Lincoln High School - Lincolnian Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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24 THE LINCOLNIAN times a week. Although a white man, he treated us just as well as he did the boys of his own race. We were all pleased with him. Lieutenant R. C. Baird, the supervisor of this military training, sent notice to our principal telling him of the color and kind o‘f uniform that we were supposed to wear, which was cadet blue, as most of you have already seen us in. We had a little difficulty in securing our suits, but through the goodness of our principal we secured them and received guns that were furnished by the government. We were not long learning to use the guns. We learned several sets of exercises with these guns which in military training are known as Butts Manual. So, after all, the boys were glad that they stuck with the train- ing. I hope that the boys next year will have as much success as the boys had this year. LIEUT. WILLIAM IRMA ANDERSON. THE USE OF WAR X OOKING back upon the mysteri- ous history of the human race, we see that Providence has made use of fearful revolutions as the means of sweeping away the abuses of ages and of bringing mankind to its present im- provement. Frightful cataclysms have marked the ending of the old and the be- ginning of the new. The signs of the times have abundantly intimated to the thoughtful that we are approaching such an era. Life is an eternal struggle between the right and wrong; a conflict between good and evil. The regeneration of the race must ever be worked out through earnest and desperate struggle. The cause of hu- manity has always to wrestle with foes. All impr Dvement is a victory won by struggle. It is especially true of those great periiodfe which have been idistin- guished by revolutions in government and religion and from which we date the most rapid movement of the human mind that they have signalized by conflict. Thus the birth of Christianity convulsed the world and it grew up amid storm and stress. The reformation of Luther was a signal to universal war, and liberty over all the world has encountered opposition over which she has triumphed only through her own irrepressible energies. We are agreed that war is deplorable, horrible, terrible in every way and at all times and the more civilized and advanced the na- tions involved, the more brutal it seems to be. Whatever a nation’s reluctance to war, however progressive ideas and ideals may be, that all else must be tried before arms are resorted to, failing all else, honor, na- tional and individual, may require this supreme arbitrament, and leave no other course to follow. In other words, when treaties, signatures and promises have no further binding force in the process of living side by side, must not life itself be put up as the stake? When a half dozen men light in a moment the fires of war throughout the world, causing Europe to bristle with bayonets, convulsing all civil- ized nations, sweeping earth and sea with an armed host, spreading desolation through field, and bankruptcy through cities, and making themselves felt through some form of suffering • throughout every household in Christendom, what is there left but war? And in such cases, where nations and individuals are staking their lives for a principle and throwing into the balance their all and making their ut- most sacrifice for their ideals, the word war is enobled and though grim as ever in aspect, bears on its physiogonomy the stern imprint of a sacrifice to duty and to a higher and inscrutable destiny. All will depend upon the motive. As in all else the decision between a right war and a wrong war will lie as to whether it was selfish or unselfish in origin ; whether it was aggressive or defensive in purpose, whether it arose from a desire to get and to have, or to defend and uphold. When the motive leading to war has been clearly a right motive, and not one of aggrandizement or rapacity at the ex- pense of others; when it has been prompt- d

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THE LINCOLNIAN 23 LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL CADETS MILITARY TRAINING Last year our principal thought that it would be a great thing to start military training in our High School among our boys. He was able to get a few boys interested and also was able to get an instructor who had been in the army and knew all about military training, namely, Dr. Bruce. He was strong, straight and erect, and was a good example for all the boys. Dr. Bruce had a great deal of patience with the boys whom he succeed- ed in getting interested. The boys got a great deal from him in the little time they had last year. Since the beginning of the school year, September 5, 1916, we were fortunate enough to get Major N. Clarke Smith in our High School as our music teacher. He being an officer in the army, we were able to have military training again. There were more boys that took interest in this training this term than there were last year. We drilled this year just as we did last year in our building under great difficulty due to the fact that we did not have a gymnasium in our school. The drills were three times a week, the other two days, music. At the beginning of the year we organized two large companies; company A and company B. The officers who were picked out of the companies were the boys who were best in drilling and the boys who carried themselves well. The officers were all supposed to be juniors or Seniors. Some of our boys became discouraged and wanted to stop, but were encouraged by Major Smith and their officers, who told them of different things that they could do after they had learned to drill well. For a while during warm weather we were no longer able to drill out side, our school ground, at the north side of the buildings, but after the weather changed we were no longer able to drill oustide. The principal then, after looking around and talking of crowded conditions, got the consent of Mr. DeFrantz, our great Y. M. C. A. leader, to let the boys take their military training in the gymnasium of the new Y. M. C. A. We appreciated this very muc h. Then we were given a new officer, Sergeant Weeks, who is another straight and erect soldier and a very fine man. He was given to us by the Board of Education. He, too, drilled us three J

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THE LINCOLNIAN 25 ed by a desire for the stout maintenance of treaties and principles of civilized life, or has arisen in defense of one’s own or other’s legitimate interests and boundaries; whatever the subsequent horrors and trials of war, the combatants can in no way feel dishonored or degraded, but instead auite the reverse, by their participation in what, may be naturally repugnant— as all the lower passions are to their higher and bet- ter self. As civilization stands today, composed in the main of average citizens, and men of peaceful and productive occupations, who is there who individually wants to fight and— be it noted— amid the most awful controversies that the refined ingenuity of the modern scientist and mechanician can devise ? One is almost sorry for the dullness of certain pacifists and theory cranks who go about bleating about how savage men are and how wicked it is to fight — who uphold the value of sitting around a big green covered table with a tumbler and bottle of water, indulging in a fine flow of academic talk as the panacea and solution of all international problems, even when treaties have been torn up and hostile armies are pillaging and plundering their neighbors who trusted in the protection of a “scrap of paper.” No one wants to fight, not even Von Bernhardi or the fire- eating Kaiser himself — with his clique of misguided Prussians in uniform. Certain- ly no sane hard-working, industrious Ger- man of the more intelligent classes, could have faced, with equanimity the idea of a war against his best customers, had it not been for the lure carefully nur- tured and ingrained throughout the coun- try for the last forty years that “Deutch- land” was after all “uber alles” and that the Germans were predestined from on high to be a chosen race, and could by stealthy preparation, one day seize all for themselves, occupy “a place in the sun” and become arbiters of Europe and the world. This acute form of “swollen head” pro- duced by degrees that required state of mental perversion which has since the outbreak characterized the German atti- tude in word and deed, and has revealed the abyss that lies between them anld all civilized nations. All the forces and demons of evil under various alluring masks have been rising to the surface and encroaching upon the circle of men’s lives. Power was everything; money was every- thing; material prosperity, intellectual pride, comfort, luxury, physical wellbeing , — these were the ideals alike for men as for nations. All that represented spirit- uality, all the ideals that spring from love and altruism— these were all very well in themselves as theories or hobbies, but im- mensely impractical in actual, positive life. So the powers who for the everlasting salvation of mankind; preside over the destinies of mortals, in their compassion- ate wisdom saw that the struggle must come; precept and warning had been of no avail. Messengers bearing their words had passed unheeded. All that could be done had been done, we may be sure, to avert so great a catastrophe bringing un- told pain and suffering to millions of men and their families. But at last the in- scrutable purposes of destiny had to take their course and in the breaking up of forms the soul will grow and have new birth. While the world of matter is un- dergoing upheaval, principles will take on a fuller meaning and spirit set free will endow all men with the inspiration of a better life. This is why the war with all its horrors has its use. What was evil in humanity had to come to a head and all that represented the working of the powers of Darkness had to be faced and met on the road of Life at this particu- lar mile stone and be fought and defeat- ed by the powers of Light for the good and future of humanity. Consider for a moment our own Civil war. Who is there among us who will say that it was a useless shedding of blood? The time had come when the shackles of slavery had to be broken. Per- suasion, propaganda by Abolitionists in the form of speeches and writings which aroused the sympathy of the civilized world; morality, Christianity itself were alike powerless to move a peo ple who perverted that same Christianity and using it as a shield defied the world. What was the final remedy? Armed force in which the South was compelled to place as a sacrifice upon the altar of war the flower of its manhood, its material prosperity and everything which made life worth living for them. But it had to be, when once the preservation of the Union and the free-