New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-25
THE EFFECT OF WAR
Elevating, Rather than Debasing' to
Those Who Do the Fighting.
n Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor of The Tribune
| Sir: One Of the stock assumptions In
newspaper comment upon the European war
is that the effect of military service upon
the individual soldier is generally and al
most necessarily degrading and brutalizing
wonder how far this generalization is well
founded 1t is very commonly, and perhaps
naturally assumed that as the business OF
war is killing human beings, military service
in actual war time must result in the sup
pression Of the better and the development
of the baser instincts in the participant
This is thought to be true particularly in the
case Of the common soldier, whose personal
expert ence is necessarily limited and whose
range of mental vision is assumed to be like
wise confined to his immediate surroundings,
whereas to those who direct armies and to
those not actually engaged in military SER
vice there is permitted a wider sweep OF OBJ
servation, including the political and social
causes of war.
As against this assumption of the evil
effects of military service upon the indi-
vidual there is the bracing influence of mill
tary discipline, which to most volunteer SOL
diers is a new experience and which can
hardly be evil in its permanent effect upon
character. | think too that it is a mistake
to take for granted that the average soldier
is unaffected by the larger and deeper infu-
ences that accompany, if they do not bring
about, every great war more or less involv-
ing the mass of nations citizens
Ny own observation has been limited to
the effects of military service upon the men
who took part in the American Civil War,
and this principally in the Southern States.
SO far as | have been able to observe, the
effects of from a year to four years mill
tary service upon the average man, so far
from being disastrous to character, seem to
have been elcvating and, not rarely, even en-
nobling. | cannot recall one who gave any
sign of having been degraded by military
life. On the contrary, ! have no recollec-
ton of boyhood more distinct than that Of
the men who seemed to have acquired from
it Q certain dignity of thought and bear
ing.
To many such men, whose lines had been
cast in the commonplace ruts of farm or viii
age life, this was the one great experience
that raised their thoughts above selfish in
terests, and for them gave 70 life the one
touch of the romantic and heroic. So far as
mere experience went the giant operations
of war lifted them out of their petty con-
Germs and they were made to feel for a
time that they were part of the sweep of
one of the vast changes In the affairs of men,
and, though nameless, were one with history.
Without doubt war had left its impress, for
all that remained of life, upon the mind and
character of every one of these. They were
changed, but nobler-not baser-men.
a great deal is being written of the loss
to history through the exclusion of compe-
tent observers from the present campaigns,
but 1t IS certain that no rules of offcialdom
can prevent the study of wars effects upon
the peoples Immediately affected and the sur
vlvors of the men actually engaged. Perhaps
such study may yield conclusions of more
value than any the result of a priori reason
ing or the bald assumptions that have men
toned. WILLIAM II. FAM.
New York, April %, 1915