The Detroit times., 1917-06-18
Why Have Battlefelds At
All, When We Could Settle
IL Just AS Well In a Hall?

Charles NJ Schwab told IN the speech
he delivered in Detroit last week about
meeting with Lord Kitchener. and the
remark of the great man now mouncd
by Britain:
"Thls is not war Of men. but of mae
chimes and agriculture THEY will win .
What Lord Kitchener realized quite
early in the struggle, the wide world now
realizes.
War is prosecuted in this age ON "a
wholesale basis, exclusively.
The organization of war has changed
the same as organization in the indus
tries has changed, and the force OF at-
tack is trcbled and quadrupled as iuvcn-
tive genius has applied itself to tine cart
of killing.
Imagine. for instance. The great din
and seeming disorder accompanying the
crushing blows which Haig is delivering
to the German line in France. and the
German attempt to counter with their
own tremendous forces
And tnen stop to think tha, all is be-
ing carried on by schedule that is traced
by the secondhand OF a watch.
Cannons roar, machine guns rattle,
rifles crack, officers thunder orders men
cry as they obey, but the attack is being
carried on to the tick Of a timepiece.
and mistake Of a second, during an adj
vance under curtain fire, might mean the
humiliation Of a greater part Of an army
by that army's own ammunition.
The enormous mighty and efficient
fleet of fighting ships belonging to Great
Britain lies idle and all but useless, com
pared to what would be expected OF it,
because inventive genius has given war
fare on the seas the undersea boat,
farthest advanced in Germanys hands.
What Lord Kitchener observed and we
ourselves now behold as. the truth of his
words, makes war seem all the more
a reprehensible and useless thing
Having been brought to a point where
its determination is with machines and
country's ability to invent and turn them
out in great numbers, and to a point
where the best soil and the most efficient
tilling of it tells the story. why couldn't
the supremacy of one nation over an
other, or of one group of nations over
another group, be established a better
way?
Why not a way that would not para
lyze the industrial and agricultural
world; that would be bloodless. that
would mean fewer aching hearts and
draw fewer women's tears?
Why not, at certain intervals stage
an exhibition that would be something
on the order of a county fair and let
the nations compete for the prize for the
banner pumpkin, the most productive
head of wheat, the most perfect cabbage
and the latest pig?
And then, over in Machinery Hall, =
we could stage the international contest
for supremacy in the perfecting Of death
dealing implements, surest fire and long
est-carrying guns, and all that sort Of
thing, and let the differences of nations
be settled on the basis of the blue rib
bons they win.
For instance. Germany bringing the
submarine to the fair, it woHid be iff-
cumbent upon some nation TO enter either
a device or a means of combating the
submarine and removing it as a menace
to shipping.
The judges might decide that a sufii.
GENTLY productive soil, responding TO the
most expert tilling thereof, would turn
the trick by raising grain faster than
submarines could sink it.
Il is an accepted fact, of course, that
the submarine must be met unless the
blue ribbon at this international exposi-
tion of war strength that is now going
on. plus the bleeding and dying with
which we would dispense, is to be car
ried of by Germany.
Nobody hereabouts is conccding that
Germany is going TO do any such thing
The genius of the United States win
meet the underseas craft that has made
the Kaiser infamous. don't worry about
that
All fkov ~rrt,,...,.. ,,.,u L.. .,~,-.,.tI.. *