Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-06-14
The Country Home
DISARMAMENT OF NATIONS
BY MRS. W. Fl. FELTON,

IL is RECORDED tnaC congress- uOLd-
bly, the United States senate, is re-
ceiving many petitions from women
all over this country asking that
America shall pronounce against
great armies and navies and get back
to where the methods of peace can
prevail.
To read about it, this would seem
exactly the thing to do. Neverthe-
less, the congress has decided to
keep a standing army of $4,000 men
and to go on building battleships, at
enormous expense to the taxpayers.
These battleships were easily over
come during the late war. A sub
marine destroyer, that only cost
trifle compared to the millions that
are spent on a single battleship, was
frequently able to glide under the
shadow of these great floating
monitors that lowered above them
and blow hole into the hull that
would easily destroy the battleships
and all the people in them.
1t would seem, therefore, as If
battleships are out of date, had out
lived their usefulness. Wise ones
tell Us that modern warfare after this
date will be conducted by airplanes
overhead and submarines underneath
the water.
This seems to be likely forecast
of what can easily happen. Air
planes can fly up and over a battle
ship, drop bomb with a quick fuse
on the upper deck, and the result is
plain.
If while the airplane overhead is
in open view, there is, as before re-
marked, a submarine sneaking it's
way under the batleship, to blow it
up, from underneath, it strikes the
ordinary mind that battleShips are
only targets for the enemy's small
aircraft and small submarines, and
obliged to be ruled out as unfit for
Wa rserVice.
OF course we need ships for trans
portation, and it is not likely that
aircraft will ever be considered even
moderately safe conveyance for
women and children from one great
continent to anOther-neVertheles it
is fully and fairly demonstrated
that $30,000,000 battleship is not
only unsafe but useless, with air
planes, loaded with bombs and sub
marines loaded with bombs, with
helpless battleship, between the
overhead poison gas missiVes, and
the underneath dynamite explosives,
1t used to be said that steel ships
with thickness of first-Class armor
plate, would and could defy any 9TH
er sort of warship-in any part of
the known world.
Nevertheless the gun-makers pro-
ceeded to fashion great cannOns that
could not only pierce through the
greatest and strongest armor plate
tured by Krupp in the late war that
could be planted seventy miles dis
tant and kill scores of soldiers
that far away from them.
During the Civil war of the SOS.
battleships could circle around
great fortress and make an hourly
business of bombarding such a fort
Fort Sumter until tina shall
shot had done it's complete work of
destruction. Our school histories
have pictures of these bombardments
to remind we old ones of what we
actually knew and read about in the
Civil war, but also to teach the
young ones how war looked at close
range. We had rifles that could
kill at considerable distance-but the
enemy had to come in sight and get
return fire-as nearly as possible,
face to face. In the early days of
the Revolutionary war, when the
munition, the soldiers made clubs
of these heavy muskets and thus
equipped went after Indians and the
British with good effect.
The bayonet answered in close
combat-in Mexico, and were always
given out to Civil war combatants
But bayonets against trench bombs
and shells on "FIandars Field" were
next to nothing in the world war
when the soldiers could not even see
their foes.
The entire system of modern war
fare has undergone q change. We
must now go at it understanding
that old things are useless and new
ones must be utilized, or we must
quit killing human beings to satisfy
the minds of the ambitious and blood
thirsty.
If America is invaded by any for
eign nation-armed with airplane
rifles and her seacoast is infested
with submarine bandits, it goes with
out saying we will manufacture rival
airplaneS and go down under the sea
waves to blow up the enemy's war
vessels-because they must come
they ever Come over in sufficient
numbers
THE Good Old United States" can
raise a plenty to eat and drink and
to wear without begging any outside
nation to do it for us. Diasarma-
ment. therefore. strikes our minds
as perfectlN feasible proposition,
tell us that we apply 95 cents of
every dollar in the United States APP
prOpriated for expenses in our gov
eminent, to supporting soldiers
paying salaries for high officers-in
both army and navy--in constructing
battleships and smaller war craft
in paying pensions to those who serv-
ed in war, in keeping up hospitals
and paying doctors for war sufferers
and to sum it all UP, we tax our
selves njnety-five dollars out Of
every hundred to keep up the coun-
try in war preparation! 1t is time
to look on the other side of this war
business. Neither England, France
or Italy are in healthy fix to keep
on killing their own people, IT the
open and say, Keep on your own
side and we will keep on ours" the
disarmament proposition will win
it's victory without difficulty.
Atlanta Mothers and Midnight Dance
Halls
AS the story goes, Atlanta maidens,
or Il good many of them, go to dance
halls, and the young men they dance
with carry liquor along, and the re-
suits are not pleasing to the moth
ers of either boys or girls Inc agl-
tation is timely. Those of us, VINO
know nothing about it, are Impressed
that the mothers should not be oblig-
ed to stand up and fight war like
that without the help of every de-
cent father in the capital city OF
Georgia. Dancing, in itself, can be
harmless diversion, just as harmless
as the frolics of restless children,
indoors and out. but the admiXture
of liquor makes a dance hall
very easy place to raise a rowland
I will dare to say)-stain girls
reputation.
At least a quarter of century ago
I had a talk with a devoted society
expert. She was as handsome as a
picture-had all the fine clothes she
could possibly crave--and was the
toast of the lively gatherings that
she went to.
champagne in those society reVels,
she said this: IF l had young
daughter and her dance partner wish
ed to escort her home in a fine car
riage after they had filled up on
champagne my daughter should not
night dancesI There is no need for
explanation or any attempt at eX-
tennation or eXcuse-in this latest