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Show Public Forum i ' This co'umn is for the use of ocr readers as long as ar- tides are not defamatory to private individuals. This j newspaper doesn't take sides with any of the views expressed. express-ed. Contributions are welcome. HITLER'S EMPIRE HOW LONG WILL IT LAST? By G. W. States How long will it last we don't kno.v. No one knows. Arconliiif. to press reports. Hitler says that after he has accomplished his purpose his empire will last a thousand years. II might well be m view of this declaration to review the careers of past conquerors and the length of time their em-pires em-pires continued. Many another man has hat. similar ambitions and dreamed of a perpetual kingdom. Not one has succeeded. In ancient times we had font' universal world wide kingdoms which ruled over the then known world, namely Babylon, Medo Persia, Per-sia, Greece and Rome. Kmpires as vast as these do not last a thousand years and history-bears history-bears witness to that fact. Nebuchadnezzar, Emperor of Babylon, probably had some ex. travagant ideas at times over the longivity of Babylon. Babylonia was a world-wide empire then, but in less than seventy years it fell into the hand of the Metlo-rersians. Metlo-rersians. At this time Belshazzar was king, the son Nebuchanezzar. At a great feast for a thousand of his lords, theve appeared on the wall of his palace this saying you all remember, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." (Daniel 5-27). Babylonia, Baby-lonia, the universal empire was conquered by Medo-Persia under Cyrus the Great. If anyone had asked Cyrus at the time of his conquest how long he thought his kingdom would last, he probably would have replied, "A thousand years." But two hundred years was the length of the Medo-Per-sian empire. At theend of this two hundred years, Alexander the Great ot Greece went on the war-path with other dreams of a thousand-year empire. Persia was conquered by Greece and Greece as a world-wide empire lasted only a hundred and fifty years when it was taken over by the Roman power. Rome was the longest lived ot all the ancient world-wide powers; pow-ers; but after four hundred years of domination it too began to breakup, and was finally smashed into ten divisions by invading barbarian bar-barian tribes. Since that time no one man has succeeded in conquering all ot Europe, to say nothing of the rest of the world. Those who have tried have enjoyed but a brief period pe-riod of success. Charlemagne, a thousand years ago; then Charles the Fifth, five hundred years ago; and Napoleon in the last 'century all tried it and failed. All these had their dreams of long enduring empires. If they had been asked how long they expected their kingdoms to last they would have replied boastfully "A thousand years." Each in his day had beaten most of Europe to their knees. Not one of these conquerors expected the defeat and overthrow that finally brought their grandose plans to naught. There is no reason for us to suppose that history will not repeat re-peat itself it has repeatedly with every great empire that has been set up in the last three thousand years. Daniel Webster said, "To understand the present and know something of the future take the past for a chart." No, there will be no thousand year empires in this present world. In each historical his-torical reference force has begotten begot-ten force and sometimes from unexpected un-expected sources and tremendously tremendous-ly powerful. So whoever wins in the present war over other nations is bound to find the victory short lived. The story of the rise and fall of nations bears out that fact. Every nation built on conquest, robbery and rapine sows to the wind and j will reap the whirlwind, so savs ! history. Sharp saws ! Havo your Bawa niod and Jointed IflRV bx machine. Mechanically iS-alMPl precise filing. Bawa cut truer a SHl (rffi cleaner, faster. Quicker arrr- JSrri-rKlw" icor-you'tl iifce our woafc "tfiSB Preston Bike Shop &p |