Evening star., 1926-11-14

duction was very slow and small
Reflect a little further. If HUI
manity has struggled up from poverty
to the dawn of a day of plenty and
comfort, we have also nourished
monster whose food is the destruc-
ton of all this hard-earned wealth
the sweat of centuries.
1.-The Civil War was regarded as
titan struggle in it's time. That strug-
gle cost the United States $S,000,000,-
600 all told. The late war cost the
pocketbook Of humanity 1881 100000
600. Think of the potential happiness
wiped out in four years! 1t is as
if some evil genii came along and
gathered up in his arms all of the
wealth of America-all of her fac
tories, her buildings, her homes, thea
ters, schools, food clothes, gems, her
art treasures, her books, automobiles,
radios and libraries-all that ministers
to our daily comfort, and dumped it
into the sea. That's the hard cash
penalty Of the last war. 1t threw into
the sea wealth equivalent to the
wealth of the whole United States.
''RememLer, the last war is only
eight ~ears in the rear Of today. The
graves of the dead have hardly
sprouted green, and yet humanity has
settled down to the grim task Of
creating more effective ways to kill
New and more deadly gases have
come from the test tubes of chemists.
Schemes for exterminating whole re-
gions in a few hours have been sue
ceSsfully devised. The world has
settled down to the problem of pre-
pairing the greatest tomb of carnage
yet seen-one that will be the tomb
Of the white race.
Stop the Big Parade.
mo, I say take the guns off the
shoulders of boys. Take our boys off
Of parade fields, where they think
sweethearts are encouraging them to
be military heroes. War psychology
equipment for destruction. All that
is needed is a will to use.' Our only
hope of safety is in taking the hand Of
humanity off the trigger of deStruc-
ton. Let the gun alone. That means
allaying war psychology. That means
not to train our boys for war. To do
so Is to train warriors. Who wants
to be trained and never use his train
ing? 1t is natural that those trained
militarily should think war game
and one that they would want to play.
Training boys for war, teaching them
how to kill, telling them that war is
inevitable, is the sureSt way to bring
on war.
II say stop building the equipment
Of destruction. But above all let us
stop building operators for the equip
ment. Let us stop training our youth
in schools to think in terms of mill
boy shoulders a musket and dons a
uniform he begins to think in terms
Of force-in terms of superior force
in terms of national super lority. The
psychology is fatal The temptation
to pull the trigger is developed. War
becomes more certain"
Assuming that military training
does encourage the pulling of the
trigger in earnest, DR.. WOolley," re-
marked, you said something to me
about the futility Of training boys for
advocate military training in our
schools always talk about it's pre-
paredness benefits to the nation
A Useless Exercise.
at is not only useless to train boys
for the next war, but adults as WE'LL"
was the reply. THE next war will be
fought with machinery. 1t will be a
big business of killing, and the tech
nique will be to slaughter wholesale
and to consider retail killing as very
inefficient.
''FCrmerly the old village cobbler
used to make the shoe and make it
mainly with the use of his own horse
power-his hands and legs and knees.
Formerly, too, the savage used to
stand face to face with his enemy and
swap blows, and he also relied al
most entirely on his own horsepower.
But the whole development in war, as
in industry, is to rely more and more
ON 40 hnr nf fIan III
less and less on manpower. Why? Be
cause the machine is many times more
powerful than human horsepower. War
and production tend to become more
and more imperSonal-machi re-
placing more and more manpower
War used to be a and-to-hand con-
tlict entirely. In the last war it was
n long range duel-aerial bombs, gases
waited miles on breeZes, super-cannon
that killed miles away. And the
range Will get longer and longer: more
and more steel will supplant muscu-
lar eXertion.
I'm the next war cavalry will be a
relic; infantry will be mostly defunct.
A few master minds will press but
tons and pull switches. Machinery
will do the rest
The problem Of militarists in the
next war will be to prevent voters
lIOHl bellS Killed Wfll6 CloV stay on
the farm or in the city.
Nothing But Machines.
Victory in the next war will be
obtained by slaughtering people who
are not fighting and who will be un-
able to fight because only machines
Will be wanted.
Hence the utter futility of mill
tary training in our schools. If we
are going to get ready for civiliza-
tion's big funeral pyre-the next war
develop machine power. Youths
shouldering guns and marching on
parade grounds won't help.
But. of course, the sensible thing
to do is not to prepare for the next
war. If we put as much energy into
disarmament as we do into armament
we would soon get rid of war. In
stead of spending so cents Of every
dollar that the Federal Government
takes in taxes for battleships and war
machinery, why not get busy and
take this intolerable burden of mill
tarism off the shoulders of civiliza-
ton?
why not spend more money on in
ternational conventions, on education,
on all the forces that will counteract
the terrible tragedy Of another war?
H. 1~rr -,