The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1907-05-23
.APicturesque War; and Peace.


Some well meaning people permit
their minds to be disturbed over the
picturesque and Spectacular textures
of war as helping on the military spirit.
OF course it was woman who declared
at the recent national peace conference
that ''the spectacular in war makes it
attractive to men, and the thing to do is
to make peace spectacular too" ANY
man who knows anything about war
would say that none but harebrained
tops are attracted by the spectacular
tn war, and only now and then one of
this class gets near enough to the real
thing to have his Illusions punctured
Real war is the most commonplace
Of all the activities men engage in. Its
horrors even lose their power to thrill.
AS well talk Of the picturesqueness of
prize fight, of the butchers slam
bles or of wholesale execution as the
picturesqueness Of any battle that was
ever fought as it impressed participant
or eyewitness. Napoleon got more of
personal benefit out Of militarism and
a greater need of "the bubble reputa-
| tom at the lannon's mouth than any
other man known to history, yet he
| never spoke one word to glorify war.
When he was debating battlefield dis
patches to Paris, calling this marshal
| ga lion in battle" and another sthe
bravest Of the brave" he did it pur-
| posely to beWitch young Frenchmen
into enlisting with the hope of winning
a baton for themselves. At the same
| time he was writing with his own
hand homilies to Josephine upon the
brutalitieA the horror and the sinful
| ness of war. Old soldiers get civilian
spellbinders to address them when they
want enthusiasm at reunions. After
listening to imaginary 'deeds of der
ring do" alleged to be authentic history,
the most battle SCARED among them
wonder why they "never saw any
thing like that at the 'front.'
The truth is that war has no pic
turesqueness whatever outside of the
| imagination Of those whose business
1t is to make telling pictures on canvas
or In print. Macaulay, with his bat
tie of Ivry;' Tennyson, with his
"Charge of the Light Brigade and
Buchanan Read, with his ''Sheridan's
Ride" have done more to foster the
military spirit that crops out in GER
tain quarters than all the speeches
and harangues ever heard on the lips
of men who had "smelled powder"
Sherman's epigram on war was unique
only in it's phraseology. Other soldiers
have said it in their own way Grant,
with the halo Of Vicksburg and Apo
mattox playing around him, faced
fright about and said, LET us have
peace!" But he didn't feel called upon
to say with this Carnegie hall delegate
that peace must be made spectacular
or his boys in blue and Lees boys in
gray would tire Of humdrum and seek
diversion in war.
The best Of peace is that it isn't
spectacular in any sense. It's glories
and it's triumphs ring out on a minor
key. There was just one thing about
that stupid charge at Balaklava worth
sounding paeans over, and only one.
That was the fidelity of the "six hun
dred' to duty-"Theirs not to reason
why" And, after all, such fidelity is
exemplifed every day in every hamlet
Of England and in America, too, by the
millions of men who take the wounds
and sorrows of life for granted. 1t
is humble field for heroism which
peace offers, but wide one, and it's
heroes are as numberless as the sands
of the seas.
| GEORGE L. KILMER.