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Show Howe About: How War Starts A Typical American Family Quarrels , Bell Syndicate. 'WNTJ Service. By ED HOWE "TpHE lower animals fight on very - slight provocation, but I have not seen two men fight in years. I wonder won-der where the war spirit comes from. Surely not from ordinary citizens, who get along reasonably well with each other. Does It come from the professional profes-sional soldiers we support from generation gener-ation to generation by means of public pub-lic taxation? If a man devotes his life to soldiering, of course he must believe in war. He must Invent new methods of attack and destruction, and tell how effectively they will work in practice. He writes In the free spaces of the newspapers about his trade, and of his Inventions: How he will fly over an enemy country, and destroy cities with a special kind of bomb he has thought up; how he will place germs in a special shell to be fired at the enemy, and cause the women and children, as well as the men, to die of plague. . . . Then the soldiers of other countries make reply by telling what they have thought up in the way of destruction. Finally we hate the Germans because of what their military men are willing to do to us, and the Germans hate us because be-cause of the terrible things our military mili-tary men are willing to do to them. A dispute between nations arises, and as the professional soldiers want a chance to use their new maneuvers and shells, they swagger around and boast. Instead In-stead of "getting together," as sensible men should. Then some one steps on a cat, and millions who never had a fight in their lives spend years in killing kill-ing men they do not hate, and have newish ne-wish to harm. A man who wanted a loan was asked: "How do you spend your income?" in-come?" And he replied: "Oh, about half for the car and the house: another half for food and clothing, and a third for miscellaneous things." "But that means your outgo Is a third more than your Income I" "That's right that's what I spend." In quarrels between husband and wife the main trouble usually is that one party to the quarrel is a man, and the other a woman. Partners in business busi-ness frequently quarrel, and tell hard tales on each other, but the details of marriage are more complicated than selling butter and eggs; its disgusts more difficult to get over. One of the oldest Incidents related In history is that the gold of a rich man was melted and poured down his throat. The essence of every party platform Is hatred of rich men, and our religion teaches that the heaven we hope to achieve finally will not be polluted by the presence of such offaL I have never known anyone asked to give his philosophy of life, who did not mention the unequal distribution of weath as a great wrong. Yet it is unequal distribution of wealth we are indebted to for civilization. It is not wrong for a man to work hard, save his money, and build a house with three chimneys, although al-though a neighbor may be willing to hunt and fish, or play game3, and carry off his smoke with one. A fair consideration of history seems to Indicate that It was hatred of the rich that inspired every enormous destruction de-struction of human progress In the past It was poor and unprogresslve barbarians warming themselves at campflres, who looked with hate on beautiful Athens and destroyed art work that has' never been equaled and never will be. One of the old men who frequently annoy me with memoirs once wrote: "The history of the human race has been shame!" . . . What have we Just cause to be ashamed of? So far as I am concerned I blush most because be-cause of opportunities neglected. I have annoyed and harmed more people peo-ple than I should have. I could have been more comfortable and prosperous prosper-ous myself had I behaved better to others. I began In a poor rural section, sec-tion, and thus learned slowly, but. In the most modest surroundings, finally learned the great lesson: that men must better support the civilization their ancestors found an Improvement on the savagery from which they sprang. It has been charged against me that I have peculiar notions. One of them is that during times like the present it is more important to feed the hungry hun-gry than it Is to buy memberships for young men in the Y. M. C. A. I so told a solicitor today. No doubt h went away thinking ill of me. . . . My next caller was a ragged old man with a wooden leg. This solicitor did better with me; he said I provided for his necessities for a week. The annoying unnaturalness In men Is due to their desire to make themselves them-selves appear well In the eyes of the gods and the ladles. What a great number of experiences humans may have I There Is the adventure ad-venture of birth; surely wonderful. If traced back to Its beginning. And from then on there are Interesting happenings until the final wrestle with I death, which should satisfy anyone as an experience. . . . The silliest thing ever said Is the most commonly said: that life is dull. |