Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1896-11-26
WARS MADE TO ORDER

Bismarck is one of the great old
men of Europe whose faculties
are not in the least impaired by
age. Some of his countrymen,
and especially his emperor, would
be better pleased if he did not
possess quite so much pernicious
activity and if his memory were
not quite so ready and copious.
For some reason he has seen fit to
let out state secrets of the. gravest
nature. The Vienna Neue Freie
Presse recently contained an arti-
Gle whose inspiration was at once
attributed to him, stating that in
1875 Gar Alexander IL, wrote to
Bismarck saying that the Russian
army was restless after twenty
years of peace, and inquiring If
Germany would keep neutral IN
case Russia should attack Austria.
AS Bismarck refused consent to
that simple request, the Gar, so
the story goes, turned at once to
Austria with which he patched up
an agreement and forthwith de-
clared war on Turkey, and the
Russian army obtained its much
needed exercise.
This story of crime is accepted
as true by the magnates Of Eu-
rope, who express no horror at
the iendish idea of deluging two
or three nations in blood for such
reason. They are only scandal
lied at Bismark's betraying the
secret The motive attributed to
him is in keeping with the whole
cynical story, viz, that he is of
Tended because Kaiser Wilhelm
disuaded the present Gar from
paying a pilgrimage to the old
Chancellor at Friedrichsruh.
Our superfine citizens who +
inclined to think that, we should be
better off if we had a stable gov
eminent may draw a profitable
moral from this revelation of in
difference to every consideration,
human and divine, on the part of
monarchs who could calmly inaug-
urate a terrible war, for the sake of
keeping the army occupied. 1t
may be a lesson also against in
creasing our little army to any
thing more than the size of a ma
tional police force. We need a
navy, and a strong one, for de-
fence against outsiders; and our
naval officers are, as they always
have been, notably conservative.
A man-of-war captain risks too
much in taking into action a
costly ship and hundreds of more
valuable lives and will not do it
save in the last extremity. Regu-
lar army men are almost equally
charry of taking any hasty meas
ures; but we do not want to see a
large military force standing idle
for the most part, or indefn-
itely worse, seeking an excuse for
proving their usefulness. AS the
cruel political war is over, it may
not be now considered anarchistic
to say that there is no good rea-
son for increasing the size of the
regular army in this country. Bis
marck's revelations show how
terribly the system works in Eu-
rope, and in the lurid light of
them it is safe to predict that the
next great war on the Continent
will be waged as was the Russo
Turkish war, to keep the butchers
busy.
As another illustration, here is
the Spanish Government deliber-
ately considering the righteousness
of declaring war on the United
States, not so much on account of
our active or moral sympathy
with the Cuban insurgents, for
the Administration has enforced
the neutrality laws with all it's
power, but to give the Spanish
regency an opportunity of retiring
from Cuba sswith honor" It is
conceded that in such a war sue
cess would be with us. Thou
sands Of Spanish and American
lives would be sacrificed and mil
lions of money, but that precious,
intangible thing called ''honor''
would be saved. Spain. like a
weak or dnskillful duellist pro-
poses to avenge a real or imag-
mary wrong by calling out a SUI
perior adversary and getting it
self indicated and killed with all
the punctilious p%roprieties of ssthe
CODE"