Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1921-12-18

edcn particular matter. 1t i
in its work.
1t is hard period for us. Here
is great and powerful body in which
we see vested an amazing power fol
good or evil and it is giving its entire
attention to facts. 1t will not bulge
until they are gathered, tested, di.
gested But if this is trying periot
it is very useful one for those who
are willing to fall in step and try the
best they can from the outside also
to get down to facts.
Wars Vulnerable Point,
One useful realization that will come
to the impatient from such procedure
is pretty sure to be that a large
amount of the heated emotion we
/ spend in attacking the god of war
must be vast amusement to his maj
esty. He must see how often in our
despair and loathing we have over
looked really vulnerable points in his
armament. He's a beast, but he's a
beast who knows his business If
were ever to put an end to him we
must control our emotions and use our
brains sufficiently to understand that
business. Unless we do this we are
very apt simply to play into his hands.
believe we are in danger of doing
that very thing in our attitude toward
chemical warfare. OR as we call it.
poison gas" We are spending time
and emotion protesting against it with
out knowing what it means. | have
done SO myself, taking it for granted
there was nothing to be said for it.
But | think / have been wrong
The other day here in Washington,
I Sat with Cronn IF tho roofi, o-o,
chemists of the country-men of
science-in whom the passion for pure
knowledge is SO strong that they give
their lives to research from which
rarely indeed do they reap a material
reward in any proportion to the value
Of their discoveries, Into the conversa-
ton of this group / strolled with the
easy assurance of one who knows moth
ing.
Il would prefer death from shot and
shell any day to death by gas / said
And why!' they asked.
The very thought q gas terrifies
me- l replied. "The torture Of suffo-
cation. the blindness, the burnt body,
they must be beyond endurance"
Gas More Humane. ...
Then very gently the chemists told
me few things / did not know.
your chances of life after gassing,"
they said, ARE twelve times as good
as after having been hit by bullet,
bomb, shrapnel or shell. Twenty five
per cent of the boys we lost in the
great war were killed by these latter
weapons. Only 2 per cent of our gas
casualties died. And very few of these
died on the battlefield
Moreover, your sufferings from gas
are not as you imagine, anything like
that which comes from losing a leg.
an arm, from having your head laid
open or from being disemboweled. The
treatment that has been developed for
gas casualties both on the field and
in the hospital relieves suffering more
promptly and more completely than in
wound"
but it so often leaves you blind"
No" they said, you're wrong.
You've seen Sargeant's picture Of the
poor fellows blinded at Ypres by mus
tard gas. You cannot forget it. But
remember that IS per cent of the
blinded men he painted were fit for
duty in three months. If they had
been laid low by shot and shell many
a one of them would have been per-
manently blinded and most Of them
would have had shattered limbs. Gas
leaves no cripples. 1t does not blind.
High. explosives do both
But it causes tuberculosis"
'The chemical warfare services Of
England, France, Germany and the
United States have been carefully
studying the relation of tuberculosis
and gas. Their conclusion now after
three years experience is that of our
own surgeon general: Tuberculosis
did not occur any more frequently
among the soiliers who had been gassed
than among those who had not BEEN"
An Outlaw of War.
But how Canyon explain that awful
sweeping devastation in April Of
1857"
1T was awful. 1t came before we
had devised protection. Gas was an
outlaw of war. made SO by the Hague
of 1907. Germany had