The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-04-22
War versus Arbitration.

This afternoon there will assemble
| in the city of Washington more than
| 400 prominent citizens representing by
congressional districts thirty-eight
states, their object being to consider
means of promoting a permanent sys-
| tenn Of arbitration between Great Brit
ain and the United States. Ex-Sena-
tor Edmunds, of Vermont, will preside;
ex-Secretary of State Foster will make
the address of welcome, and in the au-
dience will be many men equally emf
nent and distinguished. The gathering
will represent the cream of God-fearing,
law-abiding American citizenship, and
its voice. invested with all the solemnity
Of an edict of sovereigns, will be against
war in future and for peace.
What are the indications that this
movement to substitute the judicial for
the militant arbitrament will eventual
ly succeed? There Is encouragement
in the opinion expressed by Rev. DR..
Tennis s. Hamlin, Of Washington.
I'VE believe" says he, "that the time
of such a substitution Is drawing near,
because we can trace through the GEN.
turtles steady, If very gradual. mitiga-
tion of the horrors Of war. There is a
large class of causes for armed con-
fiict that have practically disappeared.
Religious wars, for example, are q
thing Of the past. Wars to crafty the
ambitions or revenge Of soverelgns are
now hardly possible; are not possible
unless skillfully disguised by pleas Of
public policy. Chronic International
hatreds are also yielding to the spirit
barbarities of war have been modified.
Assassination, for instance, has been
discountenanced since the murder Of
William of Orange. Mr.. Fox, when
fnreign- minister learned eef eee peieet eleet to to
assassinate Napoleon, and instantly in
formed him of his peril. So weapons
thought to be especially cruel have been
one by one disused, as the SHOW,
poisoned arrows, and small explosives
designed to tear to pieces the human
body in which they might lodge. The
poisoning of water and of food Is no
longer practiced. At the capture of
Magdeburg. by Tilly, in 1881. 10000 of
its $4,000 inhabitants were slaughtered; /;
such wholesale butchery has never
since occurred. Thucydides, 800 B. c.,
describes the custom of his day as to
non-combatants to be the killing of the
men and reducing the women and chill
dren to slavery. At the battle of Agin-
court, where from $4,000 to 100000 men
were engaged, and some 10000 killed,
there was not one man present that had
any knowledge of medicine or surgery;
now physicians and trained nurses,
with all possible hospital supplies,
throng every army in the field. The
barbarities long practiced upon prison.
ers Of war have now largely given
place to amicable exchange. These
and many similar matters are formu-
lated into rules of civilized warfare in
the most recent manuals Of Europe and
Of this century"
ihSh' eoo, tHcie Is tne economic
argument. War as method Of set
tling international differences is not
only cruel and barbarous but also tre-
mendously expensive. Upon this point
DR.. Hamlin observes: 1.-THE wars of
the ninety years preceding 1880 cost
more than fifteen and one-quarter bill.
lions Of dollars, and four and one-half
millions Of lives. In our civil war
2,33s,0o0 men were engaged, on both
sides, from first to last. The
standing armies of Europe today num-
ber on peace footing 100000. and on
Q war footing 1o,ooo.ooo, In 1918, after