New-York tribune., 1912-12-04
PEACE CRY ENDANGERS
NATION, SAYS GEN. BLISS
Alien Millions Would Prey on an
UnwarIike PoSterity, He
Tells GuardSmen.
MILITARY TRAINING URGED
Rising Generation Must Be
Taught to Die for Their
Country, Asserts Army
officer.

Norfolk. a, Dec. 0.-Brlgdo1cr Oenerdl
rssker II. Bliss, commander of the De-
nsrtmept of the East. in a striking ad-
dress before the National Guard Assoca-
tion Of the United States. in annual meet
ing here. declared to-day that the organ
ized influences moulding public opinion
against a cultivation of the military spirit
in the rising generation were having a
tendency to make the United States un-
prepared for its own preservation.
IL would like to call attention TO one
advantage Of exceeding importance that
would result If in every two years out
Of three every regiment of the organized
militia and regular army were to go once
into q regimental camp of instruction and
once into corresponding brigade camp.
said the general This occurring through
out the entire country would have great
influence in keeping alive the military
spirit Of the nation
Pictures Disaster.
General Bliss continued:
When one stops TO think over not
very long term Of years and realizes the
influences that have been, and arc. at
work and their effect upon this spirit II
is hard 10 avoid a conclusion ominous of
disaster. Not long ago the opponents OF
a permanent military defence advocated
the utmost extension of the military
forces. Now they, or many of them, OPP
pose the one as much as the other. Not
long ago many professional educators ad-
vocated military drill in all our schools
and teaching every boy and young man
10 be d marksman with the military rife.
Now there is an organized effort TO pre-
vent II. The astonishing and steadily In
creasns objection TO profiting by such
instruction is that ii tends 10 foster and
encourage the military spirit.
very gentle and peace-loving English
philosopher. to whom the very name of
war was dbhorrent. in one of his essays
and in commenting on the horrors of war
said that while war was a very great
and terrible evil il was not the greatest
or the most terrible, and that that state
Of slavish and sluggish indifference on the
part OF the people that made il think
there could be nothing worth a war was
worse, far worse, evil"
Yet men Of the greatest public influ-
ence-COllege presidents, college profes-
sors-and those men who are moulders of
the rising generation, men whose sue
cess is marked by the accumulation Of
great wealth, are in increasing numbers
engaged in systematic effort to incul-
cate this very doctrine, that under no
conceivable circumstances can there be
anything that is worth a war There
are great numbers of influential men
who cherish the delusion and congratu-
late themselves that new horrors added
70 war have made IL impossible and that
the fear and terror Of il have accom-
pshed what the spirit of love and rea-
soma oleness could not do.
Other Peoples Eager for War.
The evil of all this" said General
p1i~c x1skf1o ff DC 90 in
feet the mind of the coming generation
in all Western nations to believe that
physical fear of death and mutilation
will make it think there can be nothing
worth a war there are still eight hun
dred or a thousand millions of people TO
whom the idea Of death and mutilatlon
is the very breath of their nostrils.
'"They represent a civilization utterly
anita gonistic to ours. and TO which they
cling perhaps more tenaciously than we
do to ours. They retain their civiliza-
tion. while they adopt the material sd-
yantages of our own. They buy our
dynamos TO light with electricity the
temples Of their gods and the best weap-
ons of precision to fight their battles
The general concluded:
Before long we shall learn that the great
epoch making wars that are to come
will not be merely the growing pains,
as il were, the strains, the stresses by
which one civilization adapts itself to
its changed internal conditions. but the
wars OF civilization versus civilization,
and IL win be an evil day for the one
that we have hoped would dominate the
world II We succeed in teaching its ad-
herents that il is not worth fighting for
while there are many alien millions that
viii cheerfully die for theirs.
These officers were elected by the as
ISOLATION:
President, General Thomas J. Stewart,
PennSy SylVania: secretary. General Elliott
c. Dill, Maine; treasurer. General Joseph
A. Storch Nebraska: vice-presidents.
General F. B. Wood, Minnesota Colonel
". G. Bates, New York; General J. G.
Foster, Florida: General Charles I. Mar
tin. Kansas; General James Macklin,
Maryland; General w. Z. Finer, Ore
gon: General T. NJ. Rumbold. Missouri;
General e. G. Vaughn, jr.. Virginia; Cen
eral t. s. Dixon. Illinois; Colonel Harry
p. Smith. Indiana: General p. l.. Abbey,
Michigan. and Colonel Austin Colgate.