THE TASK OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY By HAROLD HUSTED, Ottawa University, Ottawa, Kansas, representing the Western Group Fifth Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 28, 1914 THE TASK OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Age by age, civilization advances. Each successive era has contributed that invention or accomplished that achievement which has placed another round in the great ladder of civilization. The development of many small states into powerful nations, and many wonderful improvements in other fields, such as steam navigation, the railroad, the telegraph, and wireless communication, crown the last as the greatest of centuries in the history of the human family. It is difficult to understand why the human mind, whence these mighty inspirations originated, has been incapable of realizing that there still remains the most degrading, the most deteriorating, the foulest blot that ever disgraced this world — the killing of civilized men, by men, as a permissible mode of settling international disputes. This world can never attain its highest standard of civilization until this one disgraceful blemish, called war, is obliterated. It is the collective task of the people living in this twentieth century to bring into reality the millennium of Tennyson, Till the war drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furl'd In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World. The beginning of this social task, then, is the enlightenment of the peoples as to the immorality, waste, and ineffectiveness of war. God commanded, "Thou shalt not kill." Who shall presume to declare that this precept was directed not to nations but to individuals only? that one man shall not kill, but nations may? We are horrified at the report of a single murder, yet, if viewed from the light of truth, what is war but wholesale murder? What tongue, what pen, can describe the bloody havoc of the battle of Gettysburg, where, between the rise and set of a single sun, fifty thousand of our fellow men sank to earth, dead or wounded? What sentiment in human hearts which needs to be perpetuated sent rank after rank, column after column, of blue soldiers against the impregnable stone wall of Fredericksburg? And who will place the blame for the carnage of Cold Harbor elsewhere than upon the folly of misguided patriotism and cruel, selfish interests that made the bloody battle possible? Every soldier is connected, as all of us, by dear ties of kindred, love, and friendship. Perhaps there is an aged mother, who fondly hoped to lean her bending form on his more youthful arm; perhaps a young wife, whose life is entwined inseparably with his; perchance a sister, a brother. But as he falls on the field of battle, must not all these suffer? His aged mother surely falls with him. His young wife is suddenly widowed, his children orphaned. That husband's helping hand is forever stayed. A parent's voice is stilled, and the children's plaintive cries for their loving father fall on unheeding ears. Tell me, friends, you who know the bitterness of parting with dear ones whom you watched tenderly through the last hopeful moments, can you measure your anguish? Yet, what a contrast! Your dear ones departed soothed by kindness and love, while the dying soldier gasped out his life on the battlefield alone. And what a waste is war! We are just beginning to realize the tremendous cost, the incalculable wastefulness, not only of actual war but of the preparation for future possible wars. For the current fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, the United States has appropriated in round numbers $535,000,000, in preparation for future wars and because of wars fought in the past. Sixty-seven cents out of every dollar expended by our national government goes to feed the present-day mania for war, present and past, leaving only thirty-three cents out of each dollar for the combined expense of the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of our national government. When we realize that the cost of a single battleship exceeds the total value of all the grounds and buildings of all the colleges and universities in the state of Kansas, the figures indicating this expense have more meaning to us. And when we reflect that the cost of a single shot from one of the great guns of that battleship is $1700, enough to send a young man. through college, the common man realizes that the United States cannot afford to go to war or even prepare for war. And all this suffering and cost are to no purpose. War is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance its professed object. The wretchedness it involves contributes to no beneficial result, helps to establish no right, and, therefore, in no respect promotes harmony between the contending nations. When the Saviour was born, angels from heaven sang to the children of the human family this benediction : Glory to God in the highest, Peace on earth, good will toward men. |