Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1890 — DREAM OF UNIVERSAL PEACE. [ARTICLE]

DREAM OF UNIVERSAL PEACE.

Foil Hope of It Being Realized Under Present Conditions. N.Y. Bun. *•- The Universal Peace Congress was opened at London yesterday, Air. David Dudley Field, of New Yorx, as presiding officer. Its designs are eminently . humane, Christian, reasonable, and, consistent with the theory of civilians ’ tion. War is barbarism, savagery; and j you can make nothing else of it. It is wholesale murder, with malice aforethought, and long and careful preparatlom . . . . ''2 j'~ Yet never before in the history of mankind has there been a period wnen the Christian world was so much occupied as it is now in making ready for war. Never before was the business of killing men reduced to so great scientific perfection. More thought in expended on the inspection and con<struction of engines of war than upon the implements of pe .oe. Physics, chemistry, mechanics, all arts and sciences are enlisted for the work of destruction. All Europe is armed to the teeth, and the appropriations most easily obtained from Parliaments are for increasing and strengthening the armaments. New and more powerful guns are invented to displace or supplement guns only recently invented and adopted. Armor grows thicker, Engineering advancement gives constantly increasing speed to vessels of war. New and m ire deadly explosives are brought into the service of the profession of slaughter. VVar rushes forward to seize electricity, the recent discoveries in light and sound, and every invention and improvement that contributes in any way to bring the powers of nature into the service of man. The whole machinery of civilization is brought under contribution to the savagery of war. Even in the Republic, though it is removed from the causes Of contention in tho Old World, we are spending money or getting ready for-war as never before since the settlement of our domestic conflict We are building up a new and great navy, with all the modern improvements. We are testing dynamite guns, pneumatic guns, torpedoes, and torpedo boats; and the strengthening of our defences is a policy upon which there is well nigh unanimous agreement among the people. In one quarter of the globe or another war is going on incessantly, and the chgmces of great conflicts between powers of Europe are always present to the minds of btatesmen. For us,too, there are pending difficulties over the fisheries which may become causes oi war with England. It is by no means impossible that the coming generation will be engaged in a bitter fight between the two brances of the English speaking people. Why else are we building forts and ships and manufacturing guns and torpedoes? If Europe, France will never abandon the thought of avenging Sedan and the capture of Alsace and Lorraine and Russia will not desist from its purpose of advancing into India. The va->t preparations for war in Europe and the more moderate x preparations here to meet foreign aggression, are the practical answer bf the civilized world to the humane propositions of the Universal Peace Congress. That answer is that mankind, at the bottom, loves a fight, and that Christianity and enlightenment have not destroyed the sentiment. It is possible, it is feasible, so far as reason goes, to settle intern itional disputes by peaceful adjudication, as private grievances are settled; but men prefer the method of war. Modern society laughs when two individuals go out to shoot at each other as a metbod of proclaiming their courage and vindicating their honor; but its savage delight in the shedding of blood is aroused when two nations rush to arms against each other for the same purpose. Therefore, we can not expect any substantial results from tbe proceedings of the Universal Peace Congress. The enormous warlike preparations, the vast armaments, 'the! cultivation of the spirit of conflict- incident to the prevailing ambition for athletic eminence, afford little promise that war is to go out of vogue in this century, or t iat even the next century is to witness its disuse as the final method of settling international disputes and .enforcing the claims of international I jealousy. Is this republic goi ig to inhere <se the 250 000,000 in the next fifty years without experiencing the shock of war, and without demonstrating its tremendous brute force on the battlefield?