The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1919-08-29
@shall the Conquered Conquer 2"

4
thwarted in her ambitious designs
for world dominion, all hopes TO
military success forever gone, Ger
many signed the peace treaty in &C
acknowledgement of her Inundated ant
conquered state. According to E. v
Cooke in the Asheville Times: "Sht
signs it with the pen who thought
to sign it with the sword! Blood OF
her veins and golden gains she free
ly, vainly poured, and prestige she
had coveted and honors she had
stored, yet day by day her shame and
guilt grew like Jonah's gourd, till
now she signs it with pen who
hoped to use the sword"
The allies gained all that they set
out to gain-Germany's complete
overthrow and final military defeat.
Her army is conquered, her navy sur
rendered, but what of her ideals, her
policies, her principles? Does it not
yet remain to be seen whether or
not they shall finally triumph? Does
not history give numerous instances
of conquered people being tho final
victors with their principles and
ideals where their army and navy
failed? Is not principle stronger
than an army or even more powerful
than the nation behind that army?
And may not an ideal be somewhat
unconsciously transmitted and adopt
ed by the victorious people who re-
ceived that Same ideal from the van
pushed ones? And If that were true,
could we not in that way say that
the conquered finally conquered?
When the Romans met the Greeks
for a military decision on the field
of battle they easily overcamc them,
carrying some of them back to Rome
as slaves. They destroyed their
armies, they succumbed to their
principles. The ideas that these
slaves carried with them regarding
democracy, liberty and freedom
might have had in them some of the
germs that started the crumbling of
the great Roman system with it's
widespread boundaries. No power
full centralized empire could stand
secure when once its subjects became
infused with such ideals and customs
as the Greeks possessed. Their reli-
gion, pagan thought it was, became
so confused with that of the Greeks
that 1t lost the power and influence
that it had once held upon them.
Their customs, laws, language and
architecture also changed, becoming
more. and more like that of the
Greeks. The same fact is true in the
later case when the Germanic tribes
overran the Western Roman Empire,
beginning in 375 A. d. The princi-
pies of liberty, equality and fraterni-
ty, developed during the French Rev.
olution, were sooner and more
effectively spread over the en-
tire European continent by Ma
poleon's armies than could have
been otherwise. These armies, SO
dazzlingly victorious in the beginning
met their final and complete defeat
at Waterloo. But some of Napoleon's
pa1infno fhAAriac itYC
thoroughly alive and active to-day
as they were during his own lifetime.
All of which is sufficient ground for
saying that ideals, whether they be
right or wrong, never die. Further
more it is safe to say, in the light of
past events, that the conquered some
times finally conquer. If not entire
ly, at least partially so.
Perhaps it would be unfair to say
that Germany is altogether respon-
sible for certain existing principles
that have been proven to be so obious,
for all of these have at least been
present, If not noticeable, in the life
of all people of all times, but it may
be said, truthfully and justly, that
she has fostered some of these as has
no other nation. Among those that
brought about her military disaster,
and that are now threatening her
former enemies, are greed, militarism
and selfishness; all springing from
and growing out of materialism, a
dangerous and powerful enemy of
nations and individuals alike. Greed
iD another name for profteering, an
evil that is now a menacing one to
every civilized nation of the world.
Before it's terrific blast the policy of
Give and let live" seems to be bowling
and bending almost to the breaking
point. From it has arisen our COM
pick high cost of living problem and
from that in turn has come agitations
to something fraught with dangerous
Ssibhities-tendencies to Bolshe-
vism. The spirit of militarism has
already begun to show itself in this
us hope ineffectively.
From an editorial of the Memnhis