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Show i A S of old the builders and wreckers are at war. It is the only kind Ep' .JTx. of war that never ends. However fertile in woe for humanity, W' 'military combats come to an end. And when they terminate the ll builders, patient, long-suffering, devoted and conscientious, shoulder B the burdens imposed by the warriors and begin slowly and painfully rak to remake the world. ISp But always the wrecker is at hand to war on the builder. Always Bfi the disintegrating forces of society begin to corrode the monuments Hp of enduring gold or brass. 11 v The world's biggest war has ended and the hewers of wood and P drawers of water have commenced again their loyal tasks. And as mh never before the wreckers, with derisive shouts and dark menaces, hr r have mobilized to stay the hand of progress. Br Never before have the wreckers been so bold. In other times E they worked secretly, ratlike, undermining the social and economic Br fabric. Today they mass in armies and call themselves Bolsheviki or JSkc Industrial Workers of the World. mm These are the conscious wreckers. But almost as destructive are Ke the unconscious wreckers the men who never gave vent to an an- K archistic threat, never voiced a radical doctrine, never formed any Kr theory or revolution and reconstruction, but who, wars being ended, Hfc give themselves over to sloth- W The wreckers and builders, the speeders and the drones are at K " war. B&b- We have heard moving panegyrics of America's achievements in Hi; the war and we shall hear them again and again. They will tell to Hf" us and repeat to the coming generations a story beside which the Kg lamp of Alladin becomes a mere flickering and smoking taper. Some-HP Some-HP thing astoundingly titanic was the feat of American energy and de-Bjf de-Bjf termination. The Hun had almost won the war, had made almost I secure his title to dominion of the world, when, with an onset unap-R unap-R proached in history, American ships and men hurled him into the E? abyss. s He It was an apotheosis of momentum. Never had speed accom- Hf plished so much. But now deadening inertia has taken hold of many. Br They will not strive in peace as they did in war. Wt It would require the character and the eloquence of another Mp Roosevelt to preach the "strenuous life" that is essential if the world m is to be saved from bankruptcy, if men are to create with sufficient mt- speed the wealth that is to pay for the war in the form of taxes and m , thus lift from the world a mortgage of hundreds of billions. jm Before the war America had, and sometimes humorously boasted jE, that it had, a million tramps. We shall have a million tramps again Sf unless we preach and legislate against sloth, against "laying down" Hap' for rest after the battle. M Europe is a wreck. It is a monument to the work of the wreck- BL ers who, in this instance, labored hand in hand with militarism. In mL ac' e wrecers almost won the war.. gfr Some of us were amazed to find that the foundations of the social B structure were laid so deep. We had fancied that the blows leveled Wt. against civilization would have annihilated its historic institutions, H but the labor of the builders through thousands of years had proved P too much for the wreckers. ' The wreckers do not admit defeat. They are leading mighty LESS WAR I hosts in mysterious Russia against the armies of civilization. They are H destroying machinery in our factories, throwing sulphur bombs into H the haystacks of Illinois, Utah and Oregon. They are making freak JH laws in our legislatures and they are charging such exorbitant prices (KH ,in the marts of trade that they threaten to bring the whole financial H structure about our ears. And where they are not actively wrecking H they are undermining by sloth. H If we could perform the labors of peace with the energy and speed . H we threw into the war the immediate future of the human race would H be much happier than it promises to be. If we could but keep it in ' 'H mind that a foe as mighty as the Hun still confronts us, if we could H visualize that reality and forsee the perils that will come to us with H defeat we would retain our state councils of defense in existence or jH substitute for them similar agencies and we would be as active in our H efforts, as liberal in our contributions for the aid of our builders as we jH were for the aid of our warriors. H je s H -fa lH WHY "PAREE" IS NOT GAY. H SOMEWHERE Scott has said : H If you would view fair Melrose aright H ' You must visit it by pale moonlight. F Perhaps he meant that H Viewing Melrose by sheer daylight, H You'll grant it is a perfect fright. Which is to say that everything depends upon the point of view. If you allow yourself to be unduly impressed by the peace conference you will believe that all is solemnity and you will view it in the spirit H of "Twenty centuries look down upon you, Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd H George and others that might be mentioned." H But you can extract some nectars of fun from the conference if M you do not take the delegates, sub-delegates, proxies, near-proxies, M journalists and Russian onlookers too seriously. M Pause, for a moment, and consider the journalists. At present H they are in their most solemn mood. The weight of the world has H been placed upon the frail shoulders of the "Fourth Estate." The jH correspondents have discovered that the statesmen of the world, de- H spite their oft-repeated protestations of virtue, have gone utterly and H irrevocably to the bad. Before they left their several homes the M statesmen, especially our own statesmen, liberally promised that at M last, after centuries of secret diplomacy, everything would be open and M above board. If skeletons were found they would be dragged M out and made to gallop down the Bois de Boulogne or the H Champs Elysee. If Clemenceau "The Tiger" clawed at Wilson and H Woodrow struck back snappishly with one of his fourteen points the H heralds were at once to seize their megaphones, climb out upon the H bastions or machiolated towers, or whatever dominant positions they H could find, and blazon the disgraceful scene to the world. H It was certainly a gay spectacle to see the correspondents packing H off for Paris as if they expected their sojourn to be one endless round of big stories. v H Arrived in Paree they found it anything but gay for the news- H paper man, however merry it might- be for banqueting diplomats. jH They found that the lid was on tight. Some of them had come thou- H SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, JANUARY 25, 1919. M 1 sands of miles to save the world for democracy, or for any other thing" R that might seem to help, only to discover that the promises of states- HW men were as false as dicers' oaths. H We have a suspicion that the newspaper men considered them- B selves the real peace plenipotentiaries, that by means of their pens, ' backed by consequent public opinion, they would dictate the terms i that would set the would right once more. We are not laughing at i' them precisely for that reason. They were not to blame. You and I H and all of us were to blame. We, too, were deceived. We thought h that public opinion would control the peace conference and that the B deed would be accomplished through the correspondents. We looked H forward to delectable days when, so to speak, we should sit in the V gallery and watch every move of the play and be able, once in a while, 1 to shout directions to the actors or even to lob over a more or less H friendly egg. We thought we were going to create quite a splatter. H But the actors fooled us. They drew about them the aegis of the H censorship and defied us to do our worst. h The newspaper correspondents were told that they would be H . supplied each day with a communique as clear cut as chased jewel H',, work. With this daily gem they must be satisfied. H Editorial writers, character writers, historical writers, economical H writers not meaning writers of communiques sob writers and plain. H news writers found themselves practically out of a job. Heroically H' they had set forth to help us reconstruct the world and the peace Hl delegates coldly and unfeelingly informed them and us that the peace W conference would decide what was what, and would do it in secret. H Take it or leave it, they said. H And the journalists from the ends of the world went about utter- Hi ing loud complaints. Like Elihu the Buzite, spoken of in the Book of HL Job, they unanimously vocalized: "I will speak, that I may be re- H freshed." H They met to adopt resolutions ; they met to make speeches ; they Vf met with Parisian socialists of radical tendencies and ululated their wi woes. H ' At last accounts the lid was still on and there was our own K Woodrow, quite unabashed, sitting on it together with Lloyd George, IHlj Clemenceau, Orlando and a dark little gentleman from Nippon. H M WOLVES OF WASHINGTON. Hi ALL kinds of wolves run wild in Washington blackmailers, dis- reputable lobbyists, foreign spies, corporation conspirators, labor H, agitators and propagandists. H The war has revealed certain types of newspaper men who sell H themselves to foreign governments as publicity propagandists. One H of these has just testified before a senate committee regarding his ac- H tivities preceding our declaration of war against Germany. He sold H himself to George Sylvester Vierick for $40 a week on a contract to H furnish that journalistic agent of the Wilhelmstrasse with informa-H informa-H . tion which would help the German cause in this country. H Denunciation would find itself stammering weakly in an effort to H( characterize the baseness of such men as "The Wolf of Wall Street," HJ who was implicated in German propaganda some months ago, and H) this successor of his who confessed to faking and lying on a scale H and of a quality which will be a revelation to those unfamiliar with Hj what may be called the mental underworld of Washington. H Our purpose here, however, is not to denounce, but simply to call Bj attention to a curious phase of the system. The publicity agent hires H hhuself to some more or less credulous individual and proceeds to 1 furnish him with imaginative information which would drive a fiction w writer to distraction out of sheer envy. M The particular publicist to whom we allude had as one of his M clients a certain Wall Street broker. Posing as omniscient for his B t livelihood depended on the pose he forecast a presidential message H and wired it to the broker. The forecast was acted on by the broker H j. who played the market and won. In Washington ther- was a scandal. Hli At once there were cries of "a leak" and investigations were ordered. H.'f The publicity agent now admits that, like Bernard Baruch who took a H'f chance and made a fortune on the same presidential message, he was Hh simply guessing. H This wolf is a sort of publicity gambler. He supplies his clients j with information which, he believes, will suit them and keep him con- ' tinuously employed. Having spent years in Washington and familiar- i ized himself with official ways and words he is able to write letters , that have every appearance of knowledge and veracity. In reality he is merely faking. He betakes himself to his office or his room on ' the third floor back, lights his pipe, and begins to dream official i secrets. He is able to keep his client in open-mouthed astonishment , at intrigues which seem never to get into the public prints. J We see the publicity agent drawing a picture of underground of- ficial affairs that has all the elements of art except truth. And' even truth is not wholly absent. Now and then the publicity faker runs il across a real piece of secret information and by weaving it in deftly with his 'fiction he is able to obtain credit for a knowledge of hidden affairs he does not possess. Living by one's wits has long been high art in Washington. Ap- J parently the development of many years has given the fakers a m mastery of their craft that is amazing. il THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. J ALMOST with his last breath Colonel Roosevelt uttered a word of ;f admonition regarding the proposed league of nations. Forseeing f the formidable obstacles in the way of such a league, he ad- j vised against attempting too much at first and suggested that the con- J federation be formed with only a few of the larger objects in view. The advise may or may not be required at Versailles. The experts ex-perts there may have arrived at the same conclusion. They, too, may have decided that a concert of powers which attempts to regulate all international activities will have essayed an impossible task. In any f event Roosevelt's counsel will appeal to most of us as containing the same perspicacity of judgment-that we observe in Washington's fare- well address. The concert of powers may easily become a hopelessly j entangling alliance for the 'nations that join it, especially for the jj United States which has the Monroe doctrine on its hands. vj A supreme court of arbitration, a perfected body of international laws for that tribunal to interpret and administer, together with an "f agreement among the powers to abide by arbitration and "cooling time" treaties might form an adequate foundation for a broader agreement when some measure of success has been achieved by the , league in its actual operations. Perhaps the most valuable feature of a preliminary agreement i will be the "cooling time" stipulations. Already many of these treaties, negotiated by Mr. Bryan, are in force. They provide that , before going to war each nation shall wait a certain period and meanwhile mean-while submit the points in dispute to arbitration. The greater the number of nations brought within the purview of such treaties the , better. l The weakness of the "cooling time" treaty was evidenced at the J beginning of the world war. No such agreement by itself is a pro- j tection against a military power bent on agression, conquest and dom- ination. A military power strikes unxepectedly and arbitrates only I when it is defeated. j But it is hoped that the league of nations will be able to eliminate ll powers which seek to prosper by war. Whether this ideal can be at- f j tained only the development of the league's operations will demon- l strate. Nations can be war powers through great navies as well as - It through great standing armies. If Americans have viewed the league of nations with misgivings be- P cause they have seen it as a body which would be calling upon the m United States more or less frequently to employ its army and navy in l regulating the affairs of the Eastern Hemisphere. They have feared r I that should such a league be formed it would require the abandon- J ment of the Monroe doctrine. If we acknowledge that it is our duty i to use military pressure against the people of the Eastern Hemisphere we must admit the right and the duty of the powers in that hemisphere hemi-sphere to employ military pressure against the nations of our own hemisphere. xj One way of obviating this difficulty would be to incorporate the ' i , I Monroe doctrine as a part of international law and stipulate its recog- nition by the league of nations. ft" The idea of the league, of course, contemplates that the league t should act only in accordance with the principles of justice, that it should always represent the conscience of mankind and that, in the course of centuries, it would seldom commit an act of injustice. But if everyone agreed upon the application of justice there would be no nped of courts. A dispute cannot arise so long as both sides agree on i the principles of justice and their application. It is only when the !!, right is in doubt or selfish pas'sions or ignorance blind one side or the P v other to the right that disagreements occur. And when such dis- 'i agreements occur not even a league of the greatest powers of the f earth can always amicably settle the dispute. f Suppose, for example, that California should pass a law excluding I Japanese from certain privileges which the government at Tokio held It, to be theirs as a matter of right, and suppose that the supreme court f of the nations should decjde that California was in the wrong and must abandon its position or be forced to abandon it by the United States $ government. We can see that Japan's threat of war under such cir- cumstances might drive us into a combat. But the chances are that the league will settle scores of disputes f peaceably before it ever fails in its efforts. I We find Great Britain disinclined to submit the fate of its navy !, to the disposition of the league, while in our own country there is I antipathy against placing either the army or the navy at the disposal ' of the league. And yet, at this time, a virtual concert of the powers exists and both our army and navy are obeying its behests in Russia iand other parts of the world. r Necessarily a discussion of a league of nations must be at random Br until the experts furnish us with specific proposals. ' In general, however, it may be said that international evolution has been trending toward some such device as a concert of the pow- ! ers, a concert truly based on the conscience of mankind, a concert I ft which would seek to ennoble international relatidns to such a point j ? that national patriotism would in time be paralleled by the patriotism ' of humanity. ' i :e s: jfc & KILL-JOY SENATORS. , i I l T" ILL-JOY senators continue to declare that we "did not go to war ! XV to make the world safe for democracy, but because our flag was Jfi attacked and our people killed by the Germans." H i These literalists, if it pleased them, would tell you that the North 1 1 went to war with the South solely because Fort Sumter was fired on. J IB Perhaps there is some politics in this insistence of the kill-joys. W Perhaps they resent President Wilson's battle-cry "Make the world A safe for democracy." JlJ In the light of subsequent events the president's shibboleth was I unfortunate. If he had used the word liberty instead of democracy I I f he would have expressed more nearly the American ideal, for today ieven anarchy is garbing itself in the fair trappings of democracy. The most brutal and detestable of men advertise themselves as the champions and chieftains of demociacy. But the inspiring fact remains that we went to war for loftier reasons than the realistic senators proclaim. A formal declaration of war is frequently like a legal document by its very nature it must be technical, and technicalities often obscure the mountains and abysses of tragedy. When we leaped into the war we became the comrades of those who were fighting for liberty and our entire history and tradition fitted us for the fight. However sufficient the technical reasons alluded al-luded to in the negotiation? and in the formal declaration of war yet the bigger truths were elsewhere. They were in the hearts and . consciences of the American people. H fir T p T H I HUNS AS LYNCHERS. E T"v URING their days of arrogance, when victory seemed certain and 1 JL when they could visualize a whole world under their dominion, IJl the Germans feigned to scorn American opinion, slighted our pleas and if we ventured to remind them of their atrocities promptly i taunted us with our lynchings. Every hour of the war the Huns were M committing outrages against humanity that made our occasional IH lynchings, even the burning of negroes at the stake, dwindle into H triviality. If they were not murdering Edith Cavellc and Captain H Fryatts they were helping the Turks to massacre a million Armenians. H And yet they evidenced no sense of shame. Often they boasted of H their misdeeds. H The other day a lynching occurred in Germany and the Germans, H recalling their hollow excuses, became almost hysterical in their ex- -H pressions of shame and remorse. If they had been victorious they ' H would not have been so thin skinned, for had they not declared that H might made morality? Had they triumphed the world would have H seen a new morality everywhere. The old commandments would H have fallen into disrepute. New canons of public and private conduct H would have been set up by the followers of Nietschke, Trietschke, Von H Bernhardi and William Hohenzollern. The moral law would have H been simply the will of the strong. H Having suffered defeat the Huns must conform to the old H standards. They must cry with the poet, "Thou hast conquered, 0 Jk pale Galilean !" The law that was born in Galilee and has spread over Hl the world, they would have overthrown, but now it has overthrown H them. H Conservative German newspapers are wearing sackcloth and H ashes because Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg were lynched, but 'H deep in their souls they rejoice that the. firebrands of revolution were jH thus summarly eliminated. !H The assassination of Liebknecht and the Emma Goldmann of H Germany was quite in accord with the military precepts followed by k the Pan-Germans in their war upon the world. The Pan-German was always ready to murder first and to argue afterwards. Whether he was defending murders by U-boats or by military judges in Belgium H he never was at a loss to invent excuses or extenuating circum- stances. American lynchings were seized upon by the Hun apologist, H not because the Hun conscience was shocked by them, but merely because they served as controversial material. And today the Ger- M man evidences of shame and remorse are mere mockery. M Sooner or later, perhaps, Liebknecht would have fallen in the H fight, by fair means or foul. His whole life of radicalism had been a H challenge to the powers that be. If he had not been murdered he M would have hurled himself again and again into peril. He had the H courage of his red convictions. While other radicals were snivelling M at the feet to the kaiser during the war and playing the Hohenzollern M game, Liebknecht refused to bow his neck under the imperial yoke H and suffered wounds and prison for his uncompromising boldness. M We would be among the last to defend the Bolshevism of Lieb- M knecht, but every sincere man deserves at least a tribute to his hon- M esty of soul, even though we may account his political doctrines as the M very stuff of hades. . At least he deserves to b differentiatd from such M hirelings as Lenine and Trotzky. M r t fi M HIGH COST OF TALKING. I INCREASED telephone rates by direction of the government have H proved more of a shock to the country than the higher railway jH rates which became effective amid the red fire and din of war. Gov- H ernment control is not operating in just the way the reformers would H have it. For years they had been picturing government ownership in H lively and appealing colors, something blissful that all normal men H should yearn for as they yearn for contentment here and eternal hap- H piness beyond the grave. H In the process of praising socialistic forms they muck-raked the H corporations without mercy and, truth to tell, the corporations often supplied texts for the sermons of the informers. H Corporations on a grand scale were new to industry. They had H been ated and developed within the memory of men who had not H yet auained middle life. Like the lightenings of Jove in unpracticed H hands they sometimes worked havoc. In the time of President Roose- H velt they were unregulated and defiant. They had not become the instruments of faithful public service that most of them are today. H 'I HK But gradually the Sherman law was shown to contain the means H whereby the corporations might be restrained within the limits set H J by just public opinion. The great octopi which had appeared to men- H I ace civilization were transformed as by some charm and began to be H devoted servitors of the public, competing with one another in 'good i ) This is not an attempt; to defend ancient wrongs or to picture virtues that exist only in poetic imaginations. It is a word of cautidn against those radicals who have preached to us in and out of season of i the elysium which would spring into being in this land of ours once we H abolshed private ownership of public utility corporations and adopted H government ownership. H ' Nor do we intend to discuss the fairness of the new telephone H rates. They may or may not be warranted by conditions. The prob- H abilities are that the higer rates are needed if the telephone business H is to be conducted successfully under, government control, for govern- H ment control is notoriously expensive and wasteful. In many ways H private control also was costly and wasteful as the result of unregu- X lated competition and practices of high finance which it is needless to V recall in this connection. H We believe that a friendlier view of private ownership has grown H up in this country despite the more or less "horrible examples" which H gigantic corporations occasionally make of themselves. The people w have come to see that the American genius is of a peculior type which - is deadened rather than energized by government monopoly. H When President Wilson went before Congress and frankly con- m fessed that he had been unable to make up his mind concerning public ( ownership of the railways he voiced the perplexity of many who had Hi been misled by the preachings of the panaceaists. After all, federol M management, like the dreams of the Bolsheviki, has turned out to be 1 more dross than gold. Bd 1 p l l B VICE FIGHTS BACK. v ALL decent folk will indorse the drive of Chief of Police White mi against the dens and dives which have been operating under the guise of soft drink parlors while catering to the basest element of the H underworld. Evidently the proprietors expected to engage in a rich- m quick business by employing girls as waitresses, dancers and cabaret H I entertainers. It was a method of pandering to vice which promised a wide open town once more for the underworld. H, The chief extended his drive against the bootleggers so as to reach H; these vicious resorts and naturally he has made new enemies. On Hi the other hand he has won the support of innumerable citizens anxious H, to see the city kept clean. H It is an ancient fight this coinbat between decency and indecency. Hi It is never wholly a triumph for either side. Sometimes the under- H i world dominates for a few years through political channels and then H it is driven back to its secret lairs. It never accepts defeat and al- Hij ways is encroaching on the limits set by law and order. HJ So long as Chief White continues to uproot the dens of vice H wherever he finds them just so long will he be the target for sinister Hr attacks and it behooves those who are willing to give him moral sup- H port to be ready to give him active support in any crisis. H It is regrettable that the bootleggers and Commissioner Neslen B should, for once, seem to be of the same mind in an unfriendly attitude Hj toward Chief White. It is also surprising that the democrat of the H commission should be able to dominate that republican body. H f p p p '' THE DEMOCRATIC VOLCANO. S ' . f QJ OME are heard to complain already that the legislature has done O nothing. We fear that these same impatient persons soon will complain that our lawmakers have done too much. j Knowing the records and the propensities, also the backing of our L leading solons, not a few of us have felt relieved to hear that they are " in a state of quiescence. We felt like those villagers at the foot of an active volcano who, each night, go out of doors to calculate the volume I of smoke and the vividness of the light crowning the mouth of the cra6r and who turn away and say: "Not dangerous yet." At the fl same time we feel that the volcano is there and that some day it will ! 1 erupt. We are not a bit confident that the Capitol hill volcano will not j soon be hurling scorching scoriae and molten lava upon those of us i who dwell in the valley. . The Democrats continue to talk of long-term commissions and I officials they desire to name. The purpose, of course, is to pro- ' vide jobs for "deserving Democrats" who shall be holdovers in the days of Republican triumph. The Democrats see the drift all over the nation. Even in the last election Utah was out of tune with the rest 1 j of the country. Since the election the tendency has been steadily l away from the Democratic party and our solons, seeing that lean days r are inevitable, would provide against the hard years of democratic deprivation. j The fact that the state is running hundreds of thousands of dollars dol-lars behind does not disturb the Democrats overmuch. Looking for- 'j ward to inevitable defeat they are willing to bequeath the worry to j j their Republican successors. Even the governor did not take a firm I position against deficits. In his message he counseled economy, but took care to say that economy must not stand in the way of necessary neces-sary improvements, or words to that intent. It sounded like an in- r vitation to spend while the spending was comfortable. j THE MUSIC MASTER. IGNACE JAN PADEREWSKI is bringing harmony out of discord in the new Poland. While professional politicians and social reformers reform-ers are getting no better results than tumult and fighting in Russia and Germany the music master has discovered the secret of harmony ', in political relations and has evoked it successfully, much to the de- light of the Poles and their allies. ' Let us hope that the music master will not soon strike a discord. 1 The new Polish nation should, in the years not remote, shine with something of the glory of the old Kingdom of Poland, which produced 'J great men and heroes. But the old Poland was founded upon the , sands. The ruling class arrogated to itself all the rights and privileges, ! making serfs of all other classes. When assailed by stronger neigh- ,- bors Poland collapsed like a shell because it was not braced with t the golden bars of patriotism. Even in their political decline the Polish people have been produc- i ing great men to stir the admiration and applause of mankind. If we J) mention only Paderewski and the author of Quo Vadis, not forgetting J Helena Modjeska who was for so long a star of the first magnitude in , our own histrionic firmament, we shall have demonstrated the intel- a lectual supremacy of the people who are now striving to establish a free republic modeled on the lines of our own republic. . J J. Ogden Am. iur admits that packing profits were not too large. jJ The Bolsheviki are making Germany as pleasant to live in as they t made Russia. 1 S f If meat prices go any higher we shall have to stop "beefing" and Jj I just chew the rag. J 5( 5fC Jj )C a?j If Sometimes you think the senate is inviting Wilson to come home M and sometimes you think it is daring him to come home. ' M Von Bethmann-Hollweg demands painless justice for Germany. J T T T P fcgj j The English would be satisfied' if the leaders of the Irish republic m ' would speak Gaelic only, but the trouble is the Irish insist, at times, jl on speaking plain English. -J p p H r ji The Ogden Standard complains because we called the radical legislators "red." We desire to please and, therefore, in this issue I i we will call them "yellQw." . M: saasss!j"""i r...11rrr-MTTMI 'ry |