The Washington herald., 1918-03-07
0bscuring the Issue.

IL is Irritating to see how one school Of politi-
cal thought has turned the into mere prov
ing ground for social and economic experimental
ton. In the agony of the nations these thinkers
see chiefly an opportunity of bargaining with
destiny and exchanging old worlds for new. They
like vivisectonists who are caous to suffering
in their splendid scientific enthusiasm for the data
that the microscope yields them. They do not
care how much blood is spilled provided the
lends itself to their purposes, and brings about the
order of things in which they believe.
1t would be a despairing and decadent world
indeed, which did not devoutly believe that cviliza-
ton would be chastened and purged and exalted
because of the war having been fought, and be-
cause OF the hcroism and sacrifice that it has
engendered. The moral tonic that the has been
for all nations-and particularly for our owns
conceded But that is not what these intelectuals
are thinking of at all. Heroism has place in
their lexicon The nobility of sacrifice, the
tyrdom OF the small European peoples, have no
significance for them except as they furnish mo-
mentum to the economic changes that they are
anxious to see the world adopt.
We have no quarrel with these economic
changes, although we are far from thinking that
the world will plunge headlong into socialism after
the 1t is just logical for instance, to hold
with one group OF thinkers that the miserable fail
of honest radicalism in the world for at least
generation, as to contend that the of Great
Britain and France and the United States go
ing to wreck their present political and industrial
structure after the with the ardor OF rcvou-
tionists, merely because the reveals that struc-
ture as hopelessly defective and archaic. That
the radicals going to be in the seat OF power
for long period to come is not to be doubted
But there are going to be many shades OF radi-
Il. - Il,
conservative leader as Samuel Gompers maintains
his place with labor, that is thing if Trotzky
or a Haywood Gusts him, that is horse of an
other color altogether. Russia slipped from the
sane liberalism of Lvof and Miliukoff to the mod
crate socialism OF Kerensky, and then made the
descent to Avernus with Lenine and Trotzky. 1t
is impossible to believe that, matter how long
the war lasts matter how restless the peoples
become no matter what dangerous anarchic forces
unloosed, the Western democraclcS Will care to
make the same journey
But discussion OF the world-tobe after the
war is not our purpose. 1t is the dangerous ten
dency OF certain radicals to oricntate the conflict
merely as a convenient sprngboard for collectivist
propaganda that we are thinking about These
men would throw aside the moral and spiritual
quality OF the war altogether. They have con-
ception of the struggle crusade in the defense
OF human rights. They have no quarrel with the
PrusSIan Ided with the HunniSh violence against
which the world is fighting with head bloody, but
unbowed" They see Germanic menace. They
see the war merely as a new and unusually violent
chapter in the evolutionary process OF economies
they even rejoice in it because it is forcing readust-
ments which in the normal conditions OF peace
times would take decades to bring about.
Is it possible that these folk believe the anguish
of France the fiery trial of Italy, the sturdy un-
flinching courage OF the Engish-spcaking peoples,
is endured merely to establish new economic pro-
gram in the world? Do they not know that the
war is against brute force against criminal autoc-
racy against the foulest bit of paganism that the
world has seen for centuries? Take the Crusade
quality out of the war, and there is nothing left
save something similar to what Christianity would
be without Christ in it The morale of all the
heroes in the trenches would be endangered if it
came in contact with the materalist philosophy OF
some OF our radicals