Omaha daily bee., 1909-05-17

dreadful evils which do In fact share In
his denunciatlon Of and attack upon both
good and evil are usually not evils when
are OF much moment among us. OF the
other hand. we are not liable to certain
kinds Of wickedness which there is real
danger OF his writings intoxicating; Tor u Is
a lamentshle fact that, as Is 20 often the
case with a certain type Of mystical zealot,
there IL In him a dark streak which tells
Of moral perversion. That side Of his teach
ings which Ia partially manifested in the
revolving "Kreutzer sonata" can do ex-
ceedingly little damage in America. for II
would appeal only to decadents; exactly
as II could have come only from a man
who. however high he may stand in GER
tain respects, has in him certain dreadful
qualities Of the moral pervert.
-
The usual effect Of prolonged and ex-
cessive Indulgence in Tolstoyism on Amer
lean disciples lie comic rather than serious.
one Of these disciples, for instance. not
long ago wrote a book on American mu-
nicipal problems. which ascribed oar eth
ical and social shortcomings in municipal
matters in part 70 the Gin Of "militsrism."
Now the mind OF this particular writer in
making such a statement was influenced
llVN ll AHf lfhEN ny NAh loh oNhN"AAN w
CURED pr was occurring in our cities, but
by one Of Tolstoy's theories which has
no possible bearing upon American NE.
Militarism Is a real factor for good or for
evil In most European countries. In Amer
lea It has not the smallest effect one way
or the other; II is a negligible quantity.
There are undoubtedly states Of society
where militarism Is a grave evil. and there
- 49,. a.. ,rNta1, sha
prime duty OF man may be to strive against
II. But It Is not righteous war, not even
war itself. which IL the absolute evil, the
evil which IL evil always and under all
circumstances Militarism which takes the
form Of a police force, municipal or ma
tional. may be the prime factor for up
holding peace and righteousness. Militarism
Is to be condemned or not, purely accord
ing to the conditions. So eating horse
meat is in itself a mere matter Of taste;
but the early Christian missionaries in
Scandinavia found that serious evil sprang
from the custom of eating horse meat in
honor of Odin. 1T is literally true that
our very grave municipal problems In New
York or Chicago rave no more to do with
militarism than with eating the meat OF
horses that have been sacrificed to pagan
deities; and a crusade against one habit,
as an element in municipal reform, is Just
about as rational as would be a crusade
against the other. Oliver Wendell Holmes
said that It had taken a century to re-
move the lark from American literature;
because the poets insisted upon writing,
not about the birds they saw, but about
the birds they had read Of in the writings
OF other poets. Militarism as an evil in
our social life is as purely a Pigment of
the maIinatiou as the skyiark in our liteta
ture. Moreover, the fact that in spite Of
this total absence Of militarism there is so
much that is evil in our life, 80 much need
for reform, ought to show persons who
think that the destruction of militarism
would bring about the millennium how
completely they lack the sense of perspec-
tive.
To minimize the chance of anything but
willful Misunderstanding let me repeat
that Tolstoy Is a great writer, a great
novelist; that the unconscious influence
of his novels Is probably. on the whole,
good, even disregarding their standing as
works OF art; that even as a professional
moralist and philosophical adviser of man
kind in religious matters he has some ex-
cellent theories and on some points de-
velops a noble and elevating teaching: but
that taken as a whole, and If generally
diffused, his moral and philosophical teach
ings, so far as they had any influence at
all, would have an influence for bad; partly
because on certain points they teach down
right immortality, but much more because
they tend to be both foolish and fantastic,
and " logically applied would mean the