The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-25
WARS OF TWO KINDS.

There are two kinds of wars in which
civilized peoples and enlightened govern
ments engage. They are one In appear
ance, one in the horror which they IN
spire. one in the methods by which they
are carried on, but there is in reality dif-
ference between them as great as the DIFF
ference between right and wrong.
Wars of the one class are necessary to
the progress of civilization and to the Iogi-
cal development of history. Without
them the history of the world. the condi-
ton of mankind, would be different. They
mark distinct steps in the development OF
mankind. Their results are known and
felt ages after the bones Of those who fell
in their battles have crumbled into I'M
known dust.
Most important and most striking Of
such wars are those of the long series by
which the frontier of civilization was
forced forward. The Romans under the
republic pushed barbarism back, first
to the Pc and then to the Alps. Cesar
threw the frontier to the Rhine, Charlie
magne to the Elbe, the Teutonic knights
to the Vistula, the Russians to the
Dnieper, to the Don and now to the Oxus.
The wars by which continent was thus
wrested from barbarism have been es-
sential to the development of history and
to the welfare of mankind. Whatever
personal ambitions or national jealousies
may have been their immediate cause,
their results have been great and lasting.
Other wars have been equally necessary.
Such were tie Thirty Years War and the
revolt of the Netherlands, in which Pro-
testantism demonstrated its right to exist.
Such was the war which parliament waged
against Charles 1. Such was the Amer
lean revolution. Such were the wars Of
the French revolution and of Napoleon,
which shook Europe to the center and
burned with consuming fire the accumu-
lated rubbish of feudalism. Such was the
war for the American Union, which vindi-
Gated the federal principle in government.
Every one of these wars has left an inn
press upon mankind and upon history
which will be felt when the very names of
those who fought them have been forgot
ten and when the nations which did battle
are known only by monuments as SCARED
with age as tie broken columns of Luxor
and Persepolis
Then there are the wars of the other
class. They may be struggles in which
the most tremendous exertions are put
forth, in which treasure and life are re-
garded as nothing, in which the virility of
10 faH
conflicts are, stupendous as their certain
results seem to those who take
part in them or who watch their
progress, they leave no permanent impress
upon the world; they do not change the
course of history; they have no place in
the development of civilization. How
wretchedly useless, how unnecessary and
unimportant, seem to US today the con-
ficts of the grandsons of Charlemagne, the
fiece struggles of the petty Italian states,
the wars of the Hansa towns, the con-
slant crossing of the swords of Poland,
Austria, Prussia, France and Spain. Use
less as these wars seem, useless as they
were. they engrossed the attention of ma
tons and seemed of fearful import to those
who watched their progress. The histo-
rian of the future will regard with like
wonder and contempt the Crimean war,
the Schleswig- Holstein war and the ire
mendous but useless conflict of 1870. These
wars have no real place in the scheme of
history. They retard rather than
advance the progress of civilization.
OF course, there are times when even
such wars seem just and necessary. when
great and enlightened peoples can not
avoid them. But they are to be deplored,
most earnestly to be deplored. The blood
and the treasure which are expended in
them are not given as a sacrifice, but are
utterly wasted.
In which of these classes of wars should
a conflict between the United States and
Chile be placed? What would be, what
could be, its permanent results2 What
influence would it have on the progress of
civilization, on the development of history?
What would be the judgment of the future
in regard TO it?