Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-11-12
THE DAWN OF PEACE

59H Inc sun IS rising. me DAY OF peace is odWnInS.
The worlds night of agony is almost over-almost. but
not quite, for the beneficent orb whose rim appeared
above the eastern horizon SO early this morning has not
risen high enough in the heavens to dispel all clouds
and darkness that have lowered over the world since Au-
gust, 1914.
The armistice is merely the beginning Of peace.
It is the warrant that fighting between the great armies
is over, that complete victory for the Allies has forever
extinguished imperial Germanys dream of world dom
ination, that the democracies of the world are now TO
have free hand to settle the terms on which the world
is to live. .
In the relief and joy of this wonderful moment,
the greatest moment in human history, let us not forget
that we are also facing the gravest tasks that civilizatsop"
has ever undertaken. The reconstruction of the war
torn world is OF a complexity and difficulty that stagger
the imagination. Yet the tremendous energy and re-
sourcefulness that the war has developed in the free
peoples will be equal to it. They have all become acute
~ conscious of powers of whose possession they did not
dream before the war.
The permanence of peace on earth is now the dear
est wish of suffering humanity. How to abolish war
for good and all-that is the problem. The fact that
Germany has at last been beaten to the ground in a,
purely military victory so overwhelmingly that autocrats
everywhere are hunting their holes, is seemingly a sufi-
cient guaranty that autocracy has been banished from
the earth.
But the pendulum under such conditions tends to
swing to the other extreme of the arc. The menace Of
Bolshevism raises its dark and bloody head. Will the
German people, trained from birth to respect law and
order, be able to resist the temptation that has dragged
the less civilized and more inpulsive Russians into an
archy: Will orderly governments of the people rise
on the ruins of the autocratic regimes. or must there be,
as in France Of the Revolution, in Russia Of the soi-
wade through blood to achieve true democracy? +.
The danger is imminent. 1t suggests that the
American armies in Europe will have much to do before
they are all returned home. Did they not go over to stay
till it was lover over there? Since our Allies will be
more or less occupied with domestic reconstruction. and
since there will be less feeling against the disinterested
Americans than against soldiers of European powers.
1T is quite likely that our troops will have to police Ger
many, Austria, Hungary, Turkey and Russia to a large
extent for months that may stretch into several years.
AS it fell to the lot Of America to come to the res
cue Of freedom in the very nick Of time. and to play her
part sturdny from Chateau Thierry to st. Mihiel and
-SStenay, so now it may be Americas role to restrain the
/ excuses Of Bolshevism that the freedom she helped
Tlutism even more destructive than autocratic absolutlsm.
Here at home, too, there is much to be done.
America must still save food and fuel and money, that
she may play her part Of good Samaritan to the stricken
world. She must also set her own house in order, so
that the Great Republic may offer an example of sue
cessful democracy to the peoples. freed from age-long
tyranny, that are now setting their feet tfmidly in the
paths Of Journal.