The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-03-09

At every stage Of warfare in the
past, men and women in all nations
have endeavored to abate and lessen
it. Their repeated endeavors have
been answered by repeated wars, un
til the present war in Europe com
pletes the works Of death, desolation
and tyranny.
In spite of this, these protests
against war are destined to succeed
as once before in the history OF the
race. the sentiment of pity, Of respect
for human life, called halt to sense
less slaughter.
There came a time in the history
of the Greek and Jewish people when
a few set their faces. against human
sacrifice as religious rite Of their
highest faith bound up, like our
wars. with old fealties and solemn
customs and with their most desper-
ate fears. Humble men and women,
out of sheer affection for. their kind,
revolted. In face of persecution and
ridicule. they warned their country
men that in pouring human blood up
on alters to the gods, they wrought
upon their kind more irreparable
wrong than any evil against which
they sought to .forefend. Finally, there
came to b., enough people with cour-
age and pity sufficient to carry a gen.
Grafton with them; and human sacri-
flee became thing of the past
1t took the human race many CEN
turtles to rid itself of human sacrifice:
curing many centuries more 1T re-
lapsed again and again in periods oil
national despair. So have We fallen
back into warfare, and perhaps will
fall back again and again, until IN
selfpity. in self-defense, in self-asser-
ton Of the right Of life, not as hither-
to. few. but the whole people OF the
world, will brook this thing no longer.
our Right to Protest.
BY that opportunity, now ours as
never before. to weigh the case
against war and to draw the counts
from burning words spoken by those
who protest and who are of all peo-
ples-we make single judgment and
complete Indictment.
BY that good fortune which has
placed us outside the conflict: by that
i'll fortune by which the halligerent
and his rights have heretofore be-
stro6e the world; by mine-strewn
channels, and by international codes
which offer scant redress-we srcak
as people Of neutral nation.
BY the unemployed Of our water
fronts, and the augmented misery OF
our cities; by the financial depression
which has curtailed our school build
ing and crippled our works OF good
will; by the sluicing of human I'M
pulse among UP from channels OF So
cial development to the back-edd1es OF
salvage and relieve have q right
to speak.
By the hot anger and civil strife
that we have known; by our pride,
vain-glory, and covetousness; by the
struggles We have made for national
Integrity and defence OF our hearth
.ones; by our consciousness that
-ery instinct and motive and ideal at
rk. in this war, however lofty OF
ever base. has had some counter
in our national history and our
arrent life-we can speak common
language.
BY that comradcship among nations
which has made for mutual under
standing; by those inventions which
have bound us in communication and
put the horrors of war at our doors;
by the mechanical contrivances which
multiply and intensity those horrors;
by the quicke1ing human sympath1es
which have made us sensitive to th.,
hurts of others-we can speak as lei
low-victims of this great oppression.
BY our heritage from each embat-
tied nation; by our debt to them Tor
languages and faiths and social 1nstl-
buttons; for science, scholarship, and
invention; by the broken and desolat.
cd hearts that will come to us when
the war ends; by our kinships and
speak as brothers.
By all these things. We hold the
present opportunity for conscience
Searching and constructive action to
be an especial charge upon us; upo1
the newcomers among us from the
fatherlands: and upon the joint youth
OF all th., peoples of the two Americas
What War Has Done and 10 Doing.
Its Blights.
War has brought low our conception
of the preciousness Of human life as
slavery brought low our conception
of human liberty.
It has benumbed our growing sense
OF the nurture of life: and at time
parliament and congress with the
needlessness Of infant mortality and
child labor. it entrenches million
youths with colo and fever and i'm
pending death.
It has thwarted the chance of oul
times towards the fulfilment of life
and scattered like burst shrapne1 the
hands of the sculptors and the violin
lists, the limbs of the hurdlers and the
swimmers, the sensitive muscles o.
the mechanics and the weavers, the
threats of the singers and the inter
prefers, the eyes of the astronomers
and the melters-every skilled ant
president part of the human body
every type of craft and competence o
the human mind.
It has set back our promptings to
wards the conservation of life; and II
a decade when England and France
and Russia. Germany and Austria ane
Pelgium, have been working out so
,ial ipcuranca against the hazards O.