Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-06-13

feels itself 10 be in the right. 1t has de-
veloped self sacrifice which repudiates the
idea that our life Is worth more than anything
else, when for principle it throws that life
away, as much as TO say: It IS not necessary
that live, but il is necessary that righteous
ness triumph. There are tens Of thousands
among the Northern and Southern veterans
OF our Civil " ar who are ninety-five per cent.
larger anC migntier IN soul than they would
have been had they not during the four years
or national agony turned their back on home
and fortune and at the front sacrificed all for
principle.
It was the sword which on the Northern
side developed a Grant a Mcclellan, a
Hooker, a Hancock, a Sherman, Sheridan
and Admirals Farragut and Porter and on
the Southern side Lee, jackson, a Hill.
Gordon and the Johnstons, Albert Sydney
and Joseph E. and Admiral Semmes, and
many Federals and COnfederates whose
graves in national cemeteries are marked
Unknown" yet WHO we're just self
sacrificing and brave a. any o. their Major
Generals, and whose resting places all up and
down the banks of the Androscoggin, the
Hudson, the Potomac, the Mississippi and
the Alabama, have recently been showed
under with white flowers typical Of resur-
rection, and strewn with red flowers COM
memorative of the carnage through which
they passed, ard the blue flowers illustra
tive of the skies through which they as
cended.
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 af-
ford to throw its sword away until all the
great governments have agreed to do the
same. Through the influence of the recent
convention of North and South American
Governments ct Washington, and through
the peace convention to be held next July il
London, and other movements in which
prime ministers, and kings, and queens, and
sultanS, and cars shall take part, all civil
lied 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 ar
bitratiOn 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 gen
eral agreement, England should throw away
her sword: think you France has forgot Ell
Waterloo? Suppose before such general
away her sword, how long would
Alsace and Lorraine stay as they
are? Suppose the Gar of Russia be
fore any such general agreement should
throw away his sword; all the eagles and
vultures and lions of European power would
a
pose 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 'Mon-
roe doctrine"
Side by side the two movements must go.
Complete armament until all agree to dis
armament. At the same command Of 'Haltw
all nations hating. At the same command
of Ground armsr' all muskets humping.
At the same command of Break rankSV all
armies disbanding. That may be nearer
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 be-
longing to the standing armies of the
world and in absolute idleness,, for
the most part of their lives,
should become producers, instead Of con-
sumers. Would not the worlds 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 standing room
would be exhausted? All l think can
trust to the pneumOnias, and the cOnsump-
tions, and the fevers and the Russian
grippes to kill the people fast enough.
Beside that, when the world gets too full
God will blow I'D the whole concern and
start another world and better one. Be-
side 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 Colonel Ellsworth fell
while yet a mere lad. Renowned McPher-
son was only 35. Magnificent Reynolds was
only 43. Hundreds of thousands fell be-
tween twenty and thirty years of age. 1
looked into the faces of the French and Ger
man troops as they went out to fight at Sc
dan, and they were for the most part armies
of splendid boys. So in all ages war has pre-
ferred to sacrifice the young. Alexander the
Great died al 33. When war slavS the young
it not only takes down that which they are,
but that which they might have been.
So we are glad at the Isaiahic prophecy,
that the time Is coming when nation shall
not lift up sword against nation. Indeed
both swords shall go back into the scabbard
the sword bathed in heaven and the sword
bathed in hell. In a war in Spain a soldier
went on a skirnlishing expedition, and, Sc
cluded in bush, ne had the opportunity OF
shooting a soldier of the other army who
had strolled awav from his tent. He took
aim and dropped him. Running up to the
fallen man he took his knapsack for spoil
and letter dropped QUO Of it, and it turned
out to be a letter signed by his own
father; in other words be had shot his
brother. II the brotherhood of man be
a true doctrine, then he who shoots another
man always shoots his own brother. What
horror is war and its crueltieS were well il
Illustrated when the Tartars, after sweeping