WAR FATIGUE

Much has appeared in our newspapers recently to the effect that the belligerent Allies are getting thoroughly tired of the war. Correspondents who are supposedly expert diagnosticians of national and international ailments attribute this symptom to the state of affairs in Russia. They feel that the present opposition of the Slav to this war and the utter chaos in his country are crystalizing anti-militaristic feeling in the other nations, and that this situation may bring about a speedy peace.

This news might be welcome and it might be true at some later day. It is not welcome now, for it means the unquestionable victory for the Teuton. It is not true now, for the bulk of the Allied peoples have not yet become devoid of all sense. Peace today means not only Germany conquering; it is victory and vindication for militarism itself.

Those of the peace party who have any foresight and any sort a synthetic mind, and there must be a great many such people among so large a party, will see that German conquest will put the acceptance of peace-party ideals back hundreds of years. If members of the peace party believe in clinging to an ideal, even to the extent of bringing down the scorn of the rest of the world, let them now take up and continue to take up arms in defense of that ideal, until the ruling force in Germany, the one great and powerful enemy to the progress of that ideal, is completely over-thrown. Fighting for peace is admittedly paradoxical, but it is a true statement with regard to the duty that confronts every man, woman, and child in the Allied nations. It makes no difference whether one is of the peace party or not. Certainly these Allies are tired of the war; in fact, the whole world is tired of the war, but this is only the more reason why these Allies and the whole civilized world will battle on to defeat the probability of one other state bringing into existence a situation which they abhor.