Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1917 — Nation Cannot Risk Its Future on the Hope of a Permanent Peace [ARTICLE]

Nation Cannot Risk Its Future on the Hope of a Permanent Peace

By HOWARD H. GROSS,

President Universal Military Training League

The world is sick of war. Every right-minded person will rejoice when peace comes. The monstrousness of soaking a world with human blood and tears to further the ambition of a war-mad kaiser is stupefying—it is appalling beyond expression. Words fail utterly to voice the horror o. it all. May God hasten the dawn of peace,- — We must not be deluded, however, with the hope of a permanent peace. There are not sufficient grounds for ; which we may have a reasonable hope. Tor a thousand years those who have suffered by war and realized the awfulness of it said wars must cease. In enthusiasm they phophesied enduring peace. After a few years or a generation later, history shows that war again raged. CentralJEurope has been drenched with blood time and time again, and now, in this twentieth century, when civilization was supposed to be at high-wAter mark, comes the most awful war of all—a war unapproached in horror, in cruelty, in brutality and suffering. So long as human nature remains selfish; so long as there are nations that are ambitious and whose purpose is a “place in the sun;” so long as population presses and there is need for more room; so long wars will be. Trade expansion brings intense commercial rivalry, and with it come controversies, some of which will lead to war. Let us hope that a league to enforce peace will be established. Let us hope it will Work and let us hope that it will endure, but do not let us risk the future of our great country for anything so uncertain, so problematical and so visionary. Being ourselves honest and peace-loving did not keep us out of this war, nor will it the next one. War does not depend upon the purpose or the attitude of the pacific, but upon that of the bellicose. If as a nation we are strong and ready, with our incomparable resources no nation would be so foolish as to force war upon us. If weak, we invite attack because of our wealth and helplessness; In a world where there are nations that classify as pirates, whose moral code is that “might is right,” where treaties are scraps of paper, nations that, like necessity, know no law, there is but one safe and sane plan to intrust with our peace and tranquility, and that plan is to be at aH times prepared and ready to defend ourselves. I here is but one wav to do this and that is the adoption as our permanent policy, universal military training and service. Then we can call, if heed be, millions of men to the colors, men who have been trained in the fundamentals of warfare and able to meet upon even terms any foe that may attack us.