The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-12-12
|M. E. Tracy Says:

| MIS- will be tin soldier Christmas for Ger
man children. Older people are to blame
1hey not only make the toys, but pay for them
| In other countries the paraphernalia NAV
| be lacking, but the thought is present. Santa
| Claus is due to hear more drum beating trumpet
blowing and heel clicking than at any time since
the great war ended Shallow thinkers take
this as a sign of immediate conflict. European
! booking agencies are recording bets that war
will break out somewhere on the continent with
in two years.
True to an age-old weakness of human
nature, jumpy souls assume that thing is here
just as soon as they can guess its likelihood.
Because of the volcanic nature of general
conditions it is conceivable that strife might
break out anywhere at any time, but the world
is too exhausted to promote it in a deliberate
way. 1t is justif1able to believe that war is in
the making. but the chances are that we shall
have to wait for the generation now playing
with tin soldiers to grow up. If we only realized
| it, that is the way the last war started
| A S usual proposition. wars involving the
n same nation are thirty years or more part
The reason is obvious. 1t takes about two gen.
erat1onS to pay up and forget. The second
! generation usually has recovered sufficiently to
provide its kids with tin soldiers, toy cannon
paper airplaneS and illustrated maps of old bat
| tet1eldS. Also, it is far enough removed from
the suffering and distress to look back on the
spectacle as a rather fine show.
This old world is running true to form A
| few years more, and our veterans will be old
enough to take grandchildren on their knees
and tell them all about the great adventure
That will help to promote the tin soldier phi
loSophy So will the monuments that are being
erected on every hand.
Though losing sight of what it was all about
| if, indeed, it was about anything worth while
millions Of people are beginning to look back
on the war as an interesting drama; beginning
to regard it in a speculative, impersonal way.
| BY and by they will be wondering if it would
be such a bad idea to put on another, and the
children who have been brought up to play with
tin soldiers will chorus their approval.
| ONCE the dawn of consciousness, history has
~ been made in the nursery, the schooiroom
and the trend of youthful sport, with other peo
pie steering the performance by trying to re-
habIlitate the memories and roma nee of bv
gone days
Strive as We may to look back on the record
OF the last two decades as unusual if not en-
lightened. it grows commonplace as it recedes
into the past. We begin to understand that it
was not the first time people shoudered guns
in "a war to end war"
The delusion was perhaps. on little grander
scale than ever before, but apart from that. it
was the same old delusion. Men have been
fighting for peace since they knew the meaning
OF the word and have been justifying war on
that ground
! So, too, they have seen their mistake after
few years. and have reasoned themselves into
believing that the job had to be done over again.
II Is at about that time that tin soldiers make
! tlaeir appearance.