FREEDOM’S WARFARE. By Charles Mackay.
We want no flag, no flaunting rag,
For Liberty to fight;
We want no blaze of murderous guns
To struggle for the right.
Our spears and swords are printed words
The mind our battle plain;
We’ve won such victories before,
And so we shall again.
We love no triumphs sprung of force—
They stain the brightest cause;
’Tis not in blood that Liberty
Inscribes her civil laws.
She writes them on the peoples’ hearts
In language clear and plain;
True thoughts have moved the world before
And so they shall again.
We yield to none in earnest love
Of Freedom’s cause sublime;
We join the cry “Fraternity!”
We keep the march of Time.
And yet we grasp not pike nor spear,
Our vict’ries to obtain;
We’ve won without their aid before,
And so we shall again.
We want no aid of barricades,
To show a front to wrong;
We have a citadel in truth,
More durable and strong.
Calm words, great thoughts, unflinching faith
Have never striv’n in vain;
They’ve won our battles many a time,
And so they will again.
Peace, Progress, Knowledge, Brotherhood;
The ignorant may sneer,
The bad deny; but we rely
To see their triumphs near.
No widow’s groans shall load our cause,
Nor blood of brethren slain;
We’ve won without such aid before,
And so we shall again.
This poem expresses the sentiment and policy of the Journal of Man. But, ah, how utterly antagonistic to these noble sentiments is the way of the world at present, and the policy of the world’s strong governments, upheld as they are by the so-called church of Christ, which is not the church of Christ but the church of Athanasius.
Everywhere men are trained with skill and perseverance for the work of homicide, as if murder were the most glorious work in which man could be employed.
Every Frenchman in his twenty-first year is held by the government (with very few exceptions) to five years service in the active army, four years in the reserve of the active army, five years in the territorial army, and four in the reserve of the territorial army—eighteen years altogether! Could his Satanic Majesty have devised any better plan for destroying the moral distinction between men and carnivorous beasts? The only mitigation of this horror is that college students are allowed to pass by one year’s service, and a lottery of long and short terms allows a large number to escape with terms of abridged length.
Germany, like France, forces everybody through the army, and it is but five months since the continental governments were buying in England millions of cartridges for the expected war which psychometry pronounced a terrible delusion.
All governments are busy in preparing the deadliest possible weapons. European nations have generally adopted magazine guns for their soldiers. France has adopted the Kropatochek magazine rifle, Germany the Manser rifle, Austria the Mannlicher magazine rifle, Italy the Bertoldo magazine rifle, Russia the Berdan breechloader, Turkey the American rifle. The magazine guns seem to have almost unlimited capacities—firing 30 to 50 shots per minute which are fatal at a mile distance. The only mitigation of these horrors is that of a German chemist’s invention—an anæsthetic bullet which is claimed to produce complete insensibility, lasting for hours.
Explosive shells of melinite are the leading idea in France. It is manufactured at Bourges and is said to be a hundred times as powerful as gunpowder, or ten times nitroglycerine, and reduces what it strikes to a fine powder. They have also a new rifle powder which explodes without smoke.
Russia has a new explosive, fifteen times as strong as any gunpowder, which produces no smoke.
America is not behind in explosives. Lieut. Graydon has been giving exhibitions near Washington of a new patent shell said to be seven times more powerful than dynamite, and yet so safe that it can be fired with powder from a common gun. Mr. Bernard Fannon of Westboro, Mass., has invented and patented a shell of terrific power. It is made of iron, three inches thick, and weighs 540 pounds. The effects of its explosion in a swamp near Westboro were wonderful. It is also said to be perfectly safe.
The rivalry of cannon and armor plates is going on, the development of torpedoes and shells is reaching its maximum, and the power of taking a nation to the edge of starvation, for the building of monster ships, costing each millions of dollars, is the study of Christian (!!) governments.
Thirty years ago, the largest British cannon was a sixty-eight pounder, costing $561, which might be fired for $275. Now they have a 110-ton gun costing $97,500 to manufacture, and $935 to fire once.
The British government has gone into such matters deeply, paying Mr. Brennan over half a million dollars for his torpedo invention.
The British ship “Victoria” uses 900 pounds of powder to one of its 110-ton guns which send a missile of 1,800 pounds.
Nelson’s flag ship “Victory” used no larger powder charge than eight pounds, and its heaviest shot was only sixty-eight pounds. A broadside upon the “Victoria” consumes 3,000 pounds of powder. Its 110-ton gun is moved by hydraulic machinery. Such a metallic monster would seem almost incredible, but Krupp has constructed a still larger gun for Italy, 46 feet long and weighing over 118 tons.
It could not be sent overland by railway, but was sent to Antwerp for shipping on a specially constructed carriage 105 feet long, running on 32 wheels.
The American steel cruiser “Atlanta” has two guns of eight-inch bore, 24 feet long, sending out a projectile of 300 pounds which explodes on striking,—firing correctly five miles. It costs $150 to to fire once.
Lieut. Zalinski is using a light steel tube, sixty feet long and one foot in diameter, to fire explosive shells by air pressure. Great results are expected from it, and it would save us from the enormous cost of modern cannon.
Fortunately, America, being out of the great maelstrom of war, can cultivate humane sentiments and abolish the barbarism of dueling, which still holds its ground in France and Germany in the highest ranks of society.
We have had one terrible war to demoralize our nation, but now peace is secure and the old Federal and Confederate soldiers are active in exchanging visits and generous hospitalities North and South in a permanent and peaceful Union.
“No vision of the morrow’s strife
The warrior’s dream alarms,
No braying horn, nor screaming fife,
At dawn shall call to arms.”
A re-established Union saves us from the wars and the military despotism in which other republics have perished, and all can unite now in the following beautiful tribute to the dead heroes:
“By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where blades of the green grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the one, the blue,
Under the other, the gray.
“These, in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat;
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet.
“From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers,
Alike for the friend and the foe.
“So, when the summer calleth,
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain.
“Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won.
“No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead.
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the blue,
Tears and love for the gray.”—F. M. Finch.
The Gospel of Peace has been illustrated in a Chattanooga Journal by a beautiful incident, the meeting of the blue and gray in church, during the war as follows:
“At the bar banquet given Saturday night in honor of Judges Key and Trewhitt, Mr. Templeton of Knoxville related an incident which occurred during the war at a revival service held by his father in North Georgia.
“About the time that Sherman was driving Johnson toward Atlanta,” said he, “some time in the early part of August, 1864, my father was conducting a revival at a little house called Pine Log Creek Church, about ten miles from Calhoun. The times were most terrible about then; murder, robbery and rapine were of daily occurrence, and the whole country was subject to visitations by marauding parties from both armies. One day the old gentleman was preaching a sermon of unusual power, and before he had gotten well under way a gang of Confederate soldiers rode up, and, dismounting out back of the church, asked if they might be admitted to the church. Of course they were cordially invited in, and took prominent seats in the church.
“Not long afterward a cloud of dust was seen in the road from the opposite direction to what the rebels had come, and pretty soon the tramp of horses’ hoofs was heard, and it was soon discovered that it was a squad of Federal troops, and before the Confederates in the church could be apprised of the approach, they had ridden up to the door. Perceiving that religious services were being held, they alighted and asked to be admitted. They were told that there were Confederate soldiers in the church, but they insisted on going in, and they were admitted.
“Naturally the strange spectacle created some consternation in the congregation, and for a time it seemed as if the confusion would break up the meeting. But my father raised his voice and began most fervently to plead a better life, beseeching his soldier hearers to become religious and abandon their sins. He preached with unusual force and power, the strange scene lending him inspiration. When he had concluded his sermon, as was the custom then, he invited those who were converted to come forward to the mourner’s bench and pray and talk with him on the all-important subject.
“Then it was that one of the grandest sights ever witnessed occurred. Those soldiers, enemies to each other, engaged in a bloody war, arose as one man, friend and foe together, and marched to the front of the church and kneeled together, Confederate by Federal, their muskets joining and crossing each other; their revolvers touching each other as they kneeled; their heads bowed upon the same altar, and their tears mingling almost in their deep contrition and profound feeling. All animosities were forgotten, all strife forgotten—they were together as brothers around a common altar.
“After the service they met on the outside of the church, shook hands, pledged fraternity, and each party went off, taking opposite directions. They had been looking for each other, perhaps with murderous intent. They found each other, but they separated with love instead of hate, friendly instead of angry.”