The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1916-08-10
If | Were the Devil
BY Or. FRANK CRANE
Copyright. 1915, by Frank Cranel

/
coed men.
| would know that men do not love to
do things because they are bad. but only
because they have persuaded themselves
that those things are good.
Hence | would not waste time trying
to pervert mems conscience, but | would
twist their reason, eStop and becloud
their intelligence, SO that in doing the
most hideous and hateful business they
would verify think they did Gods SER
vice"
The most delightful condition, to me
as the Devil, into which | could possibly
throw mankind is war. Here, and here
alone, every one Of my instincts have full
scope and satisfaction.
Here is the destruction of human be-
ings carried on with every accompani-
ment of diabolism Here they are the
Devils own true children, and farthest
from being children of my enemy, the
Most High
Here is murder, not the cheap and
shamefaced knitting or shooting 10y the
drunken thug in some dark alley, but
murder beautiful, magnificent, where a
thousand men are dismembered by one
salvo, or lie quivering and shrieking
on the ground after a charge where
trenches swarm with human creatures
going mad with noise and terror, sitting
with gahgrened wounds in muddy water,
sutfocating with the stink Of their dead
companions ty-blown and maggot-eaten
by their side or falling asleep from ex-
haustion while my rats eat their living
checks and lips.
Oh. war is a sweet feast TO me, and
certainly laugh loud and long at my old
enemy, the Almighty. to think how His
boasted goodness and wisdom have col
lapsed.
Add to murder the cruelty Of vain and
petty officers driving their men into sure
destruction. and horrors of the civilians
hunted from their homes, shot down at
their own thresholds or burned alive in
the fire Of their own goods and the old
women Drained for sheer deyiltry, and
the namelesS crimes committed upon the
young women and the children stamped
out by military heel like scampering
mice; and over all the blare of unchecked
hate, the sound Of blasphemy, the ribald
songs Of the raging warmen, the futile
prayers smashed by mailed fists upon the
palsied mouths that utter them, the
whole hoarse rattle and roar swinging up
in a majestic orchcstration and haelu-
jah chorus worthy Of helIs gala day.
And | would make men do this from
the best and highest motives they have;
they should talk Of religion and duty 70
! God, and Of devotion to the fatherand.
and Of heroism and noblcncss, and-ha,
ha,-thosc who decline 10 engage in this
welter should be Shamed and called cow
ards and weaklings and public enemies.
And | would so manipulate govern
ment that men would engage in this reek
Of fury for no reason at all A few dplo-
mats would dupe the people into it.
| would utterly kin of all common
sense, and reason. and intelligence, so
| that men could not possibly come to-
gether peaceably and adjust their differ
ences ! would raise such cloud Of race
hate, national vanity, military prestige,
perverted patriotism and mob-madness
that no man could see the counsels OF
wisdom or humanity
would gloriry all this dabolism Of de-
struction with the utmost enthusiasm.
bands playing men singing, priests and
preachers telling them how they were
serving Jesus, statesmen Wanting the
bravery and maniness Of the murderers,
women adoring them and praying for
them, and little children standing by ad-
mring their gay uniforms.
would confnc all tho JOY and efficiency
| Of team-play 20 war, and make men COM
pete in sordid indivdualsm in times Of
peace.
| would make men look upon all this
useless, wholesale murder as practical,
and regard every effort TO substitute in
telligent cooperation as Utopian. the
vagary Of theorists, the mewlng of mol
lycoddes.
| would have wise men speak OF war
as rescuing idealsm, and saving nations
from the rot Of materialism, and per-
suade them it is a necessity, and that
wars must always be because it Is
human" nature.