Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1916-10-15
Physician
Author
By DIR. Woods Hutchinson,
The Famous REPRESENTATION

The Famous REPRESENTATION
" I'VE years ago We were blandly
and confidently asserting that
this was The Age of Peace.
That war was bad habit belonging
to the childhood of the race, due to
faulty and irrational mental atti-
tude. That civilization and progress
had corrected that faulty mental at
titude, so that we could practically
disregard war in our calculations for
the future, and particularly in the
training and education Of our boys
and girls.
The idea of deliberate military
training on any extensive, not to
say universal, scale, would have been
regarded as shocking and distant
backward step. Sweet reasonable
ness and justice were to rule the
world in future, and the surest way
to keep war and warlike ideals as
completely as possible out of the
minds and thoughts Of the rising 4
generation. W
We have had a rude and world 81
shaking awakening. The bright ~
dream that peace could be insured W
by sternly refusing to think about M
war went up in smoke with the Iho
forts OF Liege. And as, fortunately
for us, it was only our peace dreams ana
not our forts that we're blown up, the
only sensible thing to do is to rub our
eyes, admit that we were talking in our
Sleep and proceed to adjust ourselves to
the stern and disagreeable facts
We must ruefully admit that we really
ought to have known better. Man has
been fighting animal for so many, many
thousands of years, and 1t is hard to
teach an old dog new tricks, and even
more so to make him forget old ones.
One cold-blooded scientist, DR.. Frederick
Adams Woods, has made a careful and
dispassionate study of the actual records
and past performances of the nations of
Europe in this regard for the last four
hundred and fifty years. In the whole OF
that time there have been only two peri
DDS one of ten and one of seven years,
in which the whole continent was free
from war, and the only difference be-
tween the fifteenth century and the nine
teenth is that the former devoted fifty
five per cent of it's time to fighting, and
the latter thirty-four.
And the twentieth century has slumped
AlSHl DdCh W llC lcNCl VI luc nllcSnlH
already, for one year of the present scien-
tific slaughter would be the equivalent of
thirty years of any form of war known to
history. Indeed, the military histories
show that more men have been killed and
wounded already in twenty months than
were ever killed in Europe in two CEN
turtles before!
A group of nations capable of infiict-
ing and bearing such frightful slaughter
fnf. hn rieht 81 rA ;a1
SO far as any ineligible cause can be
discovered for the calamity-is capable
OF crossing dozen Atlantics to settle its
respective places in the SUM-" So that
to be prepared to defend our particular
patch of sunshine is a matter of the sim
plest and most elementary prudence. Not
to make war probable, but to make peace
certain.
We can have just as much sunshine as
ever before; all We need to do Is to plan
and construct condensers capable of con-
verting it into sunstroke and thunder
bolts for any invader. By taking
thought, the same sunlight that grows
our crops can be made to shrivel the
army worm If it crawls over our peace
full border. The same forces which make
a nation prosperous in peace will make it
dangerous in war by little pre-arrange
ment
frankly face the unwelcome situation, we
find many redeeming features in it at
once. First and foremost the huge
physical benefits which can be inflicted
upon the rising generation, in the name
of war and military training. We have
had desperate uphill fight to force a
little respect for children's bodies into
our school curriculum, to compel the
educational system to recognize that
youngsters have arms and legs and a
divine right to use them. The one great
trouble was we lacked a slogan, a war
cry, word to conjure with. The term
play was positive hoodoo. To clamor
and crusade for play-hours, Fairgrounds
and such expensive ones too-play-
teachers, was little short of an anti
climax. The very word suggested Ring
around the Rosy and Patty-Pans and
futile butterfly waste of shining hours,
unlike The Little Busy Bee, and offended
every Puritan prejudice in our make up.
Exercise" sounds about as interesting
and exciting as an excelsior sandwich,
while recreation" would evoke no en-.
thusiasm outside of a young ladies' SEM
mary. But War" military discipline"
defense of the hearthstone," will send
thrills up and down the stodgiest of back
bones. bring a CLEAN to the most severely
puritanic eye, and even loosen I'D the
most Theoretically sealed of pocketbooks.
We may be able to secure at one stroke.
for the physical welfare Of our children.