As for religion exerting any fundamental influence for peace and right thinking, it caused Protestants to fight Protestants and Catholics to fight Catholics, while German and Austrian cardinals did all in their power to aid in the invasion and conquest of Belgium and France, on one hand, and Italy, the stronghold of the Papal See, on the other; and all this in the face of the statement of the Kaiser that Catholicism must be destroyed. Nothing like it has been known since the dawn of Christianity.
The only apparent reason for the quiescent attitude of some of the smaller nations is that they are without the material means of waging war on their neighbors.
Just as long as politicians are impelled by self-interest there will be found nations that will have to use force for the suppression of licence and the curtailment of liberty. In every country the people are getting what their thoughts and deeds create for them.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Events come and go in cycles--there is a beginning, a middle and an end.
The League of Nations had a beginning and it will have an end. But what kind of an end? Will it be one of victory or one of ignominy?
The two fatal blunders of the Kaiser and his cohorts consisted in the delusion that England could not raise, equip and transport a body of troops sufficient to offer adequate resistance to the invaders of France in conjunction with the French and Belgian armies, and that America could not or would not join the European Allies.
At the present juncture the inimical forces, both in continental Europe and in America, are repeating the old blunders under fresh conditions.
History is a repetition of the old tunes with new variations. Just now the fireworks of sophistry and rhetoric drown out the familiar tune and what is heard is the buzz-saw of political machinery.
Hyenas are gnawing the bones left by the lion rampant of Czardom; and Siberia, the remnant, is being consumed by jackals from Japan. It remains to be seen how long voters with American pedigrees will be influenced by demagogues who would induce them to part with their birthright for a mess of pottage burnt on the bottom.
The longer you wink at anarchy in Europe the greater will be the menace of social chaos at home. The worship of shibboleths cannot be kept up beyond a point where the majority grow tired of hocus-pocus politics and academical agnosticism.
There should be harmony of interests in dealing with the people of Mexico, from whom you have much to learn in many ways.
The Obregon Government should be recognized at Washington and immediate steps taken to insure cordial relations between the two countries.
The City of Mexico is a capital with a great future.
You are about to pass through a period of great confusion. Warnings have been given but not heeded. Unless you cease to theorize, and propagate a spirit of justice and judgment, the near future will develop something more than storms in the blue china teapots of diplomacy.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Washington needs a breaker of images.
The pedestrian sauntering down Pennsylvania Avenue cannot but note the hefty Hancock on horseback, looking as if he had just left a meeting of ward politicians, and, in another part of the city, McClellan, the Beau Brummel of the Civil War, on a charger, sniffing the smoke of battle from a safe distance, and others whose names are writ in water but whose effigies remain in bronze.
To the scrap heap with these, and in their places erect memorials for the women, who did as much for America as Joan of Arc did for France, the intrepid pioneers of their race, the prophetic patriots of the nineteenth century--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony.
It would take a Lincoln Memorial to depict their serenity, a National Capitol to symbolize their nobility, a Washington Monument to typify the towering height of their achievement and the scope and clarity of their vision.
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS
A war between America and England would fill your homes with desolation and bring ruin to the whole country. Do your sins of omission merit such a punishment? I am here to tell you what to expect if such a hurricane of disaster ever sweeps the two countries.
Millions of people are under the impression that the United States can act independently of the conditions prevailing in the other great nations.
This suggestion, coming, as it did, from a professional joker in England, has met with eager response from revolutionary emissaries now in your midst, supported by political fillibusters who are masking the truth.
If England ever starts such a war she will lose India. Her direction of the reins of civilization in many quarters of the world would cease on the day hostilities began. But I am speaking for America.
A war with England would Russianize the United States within three months.
Even if the navy could keep the enemy at a safe distance the destructive forces at home would loot the principal cities and spread terror from ocean to ocean.
The first to lose in such an upheaval would be the wealthy propagandists of disorder and violence, who, living in security now, would be hurled with destructive force against the weapons of their own creation.
GENERAL BENJAMIN H. GRIERSON
Late Commander of the Military Department of Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico
In 1914 western civilization was threatened by a military autocracy centralized at Berlin. Europe is now threatened by a communistic tyranny centralized at Moscow and by an autocratic aristocracy centered in Japan, anti-Christian, anti-democratic, anti-American. You may call it fate or destiny, it matters not so long as you know what the signs and portents are.
We can see what is going on in the navy yards of the Nipponese Empire. We have noted the strenuous efforts put forth in naval preparations there.
A Japanese Bonaparte will soon dominate China and prevent Christian propaganda throughout Asia. I could give you the dates fixed for certain maneuvers and events in connection with Japanese ambitions relating to America, but they could change the dates. Suffice it to say they are making ready as fast as possible, much faster than many in this country could be made to believe. When the decisive moment arrives for action it will come suddenly, like the invasion of Belgium by the Germans.
Here are some of their expectations:--
The invasion of the coast of Mexico and a coalition of Japanese forces with some military faction in Mexico likely to be of practical aid, the bombing of American cities on the Pacific Coast from the air, virtual cessation of communication between certain sections east of the Rocky Mountains and California, brought about not so much by physical means as by revolutionary influences. They are counting on a Soviet revolution east of the Rockies while they are gaining a foothold in California.
One of their first attempts would be to bomb the railway passes in the Cascades and the Sierra Nevadas.
General Grant has warned you in regard to the Panama Canal and other points that need immediate attention. Millions would be alarmed if they could realize how much the Government at Washington resembles the British Government just before the German descent into Belgium. Are they waiting until they can spy the enemy through field glasses?
I could give a map of the plans of approach of the Japanese navy, intended to operate in separate units, but it would do no good. They are ready to change their tactics at any time, and have done so more than once.
Let me add that the bellicose attitude of the war party in Japan is such that a war between England and America would be hailed as a symbol of their divine destiny.
Do not be surprised when I say that they proclaim the end of Christian civilization was reached when the Anglo-Saxons took possession of the Pacific Coast.
In the Far East, British domination attained its zenith in India; in America, Anglo-Saxon influence attained its limit in California. The possession of the Pacific Coast of North America is, therefore, the limit for the dominant white race. The tocsin has sounded for a Japanese avatar who will unify the political, commercial and religious forces of Japan and China, give the coup de grace to a tottering civilization and dominate the world. So do they reason and preach.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON