The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1899-12-14
WILL VAR KILL ITSELF?
ARGUMENT Bf 4 CAusTIC WAITER
WHO. RELIEVES NOT.
The Development of New Staying Ma
'chsnes Not Likely TO Create Such q
Sense of Horror That Men and Ma
ttOns Will BE Peaceable.

mooern weapons a prophecy OF universal
: peace. War will eventually become so hOr-
rible. say these amiable illogicians, that
nations will no longer engage in it.
With all proper tenderness to the at
= fiicted it may be said in opposition to that
view that the modern destructive weapon Ia
comparatively harmless against an enemy
that understands it. Kitchener with his
machine guns coulc nIUw down ignorant and
intrepid Dervishes OF TIC Soudan in swaths
and winrows, but the same weapons at Ell
Caney wrought no great loss Of life against
those who knew better than to charge upon
The art of defense keeps even pace with
Gentlemen to whom heaven has denied
they discern in. the destructive nature of
the art OF ofense; tactics are altered to
meet new conditions, and for a reason that
will presently be considered modern battle-
are not nearly SO bloody as were an
cient.
Even If this were not soft modern
weapons were more truly destructive" than
the primitive appliances with which our
ancestors were content, the fact would sup
ply no justification for the hope OF ,un-
versal peace. A strong sense Of the ,hOr-
rors Of war is not deterrent to a nation con-
scious of the power to inflict them. More
over. the men who make wars are not, as
a. rule those who expose themselves to peril
on sthe.. battlefield; the horrors that they
evoke they do not suffer.
But suppose by reason of it's slaughter
Gus nature through use of terrible. weapons
WAR should be abandoned, what would be
the result? Obviously this: The art of
- making terrible weapons would soon be lost
through disuse and nations virtually un-
armed again, and devoid of the deterrent
sense OF wars horrors, would begin fight
ing as before, with such simple appliances
as they would readily make. The sword
and spear and arrow, the most really de-
s%tructive weapons ever invented, would re-
sumo their old place in political affairs,
and the world enter upon another cycle OF
Perhaps the afflicted gentlemen who base
hopes of the reign Of peace upon mans
devilish ingenuity in killing soldiers and
sailors-by means of others Oldiers and
sailors-hold that after peace has been as
sured plants costing millions OF dollars
will continue to turn out the improved
weapons as a menace to those who might
wish for a return of the bad old days of
mutual slaughter. 1t is not impossible
rs that they hold it a self evident turth that
the improved art of killing, with it's i'm
proved appliances costing enormous sums
of money. will flourish in green exuberance,
fortified by cheerful taxation all through
The centuries of good will toward men. They
are capable of believing that even great
military academies will be maintained to
fit officers for duties that they will never
be called upon to perform; that public
interest and personal ingenuity will focus
themselves as now upon the problem or
destroying the impenitent patriot, albeit that
worthy will not be called out to be de-
stroyed; that, in brief, the awful condi-
lions that are eventually to brighten the
world from its war fad will continue to
exist unimpaired by the rust of inactivity,
and SO keep it frightened. Persons en-
dowed by nature with an intelligence which.
if inferior to that of the domestic COW
iss at least one cut above that of the peace
prophets, know that when there is no furth-
err demand for products-even inexpensive
cnes-of an art or industry, not only does
the supply cease but the art or industry
periShes with it.
of active and constant demand to evolve our
modern destructive weapons that the
backward count is lost in the shadows of
antiquity. and none con say whether repe-
tition of the performance would require a
few thousand years or a hundred million.
Either period is a long time in which to be-
vail the fall of the beautiful house of cards
reared by the peace prophets upon the IN
firm foundation of a fool hope. However,
nothing of the kind is going to occur, for,
as already pointed out, the modern de
structive" weapon. estroys only those who
get in the way OF it. The short sword of
the Romans did as much as that, and a
good many more got in the way OF it. The
notion that peace is to be the outcome of
improvement in war weapons must be ac-
cepted as one of the most amusing vagaries
of understandings congenltally feeble and
accessible to the infection OF a stupid nope.
D.. Superior methods Of Strengthening those
willing to walk up and be slaughtered give
no promise of universal peace, but not only
have they Individually reduced the proper
ton of slain in battle, but they have dis
tinctly lessened the frequency and length
of wars. This they accomplish, not by the
horror that they inspire, but by their ire
mondous costa fact too obvious to require
calculation or proof. But there is still an
other way in which they promote economy
OF bloOdshed. They render war not only
more expensive but less interesting. AS a
game, the modern battle is a pretty dull
affair: were it not for the chance Of being
struck by a random shot fired by a person
unaware of his victims individual exis-
tnce, and for the hard work OF pumping
~ continuous streams of lead into space, one
would be likely to fall asleep while fighting
or die of detection for lack Of something to
engage the mind. |
In the old days of the sword, the spear !
s and the bow and even the short range
musket soldiers came into so close con-
tact with their enemies that a battle was
properly termed an engagement, a word
which modern field tactics with arms of
precision" would never have given us. Even
SO lately as our civil war a soldier fire.
uuently saw his enemy close to and noted
his stature. while actual hand
to-hand encounters of the most heroic sort
we're not The omman to fix
bayonets meant something serious, and Off
GERS found the sword more serviceable than
the malacca walking stick affected by their
class in Luzon. When in personal col
l;sion, or Imminent expectation Of it, with
a gentleman cherishing the view that one
Is needless, ones attention does not wan
der from the business in hand to dwell
upon the lilies and languors of peace. One
Is interested in the proceedings and il he
survives them, experiences in the retros-
~pection a pleasure not discernible in the
returning brave from the land where the
Mauser and the krag-Jorgensen converse
amciably without visible human agency
across a space of two statute miles. II a
bayonet thrust or a sword stroke were de-
livered in the Yanko-Spanko war Of 1898, /
or has been delivered in the opera bouffe /
quarrel in Luzon SO far as it has gone,
there is no authentic record Of the phe- |
nomenon. Crouching in the grass, under
an Affecting Spanish fire from somewhere.
our soldiers at San Juan felt it a great.
hardship to be "~decimated' in So inglori-t
Gus a skirmish. They did not know, poor
fellows, that they were fighting a typical
modern battle. When the situation having
become intolerable. their whole division had
charged and carried the vacant trenches of
the two or three hundred Spaniards opposed
to them. they had leisure to amend their
conception of war as a picturesque and
glorious game.
In the elder day, before the. invention of
the Whitehead torpedo and the high power
gun, the wooden war vessels of the period
used to ram each other. lie alongside. grap-
pie, jam their guns into each others ports
and send swarms of half naked boarders on