Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association

by Intercollegiate Peace Association

THE WASTE OF WAR—THE WEALTH OF PEACE

In the worship 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 god 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 pronounce 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 god, 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. What is our boast of civilization, while we tolerate this devotion of so many men and so much of wealth to war? Is this not a sacrifice essentially pagan in spirit? Are we not still paying unrighteous homage to Mars?

Why, then, we ask, do nations make provision for war the first necessity of national life? Behold Russia. A few years ago, in time of famine, spending millions of money for war equipment when millions of her own peasantry were slowly starving for the lack of one dollar's worth of food per month. What motive impelled Russia to this heathen conduct? It was solely that Germany, France, England, Japan, and the United States had great armies and navies against which starving Russia must be prepared to defend herself. What dire stress compels England to-day to perpetuate her program of naval supremacy when she is struggling in the throes of budget difficulties which seem all but unsolvable? What is it that compels Germany and France to tax themselves until they fairly stagger under the burden of military expenditures? Naught other than a suicidal lust for military power. Naught other than the infatuation of the dizzy, competitive war dance of mutual destruction—each nation blindly driven by all, and all by each.

We as Americans profess to find in the conduct of Russia, in the militarism of England and Germany and France, examples of militarism run rampant. How our hearts have warmed within us when we have thought of our own republic as the happy envied nation, free from the burden of militarism! Our farmer has gone singing about his work, apparently not having to carry on his back a soldier, as does the European peasant. Our mechanic has freely plied his trade without thought of supporting a sailor. Yet how can we say that the United States in buying battleships and erecting coast defenses, in arming her soldiers with Krag-Jörgensens, has not been deprived of schools, colleges, and opportunities essential to happiness and prosperity? In a decade we have spent nearly a billion dollars on our navy alone. Yes, we have aped the military fashions of Europe and have set a new standard of military waste.

Verily our national advancement waits on militarism. Inland waterways should be improved; forests must be safeguarded; other natural resources of untold value should be conserved; millions of acres of desert lands should be improved; millions in swamps should be redeemed. The problem of the nation's food supply is becoming urgent; for its solution we must look more and more to scientific methods in agriculture. Yet contrast the support our government gives these vital interests with war's mighty drain on our treasury. Congress appropriated $648,000,000 for all expenditures in 1910. Of this amount $407,000,000 were appropriated for war expenditures and the glories of militarism. For this same year agriculture received for all its needs the comparatively paltry sum of $12,000,000. In spite of the fact that our nation is devoting two thirds of its enormous national expenditures to war, our militarists point to our vast national wealth and sneer at the niggardly mortals who object to spending it for guns.

It is evident that no nation is yet beyond the infatuation for display of the splendors of war, yet in every one there are signs of a new power that is coming upon us. All are thinking less of the glories of war—of the beat of the drum, of the rhythmic tread of regiments, of glittering sabers and of monster battleships—and are thinking more and more of the glories of peace, of thriving industries, of magnificent libraries, of comfortable homes, and of more efficient schools. Obviously, though we still possess a war spirit, we are seeing with a clearer vision that the waste of war is depriving us of the fullest measure of the wealth of peace. Our frame of mind is much the same as that of the ragged street urchin who, having lost his day's earnings, thinks of a hundred things which he might have spent it for. The same spirit is permeating every nation. The American manufacturer, the Russian peasant, the English mechanic, the German scientist, the French scholar, are all asking themselves, "Why need the world continue to carry this Atlantean burden of war?"

Already this sentiment has accomplished practically all that can be done in humanizing war. It has outlawed the dumdum bullet, it has enforced radical sanitary measures, it has neutralized the Red Cross and brought its ministrations to the relief of the sufferings of war. But humanized war is not the goal of this sentiment. As long as there is an increase of armaments there will be war; as long as the battle rages there will be waste and suffering. The same sentiment which has humanized war now demands war's abolition. It has already accomplished something toward this end in making the settlement of international disputes through arbitration more probable than war. What it has not accomplished is the discrediting of militarism. It has failed to stop the growth of armaments. Can we expect our regiments to find contentment in the irksome routine of training camp with never a thought of charging the enemy? Can we expect to man the seas with fleets of war just for gay parade and cruises around the world? Can we expect that our skilled gunners will be satisfied to practice, practice always, and never long for human targets? It is against arming nations for battle and tempting them to fight that the peace sentiment is rousing itself and is being organized. It is in this labor that peace societies the world over are performing valiant service. Their great mission is the creation of an intelligent public opinion, a force more potent than government itself.

What, for instance, was the purpose of the founder of this Intercollegiate Peace Association? Not, I take it, to give men a chance to win petty oratorical triumphs; not, I suppose, to bring together speakers to entertain such audiences as this—or to weary them. But their object must have been to set the men of our colleges to thinking on the great question of peace. In such ways are peace societies using the platform and the press to establish a firm basis for unity and peace throughout the world.