Western Canada High School - Yearbook (Calgary, Alberta Canada)

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Page eighty-two YEAR German weekly were convicted by a Berlin military court for “having intended to publish secret military information and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment.” What was the information they intended to publish?—the full details of a secret agreement between Germany and Russia whereby German artillery officers are to be trained in Russia and, from branches of her large factories which manufacture heavy artillery recently established in Russia and Holland, armaments are to be made available to Germany. It is true that their standing army has never ex¬ ceeded the 100,000 permitted by the Treaty of Versailles but thirteen classes of 100,000 each have been put through intensive military training resulting in 1,300,- 000 highly trained young men available, as well as 100,000 uniformed Nazis under Hitler and a large veteran’s organization known as the Stalhelm. And all they require is heavy artillery and tanks to make Germany once again one of the most formidable military powers in the world. Then people will say, “Why, Britain must be the only country that is dis¬ arming!” But is Britain disarming? The Saturday before the opening of the Disarmament Debate in the House of Commons at the end of June, at which Ramsay MacDonald stated that England has disarmed as much as it can until the rest of the world follows its example, the Air Force at Hendon gave a display before an enthusiastic audience of thousands, of the fastest fighting machines in the world, bombing machines obliterated a village built for the occasion, and a few days later the greatest assembly of mechanical land fighting machines in the world carried out tests on Salisbury Plain. Britain is the greatest armament producer in the world and during 1931 exported armaments including submarines, destroyers, gun boats, submarine mines, depth charges, aeroplanes, bombs, tanks, armored cars, artillery weapons and machine guns to thirty-seven countries, ex¬ cluding her own dominions. Turkey was sold seventy-five aeroplanes with the latest patented fire-control apparatus; Japan and China were sold much of the equipment they are using today; Russia was sold twenty huge twelve-ton tanks, twenty six-ton tanks and a large number of light armored vehicles, and so the lis t continues. While France today has the strongest army in the world, Italy enormously increases her army expenditure; Russia, which teaches that armies are the play things of capitalists, maintains the largest standing army; Japan sends armed forces into China; Germany, in addition to the 100,000 authorized by the Treaty of Versailles, has another army of nearly 100,000 Nazis under Hitler and a large well-trained reserve; United States enormously increases her army, navy and air force; and Britain produces and exports the largest amount of armaments in the world. What a stupendous task faces those representatives at the Disarma¬ ment Conference meeting at Geneva on the second day of February! NatleM By LEONARD BERCUSON “Robert Calkins, you are to be taken to Prince Albert Penitentiary and there kept in close confinement till May 23, on which day you shall be taken and hanged by the neck until dead . . . . ” The judge’s voice broke, tears welled in his eyes. It was his first major sentence. “And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.” The courtroom was hushed. The spirit of the condemned man which had held up all through the trial, was crushed, and he fell back limply upon the bench. Reporters scribbled at top speed, there was the excited conversation of hun¬ dreds of people about the trial, and then once more was silence—only another murder sentence. Time crept ruthlessly on. One day, two, a week and a .month. Every minute could be heard the heavy footsteps of Calkins pacing the sombre, grey cell.

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BOOK Page eighty-one ar m ffrarr By EVA McTAVISH, Class 4, Room 16 On Tuesday, the second day of February, nineteen hundred and thirty-two, the first Disarmament Conference called by the League of Nations will open at Geneva. Every country in the world will be represented because, although United States, Russia and Turkey are not yet members of the League of Nations, they are sending represenatives to this conference. As the whole world realizes, civil¬ ization is on the brink of the greatest catastrophe—war; and it is the hope of every man, woman and child that through the medium of the Disarmament Con¬ ference, civilization will be saved from this catastrophe. But what are the nations doing individually toward disarmament? Stalin, the Dictator of Russia, recently said that the only chance of avoiding another industrialistic war was to disarm, and yet, within sound of his voice, in Red Square, lounged numbers of soldiers reminding us that Russia maintains the largest standing army in the world, many divisions of which are stationed along the Manchurian boundary watching China-Japanese developments. Then the voice of Mussolini is heard proclaiming that Italy has repeatedly offered to consent to any kind of arms reduction while overheard roars the greatest concentration of military aeroplanes in the history of the world—1,000 machines of all kinds. In France we see Aristide Briande, the peace apostle, dramatically adjuring, “Away with cannons, away with machine guns,” while his voice is almost drowned by the roar of hundreds of fighting aeroplanes taking part in the greatest peace¬ time mobilization ever attempted by the French army which today is the most powerful in the world. Even the citizen population is called upon to submit to such discipline as would be imposed in event of a gas or bomb attack from the air. This scheme was carried out most proficiently by the army, the navy and the air force and marked a new step in combined training for war. This is rather an evil omen toward promised French leadership in peace. Today United States is spending more money on armament than any other country in the world and yet last June when President Hoover announced the war debt moratorium he advised the countries to which it was being extended, to re¬ duce their armament expenditure, while the very same day newspapers carried word that the Chemical Warfare Service of the American Army had perfected a new method of spraying from aeroplanes a poisonous gas which would exterminate whole battalions just as insects in orchards and fields are sprayed with deadly chemicals. And some days before this an American bomber dropped a 4,000 pound bomb which properly placed would destroy a whole city block. The American aeroplane industry in 1931 showed an increase over 1930. Why? Because more aeroplanes were bought for the army and navy. While Japanese statesmen were assuring audiences that Japan was whole¬ heartedly behind disarmament proposals, their troops were occupying Mukden and today the Japanese are bombing the international settlement in Shanghai. The newspapers carry photographs showing Japanese armoured trains, aeroplanes, tanks, artillery and infantry in action against Chinese, and Chinese prisoners being marshalled into barbed wire compounds. Does this portend Japan’s inten¬ tion of backing disarmament and peace ? Fourteen years ago Germany was almost completely disarmed by the Treaty of Versailles, yet during the week of December 1, 1931, two editors of a Liberal

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BOOK Pape eighty-three “Oh God!” he would mutter, “a few days more and I’ll be in ... . God knows where.” Swiftly May 23 approached. Outside he could hear them pounding; at the scaffold. Each nail meant a step closer to death’s door. He learned that the hangman was due to arrive soon, that his plea of insanity had been rejected and slower and heavier grew the steps on the cold concrete. May 23 finally came. The scaffold stood ready. The hangman had also arrived. . . Three more hours to live! Suddenly from his cell he heard loud exclamations, cries and curses. Cer¬ tainly something must have gone wrong. Consternation was printed on the faces of all the guards who went by. He mustered up courage and asked one, “What’s the matter?” “Sergeant Lander, who was in charge of the erection of the scaffold, ran away mysteriously this morning,” was the terse reply. “Whaddya mean? Ran away?” “Yes.” “Well, then, maybe they won’t. . . ” his voice rose to a hopeful pitch. “I’m sorry. The execution shall take place anyway.” An hour passed. The chaplain entered slowly. “My dear man, are you prepared to meet your God?” “Yea, as prepared as any man who still wants to live.” The Warden came and the chaplain stood up and received him. There was a signal and the Death March began. Cries of encouragement came from the nearby cells. Slowly they groped their way through the narrow passage. First the warden, then the chaplain, his crucifix raised high, and then Calkins. On and on. . . Barely one hundred feet of cold pavement separated him from the scaffold. On and on. . . They dragged him up to the platform and stood him on the trap. A few seconds and they had adjusted the black cap over his head. The signal was given and the hangman pulled the lever. . . . The man’s body stood stationary on the trap. It had not sprung! There was a nervous twitch on the hangman’s face. What could have gone wrong ? He strode over to the warden, said a few words under his breath, and the warden nodded his head. The cap was taken from Calkins’ head and he was taken to an anteroom. Icy shivers ran up and down his spine as he heard the saw slowly gnawing its way through the wood. . . the trap must have fitted too tightly. Once more the black cap was adjusted, and once more the signal of death was given. . . and once more the trap did not spring. Robert Calkins had waited, heard the pull of the lever, and had stood still. It was incredible. The expressions on the faces of everyone present were strange. . . they were in the presence of a miracle! Calkins was taken aside into the anteroom once again. The saw screeched through the wood and with a start he heard a small strip of it fall. For a third time he was taken to the scaffold. Everyone’s eyes were glued upon the figure on the trap who could not die. Grimly the hangman placed his hand on the lever. From the lips of the warden sprang an inaudible gasp. Again the trap had failed to work. There ' was a depressing feeling of awe, of the inability of man to cope with the will of God. The chaplain spoke solemnly and earnestly. “Truly, gentlemen, we are in the presence of a miracle. The man must be freed.” They united the man, now more dead than alive, and the warden said kindly, “You shall be released tomorrow.” At the end of the yard there was a great commotion. Between the arms of two burly policemen was Sergeant Lander who had run away from the prison that morning, and the officers were dragging him towards the amazed group of people clustered about the scaffold. He was laughi ng hysterically. The warden strode over and said sharply, “What does this mean?” “Sir,” one of them replied, “Sergeant Lander nailed the trap.”