The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1939-07-27

TINE American people
are today tense with
- anxiety lest they be led
into another great war.
And some of our people
seem to be accepting glib
talk of war as if it were
something more good than
evil. Truly many years have
already gone by since we
ceased to feed boys to the
cannon. 1t seems difficult to
believe that only about one
third of the living American
people are old enough to re-
member the World war well.
We have urgent need today
to recall the realities of mod
ern war. And we have des-
perate need to take into our
national thinking the gigan-
tic yet invisible forces behind
war which are again moving
in Europe.
l am perhaps one of the
few living Americans who
had full opportunity to see in
tinately the moving tragedy
of the World war from its
beginnings down through the
long years which have not
yet ended. 1 saw it not only
in its visible ghastliness, but
I lived with the invisible
forces which moved in its
causes and its consequences.
I am perhaps justified in re-
calling that experience.
Before the war I knew Europe
Russia, Germany, France,
Italy, and England-fairly init
mately, not as tourist but as a
part of their workaday Life.
I was drafted in 1914 to pre-
serve the lives of ten millions of
people in Belgium and northern
France who had been overrun
by the German armies. Here
was service that by common
consent was sort of Semiofficial
state. It covered not alone food,
but the economic life of these
people. It operated within the
lines of a hostile army and
moved through the blockade of a
hostile navy. In that service I
moved constantly in and out be-
hind the trenches on both sides
of the conflict I witnessed the
misery and backwash from war
in their most hideous forms. My
duties required that I meet con-
stantly with high military and
civil officials in England, Ger
many, France, and the neutral
countries in contact with the in
visible forces behind the war.
When America joined in the
war I was asked by President
Wilson to return to America to
become member of our Amer
lean war council and to admins
ter the food supplies of our coun-
try and for our Allies.
At the Armistice was drafted
back to Europe to direct activi-
ties of the Allied and associated
governments to defeat unparal-
leled famine and pestilence, to
restore economic life among both
the victors and the vanquished.
In this service I spread an or
ganization of thousands of Amer
lean men and women over % ma
tions-many of them boiling with
revolution. Our job was not
alone the extension of a hand of
kindness. Its purpose was to Sc
cure order out of which peace
could be made.
Constant dealing with those
many peoples and their officials
brought a flood of knowledge of
the political, economic, and So
cial currents which sprang from
the war.
l did not participate in making
the peace. / was daily called up
on for advice and information.
And l observed its disastrous
course. Subsequently, during a
period of eight years in cabinet
position I dealt with the troubled
seas of unceasing political and
economic storms the world over.
AS President I dealt unceasing-
ly to bring about reduction of
arms, economic readjustment,
and peace.
A year ago I spent some
months in Europe with unique
opportunity to discuss its prob
lens with leaders in IA nations.
That is 20 years of opportunity
to observe European peoples and
: their leaders, with all the forces
of good and evil in which they
live, and to relate them to our
American scene. The search
light of this experience can well
be turned upon some phases of
the present scene.
What War Really Is.
First, let me say something
from this experience of what war