Bluefield evening leader. [volume] (Bluefield, W. Va.) 1906-1911, 1906-09-21
NAVY VIEWED
AS A MENACE,
BOSTON CENTRAL LABOR UNION
TELLS BoNAPARTE THAT
THE WORKERS WILL la.
BoR FOR DIsARMA-
MENT.


Oyster Bay on Labor day. Your ref
erence is doubtless to the protes,
made by the central labor union. both
To the parade Itself and To its being
held on Labor Day
Permit us frankly to answer your
question as To why the $4,000 men
who paraded that day are not prom
erly to be classed with other work
ingmen OF the country. Your claim.
that these men work not for their
own good. but for ours" is n fine
theory, but Il does not fool the work
ingman who Is getting his eyes open
to the facts. They work for wages
like other men. aud the difference
between them and others is that they
consume and DESTROY. and others
produce. You say that they produce
safety. Our belief is that monstrous
navies are chiefly n menace and not
a protection TO the world They are
not for moment To be considered
as police.
We honor the volunteers who
fought In l776 and in our civil war
to preserve the Union. but while
civil wars unhappily may he possible
for an indefinite time, international
war. for which this big navy is Gre
ated. is doomed, and the men who
are stupidity shutting their eyes To the
new substitutes for this beastly way
OF settling international difficulties
are responsible for the most gigantic
waste that exists today.
You tell these highly trained Young
experts In the art OF killing that
war will not end in 40 years or so
years, or until men have become
either better or worse" Such state
ment today only applies TO savage
warfare, or civil war, but not TO in
ternational war. though II might
once have applied before steam and
electricity and democracy made ra-
tional world organization possible.
Today new conditions are making
obsolete the old assumption which
once had some validity. The men
who may be summoned by some con
gress that has lost it's head to give
their bodies as food for powder. and
who yearly In time OF peace are com
PEELED to pay as much for armaments
as they pay for all their public
schools from the Atlantic to Pacific.
the men who see as much money
spent on one single shot at target
practice as the whole education OF
Daniel Webster cost, are going pres
emily TO demand that common sense
and the new spirit OF international
ism be substituted for time-worn
tradition, prejudice and suspicious
fomented by jingo press.
They are going 10 take steps to
substitute an international police
force for rival armies and navies
which oppress the world and are
driving more than one Of our foreign
customers toward bankruptcy. The
machinery is already at hand and we
have but TO use It,
II one-thOusandth part of the en-
thusiasm. the rhetoric, the science
and the money which our navy can
command this year were put into
the recommendation of the late in
terpartliamentary congress passed at
the second Hague conference. half of
the work toward international peace
with Justice would be attained. JUS
tice is more important than peace.
and II Is precisely because machine
guns and submarines are not Judi
cial instruments that this age OF rea-
son must Danish war as we have ban
ished the duel
What the worklngmen OF this
country desire to substitute for
huge navy which may tempt us into
needless war Is an agreement with
two or three great powers that our
nations at least would refer ever.
dispute between them TO arbitration
and that we together would boycott
every other nation that refuses 10
arbitrate with either one Of us.
England. France and Japan will
follow suit as soon as we have the
sense to cease this antiquated adu-
lation OF big sticks and act like 2Oth
century men. When the FIRST three
or four leading nations have taken
this step and invited all others 20
Join them, not a nation In the world
would dare attack them. Our navy
would be needless. This does not i'm
ply men becoming more or less than
men"
There IS plenty Of human nature
In Pennsylvania and New York. but
the two states are at peace because
their causes Of friction have been re-
moved and they have a rational sub
stitute for war. Happily. too. hu-
man nature changes faster than any
thing else in the world. and we are
already so far from the day when men
we're like apes and tigers that IL Is
high time for as to act up to our
light
We believe that we are speaking
49, a.. ~