The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1920-04-02
THE @sRAvEsT or THE BRAVE

suffering Moses, what 90 we
hear? that Senator Reed Of Missouri
| is the .sbravest of the brave
Florida's greatest newspaper puts
him right up alongside Of Marshal
Ney, Napoleon's favorite general who
was the supreme figure in more than
| a hundred hard fought battles.
What has brought forth all this ad.
ulation?
Because Senator Reed opposes the
president in his efforts to form a Lea
que of Nations to prevent the horrors
of war.
Surely the world has been incarna-
dined with the blood of her brayest
and best long enough.
Why is Senator Reed any Drawer
than Senator Lodge?
! Listen to what be said when the
presidency was quite remote and had
not doomed up as an issue:
/ 1--WE have reached the limit of vol
untary arbitration, so what is the next
Il step. | think the next step is thai
which this league (the League to En-
| force Peace proposes and that is to
put force behind international peace.
We may not solve it in that way, but
! if we cannot solve it in that way, 1t
can be solved in no other
Then, after making that utterance,
and a much applauded speech along
the same lines, he stood up in his
place in the senate of the United
States and put forth all his eloquence
and power to humiliate the president
for urging the adoption of the very
thing that Senator Lodge said would
alone bring lasting peace to the
world.
1t took brave man to do that,
didn't ito swallow his own words
in the presence of the most august
body of the whole world in order to
bring calumny upon the head of the
nation
Did Senator Reed do anything
worse or Drawer than that?
Floridas greatest daily says that
Senator Reed is worthy of all praise
that patriot in mind and heart and
soul--a patriot in every fiber of his
flesh and every drop of his blood
he does not need the excitement that
hurries the soldier to victory or the
grave
For all its beauty of rhetoric that
it dubious and doubtful compliment.
Mr. Reeds patriotism consists in
wrapping the American flag around
his body in times of peace and pro
claiming that he is one. hundred per
cent American.
He was a young man at the time
of the Spanish-American war yet we
hear nothing of his having. made him
self conspicuous in that conflict. If
he donned the uniform of soldier his
biography denies him that credit.
No, the senator prefers to wrap the
flag around his distinguished person
in times of peace and inferentially
proclaim that those who wish to bring
about universal peace by forming al
League of Nations are not so patriotic
as himself
He was only So when the conGness|
of which he was a member declared
that the United States was in . state
Of war with Germany.
We knew hundreds of men who en-
listed in the Confederate army at that
age and older-but not Jim Reed the
'.bravest OF the brave
When the war drums throb no long
er and the battle flags are furledn he
covers himself within the folds of
the stars and stripes and proclaims
his full-fledged Americanism.
Brave mani My, my! with what
agony of spirit must Marshal Ney turn
in his grave at the comparison-th
senator as brave as the immortal hero
of hundred battles.
Again we are told that he is brave
for he is sacrificing his own political
future. How? His senatorial term
is not yet half expired. He has got
until 1928 to serve and many things
may happen before then.
Then we are told that he never
voted other than the democratic ticket
and never shaded a democratic prin-
ciple.
Our information is that he was born
in Ohio; from Ohio he went to Iowa
and while citizen of that state affili-
ated with the republican party and
moved to Kansas City in 1887.
He changed his politics and was
elected to congress as democrat and
is now doing what ex-senator Bailey
is doing in Texas: ex-Congressnan
Tom Watson in Gp0r0ia and others