The Elk Mountain pilot., 1923-01-18
Glory of War is Greatest Lie Ever Taught
Private Peat Says, in Fight to
Get World Peace
Noted Canadian Hero Who Won Distinction in Europe
Proposes Schools Teach New Theories and Do
Away With Legends of War

By Frances Wayne, in Denver Post
'srhe inexcusable lie of the centu-
ries is that war is glorious.
when we teach boys and girls
more about the Man who hung on
wooden cross and less about the man
who won the Victoria Cross, human
ity will have made a start toward
civilization"
Harold Peat, known as Private
Peat" during the days when the Ca.
nadians at Neuve Chapelle and Ypres
were showing the Germans what they
had gone up against, made the slur
on war while his eyes blazed and his
fists came down with thud on the
arms of the chair in which he sat in
his room at the Metropole hotel Fri
day afternoon
I've been fed to the jowls on war,
and now I'm going up and down the
world shouting the beauties of peace,
and will do so until my voice goes on
strike" he said.
Peace Talk to be Made at Church
Private Peat will speak at Grace
Community church Sunday evening
on what he terms the "inexcusable
lie of the centuries" and every eve.
ming of the week he will add to the
information offered in his first dis
course.
Peat is a little chap, physically
speaking. His mother was an Argen-
tinian, his father an Irishman, he was
born in Canada, married his English
wife in London and his two daugh-
ters were born in Chicago. He went
into the war with the Canadians in
1914, was in action when the Ger.
mans presented their first gas SOU
venir, was wounded several times,
thrice decorated, and then turned out
to build fires. of patriotism under
American youths in recruiting days.
If he fought valiently for war when
war was on, he is fighting equally
hard for a world peace.
"Any fool can make a war talk.
know for / made hundreds of them.
Imagine, if you can, an army of
'four-minute men shouting for peace!
1t can't be done! Yet peace is what
the world needs more than any other
thing. l know. I've been in efgh-
teen countries since war ended and
everywhere the people are sick for
peace.
yet what do we seer" asked Pri-.
vate Peat.
1--WE see France sending part of the
worlds greatest army into Germany.
My sympathy is with France. If l
was Frenchman would unquestion-
ably be in sympathy with the action
of the French government. But peo-
pie outside who do not know what
France has suffered, criticise the in
vasion. And justifably. for, at this
moment, France is doing what we all
went to war with her to abolish. I've
been in Germany lately. The people
are at work. They are enduring all
sorts of hardships and I'd bet my
last shirt that if the big financiers
would play fair with the people the
bills. could be paid and the world
would get down to the business of
peace.
Change of Study Is Proposed
"If France can make the big fell
lows pay, the fellows responsible for
the war, I'll say GO to itl' But I'm
sorry for the plain people of both
countries"
One of the first obligations Of a
world peace, according to Private
Peat, is for the schools to throw
away all the histories and text books
which proclaim their national heroes
from among the warriors and write
new ones which will enthrone the
scientists, poets, philosophers, great
religionists.
II defy you," said Private Peat, ito
discover book or history used in the
schools which reveals the inside facts
of war; the flowing blood. the mud,
the lice, the cold, the wholesale MUIR
der of men by men who never saw
each other before and bear no per-
sonal malice; the hunger, wounds, the
breaking Of human bodies, the de-
struction of what is beautiful, the
absolute return to barbarism.
you bet they don't teach these