The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-09-19
WAR ECHOES


 words Civilized warfarer' Less than
 two months ago. people smugly believed that there was such thing. It was an excellent term In time of peace. It fooled 1 people, or helped them to fool them 1 selves Now, after a practical denom- I what it knew all the while; that war Is l what it kne wall the while; that war IS
 war, the same yesterday, today and for
 ever, and that civilized warfare is I ghastly joke.
 Civilized warfarel Something which 1 that other joke, the peace congress, the plaything of royal hypoerites, so solemnly l labored to make pure and healthful. To
 kill a man with one sort of bullet was barbarous; to kill him with another sort.
 merciful, even humane. The puppets who l sat at The Hague, mannikins on the
 knees of various divine right ventrilo- quists. frowned with idisapproyal at the | practices of the past, when wars were fought on savage lines and the refine | ments of civilization were unknown on the battlefield. So well set was the scene so eonvincingly did the cast render their lines, that the process of fooling oneself was easy. International strife was added to the gentler arts o, war, where was thy sting?
 And what an awakening. It is an awalS- ening to the fact that civilized warfare" is the worst warfare of all. Where the cannon of Napoleon killed hundreds, the cannon-the certified. o. K.d cannon--of today kills thousands
 rrt IL Australian fleet against Herbertshoehe, New Britain, In the Pacific, are in accord ance with the predictions in London when the news was received a few weeks ago of the capture of Apia. Samoa. by the British naval forces. It was then sug gested that it was the plan of the govern ment to use the newly formed Australian fleet to remove the standing menace in southern waters against the peace of the commonwealth of Australia, for the existence of which the home government had always been blamed. The Australians, occupying as they do not much more than fringe along a section of their continent, have always been jealous of the appearance of any foreign power in their neighborhood. They have been especially apprehensive lest any trespasser should try to get foothold in North Australia the climate of which makes it almost impossible to settle it ! with white race. Consequently they have
 watched with great distaste the spread of
 German influence in the Pacific. In 1885, indeed, Queensland proceeded without con- sulting the authorities in Downing street ..f Guinea, the great island which is sepa-
 rated from Australia only by the S0-mile-
 wide Torres strait The home government disapproved, the annexation was cancelled, and when only two years later the Ger mans established themselves on the north ern coast of New Guinea, Australia had d new grievance. It has been quoted ever 1 since then as an example of how Great | Britain neglects her dominions, and how | she sacrificed their interests for her own | selfish purposes.
 l Consequently it was stated in London that, in directing the newly organized | Australian force against the German Pa cific possessions. England would be doing far more than merely snatching up un- considered trifles in the way of odd bits
  solid grievance on the part of one of
 her largest and most important dominons, and would be showing that in contributing | toward the British navy Australia was
 providing the means to attain her own l long-cherished desires
 | New York Sun: The inexhaustible myth making tendency of the human mind is seldom more fertile than in war They forget this who blame the newspapers for recording palpable inventions. In London and in Petrograd they have heard, doubt less by psychotelephone, of '40O, coo un- employed crying for work in Vienna. Gen. eva tells of a panic in Berlin It is | likely enough that the capital on the | Spree has full details of a panic in London or Paris. Somewhere the other side is using dumdum bullets cutting off the noses or heads of our soldiers, | matreating women and children. Our heroic defenders to a man knights without fear and without reproach. Their hirelings are brutes and savages, for whom beftting crimes are seriously produced and believed in every day. So during the civil war the north shud-
 
 that wild huntsman of the imagination. 'the Black Horse cavalry" So the south heard the grass growing in the streets of New York. It was gravely reported that a southern newspaper had assured it's read CTS, sportively and in derision of his Chris tian or Carthaginian name, if the assur | ance was made, that Hannibal Hamin | was a negro. "rhe northern scum" and the southern chivalry'' rivalled each other on works of darkness. Overexcited l patriotism in both sections" perpetrated l and believed in the most monstrous cock | and bull stories. Why has not the legen- | dary history of Beast Butler or even of Elsworths zouaves, so impressive on | popular fancy in their hour of fame, been | written? How distant and unrecallable l now looks that state of mind which want | ed to hang" that brave soldier, accom- l plished Secretary of War and excellent | and pious man "Jeff' Davis lon sour ap- l pie tree.p Hundreds of thousands of men. usually of good judgment, were firmly | persuaded that General Mcclellan was traitor Remembering how eagerly we Americans swallowed Notifications in the time of our calamity, let us be tolerant of the con temporary thick growths of myth St. Louis Globe Democrat: The great European war is smashing not only treaties. but various international ameni-