The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1946-09-05

hunk of Singer Sewing machine with
his midriff, to swell with pride at
the Government which sold it to
Japan in the first place
1 have long observed that after
the last war, having failed to take
our place among the nations engaged
in the greatest moral gesture toward
world peace that had ever been made
namely the League of Nations -
and being embarrassed about what
we foolishly considered the iniustices
of the Versailles Treaty, we started
being apologize toward our late
enemy. With the confusing result
that practically every child l know
was brought up on pro-German his
tory in the public schools.
There was no dispassionate study
of the performance of Germany as
a nation, over even the past three
| hundred years - but there was a
great deal of time spent on the mis-
deeds of the British. Never within
my memory did one of my children
hear a comparison between the Yer
saille document and the treaties and
reparations made by the Germans af-
ter their numerous forays into other
peoples territory. Never, for in
stance, did any teacher take the time
or trouble to point out the terms
levied upon the French by the Ger
mans following the Franco-Prussian
war - compared to which the Yer
sailles Treaty is a pretty civilized
document.
Nor in all justice, while my chill.
dren were having England's sins
dinned in their ears, did anyone ever
point out certain derelictions of our
own, such as our most immoral ex-
ploitations of Mexican and South
Americas natural resources and
labor or the curious disappearance
from the scene of the American In
dian, to whom this land originally
belonged, or the little business of
having taken Hawaii out of the
hands of its people, or certain do
ings in the Philippines, Cuba, Haiti
and other spots on the map.
What high school students learn
about the Civil War seems to depend
upon where they go to school. In
Indiana we spent about two months
on that conflict. My daughters, in
HagerstoWn, had a scant two weeks
in their Senior year and with
Antietam Battlefield at our door
step they still have to think before
they can tell you offhand what side
Jeb Stuart fought with. Of course,
such gaps can be filled in through
the years, but since citizenship
should begin at the toddling stage,
why not also sense of the origins
and background behind the partic-
ular type of citizenship toward
which we have in the past striven?
In regard to what l have said
about the mental confusion of the
average CT toward the issues in
volved in the clearly unfinished
struggle that began in 1889, let me
make myself clear. There were
thousands of men and boys who
knew exactly what they were fight
ing for, principally, I believe, be-
cause they had learned those things
iii the home. Few were exposed long
enough or intelligently enough to
history to have learned it in the
schools. Whether they knew what
they were fighting for or not, most of
them made good soldiers and they
lived and died bravely and we'll
One the shooting war was over
the pictured changed. And today,
while our delegates and our Secre-
tary of State struggle with the OBJ
scene fiasco now taking place in
Paris, class hatred, color prejudice
and racial antipathy within the con-
fines of our own great country have
reached an all time high.
With the blood of our youth
scarcely dry on the battlefelds of
the world, with talk of a new war
shuddering along the cringing air
waves, with cynicism in Government
/ the order of the day, one may pre-
haps be pardoned for hoping that
in the years to come that under
standing of the past may be so firm
ly instilled, that if men must fight
and die they will know, beyond a
shadow of doubt, what they are fight
ing and dying for. And that the
tenets which they upheld with arms
will not fall into the discard with
the weapons that cooled when the
battle was won.
| The first American sugar mill xvac