The Cordova daily times., 1919-02-12
THE ENDLESS WAR.


 file in woe for humanity, military combats come to an end. And when they terminate the builders, patient, long-suffering, devoted and consci- entious, shoulder the burdens i'm nosed by the warriors and begin slowly and painfully to remake the world.
 But always the wrecker is at hand to war on the builder. Always the disintegrating forces of society begin to corrode the monuments of endur- ing gold or brass.
 The worlds biggest war has ended and the hewers of wood and drawers of water haves commenced again their loyal tasks And as never before the wreckers, with derisive shouts and dark menaces, have mobilized to stay the hand of progress.
 Never before have the wreckers been so bold. In other times they worked secretly, ratlike, undermining the social and economic fabric. To- day they mass in armies and call themselves Bolsheviki or Industrial Workers of the World.
 These are the conscious wreckers. But almost as destructive are the un- conscious wreckers-the men who never gave vent to an anarchistic threat, never voiced a radical doc- Urine, never formed any theory or revolution and reconstruction, but who, wars being ended, give them selves over to sloth. .a
 The wreckers and builders, the speeders and the drones are at war.
 We have heard moving panegyrics of Americas achievements in the war and we shall hear them again and again. They will tell to us and repeat to the coming generations a story beside which the lamp of Allad- in becomes mere flickering and smoking taper Something astound- ingly titantic was the feat of Ameri- can energy and determination. The Hun had almost won the war, had made almost secure his title to do- minion of the world, when, with an onset unapproached in history, Ameri- can ships and men hurled him into the abyss.
 It was an apotheosis of momentum Never had speed accomplished so much. But now deadening inertia has taken hold of many They will not strive in peace as they did in war.
 It would require the character and the eloquence of another Roosevelt to preach the "strenuouos life" that is esse' tial if the world is to be saved from bankruptcy, if men are to create with sufficient speed the wealth u at is to pay for the war in the form of taxes and thus lift from the worl> mortgage of hundreds of yillicls
 Before the war America had, and S )mC ines humorously boasted that it ha l, million tramps. We shall have million tramps again unless we pl each and legislate against sloth, against Playing down" for rest after the battle.
 Europe is a wreck. It is a monu- ment to the work of the wreckers who, in his instance, labored hand i-4 had with militarism. In fact, the wrec' c'lers almost won the war
 Sc ne of us were amazed to find tha' the foundations of the social structure were laid so deep. We had far cies that the blows leveled against civilization would have annihilated it's historic institutions, but the labor of the builders through thousands of years had proved too much for the Wreckers.
 The, wreckers do not admit defeat They are leading mighty hosts lin mysterious Russia against the armies of civilization They are destroying machinery in our factories, throwing sulphur bombs into the haystacks of Illinois, Utah and Oregon. They are making freak laws in our legislatures and they are charging such exorbitant prices in the marts of trade that they threaten to bring the whole financial structure about our ears. And where they are not actively wrecking they are undermining by sloth.
 If we could perform the labors of peace with the energy and speed we threw into the war ,the immediate future of the human race would be much happier than it promises to be- If we could but keep it in mind that foe as mighty as the Hun still con fronts us, if we could visualize that reality and foresee the perils that will come to us with the defeat we would retain our state councils of defense in. existence or substitute for them Sv -5. [ T 70