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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1916)
rmr The Commoner 18 VOIi. 16, NO. 8 What War Is A selection from Dr. Charles B. Jefferson's lucent volume, WHAT THE WAR IS TEACHING, copyrighted 1916, and reprinted by permission f the publishers, Fleming H. Rovoll Company. An extraordinary conflict Is raging, and all the world is looking on. Everybody is gazing, but not everybody sees the same thing. Differ ent persons see difforont things according to the measure of their knowledge, tho depth of their Insight, and tho keenness of their spiritual dis cernment. What do you see? Sonio see nothing but a spectacle Tho war to thom is a great sight. It is a huge bonflro lighting up tho earth and sky, a solemnizing bonflro it is truo, but yet nothing more than a bonflro. A conflagration is fascinating in pro portion to its sizo. This one is extraordinarily thrilling. A continent is on Are. You hear such porsons exclaiming: "It is wondorful!" Some see a tragedy, a gruesome and heart breaking act in a groat world drama. "All tho world's a stago, and all tho men and women merely players. Thoy have their exits and their entrances," and in tho course of a century they play many parts. For forty years tho leading nations of Europo havo been practising for a great war-tragody. Billions of dollars were ox ponded on tho scenery. Millions of men wero drilled in tho varied and difficult parts. Num berless dress rehearsals wero conducted, and finally, In tho years of our Lord 1914, a plutol hot in tho streets of Serajovo, gave tho signal for tho boginning of the play. Tho curtain wont up, and for more than a year and a half tho play has gone on, each succeeding scene triking a deeper, terror through tho heart of tho world. To many onlookers the war is a vast tragedy to bo cried over and shuddered at. You can hear them saying: "0, it is horrible!" To others it is a social phenomenon to be studied scientifically. Thousands of observers ,: Hand with notobook in hand, studying the in teresting experiment, and industriously record ing tholr comments and conclusions. For years tho wur colleges havo been discussing the com parative merits of different styles, of instru ments of slaughter. Fierce controversies have raged among tho oxperts concerning the methods of waging successfully war on land and sea, and now tho instruments are being tried, tho meth ods are being put to the test, and the disputed points are being settled. The military and naval exports and crlticB are making scientific observations. Just as tho sociologist studies al coholism and tuberculosis and poverty, so do those observers study war, gathering informa tion for tho world's guidance when war shall come again. Tho exclamation on the lips of theso studonts is: "How interesting!" WAR A MEDIUM OF REVELATION But is it not possible to look upon this war as a medium of revelation, an organ of the divine mind, a meanB of communicating the character and purpose of the Eternal to mankind? Why not consider it a Bible, a. text book for tho in struction of humanity in spiritual things? Let ns study it reverently, soberly, anJ in the fear of God. If the Almighty ever speaks to us through human experience, certainly he isspeak lng to us now. This is tho Hebrew way of looking at things. It waB a cardinal conviction of tho Hebrew mind that God spake to tho world through historic I vents. Human experience is the organ through which He makes his will known. Outside of , Palestine men tried to find the will of God, sometimes in dreams, sometimes in the flight of birds, sometimes in the entrailB of animals, ( sometimes in tho movement of the stars. But In the Holy Land, men sought traces of tho di Yine purpose in tho ongoings and developments of national life. To the Hebrew mind events j were flashes of the divine intention, experiences , were words of the Eternal. The favorite ex pression on the lips of tho men who wrote the Bible is, "and it came to pass." The prophets ( never grow weary of unrolling the past before the eyes of their countrymen. "See what Je fcovah.has done," they cried, as thoy told the ( story of the things which had happened. It was ( tn the experiences through which Israel had ' passed, that God had caused His character to be , known, and In her triumphs and defeats, her sufferings and Joys, her humiliations and agonies and captivttiea and deliverances that H1b pur ' pose had been disclosed. The work of tho He brew prophet then was to interpret social phe-omena.- He seized upon historic or current events and oat f tkeae be extracted tho word of God. To a seer God was always speaking, and His voice came through the things that were happening. That is tho view of the Old, Testament, and it is tho view of the New Testament also. The Now Testament writers contend that God is al ways speaking, and that He who has an ear to hear can understand what Is being said. In the book of tho Revelation there comes again and again like a solemn and searching refrain: "He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what tho spirit is saying unto tho churches." Those words always occur at the end of a paragraph which is descriptive of the church's condition. The writer tolls us what the church is experiencing, ho portrays in vivid speech the church's char acter and doings, after which he says: "Now hear what the Spirit is saying." We catch God's message through the things which we suffer. And so I wish to think with you about the war as though It were a book, a text book, moro valuablo and informing than any other text book you can take Just now in your hands; a sacred book, a Bible on whoso pages is written in blood and tears a flaming message from the King of kings. Do not say as certain weak and sentimental people do "0 the war is too hor rible to think about! Let us think about some thing else." Such an attitude would be excus able if the war were only a series of physical experiences, sound and fury, signifying nothing. But if it be truo that God speaks to us through human experience, then as this is the most vivid, searching, and agonizing experience through which our race has ever been called to pass, shame on us if we run away, covering our eyes and stopping our ears, crying out "O let us think of something comfortable and pleasant!" Look, 0 Americans! What do you see? Moses looked upon a bush afire and saw God. Look upon a continent ablaze, and behold your Cre ator. Listen, d Americans! What do you hear? Out of the whirlwind Job heard God. Out of this twentieth-century whirlwind, the fiercest and most destructive whirlwind that ever tore its wild way across our planet, comes a voice which he who hath ear to hear will not miss. Keep silence, and listen to what the Lord God Omnipotent is saying to mankind. Accepting the war, then, as a Spiritual teach er, lot us gather up a few of the many lessons which it is teaching. First in the list, I should place this: "What war is." It is difficult to know what war is. If you go to the dictionary for a definition of it you come away disappointed. All the definitions are pallid and ineffectual things, and convey no meaning to the heart. None of the elemental things can be crammed into the narrow limits of a definition. Who can define light, or music, or life, or love? No one. These are known only through experience. Who can define war? No one. It defies the most clever and ingenious of the dictionary makers. To whom then shall wo go? Not to the art ists, for they have constantly hidden from us the nature of war. They have deceived us. They Ja? ul ?? war BhlninS robes. They have em beJ,lhe,d ! and elven !t a Blamor and a glory which it does not possess. They have made it something romantic, and poetic, and appealinely picturesque. They have tricked us by playing on the imagination. All of the artists have combined to work this deception. The sculptor has carved the warrior out of the whitest of the marble, the painter has put him in the centre of his canvas, the architect has thrown over him the greatest of his arches, the composer has written for him the most stirring of his march es, the poot has glorified him in the stateliest of his verses, the orator has extolled him in the most eloquent of his periods, art has thrown over war's bloody shoulders a purple and spangled robe. You can not learn from the wor shippers of boauty what war Is. HISTORIANS CAN NOT TELL WHAT WAR IS Nor can the historians tell you. They are in terested primarily in the causes of war and in the results of war. They keep the eyes fixiS KE S brI11,ant who" marches at the head of the army, now Alexander, now Caesar SZlnt Th6y tUrn your atteSuon away from tho rotting corpses of the nameless dead Moreover they compel you to look at battle through the transfiguring mists of vanished years. They write of men turned to dust gen erations or centuries ago. The suffering! of these men are ended. Their tortures and agony1 sx Oadowi at the dim Ion ago. No one can fcftcnr what war Is from rhetorical descrimS tecarnaee which took place a hundred or tturasand years before he was born. Men whn kave been dust for centuries make slight anS to the heart. Their sufferings do not move X tbelr agonies do not lacerate us. Their groanq flo not reach ua. Time takes away the smell of tho blood, and causes flowers to blossom in the esert which war made. The historian lays be fore us only the picturesque and thrilling fea tures of war. Even when ho portrays its hor rors, they are nothing more than painted fire They do not burn us. No on can learn what war is from a war fought in any other genera tion than his own. To know what war really is we must feel it, it must scorch us, it must tear our heart strings, and to do this it must take place before our eyes, it must mangle and tor ture the generation of which we are a part. Never go to the historians to find what war is. GOD OF WAR ARCH DECEIVER Do not go to the men who are simply getting ready for war. They will mesmerize you by lay ing before you war's pomp and circumstance They will not give yon the faintest idea of what war is. Military preparedness makes use of em broidered veils, and with these the visage of war is covered over. The god of war is an arch deceiver. First of all he uses music. Martial music is full cf notes which set the corpuscles dancing. Where is the man or woman who does not thrill under the magical notes of fife and drum? But this is the music of military pre paredness. It is not the music of war. The music of war is the groans of men, and the sobs of women, and the piteous cries of little child ren whose fathers will never come home again. The god of war makes use of color. He flaunts all the colors which the eye most revels in . gold and scarlet and purple. See what a play of color in yonder military procession! The black nodding plumes, the golden epaulettes, and the golden braid, and the brass buttons, the glit tering bayonets every bayonet catching the sunbeam and tossing it into the eye the dec orated scabbard, the gorgeous trappings of the horses, the scintillating spurs a wealth of colors woven -together into a tissue of loveliness and flung over, theeye. 'But these are not the colors of war. They are the colors of military preparedness. The colors of war are the hues of mud and grime and filth, the tints of pus and gangrene and clotted blood, the flush of cheeks which are hot with the delirium of pain, and the pallor of faces which are cold in death. Those are the colors of war! The god of war loves the magic of motion. He plays on the mind the beauty of rhythmic move ment. The monotonous tread of marching feet, the swing and sweep of masses of "men obedient to a bugle call, the changing formations wrought as if by magic in the wheeling battalions, the organized movement of disciplined ranks of uni formed men, all swinging round the pivot of a single will, this makes the eye glisten and the heart beat. But this is not the procession of war. It is the procession of military prepared ness. The procession of war is made up of the scarred and mutilated and mangled wrecks of men. Some of them with an -eye out, others with both eyes out; some with an arm off, others with both legs off; some with a nose shot away, others with a jaw torn away, others with an ear missing, other paralyzed and palsied; some led by their children, others hobbling on crutches, others carried on litters, no rhythm, no harmony, no beauty that is the procession of war! Do not go to the high priests of .military prepared ness if you wish to learn what war is. And beware of the philosophers who have never studied in the school of Christ. The world has never known what war really is because of the sophistries of a false philosophy. Art, mil itary preparedness, and philosophy, .jthese three are the great apologists for war, and until we tear away the masks with which they cover the face of war, we shall never know what war is. The philosophers tell us that war is inevit able, it is a biological necessity, an ineradicable feature of the present world order. Tlie man who says that is a dangerous guide. He is blind, and certain to lead all who follow him into a ditch. War la not like a thunderbolt, or a volcanic eruption, or a. tidal wave. These things are inevitable, physical necessities, un changeable features of the material world. They are not originated by man, and lie beyond hu man control. War is man made. Man creates war. War comes out of the heart. If man be gins war, man can end it. It is his duty to end it. God holds him responsible for not ending it. The..;man who says that all wars are fated has