The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-28
THE PEACE-MAKERS.

THE PEACE-MAKERs.
From the NJ Y. World
tits to be reckoned among the foremost
and most grievous of metropolitan miseries
that the citizens of chief city have TO
undergo the presence and the eloquence of
all the orators of the human species, from
the Dan of Philadelphia to the Beersheba of
Boston. We have scarcely recovered from
the shock of the christian Reformers" of
Boston, whose advice to us, by way of help
ing us to emerge from our present depraved
and unsightly moral condition. was in general
to cultivate and emulate the arts by which
Boston has risen to her present pinnacle of
virtue and wisdom, and in particular, accord
ing to Mr.. Wendell Phillips, to demolsb Mr..
A. L. Stewards new house on the Fifth ave-
nue., and according to Mrs Julia Ward Howe,
to "have more Unitarian >Schurches," and
thereby meet that 'want of centrality" what
ever that want may be- which made itself so
painfully palpable to the spiritual sense of
Mrs. Howe.
The remembrance of these admonitions is
still vivid in our memories, and the horrors of
anniversary week have scarcely lifted their
swarthy shadow from the minds of metro
politan men, when a squad of Philadelphian
Quakers appears big with another mission to
ameliorate the woes and afflict the ears of
msnkind. 1t is only due to them to say that
they are much less turbulent than our Bos-
tonian castigators, and that they do not ap-
pear TO resort to New York because New
York is cursed above cities in the vice of
bloodshed which they corporately exist to
suppress, but only because New York, in their
fond Imagination, offers to lend them more
numerous and more favorable ears than their
domiciliary abode of brotherly love. In this
expectation they have assuredly reckoned
without their New York hosts; for when they
came to assemble themselves it
appeared there were only eleven auditors,
and subsequent proceedings prove that even
this exiguous gathering came not to listen,
but to exhort, and that there was not single
possible convert among the number of those
who were all eager to make conversions to
the cause of peace.
That middle-aged person. afflicted with the
name of Love- which seems to bind him to
go about in the hollow mockery of the presi-
dency of peace society and in the futile en-
deavor to in ject sweetness and light into his
fellow w-creatures, should, in pursuance of
those objects of his desire, address the un-
hearing walls of ''Dodworth Hail. and some
half score of unheeding fellow creatures, in
whose peaceful bosoms he only stirred up
the malice and uncharitableness which his
mission is to allay by usurpiug the gushes of
goodwill which each of them considers he
can much more effectively exude, may be
alDenIaDle, DuG OuSnI not 10 DC lu1lcfOuS,
phenomenon. Even
"True Love turned round on fixed poles"
of the Peace Society is an sbject of sympathy
rather than of the derision which we foresee
he will be much more apt to encounter. 1t is
not, indeed, to be supposed that the poten-
tates of the world will refuse to learn war any
more, or will even beat their existing chasse-
pots into ploughshares and their ''zundla-
delgewehr' into pruning hooks at the sug-
gestion of the charmers of the "Universal
Peace Union, charm they never SO wisely;
nor even that the amiable Sherman and the
philanthropic Sheridan will even be moved to
further a thoroughly pacific policy towards
the Indians, as the peacemakers specifically
enjoin upon them. But 'to purify and hold
sacred human life, ''to vindicate human
rights, and ''to emancipate mankind from
the slavery of the sword power" are not so
unimportant or so undesirable consumma-
tions that we can afford to bestow sneers
alone upon persons who go about to obtain
them even in as wild way as by preposte-
rously proposing to all the nations of the
earth immediate disarmament" Let us
respect The motives, even while we expose
the futility, of the U. P. U.
The truth is that while the sentimental
classes are talking the scientific and indus
trial classes are unconsciously and effectively
working towards deliverance of civilization
from Wudt mas Deeu, upon Jue WnOle, In9
greatest obstacle to its progress and the most
effectual satire upon its pretensons. 1t has
often been said that the invention of gun
powder did more to diminish both the fire.
quency and the injuries of war than any
other single cause. But it is also true that
the increasing ramiication aud classification
of modern industries have made the
''big wars" that made ambition a me-
diaval virtue forever impossible. When
once the discipline of society had gone
so far that producer could not be
spared from his productive industry to be
a soldier as well, and the erection of a sepa-
rate military class was necessitated, the
period was put to the chronic condition of
warfare in which the ancient nations lived.
Every subsequent step in civilization has
been towards the same goal. War is simply
trial of strength. If decisive trial cannot
be had in day, the struggle is spread over
weeks, or months, or years. When every
thing can be set upon the hazard of single
die, there need not be a second throw. Our
modern means of communication and of
transit tend to facilitate the conveyance of
the power of nation upon a single point.
When the powers can be fairly pitted against
| each other upon single field, a single battle
ends the war. The Crimean war lasted for
! two years, simply because the scene of it was
! too remote from the contending parties to
mass their whole strength upon it at once
The vast area of the Southern States and the
unfavorable character of the country for a
| great pitched battle alone prolonged the war
! of the Rebellion to duration of four years.
! In more pOpulous region and with greater
! facilities of transport it would have been
ended much sooner. The struggle for the
mastery of Germany in the seventeenth GEN.
tury lasted for thirty years; in the eighteenth