Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1925-09-24
A Changing World

\ A Changing World
II 1t is difficult sometimes for pee
/ pie to realize the tremendous chang
i which has come over the worl
4 since the first guns of the great wa
| were fired in 1914. 1t almost seem
| at times as If the war had made lii
| tie difference and that the world wa
really going on very much in its oil
ways. Europe, it is true, has oh
viously altered. The Hohenzollern
the Hapsburg and the ROmanoff EN-
pires have disappeared and the ma
tionalists of the continent of Europ
are free and self-goyerning up to tn,
Russian frontier. But that is by n,
means the full extent of the change
The relations between Occident AM
! Orient are completely transformed
\ The dominant and unquestioned cap
I itaiisTn of pre-war times is every
4 where being challenged And tha
tions which was the universal rule
before 1914 has already alEsoss e.
tirely disappeared. It is worth eN
amining these changes in little
more detail, for they are very T.
/ Illuminating,
/ Before the great war the domi-
nant view about the Orient was thai
/ set forth in Rudyard Kipling's line:
"Oh, East is East, and West is West
and never the twain shall meet
Nobody holds that view today. Ev-
! erywhere Asia is on the march. In
India, Mahatma Gandhi, while en-
/ deavoring to shut out western eco
nomic civilization on one side, is en-
gagged on the other side in a cru
sade against the reactionary and de-
moralizing practices of Hinduism,
which is avowedly largely prompted
by Christian influences. The Swara-
jists, and other liberal leaders, too,
are bent 'on transplanting, at any
rate to some degree, western demo
cratic institutions to their country.
In China, the complacent belief in
the superiority of the ways of the
ancients has completely disappeared
Everywhere there is an intense de-
sire for western learning and for a
freer and more independent standing
for the nation.
Then consider the relations be-
tween capital and labor. The Rus
sian revolution is undoubtedly going
to fill the same kind of place in the
history of the twentieth century that
fha French raya1uf;op GlIad -. 49,
nineteenth The one is an attempt
to reach economic freedom in a hur-
ry. The other was an attempt to
reach political freedom in a hurry.
Both were accompanied by terrible
acts of violence. Both ended i'm a
despotism. But both marked an era
in the history of mankind. There is
no doubt that this century is going
to see a great extension of popular
control over the present almost un-
absolutism of capital 1t is
not for nothing that since the war
we have seen the unprecedented
sight of labor government in office
In England, and of socialist govern
ments in France, Germany, Belgium
and Sweden.
Perhaps the greatest change of all
IS in the sphere of international re-
ations. The notion that the world
could progress and remain at peace
while divided into some sixty SOW
sreign states and possessed of no
,ther means of dealing with the
problems of humanity than
or fighting. notion prac-
ically unQuestioned before 1914, is
low almost entirely gone. Never in
amman history has the peace move
nent been so strong. Never have
here been SO many or such sue
,essful international enterprises. The
league of Nations has become the
focus and clearing |
louse for international activities of |
very snaps and kind. World trade. |
he newspapers, travel the radio, are
,reaking down barriers of ignorance |
md suspicion on every side.
People are sometimes inclined to |
ament the apparent dislocation and |
onfusion of the present age. But |
nay not the discord of our time be |
nut the prelude to a greater unity
nd harmony than we have ever
.nown? All the great advances Of
istory, the establishment of free-.l
om and democracy, the Reforma-
ion, the abolition of human slavery,
ave been accompanied by suffering
tut of those pangs mankind now
ecks little in the understanding Of /
rhat they brought forth. May 1t not
e true that our present struggles
nd uncertainties are but the heralds
4 an advance which will abolish in
irrational war forever from the
arth and put an end to that need
sss economic rivalry and dislocation
'hich are the prime caAse Of poyerty
nd unemployment in the world to-
Az Christian Science Monitor.