News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-06-05

disciplined IN tner movements as the
planetary system.
Well done, then, l say to legislatures,
and governors, and mayors, and all
officials who decide upon larger ar1nor-
les and better places for drill and more
generous equipment for the militia
The sooner the sword can safely go
back to the scabbard to stay there, the
better; but until the hilt clangs against
the case in that final Judgment, let the
sword be kept free from rust; sharp all
along the edge and its point like a
needle, and the handles polished, not
only by the channels of the regimental
servant. but by the hand of brave and
patriotic officers, always ready to do
their full duty. Such swords are not
bathed in impetuousity, or bathed in
cruelty, or bathed in oppression, or
bathed in outrage, but bathed in
heaven.
Before speak of the doom of the
sword, let me also say that it has de-
veloped the grandest natures that the
world ever saw. 1t has developed
courage-that sublime energy of the
soul which defies the universe when it
feels itself to be in the right. 1t has
developed a self sacrifice which repudi-
ates the idea that our life is worth more
than anything else, when for princi-
pie it throws that life away, as much as
to say, 1t is not necessary that | live,
but it is necessary that Righteousness
triumph. There are tens of thousands
among the northern and southern vet
Grams of our civil war who are 95 per
cent. larger and mightier in soul than
they would have been had they not,
during the four years of national agony,
| turned their back on home and fortune
and at the front sacrificed all for prin
ciple
1t was the sword which on the north
ern side developed Grant, McClel-
Ian, Hooker, a Hancock, Sherman,
a Sheridan and Admirals Farragut and
! Porter, ind on the southern side Lee,
a Jackson, Hill, a Gordon and the
Johnstons, Albert Sydney and Joseph
E., and Admiral Semmes, and many
Federals and Confederates whose graves
in national cemeteries are marked I'm
known" yet who were just as self sac
rificing and brave as amy of their major
generals, and whose resting places all
up and down the banks of the Andres
cOggin, the Hudson, the Potomac, the
Mississippi and the Alabama have re-
Gently been showed under with white
flowers typical of resurrection, and
strewn with red flowers commemora-
tive of the carnage through which they
passed, and the blue flowers illustrative
of the skies through which they as
cended.
THE DOOM OF THE SWORD
But the sword is doomed. There is
one word that needs to be written in
every throne room, in every war office,
in every navy yard, III every national
council. That word is Disarmament |
But no government can afford to throw |
its sword away until all the great gov
ernments have agreed to do the same
Through the influence of the recent |
convention of North and South Ameri |
can governments at Washington, and |
through the peace convention to be |
held next July in London, and other |
movements in which prime ministers,
and kings, and queens, and sultans,
and cars shall take part, all civilized |
nations will come TO disarmament and |
If few barbarian races decline to quit
war, then all the decent nations will |
send out force of continental police
to wipe out from the face of the earth
the miscreants. But until disarmament
and consequent arbitration shall be
agreed to by all the great governments,
any single government that dismantles
its fortresses and spikes its guns, and
breaks its sword, would simply invite
its own destruction.
Suppose, before such general agree
ment, England should throw away her
sword; think you France has forgotten |
Waterloo? Suppose before such general |
agreement Germany should throw away |
her sword; how long would Alsace and |
Lorraine stay as they are? Suppose the |
car of Russia before any such general |
agreement should throw away his sword;
all the eagles and vultures and lions of
European power would gather for a
piece of the Russian bear. Suppose the
United States without any such general
agreement of disarmament should |
throw away her sword it would not be
long before the Narrows of our harbor
would be ablaze with the bunting of
foreign navies coming here to show the
folly of the Monroe Doctrine"
THE NIGHTMARE OF NATIONS.
Side by side the two movements must
go. Complete armament until all
agree to disarmament. At the same
command of Halt" all nations halt
ing. AT the same command of Ground
armsp' all muskets humping At the
same command of Break ranksl" all
armies disbanding. That may be near
er than you think. The standing army
is the nightmare of nations. England
wants to get rid of it, Germany is being
eaten up by it, Russia is almost taxed
to death with it. Suppose that the
millions of men belonging to the stand
ing armies of the world and in absolute
idleness, for the most part of their
lives, should become producers instead
VI NOIhu IlOU lllc Ollu | .
properties improve, and the worlds
morals be better? Or have you the
heathenish idea that war is necessary
to kill off the surplus populations of
the earth, and that without it the
world would be so crowded there would
soon be no reserved seats and even the
room would be exhausted?
Ali | think we can trust to the pneu-
menias, and the consunptions and the
fevers and the Russian grippes to kill
the people fast enough.
Beside that, when the world gets too
full God will blow up the whole con-
Germ and start another world and a
better one. Beside that, war kills the
people who can least be spared 1t
takes the pick of the nations. Those
whom we could easily spare to go to (
the front, are in the penitentiary, and
their duties detain them in that limited
sphere No; it is the public spirited {
and the valorous who go out to die.
Mostly are they young men. If they
were aged, and had only five or ten ,
years at the most to live, the sacrifice
would not be so great. But it is those {
who have forty or fifty years to live {
who step into the jaws of battle. i
In our war Col Ellsworth fell while $