The record-union., 1898-05-29
PRESEnT-DAY THOUGHTS.
BY Memo"
copyrighted by Dave & Taboro

There is a tenGency among soLhe
thinkers to regard the present war as
a terrible reversion to barbarism. They
think of it as a turning of the back
upon civilization | will agree with
them if they are speaking of Spain,
but l will not agree with them If they
are speaking of the United States. The
arguments they advance are familiar
enough and we'll understood-that war
arouses the worst passions OF men,
that civilization gains more during the
quiet times of peace than in the bust
ling hours of war; that the advancing
thought of the world faVors bloodless
arbitration. We should be unprogres-
sive indeed if We did not agree in
general way with all these statements,
for they are all true; but they are not
always true. They are untrue in rela-
ton to ourselves. This we can dare
to say, though fully aware that here
and there in our forces are men of vio-
lent feeling who rejoice in killing; but
these no more color the general char
acter of our hosts than one blot of ink
colors the great, rolling, health-g giving
sea.
First then, why are we fighting? Be
cause the best impulses OF nations
heart have been stirred. Even in the
excitement of actual warfare those
same good impulses impel us. Like
David's men of old, we take our swords
in our hands and we reckon our lives
as little, if we may but be able to
place a cup of cold water at parched
lips 1t is an heroic war; as We have
nothing to gain except the doing of
good, and everything to lose if the for
tunes of war should turn against US.
We did not seek the fight Peace is at
traetive to our great commercial ma
ton But because we have feelings,
and because we ourselves have suf-
fered from oppression we from the
highest motives stoop from our lofty
estate to throttle the dogged blood
thirstiness of dying nation. Right
under the shadow of our noble land,
this creation of the fifteenth century
in the agony of it's own approaching
dissolution was seeking to drag down
TO similar distress and destruction
thousands of harmless ones, What
could we do? Speak against it, We
did, and failed to stop 1t. Then what?
Argue with a man deaf to mercy, and
make signs to man blind with bloody
hatred? No! we smote and shall
smite, be the cost what it may, until
this remnant of the dark ages learns
that the policy Of pirates does not pay
at the end of the nineteenth century.
SO far from it being true that we are
hot to kill, I dare to affirm that there
is in this country's great heart a feel
ing of real sympathy for the rank and
file of the Spanish army and navy. 1t
is against the Spanish official system
that we war, and we sorrow over the
poor, conscripted boys who are made
mere implements OF murder in the
hands Of their superior officers. These
poor fellows are utterly unlike our boys
who realize that they are "the peo-
ple'; that the people" are the eoun-
try. and that when the country is at
war the people" are at war" But
our ill-clad opponents, having no quar-
rel with Cuba and no reason 10 hate
u.s. are forced into combat ill-fed and
heartlessly. What did the victory at
Manila Indicate or the prompt dis
mantlement of San Juan, or Cardenas,
or Matanzas? That Spain was so un-
progressive and so altogether unfit for
rule that ii became simply a murderer
of it's own people, by placing them in
dangerous positions, and yet leaving
them absolutely unprepared for sue
cessful combat. Badly differed, and
absolutely bereft Of the feeling that
makes the American soldier conscious
of his oneness with his officer, they
have been led out like sheep to the
slaughter. They have been sacrificed
by official neglect and official greed;
for it is we'll understood that the mon
ey set aside by the Spanish Govern
ment for food, for equipment and for
target practice has gone to line off,
cial pockets. If the brutality of Spain
toward the reconcentradoes were not
sufficient to have filled up the vial Of
its doom, the criminal neglect of the
most ordinary training for its own de-
tenders is enough to bring it to an end
as one of the Powers of the earth.
BY all that Is merciful in humanity;
by all that there is of dumb agony in
the hearts of Spanish peasant mothers
who will mourn for sons torn from
them and robbed of every chance of
life; by all the lives of our own, in
trusted to the United States, for
harsh deed has, like the surgeons
wound, mercy in it; by all the horrors
in Cuba that we would bring to an
end-let us hope for short, sharp, de-
cisive work. Then will this nation,
whose ideal is peace, cease from chas-
tising the cuiprit. tenderly watch for
awhile the new republic, and progress
once more along the path of its own
most wondrous destiny. as guardian
of human rights and human aspira-
tions in the Western Hemisphere.