The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1919-06-20
Fooling Mankind Now Is Like
Hunting For Dime With Cam
dies In A Powder House.

in the ointment of profits: but the
plain people, the working and farming
masses whose toll has to pay the bills;
they grow sick and white at the mere
word of it.
No one can really know that feel
ing except one that was in and about
the bombarded regions while the war
was on or passed with intimate OBJ
servation through the devastated
countryside. The ceaseless terror,
the sense of utter helplessness before
huge, primal, ravening, savage mon
ster, the blood, the ruins, the manned
men, the depleted households, the in
sanity-breeding uproar that never
stopped night or day, the air raids,
the sullen boom of great shells against
mems dwellings,, the she'll -ploughed
fields, the mad red dream that never
let up--the soul Of Europe, which is
its toiling men and women, came to
hunger and thirst and pant for peace.
Seven months have passed since the
armistice began and yet the treaty of
peace for which Europe throbs is not
made. Day after day the longing for
it has grown more intense in these
hearts, SO poorly represented in the
peace conference. They long to see
the world restored, industry resumed,
and so far as possible the wreckage
of their lives repaired. They long for
some promise that the hell they have
been through shall not come to them
again
All their hopes and all their chances
are bound up in this treaty of peace
Aside from Germany and her man
oeuvers, the governments of Europe
viii sign it on the spot.
The only possibility of its defeat
and of the overthrow of the peoples
hopes is in the senate of the United
States.
If it goes down to defeat there it
is killed for all the world and we
should understand clearly that in the
fathomless despair that would come
upon the European masses anything
might happen. All reasoning men
that know the tense situation will
agree that there are no bounds to the
disaster that might sweep across the
continent.
What is that to US? We do not
live in Europe. No corner of the pow
der house stretches over here. The
people of this country will not rise
in revolt, no matter what becomes of
the treaty.
True. But the interests of this
country are just as much involved as
if the fireworks hung over our heads
also.
To take the lowest possible view Of
it, we cannot have chaos in Europe
without having disaster here. Let
the commercial organization be over
thrown there and the concussion blows
down our houses here. Chaos in
Europe would pull the cornerstones
out of the arch of business credits
everywhere. Instantly it would cut
off the bulk of our foreign trade. The
first news of it would start long trains
of bankruptcies, commercial disasters
and industrial disturbances beyond
anything we have ever known.
The world of commerce in these
days is too closely interviewer and in
terbraced. The ruin of any great part
of it shakes every other part of it.
But beyond all this we have an
other and much higher interest at
stake. We waged an unselfish war
for worthy purpose, that democ-
racy should survive and not perish.
Revolution in Europe of the kind that
threatens now would obliterate the
objects for which we made sacrifice
and made it only because those OBJ
jects were and are dearer to us than
any others. The only possible out.
come of revolution in Europe now
would be vast reaction and the resur.
rection of that autocracy that begar
to be shot to pieces at Cantigny anc
Belleau Woods.
Then are we to be frightened intc
signing treaty merely because the
people of Europe are hotter headed
than we are?
No sir. 1t isn't t-headedness thai
makes the trouble, but profounc
Iconviction reached deliberately from
the most terrific experience evel