Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express, etc. — 1915-06-12 (Penistone, South Yorkshire, England)

AMERICA TESTED.  The resignation of Mr. W. J. Bryan. the American Secretary of State, is generally understood to presage war or a state of war between the United States and Germany. Mr. Bryan is apparently a literal adherent of the Chi istian policy of non-resistance and patient endurance of tyranny and wrong. Be would, Iseems. torn to the miter not merely the other cheek but twenty more if be had them. He is open to be indennitely affronted. Ile is righteously indignant, in theory, at the Lusitania crime, lint he would sot go to war to right that or any wrong, to avenge murdered American citizens, nor to uphold the honour and dignity of the American flag. The America.n ship of state has throughout this war performed weird, and for the most part undignified, evolutions boratese of lark of firmnom and decision in steersmanship. With the departure of this pusillanimous he/I=min who preferred to drive before the wind rather than to buffet the waves, we may see (Wunibia hermit arum  No rational creatnre. studying dispassionately the 0-ewes:dons responsibility placed upon Dr. Wilacsa, can fail to appreciate the cruel difficulty of his paaition. Arnerira is not homogeneous; she is composite of all the nations of the earth, and her Government, unarmed and undefended, with no weapon at command with which to impose her will upon the nation, is dependent to a , far greater extent than the Government of any great Power, upon the goodwill of the psopie. America has no Army worthy the dignity of the name; her Nary, theitigh powerful. is superfluous to the extent that the stinoKth of the navies at the command of the Allies ii. more than sufficient to accomplish the task to the performance of which they have been directed. That consideratinn is subject to this qtralification, that in the errant of aqi- ronaiderable section of the German Ffigh Sea Fleet tweaking through admiral JeWcoe's cordon into the Atlantic, the United States' Fleet would materially town the problem of rounding up the fugitives, lint it is obvious that America. assnming she has sniffictent domestic unity to enter with safekr into the conflict and to. bold the powerfol ("sermonic element in her popolation in subjection at the same time, woad haw- an influence upon the coarse of the war which would be powerful, but at the 'same time indirect rather than direct. From the point of new of her actual utility in the 'physical rainfiaign on the Continent. she cannot offer such prompt and matenal aid to the Allies ac could Roumania. The A limes, therefore, are watching lAmerica as they would contemplate an in. tereeting psychological incident or problem. land not a hazard or a contest upon the turn of which they have a definite Stlike. They are intereeted to observe. not whether Arne.nra will come to their ai& hut whether she will he true to herself and to those principles of instice and liberty iii whose name she has been wont to make prond and sonorous boast. The question is not so mrsalt: 117 ill America join the Allies? as Will America ioin the crusade against the spirit of aril and frightfulneas, the punitive Rlpedition against the Mori Infamy of a brutal and barbarous nation tormented and proerased by binary and fiendtrim? The Allies do not solicit the aid of America against this nation that has run amok in garope: they made no appeal to the American conscience. Bat Hessen itself calls the whole world to fling itself upon the AntiChrist of Central Europe.