The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1916-06-01
To a Mother Who Does Not Want
Her Boy to be Shot.
BY BRUCE BARTON.

in the world.
Little wars-yes. Wars such as ours
in the Philippines; police expeditions to
bring order in the less civilized portions
of the earth. But never again would one
great nation hurl itself against another.
They might buster, but they would not
fight. Mankind had progressed beyond
that stage. We had read history: we
could figure costs. We knew-we modern
men-that no nation could possibly win
advantages from war sufficient to COM
pensate it for the cost of war In money
and blood.
belonged to peace societies.
had written scathing editorials de-
nOuncing the armor trust magnates VINO
financed the Navy League.
l had written articles showing now
many schoolhouses, and miles of good
roads. and widows pensions, could be
provided out of the cost of one battle
ship; how many college educations were
burned up in smoke every time our fleet
in target practice fired broadside.
One of my boyhood friends had decided
to 90 to West Point. l could not under
stand it. That any man with red blood
in his veins should deliberately choose
an outWorn and useless career, when
there was so much real work to do IN the
world-to be a uniformed parasite, a
dancing partner at official functions,
when the problems Of social justice were
all CRYING for solution-it seemed to me
incredible, | told him SO; all his argu-
ments were mere nothings IN my ears. lie
talked of fighting with cannon. IN an age
wher the world was almost ready to throw
all of it's cannon into the sea.
This was my mental attitude about war
when, on August 5, 1914, got into my
runabout and drove down to the little
New England village where | spend my
summers to buy copy of the Boston
Post.
And in the headlines discovered that
the horror which | had believed could
never happen had actually come to pass.
In the year and ree-quarters that has
followed | have done lot of thinking: L
have learned good many truths. want
to set these down very briefly. And do
it, not as an editor or writer, but simply
as one average young American, the
father of boy.
We shall never settle the great prob
lens that face the United States today
unless some of US speak out frankly for
the rest of us. My excuse for speaking
is that there must be 100000 young
men in the United States who have gone
through the same mental processes as l.
am still a member of peace societies:
but | no longer believe that the world
will be argued into peace.
II am old, cheerful, equity, good
humored," wrote Frederick the Great in
his last years to Voltaire. For the
future | cannot vouch. Running over
the pages of history, see that ten years
never pass without war. This inter-
mittent fever may have moments of res
plte, but cease, neverp>
Why?
Pacificists have told US that when
nations can be made to realize the terri
BILE costs of war, when by travel and IN
tercourse they can come to know and
understand each other, then there will be
no more war.
Yet, only little more than fifty years
ago, there was war between two armies
made up of brothers and cousins and
fathers and sons, The men in those
armies represented the highest civillZa-
ton the world has produced; they well
knew the cost of war. For three hun
dred years their families had lived to-
gether in the same country, speaking
the same language, travelling into each
OtHei > uUIDeS anu lHleIllldlI yiHS.
Still, the Civil War was fought.
The time came when, to the men OF the
North and the men of the South, an ideal
arose which seemed to them more impor-
tant than friendship, or money, or life
itself. And one brother went into one
army, and another brother into the other.
| have thought great deal about the
Civil War this past year-aHd about
other wars. ! have come to realize that,
whatever may be the occasion of war, the
causes invariably lie deep below the
merely logical portion of mems minds.
THE strength of the fighter as +. 5.
Oliver in his book, Cordial by Battle, "
says, lis the strength of his faith. Each
new Gideon who goes out against the
Midianites fancies that the sword of the
Lord is in his hand. He risks all that he
holds dear in order that he may pull down
the foul images of Baal and build up an
altar to Jehovah, In order that his race
may not be shorn of it's inheritance, in
order that it may hold fast Its own laws
and institutions, and not pass under the
yoke of the Genties. This habit of mind
is unchanging throughout the ages. When
men fight in this spirit. the most lucid
exposition of material drawbacks Is worse
than useless; for the national mooi is one
OF self-sacrlhce.
used to think that by goirg to church
men would learn to live without war;
now | believe that as long as men go to
church-as long as ideals are held sacred
there will be war. AS long as man
will strike out blindly, instinctively, in
defense of his wife, instead of calmly
telephoning the police, there will! be war.
Facts not in the School Histories.
Whatever may be in the minds of the
leaders of armies, the soldier in the
ranks is never there for seIfishness. 1t
is the best that is in him which makes
him fight, not the worst. The battle
field, for him, is in truth the ideal of
honor.
He has found an ideal SO compelling
that, if need be, he must die for it.
Churches can not preach that spirit out
of men. 1t is the spirit of their Master,
who by merely running away into Galllee
might so easily have lived, and who chose
rather to die.
In the second place, have learned a
great many things about our own former
wars | have read several military his
tories of the United States. There are
a good many facts in these military his
tories which the more patriotic school
histories found it convenient to overlook.
Let me set down a few OF them:
The Revolutionary War ought to have