The Coolidge examiner., 1938-07-14
A R | Z 0 N A
AIR By 1,.:,:. 5;,s
FIX THE LIMIT

FIX THE LIMIT
The United States Great Britain
and France have agreed TO fix the
limit Oh future battleships at 40
900 tons which will tote 16-inch
guns. For long time nations have
been limiting war equipment. Only
certain kinds of guns, bullets, gases.
ships were to be used in war. They
have even talked of making war
humane. We have never been able
to understand just what they meant
by that.
The truth of the matter is that
war between nations is a game and
they have built up set of rules by
which the game can be played
These rules they revise from time
to time just as the sporting world
revises it's football rules.
Possibly if nations would stop
playing around at the war game and
discarded all the rules and an
nounced that they were building an
equipment. without limit, to whip
anv nation that came down the
road with a chip on its shoulder
things would clear up bit. II you
are out to whip a man, supposedly
because he needs TO be whipped,
why bother about the size of battle
ship that carries the gun that blows
him to pieces? After all, if you are
going to kill me. it doesn't make
mucn difference to me what you
do it with. I will only ask that the
job be done swiftly and complete
ly. If you use a gun that blows me
to pieces you are the fellow who
will have TO look at the bloody
mess, not I.
FOR DEFENSE
Our own great argument and
justification for the enormous ap-
propriations recently made for
more battleships and war equip
ment has been that it is for the
purpose of defense in case of at
tack. Well, now, if some enemy
nation attacks us and it becomes
necessary for us to defend our
selves against the attack, why
should we show any consideration
for the fellow who is seeking to de-
stroy us by trying to be humane
in the size of bullets and guns we
use against him? Our claim OF
defense equipment" and the
limitation of sizes of guns and
ships is inconsistent Either the
enemy needs to be destroyed or
he doesn't. If he does, destroy him,
the bigger the battleships and guns
the better. If he doesn't need to
be destroyed we should not play 4
war game with him with both using
regulation equipment that equal
ICES the chances of either side for
victory.
And "human?" There is no hui
name warfare. There never has
been and there never can be-un-
less it is based on Jesus saying:
''If thine enemy hungers feed him. T"
ANOTHER SEVENTY FIVE
YEARS
There is something deeply pa
thetic in the last and final reunion
of the old soldiers of the Blue and
Gray held last week at Gettysburg.
The members of those opposing
armies have dwindled to a mere
handful. Hundreds of wheel chairs
had to be used to help them
through the celebration. Once
enemies, trying to kill one another,
they met as friends on the battle
field to talk over the events of
three quarters of a century ago.
How silly that war must look to
them now. And how slowly did the
fires of hate burn out.
In another seventy-five years the
army of the Blue and Gray will be
a distant memory and this side of
that seventy-five years even the
men who fought in the World War
will have passed on. ''The shouting
and the tumult dies, the captains
and the kings (and the soldiers)
depart
Our children's children will read
the pages of history we have made
for them. Across those pages, cover
ing centuries, they will see the
blood spots the human family has
put there and the reasons" for
them. They will wonder how 'civilii-
zed men" won civilization" by
such barbaric means and still call
ed themselves "civiliZed."