NL Se ER nej you hwo- es in r as rk is ater, nany » and keep stant ntire raving anndry © which is God’s will done, nor shall we lie down until the flood of light upon the land, or let the whole sky be dark, we ; ki the Great Change. _ up our voices, the bells and I, to sound the joy of Christmas, THE YERSDALECOMMERCIAL. VOL XXXVIII MEYERSDALE, PA, DECEMBER 20. 1917 NO. 50 SOCIALISM---THE HOPE OF THE WORLD BY HELEN KELLER Hear, oh, hear! ' The Christmas bells are ringing peal upon peal, chime upon chime! Full and clear they ring, and the air quivers with joy. What is the burden of their music as it floats far and wide? Awake! Awake! it says. A great Change is coming—peace upon earth, good-will to all men. Together the bells and I call aloud, and we are not afraid! Peace upon earth, good-will to all men! Awake! Awake! We shall not rest again until good-will reigns, voice of the angels is heard in all the circuits of the earth. We shall not slumber until light ariseth to all who sit in darkness, neither shall we sleep again until there is peace and gladness and content in the hearts of men. For a Great Change is coming, a wondrous Change, a World-change that shall fulfill all joy in a happy humanity, Ring the Great Change, O Bells! Hear, oh, hear, all peo- ple! Long and confident the Christmas bells are ringing. Above our houses and through our open doors their voices fly. And they say: Awake! Awake! The night of man’s captivity is at an end, the dawn of peace between man and man hasteneth to come and it shall not tarry! The bells and I are strong with a new hope, vibrant with expectancy of this Great Chanze. Already men and women are working and thinking and living for this Great Change, and their efforts are mighty with the might of intelligence «nd good-will. For them the bells of a world-Christmas are ringing, and shall not cease with the brief hours of one glad day. Every day, every year, these men and women plan work, and dream, rand their works are the heavenly mes- sage of the sweet-toned bells! Hear, oh, hear the bells! For ages the Christmas bells havd rung their message of peace upon earth and good-will to all men. For ages they have summoned the sleeping world to a new life, a new ideal, a new joy. But too often they have sounded in ears sealed wi‘h igrorance. - Too often has their glad news passed unheeded: “O children of men, your happiness lies but your will away from you. Unite, love, serve all, and ye shall grasp it.” Now, here and now, the bells and I will be heard! Not once a year, but from morning to morning we will be heard singing exultant, sure of our message. Let the sun pour its sar -somg- up and down and all-around; our song Too long men turned their faces from their tasks, from the needs of the common day, and fixed their eyes upon a better life, instead of bringing that life into their earthly days. The Great Change ushers a true religion into the world, now and here—-services for all men equally, devotion of each to the good of all alike: Hear, oh, hear the Christmas bells as they greet the sun, the frost, the sailing cloud, the roving wind! Are they not the bells of your childhood’s dearest joy, the bells of your brightest memories, the bells of your highest hope? Do they not voice your silent, baffled wish that all things shall be made new, that there shall be no more cramped, darken- ed lives, no more cruel customs, no more misery which grinds the beauty, the sweetness out of the human soul? If this wish came true, would it not be Christmas , indeed — Christmas for all men, Christmas all the year? Hear! To-day the bell and 1 call you to the Christmas of mankind. For it has begun and we shall not falter nor turn back until every man and woman and child in this land and in every land has a chance to live happily and to develop his mind and do the best of which he is capable. ‘Generation after generation has learned from its mother’s lips the story of the birth of Christ, and slowly the wecrds have borne flowers—and the fruit is the Great Change. The Great Change is the new faith, the new effort to secure for every man his full share of the means, the comforts, the health, the knowledge, the virtue, which humanize life. As we lift we call to you: Approach this new faith with open hearts. Let us follow it fearlessly, wherever it may lead us, even though it lead us far from the old and cherished beliefs. Dear they are indeed and hard to part with; but this new faith is too appealing, too bou ad up with all that is deepest, most. tender, most necessary in human experience to be put : aside. "SIGNIFICANT STATEMENTS not end in vindictive action of BY PRESIDENT WILSON any kind; that no nation or, people shall be robbed or pun- Hear, oh, hear the Christmas bells! How they answer ! one another from end to end of the country, peal upon peal, chime upon chime! From every ‘spire and tower they utter the good tidings of great joy, the tidings of the Great Change the cry that no humane heart can ‘resist: “Brotherhood! Brotherhood! Brotherhood! : Listen! Heed! For this is the’ harvest time of Iove. Souls are closer drawn to other souls. All that we have read and thought and hoped comes to fruition at this happy time. Our spirits are astirr. We feel within us a strong desire to serve. A strange, subtle force, a mew kindness, animates man and child. A new spirit is growing in us. No longer are we content to relieve pain, to sweeten sorrow, to give the crust of charity. We dare to give friendship, service, the equal loaf of bread, the love that knows no difference of station. { Hear, oh, hear the Christmas bells! Everywhere, every- where they remind the world: Forget not the poor, nor let the hope of the needy fail. & The bells and I sing and are glad for Christmas, the day of all these who labour and kzep the world alive. For them we sing and we shall not be still. The bells and I sing the workers of the world, on the Day of Him who was a boy in the carpenter’s shop. This is the pirit of Christmas, that they whose lives are useful, whose deeds are good should re- ceive the gift of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Should they stop their labour for a season, the world would starve. The stars would lock down upon a world of silent cities, upon a devastated earth. Punctual as the bells the workers come and go. In winter’s cold and summer's heat they hasten to the work of the world. Nothing halts them—sickness, fatigue grief nor death. The mills of the w rld turn hourly, daily. We can tell the minute of their coming and going to their tasks; day after day, month after month, year after year the procession of the workers pas:ecs our doors. Through thous- ands of years have they been faithfpl, and Christmas shall open our hearts and let us say that jn their lives the whole world lives. i Listen! Between the swelling peals of the Christmas bells do you not hear the tramp of ¢ ountless feet? Behold the workers have marched in the night toward the land of their hearts’ desire. In the night of long ages they have heard the call of the Great Change and at length they have answered. Through darkness, through anguish and horror they have risen to the awful height of manhood. Century by century they have grown in po er and intelligence. For- .ver and forever onward chimz thd hells. T has be no halting in the’ vast juorney mankin as come. has been wasted, nothing has been lost. Every effort has counted. Eevery purpose, every pulse has fulfilled its task; incessantly men have moved onward to the dawn of the Great Change. Can you not see the wonders which the Christmas bells herald? Do they not sing to you of world-systems evolving and dissolving, coming and going like leaves upon the trees, like the human generations? And again they shall evolve into the Great Change. Asthe notes of the bells rise, blend, and melt away, so have the life-songs of old civilations swell- ed to the heavens, echo upon echo, and sunk into silence. Persia, Greece, and Rome have flourished and decayed. The civilization of Briton, Frenchman, German, American is passing, changing into the broader, nobler ideals of the Great Change—liberty, equality, and brotherhood. Listen with your hearts. Ina land put your will away from you, hear, oh, hear the Christmas bells ring, the winds blow, the rivers run, the earth break forth into flowers and the trees burst into leaf! Hear the birds singing and mating, and hear children freed from labour shouting in the streets; young men and maidens smiling and marrying, old people praising God that the Great Change, has come in their day. “We have died to live again. We have suffered that we may rejoice and be glad. What matters it—all upheavals, all revolutions, all systems sent to wreck, if the Great Change comes afterward?” Then ring. all the bells on earth! in the morning of brotherhood. Ring man’s great joy from pole to pole, from sea to sea! Tug with mighty arms at the bell rope that the sound may ring out full and far and long! Light .the world’s Christmas tree with stars. Heap offerings upon its mighty branches. Bring the Yule-log to the world- fireplace. Deck the -world-house with holly and mistletoe and preclaim everywhere the Christmas of the human race! 'Tis Christmas Day | $ iis : cracy must first be shown the ple who enjoy no privilege and| SAD ACCIDENT utter futility of its claims to] have very simple and unsophis- power or leadership in the] ticated standards of right and | modern world. It is impossible wrong, is in the air and all| BY EBER K. COCKLEY Yes, Socialism is the hope of the world. the way for the coming Monarchy of Man. Order of Humanity. It regards human lives above sacred dividends. It protests against little children being dragged from the school and playground and tender women being forced from the home to fill the coffers of the parasites. It opposes, condemns, the institution, the party, the creed which demands that it must be served and obeyed; crowned with flowers, starred and studded with gold, while the peo- ple become starving paupers, homeless, friendless, shivering in mildewed tatters. It regards seriously the general truth in history that men ought to be free and recognizes that this freedom should be complete, absolute—essential freedom is the right to differ and that right must be sacredly respected as well as the right of free thought, free inquiry and free speech to all persons, everywhere. : ; It seeks to create a universal citizenship by means of universal education. It encourages, demands, the develop- ment of a high degree of intzlligence as an indispensable condition of its strength and perpetuity. It contends that where every person, by the discipline of virtuous schools, has been in youth rooted and grouaded in the fruitful soil of knowledge, the salutary principles and practices of self- restraint and generous ways of freedom—here indeed has neither the military leader with his blood-stained sword, the political demagogue with his fallacy, nor the king with his crown and divine right, any longer a place or vocation among the people. It proposes equal opportunity for everyone and provides for the full and unlimited natural development of everyone, recognizing the historical fact that when man’s heart, his brain and limbs are unbound, he straightway begins to flour- ish, to triumph, to be glorious. What for centuries has been the dream, the hone of suffering humenity is now about to be realized. g Our race has ‘risen by ages of toil and sorrowful evolution into the empire of promise. The mass=: are awakening. It is preparing It is the New All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so unto them.— Christian philosophy. Do as you would be dois by.— Persian. One should seek for others the happiness one ‘desires ? for one’s self.—Buddhist Bik What you would not wish done to yourself do mot do unto cothers.—Chinese. Fog ‘Let none of vou trest his brother in a way he himself en x ; aaa . ; Nothing | would dislike to be treated. —" howmedan. = Do not that to a neighbor which you would take ill from him.—Grecian. § i The Law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves.—Roman. : alias Whatsoever you do not wish your neighbor to do to you do not unto him.—Jewish. "is Sa BY CARDINAL GIBBONS There is something radiczlly wrong in our social and economic conditions when the employer becomes suddenly rich while. the toiler with the utmost thrift and economy can scarcely keep the wolf from the door. BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN To insure to every worker the full product of his labor, as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any good govern- ment. : : BY FRANCIS E. WILLARD I believe that competition is doomed. The trust, whose single object is to abolish com petition, has proved that we are better without than with it, and the moment corporations control the supply of any product, they combine. What the Socialist desires is that the corporation of humanity should control all production. Beloved comrades, this is the friction- less way; it is the higher way; it eliminates the motives for a selfish life; it enacts into our every day living the ethics of Christ's gospel. Nothing else will do it; nothing else can bring the glad day of unmiversai brotherhood. Oh that I were young again, and it weuld have my life! It is God’s way out of the wilderness and into the promised land. It is the very marrow of Christ's gospel. It is Chris- tianity applied, knocking her down on the track AT BOYNTON and inflicting the above men- tioned personal injuries. The On Monday morning, be- janch crew. was notified by Quoted from the President’s ished because the irresponsible Address cember 4th. to Congress De-| “When the German people have spokesmen whose word we can believe and when those| spokesmen are ready in the] name of their people to accept the common judgement of the nations as to what shall hence- forth be the bases of law and of covenant for the life of the world—we shall be willing and |: glad to pay the full price for peace and pay it ungrudgingly. “We know what that ‘price will be. It will be full, impar- tial justice—justice done at every point and to every nation the final settlement must af- fect, our enemies as well as our friends.” The Voice of the People. | “You catch, with me, the] voices of humanity that are in! the air. They grow daily more audible, more articulate, more | persuasive, and they come from | the hearts of men everywhere. | They insist that the war shall to apply any standard of jus-| : ; tice so long as such forces are eves Seve deep and ‘rihecked and undefeated as| 9, ny a Tr that has! the present masters of gor 1s thi 0 "man command. Not until that] been expressed in the formula, | has been done can Right be. ‘no annexations, no contribu-' get yp as arbiter and peace-| tions, no punitive indemnities.’| maker among the nations. But! Just because this crude formula! when that has been done—as, | expresses the Instingtive Judger God willing, it assuredly willl ment as to right oi plain Men je__we shall at last be free to] everywhere, it has been made| 3o an unprecedented thing and diligent use of by the masters| this is the time to avow our of German intrigue to lead the! purpose to do it.” | people of Russia astray—and 3 | the people of every other Renounces Secret Diplomacy, country their agents cou “Statesmen must by this] reach in order that a préma-|time have learned that the ni pages might be broggit opinion of the world is every- about before autocracy has) where wide awake and fully been taught its final and con-| comprehends the issue in- vincing lesson and the people|volved. No representatives of | of the world put in control of| any self-governed nation will their own destinies. dare disregard it by attepting, “But the fact that a wrong| any such covenants of selfish-, use has been made of a just| nee S9G CHRMIINEE Cr oof Re a Ne aie | Vienne, aw It might be brought under the | “The thought of the plain patronage of its real friends.| people here and everywhere! Let it be said again that auto-! throughout the world, the peo-| rulers of a single country have | | governments must henceforth| tween 8 and 8:30 o’clock, Mrs. breathe if they would live. It, Richard Somerville, of Boynton is in the full disclosing light| was instantly killed at that of that thought that all policies| place, when the night Branch must be conceived and execut-| train on the Baltimore and! ed in this midday hour of the| Ohio railroad run her down on, world’s life. the track and cut her head off | “German rulers have been|and one hand also. The night] able to upset the peace of the| crew had placed their empty! world only because the Ger-: cars at the Hamilton mine and! man people were not suffered | were running back to the water, under their tutelage to share|plug to water the engine. the comradeship of other peo-| While they were approaching! ples of the world either in the P. and M. street car cross-| thought or in purpose. They | ing in Boynton Mrs. Somer-! were allowed to have no opin-| ville, who had just came out jon of their own which might| of the postoffice, attempted to be set up as a rule of conduct cross the track at the crossing, for those who exercised auth-|but upon being warned by the] ority over them. But the con- train crew not to cross, she; gress that concludes this war