Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-11-28

nave, what might be called "a Jury or
nations,' which shall render verdict
on all controverted international ques-
tiOns. All civilized nations are ready
for it-Great Britain with standing
army of go, 900 men, France with a
standing army OF $50, 600 men, Ger
many with standing army of 600, 900
men, Russia wiEh standing army of
900, 600 men. Europe with standing
armies Of about $500, 900 men, the
United States proposing a standing
army of 100, 900 menl What glorious
idea, that of disarmament! What an
emancipation Of nations and centuries
The cZar Of Russia last summer proposed
it in world resounding manifesto. Dis
armament What an inspiring and
heaven descended thought! In some
quarters the cars manifesto was treat
ed with derisicn, and we were told that
! he was not in earnest when he made it.
| I know personally that he did mean it.
Six years ago he expressed to me the
same theory in his palace at Peterhof,
he then being on the way to the throne,
not yet having reached it. His father,
Alexander III, then on the throne, ex
pressed to me in his palace the same
sentiments of peace, and his wife, the
/ then empress, with tears in her eyes,
said in reply to my remark, "Your
majesty, there will never be another
| great war between Christian nations,
"Ah, I hope there never will bel If
| there should ever be another great war,
I am sure it will not start from this
palace
What boon to the world if Russia
and Germany and England and the
United States could safely disband all
their standing armies and dismantle
their fortresses and spike their guns
What uncounted millions of dollars
would be saved, and, more than that
what complete cessation of human
slaughter! What an improvement of
the morals of nations! What an adop-
tion of that higher and better manifesto
which was set to music and let down
from the midnight heavens of Bethle-
hem ages ago! The world has got to
come to this. Why not make it the
peroration of the nineteenth century?
Are we going to make present to the
twentieth century of reeking hospitals
and dying armies and hemisphere
graveyards? Do you want the hoofs of
other cavalry horses on the breasts of
fallen men? Do you want other harvest
fields quilted with wheels of gun car
riages? Do you want the sky glaring
with confagration of other homesteads?
Alb, this nineteenth century has seen
enough of war! Make the determination
that no other century shall be blasted
with it.
During the first half of this century
we expended SIS, 600, 600 to educate the
Indians and $500, 900, 900 to kill them.
According to Ialiable statistician, dur
ing this century we have had the Cri-
mean war, which slew 705, 600 and cost
S1,700, 600, 900, and our American civil
war, which slew 900, 900 men, north
and south, and cost 50, 600, 600, 900, dig
cling grave trench from Barnegat
lighthouse, New Jersey, to Lone Noun
tain cemetery at San Francisco. And
you must add to these the Zulu war, and
the Austro-Prussian war, and the Dan
ish war, and the Italian war, the
Franco-Prussian war, Carbohydrates
war, Napoleonic war, and the Amer
ico-Spanish war. What record for this
boosted nineteenth century 1t makes
all pandemonium chuckle. 1t has called
out all the realms of diabolus in grand
parade, satan reviewing them from plat
form of fire, as the demons in companies
and regiments and brigades have passed
with banners of fire and riding on horses
Of fire, keeping step to the roll of the
grand march of hell. In the name of
the God of nations, let the scroll of
blood be rolled up and put upon the
shelf never TO be taken down. And by
the middle of next century let the sword
and the carbine and the bonn bshell be-
come curiosities in a museum, about
which your grandchildren shall ask
questions, wondering what those instru-
ments were ever used for, but let no one
dare tell them but keep it from them
an everlasting secret, lest they too much
despise our nineteenth century and curse
the memory of their ancestors
The Dying Century.
Will it not be grand if on the first
day of the twentieth century the last
will and testament of the nineteenth
century shall be opened and it shall be
found to read: Sin the name of God.
amen. |, the dying century, do make
this my last will and testament. give
and bequeath to my heir, the twentieth
century, pace of nations; swords,
which I direct to be beaten into plow-
shares, and spears, which must be turn
ed into pruning hooks; armories, to be
changed into schoolhouses, and for
tresses, to be rebuilt into churches, and
I order that greater honors be put on
those who save life than upon those who
destroy it, and if, amid the universal
poaoa now attained those two nations
Spain and Turkey, do not stop their
cruelties, let the other nations, banded
together, extemporize police force to