OCR Text |
Show u THE CITIZEN 12 i Entire fields, forests, camps and railroad centers can be deluged with this Devf of Death. To work within an area so sprinkled men must be thoroughly protected by masks, by gas proof clothing and by gloves, all of which, at the very best, would keep out gas only a few hours. quantities. Poison Gas and Worlds Mastery Next Big War to be Decided by this Savant Claims. Wars of the past have been conflicts of artillerymen and engineeis, clumsy duels with clumsy tools not very different from the tools used by Napoleon, Grant and Von Moltke. Wars of the future will be unimaginably dreadful struggles, directed by middle aged and elderly persons in spectacles sitting in laboratories and loosing upon fields of battle, battle fleets and great helpless cities miasmas of death that not only destroy the body but wreck the mind through fear, sheer terror of the mysterious, the unknown. Compounders of volatile, lethal poisons, poisons that will fall as dew from the clouds, literally a dew of death; poisons that will be drifted across great spaces like fever murk from a swamp; poisons that will be discharged in shells from pneumatic guns, furtively, silently, will contend for the mastery of the world. These will be chemists wars, if wars must come again, and the simple truth is that the mind of man is not yet able to picture the horror that will be released. In all the thousands of years that men have schemed to slay other men for greed, ambition or the love of women nothing even remotely so terrible has come into warfare as the discovery and coldly scientific application of poison gases as a weapon. The possiillimitable. bilities are absolutely There are 200,000 chemicals known to man and as yet only 5 per cent of this vast number have been used for experimentation. Yet with the few discoveries made in the 5 per cent and employed in the great war the casualties were terrific. The surgeon general of the United States army reports that almost one man out of every three that entered the hospitals of the American Expeditionary force as a battle casualty was suffering from enemy gas. Including the marines and attached naval personnel poison gas caused casualties, of which 1,271 proved fatal. That is what the dew of death did to American fighting men. What' it did to the French and the British can be imagined without statistics. General Fries of the Chemical Warfare Service in his recent report to General Leonard Wood says: Japs can take Philippine islands with gas Let us assume Japan has decided to make war upon the United States. Her first objective is the Philippine islands. They lie to the south of Japan and more or less parallel to the Asiatic coast, as is Japan herself farther north. American troops and fortifications are concentrated on the island of Corregidor, at the mouth of 72,-05- 6 Dew of Death Manila bay. This is the usual tropical island, with an extreme length of seven miles and an extreme width of one mile, the total area being less than three miles square. It is rather a typical promontory on the west, gradually shading off to almost sea level on the east. It has the usual tropical growth, with cleared places for barracks, officers quarters and gun em- placements. Japan, having decided on war, will seize a small bay within 100 miles of Corridor. Her air force will fly there by way of Formosa and land in the little harbor picked out. She will carry in her fleet 100 tons of mustard gas. This gas and the methods of making it were thoroughly worked out by the different allies in the world war. Hence Japans knowledge of the gas and of manufacturing it are complete. Give the Chemical Warfare Service 2 per cent of the appropriation for the army, and, if the navy desires it, 1 per cent of the navy appropriation, and we believe that we can do as much to guarantee American success in war as could be had with 25 per cent spent in any other way. We have developed two new gases that may play a tremendous part in warfare. One is a new cloud gas, transmitted from toxic smoke candles. The old type of cloud gas required the burying of cylinders in deep trenches, requiring the work of many men for many days in order to prepare an attack. This method is obsolete. The modern method is to heat a solid. The m solid gas, contained in a simple holder resembling a squat, old fashioned lantern, is released when a fuse is lighted. It is safe and fool proof. It may be crushed, mashed or punctured with bullets without harm being done to the person holding it. These candles may be very light or very heavy. They are so small as to be carried in a knapsack or so large as to require the efforts of many men. They are thus suited to the navy, the Air service, the cavalry, infantry or special gas troops. Cloud gas attacks are highly efficient and by the new method can be launched at any time, day or night, that the wind is right. The other new thing is a liquid gas, the effect of which is to cause burns that are severe and difficult to heal. If three drops of this gas be absorbed into the skin it will cause death in most cases, while lesser quantities down to a tenth of a drop will put every man touched in the hospital. This gas and the common mustard gas, which burns the skin, can be sprinkled from airplanes in practically unlimited Even if clothing be found that would keep it out indefinitely, consider the enormous burden of transportation, of physical effort and of mental strain required merely to live in such an area, let alone work and fight. When men must don masks for working or fighting their efficiency is reduced, and here. again the value of gas in warfare is a telling thing. Mustard gas, which, is heavy and always hangs low upon the ground, makes trenches and dugouts dangerous. It burns any soft tissue and moisture heightens its effect. It caused more casualties in the past war than any other gas, putting more than 30,000 American soldiers in the hospital. High explosives will not destroy it. It can be sprinkled from airplanes or fired in shells or bombs. To breathe it is like breathing flames. It can be placed in steel drums and released by electrical connection. It may be useful some day in defending the Panama canal and our own seacoast. If the British had had 5,000 tons of it in 1918 they would have stopped the German drive in the first five miles. Dyphenal-chlorarsinmade of carbolic acid, chlorine and arsenic, Is fired in shells or used in cakes in concentrated form. In high concentration it is deadly. In low concentration it causes severe coughing, pains in the chest and vomiting. The effects of it simulate pneumonia. It penetrates all save the very latest types of protective masks, and a drop or two of the stuff upon a mans clothing will put him out of action. In defence it would be launched in cloud form against an enemy when the wind was right, or it could be fired in shells when the wind e, was adverse. Chlor-acetophenon- e, carbolic acid and acetic acid is a tear gas. Nearness to the mere edge of its smoke causes blindness from excessive tears. It goes into shells and is spread by heat. This is the gas that will be used in the future to break up mobs and it should be a tremendous asset to every police department. Mobs are helpless when they cant see. We are at work now upon a substance even more powerful than the tear gas developed by the war. At all times we conduct a warfare among ourselves in the Chemical Warfare service. We do our best to find a gas that cannot be stopped by our most modern masks and clothing. When we find that we invent new masks and new clothing, then look for a more penetrative gas. It is like the old contest of the burglar and the safe manufacturer. ""Phosgene is a liquid gas that almost instantly. It irritates the lungs very severely and produces symptoms that are familiar to doctors in pneumonia cases. In treating sufferers the same methods are used, in- vo-latiz- es deed, as are used in treating pn monia patients. Lewisite, a new gas, discovered v Professor Lewis of Northwestern versity, resembles mustard gas, but, more powerful in burning qualities. volatilizes even more quickly. We just beginning to produce it and will undoubtedly play a large part b the next world war. j , liquid and a other form of tear gas, is very perg Brombenzyl-cyanide- 0 ent and volatilizes as slowly as tard gas. It forces the wearing g masks without much expenditure ammunition. These are some of the principal gases that we are constantly expert menting with, and about which know enough already to be certain the dreadful weapons they will be P future wars. What we are after ig t ? gas that will be colorless, odorless, that will kill instantly whole! masses of men and without the slight.? est warning of its coming. If that is found, and I believe we shall find! it, it is impossible to see how an army j could stand against it. With that gal conveyed in motor truck cylinders rt? sembling the oil trucks of common uj no fleet could even approach near our coast, no army near our borders. Imagine its possibilities in offensive' warfare! Even with the small soda water cylinders they used, the Ger P tl mans were able to send gas fifteen twenty miles. Chemical Warfare service and pot n b on gases have great and valuable m of is gas 1 to 11 81 use-i- peace. We are working with tlx ti farmer and the fruit grower as well as! with the army and the navy. We an d I. v preparing plans and methods to erafij cate plagues by destroying rats carriers. We are looking fori method to attack the boll weevil. are working on gases to kill the it;, sect pests of fruit .trees and to attad. locusts in the Philippines. We havr made many discoveries in our chent cal laboratories that will aid agricnii ture and industry. anil-othe- r Wf It is all a natural development cr ried on by mans ingenuity unde I stress. In the beginning wars tor, won by the side that had the greats amount of brawn. The slaying of Gt Hath by David is the first recorded it! stance of the use of science in a cot flict. The stampeding of HannibtfW elephants with flarlJ-arrows was another ex pie of an innovation in war. The US use of gunpowder revolutionized fare and completed the rout of ft. steel clad knight that was begun Crecy by the English long bowmen And the first use of gas in tho wort war would probably have ended ft conflict in 1915 if the Germans hadW taken advantage of the situation tltf gas attack created. erriW' Chemical warfare is a stiff thing, but It is here, and here to The day may come when the preset tion of American liberty may ilcpe5-- , death-dealin- g tar-dippe- T d jj fr 0 ! n, tc : upon it. ti |