The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1940-04-19
TheCherry
" Where with our
roo Little Hatchet we
tell the truth
about many things, sometimes pro-
foundly. Sometimes flippantly,
sometimes recklessly.
Read, gentlemen, read.
Read, read and read some more.

Read, read and read some more
The world is chasing itself in cir
cles. Looney, perhaps; maybe nuts;
but whatever it is, holding our fate
in the years to come. It's the place
of our destiny, until we check out.
Read about it. But read with your
eyes open.
Read this column, read other col
umns, read the news-es especially, read
the news.
Listen to the radio; listen especially
to the news. Be a hound for facts,
but be sure they are facts.
Get opinions, too. Check them
against each other. Maybe you can't
change the course of events, but you
can at least get line on that course.
Try to KNOW what is happening and
what is likely to happen.
On the basis of the facts | know
about, it seems to me the European
theatre of war is going to spread. 1t
has seemed for months that must
come.
Unless something not now visible
comes along, this war is going to get
a lot bigger and hit and hurt lot
more people before it ends.
1t CAN include the United States,
as | see it. That MUST be counted
as a possibility, if not a probability
The country is filled with paid
propagandists. Some are paid to
do good; some to do evil. | sus-
pect a great many of them. /
suspect even some of those
propagandizing for peace"
The ''peace" idea can get to be
very costly thing
1t may or may not be wholly true
that the war, as it now stands, is a
war between democracy and dictator
ship, in the purest meaning of those
terms
But it gets closer to that every
day. True enough, these terms, as
they are used in Europe today, prob
ably stand more for economic sys-
TENS than for political ideals. But it
is worth while to try to get at the
underneath currents. There are
truths that even the statesmen in
/ command don't grasp, especially when
they are under war pressure.
1t seems to me one thing to see is
that if relationships win, there can
be no democracy in the parts Of the
earth over which the relationships
hold sway after the war.
1t is worth observing that the So
cialist party has just decided that the
United States ought not help the
Allies.
Those who do not want the Allies
to win will not want them helped. But
if you substitute the word dictator
ship for the word Germany, then what
is the answer to the questing of help
ing the Allies? / wonder about that.
Maybe you will also.
There will be some who will re-
member the mental confusion and
tragic misguessing of the Socialist
party in 1917.
And so, party that had played a
useful role, if only gadfly one, prior
to that time, went into a mental tail
spin and lost the little usefulness it
had possessed.
The intelliegntsia didn't hoodwink
labor then, but it certainly hood
winked itself.
With a national campaign coming
along we shall find our politics col
ored by the world war, or what gets
closer every day to being world
war.
If Japan is brought actively into
the European dictatorship orbit, we
shall right there have complete
world war.
Read, read, read. And do a little
thinking.
It's well enough for the intelli-
gentsia to have it all figured out and
it's just too cute for Ferdinand the
Bull to smell the flowers.
But the rank and file of Americans,
and especially American workers, had
better know what it is all about.
We can be emotionally doped SO
that we go silly over disarmament,
just as easily as we can be emotion
ally doped into war.
What's needed is understanding, so
that whichever way we go, we go
because we KNOW we want to go
that way-C. M. w.
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