The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1919-11-21
Law and Order Week.

This week we are celebrating the
first anniversary of the armistice.
In the frenzy of victory one year
ago and in the consciousness that our
children who had not been killed
would not be killed, we reckoned
little of the future. We faced it with
the confidence Of youth, oblivious OF
the portentious signs.
AS the sounds of the weary guns
died on the air and the clatter of rife
and machine gun fire ceased, only
one section of the machinery of war
halted.
There was a cry of rehabilitation,
but all the year following November,
1918, the work of destruction has
been going on.
The war tore human society to
pieces. 1t dislocated the frameworks
of organized governments and Europe
has not yet reached point where
reconstruction may be commenced on
solid foundations.
One hundred and fifty million Rus
slams are headless, starving, fight
ing, freezing and dying. In Western
Asia, in the Balkans, in Hungary and
Austria people are living from day
to day not knowing whether tomor-
row they will be murdered or next
week they will die from hunger.
Austria, with its bountiful capital,
is PROSTATE; Germany is torn to
pieces; France is restless under the
burden of a great debt. Italy is
trembling between Bolshevism and
starvation. England finds the bur-
den very heavy. Europe is weary.
Exhausted by fighting and by anx-
iety the people are drifting towards
a condition of hopelessness.
In stricken Europe only nature is
serene. A summer has come and
gone. The flowers and grasses hid
the scars of war and then, after en-
riching the land with their seed and
the air with their perfume, sank
again into the bosom of mother earth
whence they came.
In England and in France every
family that had male members from
IS to As has one killed or wounded.
Death touched every family doorpost
from fair Marseillaise to the Orkneys.
We of America have done many
foolish things since the armistice.
We came out of the war with big
debt. Our losses were small. Scarce
$4,000 of our boys were killed. About
100000 were wounded. We should
have gone forward in peace, order
and prosperity.
This should have been to us a
month of great thanksgiving. In
stead it is month of anxiety. There
was Industrial unrest when the war
closed. The blood of our people
was running high. The richest coun-
| try on earth, blessed with bountiful
food supplies, with opportunity for
work for everyone, we became dis
contented. There was a temporary
shortness of food and fuel this time
last year.
When the spring came we planted
little. Labor was scarce in the field
because young men crowded into the
the cities. PRODUCTION was small
even in cities because men, instead
of accommodating money out Of pro-
duction, sought to accumulate it by
outtrading other men.
| AS the government gave up its
artificial control of prices other
groups of men sought artificially to
| control them.
| We are in bad way now for a
year we have been lazy and restless.
| Agitators, false teachers and intel
lectual non-descripts have gone up
and down the country bringing the
people to a state of mind where they
think that the Government or some
body else owes them living.
| All the progress that the world
has ever made is the result Of the
human toll. Only in labor-action-
is there happiness.
The animals know better than men
do. Among bees all work except a
| few drones and after certain event
they are destroyed. The ant is never
a sluggard. Living organisms in the
ocean build up mountains until their
crest is above the sea level. The
bird is inactive only when it sleeps.
At the break of day it utters note
of hope and confidence and is on the
wing. Go to the birdhouse at the
geological garden at Overton Park
Birds of all climates are there. Even
in their confinement they chatter,
fiutter. fly, scratch the earth, lay
eggs and hatch them. They are ST.
lent and quiet only when dead.
/ We are seeking To break the re-