Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1900-01-22
GEN. HENDERSON ON WAR.
Speaker Of House That Will Pass on
War Policies Abhors War.


War Policies Abhors War.
Gen. D. B. Henderson of Iowa, who
is speaker of the house of representa-
tives, made a speech at a soldiers
gathering in Chicago September II,
1898. It's fervid rhetoric and forceful
facts, says the New York World, are
timely in view of the official record
that our losses in the Philippine war,
have been in killed, wounded
and missing fully 5000, while
the Filipinos have sacrificed at least
10000 in their struggle for freedom.
General Henderson said:
"Mr. President: My theme today is
war, and am against it. I wish had
all the gifts to speak my adherence
of war.
cart, poetry, romance and history
have magnifed and glorified the sold
Ter, but the time is coming when these
great instruments of power will desert
their favorite theme and lead the
great forces Of thought away from the
slaughter house up to the higher fields
Of human action.
'FThe bull fight, the cock pit, the
prize ring and the battlefield must all
so down together.
''It takes courage, I grant, to face
death. The sufferings and the trials
Of the soldier have not been exagger-
ated. But the courage needed to face
danger and death ranks far below the
courage that faces the superstitions,
the prejudices, the wealth and the
established customs of the world.
'The great man reasons; the small
man fights.
Grants words of peace will survive
his mightiest war cry.
"The cost of war alone should make
us stop and think
'"The public debts of the world are
$29, 900, 100000, and it is safe to say
that every dollar of this is the fruit Of
war. What strain upon earth, shops
and fields!
"'In 100 years Great Britain has paid
| 81, 1872, 206, O10 for war.
During these 100 years SO of them
were devoted to human slaughter.
'The cost of our own Civil War
was $6,5O8, $4,000.
Young as we are as a nation, we
have spent Is long years in battle
four of them in deadly fratricidal
strife. Today the genius of our coun-
try, indeed of the world, is bending all
it's powers to increase the capacity for
destruction of all the terrible engines
Of DEATH Is it not high time that each
citizen became a Nazarine to proclaim
peace among the people? Let every
martyrs grave be sermon and every
widows wall hymn FOR peace. Let
us cut down our army bill and save
our earnings for the schoolhouse, the
library and the home.
Europe is expending on her armies
$814000, 900 annually.
"No wonder the children of the Old
World have been seeking new home!
Should humanity weep in order
that tyrants may laugh?
SHOULD the homes Of the people be
loaded down with billions of debt in
order that some heartless murderer
may wear diadem?
"The wretches that have wrought
this desolation are the panthers, the
hyenas and the ghouls of humanity.
Il appeal to you, brave men of many
battles, who have seen and felt and
comprehended! I cry out to you to
throw your influence into the scales
and urge the world to seek some forum
where the arbitrator shall not be the
dripping sword.
WAR is demoralizing.
''War is desolating.
"War consumes the toll and comfort
of our people.
"War is the world terrible, relent-
less, remorseless inquisition.
War is the weapon of tyrants, the
prop of thrones.
<'War, the black pathway to hell,
has been the pretended passage to
heaven.
War has been justifable perhaps,
and may be again, as sometimes is the
surgeons knife, but only to save life
or something better and dearer than
life.
Let the time soon come prayed for
by the poet:
| Till the war drum throbbed no longer,
And the battle flags were furled
In the parliament of man, the Fedora
ton of the world;
There the common sense Of most
Shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber,
rapt in universal law.
GENERAL WOODS TACT.