THE CAUSES OF THE WAR

As near as we can gather from a diligent perusal of current periodicals, the causes of the European war are these:

1. Emperor William's personal ambition.

2. The emperor had nothing to do with it; he was away from home when the trouble broke loose; it was caused by the military party of Germany.

3. It was not caused by the military party, but was the result of a popular uprising of all classes in Germany.

4. Servian intrigue, by which she was planning to disrupt Austria-Hungary.

5. Austria, that lusted to possess Servia. 6. Russia, that plotted to crush Austria and Germany, and to rule all the Slavs.

7. Germany, by its invasion of Belgium. 8. Some French officers who rode over in automobiles into Belgium before the war, and thus violated the neutrality of that country. 9. Belgium, that was naughty to Germany

and resisted the passage of the army over her fields.

10. England, that hated Germany, envied her achievements and stirred up the world against her.

11. England's hypocrisy and lying.

12. The war is the natural evolution of Germany's destiny, the plan of fate to spread German culture over the world.

13. Overpopulation in Germany. Too many German babies. Germany's rapidly increasing numbers had to have more room.

14. The whole war is the result of competition in commerce.

15. The conflict is traceable to the craft of the capitalist class.

16. The presence of great armaments, as in Germany and England.

17. The absence of great armament, as in Luxemburg.

18. The German desire for conquest.

19. The German desire to defend the fatherland.

20. French revenge.

21. The wish of the French to get back Alsace and Lorraine.

22. It was all a question of colonial expansion.

23. It was owing to the craving of the

kaiser and his people to have their place in the sun.

24. Whoever was at fault it was somebody else.

25. Pure cussedness.

26. Nothing at all.

There are twenty-six other reasons which space does not allow to mention.

Is it not singular that for the greatest crime since men were created they can give only about the same sort of excuses a wolf gives for killing sheep?

Monday, November 16, 1914.

WHY NOT?

WAR is war. Also hell.

The acknowledged atrocities have been excused by saying that war is no picnic; people must expect hardships.

Airships have sailed over cities and have dropped bombs, slaying inoffensive old people and children.

Towns of no military value have been exterminated, the women women and their babies tumbled out into the highway, to show the terror of the warrior's arm.

The story of the Cossacks' march is as horrible a bit of fact as a Chinese white wolf incursion.

It is now being reported that Germany is getting ready a Zeppelin invasion into England. The aircraft are to drop explosives down upon non-combatants and their homes.

Kill and destroy seems to be the general order. Let in the floods; drown 'em. Tear them with shrapnel. Envelop them with poison gases. Rip them up with bayonets. Sneak

up under water and torpedo their boats. Sow mines in the sea. Kill. Kill anyhow, anywhere, any time, but kill.

But while bloodthirsty ferocity has been carried to a further degree than ever before, it has not reached the limit. One means of destroying the enemy has been overlooked.

IT IS THE GERM.

He

An interesting article by John B. Huber in Harper's Weekly shows the relative destructiveness of the bullet and the microbe. gives an incident of 1846, where Gaffa in the Crimea was besieged by the Tartars. "The bubonic plague broke out among the besiegers and killed off many more than the besieged could possibly have disposed of, thousands daily. Then a brilliant idea occurred to one of the investing generals: Instead of loading their engines with stone and metal they rammed into them and thus catapulted into the city the bodies of their plague-stricken, bacteria-ridden dead. Whereupon the Gaffans became so plague-stricken that they abandoned their city and introduced the plague into Constantinople, whence in due course it made its way into Europe."

Are not the European contestants overlooking something? It costs $2,500 to shoot off one of those great howitzers. Think of the