Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1922-07-21
CHAPTER XIV.


Fred Mitchell's rallyings these days;
the sprig's mood was truculent. not
toward his roommate but toward con-
gress, which was less In fiery haste
than he to be definitely at war with
Germany.
All through the university the
change had come: athletics, In other
years spotlighted at the center Of the
stage, languished suddenly, threatened
with abandonment students working
for senior hopors forgot them: every
thing was forgotten except that grow
ing thunder in the soil.
Several weeks elapsed after Dora's
bitter dismissal of Ramsey before she
was mentioned between the comrades.
Then, one evening. Fred asked, as he
restlessly paced their study floor:
"Have you seen your pacifist friend
latelyT'
mo. Not exactly. Why7"
"Well, for my part, think she ought
to be locked up" Fred said, angrily.
"Have you heard what she did this
afternoonT
mo"
tits all over college. She got up In
the class In Jurisprudence and made a
speech. It's big class, you know,
over two hundred, under Dean Burney.
He's great lecturer, but he's pacif1st
the only one on the faculty-and a
friend Of Dora's. They say he encour-
aUnd hor 70 ynolyo fhjc hranb onA Tod
the subject around so she could do 1t,
and then called on her for an opinion,
as the highest-stand student In the
class. She got up and claimed there
wasn't any such thing as legitimate
cause for war, either legally or moral
In a nation for 1t to believe that 1t did
have cause for war
"Well, 1t was too much for that lit
tie, spunky Joe Stansbury, and he
jumped up and argued with her. He
made her admit all the Germans have
done to us, the sea murders and the
land murders the blowing up of fac
tories, the propaganda, the strikes,
trying to turn the United States into a
German settlement trying to get
Japan and Mexico to make war on us,
and all the rest He even made her
admit there was proof they mean to
conquer us when they get through with
the others, and that they've set out to
rule the world for their own benefit,
and make whoever else they kindly
allow to live, work for them. 90
"She said 1t might be true, but since
nothing at all could be a right cause
for war, then all this couldn't be
cause for war. OF course she had her
regular pacifist logic working; she
said that since war Is the worst thing
there Is, why, all other evils were
lesser, and lesser evil can't be just
cause for a greater. She got terribly
excited, they say, but kept right on,
anyway. She said war was murder
and there couldn't be any other way to
look at 1t; and she'd heard there was
already talk in the university Of stu
dents thinking about enlisting, and
whoever did such thing was virtual
ly enlisting to return murder for muir
der. Then Joe Stansbury asked her II
she meant that she'd feel toward any
student that enlisted the way she
would toward murderer, and she
said, yes, she'd have horror Of any
student that enlisted.
"Well, that broke up the class: Joe
turned from her to the platform and
told old Burney that he was RESPONSE
BILE for allowing such talk In his lecture
room. and Joe said so far as he was
concerned, he resigned from Burney's
classes right there. That started 1t,
and practically the whole class got up
and walked out with Joe. They said
Burney streaked off home, and Dora
was left alone in there, with her head
down on her deSk-and / guess she
certainly deserves it. A good many
have already stopped speaking to her."
Ramsey fidgeted with a pen on the
table by which he sat. "Well, / don't
know" he said, slowly: II don't know
II they ought to do that exactly"
"Why oughtn't they" Fred demand
ed, sharply
swell, it looks to me as If she was
only fightin' for her principles. She
believes in 'em. The more it costs a
person to stick to their principles,
why, the more I believe the person
must have something pretty fine about
'em likely"
eyes" said the hot-headed Fred.
''That may be in ordinary times, but
not when persons principles are liza
BILE to betray their country! We won't
stand that kind Of principles, / tell
you, and we oughtn't to. Dora Yocum's
finding that out, all right. She had the
biggest position of any girl In this
place, or any boy either, up to the last
few weeks, and there wasn't any stu
dent or hardly even member Of the
faculty that had the influence or was
more admired and looked up to. She
had the whole show! But now, since
she's just the same as called any stu.
dent q murderer II he enlists to fight