The daily commonwealth. (Greenwood, Leflore Co., Miss.) 1916-1919, 1919-04-08

"HelInlIS majority IN the contest Tor
minor state officers. The prohibition
amendment proposed to legalize the
sale of light wine and beer.
ington had. You know Washington
was the greatest man this country
ever produced, l will not call him a
politician because l have not got the
kind of courage l am trying to wish
on to these other politicians. l have
an idea that this audience has not the
same respect for politician that l
have, and so l am afraid to call the
Father of his country, politician,
just as / would fear to call Woodrow
Wilson a politician, regardless of
what the facts might be.
Washington was great by virtue of
three, suppose may call them spir-
itual qualities which were abnormal
ly developed in him. These were
judgment, integrity, and courage. No
man in all the tide of Time had great
er capacity to assay facts and by the
process of deduction to reach the
correct conclusion; what we call COM
mon sense, in fact the most uncom-
mon Of all sense. To use an express
sion which we see much in the pap
ers today. "he had vision" In addi-
sion to this perhaps better than this,
ne was honest. I mean by that he had
intellectual integrity. Shakespeare
says "get thee glass eyes and like a
scurvy politician seem to see the
things thou dost not" 1t seems from
this that politicians did not stand
much better in Shakespeare's time
than they do today. Well Washing
ington did not have any glass eyes.
He sought only to use the eyes which
God gave him to see with, and not
to seem to see the things he did not
l wish to God his counterpart were
living among US to-day. If ever this
old world needed the counsel and lead
ership Of men who do not look through
glass eyes and seem to see things they
DO not, that need is here today.
Five years ago the craftsmanship of
the. sword. was put to the test and
failed it. Five years of blood and
strife and misery unspeakable have
been the price of the failure. For
proletariat of Russia has had its face
ground by the ruthless and despotic
heel of autocracy. But of those years
of suffering and oppression has come
what Valiant for Truth called "green
headed ignorance" Led by fanatical
demagogues they know nothing but
the long story of their wrongs and
like a mad man escaped from his
dungeon, they assume that every man
they meet purposes to return them to
the warden What will the harvest
be. Four months ago the Hohenzol-
lern dynasty ended; the Imperial
German Government passed hence,
and that mighty army which for four
long and bloody years had defied a
world in arms was beaten upon the
battlefield. Yet there is no peace.
Every cabinet in Europe which has
not already been engulfed is looking
with anxious eyes toward the horizon
above which is rising the distorted
ana foIbiGdirg face of Boishevism.
# Peace does not come soon to raise
the blockade and open the door for
bread as we'll as the door of hope for
the Central Empires, there is grave
danger that the order loving elements
in those great states may in sheer
despair yield up the reins to the spir-
it's of destruction. Democracy fol-
lowing autocracy, socialism following
democracy: Bolshevism following So
cialism; and the Red leader when he
falls, will, if he can, bring down all
Europe IN crash, to grace his fall
and make his ruin, glorious.
A few days ago man came to my
home in Greenvi!le. He was Syrian
but naturalized citizen of America.
He knew l was a congressman but
he did not understa III the limitations
of my authority. He begged me most
piteously to get him a passport to
Beirut. He had not been able to hear
from his PEOPLE over there for several
years, but he had been sending money
hoping it would in some way reach
them. Last week he received be-
lated letter telling him that his moth
er, three sisters, his brother, his broth
er's wife and their two children were
all dead of starvation. He wanted the
cue from a similar fate the three sur
many multiplied thousands of similar
Instances throughout the length and
breadth of war torn and blood soaked
Europe today. This too in wo-.d
blessed with sunshine and with shot,
er to fructify the earth and cause it
to bring forth in abundance, if only
men are permitted to cultivate it in
peace. This is war and the fruits OF
wsr, and how we should pray to the
God of Nations that those who 81:
around the Peace Table today, may be
so guided and inspired in their great
work that grim visaged war may nev.
er again rear his wrinkled front.
We are told that when the shepherds
saw the light Of strange beauty and
heard the Angels sing together in the
fields about the City of David, the
words which fell from those holy lip.
were, "Glcry to God in the Highest
on Earth Peace, Good will toware
men,"
j. Surely then in this temple dedicatee
!. (Continued on Page -
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