Life — September 11, 1919 — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

for bedlam than to work out recon- struction. Mr. Knox wants its nations, sore and full of wounds and antipa- thies, to embrace and be good without help from any outsider, and stand off the yellow peril. As for us, he wants us to look sharp, and keep out of trouble. Somebody must bor- rowed his Bible some and cut out the story of the maritan. He is right in thinking Germany must be attached to Western Europe, but is he right in thinking that, as yet, she works with her old philosophy, and wants to try her recent games in? We hope not, but we shall see. Ger- many is still groping. Her processes of purification have not gone yet, but until the peace is settled they can- not be expected to make much progress If there remains in her a capacity for revenge and military have time Good reasser- tion on the scale Mr. Knox anticipates, abandon France to be devoured by such a mon- tends to raise Asia to destroy what is left of Europe, we y should not be content to hang second time until she has all but done it. All Mr. Knox’s nightmares argue for the League of Nations. If the dangers are not so great as he If they are as great as he fears, so much the worse for us if we do not meet them. The United States is not a resident of Phil- adelphia, nor yet of Valley Forge. It lives out in the world, and is a large place, accessible by air and water, and no bed was ever big enough for it to If the world is going to be so dangerous that countries the size of this one have got to climb trees to save their hides, it is time that we we certainly should not ster. If Germany fears, so much the better. crawt under, gave up residing in it, and intruded into the hereafter. ® YX. OS. R. KNOX think the Treaty was too hard on Germany, but, after all, it deals with very much larger matters than he or any one clse, is used to, and should not be judged on the same basis as documents whose scope is more restricted. It is an effort tu get somewhere in an enormous mix- up. What is workable in it will work, and what can't pay what is assessed on her, the sheriff will not be able to collect it Nobody can tell how the Treaty and the League will work, Once they are brought to birth they will become live creatures and will go considerably their It was so with our Constitu- seems to isn’t won't. If Germany own gait tion, which scared many worthy peo- ple into fits resembling those that shake Mr. Knox. Statesmen shuddered at it in most of the thirteen states, It finally squeaked through. Some of its most careful provisions, like the college, failed to operate almost from the start, but it supplied a scheme for government, and government went on and prospered under it. The states began to travel in harness and were able to pull the load, and get some- amendments were electoral where Twelve added immediately to reassure the anx- ious; and others from time to time, when demand was strong enough. It restrained the men who governed the country. So, with good luck, the League of Nations will restrain. the men who govern the world. For men will always govern the world and exercise their wills on it more or less. The animals, though very worthy, are not up to the employment, Neither are the machines, which, though mar- vellously efficient more than the tools of their creators. The Al- mighty makes men, and men make are no machines, and both use their instru- ments, but the Almighty allows men free will, whereas the machines don’t get it Men must govern the world. The most that can be done is to restrain their that human judgment, recorded at leisure and with deliberation, shall modify human pas- sions and ambitions of the moment. wills by law, so