The Alaska daily empire., 1918-01-03
AMERICAS WAR WACED FOR FREEDOM Some of Deeper Causes which Lie Behind It
 Are Explained by
 RedfieId. MENACE TO MANKIND German ObeSSion to Rule the World Must Be
 Crushed Out for
 Good.
MENACE TO MANKIND

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3.-Secre tary of Commerce Redfield, in an address before the Scranton (Pa.) ) board of trade on the question of the war, taking for his subject What Lies Deepest?" said, in part:
 It can hardly be needful to re- cite the various phases which led, step by step, to our taking our in- evitable part in the struggle. The series of great state papers by the President and the Secretary of State that the world read with ad- miration and with growing con- viction give sound reasons for our course. The series of shocking events out of which these state ments arose were sufficient call to arms. If ever nation had just speak to one another on this theme without mental reserves. We stand as those who are thrice blest, hay ing their quarrel just, of the deeds done, we do well to fight.
 Deeper Cauce Behind.
 Behind these more visible provo cations to war, there lies deeper cause The things we saw and see are but the outward and visible signs of an inward and dominant evil. The things at which we shudder, the hideous facts of so- called frightfulness, bad as they are, are not the worst. The war carried on in very truth by Germany within >our own borders while out wardly friendly, having it's center and home in the German Embassy and it's field of action in every great city, was not the deepest of fense at which we might take alarm. Far more serious than either is the thing of which these are but the evidence-the presence in the world of the malign power that gave them birth. The dispatch from Argentina that suggested sinking without trace" the delib- crate destruction of the Lusitania, long planned in advance, the at tacks on hospital ships, the bru- children, the contempt for a ma tion's pledged word, these are quite enough to stir men to deep resent | ment, aye to fear lest these things continue. They are sufficient to arouse the Nations wrath. But just as the Creator is greater than the thing created, as any cause is greater than it's effect, so is the evil spirit out of which these things arise far more deadly and danger themselves. For we know that ! these crimes are not accidental but deliberate.
 Great movements, whether for good or evil, reveal themselves slowly. It took long years for the wrong of slavery to seep into the | conscience of the Nation. The flow of deep waters is more power full than that of brawling brooks; it is also more silent. The ideal of democracy for free people has had thousand years of growth, and is not yet full grown. Men are slow to see the almost invisible powers which carefully conceal themselves through long evolution behind what seem small things but which point to one purpose. The world has long heard of Pan-Germanism but anything so extreme as it ap- peared to be made no appeal to our common sense. The publicists of France and England gave little heed to the voices which here and there pointed out it's dangers.
 Yet all the while the cruel phil osophy of blood and iron, the de. liberate teaching that war, that theft, that lying had every sane tion when performed in the ser vice of the state; the conception of frightfulness as normal and proper in its most extreme forms if the interests of the state so desired; the hideous conceits that one nation stood supreme over others in intel lectual and moral power carried so far that its votaries talked of a German God; these things com bined with marvellous power, in or ganization. with skill in science, with a genius for research. and im- bned with ruthlessRess which raakad mt of human main nr life