The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-08-16
DOES WAR NEAKERARACE?.
PRESIDENT JORDAN THINKS
THAT 1T DOES.
THINKS
Inter- Ocean Says That His Contention
is Not Borne Out by History of Our
Civil War.

President David Starr Jordan of the
Leland Stanford university, in his last
paper on THE Blood of the Nation" IN
the Popular Science Monthly for June,
helds that the present generation of
Americans is not up to the standard OF
the generation that fought the civil wal
His argument is that, as North and
South answered the call Send forth
the best we breed" by hurrying the
flower of their young manhood to the
field, and that as a million men lost
their lives, the nation was impover-
ished, and that because the men who
died in battle had better stuff in them
than the father of the average man of
today, the men that are, all short of the
men that ought to have been" had
there been no war.
President Jordan admits that the gaps
have been filled to all appearance, but
says of the new generation of men and
women born since the war, their hands
are not so strong or so clean as though
the men that are stood shoulder to
shoulder with the men that might have
BEEN" and he believes that centuries
OF wisdom and virtue are needed TO re-
store to our nation the lost inheritance
of patriotism"
The weak point in President Jordan's
argument is in his assumption that all
of the men of the two great armies of
them than the average man of today"
were killed in battle or died during the
war. OF the 100000 men who saw
service In the Union Army during the
war, only 44,23S were killed In battle
1925 died of wounds and injuries, 1856
ZIG died of disease, and "a, 700 from un-
known causes, in all 304, 1853. Counting
the confederate loss as great, the
total deaths would be 60S,O0O out of
3,5OOOOO in service. Admitting that the
men who fell were the braVest OF the
brave, 1t does not follow that the men
who went through the service and be.
came the best soldiers in the world were
inferior in manhood or patriotism to
their comrades who We're killed in bat
Il or who died in hospitals.
The surviving soldiers of the war,
nearly two million strong, returned to
civil life with better stuff I'm them"
than when they entered the service.
The experiences and discipline of war
strengthened them in character, in body
and mental equipment and good
many of them are to be counted among
the fathers of the average man of to-
day.
1t is generally admitted that the SOL
der element in our population has left
its mark on national life, and that the
influence of that element has not been
TO thin the blood of the nation" Many
Soun6 men VINO went into the army be-
low the average in the essentials or
moral or physical manhood came out
above the average, worthy to be count
ed among the best we bred even In that
time The race was stronger for their
experiences in war.
But what of the people who did not
enter the army? Did the war weaken
or strengthen them? II must be re-
membered that the tendencies of Amer
lean life in 1860 were toward the COM
monplace commercialism so much COM
planned of in England. We were drift
ing away from the patriotic standards
of the war for independence. There was
little except on the frontier to stir the
blood or call out the sterner qualities
OF the pioneer American.
The war changed all this For four
years our people lived an intenser life
than those of any other nation. The
strenuous activity developed adaptive
ness, resourcefulness, endurance, forti-
tude and courage. We were a new peo-
pie, better, stronger, more alert, and
more resolute than ever before. Will
any one claim that, in spite of the losses
of war, "the blood of the nation" was
not the better for the war? Certainly,
as recent events have shown, we have
lost no inheritance OF patriotism. -
Inter-Island.