Evening star., 1936-07-28

SOIlHfcoAlUupl xtcCpkQ VI Mhfca j, 4ulT.
March was the day on which the
Zimmerman note to Mexico had burst
into headlines throughout the United
States, accompanied by public indig-
nation against Germany unequaled up
to that time. It revealed that Ger
many would, in the event of war, at
tempt to enlist Mexico against US and
to invite Japan. True. as we look
at it now, the note was in preparation
for the event Of war, which Count
Bernstreff, in America. was desperately
trying to stave OF. But to the Ameri-
can public the enemy was already
within the gates. And on that day
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, sr., went
on record:
rs civilization breaking down? The
facts upon their face show that it is,
or else that we have never had a civil
lization. The law has failed, and
shall we now plunge into war in order
to maintain the law, and to make its
failure more complete, or shall we
pick up the few remaining threads Of
reason and build anew and better? The
President asks us to give him authority
to enforce the law" Ito arm the mer-
chant marine).
LET us inquire what the law Is '''
The law takes the products Of our
country to foreign lands for barter,
trade, and speculation. - The privi-
lege Of barter and exercising the rights
to profit 80 are abstract rights, but
they are not the rights that lead to
the exercise of civilization. but the
rights that lead to barbarian. 1t is
those abstract rights that We are
asked to enforce, instead Of dealing
with them by common-sense methods
The man who stands by his country
today is tagged by the war jingoes as
pro-German. But that does not make
him So"
Action Ended Career.
Col. Lndbergh was q 15-year-old
lad when his father stated these words,
and took the action which cost him
his political career. A book which
the father wrote on the economics of
the struggle was destroyed by the
Federal censors. In it, I am told, he
prophesied the breakdown of the in
ternational banking system as q re-
suit of the war. After his fatal stand
against the United States entering the
war, he could not speak In public
without being threatened by mobs.
In 1918, when he ran for Governor
on the ticket of the Non partisan
League, he was howled down as a
pro- German and q traitor. Nearly
20 years later when he was dead his
son was to take of alone for q flight
across the ocean, which was to make
him world hero and win him a
fortune. But which takes greater
courage: To risk death as a hero, or
to risk calumny as a traitor? Per-
hapS the elder Lindbergh thought of
his son, when he heard his colleague,
Representative Kitchin of North Caro-
lima, another of the 'wilful men, say:
Il know that for my vote 1 shall
be not only criticized but denounced
from one end OF the country to the
other. The whole yelping pack of
defamers and revilers In the Nation
will at once be set upon my heels.
My friends, cannot leave my chill
dren riches, I cannot leave them
fame, but can leave them the name
of an ancestor who, mattering not
the consequences to himself, never
dared to hesitate to do his duty as
God gave him to see it."
wilson's Speech Recalled.
world disintegrated by unemployment,
divided by fascism and communism,
rent by revolution and clamorous with
arms, can utter without choking the
words Ito make the world safe" "the
war to end war? To find words
which still ring true one must go back
to that speech of wilson's, for which
he was most damned, and read again:
1T must be peace without victory.
Victory would mean peace forced upon
the loser, victor'S terms imposed
upon the vanquiShed. 1t would be
accepted in humiliation. under duress.
at an intolerable sacrifice, and would
leave a sting, resentment, bitter
memory, upon which terms of peace
would rest, not permanently. but only
as upon quicksand. Only peace be-
tween equals can last" -.
That was prophesy. The older Lind
hergh stuck obstinately to the sense
of that speech when its author had
been driven to reject it.
The colonel spoke bravely In the
midst of the quicksands, with the
backing and aid of world prestige and
world renown. But it was from his
father, whom the war drove into
obscurity, that he inherited both the
courage and the right to speak as he
did and where he did. There is some
justice in history. And "as the twig
Is bent, so is the tree inclined"
(Copyright, 1850