the
storehouse at the Santa Fe shops early
| this afternoon. Private Peat was pre-
vailed upon to make a shorl talk at
the called meeting of the employees IN
the general offices of the storehouse
by w. A. Billy, who introduced him as
| the man who comes back from hell
/ with a smile"
| In his talk Private Peat declared
know just what they are fighting for,
and, for them, he voiced the senti-
ment that they will stick to the battle
until the Germans are given more
than taste of the horrors they have
thrust on the conquered peoples
w;lic., have fallen to their care
Neither pope. nor king. nor emper-
or, nor president" he said will dare
| 10 conclude a peace which does not
meet with the entire approval of the
men who have shed their blood on
the battlefields of France and Bel
gum No premature peace will be
| tolerated by these men and woe will
surely come to. the ruler who tries to
make g peace without consulting the
soldiers
At the close of the meeting the
grizzled and grimed soldiers of the
| shops formed in line and filed past
the crippled Canadian, each one re-
ceiving a firm clasp of Private Peat's
one good hand, his left. Not one of
the men in the shops who heard
Peats talk but went out of the
| room with determination writ large
on his countenance.
Strikers Are Traitors"
| In response to Peats appeal,
Whatever YOU do, don't strike" the
room rang with the plaudits of the
men. And Peat drove his plea home
with the explanation that an the esti-
nation of the men at the trent who
are fighting the battle breast TO breast
with the common enemy, the foment-
crS ana the strikers are c'Gssed as
i practically traitors and obstructionists
OF the worst stripe" Peat explained
now the boys in the trenche. are de
pendent on the industries at home for
the verp weapons with which they fight
and for the food which come; to their
mouths "If you must strike" pleaded
Peat. strike for one minute by the
clock and then go back to work. When
you strike over here you are killing
the boys in the trenches jus as GER
| fanny as IL you were Praying a ma
chine gun OH them. And jus. now the
boys at the front can't hit back
. After Peat left the platform w A
B1by shed his coat for action and went
into the details of the new long range
gun that the allies have built for the
devasta ton of the German empire
and the ruination of the hill which
gave Germany a place in the SUM-
Biby assured Private Peat that the
United States would be there at the
close of the war-''just like the Amer
lean who plays poker until ne has
lost his last cent and then SAYS
Well. boys here's my watch. gimme
the cards.