The Washington herald., 1914-09-13

Cottage OF peasant. palace Of king
farmers field Of grain. broad acres
grown up into cities. life Of peasant, life
of prince, wealth, hope and prophecy OF
hamlet and empire, now under the wan
ton tread and wreck OF armed hosts
are going Gown in one colossal ruin, red
with rSJt OF blood and fire; and in the
common disaster go down all the air
built castles Of peace, founded on the
fancy and unreasoning hope Of impracti-
cal sehtimentalism. The vaunted Car
negie- Peace Foundation is proved to be
but a slough OF treacherous quicksand.
The prophets Of universal brotherhood
and peace have been rudely awakened
from their Utopian dreams Of a near
millennium, when the lion shall become
vegetarian and sup with the lamb, and
when ambition shall become meekness
and greed benevolence.
In order that prophecy may stand the
test and proof of time, it must be based
upon as sure a foundation as a house.
One cannot know the distance OF star
merely by looking at it and judging by
its briIliancy. He can know only by
trianguIating from a base line across the
earth's orbit. Similarly, in order to
know how far away is the star OF per-
manent, universal peace, we must not
Judge Of its nearness by its brilliancy or
its attractiveness. but We must triangu-
late from a base line as long as human
history and comprising the entire orbit
Of human nature.
The wish has been so much father to
the thought with the hyper-sentimental
peace propagandists that they have
formed their conclusions in advance of
reason. and have welcomed only such evi-
dence as would favor their preconceived
opinions: while all unwelcome evidence
has been brushed aside as a hateful
thing. Consequently, some Of their proph-
ecies about the immediate Punishment of
war from the earth and the soon coming
OF "the parliament Of man and federation
of the world" look very absurd in the
light Of events which have involved Eu-
rope in a cataclysm of destruction and
murder.
By a curious coincidence, in that same
days papers which announced Mr..
Bryan's confidence in the immediate sue
cess Of his international peace policies,
with complete banishment Of war from
the earth, there was also the announce
ment that Austria had declared war on
Servia; that Russia was mobilizing, and
that Germany had sent Russia her ulti-
matum which led to her declaration of
war the following day.
About fifteen years ago book by L s.
Bloch, a noted financier and banker, ap-
peared in Europe, entitled The Future
of War. Is War Now Possible?' and it
was published In the United States in 1901
Bloch claimed to have proved to a mathe-
matical certainty that modern war en-
ginery had become SO deadly and destruc-
tive, and above all so expensive, and the
cost OF equipping and maintaining armies
so enormous, that war between any Of the
great powers would be suicide for both,
and hence impossible.
The Gar of Russia was SO impressed |
with Blochs arguments that ne called |
upon the nations of the earth to consider |
the advisability of disarmament, or, at |
least, Of the limitation of armaments.
Mr.. William T. Stead had a long inter- |
view with Mr.. Bloch at St Petersburg. |
and was so strongly impressed that he
became his disciple. translator and spon-
sor in English. Yet in espousing the |
views Of Bloch, Stead was still sane
enough to see that without universal |
agreement and simultaneous universal ac- !
ton in living up to the agreement to limit |
armaments, it would not be wise for any
one nation to curtail its ornaments, but,
on the contrary, there was all the better