Part 3 (1/2)

There was a time when individual prowess determined the issue of every difference. Might made right, so it was thought, and the winner in any controversy was he who had the heaviest club, the strongest arm, or the thickest skull. Man's interrelations.h.i.+ps multiplied as humanity advanced; with each new relation came new causes for quarrel, and for a time advancing civilization brought but increase in murders and a.s.sa.s.sinations.

We know the process by which personal combat ceased; how the duel replaced murder and ambush and a.s.sa.s.sination; how courts of law replaced the duel. The dreamer saw the day when personal combat should be no more; the man of mind refuted all the arguments in favor of the duel of men; the constructive statesman of that early day inst.i.tuted courts of law and equity. Men who had a difference insisted that it was their quarrel and they alone could settle it; but reason saw that two combatants inflamed by pa.s.sion are least fitted of all men to see where justice lies. Many held that where honor is involved, no one can adjust the difficulty but those most directly concerned; but reason saw that a man's honor cannot be vindicated by killing his enemy or being killed by him. Men said, ”If personal combat is abolished, courage and strength will perish from the earth.” But reason saw that personal combat in a selfish cause does not bring out the highest type of courage; and that there are opportunities enough for the exercise of the highest and best moral and physical courage to keep valor alive forever. It was finally urged that there would be no power to enforce the decree if personal differences were left to the adjudication of others; but reason said, ”That power will come with the need for it.”

And so courts of law and equity arose, based on the need of humanity; laws were pa.s.sed defining rights and limiting aggression; and when one man wronged another, that wrong was settled in court by the power of the whole people and not in personal combat with the bludgeon or the knife.

For similar reasons wars between states and tribes have ceased; and face to face with the inevitable logic of past progress stands the world to-day. Though humanity has been slow to see it, the truth has begun to dawn in the hearts of men--that international wars are no more to be justified than civil strife, tribal warfare, or personal combat. Gradually the omnipotent power of right is overcoming the inertia of humanity, and the world is moving. One by one the awful truths concerning war are forcing themselves upon the consciousness and the conscience of men. The mighty power of fact is beating down the opposition to world peace.

Men have begun to realize the terrible cost, the unbelievable wastefulness of actual war, and the preparation for possible war. When we read that the armed peace of Europe the past thirty-seven years has cost $111,000,000,000, nearly as much as the aggregate value of all the resources of the United States, the richest nation on earth, the figures are so appalling that mortal mind cannot conceive them, and they lose their force. When we remember that two thirds of the national revenues of the United States are spent on wars past or prospective, the matter comes closer home. When we realize that the cost of a single battles.h.i.+p exceeds the value of all the grounds and buildings of all the colleges and universities in Illinois, the figures have more meaning to us. And when we reflect that the cost of a single shot from one of the great guns of that battles.h.i.+p would build a home for an American family, a comfortable home costing $1700, the common man realizes that the richest nation on earth cannot afford to go to war nor prepare for war.

But mere money is one of the cheapest things in all the world. The price of war never can be paid in gold. Not in national treasuries can you see the payment of that price, where smug, well-groomed politicians sign bonds and bills of credit. If you would see the payment of that price of war, you must go to the place of war. With all your senses open, step upon the battlefield. Smell the smoke of burning powder, the reek of charging horses, the breath of fresh, red, human blood. Feel the warmth of that blood as you seek to stanch the wound in the breast of one of the world's bravest, dying for he knows not what. Hear the screams of the sh.e.l.ls, the booming roar of the cannonade, the clash of the onslaught, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the last gasp of him whose life has reached its end. Such is the infernal music of war. See the victim of the conflict reel in the saddle and fall headlong. Cast your eyes on the mangled forms of G.o.dlike men, fallen in the midst of fullest life. Come in the night after the battle and look upon the ghastly faces upturned in the moonlight. Gaze on the windrows of the dead, Mars's awful harvest, that impoverishes all and enriches none, and you know something of the cost of war.

And yet we have seen but little. Could we but enter the wasted homes and see the broken hearts that war has made; could we go to the almshouses and soldiers' orphans' homes and see widows and children by the thousand suffering the doled-out charity of state or nation because war has robbed them of their rightful protectors; could we but realize the agony of the broken home, a thousandfold worse than the agony of the battlefield,--then might we know more of the real cost of war.

And still our idea would be inadequate, though we realized the full measure of every groan and heartache. Earth's most priceless treasures are still more intangible things, the treasures of justice and kindliness and love. In that higher realm the cost of war is most terrible and most deadly. The spirit of war in the soldier sets aside the moral law, makes human life seem valueless, human suffering a thing to be disregarded, human slaughter an honorable profession. The war spirit blinds the eye of the statesman, till wrong seems right, folly seems expediency, and the death of thousands seems preferable to the life and happiness of all under terms of peace not dictated by his own will. Justice is dethroned, and revenge takes up the iron scepter and lets fly the thunderbolt. The war spirit perverts the mind of the publicist, till the achievements of honorable peace sink into insignificance, and the press clamors for the war that means money to the publisher but death to innocent thousands who can have no possible interest in the conflict. The war spirit takes possession of the pulpit, and the minister called to preach the loving message of the Prince of Peace stirs up the spirit of contention and animosity, of hate and murder. Could we but draw aside the curtain and, back of the tinsel and gold braid, see the crime, the hate, the moral degradation that war always brings, never again would a friend of humanity ask for war.

But the eyes of the world are opening to the fact that the cost of war is far too high in money and in men, in suffering and sacrifice, and in those higher values of justice and kindliness and love. And as the thought once grew that personal differences might be settled without personal combat, so men are looking toward the settlement of international difficulties without recourse to the sword. They have seen that every argument against the duel of men applies with still greater force against the duel of nations. And the world has moved farther toward world peace in the past twenty-five years than in all the centuries of history that have preceded. World peace has become not the dream of the poet but the confident hope of the world, whose realization is the task whose accomplishment is set for the men of this generation.

One by one the obstacles to world peace are being broken down.

Commerce has destroyed much of international prejudice. Community of interest has obviated many former causes of quarrel. The sophistical arguments of the friends of war are being answered by the logic of hard facts. Warfare has been ameliorated by international agreement.

Vast reaches of territory have been neutralized. Unfortified cities are no longer to be bombarded in any country. Actual disarmament has taken place between the United States and Canada, between Chile and Argentina.[1] Norway and Sweden have separated peaceably. Bulgaria has achieved her independence without bloodshed. The Dogger Bank incident, which a century earlier would have plunged England and Russia into war, has been adjusted amicably. Two Hague Conferences have advanced tremendously the progress of international amity. Over eighty arbitration treaties are now in force. We already have a permanent high court of nations, to which are being referred questions that would once have resulted in war. And we are nearer than the dreamer of last century dared hope to ”the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.”

[1] The famous ”disarmament” between the Argentine Republic and Chile was brought about by a series of four doc.u.ments of May 28, 1902, one of July 10, 1902, and one of January 9, 1903. A preliminary protocol declares the disposition of both countries ”to remove all causes for trouble in their international relations.” A general treaty of arbitration unlimited in scope was signed for a period of ten years. A convention bound each country to ”desist from acquiring the vessels of war now building for them, and from henceforth making new acquisitions.” Article II says that ”the two governments bind themselves not to increase their naval armaments during a period of five years, without previous notice.” As a result of arbitration resulting from this series of agreements the frontier was disarmed and remains free from military posts. New naval programs of both countries were formulated after the expiration of the period of abnegation, and dreadnoughts are now in course of construction.--_Editor._

But not yet has the millennium dawned. In the face of all this progress, armies and navies are stronger and more burdensome than ever. The United States spends more on wars past and prospective than for all educational purposes, and England, France, Germany, Russia, groan under the burdens of the armed peace of Europe. Armed to the teeth, the nations of the world lie watching one another. The mind of the world is convinced that war is futile and terribly wasteful. The heart of the world is convinced that war is cruel and inexcusable. The conscience of the world has admitted that war is wrong and morally unjustifiable. And still the preparation for war goes on, and unless conditions are changed, war is inevitable. What is to be done? The world's will must be moved, and men must be led to do what they have already admitted is right and just and expedient.

As we have led in other days, so must America lead to-day. As the light of republican government and complete justice to the individual first saw full dawn in the United States, so the eyes of the world are turned toward us to see the dawn of world peace, and full justice to all the nations. It is ours to lead. The example of the United States will do more than a century of argument and conference. America should begin the disarmament that will eventually mean the triumph of world peace.

We have naught to fear. We are far distant from the storm centers of the world. We have no foes within that demand a large standing army, and there are no enemies without that are anxious to try conclusions with us on land or sea. Then away with war talk and war scares and ”jingoism.” In time of peace let us prepare for peace, that all the world may enjoy peace. American disarmament will be a tremendous stride toward the accomplishment of the world's desire--the cessation of international warfare; a great world's court, to settle all international differences; an international police force, to give effect to the decrees of this court; and the end of the burdens of armies and navies under which the whole world is groaning. Let heart and voice and pen, pulpit and press and platform, soldier and statesmen and private citizen, ask for peace, and not for war.

This is a part of the world's larger hope. Pessimists there are who say that human nature is belligerent, and that war will never be abolished. But international warfare has already seen the handwriting on the wall. Mars has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

The fruitless slaughter of the millions is not to be forever nor for long. Let us hasten the day when the rolling war drum will be hushed forever, the bugle note no longer call to carnage; when ”nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Love shall take the place of Hate, and Justice sit on the throne instead of Greed. Some day in the not distant future the nations that have all these centuries bowed before the G.o.d of war shall own eternal allegiance to the Prince of Peace. And ”of the increase of His government and of Peace there shall be no end.”

THE WASTE OF WAR--THE WEALTH OF PEACE

By ARTHUR FORAKER YOUNG, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at the University of Michigan, May 13, 1910

THE WASTE OF WAR--THE WEALTH OF PEACE

In the wors.h.i.+p of Mars, Herodotus tells us, the ancient Scythian erected an old scimitar at the summit of a huge brush heap. To this, as a symbol of the great G.o.d of war, he offered not only the produce of the land but also human life in sacrifice. We shudder as we picture the priest standing over his victim, his hands wet with the blood of his fellow man. We cry out in horror as we think of the lives these peoples sacrificed. We call it an inhuman glorification of a pagan deity. We call it a ruthless waste of wealth and human life. These practices we p.r.o.nounce to be the result of a popular delusion--a false sense of obligation to the spirit of war. Yet from the time the Scythian drew the blood of his victim in homage to the great war G.o.d, even down to our own day, the nations have paid homage to Mars.

Though we boast of our progress in civilization, history reveals the fact that we, too, have been the victims of the Scythian's delusion.

Is it not a fact that one of the most terrible customs of savage men counts among its followers to-day all the nations of the earth? The subtlest skill of the scientist, the keenest intelligence of the statesman, vast stores of the world's resources, are devoted to maintaining great armies and navies, to inventing new means of attack or defense, to enlarging and making more deadly the enginery of war.