APRIL 1, 1916 



295 



bilize quickly and tJansport it rapidly to the point 

 threatened. And there is an advantage about this 

 kind of preparedness; if, after we have prepared 

 ourselves and the war does not come, we shall be 

 able to make good use of the preparation on the work 

 of production. If, however, we divert the money 

 from useful channels and spend it all on battleships 

 and arms and ammunition, we shall have wasted our 

 money if the war does not come ; and if it does 

 come, chances are that before it comes changes in 

 warfare will very much reduce the value of prepara- 

 tions in which we have invested. 



" We cannot single out a nation and begin to 

 prepare to fight it without cultivating unfriendliness 

 toward that nation, and we cannot make hatred a 

 nation's policy for a generation without having our 

 people anxious to fight as soon as they are ready to 

 fight. If the nations at war had spent in the culti- 

 vation of friendship but a small percentage of the 

 amount they have spent in stirring up hatred, there 

 would be no war in Europe today. We should not 

 transplant upon American soil this tree of hatred 

 unless we are prepared to eat of the fruits of the 

 tree, for it has been bearing its bloody fruit thruout 

 the years." 



WAR^ WHAT IS ITf 



Years ago, when I had one of the first 

 automobiles built, down in southern Ohio, 

 while on the road away from any town, 

 my machine suddenly gave out. A thun- 

 derstorm was coming on. There was 

 neither time nor place, even if I had the 

 tools, to take the machine to pieces and 

 find the trouble. A heavy peal of thun- 

 der reminded me something would have to 

 be done, and that quickly. My little 

 IJrayer, '' Lord, help," welled up of itself. 

 Tlien I discovered the maeliine would go 

 backward, even if it would not go forward. 

 By going backward I got into a nearby 

 town and in the shelter of a blacksmith 

 shop just as the big drops began to pat- 

 ter on the roof. There was no repair shoiD 

 in the town, and the blacksmith said there 

 was only one man in the village who could 

 tackle a disabled automobile, and he had 

 jnst gathered up his tools and gone down 

 to catch a train to take him back to his 

 Lome in Columbus. Somebody lent me an 

 umbrella and I caught the man just as he 

 was stepping on the train. He and his 

 brother went back to the blacksmith shop, 

 pulled my machine all to pieces, found the 

 break, and put it in order. You may be 

 sure I thanked the great Father for help- 

 ing me to get under shelter just in the nick 

 of time, and then again to secure the only 

 competent mechanic just in time — the man 

 Avho Jiappened to be there just by accident. 



But what has all of this to do with our 

 present war? Well, just this: It illustrates 

 liow important it is to find some one just 

 in the nick of time, a skilled expert, if 

 3'ou choose, in mechanical work, especially 

 for a strangei- in a strange land. What 

 a boon to humanity it is to run across ex- 



perts, even mechanics! Noav try to think 

 how much greater it is (o be able to get 

 experienced surgeons and physicians, when 

 the human machine happens to be suddenly 

 marred or thrown out of commission. The 

 Red Cross organization is now trying to 

 place skilled doctors where human beings 

 are torn and lacerated in this wicked war. 

 A little pamphlet comes through the mails 

 entitled " Wounded. By Arnold Bennett ;" 

 and to give 3'ou a better understanding 

 than you have had before of what war is, 

 I am going to make some extracts. 



The primary object of this war and of all wars is 

 to lacerate human flesh, to break bones, to inflict 

 torture, to paralyze, and to kill. Every army in 

 the field to-day is out for maiming and homicide, 

 and nothing else. 



We do not see a thousand prisoners led away in 

 despair, nor a thousand decaying corpses bing in 

 strange, contorted attitudes on the ground, nor 

 eight thousand tortured, bleeding men, whose torn 

 and pierced bodies have in a few moments exuded 

 hogsheads of blood. You protest that I ought not 

 to use such a phrase as " hogsheads of blood" — it 

 sickens you. And why should you not be sickened? 

 Those hogsheads of blood, lacerated limbs, smashed 

 bones, glazing eyes, screams of pain, are exactly 

 what we all in every country asked for when we 

 voted supplies. 



The shrapnel rips, tears, lacerates, and penetrates 

 the huTuan tissues in a horrible manner, and our 

 work consists in repairing a'nd making good as best 

 we can. Our best, alas I is too often of little avail 

 in the face of the anatomic devastation produced. One 

 man, for instance, had his lower jaw shattered to a 

 pulp, and his tongue cloven in two. Another man 

 had his sknll smashed, and his brain welling over 

 his face. Another is made completely blind. An- 

 other has the front of his abdomen ripped open, and 

 his bowels protrude. Another has a knee ioint 

 blovai open, a hand smashed, an ankle shattered, and 

 so or. and so on. One could multiply and enumer- 

 ate without end. 



The wounded man has suffered a horrible and 

 tragic disappointment, for he, like every soldier, hop- 

 ed to escape damage; very probably this hope 

 amounted to a belief. He knows that he has done his 

 duty, and the mere fact that he is wounded proves 

 lliat he has affronted risks. But he knows also that 

 he is useless, for the lime being, if not for life. He 

 knows that he is only in the way, a dead weight, a 

 source Of possible danger, a drag on the operations. 

 Furtlier, his mind is perhaps perturbed by sudden 

 anxieties about his family. Lastly, he is in great 

 pain, he is acutely enfeebled, and he is helpless. If 

 ever a liuman being needed comfort, special atten- 

 tion, and the full aid of medical science, apparatus, 

 and highly skilled nursing — if ever a human being 

 needed to feel that he was the center and chief ob- 

 ject of all activities in his niRighborhood — the 

 wounded man is that human being. 



But on the other hand, the army, like the wounded 

 man, knows that the wounded man is useless and a 

 dead weight. The array cannot help wishing that it 

 might be freed of the immense incubus of its 

 wounded. 



"At once they rallied and forced us back, and now 

 it ■was our turn to lose heavily. That was nearly 

 tiiree weeks ago, and since then the ground over 

 which we fought has been debatable ground, lying 

 bot^^een our lines and the enemy's lines — a stretch 

 four miles long ami half a mile wide that is car- 

 peted with bodies of dead men. They weren't all 

 dead at first. For two days and two nigiits our 

 men in the earthworlts heard the cries of those who 



