The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1917-02-19
THERE ARE WORSE THINGS
IN WAR THAN SLAUGHTER"
Rg WILLIAM G. SHEPHERD.

Week.
NEW YORK. Feb. a., Those Of
lyou who have followed the things
II wrote for the Daily Light and the
United Press may have been inn
| pressed with the horror Of siaHeht-
er among the fighting people OF
Europe,
But there are worse things in war
than slaughter. In the current is
aue OF Ecery Week | have have told
hat those things are; an da sum
lrarized quotation from lhat story
may Interest you:
! isn't the slaughter terrible2'
My answer must always be:
Dying or killing are not the moss
terrible things that war brings 10 )
man, woman or child. In Europe
you see worse things than dying or
killiug. Worse things happen to
European folk than being killed or
crippled
The first dead men ! saw in the
! var, back in those early and oid-time
days In Belgium struck me as hav-
lfug been useles8ly murdered. and the
sight left baleful impression on
my mind. 70 my surprise. however. I
soon bebela such sights without emo
ton. Bur there was one sight-one
manifestation of the horrors OF war
that | eoaid not aeeustom my
SER to view without mental ahud
+ der, This was the vast bodies OF
nen marching or camping.
There they were, a,en Of family,
iof business. Of ideaIz, of religion. ali
/ brought down TO the same lerel-all
alike. like barrels whose hoops
lhave been removed, these men. indi-
Bxidual7y in their lives and IN their
lchaFaeters have fallen apart since
tie binding support of their home
environment has been taken away
from aboat them. The impression
that they were like animals like
hardad, uDthinking beasts, was so
strong upon me that at night In my
sleep, instead OF seeing dead and
maneled bodies. / saw in my dreams
+! vast bodies OF soldiers passing be-
/ fore me, each man wearing the head
eft euae beast instead of his own.
They were not brutal. leontne men
animals / saw only patient, dumb.
lobedieat long suffering. kindly
! Jones. such as cattle. deer. horses.
idogs.
Tn be turned into such man is
worse than death and among think
flag men in the six armies that / saw
lag close range I often found soldiers
+! and officers who realized what sort
/ of beings they had become. There
arc penalties Just short of death for
mcn in the various armies who sick
en- OF being minimizing men-animals
land try TO fiad way out of their
! plight by suicide-who stick their
3heada shove Inc trenches or who
wound themselves with their own
rifles.
The moral and mental disiHtegra-
ton that IS caused by the surround
Iiuss Is mBitary service in individual
cases is sbockinn This applies to all
iarmies that / have seen.
"Thgj fellow would be better
dead" said a friend Of mine, as an
Engllshman we HAD known in peace
times walked away from US after a
Chance meeting in the strand "Ev-
egytbne that was GOOD in him is
dead already
Only a year before, this man had
been q star Ell Fleet street He wrote
with a sympathy aud an under
standing of hamaa nature that
made his worth stand ont Bat
as we saw him, after year in the
army ais an uncommissioned officer.
the CRIME at war was on his soul as
we'll as on his body.
We pNii NAitittNs ne as+iNs NNth
weak eFin that displayed the ab-
senee of two front teeth Some
things happened 70 nae. cant ever
write again, don't even Try to do
it, Anyhow. what's the use2 It's
all war;.
The man that he had been 8 year
before would have Killed himslf
with his own gun rather than be-
come the man we SAM and talked
with that afternoon IN Che strand.
"No more books e. music and no
more women I'm simply rotting
mentally have had officers make
this confession to me IN five differ
cut languages in five different ar
mics, I'm rottiug. and | can't
help II"
Not all the bad things of war hap
pen 10 human hodieu