Imperial Valley press., 1935-12-09
CIVILIZED WARFARE
An UNENDING FARCE
Civilized warfarel


When the barbarians pinned on their
lion skins and went out to battle, there
was no civilization in the things they
did. If man was captured he had to
pay the penalty. Sometimes that in
cluded final resting place in the person
OF the conqueror. Usually it included
torture for an hour or a day, ending in
death. When the knights of the middle
ages riveted on their tin suits and gallop-
ed against the walls of an offending
castle, there was not much more of civ
iliZation in their methods. Their foes
were put to death indiscriminately, or
tossed into dungeons to rot there for as
long as they lived. Death was slower
than by the old method of torture, but
civilization had progressed in warfare.
Clashing swords and hurtling spears
took their terrible tolls in the historic
battles of the past. A few hundred men
were killed in almost every one of those
battles. The price was terrific. Only
civilization had not yet come into the pic
ture. Primitive men, and their slightly
less primitive descendants, fought saw
agely. They could not be expected to do
otherwise, for civilization had not yet
touched them with its. gentle wand. They
were barbarians and brutes.
Then the dawn of new era awoke
over the world Man began to realize
that he had been nothing but a brute.
He turned his mind to invention and
science. He learned to dive through the
sea and soar through the air, and he
learned the magic formulas of chemis-
try. He became kinder, gentler, with
the knowledge that the good of the
the world depends upon the whole.
Buoyed by this knowledge, men invent
ed civilized warfare.
The barbarous methods of battle were
abandoned. Prisoners no longer were
put to death summarily, or sent into
slavery. There were no looping off OF
heads when a town was captured. Spears
and swords no longer We're touched with
poison.
No!
Instead, polite interchange of diplo-
matte argument is thrown like cloak
over the desire for conquest. Nobody
desires war-yet it becomes impossible
to arbitrate differences. National honor,
you know, and all that sort of thing. SO
the nations find it necessary to go to
war, butt must be civilized war.
Civilized it isl Hurting airplanes
strafe the ground, sending soaring hot
lead into the vitals of hundreds of sol
ders and non-combatants alike. Dead
ly bombs go down from the sky to the
homes of women and children. Hospitals
get in the way, and the wounded become
dead. Then comes the gas. Chemistry
has made its contribution, contribution
civilization may we'll be proud of. Never
before in the history of the world has
there been such a thing. 1t seeps into the
nostrils and pores of all within range.
1t kills outright, or disables, or lanes
for life. 1t brings disease and pollution.
It is triumph of civilized warfare.
Death rides through the sky, and on
the land and under the sea. 1t takes
forms never before dreamed of. 1t makes
no favorites, but takes soldiers and civil
ians. women and men and children alike.
In its wake it leaves the blind, the
manned and the diseased, so that they
NAV suffer all the days of their lives.
But civilized warfare has done away with
torture!
Where tens died in the days of barbar-
ism. thousands die in the days OF civil
ization. The great god Mars, looks
down from his pinnacle and applauds
civilization.
The world has progressed in the
methods of war.
In Italy, there was a time when 1t was
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