The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1940-08-09
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
(Bell syndicate-wNu service.)

T IS a great consolation, in
these trying times, to real
= lie that according to all his
torical presidents, two and two
do not make four.
For no matter what mathe-
maticians can do with chalk
and a blackboard, the events
that touch our human lives,
and are controlled by our
faulty and irrational human
actions, almost always seem
to come out in an unexpected
way. The student Of every great
crisis in world affairs is completely
puzzled by the apparent independ-
ence Of results from their causes.
Take our beginnings, in TITS. Inn
agine the odds against the ragged,
unarmed, unfed, unframed armies
Of Washington, whose men enlisted
only for a term Of weeks, and when
that term was up walked quietly off
to their farms again! Washington's
congress was against him, the per-
sonnet Of the army was constantly
changing, and, with Canada as a
base, the great armies Of England,
supplemented by Prussian merce-
naries, French settlers, and thou
sands of Indians, were prepared for
q long attack.
Victorious Against Great Odds.
We all know how strangely that
war ended, with victory for the side
against which the odds seemed in
credibly heavy.
Agincourt, Waterloo, Sedan, the
British conquest Of India are all
similar. In the last mentioned war,
less than hundred years ago, the
case was that the Sepoy troops re-
belled, in numbers something better
than a thousand to one. There were
few British troops in India, most Of
that army was composed Of East
Indians, Differed by British. So the
simple job Of the rebels was merely
to shoot the officers, wipe out the
few missionaries and women and
children, and possess their own land
once more
We all know how that came out,
too. The passionate courage Of
Roberts, Campbell, q Havelock,
overcame infinite superiority in
numbers, and the rebellion was sup
pressed.
Lincoln's Predicament.
Then take Lincoln's situation, In
1854, actually within the memory OF
living men, for child whose won
dering eyes looked on at the Civil
war would only be something more
than 80 now.
The South was fighting the North,
and with gallant success, at the mo-
ment. In Mexico, Austria and
France had set up an emperor
whose plan was to befriend the
South, take all Central America un-
der his protection, for Austria, and
maintain a strong European hold
upon the Americas.
And just at this moment, when our
President was cruelty pressed for
men and munitions, an unfortunate
episode occurred which angered
England, and threatened for awhile
to involve the North in q war with
the British. British troops were even
dispatched to Canada before the af-
fair was settled.
How many women, worrying
themselves half-insane this hot sum-
mer morning over unexpressed and
underlined terrors, remember that
that was our situation 70 years ago?
Suppose that were the case now;
suppose hostile foreign troops were
actually on American soil bombing
our cities-then we MIGHT have
something over which to lose sleepi
We Prefer Peace.
As it is, remember that no ma
ton has grievance against us, and
that we are not going out Of our way
to injure any nation, or to impose
unfair terms upon any nation, or
TO make an enemy Of any nation.
We are by national temper peace
able, absorbed In our own problems,
and incapable Of really understand