Norwich bulletin., 1920-11-27
THE MAN WHO TALKS

course we are quite loath to starr theI steam heater with the coal situation asl 1t is, but a grain of comfort is found l in the fact, that. at least, the lawn 1 mower is put up for the season In most cellars, I suspect, there is the wir- ters stock of fuel and the usual stock of vegetables, so that there is something to be thankful for, as there always is. ] If there is a tendency to be grouchy at Thanksgiving time just look back at the conditions in which the Thanksgiving < festival was born, and then be thank full See the little band devastated by disease and death, harassed by the Ifsl dians and by the climate! See these mepI of blood and iron thanking God for His. nercies and then sing:
 Faith of the Fathers,
 Living yets The shortage of coal at the approach of winter is not the only serious problem that many people are forced to grapples with but also a shortage of housing fa-. ,cilities, which is equally, if not even. more serious. The high price of labor and materials has reduced building .op-T erations to a minimum. The liability of strikes has also made housebuilding more. of a venture than most people care to as-i sume. Still the problem is more serious than most of us imagine. In a midwest
 ern city, we are told, women in tears. are appealing to authorities for homes.i They claim that relief must come before winter with it's possibilities Of thirty de grees below zero--in that section. These women belong to well-to-do families, eple and willing to pay reasonable rent but at present no homes arei to be had at any price. If the present situation ,, continues possibly the cry of ancient Is rael will be the slogan of America: 'To Your tents, oh ISraelP'
 The people of tiie United States as a whole hate war with a perfect hatred''- and will engage only in those which in Wolve justice and humanity. The reason i is we are not obsessed with the militar- 1 istic spirit. One war has recently been
 waged in Europe that comments itself | to all lovers of liberty, and that has
 stolen nationhood. In 1772, Frederick | the Great-greaI as a robber as in other l things-stole from Poland the rich prov ince of Posen; in 1793 he took a big 1 slice from upper Silesia; in 1795 he add
 ee more to East Prussia. In 1795 what I was left of Silesia was taken by Austria and also Galicia To the east, at the l same time, Ukrania, Podolia, aud Lithu- /, ania were appropriated by Russia. For more than 100 years this disgrace con l tinued, but now Poland has reconquered l most of her original territory.
 1 The Peace of Riga which reestablishea
 most of her old boundaries is as import. ant as the armistice which We have re- | gently celebrated. Judging from the l crowds on the streets Armistice day T many people were interested in the eel ebration. and beyond doubt it will have its place in the worlds calendar for ; years to come It marked the failure of Germany in it's attempt to throttle the I world. It marked the end of the slapgh. i ter of precious human lives, and the ,i wanton destruction of valuable property | that had been going on for four long weary years Anxious fathers and ] mothers knew that from that date on, ' ward the papers would not have to re. cord the dear boy dead, wounded or miss 'l ing. From that date the world began te .l turn to the life of peace; to repair the ! waste places, and to build again 'ths walls of Zion" None of us were sorry when the great war plants changed 1 from making gunboats to merchant yes sels.
 \ But there is another side to ArmisL , tice day that ought not to be overlooked ' At best it only fnarked a partial tri unlph. German arms were only driver ] back to their own borders. They wer not defeated and did not surrender. Tn Q German So~valiant in attack wheii thing . are going his way, loses his nerve in re treat. He is still sullen, unrepentant an, submitting to humiliation only througl necessity. For one the writer finds i
 hard to swing his hat and shout on Nov , Il, because it really settled nothing f Hostilities were merely suspended bu , peace was not declared, and no treaty ha
 been signed. All things considere would it not have been better to have marched on to Berlin, and to have nor 7 completely shattered that military ma q chine that still menaces the peace of Eu ? repe2 The guns are silent because tf1er = are no resources to furnish ammunition l One thing must be perfectly clear to al = and that is, that the armistiee did no stop war in Europe. Russia has been 7 seething mass of confusion since 1973 N' and so also has all Central Europe Tn : armistice does not represent any grea VI victory.
 t In The Bulletin of Nov. I2, "The Fla, l nner" has very trenchant article o f ''Boastfulness.' in which he says: "W h brag about what We are, We brag abot n what We have We brag about what N '. do. We brag about what We have lon 7 and about what we are going to do.7 Gu middle name is Brag." It is of cours g humiliating to admit this, but it is trr s every word of it. That we have man er things in this country to be proud 0 h that many less fortunate people al :. lacking, is indisputable And that is q
 reason why we should wear these homo
 very hunbly. Does it ever occur to Is, how many things we may learn fro a other peoples less conspicuous than ", i'd A few comparisons are quite enough
 seriously damage this American supe
 man. Compare the way in which Gre
 Britain managed her war departure
 with ours; observe how Franco al o-l Switzerland manage to conserve the wl forests, compared with out wastefulnes
 and where is the superman? If maj
 of these nations had had our advantag
 we would be sitting at their feet 1s learners.
 This leads us to the solemn inauil
 Who is the real American today? As f
 as heredity goes We are getting to be is badly mixed up bunch. But this nal, t. for strength. It is transmission of bio
 that gives to nation it's brawn al
 brain and moral fibre If nations Ii nsI families continue generation after ge an eration to internarry sooner or lai
 ] they run out. A great majority of t
 American people has not lived here 1 : ] more than three generations We
 sprang from the blood of Europe A ns it Is wise not to inquire too closely 1T
 the condition of that ancestry Supp.
 we boast of descent from the Mayfiow it then let us go into some rural distri he where the descendants of the Mayfos l., have always remained, marrying 2