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World Affairs Institute

Irredeemable BarbarismReviewed work(s):Source: The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920), Vol. 61, No. 5 (MAY 1899), pp. 99-100Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25751361 .

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VOL. LXI. BOSTON, MAY, 1899. No. 5.THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY

Publishers,no. 3 somerset street, boston, mass.MONTHLY, ONE DOLLAR PER YEAR.

CONTENTS. page.Editorials . 99?103Irredeemable Barbarism?Roosevelt on the Strenuous

Life?Military Government.Editorial Notes.. 103?109Annual Meeting?Secretary's Absence?Delegates toThe Hague?House in theWood?John Morley's Letter?English Crusade Closes?Dr. Abbott's BostonAddress?Fifth Tremont Temple Meeting?Crusadein Baltimore?Protest against Philippine Policy?Tolstoy's Letter?Cost of Aggression?Peace withSpain?A Soldier's Opinion?British Editors to Continental Press?Events in the Philippines?PeaceWork inWorcester?Harvard-Princeton Debate.Bbevities. 109In Gladstone's Day and Now, Hezekiah Butterworth. 110Labor's Contribution to Peace, Samuel Gompers . . 110Women's Work for Peace. 112Development of the Peace Ideal, Julia Ward Howe. 112Let us Demand the Uttermost, Mary A. Livermore. 113Count Tolstoy's Opinion of the Czar's Conference. . . 115The President's Opportunity. . . . . 117A Cruel Blow at Independence. 117The Duty ofAmerica. 117

Irredeemable Barbarism.Each war that comes along adds so much more

proof?not a different kind, but so much more inquantity?that the evil can never be changed incharacter. War is 6'the business of hell", as John

Wesley said, and it cannot be made like heaven.It is "cruelty", as General Sherman declared, andthe cruelty can never be taken out of it. It is "thebusiness of barbarians", as Napoleon in a sanemoment confessed, and when professedly civilizedmen engage in it, the barbarousness of it is notrelieved but becomes all the more evident. Untilwarriors quit shooting, stabbing with the bayonet,throwing shrieking shells, rushing in furious charges,bombarding cities,?until the sinuous, lying arts ofstrategy are abandoned, and hate and vengeance aredead, war will remain in essence, so long as any ofit remains at all, the same brutal thing that it has

always been. Take all these away, and you willhave civilized war?out of existence.A littlewhile agowe werewritingof theghastlyhorrors on the shattered and burning Spanish warships at the battles of Manila and Santiago. ButAmerica shut her eyes and said it was all rightbecause she had done it. Then came the story ofthe merciless mowing down of the Dervishes in theSoudan by General Kitchener's troops, and thewholesale killing of thewounded on thebattlefieldof Omdurman. A part of England, a very smallpart, confounded and humiliated, uttered a low cryof shame and protest. But that was all. Englandsaid itwas all right, magnificent, glorious ! It wasdone for righteousness' sake I And the low cry ofshame and protest in which the voice of God washeard was stifled by the great cry of imperial selfishness going up throughout he land. It ishard tobelieve in God, to believe in civilization, to believein anything good, in the presence of such exhibitionsin His name. If God is in them, inspiring them,?but He is not in them. He must be sought elsewhere. It is by other agencies, despised andrejected of men, thatHe isworking out the foundations of His kingdom in themidst of a crooked andperverse generation, and one of these days all these"glorious" American and British deeds of blood willbe burned up as trash and never mentioned again toall eternity.In the Philippines civilization has lost its intelligence, its conscience, its heart. It has reverted topure barbarism. It is hard to look at the cold factsin the case, as they are becoming known throughseveral channels, and not sympathize with the poorsoldier,?out there against his will, doing deeds atthe command of the government, of his "superiors",the blackness of which he will never be able toefface from his soul?who writes home to his family

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100 THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. Mav.that he is "ashamed that he is an American." Thewar itself, brought on by a policy of aggression, isblack enough, even if none of the reports are trueabout the killing of non-combatants, and the "takingof no prisoners." But the proofs of these deeds aretoo many and too circumstantial to leave any doubtabout the essential correctness of the reports, except in the minds of those who are determined tosee nothing but good in it all, even if the Americanforces kill all the natives and burn to ashes everyvillage in the islands.The whole story is an appalling one, and thetime will come when America would give her righthand to be able to blot out the remembrance of thecrime and dishonor of it. The chief degradationof it is not that of the men who under orders arekilling prisoners, and non-combatants, burning everyvillage they can get at, recklessly shelling everyinhabited or uninhabited spot along the shorewhere a Filipino soldier is suspected to be in hiding.The real degradation is that of the spirit of agreat and mighty nation which is too false toitself and too cowardly to rise up and confess thewrong and insist that it shall be at once righted,so far as that is now possible.

Roosevelt on the Strenuous Life.A friend writes us thus in reference to GovernorRoosevelt's speech, delivered in Chicago on April10th: "It seems tome that it is thoroughly tinctured with dangerous virus. Governor Rooseveltought to have lived about five hundred years ago.

He is a survival of the militant stage of civilization. . . . The whole spirit of his address is pernicious. It is dangerous to all the best interests to havesuch a man as this stirring up the militant passionsof the youth of our land. Is it only in war andbattle that there are chances of living a strenuouslife ? And, then, his advice to black-list themenwho do not support militarism, who differ from hisextravagant military schemes, is a most outrageousassault upon individual liberty, the right of free debate. It is the application of the policy of intimidation and boycott to our public life."Nobody can deny that Mr. Roosevelt's Chicago

speech was brilliant and in a way powerful. Theadroitness of its appeal to the selfish passions, whichare most easily aroused, was masterful. The enthusiasmevoked by itwas of thatwild kindwhichonly such an appeal ever awakens. It was interlarded with enough excellent sentiments, enoughexhortation to civic honesty and advocacy of "neverwronging one's neighbor", to give it an enticingflavor of conscience. But, on the whole, itwas oneof the most mischievous speeches delivered in thiscountry in recent years, as the writer of the letterabove quoted from indicates.

In the first place, the whole speech was built upupon misrepresentation. The friends of peace arenot preachers of "the doctrine of ignoble ease", ashe slanderously insinuates that they are. They donot "shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil", nor do they advise others to do so. "Timidpeace", "ignoble counsels of peace", "prattlers whosit at home in peace", are expressions having nomeaning when applied to them. Peace is not synonymous with laziness, sensuality, cowardice, fear.The friends of peace do shrink from butcheringtheir fellowmen, from burning and laying wasteproperty, from the promiscuous destruction ofwomen and children, from the hatred and furiousnessevoked by battle, from the loathsome pollutions ofcamp life, from the vulgarity and profanity of them616e of fightingwhich the Governor of New Yorkknows all about, from crushing the hearts and hopesout of their fellowmen by the awful strain laid uponthem and their homes by war requisitions. Theyabhor these things as heroically as Mr. Rooseveltseems to welcome them. But they advocate, asearnestly as he or anyone else, "the necessity ofworking for a livelihood", of "carrying on somekind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters,in art, in exploration, in historical work?work ofthe type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor uponthe nation." They go beyond this, and urge andpractice, some in one way, some in another, heroicself-sacrifice for the good of others in every quarterof the globe. Not one of them advocates that weshould "be content to rot by inches in ignoble easewithin our borders, taking no interest inwhat goeson beyond." But they are opposed to themilitaristic rot and gangrene also. They all shrink fromcontemning, misrepresenting, wronging, robbingother, even weak, peoples. They shrink fromQuixotic "adventure*, from conquest by violence,from the satanic practice of going about likeroaring lions seeking whom they may devour. Butthey take the largest interest in their neighbors?not to ride boot and spur over them, but to helpthem and to respect and promote their rights.They are unwilling to "undertake the problem ofgoverning the Philippines", not because of the"trouble and expense", but because it is unspeakablywicked to do it as it is being done. They believe in "playing a great part in the world", butthey want this done in at least a half Christian andAmerican way. Governor Roosevelt knows thatwhat he says about those whom he styles "sillyhumanitarian prattlers who sit at home in peace" isthe baldest misrepresentation. He ought never toopen his mouth about honesty again until herepents of this great slander on which his speech isbuilt up.There is something amazing in the cool effrontery