Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-11-01 | Page 6 | Living History

every day. What are tho fortunes of the Roman empire, the collisions of the barbarians, the destruction of the old world, tho throes of Europe, and the beginnings of the middle age, to the destructions de-structions and reconstructions that are before our eyes. The disasters of Russia, Rus-sia, the coming into being of the submerged sub-merged nationalities in the Balkans, the end of the Ottoman empire, the reappearance reap-pearance of Poland, the restoration to France of Alsace-Lorraine, tho reintegration reinte-gration of Italy, the dissolution of the artificial Austro-Hungarian empire, the tardy justice to the ancient hopes of Czecho-Slovak, Serb, Rumanian, Ruthe-nian, Ruthe-nian, Greek, the hope that when this old, long, cruel page of history is turned over a saner world, a more intelligent in-telligent international policy, may result, re-sult, make this the most interesting time in all the long chronicle of 'crimes, treasons, and calamities' which was history his-tory as Dr. Johnson saw it." LIVING HISTORY. The people of today are living in the most wonderful epoeh In tho history of the world. Future generations will rorne and go, but it is doubtful if any of them will witneil or take part in events of such immenae importance ;.s aro oeenrring at this time. We learch tho roeorda of past age in vain when we look for an account of ' a great war waged to Insure the future pence of the world and we should thank fiod that it has been our privilege to be alive when civilization takes its longest step forward. The historian of the future, While he may bo thrilled by tho official offi-cial documents and written accounts of this greatest of all wars, will be unable to aeo things as we see them today. "Ifo written history," says tho New York Times, "by whatever penetrating and lympathetle genius composed, can be more than a choice of events, a theory of pOft events nnd men. Jt nirnot reproduce tho vivid interest of tb living witness of those events and men. The love, the hatred, tho preju difl may be discounted, but. history Is deed, it is unreal, artificial, liternry, rtept In to fur as it, is toon nnd felt, with Whatever Injustice to fnett of de tail, by living men, by tho generation that makes what the hlttorinnt try to reomke ' Never In the world before was his I...f7 m tragi" in the present, of such .rdinal Import. M the future, mudn aa ... It BiakiiS i the newspapers