Omaha daily bee., 1899-06-27
"lGNouLE rENCE."
Caustic RCpIy to the War cries of
Governor Theodore Roosevelt


dependent
Governor Roosevelt, In addition to his
martial renown is winning golden opinions
as administrator Of the state OF New York.
but IL he disseminates such sentences as
those with which he Is credited he will
scarcely win golden opinions from human.
ity. His doctrine appears to be that the
force Ct national character must suffer by
prolonged swollen. slothtul ease
and can be preserved only by strenuous
endeavor' which | take to be euphemism
for war. Every nation will have to be pick
ing quarrels in order to supply itself with
the indispensable tonic and the world will
be perpetual field of battle, The end will
be the survival of the strongest animal and
the extinction of the community OF nations.
1t does not appear to be true that nations,
so long as their governments are good, their
habits healthy, their sports manly aud their
feelings patriotic have any tendency to lose
their force in peace. Germany has been eN-
ternally at peace with the inconslderable eN-
ception CT the Schleswig Holstein affair, for
half a century, when. under Bismarck and
Moltke, she put forth In her wars with
Austria and France such force as the world
has seldom seen Great Britain had been
at peace for nearly forty years when she
went into the Crmean war; and though
at the outset, her war department was out
of gear, her military energy did not fall
her on the Alma or at Inkerman. The peo-
pie of the United States had been at peace,
with the not very inconsiderable exception OF
the Mexican war, for forty-fye years before
the outbreak OF the war of secession, In
which the military qualities shown on both
sides were as high and the fighting as des-
perate as in any war in history. On the
Of bor wv DnriO6 n
incessant wars that both Spain and Italy
sank into decrepitude
War whether in a good or bad cause,
calls forth the qualities of the soldier. for
whom the word OF command is morality.
But to nation war in bad cause Is moral
poison. The idea that the violent passions
which war calls into play Will XIII the
meaner passions, such as the lust OF gain
it must be said once more is utterly base
less. War Is the very harvest time of the
stock jobber and the appointed season OF
"embalmed beef" I had occasion the other
day to refer to the welknown lines OF Ten
neyson's Maud" welcoming the Crimean
war as relief from the mercenary aims and
fraudulent practices of peace. No such effect
followed. Nobody was elevated, fortified or
reformed by reading the reports of bat
ties in the Gazette; nor after the war,
free from faction than it had been before.
The war policy of Chatham is generally
taken by historians to have revived the
spirit of the British nation. which had been
depressed under Walpoe by a long peace.
Yet it was at once followed by an unparal-
leled carnival of political corruption. Amer
lean writer's are apt to rejoice over the war
OF 1872 on account of what they assume to
have been it's unifying influence. But what
did it actually produce? AT the time, the
Hartford convention; and afterward the
fierce outburst of party spirit under that
signal offspring of the war-Andrew Jack
son.
1t is not in manly hearts, but in these OF
women or Of men of feminine temperament
that the war fever most fiercely RACES and
most clearly manfess it's effects, OF this,
II your journals do not misinform us, you
have had some striking proofs. 1t was al
WAYS said that in the war OF secession the
spirit of the southern women was fercer |
than that OF the men, and that the women
would have wished to continue the war |
when the men gladly accepted peace. Moth
ing could be more sanguinary than the tone
Of your yellow press on late OCCASION |
Yet few would say that It was masculine |
remember still with adherence how in |
England our ears were filled at the time of |
the Indian mutiny with the yells of senti- |
mental eunuchs for more blood
Governor Roosevelt tells us that unless
you take to the life OF strenuous endeavor |
"bolder and stronger peoples will pass you |
by and win for themselves the domination |
of the world" Why is the world to be
given over to anybody's domination? Why |
we all be content with our own and
allow each other to grow in freedom and |
peace? Why should there not continue to
be community of nations, peacefully CO.
operating and vying with each other in the
Of the general objects of hui
manity? The domination OF the Anglo
Saxon race Is just now the prevailing as
piration. Might not the attempt to estab-
lish It provoke all the other nations to
combine their forces for the liberation OF
the world?
Who has said or thought that the Ameri-
'an people were IAN assembly of wel-to-do
1ucksters sitting huddled within their bor-
1ers?" One onlooker at all events. thought
hey were expanding over an almost bound
less territory, and bidding fair, with their
material advantages to lead mankind in the
march of improvement and redress In some
measures the sad inequalities Of the human
ot. The war OF secession was at all events
not "huckstering." Governor Roosevelt
ends color TO the injurious suTnlSe lnht an
uneasy self consciousness and a restless de-
sire to be on a par with the great military
powers of the old world were at the bottom
IF this sudden transformation. Napoleon
ook England for nation OF shop keepers
and formed his plans on that hypothesis,
with what results is well known.
There seems to have suddenly come over
is sort Of safety of civilization. Not only
IS there a revival of the lust of war, but
oarbarous practices, such as duelling, now
recognized In every European country eX-
,ept England, and barbarous sports, such
Is prize fighting, are coming again into
vogue. II seems that bull fighting, hitherto
ieemed the disgrace of Spain, is about to
le imported into France, When ! was young
1rize fighting was deemed disreputable;
low prize fights are reported at length In
irst-class journals and women are begin
ling to attend the ring. In the press, ana
lot in its lowest organs, we read avowals
II respect for brute force and contempt of
moral restraint, which in the last generation
would scarcely have proceeded from the
most cynical Of writer's or public men. The
declaration OF independence to whatever
rlticisms It may be liable, is at all events
charter of humanity; a charter OF inhu-
nanity appears now to be taking its place.
IL we want to keep war as indispensable
I'D Of ha ttt,,n