AMERICA'S NATIONAL SENTIMENT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 265, 5 April 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

AMERICA'S NATIONAL SENTIMENT.

It is now beginning to look as if America's cntr? into the war has become almost,'if not quite, inevitable. The latest news is certainly pregnant with dramatic possibilities, not the least of which is the consummation of .3 separate peace with Austria, coincident with a definits declaration against Prussian militarism. The President, we are told, will be guided in the last resort by popular opinion, following upon which we have the further presumably official statement that the United States will co-operate with the Allies in all war operations. For some time past it has been becoming increasingly apparent that the weight of public opinion is in favour of the dignified protection of American rights, by force of arms if needs be. For instance, papers just to hand show that Oolonel Bryan's remarkable views of the citizen's duty to his country in national crises are receiving no more encouragement from the newspapers of his party than from the Republican press. His latest adventure in international affairs has been too much for his long-suffering fellow-Democrats to stand. The thought is uppermost in much of the criticism directed towards 'him that both the country and the Democratic party have been peculiarly favoured by fortune every time Bryan has been defeated for the Presidency. Tho "Memphis CommercialAppeal," a representative of the Southcm Democracy, finds it necessary to utilise the space of a column in expressing its views of Col. Bryan's latest ploit, the assumption of the responsibility of negotiating with Germany for peace under his private terms. It feels that the peerless orator functions entirely in emotions, and declares his proposition of a referendum on war an unheard-of procedure. The Bryan plan to tie up ships and ports and business until the European war is over, is held to be a craven part for a nation entitled to the unmolested use of the sea highways. Says the "CommercialAppeal" :

"German does not own the ocean. Neither does anybody else. We have got as much right on the ocean as anybody else, and we must, if necessary, go to war to vindicate that right. The logic of Col. Bryan's suggestion is to make everybody run in and shut the doors, including the town marshal and the jailer, and stay thero every time a couple of bullies take possession of the streets to settle their differences. In a wellordered community the town marshal and the Jailer usually go out and gather these bullies in, and the townspeople proceed. Mr Bryan urges everybody to send a telegram, lest some mother's son be killed. Every Confederate soldier boy that went out to the war in 1861 received a benediction from his own mother, and mingled with her tears at the parting was a feeling of pride that she brought into the world a boy who was brave enough to be willing to die for his country and for his home. It would be better that every mother's son in this country lay stark dead, with a bullet of a foreign foe through his heart, than to be a live, fat, timid, peace-at-any-price yokel, running into the house, as a hungry hound runs under the floor, every time someone throws a stone in his direction."

From this and other indications it is apparent that the Nebraska statesman is finding no sympathy for his bizarre plans in his own party, nor is he even finding it among the leading pacificists who formerly supported him. President Wilson, professedly pacific, long ago parted company with him, and Henry Ford, who has expended a million dollars or more in a peace propaganda for Europe, offered his great Detroit plant to the nation for an ammunition factory. The national spirit of the United States is, we believe, correctly interpreted by the Seattle "Post-Intelligencer," which says:— "War, if it finally comes to the United States, should oring its people a needed rebaptism in tiie national faith. Tho fatness of a half-cen-tury of peace has relegated patriotism to the background of our national life. The public mind has not dwelt upon the citizen's duty to tho nation, becauso the obligation lias been taken for granted and we ha/e been very busy with personal concerns, with business, with commerce, with our daily routine of duty and witii the urgent concerns of breadwinning. AVe have assumed that our peaceful conditions were settled conditions, and that life in America was but the contest of individuals for preferment, and that collective duties of citizenship have been too often forgotten obligations. Hut war brings a different aspect. It lias taken England more than two years to rub peace out of its eyes and acquire the war perspective. The island life was sodden with the selfishness of peace. As well think of drawing tho sun from its position in tno universe as England from its settled and peaceful position of industry and trade. Yet there has come to the people at last the slow realisation that tho sovereignty of England might pass to aliens. It has dawned uponu the masses that they may liecome tenants of a German landlord, and the national spirit has risen to tho danger. So with America, though there is no thought of changing sovereignty. The interests of our Government, of all our people, have been invaded by a foreign nation, and it has become necessary to hold it to account, to defend our authority over our own affairs. Citizens are required to take their minds from their private business to the concerns of tho nation end all of its people, and the need is bringing an awakening of the national spirit. Men and women of America are mining their eyes to their country's flag with a new interest and devotion, and its bright colours appear in a new light. '

In short, the people of tho United States have come to realise that while peace is a most desirable possession for a free peop|e j or any other people, tlie.ro are times when it runs to cpnd. Thr_<j 'it is that we find re.spi»n>i!>'e journals d.daring that it pn-ses under, •standing that Cob Bryan, or any like American, should rot really that when fJermnny kicks the United States In tho face it is time to stand up and ficdit.