The New York herald., 1921-05-23

THE SALVAGING OF CIVILIZATION: THE
PROBABLE FUTURE OF MANKIND. BY
H. C. Wells. The Macmillan Company.
THE NEXT WAR" AN APPEAL TO COM
MON SENSE. BY viii Irwin. f. p. Dutton
& Co.
Andre Tardleu. Foreword by Edward NJ.
House. Introduction by Georges clemen-
ceau The Bobbs- Merrill Company.
Reviewed by ROBERT J. COLE.
While the peace congress deliberated in
Paris Theodore de Banvies "Esope"
revived by the Comedie Francaise. This
play had been written in the shadow of the
seventies. Using the ancient fabulist as
type of his downcast nation the poet
sang of the strong hearts courage and
ideals unshattered. rising to his highest
point in the line:
"A nation never dies till it wills to die"
At every performance these words, hurled
forth with fun power by the eloquent De
Max, reused the audience TO applause that
seemed to come from the depths.
In his introduction to the book BY Tardieu
Clemenceau writes
"The mastery rests with him who wills
most strongly and most enduringly."
nation never dies till it wills TO die
Leave the negative with It's "nots' and
"nevers." Go beyond even a positive which
moves inside the limits of nationality.
Plant your feet on this rock OF everlasting
truth:
The race Of man will live because it wills
TO live.
And that will to live is rooted in a living,
growing consciousness of the unity of the
human race. The terms of this unity must
be thought out and wrought out till all men
learn to live one family. Benjamin
Franklin said to the fathers, at the time of
the American Revolution:
1--WE must all hang together we shall
all hang-separate!"
Two books have just been issued-one by
an Englishman. speaking in . sense for the
Old World: and one by an American. And
they extend the spirit of Ben Franklin's
warning to the inhabitants of this planet.
If we want to go on living at all we must
learn to live together. We do and we will.
Universal and perpetual peace will come
when we apply all our minds to winning
and guarding 1t as definitely and intensivcly
as we applied ourselves to winning .he war.
But peace must be a positive, passionately
desired good. 1t will never be won by de-
fault
The paciists who tried 10 obstruct the
exertion of material force to check material
force already In motion were too late and
too early. Now is the time for a militant
campaign of peace War begins in the
mind.
Wherever men cherish the thought Of war
as the only solution, there the fighting has
begun-not only "the next war" but war
after war till the last two living beings fall
dead in the ultimate duel
Wells and irwin supplement each other.
Irwin places chief, emphasis upon the fatal
results of letting the present movement 20
on. Wells adds an outline of the future 70
his outline of history. And II is 2 reor-
ganized world that he pctures-a world
state.
First the necessity for a complete change.
Let Irwin tell the story himself
Humanity arrived at date significant
IN our annals. ! think October H. 1492,
or July a. 1916. II is April 22 1915. during
the second battle of Ypres That day the
Germans rolled across the Western trench
line a cloud OF irdescent chlorine gas which
sent French. Arab, English and Canadian
soldiers by the thousands back to the hos
pitfalls coughing and choking themselves 10
death from rotted, inflamed lungs. Had the
German General staff possessed imagina-
tion enough to use gas wholesale instead OF
retail on that day. they might have won
their war then and there"
IN centuries Of mechanical invention