Reflections and Comments 1865-1895

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Reflections and Comments 1865-1895

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Title: Reflections and Comments 1865-1895
Author: Edwin Lawrence Godkin
Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7257] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on April 2, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS
1865-1895
by EDWIN LAWRENCE GODKIN

TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
TO WHOM THE FOUNDATION OF "THE NATION" WAS LARGELY DUE, IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP

CONTENTS
PEACE CULTURE AND WAR THE COMPARATIVE MORALITY OF NATIONS THE "COMIC-PAPER" QUESTION MR. FROUDE AS A LECTURER MR. HORACE GREELEY THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF THE KITCHEN JOHN STUART MILL PANICS THE ODIUM PHILOLOGICUM PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LECTURES CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE TYNDALL AND THE THEOLOGIANS THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE THE CHURCH AND GOOD CONDUCT R?LE OF THE UNIVERSITIES IN POLITICS THE HOPKINS UNIVERSITY THE SOUTH AFTER THE WAR CHROMO-CIVILIZATION "THE SHORT-HAIRS" AND "THE SWALLOW-TAILS" JUDGES AND WITNESSES "THE DEBTOR CLASS" COMMENCEMENT ADMONITION "ORGANS" EVIDENCE ABOUT CHARACTER PHYSICAL FORCE IN POLITICS "COURT CIRCLES" LIVING IN EUROPE AND GOING TO IT CARLYLE'S POLITICAL INFLUENCE THE EVOLUTION OF THE SUMMER RESORT SUMMER REST THE SURVIVAL OF TYPES WILL WIMBLES

REFLECTIONS AND COMMENTS
1865-1895

PEACE
The horrors of war are just now making a deeper impression than ever on the popular mind, owing to the close contact with the battle-field and the hospital into which the railroad and the telegraph and the newspaper have brought the public of all civilized countries. Wars are fought out now, so to speak, under every man's and woman's eyes; and, what is perhaps of nearly as much importance, the growth of commerce and manufactures, and the increased complication of the social machine, render the smallest derangement of it anywhere a concern and trouble to all nations. The consequence is that the desire for peace was never so deep as it is now, and the eagerness of all good people to find out some other means of deciding international disputes than mutual killing never so intense.
And yet the unconsciousness of the true nature and difficulties of the problem they are trying to solve, which is displayed by most of those who make the advocacy of peace their special work, is very discouraging. We are far from believing that the incessant and direct appeals to the public conscience on the subject of war are not likely in the long run to produce some effect; but it is very difficult to resist the conclusion that the efforts of the special advocates of peace have thus far helped to spread and strengthen the impression that there is no adequate substitute for the sword as an arbiter between nations, or, in other words, to harden the popular heart on the subject of military slaughter. It is certain that, during the last fifty years, the period in which peace societies have been at work, armies have been growing steadily larger, the means of destruction have been multiplying, and wars have been as frequent and as bloody as ever before; and, what is worse, the popular heart goes into war as it has never done in past ages.
The great reason why the more earnest enemies of war have not made more progress toward doing away with it, has been that, from the very outset of their labors down to the present moment, they have devoted themselves mainly to depicting its horrors and to denouncing its cruelty. In other words, they almost invariably approach it from a side with which nations actually engaged in it are just as familiar as anybody, but which has for the moment assumed in their eyes a secondary importance. The peace advocates are constantly talking of the guilt of killing, while the combatants only think, and will only think, of the nobleness of dying. To the peace advocates the soldier is always a man going to slaughter his neighbors; to