Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-06-01
SCIENCE AT ODDS WITH FAIR PLAY
Inventions Which Have Revoutonzed Without Reforming War
Have All Been Denounced Unsportsmanlike = Some
Answers to the Question, Can War Be Humanized?
By ROBERT HILDRETH

besieEing Faier an opportunity was offered
children OF the Falerlans who had been treach-
erously placed in his power. ,,,
that he said to those who were by:
tbronsb AT sea ees' Of blood and Wrong; Yet even
has It's laws, which men of honor VIII not
as SpaSt to avail themsovos by acts Of vainy and
baseness."-Plutarchs Lives.
TNaE greatest cost of war is It's inhumanity'
i and it is doubtless a cost which will con-
tinue as long as war itself shall last. Never
yet has the cost of war prevented war, TO end
which, however, men have proposed that 1t be
made as barbarous as possible.
But you cannot fight war with war, except
ON the defensive. War breeds war.
AS long ago as the time of the Ptolemies
the end of war was prophesied as the result
of the invention of terrible engine of de-
struction described in a manuscript found
with the mummy of the man who had made
this contribution to the cause of peace. When
rapid-fre guns came into use it was declared
that they would prove the most powerful of
all humanitarian weapons against war
Though the codes of modern society are
supposed to exclude all use of poisons and the
employment of certain types of treachery, and
so on, more new devices for killing men
abound among civilized people than the saw
age could ever dream of, and the present war
shows unmistakable reversion to the ancient
type
Yet the issue of humanitarianism and good
sportsmanship in warfare is of hoary age.
On the other hand. the sentiment OF "all's
fair in war" is both ancient and modern.
In the Trojan War the Greeks violated the
rules of good sportsmanship by resorting to
the expedient of the wooden horse.
Achilles committed an atroclty when he
dragged the body of Hector-tled with a rope
one end of which was fastened to his chariot
back and forth before the walls of Troy
The Trojans. If not the Greeks, thus re-
garded 1t.
Yet there was mercy in the warriors heart
Touched by the grief of Hector's father, he
spoke to the aged Priam:
The gods ordain the lot
OF man to suffer Besides Jove's threshold
Two casks OF gifts for men-one cas1 contains
The evil. one the good and he to whom
Tie Thunderer gives them mingled. sometimes
falls
Into misfortune, and sometimes crowned
With blessings. But the man TO whom he gives
The evil only. stands mark exposed
To wrong-alike unloved by gods and men.
Then Achilles announced a truce of ten days
that Ilium might pay funeral honors to her
dead hero
The Progress" of War
Since then the world has known progress,
scientific and humanitarian.
What OF it9 The famous Greek scholar
Professor Murray, in his preface to the
Euripidean war play, The Trojan Women"
to be presented AT the University OF Penn
sylvania next week. tells the differences:
"soms - years ago, when 1 was STEPPED
In this drama OF Euripides felt that vivid
as It was, It belonged to the horrors OF the
far past War might come again, even
among civilized nations, but It could never
again be this kind of war Mankind had
advanced since the days OF Troy OF Melos
there were rules OF honorable warfare firmly
established, pathetic efforts made by man in
his gentler moments to insure that, even In
his fury. he should not sink utterly below
the brutes Women and children were safe.
prisoners were safe, the wounded were safe.
SO much seemed certain; and yet the very
reverse was true. The next war was to be
baser and crueler than the old wars. inst as
It was vaster in extent"
War cannot change its spots.
The earliest men fought with their lists.
Gradually they made FOR themselSe es
weapons. II We may judge from known his
tory every new engine OF warfare adopted by
one tribe was roundly condemned by the
enemy tribes.
Science Is the handmaiden OF war ana not
only the servant Of civilization. Between
civilization and war It stands neutral. Science
changes the modes Of warfare and leaves the
nature of war unchanged.
science advances and humanitarianism tags
along behind
eanpoaasr aas inVented ara the human