The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1917-06-09
THOUGHTS ON WAR
GRADUATION ESSAY
By Miss Eva Lutz, of the Pleas
antville High School.

"These are the times that try mems
souls" This is the famous sentence
that in December, 1776, during the
days of the great Revolution, rang out
like a bugle call summoning every
loyal American to his post. When
Thomas Paine uttered these words, he
had in mind only the great struggle in
which the nation at that moment was
engaged, but his language fits equally
well every profound crisis thru which
our nation has passed. Little could
he, standing on the threshold of the
Revolution, picture the awful monster
of slavery that was to tear the very
vitals Of the nation in less than a hun
bred years afterwards. Little did he
dream that so Dor again on American
soil man would have to fight for life
happiness. The Civil War settled
white mans in%humanity toward the
black, and never again in our land
shall human beings be bought and sold
like cattle.
American citizens of the present
moment look back with a shudder on
that sin of our national youth, and
marvel that the power of the almighty
dollar could ever have SO dulled the
intelligence and souls of those bearing
the proud name of Americans. Truly,
as Edmund Burke in his famous
speech for the Colonies expressed it,
"The march of the human mind is
Slow" We venture to add to his
thought; today, even today, we would
change the statement and still utter it
with the same fearless confidence in
it's truth, "The march of the human
mind is slow but sure, thank God!"
Yet there are many in whose hearts
at the present hour there rises great
doubt concerning this forward move
ment of mankind, this steady world
progress. Looking about them they
see men shaving day and night in fac
tory and shipyard to produce the in
struments with which man shall take
the life of his fellow man Their eyes
gaze out over the great ocean that
washes our shores and there again
they see deeds of blood reddening the
waters of the blue Atlantic. And be-
yond that-what CHASTITY horrors of
of mighty nations assails their ears
and eyes!
The purpose of this essay, however,
is not, primarily, a discussion of the
present crisis; rather is it intended to
weigh and consider the relation of war
in general to the worlds progress; to
look with broad and sweeping gaze
over the centuries of the past and try
to discover how these "times that try
mems souls, as Paine called them,
have influenced the development of the
human race.
Wars, some say, are monsters OF
evil; they are. blots upon the fair face
of civilization; they are the backward
turns which the world makes when she
swerves from her straight onward
march; they are destroyers of all that
is fair and beautiful.
"Thou shalt not kill" was the law,
uttered centuries ago, a law full of
deep wisdom and spiritual beauty; yet
civilized Christian nations of today are
still adding to it the qualifying phrase,
except in thousands, except with tor
pedoes, submarines, mines, dread
naughts, and other modern war ma
chinery. How can any Christian ma
tions look upon war and not cry out
against it!
Everywhere ruin, waste, destruc-
ton, follow in its track. 1t spends
millions in ships and other munitions
of war; it spends more millions in
navies and armies; it wrecks with
ruthless hand the finest treasures of
civilization, her noblest monuments
of architecture, her priceless works of
arts; it leaves widows and orphans
oFoI -h1nlyaa hnortC nn11ntlnCc nc tho
desolating touch. This is war,-cruel,
hateful, red-handed war; it is the up