Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1756-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities external link and the Library of Congress. Learn more
Image provided by: University of Utah, Marriott Library
Newspaper Page Text
H 2 GOODWIN'S WEEKLY I Mm S Mt J them to wage war with a pitilessness and brutality unequaled in mod Hip crn times. Hi I Let us take the case of Professor Delbrucck himself. Is not this He, ' the same Professor Delbrucck who said of Bismarck: HE "Blessed be the hand that falsified the Ems dispatch?" Hfr The Ems dispatch, in its falsified form, drove the French into a H frenzy which produced the France-Prussian war. The sequel of that H-jjL conflictwas the cession of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. Hp Here we have a German professor who, for many years, has been H calling down the blessings of heaven upon German hypocrisy and HF alschood and who boasted that Alsace-Lorraine Was won with a lie. H Listen now to his polemic against the French, uttered as if he were a HI night of Arthur's round table and were about to set out in search of the Holy Grail. He says : H "Another example: France plainly indicates that it intends to H take away the Germany territory of Saarbrucken, with its coal fields. H Saarbrucken has more than half a million purely German inhabitants. B This territory was ceded to France through the first Paris peace of B 1814, but only a year later was given back to Germany in the second B Paris peace. The inhabitants had unanimously in repeated appeals B and petitions, especially in a great memorial, prayed for 'liberation M from the French yoke and reunion with the German fatherland,' and H had solemnly vowed to do everything they could to serve this end. H This land belonged to Germany for a thousand years, excepting the H very brief temporary periods of French domination. Hj "The problem of nationality is much clearer and more certain H! nere tnan m Alsace-Lorraine. Even if the German portions of Alsace- Bl Lorraine are given to France, it can safely be prophesied that a Ger- H man 'irredenta' will spring up there very soon and threaten the peace Hi the world. H "That is true to a still greater degree in the case when territory Hi like Saarbrucken, where nothing whatever that is French exists, is B claimed by France out of naked greed for power in opposition to the B principle of the people's right to self-determination." B Concluding his lofty appeal to those higher humanities which his B gang of pedants have scorned until now lie laments because the B French have billeted so many colored troops in the occupied regions of M Germany. We do not desire to comment on a situation with which we B, are unfamiliar, but all the world knows what the Germans did in B Belgium and northern France. The unutterable atrocities of the Ger- H man soldiery during more than four years may be traced unerringly H back to pedants of the Delbrueck type. We might forgive the ignor- H. ant peasants or even the educated lunatics of the kaiser's army, but H how can we forgive the men who distorted the mental vision of a B whole people, turned their moral and humanitarian impulses awry and H sent the pride-maddened "blonde beasts" to slaughter and slaught- H ering? H What presumption such a man must have to don the pious mask H of virtue and sweet tolerance and appeal to the human reason he H helped debase, to the human soul which he and his ilk strove to make , H mto the image and likeness of the habitants of hell. H DONT ANNOY CRIMINALS. IF you would believe our representatives, F. E. Morris and R. E. Currie, the most approved modern method of getting along with B criminals is not to make them angry. B "Don't pass laws against them or they will become highly indig- Bi nant and try to get even." B This, we think, is a fair description of the argument employed by W these Solons when the were striving to prevent the passage of a H law faimed at criminal syndicalism and sabotage. So tender are fl Messrs. Morris and Currie of the I. W. W. and the anarchists that H they would not disturb them at their merry atrocities. We fancy that B if Messrs. Morris and Currie should stroll by a farm and discover an HHH L W. W. hamstringing the horses and throwing phosphorus bombs H into the haystacks they would not inform the proprietor for fear of HH incurring the displeasure of the vandal. Perhaps they might even HHH -' . - -par"-- nfcn-f ,. . S proffer their aid to the despoiler so that he would have a more frijendly J 3 feeling toward honorable and honest men. ' l ,J We might ask whether Morris and Currie took an oath to support 1 law or anarchy? 1 But perhaps Messrs. Morris and Currie will cry out that; we aVe 1 r distorting their arguments. Let us see. We quote from one of thVi 1 ' daily papers : " V "They contended that it was dangerous and untimely to TfURL I DEFIANCE and PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION at the I. W. W., Vg Bolsheviki and such agitators at this time." Our forefathers hurled defiance at criminals for many centuries. That is one reason why Messrs. Morris and Currie were peacefully elected to the legislature at an orderly ballot. Were it not so Messrs. Morris and Currie, on the day that they uttered their fantastic argu- 1 ments, might have been pursued through the wilds of the Wasatch by i natives clad in skins and carrying stone hammers. They would have I us return to the stone age when the man of violence, the man whoJ I ruled by brute strength made himself the master of his group or tribe. g If there is any validity to the argument we might as well abolish M - our police department, for occasionally a policeman will hurl defiance Jt at a criminal and thus cause him much annoyance. In a fine, brotherly Ifyffl 1 spirit Morris and Currie would have us all cease from annoying crim- Mr J I inals. Let the I. W. W. hurl bombs in their playful way while we wl- applaud and encourage them from points of vantage at the tops of T telegraph poles or the roofs of skyscrapers. But let us refrain from I annoying them when thevy are so busy providing us with entertain- I ment. A I The attitude of Morris and Currie recalls to mind a country c?r- i respondent who once sent us a story about a man named Thompson I who crept up behind, his enemy in the main street of a small tjWn I and beat him to death with a club. The correspondent conclude'! his V report with these words: J "Mr. Thompson is being severely censured." 5C 5J 5j H ( THE SEATTLE STRIKE. THE Seattle strike could succeed only on the theory that the Mer- ican people have turned Bolshevist. ' -' "' . It was foredoomed to collapse because the American people be lieve in obtaining their reforms by constitutional means. The Seattle strike was an appeal to the spirit of revolution and the American people will never sanction revolution until they are convinced that their government has failed. They will endure many 1 ills before they consign to the scrap heap a government which has 1 made this the most powerful nation in history and has provided peace- ' ful and orderly means of obtaining all those reforms whiclvthc judg- ment and conscience of the majority approve. I The Bolshevists who took control of the labor unions in Seattle, I overriding the conservatives, wildly imagined that because revolution g had thriven in Russia, it would assert its supremacy in the United 1 States. Their mistake consisted in believing that Americans were as J dissatisfied with their government and their social and industrial systems as were a people who had just thrown off the yolk of an an cient and intolerable slavery. The workmen of the United States, in the army of the United States, had just finished a war for justice. The Bolshevists launqhed the Seattle strike to enthrone injustice and anarchy. They did not have the sympathy of union labor. For a few days they simply had its grudging assent. The strike was a pretended protest against what had come to be known as the "Macy award." It was an award by which both sides had agreed to abide. It was a contract with the government. Under it the workers were given $4.46 for unskilled labor and from that up . to $7 for an eight-hour day. They demanded $6 a day for common la- .1 bor and $1 an hour for skilled labor, and a forty-four hour week. ) During more than four months the Bolshevists went about among i the shipyard workers counseling rebellion. The conscience of the workers, so to speak, was worn down and weakened by a constant appeal to their passions. They lost sight of the fact that justice re quired them to abide by their contract and at length, in Seattle, the I