Reflections and Comments 1865-1895

Reflections and Comments
1865-1895

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1865-1895
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Title: Reflections and Comments 1865-1895
Author: Edwin Lawrence Godkin
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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 RÔLE 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