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Show THE CITIZEN, 6 stunned. They could not realize the fullness of the drama going on before their eyes. They adopted toy expedients like peace ships and became the joke not only of statesmen but of every vaudeville comedian. The flaw in their logic the flaw that reduced them to absurdity was their failure to see that pacifism, in its last analysis, was the repudiation of all force even in the cause of right. Once the pacifist admitted that force might be used to uphold any cause whatsoever he ceased, logically, to be a pacifist. Henry Ford now admits that he was wrong in his pacifism and says that he was thinking of wars of aggression. Pacifism would do away even with the police. The police force is nothing more or less than an army formed to conduct unceasing warfare on criminal aggressors. The offense against international morality, for which the kaiser soon is to stand trial, is only in a larger degree the kind of crime the police are coping with every day. Mankind has agreed that certain standards of public morality must be preserved. No standard of public morals can be upheld without the threat or the use of force. It was this knowledge, no doubt, that impelled the statesmen at Paris to form a peace league based on. armies and navies. Religion, education and other means of suasion may be sufficient for the average man, but the kaiser and the burglar are not average men. They are the kind of aggressors against whom armies and police forces conduct their necessary warfare. Just before the war the London police were slaughtered by criminals who barricaded themselves and used revolvers and rifles. For years the police of the biggest city in the world had gone about their duties unarmed and the system operated satisfactorily until it occurred to a gang of desperadoes that a war of aggression on the police might be successful. Before he burst upon the startled east, George Creel was a police commissioner in Denver, where no man ought to be a pacifist. He decided that a club was no necessary part of a policemans equipment and so he disarmed them. Soon there was a chaos of criminality. The army of defense was easily overthrown by the army of aggression. The clubs came back and soon thereafter Creel departed for the east. Pacifism simply opens the doors to anarchy. Instead of conquering war it lets loose all the great and little aggressors to make war. low-brow- ed QUESTIONS FOR THE PRESIDENT THE Presidents tour of the nation should be welcomed for two First, because he is President of the United States and his countrymen delight to honor that high office in honoring him. Second, because he must abandon his policy of secretiveness regarding the Paris negotiations or confess that he cannot defend his part in them. The public will be glad to have him attempt something more ambitious than his address to the Senate, for in that address he failed to discuss any of those crucial points on which depends the Senates sanction of the treaty. Unless he can explain satisfactorily from an American point of view the apparently odious compromises and the: ignoble concessions to tyranny he made at the Paris conference public sentiment, which is still held in suspense, will turn directly against his League of Nations. His countrymen are anxious that he should explain why the United States should use its soldiers and its money without stint or limit to preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all the members of the league, and Why the United States agrees that every European war or every war in Asia Minor or Africa shall become a matter of concern to it, and Why the league took the form, not of a league for peace, but league for war, and g and Why the United States submits its powers to an outside sovereignty, and Why Great Britain was permitted to make a reservation that she war-maki- ng peace-makin- must have the greatest navy, therefore repudiating in advance the application of disarmament to that country, and Why the United States consented to the robbery of China and the infamous enlavement of. Shantung and its 40,000,000 inhabitants. Will tHe President shake off his reticense, abandon literary phrase-monginand candidly answer these questions? Or will he cling to his policy of evasion, so inconsistent with his maxim of open covenants openly arrived at, and continue to weave picturesque fabrics of verbal inanities ? g, MORE LAUGHTER wonder the republican NOsaid senators laughed at Hitchcock when he : Whatever China has lost by the Versailles treaty she gained something more than all else, protection under Article X. The Shantung province of China, containing nearly 40,000,000 iiifV habitants, has been given to Japan by the Versailles treaty and, by force of Article X, the nations that robbed China have agreed to preserve Shantung to Japan. Moreover, China has refused to sign the treaty and it is not certain that she is to be a member of the League of Nations. If she refuses to join the league her remaining territories would be open to further despoilment by members of the league. Some months ago we cited the diplomatic processes by which China was despoiled and recently Senator Norris has referred to them. China was anxious to enter the war on the side of the allies. Japan asked Great Britain and France to agree that Japan should have, Chinas Shantung province. And what was Japans valuable consideration for their assent? She promised to bring China into the war on the side of the allies. Up to the time of the infamous compact Japan had restrained China from joining in the struggle of nations. When the compact was closed Japan permitted China to declare war against Germany. In other words, China was allowed to fight for the allies after they had secretly agreed to rob her. Fighting for liberty and humanity, as they often assured the world, the allies condemned a province of China to enslavement and yet hypocritically allowed China to fight on their side. The allies drove off burglarious Germany from the house of their Chinas reward for helping the allies is to be robbed of a province Chinas rewar dfor helping the allies is to be robbed of a province of 36,000,000 inhabitants. Naturally they did not tell her about their intention to rob her until they had availed themselves of all the aid she could give. the President should carry a special exhibition train with him to show off the million dollars worth In the swing-around-the-cir- cle of presents he collected in Europe. We read that Germany is trying to make both ends meet.. Thr peace council made both ends of Germany nearly meet. Being President of the Irish republic entitles you to as many term? V as the British want to give you if they catch you. Ham Lewis says a third Wilson runs for a third term the J. term is a first term when President first time. Congress Voted Dry, says a headline. by unanimous consent long ago. Punish the kaiser with his conscience, Congress was voted dry says II. Rider Haggard That wouldnt be much punishment. A headline says: Government Wins Beer Case. should pass it around. Government The beef trust says we use too expensive cuts of meat. Always rubbing it in. Who wants a 2.75 per cent jag anyway? |