The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-04-21
THE WAR AS A MEMORY.

It requires an almost violent mental ef- fort to realize that the war is matter of history; that it belongs to the same category of events as the Persian War, the Pepopon- nesian War, the Saracenic Wars, the Wars of the Roses, the Revolutionary War, the Napo- leonic War, the Civil War. It is no longer being carried on; it is finished. It is nothing now but matter of memory. It has taken its place in the long and complicated series of finished events which compose the story of the life of man upon this planet.
 "The war is overw At certain hour on the l1th day of Nov., 1o18 and at certain minute, the clock ticked and the terrible con- hict between more than two score of armed nations ceased as if by magic. Somebody had fired the last shot, the last soldier had been slain the last tank had groveled thru the mud, the last airship had downed its antagonist in the sky, the last submarine had stabbed its victim in the sea. The reverberations have not died away, but they are only echoes, for the lightning flash has passed, the bolt has struck. All that remains is the rolling away of the storm cloud and the dying of the roar ings
 It is true that the treaty of peace has not been signed, but the flames cannot be kinded from the remaining coals. The forces hich produced the terrible explosion can no more be reassembled and recharged than those of bursted bomb. The war is over! That in- evitable "6nis" which is appended to the record of all human events has been written at the close of this the greatest of them all Once more the past has engulfed the present in its unsuitable maw.
 The past is dead. It has no resurrec- tion. Over it, so far, at least, as the human mind can conceive, even Almighty God can exercise no power. And as for man, how impotent is he! The kaiser and his war lords have made their footprints on the sands of time and can no more erase them than those prehistoric birds which set their careless feet upon the slowly hardening sands by the shore of the sounding sea. "I have writ my name in water" Keats lamented. They have writ their names and deeds upon a scroll from which they can never be erased.
 And so have the heroes who have died in the defense of liberty! The envious hand of Time cannot erase them. The envious tooth of Time cannot devour them.
 How strange it seems that the four years horror has ended; that we cannot say of the war "it is," but only that "it was;" that when we talk about it we can recall it only by an effort of remembrance
 Yes, the war is a memory, but what a memory! A memory of dastardly cruelties, of infamous deceptions, of hours and days and months of dreadful apprehension, but also of heroic opposition, of indomitable determi- nation, of supreme self-sacrifice for liberty, for justice and for truth; of suddenly awaken ed hope, and finally of victory SO glorious as to fill the world with joy .
 The News-Miner recently printed story to the effect that the canvassing board had awarded the certificate of election to MT. Sulzer the day preceding his death. The fact is, according to Citizen despatch from Jul neau, the certificate was issued only yesterday and was forwarded to the clerk of the house. of representatives at Washington.
 Congressman Curry, chairman of the committee on territorial affairs in the next house, pays the late MT. Sulzer splendid tribute. Words of appreciation are never out of place when spoken concerning the dead, but they cannot entirely wipe out the mark of the stone cast at their object while alive.
 The celebration of victory did not end with the firing of pistols on the night the arr mistice was announced last November Pur- chasing Victory Loan bonds is more like a noise than shooting gun. Be- sides, the benefits are more lasting both to the :elebrant and the government. II