The San Francisco call., 1897-09-26

pealed to the better instincts, and yet the
peace is dream, the good will a hope
that ever recedes, a phantom to which
benign aspiration stretches out in vain.
AS the world goes larger there is in it
more room to war. AS civilization be-
comes older it is still guided by selfish
ness, and the hand of man is raised
against his brother even as long ago the
hand OF Abel. Missionaries go to the
ends of the earth on errands of mercy and
there find strife. Eminent divines preach
OF universal peace. Congresses are
called to advocate universal peace to
point out its beauties and advocate its
claims. Idle words. The pictures they
paint are painted on the air. Fact against
fancy; a glance at the globe against a
notion.
In Cuba there is war, cruel, uniusti-
fable as atrociCus as war has been since
blood has stained red the pages o. his
tory. Men and women are slaughtered,
the wounded put 10 the knife, the inno-
cent led into shame. Starvation is en-
couraged, fever nurtured. The cross of
charity on the robe of a sister is no pro-
lection. nea is king, and Horror sits st
his right hand. Cuba is fighting for life.
Civilized nations view the struggle, but DO
nothing to stay the destruction. Spain
scrapes the bottom of depleted Golfers In
the effort to raise funds to prosecute a
series of wholesale murders. Men perish
in malarial swamps because Cuba refuses
longer to be robbed.
India can b ardly be called the "Proph-
cts Paradise" to-day. Since the battle
nf 1tJ1rx 4 ho1f hot
country has not for any three consecutive
years been free from war. It's people are
born to battle. They long for fight al
ways, and grasp the abundant oppor-
tunity offered by the presence of British
troops. In the absence of these troops
the Sd wage tribes would with equal fierce
ness prey upon each other.
Egypt has been battle-ground for
thousa nds of years. The Soudan has been
fought for by the rulers from the Pharoahs
10 the British, and at hort intervals an
outbreak is certain. Catastrophe has fol-
lowed catastrophe; armies are sacrificed
almost every year, fair regions nearly de-
populated, and what survives the raw
ages of war left to the spoil of the Arab
traderl Africa is the seat of seething vio-
lence. No place is more clearly entitled
to be called dark and bloody ground. The
annual loss of life there in the process of
advancing civilization by the bayonet is
fearful At no time is there safety from
turmoil, which is even this day in prog
ress there, with the promise of soon be-
coming worse.
There is war in Brazil. in the Philip
pines. virtually always war in the Central
keeps adding to its bands of trained mill
tary and streng ngthening its navies. No
country there makes a friendly com bina-
ton with another save with the object of
coercing third, of which both are afraid.
Crowned heads are resting even less easy
than usual. The bomb. the knife and tn g
pistol, aiming for the heart of royalty or
of high executive, bespeaks the spirit of
discomfort that only needs organization to
be war more widespread and cruel than
all. Even the United States, standing
mighty and alone, feels now and then an
impulse to turn to arms. Spain. rebuked
for assassination, resents interference and
makes ins olent threats. England, patron
izing, superior England. does much TO
irritate the people OF this country, going
so far as to suggest adding portion of it
to Canada; talking as calmly of ability to
defeat the United States as if necessity
had not twice arisen TO prove her in ability
Commercial competition grows more
deadly. Men ask for living wages and
the rife replies. A system known as
government by injunction" has come
into use and has been employed for the
most part to oppress. The people MUIR