The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-04-29
ARE WARS NECESSARY 2

Nothing is more obvious than that man
is fighting animal and that war has been
a very important factor in his evolution.
Those features of history which the ordi-
nary reader most keenly enjoys are the de-
scriptions of great battles, and the heroes
whom our admiration has made most con-
spicuous have been great soldiers. Let
there be the faintest suggestion of war
and the newspapers of all Christendom
blaze with flamboyant headlines and nerv-
Gus discussions concerning 1T.
Until the war between China and Japan
occurred there had been no great armed
conflict between powerful nations since
that which involved Germany and France.
The reader of Flaubert's wonderful ro-
nance, "Salambo," may get from it an
intelligent idea of the boundless ferocity
which characterized warfare in the days of
ancient Carthage. Then Hamilcar, the
father of Hannibal, was the hero of the
world, and later his son, who was then a
child, was to foreshadow the matchless
brilliancy of Napoleon. Since those days
warfare has become what we are pleased to
term "civiliZed''-that is, the ancient
methods of torture and butchery have been
softened into as great res probability as it is
possible for the killing of men to possess.
There always have been wars; and in
spite of the fact that the nobler minds of
all the world are faithfully trying to erect
standard by which national differences
may be adjusted without resort to arms,
there probably always will be wars. Just
now there is heavy vibration throughout
all civilization, and If it does not indicate
that at any moment a great war may be
sprung, we have read history in vain.
Just as lions are made ferocious by the
smell of blood, just SO the world is ex-
cited over the struggle in the Orient. To
be prepared for war means more than
willingness to tight-it means desire that
requires qualification; and all the great
powers in late years have been arming
themselves to the teeth. There seems to
be no present danger of war between the
United States and Great Britain over the
Nicaragua affair, or between Russia and
England over the treaty in the Orient; but
human beings are fighting animals, and
causes for war even graver than the slight
dispute over Korea, which drove China
and Japan to war, may arise at any mo-
ment
There are wise philosophers who argue
that not only is the fighting instinct in
men too strong to be repressed in single
generation or even many generations of
the highest conceptions of the value of
peace, but that a war purifies nation,
consolidates its people and develops patri-
otism into its highest form, The argu-
ments used in support of this assumption
are very strong. One of them is that I'M
less war occurs to give concerted exercise
to the destructive bent the tendency will
find expression among the people in the
form of private murders and other per-
sonal crimes and outrages, in a lowering
of the ethical standards upon which all
business and all material progress should
be based, in the degradation of social NOR
atty and in political corruption. In other
words if at any time we see a wide preva-
lence of all these conditions at once we
may regard them as evidences that patri-
otism is falling into decay, and may be
sure that war is both needful and de-
sired.