Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1919-04-16
cles now being multiplied and exagger-
ated rather than minimizei.

America has taken all the conflicting
strains Of Europe and has combined
them into the American blend. It has
produced homogeneity out Of a mass
which in Europe remains heterogeneous,
to that continents constant peril.
America has pointed the world the way
to the true Internal ionalism, the sub
ordination Of racial and religious and
class and caste lines to the national
ideal, the common sense ideal Of COM
mon interest and common safety and
common progress.
Travel from the Atlantic to the Pa
cffic and from the Lakes to the Gulf
and one will find In this country pop
ulation which on the whole looks alike,
talks alike and thinks alike. What has
been achieved here is little less than a
miracle, when it is remembered that
our sources of population run into
every quarter Of the globe, and partic-
ularly into every community in Europe.
It has been demonstrated by the readi-
ness with which peoples slough off their
age-old prejudices and characteristics,
and mingle with the general current of
American civilization, that the barriers
erected between peoples and localities
and classes in Europe are artifcially
maintained.
Travel few hours in Europe and
one will come face to face with half
dozen complete and many partial differ
entiations Of peoples; differences *ex-
tending even to physical and mental |
characteristics. Europe is separatist in
the extreme sense. This tendency is
manifest even within nations. There
are such differences in dialect among
the peasants even of little England, that
the inhabitants of some counties with
difficulty understand the inhabitants of
other counties Scotland, Wales, Ire
land, these tell story of stubborn
clinging to ancient tongue, custom, ira
dition and prejudice.
This separator this aloofness of
Europe, extends to the whole social and
political order. Political formations
are stratifed, and ossified. The peas
antry, the middle class, the aristocracy,
the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the
junker,-these are terms which reflect
the information tendency toward sep,
arateness, and as these numerous ma
lions, with their racial and dynastic
and territorial and trade rivalries and
hatreds, have long glared at each other
across their borders, and meanwhile
trained armies and navies for the bust
ness they knew was coming, so these
separate classes have been in a state
either of armed neutrality or of civil
war.
Europe has had, not too little, but
too much self determination of peoples.
Where this hiving system has been most
thorough the Balkans, the trouble
started. Servia, Montenegro Albania,
Bulgaria, Roumania, Greece and Tur-
key in Europe carried on the curtain
raisers for the great war. These wars
were fought with savagery beyond
our comprehension, and when the gov
ernments involved were too poor to buy
modern armament, the fight was car
ried on with primitive weapons until
populations had been decimated. There
was fundamental reason for this, in
dependent of the historic causes. No
one of these countries is big enough, or
strong enough, or well governed enough,
to possess economic independence.
Sovereign politically, they have been
unable to find at home the soil, or the
resources, or the play for enterprise
and labor, necessary to an independent
national existence.
The processes of modern civilization
have SO tremendously decreased dis
lance that Europe has become like. a
crowded tenement; each family more
or less nuisance to its strongly indi-
vidualized neighbor. The system Eu-
rope attempts to maintain Of a
country, flag, language and civil
ization for each tribe or tong, has col
lapsed. National boundaries have tex-
banded to the bursting point under the
pressure for independent national 'ex-
istence. Germany, armed to the teeth,
wanted more territory and especially
more markets obtainable only over the
dead bodies Of PROSTATE neighbors,-
and so the war began.
A century and third ago the United
States Of America achieved political In
dependence cut loose from Europe and
Europe's rivalries and hatreds, just as
much menace to peace today as they
were when Washington and Jefferson
declared the determination Of the new
republic to avoid alien entanglements.
Political freedom attained, the fathers
of the republic set out to achieve the
economic independence Of the nation,
through protective legislation, fostering
domestic manufacturing and agricul-
tural interests, through the develop