Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-25
A FEW WORDS ON WAR.
TwR1rrEs FOB THE DISPATCH.


man who is suddenly struck dumb is not
from that moment a converted Christian be-
cause he has stopped swearing. He can't
swear. The chances are that he takes it out
in che most sulphurous and lurid kind of
thinking. Over in Russia the silence of the
newspaper editors does not mean that Russia
is the land of the free and the home of the
brave.
The trouble is not that some editors of
newspapers are pagans and show spirit
that ought to be most at home in Central
Africa, but that that is really the spirit of q
great many OF the people. The Christian
church, by long and strenuous effort, has in
deed succeeded in converting a good many
individuals here and there, but the nations
at large seem still to be in a condition of
only semi-converted savagery. Mr.. Fred
rick Harrison says that christianity, as
the morality of nations, has visibly failed.
Socially regarded, it does almost nothing to
control the state of expectant war and the
jealousies of nations" And the only answer
that can be made to that argument is that
Christianity for now these many centuries
has paid so much attention to the individual
that the community has been forgotten. 1t
has not only dealt with men as though they
were disembodied spirits, and thus fallen
into the mistake Of trying to save mems
souls and neglected its true task, which is to
save men, body and soul; but it has treated
men as if each stood alone, instead of being
all marvelously ana inextricably inter-
tangled in the State. That is why there has
been a need of Socialism, to emphasize the
truth which Christianity has overlooked.
War an Unchristfan Institution.
THE hero of "Pilgrin's Progress" is a
good example of this one-sided sort of Chris
tian. When he is converted, straightway he
fees as fast as he can out of the City of De-
struction. He ought to have stayed right
there in the midst of that disordered town
and to have done his best to make city of
God out of it. "The old doctrine which still
fingers in some antiquated quarters" says
Mr.. Stead, ''that Christians have nothing to
DO with the affairs of this world, that this
world is only to be regarded as wilderness
through which they have to hurry with their
loins girded up, caring nothing for the fate
of those by the wayside, excepting SO far as
it concerns the next world, all that is dam
nable heresy. What We have to do if we are
to realize the Christian Christ, is take, each
enc of US, as our ideal in all our public,
municipal, and political activities. the great
prayer which is the keynote of the Christian
religion, Our Father, Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven In the millennium,
politics and religion will mean exactly the
same thing
This war question is an excellent test of
the real Christianity of this nation. For
war is one OF the most unchristian institu-
tions remaining on the earth. 1t belongs
with drunkenness, and lust, and slavery, and
ignorance, and pauperism, as one of the in
EQUITIES Of the race. The test of the charac-
ter of war is easily made. 1t ought to be
evident to everybody that wrong is not
mo- do io1,t hat tad 10
scale. Whatever is not permissible to an
individual is not permissible either to a
nation. But no decent man settles a mis-
understanding with his next door neighbor
by breaking into his house and pounding
him over the head with a club. That was
once the custom. The barons did that in
the Dark Ages. Private war was the rule
all over Europe. But gradually men got
civilized and Christianized out of that. 1t
fingers still among all barbarians. But it
survives among US only in the beastly cases
of assault and battery that get into the
police courts. and in the almost obsolete
fashion OF dueling.
Night Not Right ANY More.
IT was once the way of the law that
difficult cases ofjustice should be decided
by wager Of battle. That is, the defendant
dared the plaintiff to fight him. And it, for
example, the accusation concerned the pur-
Joining of pair of shoes. and the plaintiff
was knocke d down a sufficient number of
times by the defendant, it was decided that
the case WAS lost. No very stout villain was
ever proved guilty of anything. But We
have got past that. There is no arrangement
for a fistic ring, in the area of the Court
House. The only ring to be found in the ad-
of the city is, let US say, the
ring with which the Mayor marries people!
But here are great numbers of reputable
of them attendants at Chris
tian churches-and no lack OF otherwise in
telligent newspapers to back them, main
tanning that the right way to decide our
trouble with Chile is by that old wager of
battle. This blundering and brutal old, OBJ
so!ete way of getting justice, which COM
mon sense has put out of all civilized COM
and which we deal with nowadays |
with patrol wagon and two pairs of hand
cuffs, is still good enough for the United |
States OF America! |
1t is amazing in this year of grace, and in |
;his land OF supposedly advanced ideas, that |
column upon column should be marshaled |
Upon this matter, and never a word said |
lbout arbitration. 1t is true that there is |
lot yet an international Court of Appeals,
Is there will be one day when we become
more civilized; but there is, notwithstand-
ng, which we have already made most
happy trial of-settlement by arbitration.
For this Government to fight Chile without
IN endeavor to submit the misunderstand-
ng to arbitrators would be to commit most
lbominable crime.
1t All Depends on Whose Ok Is Gored.
How hard it is for US to see ourselves
IS others see us. And yet we have just
passed through an experience which, one
would think, might have given us a little
AIKEN. Italy had the same charge against
is that we have against Chile. And our
entimenss toward Italy were very like the
ceilings that Chile has toward us. At that
ime we maintained that such expressions
# opinion were absurd, that they could be
for only by probable desire on
he part of jingo administration to create
little political apital Ard now the stu
ton is reversed. We are in Italy's place.
md. behold, that which in our neighbor we
allied political blufflng, has become pure
atriotism and love of our dear country,
'erily, it does make difference whose shoe
t is that pinches!
We entrust great deal to our national
and rulers when we give
hem power to declare war That few men
t Washington should be able to take even
small number of our ellow-coIntymen,
nd send them down to Chile to murder
men, with whom they have no personal dis
ute, their knowledge even OF the national
ispute being but the very vaguest is a con-
ition OF things worth some very sober
blinking. Is it not fair that the people who
ave got to do this piece of butchery, and
ct gunshot wounds in return, and undergo
|