THE SECOND HORSEMAN

Crowded streets echo "We want war!" Six thousand youths parade and shriek "Death to the enemy!" The Government incarnate, the very front of the people's Jove, places its hand in its waistcoat and replies patriotically "If war is necessary we will all go."

No Hollywood version of Central Europe in June, 1914, this; no baseless fabrics of cinema walls enclose it; but the perfectly solid foundations of the presidential palace of Bolivia. And during these demonstrations: the Quaker President-elect watches the waves from the battleship carrying him on his tour of friendship; the Pan-American Conference opens with false assurances of cheer in the face of absent Argentina and the two quarrelsome neighbors; the statesmen of Europe meet at Lugano, not even trying to dissimulate the seriousness of their situation.

Only a month ago came the tenth anniversary of the day once announced as the marker of the end of war, but so soon to become the starting-line for post-war platitudes. Manifold the causes must be that could blow the clear flame of idealism to the smoky glare of hatred. South American border rows are a common-place, but not for long have the contestants stood up so eagerly to cleave the air with passes at each other. It is true that the little brethen of the South felt none of the reverberations of the World War except indirectly; but that does not explain the clouds in Europe. The visions of suffering are short-lived. The jealousy of patriotism is enduring. A new generation kneels to receive its inheritance, and is still too unsophisticated to toss aside, the spoiled portions of it. This is a perfect scene for the cynic, in all points but one; it is too genuinely pitiful.