OCR Text |
Show THE GREATEST TRAGEDY OF ALL (By W. J. Ghcn) Of the American Alliance for Labor "and Democracy. A year ago this government of which we are all a pari reconsecrated itself to the cause of humanity. On April G, 1017, we formally recognized Ahe German menace to civilization, and we resolved to pay some portion of the eternal debt which we owe to the men of Britain and Belgium and France and Italy by joining them in the great struggle. No nobler act will ever be recorded in our country's annals. an-nals. Tnic, wo are not a wholly united people. We have welcomed to this land multitudes of refugees from every ev-ery quarter of the globe; and many of thoie refugees, now that their adopted country is warring against the evils from which they fled, turn against it with ingratitude and treach-. cry. In this treachery they are sup-1 ported and aided by a purely nath e element, el-ement, small but active, which is at once undemocratic and anti-social, which uses the shibboleths of freedom only to aid the cause of militarist autocracy. au-tocracy. And yet with all this understratum of nervcrseness and disloyalty, where else in all history has there been a people formed of so many diverse elements ele-ments that has shown such singleness of purpose in following out a great decision7 In spite of all that the servitors of autocracy can do In spile of their Insidious In-sidious propaganda aiming to confuse and divide the people the nation goes forward unflinchingly in the prosecution prosecu-tion of its heroic task. That task will be worked out to the end. The great tragedy of the conflict is not the destruction of life and propertyfrightful proper-tyfrightful beyond all precedent as that destruction is known to be. The great tragedy is that here, in what we have thought the most advanced period of civilization, a despairing spectacle, ever recurring since tho Infancy In-fancy of the world, again presents itself. it-self. It is the spectacle of men who have most to conserve from a victory for justice and freedom eagerly espousing the cause of tyranny nnd force the spectacle of men insensible to the benefits ben-efits thai have been won for them through the ages by other men. now eagerly transforming themselves into the adulators and servile agents of irresponsible power. Yet we feel and know that democracy, democ-racy, in the long run of events, is unconquerable, un-conquerable, and that though assailed from without and betrayed from within, with-in, it steadily extends and perfects its sway. ' |