The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-06-04
F.z:r t sfff <sss 2 f- ..s.7' OUR TENACIOUS
 PEACE SOCIETIES
(By Dr. Edwin F. Bowers ]

I am in receipt of a. letter from friend-a man who has read widely and thought deeply-who voices sen l timent which have long entertained And that is, that our so-cafied Peac, Societies are, to a certain extent res ponsible for the perpetuation of war. fare. a-i l Their well-meant efforts fCo give l,them credit to which they MAY lno1 be. morally entitled) to. ''civilize'' war, fare, is the one piece of hair-brainet foolishness which has made it pos
 sible to continue this wholesale naur' der-without soaring the mtlrderers. My friend says fsYour article on the Dirigible Balloon and Bomb Warfare has been read with interest. It is g lgrotesQuely funny thing that nations set out to kill one another and 2 Peace Society prescribes to them just
 how they may do it. . | 'Dum-dllm and explosive bullets chain shot, etc., are forbidden. Nov that fs, illogical, for when we are out l to, exterminate we ought to be per. mitted to. do.- it in the quickest an6
 most effective way possible; and Ii a Peace Society can prohibit these things, then why not prohibit burst | ing shells, grape shot, the. Maxim and Gatling cGuns-and then go step fur l ther to prohibit bullets of ALL de scriptions.
 eI.ater they could include edged wea- pons of every kind. Either comba t. ants should be entirely untrammeled as to how they shall slaughter one ISociety's fright to prohibit some meth
 ods of butchery, then why not pro- hibit aH?''
 This is pertinent, and to the point If this Sport of Kings is to be ccntin- ued indefinitely, it is absolutely neces- sary that the official apologists for The Game meet every so often, and lay down rules which permit it's con- | tfnuance along lines which afford the doughty hefoes5flled brim-fun of cheap "patriotism' some assurance that they have a reasonable chance of: returning with the usual compile 'ment of head, trunk, and limbs. -. If warfare was made as exterminat- ingly effective as is even now possible with all the deyilish ingenuity which our modern methods entail none but a crack -brained idiot would engage. in it.
 Even Oro vocffero Himself-who gleefully shoots a poor, Spanish con- script in the back, and then boasts .of
 his cowardice-would prefer a military
 occupation far from the maddening
 strife-as Colonel Bryan did. This en-
 thusiastic warrior was made Colonel
 of load of hay, or suffers camp, or SOmetn1n8-dnQ when IL was pro-
 posed to move the hay and the "Col-
 onel" to the front, the warIike Achil-
 les fled sulking to his tent
 But, in all seriousness, gentlemen of
 the Peace Societies, when next you
 meet-if you are really and truly in
 earnest in your endeavors to suppress
 warfare between nations of sufficient
 intelligence to settle their disputes in an intelligent way-agitate in favor of
 encouraging the liberal and univer- sal use of chain shot, canister, grap- mel, dum-dum bullets, poisoned tipped edged weapons. and polluted water supply.
 Encourage the dirigibles in deliver ing their awful messages of death and destruction. While the poor. foolish soldiers are at "the front,'' invite the enemies. aeroplanes to run inland and blow C2 the non-combatants, and strew the dismembered limbs of wo- men and children to fester in thes de- serted cities. Blow the hurrying am. balances and their trained life savers into a disgusting homogeneity.
 Lay the finger of silence on the
 white lips of Peace. Conspire to feed