Arizona republican., 1914-03-01
ON PAC|F|SM
 AND M|LETAR|SM
Professor R. NJ. Johnston Contributes Another h. teresting Article to h. fantry Journal. Publish ed in Current Issue

In the January February number of the Infantry Journal appears an ism," the third of a series of three by Professor E. M Johnston. as sstant professor of history of Har- yard University. and chairman of the military house committee of the American Historical Association.
 Professor Johnston says:
 Pacificism, in this country, easily lends itself to ridicule. Its leaders are so very like Captain Massacrof in the play. full of terrible objurga- tions, bristling with all sorts of weapons. and carving with a mighty sword large chunks of air, For. in truth. militariSm is almost non-eNist- ent among us, as every sensible American. civilian or soldier well knows. We are the most pacific and good -natured of people and to din pacificism into our ears seems hard
 y worth while.
 Yet the proganda throws millions into publicity: and it is so charac- teristic of our times that it should be examined on it's merits It is easy enough to pick out the weak points of the pacifist movement; but it is not easy to measure it's pre- else significance It's leaders are obviously open to charges of sen sationalism, of self advertisement, of morbid sentimentalty; it's pamph- lets, largely built up from year book statistics constantly display a versatile ignorance of both history and human nature; it's theories oscil- late between the rankest material ism and kindergarten ethics: and yet there remains something very sub stantial.
 It is not generally realized what d recent growth, in modern times, is the humanitarian movement of which Pacificism is one of the off shoots. Turn back only two hundred years, consult the writing of divines or of poets, and you will find vir- tually no trace of kindliness or hu- mane feeling towards man or beast. The movement hardly begins before the middle of the 18th century, and then Voltaire rapidly puts the clock forward in France while the British parliament listens to the first pro- | tests against the slave trade. From that moment to this within the space of about a century and half i an enormous change has taken place in public sentiment. To trace it's ! i lengthy undertaking, but there can | be no question as to it's general ] character and as to the fact that at the present moment the change ] is still proceeding and with pro excessively increasing speed.
 Humanitarianism is not, however 1 q large enough word to cover the ! transformation. Alongside of the
 rapid advance of our material civili-
 zation. of the awakening of con- science to certain forms of social iniquity, there has set in process
 of softening. of refining. perhaps of | decadence. From Noltaires first ! anathema against torture and mu- 1 tilation to the latest developments 1 Of feminsm. we have travelled so | long q path in so short d time that
 we may well pause to see where we
 are going. Viewing the process in military terms, every soldier who has read history knows that today
 infantry will not begin to stand the | punishment that it did formerly ] Take Kolin or Torgau. New Orleans or Albuera. and there troops faced 1 in a few hours such losses as would
 the Russo Japanese war Allowance f must be made for tactical changes that have minimized loss in battle
 as high explosives have been de-
 veloped, but even making that allow
 ance the general tendency remains
 pretty well established Modern
 citizen armies have nothing like the
 fighting power of the professional
 armies of the 18th century.
 This suggests a curious side issue. Looking back over the question of
 power to sustain loss in the last three centuries. it would be fair to say that CrOmwell's Ironsides showed perhaps greater firmness in battle than any troops that have come since: they were even shade better than the finest Prussian or British l infantry The reason undoubtedly
 was that they were religious men.
 The more religious your soldier is. the less he values life and the bet
 ter he fights, as all the ages of the | world have witnessed. And taking it at another angle. the soldier is
 a more religious man than the ci- l vilian. Thus the point might be re- enforced. were we disposed to set up an argument against pacifism- which is not the case-that the ma terialisin and hedonism that turks behind if is merely one of the man. lfestatlons of the general decline of
 religion
 | Humanitarianism is si great factor in our civilization. and it should be
 seen as d current moving in a de- ' finite direction and increasing it's
 velocity ever more rapidly. It is idle
 to think of 1t as a fixed and con-
 stant factor in human affairs: it is an ever changing one. and what is more, it is unevenly distributed. and
 Tn such d way as to produce very concrete differences. Take the case of Austria for instance She has now on her border group of small but well organized military states who have, in religious and racial .,t,.