The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1940-05-23
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hutchet Out
The Truth
WAR TRULY WORLD WAR
THINK IT OVER
WHERE Do WE GO
. MAKE FIFTH COLUMN
LAUGH AND LAUGH

In all the long and stormy history
of the world there has never been any
thing like the present war, now truly
World War.
Whether there is any point in get
ting all squeamish about what one side
or the other does to win is quite beside
the point, in considering our own out
look.
Isn't it automatic that nations, or
individuals, in mortal combat, will do
almost anything that seems likely to
help bring victory?
And isn't it a bit inconsistent to
squawk about the sacredness of human
life. Human life is about the cheapest
thing on earth and we have proved
that time and time again, by our COL
lective disregard of human welfare.
Oakies, dust bowlers, hoboes, migra-
tories, industrial workers-it takes a
long time to get the nation hot and
bothered about them. And not until
costly machinery became involved did
anyone-except workers-care much
about industrial accidents.
The keenest realists are the ones
that are going to get further in the
current madness, sad as that may be.
Generals, in war, don't fool much with
ideals.
Any realist who takes a good look
at the war today must, think, con-
clude that we had better be thinking
fast and furiously about our own fix.
Perhaps that isn't neutral thinking,
but who in the world is thinking in
terms of being neutral? It's one thing
to think about keeping out of war, an
other to think in terms of blessings on
both sides alike.
But can we keep out of the war?
And, If we now want to, how much
longer will we want to? And, if we
keep on wanting to, will others permit
it?
We're hell bent for it right now
and to a large extent we're in it right
now.
AS for being ready, while we don't
have quite the British caste system in
our military outfit, we do have brass
hat rulership that has failed horribly
to bring us anywhere near state of
readiness, even for minor scrap,
much less for total war.
All war today is, like it or not,
pretty near total war.
x x x
The chances are that the German
Communist Fifth Column in the Unit
ed States today is pretty xearly 80
large as our whole regular army-and
put that in your pipe and see how sour
| it tastes! =.
Think it over!
The Nazi Fifth Column in Mexico
is as large as our whole regular army.
That's also something to chew on.
| Our hemisphere is full of colonies
and possessions of nations now at war.
How long will it be before the war
is taken to those colonies and possess
sions-and where do we go from
there?
On the basis Of the clearly and en-
phatically stated position of the United
States government, it will be Johnny
Get Your Gun, at that precise moment.
And Johnny hasn't got much of a
gun to get. Few rifles, a piddling
half handful of the kind of stuff that
it takes to meet invasions in these
times.
Never was American Labor so beset
with dangers. On one hand the danger
of devastating war. On the other
hand the danger of astounding new in
ventions and processes.
Just around the corner is
source of power that may knock
coal, oil and wood and water into
the limbo as sources. Chemistry
is changing things so fast it
makes you dizzy.
Present jurisdictional worries are a
joke, compared to what's ahead,
whether or not war gets us.
No one can foresee accurately, but
everyone can do some thinking.
Isn't it swell time to have fratri-
cidal warfare in the ranks of labor?
Isn't it though?
1t must make the Fifth Columns
laugh and laugh and laugh, just like
| Little Audrey. the simpl-CMW