The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-01-22
Glamour of
War Fading
in This Era
Less Boredom in Modern
World Makes for
More Peace.
BY GRETTA PALMER
Times Special Writer

XXTASHINGTON. Jan. Pit is
w Mrs. Franklin d. Roosevelt
observation that the glamour Of
battle has suffered a slump. Since
she was a girl people have begun to
lose their conviction that the best
thing a man can do for his country
is TO die for it. The war business
doesn't stand so high these days.
of course il doesn't. For however
involved the causes Of wars may be
and the conference on the cause
and cure Of war in session here has
discovered dozens Of them-it seems
obvious that a large part Of the
appeal Of war TO any individual is
an emotional affair.
The more exciting peace becomes,
the less a man is apt to respond TO
the adventurous change Of pace that
enlistment offers him when the con-
fiict has begun. the less willingly he
will urge his government 10 spring
at the enemy's throat while there is
still a chance that arbitration may
prevail.
There was an excuse for the no.
bleman Of the Middle Ages when
he provoked his next-dOOr neighbor
10 combat. just for the hell of it.
Consider the tedium Of his days
when peace reigned in the neigh
bOrhoOd.
Old DAYS Lacked Diversion
There were no books. no theatre
cal entertainment, no hustle of the
town for your average nObleman,
shut up in a draughty castle with
a woman chosen for him by his rel
atives. JOustS and tournaments
provided practically the sole enter
tainment open to the times, and very
stirring events they must have been
to a people bored within an inch of
their lives
That was long ago. yet some of
the glamour fighting derived in
those days has come down to our
own times. Until quite recently the
declaration of war had much the
same emotional meaning to an adj
venturous youth as running away
to sea or joining up with the circus.
Changed by Machine Age
Down until the mechanical age,
remember, transportation was diff
cult and travel rare. The average
American lived a narrowly circum-
scribed life, with no newspapers out
side of the large towns. no moving
pictures. no radio, no greater out
let for the emotions of youth than
gathering around the piano and
singing Il Was Seeing Nellie Home,
or attending the huSking bee.
War made an undoubtedly APP
peal to the youth of uneventful
periods. II would to you. too. if you
lived in them. and most certainly it
would to your young son. But he
doesn't.
He lives in an age as exciting as
any on record, and-what is more
he has had enough education to un-
derStand the intangible events
which help to make it thrilling 1t
is an age when a million Americans
can travel to a worlds fair and get
their years supply of thrills.
heep BUSY TOT feace
1t is a time when experience
crowds upon them from every direc-
tiOn-when cars are cheap enough
for a man to satisfy his restleSSneSS
on the road. when entertainment is
abundant, when the newspapers
supply a diet of exciting national
changes that should satisfy the
greatest f1re-eater. Why, We haven't
time for war;
George Bernard Shaw once said
the way to cure a man of beating
his wife was to teach him to beat
a drum.
Perhaps the best way of curing
him of the desire to beat a drum is
to crowd his waking hours with air
plane rides and governmental
changes, NRA parades and man.
moth moving pictures, tourist trips
to Europe and public Libraries full
of books until all OF the emotional
appeal of war is anticipated and
drained of before the bugleS are
sounded