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There is one complication in the work of peacemaking which has not been sufficiently considered. It is the recurrence of Youth. I have listened to the arguments against war at a great Peace Congress. The reasoning was strong, the statement of facts conclusive. War was shown to be cruel and foolish, and incredibly expensive. The audience, consisting of right-minded and very intelligent people, was convinced of the justice of the cause of Peace. Why, then, does not the cause triumph?
In such cases I am in the habit of looking about with the intent to fix the responsibility where it belongs, on those who were not at the meeting. Mature life was well represented, but there was a suspicious absence of young men in the twenties. Ah! I said, there is the difficulty. We can’t be sure of lasting peace until we make it more interesting to these young absentees. They’ll all be peace men by and by, but meanwhile there is no knowing what trouble they may get us into.
John Fiske traced the influence which the prolongation of infancy has had on the progress of civilization. I am inclined to think that equally great results would flow from any discovery by which the period of middle age could be prolonged beyond its present term. War would be abolished without any more ado. A uniformly middle-aged community would be immune from any attack of militant fever.
It happens, however, that every once in a while the hot passions of youth carry all before them. The account of what happened at the beginning of the civil wars in Israel is typical. King Rehoboam called a meeting of the elder statesmen of his kingdom. They outlined a policy that was eminently conciliatory. But we are told, “He forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him and which stood by him.”
That’s the difficulty! The hardest thing about a good policy is to get it accepted by the people who have the power. What avails the wisdom of the old men when all the young men are “spoiling for a fight?” Something more is needed than statesman-like plans for strengthening the framework of civilization. You may have a fireproof structure, but you are not safe so long as it is crammed with highly inflammable material.
There is a periodicity in the passion for war. It marks the coming into power of a new generation. A quarter of a century from now “the good gray poet” Rudyard Kipling may be singing sweet lyrics of peace. All things come in time. The Kipling we know simply utters the sentiments of “the young men brought up with him.” What he has been to his contemporaries Tennyson was to the generation before. Kipling never wrote a more scornful arraignment of peace or a more passionate glorification of war than Tennyson’s “Maud.”
We are listening to the invective of a youth whose aspirations have been crushed and ideals shattered by a civilization that seems to him to be soulless. He has seen something which to him is infinitely more cruel than the battle between contending hosts
Why do they prate of the blessings of peace? we have made them a curse,
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;