The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1902-08-29
DOES LUXURY FoLLow wAR?

The New York Evening Post has a novel idea about
war and luxury holding that luxury follows other
as the night and day In Calculating the proposition
the paper says The Presidents words on Saturday
the mischief great fortunes not used Alright
and about the ugly badness of the foies and vices
displayed by the wicked who prosper will find an echo
in many hearts. They fall fttngy at a time when os-
tentation by the vulgar rich has been reaching its acme
of ofensiveness when the gambling spirit both in f.
nance and high play by the admired punger at Saratoga
has been rampant and when press and public have stood
staring been running agape at every anthem
tic report luxury surprising all records for fantastic
barbaric forms It good have chief magistrate
to whom all this is frankly repelant who lets
st be known that it is.
In view however of the very obvious lurch luxury
which this country has taken since the Spanish war
think that Roosevelt and others of his way of think
ing and talking about the discipline of war would do
well to revise their theories. They held up war to US
it viii be remembered the great moral tonic of which
luxurious age in need It was prevent our fibre
from deterioratiDg. It to make live aborious
days. Under the sharp appeal of military duty the nation
to to think about the comforts and eegances
of life to give up reckoning happiness in of
the bank account and to all delights except
the stern JOY of the warrior This theory always seemed
20 bizarre psychoogcally and ludicrous historically
Being brutazed else made sybaritic by the luxury
which always sweeps in with new floods in wartime has
been the historic danger Of Capua never far
from Cannae. Napoeons wars did exactly make the
French modest simple people despising the pleasures
of Even struggle so essentially heroic and ideal
civil attended and followed by an inva-
Tcnor no Cato the Censor yet he wrote to friend
abroad in the days Of the desperate fighting between
the Rapidan and Richmond in s64: Meanwhile luxury
reisns as it did before IN Boston, New York and
through the North generally" It ought not then so
greatly to surprise the prasers of the soldiers life if
another successful has brought mhonaires who
vie with each other to who wallow Epiourus
sly in the most novel ways.
There is. in truth very direct connection between
the spirit the Haunting of riches such as we
have been seeing these three months past War is a
provocative OF the gambling mania Itself sort Of
huge lottery it unsetues mems ideas about the slow
and regular acquisition Of competence by prolonged
industry. and drives them to a mad graspng after
the great prizes Wars have always been the rioh mans
opportunity 10 grow richer The necessities Of the gov
eminent furnish him his occasion swarm of suddenly
rich army contractors let loose on the land in 1926
To disgust the observer with their ostenaous display Of
bad manners but sood money. Why blame the men who
in the Spanish war sold their ships the navy for three
or four times their value they part CT their IN
expected san in whimsicaes Of defiant expense or in
tieking out their women very much the spirit Of a
Zulu warrior who gives his wife noserings an danklet
wherewith to sit in the of the kraal and be ad
mired and envied by the passers-by2
one reason why senseless exhibition Of great wealth
does nowadays an uncommon amount of harm. as the
President lies in the publicity which attends every
movement OF the rich They are not allowed 10 live
their lives to themselves the world unknouag and the
world unknown Their heels are dogged BY the reporter
and the clicking Of the camera accompanies thed down
sitting and uprising Publicity besets -hen behind nd
before let them Ike it, let them oahe Every scrap
of their conversation variation their plans Of