Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927, 1914-07-17


nameless suffering incident to torn and
mangled bodies. 1t inficts upon the
innocent and defenseless the hideous
! torment of bereavement, the lasting
gnawing grief of broken-hearted soil
tude, and the long sunless future of
dreary, unalleviated poverty and want
1t takes from a generation its strong
est and most virile men, and leaves the
decadent, anemic, and unfit to the
fatherhood of generations to come.
1t destroys homes, it despoils widows,
it bereaves orphans. 1t exalts murder
into virtue 1t halos cruelty with the
excellency of courage. 1t drags down
human brotherhood and fills the world
with the foul dissonance Of iends let
loose from hell. All this, and inde-
scribably, unspeakably more, is war;
and so no one justifies war.
There is not sovereign in the world
today that would advocate war. There
is not Parliament or Congress in
the world today that would counten-
ance war. There is not prime minis
ter in the world today that would sug-
gest war. There is not a journal or a
review in the whole world today but
deprecates war. There is not nation
in the world today but trembles at
the mention of war. And yet never
since history began to be written has
the world wasted so much of the peo-
pie substance, never have such enor-
nous expenditures been lavished, as
the great nations of the earth are
f1inging into the mad, fatuous race of
the militarism of today.
On the one side, they tell us war
is impossible-th the whole thing is
a mad delusion. The great political
economist, Jean de Bloch, in that en-
inent work has merited the admiration
of the civilized world, has proven that
the great war-the war that has been
haunting the imagination of men for
a hundred years-has automatically
eliminated itself from the realm of
possibility; that we have made on the
one hand so resistless our agencies Of
destruction, and on the other so stu
pendous our powers of resistance, that
the result is a dynamic stalemate. But
for the most part men have realized
that all these lavish resources are not
for mere phantasm of purpose. War
is still as possible as ever But men
have hidden its awful meaning behind
a skilled mask of deception.
We are not fighting war in this
Peace Congress, for nobody wants
war. We are fighting a delusion We
have invented a new economy that
protests with fulsome platitudes its
humanitarian purposes. 1t loathes
war, it loves peace, and the only way
in which we can insure life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness is to be
ready at any cost, however enormous,
to compel peace, even by barbaric
force-for each individual nation to
be so strongly, so invincibly armed as
to make all other nations peaceful
and affectionate, even if one has to
shoot them into obedient tranquility.
The kindest excuse that we can
make for such a philosophy is to say
that militarism is a disease-that it
is an economic pestilence, life sapping,
reason destroying, irrational. Its en-
tire philosophy is a delusion. There
is no logic by which it can be justi-
fed. Common sense as well as com
mon conscience have eliminated such
from the world of individ-
uals. The field of honor is marked
with the bar sinister-and in every |
civilized nation the "code duello' is |
under the ban of the criminal law
Only the logic of barbarism can justi-
fy it between nations. But you give |
a man a gun and his finger tingles
with the touch of the treacherous trig-
ger There is strange morbid
about it. Before you know
t-before he knows it-he will begin
o shoot not because he has anything
o shoot about-not because he has
lnything to shoot at; merely because
le has something to shoot with. A
run is a dangerous thing, "without
ock. stock. or barrel"
Let nations maintain vast arma-
nents, call them readiness for war or
guarantees of peace as You like. and
he world is simply an armed camp
where a spark may kindle a confagra-
ion. Where once the nations match
d force against force, intent upon
today the nations match
orce again force, deceived by a mere
rick of words. Armies were once
he potent agencies by which ambit-
Gus nations insured victory. Today
hey are the equally resistless dynam-
rs by which the nations prevent de-
eat. Save only in sentimental {
'hrases there has been no change. ex- I
ept that with advanced acquire I
lents the requirements are greater
han ever before.
The rivalry is the same-mad, fat 1
Gus. and insane. The expenditure is |
eyond all comprehension. and not {
'ar. but an insane militarism. is !
the world 1t is a disease
aason destroying, insensate, incoher- {
mt a pestilence self-nOurished. II I
espects neither present good nor fu- '
IRE evil. and today the world 5 great