Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1919-12-08

lions and the defense of law and order
Is the fundamental doctrine of our
creed. Happily, the cloud of war
which for so long threatened to en-
gulf the world has passed: but for the
man who loves his American citizen
ship, whose spine thrills at the sound
Of our national anthem, and whose
pulse auickens at the sight OF the
American flag floating unchallenged In
the air of freedom, there is still work
to perform whose solemnity and i'm
portance are as great as the fate1ui
tasks of war itself.
, Tapped in the false security Of our
latent strength and continental isola-
ton, our people were slow to realze
that the mad beast which had sprung
at the throat of European civilization
was planning the ultimate satisfaction
of its greed by feasting upon our own.
Like giant slowly uncoilins its great
strength for the launching of thun-
derbolt. America accepted the chal-
lenge and entered the war. Led by
worthy member of our order, General
Pershing, a great army, fighting upon
the fields of Flanders and of France,
and dauntless navy, riding unafraid
across the yawning caverns of the
sea, worthily performed Americas part
in beating back the deadly thing which
had cast itself upon the world and Of
vindicating the right of free men to
live their lives, according to their de-
sires and to shape their governments
in the manner nearest to their hearts
MONSTER OF DisLoYALTY.
But the lurid flames of war had
scarcely faded from the eastern Sky
ere we became painfully conscious Of
the fact that the hydra -headed demon
Of disloyalty had taken advantage Of
the disturbed conditions which the war
had wrought to plant itself in our
midst, and that it was animated by the
thinly yelled hope that in the confu-
sion incident to Ahe period of read
justment following the war, it would
be able to create a condition of chaos
In which the wrecking Of our govern
mental institutions could be accom-
plished. The realization of this fact
came as an electric shock to loyal
Americans everywhere. For members
of our order, 1t has served as a call to
duty.
II sometimes feel that the highest
honor we can pay to our departed dead
consists not in the erection Of monu
ments which shall tower to heaven in
their memory, or in the writing of
graceful eulogies to portray their serv-
ices to mankind, but that it consists
in so shaping our lives to to make
them the highest possible reflection of
the man whom duty and honor paint
upon the background of our noblest
thought. This ideal man must always
have within him the shining soul of
a real American. With head erect and
with unfaltering eye, he must stand
first, last and always for the United
Of al LVNx. h II
be no divided allegiance. Whether nat
uralized or native born, he is an Amer
lean citizen whose heart beats with
pride in contemplating his country and
its achievements. .
AMERICAN IDEALS.
He thinks of it as the land of hope
and the land Of opportunity, the land
where men are honored not for what
they are but for what they do In his
country the idler and the social slack
err have no recognized place, rank does
not reside in wealth, in birth or in po-
sition, and lasting public honor is
never Won eyeept through unselfish
public service. Here government is of
and by and for the people. To estab-
fish the truth of this statement, no
matter how vigorously or how fire.
quently it may be denied, nothing need
be adduced beyond the fact that he
whose utterance it was was here raised
by God through the paths of ordered
freedom SO characteristic of this re-
public from humble rail splitter to
be president of the United States and
to save, in the greatest crisis We have
ever known, the Union which the ia
theirs had ordained and established.
Do not the people rule, and does not
equal opportunity exist, in land
where the poorest may become the
richest and the humblest the highest p"