San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-10-11
Today
Yes, but
/ What About Persia.
Gas War "Barbarous?"
If So. We Need 1t.
By Arthur Brisbane
Copyright. 1926 by Star Co

E=copyright. 1926 by Star Co -
= n HIS Omaha speech President
Coolidge said mo nation ever
had an army large enough to
guarantee it against attack. -
No, nation ever will" That is true,
but while Philip of Macedonia and
his son Alexander were building up
their army, perfecting their methods
keeping prepared great, powerful,
disdainful, rich and swollen Persia
the United States of those days did
not imagine what was going to hap
pen, and never got ready.
THINGS happened rapidly when
= Alexander. with 10000 men.
swan across the river, attacked the
power of Persia, scattered its vast
armies, its line of war elephants,
and hunted the Persian King to his
death. y
you can't have an army big
! enough "to guarantee you
against attack" but you oan keep
yourself in such a condition of prepa-
ration 70 as to make attack improb-
able, and not dangerous.
A STA, Toxic, Pekin are now about
"A forty hours from the United
States by swift airplane. The fast
est plane might cross the Pacific in
twenty-one hours.
Twenty-Five years ago the trip by
water was two weeks, and an enemy
invader would have been compelled
to make a landing and find subsis-
tence after landing.
Nov the enemy would come
IN through the air, and there need
be no landing. Attacking airships
would drop their cargoes of ex-
plosives and poisonous gases on a
few cities, then fly back to q mother
ship off shore or Cross the Canadian
border, land and be held for the du-
ration Of the war.
AR. PRESIDENT COOLIDGE,
IVA more important than anything
mentioned in your brilliant and
thoughtful Omaha speech, is the i'm
pcrtauce, Of keeping this country
PREPARED FOR ATTACK, and
able to repel it.
The thing can be done, necessary
preparations established and main
tsined, fortunately for our national
program Of economy, at little ex-
pense, far less than the amounts
now squsndered by incompetency. or
worse, in the Army and Navy De-
partments.
THE latest asinine, intensely dan
! serous proposition rs that the
United States should sign an inter
national protocol forbiddins us,
pledging ourselves against the use of
chemicals, including poison gases and
other gases, in future warfare.
MO nation has yet signed the pro-
IN tocol. France declares that she
will not sign. The French being in
tilligent will not put handouts on
their own wrists, or hamper them
selves in any way.
The japanese will not sign that
protocol. Their able chemists are
carrying on intensive studies of chem
ical warfare, manufacturing poison
gases, of all kinds at this moment.
IT is predicted, and there is unfor-
i tunately basis for the predic-
ton. that the United States WILL
sign the protocol. If it does go, and
If only ONE other minor nation,
Siam for instance, should also sign,
the United States will be bound by
word of honor to refrain from use Of
chemicals in war and to discontinue
the chemical research and expert
mental work now carried on by our
War Department.
CENATORS inclined to approve the
~ protocol, tying the hands Of Uncle
Sam, depriving him of the most i'm
portant modern weapon while leaving
il to his enemies, are advised to read
the little book "Callinicus," written
by ]. B. S. Haldane, an able Eng
lish chemist who went through the
war, in the trenches. got his share
Of gas, and understands the subject
that be discusses.
CHEMICAL warfare n addition
~ to being MODERN warfare, is
the least brutal, most merciful form
of war, thus far devised by human
brutality. Chemical warfare could
render unconscious the inhabitants of
q whole city. cspturing without kill