The following is excerpted from "An Astronomer's Life", the autobiography of Edwin Brandt Frost, first director of Yerkes observatory. Frost wrote the book in the 1930's, and is here reflecting on WW1 & the Great Depression. Bear in mind that Frost was a lifelong 'liberal' Republican, a species not often seen anymore. There are many parallels with the world situation of today: My residence in such an armed camp as was Strassburg in 1890, with its garrison of twenty or more regiments, and later at the imperial country seat in Potsdam, where military uniforms were almost more abundant than civilian dress, naturally led me to think often of the effect of such armaments on world peace. The haughty attitude of the gay officers when they walked the streets of Berlin and Potsdam always seemed to me offensive to the spirit of liberty. There was a class consciousness among the army men that the destiny of the nation lay in their hands, and this was, of course, fostered by the authorities in power around the Emperor. I often tried to impress my German friends with the fact that I seldom saw a soldier in the United States and that the peaceful expansion of a country could take place without the use of the sword. An army was the plaything of a king, and the best entertainment that he could lay before a visiting sovereign was a review of his picked troops. Of course the Hohenzollern family had developed into an imperial dynasty from being petty margraves in Prussia chiefly by pure military aggression against less powerful neighbors. The whole system was provocative. I came home from Germany thoroughly convinced of the futility of the constant striving for supremacy in military equipment and that it could only lead to trouble. A state of war quickly develops public hysteria. Of course we in America were affronted by the deliberate disregard of the treaties on the part of Germany in respect to the invasion of the rights of Belgium, but the propaganda that was being circulated throughout the world against Germany because of alleged inhuman treatment of the citizens of Belgium was decidedly unjust. It was, of course, inevitable that if we entered the war we should oppose the Central Powers, but the false propaganda developed on all sides constitutes one of the many outrages of the war. The idealistic utterances of Wilson in some of his great state papers certainly gave our intervention the character of a crusade in behalf of justice and liberty, and I believe that this was genuinely felt by a great part of our population and particularly by the troops which were being trained for service overseas. The aggressive action of our troops when they reached France under the strong leadership of Pershing was clearly in behalf of the French people who had suffered so heavily in a war that they had in no wise provoked. We also felt a strong sympathy for the sad losses of England and here dominions, as they played the role of defenders of the rights of weaker nations. The terrible losses on all sides were shocking to me as an ardent supporter of peace and strongly in favor of the outlawing of war, but it was apparent that the situation could not be brought to a definite conclusion except by the successful proscecution of the American effort. It certainly is a profound regret to all thinking Americans that our idealistic intentions were not realized after the Treaty of Versailles had been finally adopted. I thoroughly sympathized with Wilson's efforts in behalf of the League of Nations despite our traditional avoidance of European entanglements, and I believe that the cause of peaceful rehabilitation was greatly delayed by the selfish action of a few jealous Senators, chiefly in the Republican Party. When broad-minded statesmen like Taft and Hughes and Root threw thier influence on behalf of the League of Nations, I see no reason why less influential Republican members of Congress should not have followed their lead. General W.T. Sherman in his famous utterance declared 'War is Hell', but he little dreamed of the indescribable hellishness and the awful turmoil of modern warfare as practiced in the World War and which would be experienced even beyond our conception should we ever be plunged into another such devilish conflict. We are a generation saddened and sullied, saddened by the most fearful tragedy of our times and sullied by the filth and terror of crime which had its birth on the battlefields. What is civilization if it cannot abolish war, if it fails to give us happiness, freedom, and justice, and hence 'peace on earth'? It seems to me very strange that none of our many able ecconomists have as yet suggested a satisfactory solution for the plight in which our country, favored by nature more than any other, finds itself in this year of 1933. There should be some way to break the vicious circle of overproduction, unemployment, and hunger. After the depression is over, we shall doubtless look back and find that it had some benefits. There must be less extravagance, less profligate expenditure of taxes, and better standards of conduct in the new order of things, or our civilzation will break down. *** How shocked Frost would have been had he known about the coming second World War, the atomic bomb, modern terrorism and the dog-wagging tail that is the middle East of today. One can't help but wonder what the world would be like if his dreams had come true. C. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Send Flowers for Valentine's Day http://shopping.yahoo.com