Evening star., 1927-12-07
PHILOSOPHERS
BY A..
GLENN FRANK

What is your opinion of pacifism?"
A reporter asked this question
across my desk recently. He had
been sent by metropolitan news
paper TO investigate the status of mill
tary training i'm the university com
munIty with which | am associated.
/ tried to tell him that I could not
grow greatly excited over the merely
wishful propaganda either of the militia
rists or Of the pacitists. for in the long
run these competing propagandas tend
| to cancel each other out, while war
and peace are determined by a vast
variety Of causes that go on working
now silent and now shrill in a dis
dainful disregard of the hot preach
ments of the propagandists. .
War is not the product of mere war
madness or the military mind; the
roots of war go deep into a thousand
soils. obscure as we'll as obvious.
| have Just finished reading r. A.
Turner's Causes of War" and 1.-THE
New Revolution" Mr.. Turner surveys
the 61 wars which have harassed hui
manity from the disasters of the Span
ish Armada days in 1888 to the Lo-
carno settlements in 1925. seeking the
| causes Of each of these 81 wars. His
discussions lead to an analysis of the
general causes of war under five
heads, viz:
First, economic causes.
Wars may arise from disputes over
territory, homeland or colonial; over
trade rights or restrictions, over high
ways for trade or travel by land or
sea, over boundaries, over access to
raw materials, over rights in the de-
velopment and control of backward
countries, over tariffs, and an endless
list of economic issues.
Second, dynastic causes
Wars may arise out of disputes over
the hereditary right of royal houses
to rule, disputes between rival princes
or between people and prince, and the
varied disputes that may center about
| the interests of ruling or aspiring dy-
nastic houses.
Third, nationalistic causes.
| Wars may arise out of the hot
| headedness induced by sentimental pa
| triotism, by pride Of race, by pride OF
nation, by jealousy Of a neighbOr peo
pie, by the temporary lawlessness and
ruthlessness Of the crowd spirit.
| Fourth, religious causes.
Wars may arise out of conscientious
but misguided devotion, out of the
| clash of creeds, out of fanaticism, out
| of intolerance, out of persecution, out
| of the rise of science and the liberal
| ism resulting from it that seems to
threaten intrenched religious beliefs
| out of the willingness of devotees tC
| suffer martyrdom, and so on.
| Fifth, sentimental causes.
| Wars may arise from the vision of
| a leader who seeks to enforce his vi
| sion upon others, from hopes that may
or may not be we'll founded, from sym
| pathy that may lead to intervention in
other lands, from eager dreams OF
emancipation, and so on.
| The causes of war are varied; the
| conquest of war must come by equally
varied means: war cannot be conquer.
| ed by the simplified preachments OF
| those who simply hate war and would
| like to see it conquered.
| If tomorrow the pacifsts could gag
| all the militarists. the race would still
| plunge into periodic wars until we
| achieved more intelligent administra
| ton of the common affairs of the
world.
| Copyright. Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate,