The copper era., 1911-09-29
WASTE OF I
 WAR |
By Rev. Samuel M. Dick Pastor of Wesley Nj. E. Church,
 Minneapolis

s-N
 TEXT.-And he will judge between the
 nations and will decide concerning many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plOwshares. and their spears into { pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation. neither shall they
 learn war any more--lsaiah 2:4
 This prophecy is beginning to reach its fulf1llment When the awful cost in life and treasure is reckoned with, It is astonishing that sensible civil ized men should ever resort to war to settle any question. There is an other reason apart from its destruc- tive character why war should not be resorted to. It never settles any question. The best it can do is to restate it and put it in another form. Take for illustration the Civil war in this country. Did 1t settle the race question? Did it settle the slavery problem? Not by any means, but if the amount of money that war cost us during its progress and for pen sions since, had been expended among the colored people of this nation for ] industrial education and other civil izing agencies that race today would have been further advanced in the scale of progressive peoples than it
 
 present circumstances.
 Christ's kingdom does not come by the sword. It is within you. The patriotism of war rules the world with the sword. The patriotism of peace rules the world with an idea. The one is spectacular and wins instanta- neous applause; the other is quiet, moves unseen and Its marks are seen only in generations. One Is like a derrick, it moves the mass of iron by force applied in one place; other is like a sunbeam, it moves the mass of iron by the unseen ep- pansion of it's molecules
 The maintenance of peace by pre- paredness for war is out of harmony with the gospel, with reason, with ethics, with economics and with com mon sense, and any institution that is out of harmony with all these things should be discontinued The prophet says the nations shall not only settle down to the great industries of peace but that they shall not learn war any more. As long as peace is main tained by overwhelming navies the nations are learning war and the prog ress of the world is checked. Given national jealousy hatred. prepared ness for war and any trifie is sufi- cient to produce war. Given national fraternity, great prosperity on the part of the people and no armament and no problem is sufficiently grave to produce war.
 The logic of preserving peace by increasing the navies of the world would finally leave the world power In the hands of one nation. It would only be a matter of time when all nations but cue would become bank rupt
 The foohehness of increasing arma- ment is seen in the experience of our own peaceful republic. For the eight years preceding the Spanish war, our appropriations for the army were a little less than s24.0OO,OO0 per annum, and for the navy little over s27 7,OO0.- 900 per annum. For the eight years preceding 1911 the appropriations for the army sprang to S3.000,010 per an- mum. and for the navy to more than $102, ,000, GOO. We are now spending for army, navy and pensions the enor- nous sum of S470,000,000, or 72 per cent. of the entire revenue of the OnlleQ StnISS- II InlS increase alone in the army and navy were turned toward the industries which make a nation rich and happy, il would en- able and maintain an industrial and agricultural experiment station in every county in the United States and give it more than s5O,000 ger annum for its work. What would this mean to the people? Last year our farm products of all kinds were valued at more than $47OO, 100000 With an experiment station conducted as Mir nesota is conducting her work among the farmers in every county, with s50.000 per annum to operate it, the agricultural products of this country could easily be doubled, and with its doubling every other industry would keep pace. As it is now, we are spending at least S125. 5.OOO 900 annual ly on our army and navy more than is necessary for reasonable na- tional policing, and thereby. losing annually more than A,000 000. 000 l which We might have b we followed the law of gospel and common sense | and used the amount of money to de ! velop the resources of the country that we are now fooling away on var measures and getting absolutely 1 nothing for 1t.
 How long, oh how long, will this