The Wrangell sentinel., 1920-04-08
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction in Europe Follow the Great
 World War;
DANGER IN GENERAL UNREST
Practically Universal Feeling of Dis content Will Grow Unless the Causes Which Gave 1t Birth
 Are Removed.
Article VII.
By FRANK cOMERFoRD.

specter hauntS Europe. It IS the ghost of unrest. When l started out to interview unrest in Europe l did not give my ear to the idle theorist who always knows all about every [ thing, but never from direct experi- ence with 1t, nor did I go to the agita- tor who breaches unrest in red words Neither did I seek out the type of fa- natical labor leader, who is eager for trouble, who is trying to mobilize un- rest and marshal it under the banner of Revolution. I passed by the place hunting. time-serying politician. l was not interested in platitudes and prom ises.
 I sought knowledge of unrest from those who knew it from contact with 1t, those. who were part and parcel of it. I went to the man in the street, the average man. l talked with the sweaty, dirty coal miner at the mouth of the shaft. He had just come from his day in the darkness deep in the ground. 1 visited the man who works in the mills. I listened to the rough speech of the teamster. 1 went to fac tories and talked with men between ! the two whistles which mark the time of the noon meal. They munched at 1 black bread, ate cheese or sausage. gulped tea, coffee or cheap, diluted red | wine I spent time with the idle, the | idle by choice as we'll as those without work through no fault of their own. ] nr,ly vaStnr1au most of these men were in khaki; now, back on the job in overalls, they were think l ing. Their speech was troubled. Dis content looked out from their eyes. l 1 could feel it. They talked it, but never as unrest, always protest.
 Unrest Must Be Quieted.
 Their state of mind is the problem. l Unrest is epidemic: it is militant. There is little of pacifism in it. It is real, it is not without cause. To get i close to the cause of this disease which | threatens revolution, one must know l and understand what is going on in the minds of the men we are looking l to and depending upon to do the 1 worlds work. It doesn't take a 1 prophet to understand that if heed is not given to the things irritating them and remedy is not found for the irri- 1 tation, serious trouble will follow. l While war is hell, 1t has at least the restraint of discipline. A revolu- 1 tion growing out of unrest would mean 1 mob madness, terrorism, fanatical, brutal, cruel and merciless. Once i started, 1t would spread like wildfire. The world would be swept from it's senses. The fire would run it's course until stopped because there was noth- i Ing left to burn Who dares picture the state in which it would leave the world? In this day. when the nerves 1 of the world are on edge. when cold i and hunger irritate, one shudders when he thinks of the fate of civilization if unrest is not checked before it ex- plodes in passion and wrath.
 Unrest existed before the war. It was an acorn then, it is an oak now. Be- | fore the war men were complaining, and justly complaining, about their lot. l The difference now is that four years in the trenches have caused them to stop complaining and act. Soldering taught them much. They learned of the greatness of force.
 Back of their present tendency to 1 act is the grown grievance and the war lesson. Before the war they con- plained; today they demand. It is in- teresting to examine unrest in the complaint stage, as these men knew it before 1914.
 These plain, ordinary average men have always been intensely human. They loved their wives and children, they lived for their homes. they felt keenly their responsibility for the hap piness oftheir loved ones. They have but one thing to give. Before the war they gave 1t unsparingly-it was their labor. Their one source of income was the pay envelope. With their wages they had to buy shoes, clothes, food, and provide shelter for the lives they brought into the world. and for the women they had. chosen to be the moth- CTS of those children.
 "Home" Before All.
 "Home, Sweet Home" is the inter- national anthem. It is the heart song of the average man. The club plays no part in his life. From his home he goes to work. and from work he goes home Shanties and tenements are not homes. These men have always protested against the ugly shacks in which they were compelled to house their loved ones. They bit their lips in jObless days when their children
 went to bed hungry. Resentment grew in their hearts when they saw how poorly dressed their wives and children were. They muttered curses when their children were forced to go to work. They wanted to give their children a better education than they l I,al hoI ot,o ;,, e