The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-09-18
PEACE WORKERS AND THE WAR.

PEACE WORKERS AND THE WAR.
That the outlook is not altogether
hopeless, that the advocates of peace
may have reason to take heart and
strive more earnestly than before,
that from the present war nations
may learn their dependence upon one
another, their inability to exist with
out peace, the disastrous effect OF
competitive armaments-this is the
substance of fine editorial in the
New ! DIRK Times for August 5, 1914.
ITO the average man the war seems
an incalculable outbreak OF innate
barbarism, and the civilization of the
world seems to have broken down.
His first impulse is to turn and rend
the advocates of peace, to deride their
hopes and aims and methods, to ridi-
with sort Of strange vanity to ask
what they think now of the dove Of
peace, the value of treaties. the plans
for arbitration, the various measures
by which the world has striyen for a
generation to prevent the brutal and
wasteful arbitrament of force. But,
on second thought, the intelligent
mind must recognize that the actual
situation and the probable course of
events in the near future do not
leave us to absolute despair There is
at the very outset the overwhelming
demonstration that the nations of the
world are so closely bound together
by ties so strong and SO widely spread
that the des. uction which war is
brings acute distress and terrible suf-
fering even to those peoples that are
test. In our own land, among our
own people, peaceful as we are,
losses, distress, disbursement, the
check to enterprise, enforced idleness
OF multiudes dependent on work for
daily bread. are inflicted by strug-
gle that we do not share and that we
utterly condemn. In the lands act
ually engaged the suffering is infinite
ly greater, heavier to bear, and more
crushing.
The general war Is the direct and
apparently the inevitable result of
competitive armament Such arma-
ment has been dictated in large part
by ruling classes, who are least ex-
posed to the terrible consequences OF
war, and who have conceived or inner
tied ambitions, animosities, appetites,
in which the common people do not
consciously share. With war such
as has now begun, the tremendous
cost of this system will be proved to
every human being capable of even
the shortest foresight-proved by the
direct hardship, privation, and agony
endured. 1t is not at all beyond the
limits Of reasonable speculation to
infer that by this lesson the general
mind of the world may be SO deeply
revolted that war and the armament
that compels war may be effectually
banned. Nor is it beyond the range
of possibility that the political sys-
TENS in Europe that have left the
precious welfare Of the common peo-
| pie to a class that do not share the
common burdens may be cast off and
the destinies of toiling millions shall
not be in the keeping Of Hohenzol-
| lern, Hapsburg- or a Romanoff. I'm
| doubtedly the ordinary course of
I changes in social order moves slow
| y and with much completely along
/ the lines of evolution. But catastro-
! Plies do not occur. The forces of
progress are long checked, as by the
competitive armament thae brought on
| the present war. But they are not
destroyed. They are but damned,
| and when they work through the OBJ
struction their movement is more
nearly Irresistible than before.