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Show "Carthage Must Be Destroyed" ' Those words were said in the Roman senate during dur-ing a long and bitter war between Rome, "old and crafty," and its rival, Carthage, "young and robust." The Roman senate accepted those words, and in 146 B. C. actually destroyed the rival city, razed it to the ground, burned, and demolished every structure, struc-ture, and sold the conquered inhabitants as slaves. My son in law, Captain M. M. Reeves was sent with his company to Tunisia, and while there he visited the site of ancient Carthage, and probed around in the ancient ruins of what was once a proud city; with an eye for the interesting, he selected se-lected and sent me a small piece of mosaic tiling from a floor or other part of one of the old buildings, about three inches in size, by about one and a half inches thick. It was received last week, and is put in my display case, as a treasured relic of the past. "Carthage delanda est" was the verdict; it took the place of "A League of Nations," and that more recent equally empty phrase "the post-war peace." Rome simply said, "Carthage is to be destroyed" and set about to do it. To think that I, editing a tiny country newspaper, with years of study in the past on the classics and ancient history should now, in this far remote place, today have in hand a piece of mosaic tile, let us say from a bathroom or elsewhere from about the house of a Carthaginian noble, rich, powerful, to link in an actual material object today with the second sec-ond century Before Christ, is a treasure trove for memory to dwell upon. The commercial rivalry of one great power, old rich and crafty, with a young nation, strong, robust, daring; another case of "haves" versus "have nots;"of conservatism (for we all are conservative when age creeps up) arrayed ar-rayed against a redistribution; nation pitted against nation; how it brings to memory Hannibal, and Italy invaded with elephants; the story of the Roman seized and captured who deliberately put his hand in the altar fire and burned it off to show his captors cap-tors (the Carthaginians) how a brave Roman should scorn them and flames. The debates in the Senate against Carthage; swelling oratory; the fixed will of a people to crush that rival and the actual doing of it, all told in a little piece of cement with mosaic work on top shiny marble or fine quality terra cot-ta cot-ta and the fate of a nation epitomized in one small object in a glass case away out here thousands of miles from the scene where history was enacted! Its lesson as to today? why simple, the tiling says "Junkerism is to be destroyed." It is to be annihilated anni-hilated root and branch. Every phase of militarism in Prussia, the war lords, the class, are to be destroyed. de-stroyed. Russia is to tend to her end of that schedule ' (which will not be lightly done): England is to attend at-tend to her call; and America must not oppose, but must aid. The Junkers must be like ancient Carthage, Carth-age, blotted from off the earth. This is not a task for sob-sisters, nor for pink tea parlorettes, nor for pseudo-patriotic bunds working under the false colors of a fancy name, with fifth-columnists sprinkled in them, who are even now "appeasing" the Junker class, tempering justice for the guilty. Mounds of earth; a broken tile so metaphorically, metaphoric-ally, of the vast edifice of Junkerism and German military might, to carry the simile, ruins; a tile only of a panzer force; no more. Let that be the verdict. "Junkerism delenda est" unconditional surrender. If Russia says, "We demand 200,000 Germans transported trans-ported to our country to repair, rebuild and make good the havoc they have caused, let Johnny Bull and your Uncle Sam say, "Go to it Stalin; our bayonets bay-onets at your service." But we can't bring back 10,-000 10,-000 Poles shot and buried in a ravine; we can't un-sterilize un-sterilize a daughter of a captured city, defiled by German officer; we can't bring back to life literally hundreds of thousands of slain, not slain on the field of battle, but behind the lines in mass massacre. But we can say "Unconditional surrender, with Hitler Hit-ler and his chiefest leaders in our hands, before the order to stop fire' is given." And saying it, see that it is enforced. Justice, full justice, here and now. Murderers condemned to death. "Whom the Gods wish to destroy," they iirst fill with militaristic delusions. delu-sions. Hitler, Mussolini, Goebbels, and the others, before a composed and orderly court, tried, found guilty, and judgment pronounced against them. "Junkerism delenda est." A wind-swept mound; . a chunk of tile protruding all that shall be left of a once great and gloiious regime of brutish force, power, weath, position razed to the ground. Berlin xnd the Wilhemstrausse a mass of rubble; the castle if Berchesgaden, the hut of a poor peasant, peace -illy tending flocks were war lords gathered to plot ore murder. The day approaches. May justice sit unswayed, d give impartial verdict. |
