WAR-MORE FOLLY THAN CRIME
Pinkham, Henry W.
WAR — MORE FOLLY THAN CRIME "War is Fool's Business...It Does Not Deserve Ethical Rating. . . To Call it Wrong is to Flatter it" By Henry W. Pinkham 4 DIBTTNOOIBHKD publicist has latehr...
...Both these men sacrificed their lives that you and I, and—indiscriminately—the thousands that jammed Madison Square Garden for a last look at a "great man," might benefit thereby...
...Chiefly this...
...At present, not in governments but in peoples, in the common sense and common decency of the common men, is our hope for peace...
...Not such a difficult trick: after all...
...it makes me sick...
...I. The urgency of the present situation, according to H. G. Wells, "a race between education and catastrophe," calls for a fresh examination of the alleged "function" of war...
...Our fathers in the thirteen colonies had real grievances against the British government, and the Declaration of Independence is a noble sta'.emeiit of the rights of man...
...He trimmed ths rich yokels good and plenty and he made them like it...
...Something can be said for ths killing by authorized agent* of society of those who have intentionally taken human Bis...
...If men are trying to put out s fire by throwing gasoline on it, it is well to stop them whether a supply of water to be substituted for the gasoline is available at the time or not...
...But it is true in the present...
...Unfortunately Bp: ing in war is approximately lift for je...
...Civil war in the sense of a violent clash between classes or factions within a single nation is not a serious world problem today...
...None of the heroes prepared for suffering and sacrifice, none of the common herd ready for service and obedience will be Inclined to listen to ths call of their country once they discover ths polluted sources from whence that call proceeds and recognize the monstrous finger of falsehood which beckons them to the battlefield...
...Many of : the old war lies survived for several years, and some survive even to this day...
...Why not...
...Benjamin Franklin said as much long . Absas^r tftavs saw tsabfltxtt agsnstas for Ooort o* ArWtratton...
...Paul...
...The World War was a demonstration—a sufficient one, it is to be hoped—that either civilisation will destroy war, or war will destroy civfHxation...
...To call tt wrong is ts Sat** ft as a fool b flattered when yes sal to* a knave...
...I understand he had his private pension list Maybe he did...
...The Biggest Sport Kicks The Bucket By Gertrude Weil Klein THERE has been almost as much written about Tex Rickard since his death as there was about Lindbergh when he completed his flight across the Atlantic...
...But the thorough-going peace-maker denies that such condition ever did or ever will exist...
...The secession of the Southern States was j detestable...
...Certainly the normal human being has no insatiable longing for the experiences of modern warfare...
...Not to be fools...
...This is no plea that lies should not be used in wartime, but a demonstration of how lies must be used in war-time...
...If our object in entering the Wojld War was to make the world safe for democracy, then we failed miserably...
...International war makes violence and bloodshed familiar and seemingly honorable, and withal produces desperate conditions...
...It was not necessary to elaborate an electortal system, although that was done as tans want an, and every such system is still far from perfect...
...For the present has produced something new...
...The chance to be blown in pieces by a gun fired miles away or by a bomb dropped from the sky, or to be consumed by murderous gas, or so be disemboweled by a bayonet, is not, in itself considered, irresistibly alluring...
...The pending multilateral treaty has been welcomed and praised by almost ev| evry government in the world...
...that if an old pal down on his luck went to Rickard with his palm out, hed go away emptyhanded...
...It Is to" commit sui| cide in order not to die of smallpox...
...Our CJvfl War was virtually an international war, being waged by two well organised governments, each in control of its own extensive territory...
...In this condition there is great promise...
...And there you have it...
...Christians kill Christians, sssbgjgj with the blessing of its clergy whs bxS the name of Christ, the Prince of tSm The word that fits such conduct a togal by...
...The Lies Men Die For Falsehood and Deceit Found Indispensible in War From the Introduction to "Falsehood in War-Time" By Arthur Ponsonby, M.P...
...By no means...
...He never gave another promoter a chance to get a foothold...
...Maybe his game was honest...
...If in order to rid the earth of a angj er it were necessary to kill somt tfarSjht and useful citizen at the tarae that, ton it is safe to say, capital pnnshasst go> tainly would have few defenders, fej every bad "Hun" that was slain cast (bj life of some good man, say, an gagfljhtf man, or a Frenchman, or an fimtrtrm The winning line of attack teas Sat is not ts depict the horror of it, asMi denounce it as wicked, bat simply to gen* ¦nstrsle its futility and waste, ts past oat its on alterable stupidly...
...And we won...
...The colonists were by no means unanimous in demanding Independence...
...Our secession from England was admirable...
...WSF.ft worse ban a crime: H is a Manser...
...It did not free the slaves, except on paper...
...It did not save the Union, except in outward form...
...It certainly should not go unanswered...
...For generations they were waged in the name of Christ and His Church...
...The truth about war has been disseminated as never before...
...more especially in Prance, to high expectations and consequent indignation ' when it was found that the people who raised this slogan knew ¦ all the time it , was a fantastic impossibility...
...Civilized men have learned to curb Impatience and passion sufficiently to employ a reasonable method, like reasonable beings, of accomplishing their will...
...Thousands U'xjn thoufcsnds of words regimented into columns of type to tell the world the story of Tex Rickard, I tell you...
...would find himself in gaol very quickly...
...He could and did outbid everybody else tor any kind of a worthwhile match...
...honest, home-loving workbaj men kill honest, home-loving workbgi men...
...Probably none could do otherwise without incurj ring the amazed wrath of its people...
...It was our kind, back one hundred years or so ago, who struggled and fought for free sou,oatlan for the masses...
...War lies have been exposed...
...Less costly and more effective methods of changing the status quo are now generally used simply because common sense has revolted*" against the foolishness of violence...
...A modicum will suffice...
...Their logic was unimpeachable...
...who so far as his regard for, or interest in...
...Ths good amem at as of turns an •raOabte to any nation anan ta^^wtixtaTof ttttr perZ pies than for tbstr own pride and for that vague, miilirflnaWs thing oaAsd national boner, tbsy can maintain peace...
...Front page stuff, too...
...If the World War removed certain grievances, it created twice as many new ones...
...When all the other thrills have become mere tickles, there's still quite a kick in a private pension list and the heavy philanthropists go in for them quite regularly...
...He was always affable to, newspaper men, always had a story, always was good copy...
...They ended in 1645 and there is no danger of their return...
...Radicals and reformers...
...The wsy to abolish war is to stand) ft...
...The intensity of the lying was mitigated after 1918, although fresh crops came up in connection with other of our international relations...
...But there is not a living soul in any country who doss not deeply resent having his passions roused, his indignation inflamed, his patriotism exploited, and his highest ideals desecrated by concealment subterfuge, fraud, falsehood, trickery...
...Victors and vanquished have suffered and are suffering and will suffer on the whole in equal measure...
...It should be added that decisions so made are likely to be unmade by further war,"*that they have no relevancy to justice, and that they involve an Immeasurable and irreparable less to justice, and that they involve an immeasurable and irreparable loss, a less in human life which is the most precious thing in the world...
...This has not been true in the past...
...Nor is the average man strongly Inclined to bestow such boons, if he can, upon fellowmen whom he never saw before, against whom he has not the shadow of a grievance except that they happened to be born under another flag than his...
...In wsr'agJ men kfll good men: choiee youth mm universities kin choice youth front ej§| versitle...
...The idea that war is sought for Its own sake as affording the release of certain subjective impulses clamoring for expression is sheer nonsense...
...Certain revolutionary leaders had private reasons, not altogether creditable, for desiring a change of government...
...All the cases mentioned are well known to those who were in authority, less well known to those primarily affected, and unknown, unfortunately, to the millions who fell...
...Any other method of effecting change was preferable to that...
...and underhand way*, except that they would at once be expelled from decent society...
...Anyone declaring the truth: "WhetheT you are right or wrong, whether you win or lose, in no circumstances can war help you cr your country...
...That reason is the widespread recognition of the fact that violence within a nation is injurious to all parties, that it breeds more violence, and that it is no ^maranty of improvement...
...That seems a rasa* requirement, perhaps not too muck ft ask of the rulers of the United BtfM the sovereign people...
...Plenty of money and plenty of ballyhoo...
...assstos ¦aid that rulers would refrain fraa WS if they knew their own interests: "tbgf men will honest, home-loving wcrccx* beta is preferable to a corpse...
...So spoke President Wilson at his intellectual and moral best, a year before he succumbed to the pressure for war...
...The habit of seeking political and social changes by the method of electioneering rather than by violence is not the bottom reason for the present infrequency of Internal wars...
...It does not tiaii n tflbsl rating...
...South in withdrawing from the Union...
...Governments too often art in large part the instruments by which privileged classes take advantage of ths masses...
...If the truth were told from the outset, there would be no reason and no will for war...
...All this., of course, is very mild, and there would be no specially dire consequences if people were to behave in such an inconceivably caddish, low...
...I'm not saying, mind you...
...No equivalents need be sought, AO that is necessary is common sense and tbJBM of it...
...The myth of a guilty nation, once so widely accepted, has been exploded by expert investigators...
...Lippmann presents a long list of 1 the causes of war...
...i There is nothing sensational in ths way of revelations contained in these pages...
...It glorified war i :n the minds of the American people and went far...
...It will not be easy to fool the peoples again and persuade them that some new war is necessary and righteous...
...It has not been necessary to wait fifty years for the opening of sealed archives before the facts regarding responsibility for the catastrophe of 1914 could be published...
...Maybe this tight-lipped, cold-eyed, poker-faced man didn't get himself mixed up with such a dirty crowd as were the late Rothstein's confreres, but he wss nevertheless, Just a born gambler with a flair for publicity...
...Certainly It was no crookeder than in the old days when all that was necessary for a fight was a draughty hall, some broken down chairs and a couple of fighters...
...Some of the finest families in Masaachu- i setts, their property confiscated, found refuge in Halifax...
...One hail better take a chance with smallpox : which is by no means always fatal In the nature of the ease, human life being \ the ground of all values, collective homicide—an exactly descriptive term for war | —Is the most injurious course that can be ! chosen, whatever the circumstances...
...Governments make war for the supposed interests of favored classes or groups, ss well as for their own prestige...
...One was the Japanese ¦ scientist Dr...
...He made hit show expensive enough to enable ths rich yokels to give it their patronage with propriety and even swank, ones, ths proletarian among the sports, patronised chiefly by the proletarians, it became an aristocrat, or at least a noveau riche, under -Rickard s tutelage...
...based on mutual concession if not mutual condonation—the two things for which Pope Benedict, being a Christian, had pleaded that summer...
...to make us ready for the wars in which we have since engaged...
...There are some who object to war because of its immorality, there are some who shrink from the arbitrament of arms because of its Increased cruelty and barbarity...
...and deliberately lying on the part of those in whom he is taught to repose confidence and to whom he is enjoined to pay respect...
...The ¦World War made the world war-weary, and governments are obliged to recognize | that fact...
...Never again...
...Many of the samples given in the assortment are international, but some are : exclusively British, as these are more easi ily found "and investigated, and, after all, we are more concerned with our own government and press methods and our own national honor than with the duplicity of 1 other governments...
...Their passing was hardly noticed...
...One was a success and we glorify it...
...Does sny one think that 8weden ought to have made war on Norway—in Lincoln's phrase—"too ssve the Union...
...the great, died...
...It embittered, Iceiir.g toward the mother-country, feel- j ing which even to this day demagogues j deliberately Inflame to divert attention j from their own rascality...
...It was simply the common sense of common people which, often despite the logic of the learned, discerned the irrelevance and futility of physical force in the realm of religion...
...That war suspended democracy in every belligerent country and was followed by a widespread flouting of demoracy, a scornful repudiation of individual liberty, and the violent setting up of dictatorships...
...The opinions we hold regarding our own cherished wars, with their "heroes like Washington, Lincoln and Lee," afford the acid test of the intelligence with which we are devoted to the cause of peace, as we all claim to be...
...Without special investigation on the spot, the career of particular lies cannot be fully set out...
...Vow I ask you can you tie it...
...It greatly intensified the antagonism of whites and blacks...
...Nogouchi (undoubtedly I've misspelled bis name, it's been in print so rarely) and the other was the American ex-ray specialist (to my shame, I don't even'remember his name...
...If the enconrnms that have bean heaped on him were congratulations for bis honesty, than all of us who to keep outside of Jail should bs clapping aach other on the back...
...Governments have gone to war with other governments...
...For one thing, though, he may bs entitled to a medal...
...It has produced science...
...But I can't let it go at that...
...For at arty rats gasoline will only make the fixe worse, So collective homicide only makes bad human relationships still worse...
...To Call it Wrong is to Flatter it" By Henry W. Pinkham 4 DIBTTNOOIBHKD publicist has latehr affirmed the necessity of * political equivalent of war, if war is to be abolished...
...Revolutions in several countries fallowed the Immense disaster of the World War...
...Bernard Shaw said to tat sgaj of the World War...
...As a part of a larger whole, perhaps we might have emancipated the slaves without bloodshed...
...That there are individual exceptions to this proposition is evidently held by those who justify capital punishment...
...Bilge and garbage...
...Intemational wars of religion may be adduced in this connection with greater pertinence and profit than internal wars...
...Tax Mekard told out la a tls.OM casket has a public funeral because the yokels have learned to read and write...
...All I feel like saying is: "Dead...
...Tbawft no glamor about these legal rftthsaW ardent competition for the bsngw2t# electrocutioner's job...
...War is always a prerlsmstinrt of the bankruptcy of ttotsamanttrtn...
...Outside of governments International organisations to promote common interests of civilised folk through wide-ranging Investigation and discussion and through cooperation are numerous and are multiplying...
...But between nations, where the consequences are vital, where the destiny of countries and provinces hangs in the balance, the lives and fortunes of millions are affected and civilization itself is menaced, the most upright men honestly believe that there is no depth of duplicity to which they may not legitimately stoop...
...It checked the progress the colonists were malting...
...New in| ternational agencies are not at all a prior necessity, although they are desirable and will appear in good time if war is abandoned...
...Is took' business...
...And do yen know who's to biamt for it all...
...The thing that gets me is that such men live almost unknown and die almost unnoticed, while the Rickards and the Valentinos get wealth and acclaim while they live and public funerals when they die...
...They have got to do it...
...Lies told in other countries are also dealt with in cases where it has been possible to collect sufficient data...
...In war-time, failure to lie is negligence, the doubting of a lie a misdemeanor, the declaration of the truth a crime...
...And what do they read...
...Walter IJppmann's argument (Atlantic Monthly, August, 1928) is as plausible as it is mistaken...
...Was it some new institution or agency, some "equivalent" method, devised by a clever ecclesiastical Lippmann, of establishing the truth of theological propositions and winning the acceptance of them...
...suffering humanity or even the plain cabbage-patch variety of humanity, want, was a complete zero...
...there are a growing number who protest against this method, at the outset known to be unsuccessful, of attempting to settle international disputes because of its imbecility and futility...
...a World Oesjrt, a Lescns of Rations...
...It has come to pass that multitudes are immune to war madness...
...war-time, they will be more disposed to sympathize with them as victims than condemn them as criminals, because they will understand that their crime only consisted in obedience to the dictates of authority and i acceptance of what their government and press represented to them as the truth, i * * * | The period covered is roughly the four i years of the war...
...It postponed their real emancipation we cannot rell how long...
...I dont know enough about tt to say...
...Referring to ths multilateral treaty of peace, he could not "take seriously" any project of "peace that makes •no provision for the development of agencies of tntrmsUmf' government to supersede "the present intemational anarchy" Mr...
...The impossibility of removing them all seems evident...
...What stopped them...
...50.00 was nothing for a ringside seat, and ringside might as well have been called seaside, for the fight was way out beyond the horizon somewhere and all you got was ths thunder of the waves ss it rose from the sea of humans about you...
...Did it in fact promote those ends, or did it retard them...
...But there is only one underlying cause, and I the removal of that can be speeded up ' Indefinitely...
...In the United States such inquiry may well deal especially with the two wars so generally considered both noble and advantageous, the Revolution and the Civil War...
...Our squalid wax with Spain" —thus William James referred to that...
...It is to weep...
...The ! mischief done by the false cry "Make Germany Pay" continued after 1918 and ' led...
...It was a failure, a mistake, a disaster...
...And collective homicide is the institution which, according to Mr...
...Imagine two large country houses containing large families with friends and relations...
...Said one sovereign: "If God is going to burn the heretics in hell forever, why should I not bum them here and now?** Wars of religion are now obsolete throughout Christendom...
...To resort to it as a method of improving the status quo is to jump from the fryingpan into the fire...
...Impoverishment, debt, unemployment, unstable money, anxiety and fear, the lesson has been driven home to the common people far and wide that war does not pay...
...Since the Armistice of 1918, peace organizations hare multiplied in many countries...
...Peoples are becoming acquainted with each other as never before...
...When the members of the family of the one house stay in the other, the butler is Instructed to open all the letters they receive and send and inform the host of their contents, to listen at the keyhole, and tap the telephone...
...That ttsn do not need to be good, goners**, s> interested, public-spirited, hniaiat lb* may be unjust, greedy, patting ttwb ssj interests above everything etae...
...On the contrary, it made a deep and wide chasm between the two sections, a chasm that sixty years have not obliterated...
...When the people of one country understand how the people irr another country are duped, like themselves, in...
...G. Lowes Dickinson goes further: "If mankind does not end war, war will end mankind...
...The Mexican War is generally regarded as disgraceful...
...The other was a failure and we condemn it...
...Not hard hearts bwt anssbf heads, shallow thinking, aserafcal %*• eenlance of false tradition, rtuM b blamed for perststance of war...
...The war was a drain on the wealth and the human stock cf both countries...
...Public schools...
...The case against wax rests finally on the single postulate, which few will deny, that, generally speaking, a living human being is preferable to a corpse...
...New governments were set up in some cases with hardly any violence, based on the will of the overwhelming majority...
...It is Irrationality wgtoa stint or limit...
...He sank enough money Into the prixe-flghting game to prevent anybody else from having a lookin...
...He had unlimited funds at his command, many millionaire friends who knew he bad a sure thing and were willing to bask him...
...In other cases there was strife and bloodshed, but nowhere anything approaching the destriuctiveness of the wax that had preceded...
...At least' until war has been abolished there can be no such government...
...Norway separated peaceably from Sweden a few years ego...
...Had the United States kept out of that war...
...III...
...We got public schools and compulsory education and now everybody can read...
...Our Revolution, conversely, despite the separating ocean, may properly be called a civil war, being a rebellion against the lawful government...
...Whereas, therefore, in the past we have used the word "broadcast" symbolically as meaning the efforts of the press and individual reporters, in future we must use the word literally, since falsehood can now be circulated universally, scientifically and authoritatively...
...But there were able and earnest champions of America in England...
...is the watchword In many languages, of many persons, in ! many lands...
...Well, what of It...
...The more horrible war is and the more violently it outrages human nature, the more credit is due to men for waging it, if and when it is in truth the only available means of achieving supremely important goods, or realizing noble ideals...
...Lippmann, there is no hope of abolishing unto a "political equivalent" has been substituted for ltl II...
...To be sure, the secession of Panama from Columbia was justified— i according to our government, which did not delay for a single hour in recogniz- I ing Panama's independence...
...What has given to Rickard this fame...
...That human nature craves war is s fantastic notion originating in the study, not on the battle-field...
...A similar appreciation on the part of common people of the irrelevance and futility, the vast destructiveness and abysmal folly, of collective homicide as a political method, win likewise put an end to international wars for the purposes for which they are now waged...
...Although only a small part of the vast field of falsehood is covered, it may suffice to show how the unsuspecting innocence of the masses in all countries was ruthlessly and systematically exploited...
...Headlines in all the papers...
...They were sincerely supported by wise and good men who deemed it a duty to suppress soul-destroying heresy by exterminating incorrigible heretics...
...These are not the kind of giving I'm talkine about, but the giving of one's best thought and energy toward' making life more bearable for the poor unfortunates of this earth...
...I speak as a Northerner, disregarding the sentiment still common in the South...
...In future wars we have now to look forward to a new and far more efficient instrument of propaganda—the Government control of broadcasting...
...Here was a man...
...By going into the war we prolonged it a fatal year and a half, till European civilization tottered on the brink of ruin...
...Governments have their powi erful military and naval departments, the ! personnel of which love the cause of peace quite as the silversmiths of Ephesus loved the religion of St...
...T ET us attempt a very faint and inadequate analog*, between the conduct of nations and the conduct of individuals...
...No people ever went to war with another people...
...Granted that war has been resorted to by sincere men for good ends...
...Just within the last year, two men,: whose achievements rank them among...
...Ballot* were in use long before there were any bullets...
...Of the Civil War one may speak with more posiliveness...
...Distance, once so scrims a barrier between peoples, has been practically annihilated by modern invention...
...When a great match, say a cricket match, that excites the whole district, is played between them, those who are not present are given false reports of the game to make them think the side they favor is winning, the other side is accused of cheating and foul play, and scandalous reports are circulated about the head of the family and the hideous goings on in the other house...
...War b ffitoagM that it is indiscriminate, wholesale KB ing, and Is full of glory...
...Voting to some fashion has come down from time rsirnemortal...
...The thing can- ¦ not go on without the help of lies...
...Here are two cases of rebellion and secession...
...And then the smart newspaper boys helped him do the rest...
...Governments being what they are, the insistence that before war between the nations will be abolished there must be "an international government strong enough to preserve order and wise enough to welcome changes in that order" is a counsel of despair...
...it !s probable that peace would have been made in the summer of 1917...
...wt ssk ask that they shall not bs iosts...
...The principle of self-determination, which President Wilson stressed in treating of Eu- - ropean conditions, seems to warrant the...
...George Harvey in lilt, sjlk thai ethical insight which sp was Wmt him to select Presidents for tat TJhKM States: "Our chief duty before Mai man is to kill Huns...
...No thoroughly civittsed country, with a guv eminent even half-way decent and a population that can read, needs to fear a violent revolution except, indeed, as a consequence of international war...
...To call war "one of the ways by which great human decisions are made," Is not to tell the whole truth...
...Once they had resolved to be done with Woodshed fa the ordering of tbstr fl"tiiw|lf boMUcal tsteji tbar* was no difficulty la finding ft PSstoasMs pstttieal method...
...In bitter yean of bereavement...
...What might have been is conjecture, but it is not unreasonable to think that if we had continued politically attached to England . we should have avoided the war of 1812...
...Just what did his amazing genius consist of...
...That ultimate cause Is the ! belief, until recently well nigh univer- j sal, that wax Is a method, and not sel- ' dom the only available method by which precious human values can be conserved and human progress achieved...
...But it Is peoples rather than | governments that possess a genuine will j for peace...
...The one and only thing indispensable, bowever, was - the firm determination1 to be done with blood strife...
...Here was a man who never made a move, never did a thing, never bad a plan or an idea—so far as you and I and the rest of us were concerned—which wasn't tied up with money-making...
...The longer iS the more firmly I am convinced tbjragf other planets use our earth at tbarh> naUc asylum" Dean Inge, looking bag upon the incredi table war years, mm) "We were all stark mad together.1' * I War would not be so prepostvoto £g were only the "enemy" that perbsgi Said Mr...
...That would have been a "peace without victory...
Vol. 7 • January 1928 • No. 56
