The Washington times., 1920-08-08
Today
We Are Crawling Flies.
See Only One Corner.
What Is Coming?
You Know as Much as An,
BY ARTHUR BRISBAN
Copyright. isss)


they call European civilization.
France, England, Italy, do not
know how long their civilization
will last. Recently, after victory.
they divided Europe to suit them
selves. That was no new thing.
And no one knows how long the
division will last. The foolish idea
was creating innumerable little
countries, each too weak TO stand
Alone- From the northeast comes
q power from Russia backed up
with revolutionary enthusiasm.
and no man can tell what changes
are TO come, what big or little
countries will live through the
storm, unchanged.
Long ago, when the overgrown
power OF Rome established an en-
pire Of the East and an empire of
the West. ancient rulers thought it
would last. But Northern barbs-
rians smashed both empires and the
dark ages set In, to last for more
than q thousand years.
You read newspapers and your
eye moves from one display head"
to another. You read that France
Is preparing to seize the railroads
of Bavaria, planning to send an
army through Bavaria by force II
necessary, since that country OBJ
stinately refuses to let French
troops pass and attack Russia in
the most convenient way. Your
mind goes back to a recent Occa-
sion, when Belgium obstinately re-
fused to let Germany's army
through to attack France in the
most convenient way.
But that is only one little spot in
the picture.
In the northwest corner of Eu-
rope Lloyd George is doing the
thinking for his group of nations,
planning to meet the trouble and
the storm gathering in the north
east. He says he will do whatever
is reasonable that Russia asks. He
has intelligence enough to treat
Russia as a, great and menacing
nation; unlike American bankers
and the American Government, he
does not ignorantly treat it as
simple nuisance to be swept aside.
Lloyd George will allow Germany,
ard perhaps some other enemy
state, to share in the conference
concerning Russia.
He Is willing to forget one set Of
enemies when another more dan
gerous appears.
That is another spot in the pic
ture.
While England worries about
Russia, she passes severe crimes
measure to curb the 1rish, fighting
for the ''self-determination that
little people were supposed to get
after the war. And Archbishop
Mannix, returning from Australia,
the other side Of the world, to join
in the Irish fight, will be met ON
English soil at Liverpool by thirty
thousand Sim Feiners, and British
Jdestroyers are to meet the Baltic,
on which he arrives, "as a precau-
tionary measure
You see the power of one idea
when all the world worries about
Russia, supposed a little while ago
to be dead and done for.
You see the power of another
idea when a quiet, hollow-cheeked
priest from Australia, by the sim
pie power of words, disturbs the
British Empire and calls British
destroyers.
Other priests, in days gone by,
had power, with words only, to
send the whole of Europe crusad-
ing against the Turks.
Each in our little corner, we
may be from each corner of the
world. From China, where hun
dreds of millions may be used by
Japan some day for her own pur-
poses. From India, where other
hundreds of millions may be used
by Russia. From Greece, working
to restore her, ancient glory. From
Vienna, fighting misery; from
Italy, from France; from Poland,
wondering if her newborn nation
atty is to die in infancy. From
dozens of little states newly Gre
ated, by the will of the victors;
from the old little states that owe
their independence to fighting
through the ages - Switzerland,
Denmark, Sweden, Holland and
the others.
We read a thousand details, but
cannot see the entire picture. Fu-
ture writers of history will see it
and wonder how little we under
stood, how foolishly we struggled
to meet a situation that to them
will seem so plain.
Studying the events of the world
in his own day, any man, from the
wisest prime minister sitting sun
der the clock" to the simplest
newspaper reader in his little flat,
is like a fly crawling over an enor-
NOUS picture Of battle scene or
landscape. The fly might crawl
for a week, and at the end of that
time it could not possibly know
what sort of picture it had been
studying. Too close to the canvas,
il sees too little at one time.
We crawl over the surface of
.l