Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1890-06-02


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 I speak of the doom of the
sword, let me also say that it has de-
veloped the grandest natures that the
world ever saw. It 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 a 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 a prin-
ciple.
It was the sword which on the north
ern side developed Grant, McClel-
Ian, a Hooker, a Hancock, Sherman,
a Sheridan and Admirals Farragut and
Porter, and on the southern side Lee,
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 ''Un-
KNOWN" yet who were just as self sac
rif1cing and brave as any 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, in 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 czars shall take part, all civilized
nations will come to disarmament and
if a few barbarian races decline to quit
war, then all the decent nations will
send out a 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
czar 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
| 60 Complete armament until all
| agree to disarmament. At the same
1 VI 11e1ib- oil 1IelCIOlIo AIc1AI
| ing. At the same command of Ground
arns!" all muskets humping. At the
| same command of "Break ranks" 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
| of consumers Would not the world
| properties improve, and the world S
| 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
standing room would be exhausted?
| Ali [ think we can trust to the pneu-
monias, 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.
In our war Col. Ellsworth fell while
| yet a mere lad. Renowned Mcpherson
| was only 35. Magnificent Reynolds
was only 49, Hundreds of thousands
fell between 20 and 80 years of age. I
looked into the faces of the French
and German troops as they went out to
fight at Sedan, and they were for the
most part armies of splendid boys. So
| in all ages war has preferred to sacrifice