German officials have claimed that military service "provides a special advantage to developing manhood in its compulsory exercise, enforced habits of discipline, unescapable stimulus to patriotism and general moral control." In the words of a German general, quoted by Professor Kellogg,
military service is not injurious to the body, but healthful, not depressing to mind and spirit, but inspiring.
Some of these alleged virtues will not appear as such under other and perhaps more truthful names. But admitting all that may be said, the armies exist for war; their members "especially selected and zealously cared for" are chosen for sacrifice, and the more worthy the sacrifice the greater the permanent loss to the nation. When a man of character and ability, says Professor Kellogg,
gives his life, in war, to his nation, he gives more than himself. He gives the long line, the ever widening wedge of those who should be his descendants. In the long run these may have greater potential value than any political end they have helped to accomplish.
The most economical and most positive factor in human progress is good breeding. Race deterioration comes chiefly from its opposite, bad breeding. Militarism encourages bad breeding.
Despite all delusive phrases to the contrary, the maintenance of an army is a preparation for war and a step toward war and not toward peace. Do governments, or will they, maintain this blessing of military service for the health and eugenic advantage of their people? Is it not done solely from the stimulus of expected war? Is it not done solely with the full expectancy and deliberate intention of offering this particularly selected and cared for part of the population to the exposure of wholesale mutilation and death? This death is to come, if at all, before this extra-rigorous part of the population has taken its part in race propagation, the precise function the performance of which the race most needs from it.
Spain
The Spain of to-day is not the Spain of 1493 to whom the Pope assigned half the seas of the world. Old Spain drooped long ago, exhausted with intolerance, sea power and empire. Now that modern Spain has been deprived of the last vestige of imperial control, she is slowly recuperating on a foundation of industry and economy.
In 1630, the Augustinian friar, La Puente, thus wrote of the fate of Spain:
scientifically enlightened country, the deaths from disease in camp were eight to one from the incidents of battle. But we could do better now. And so could France and England.
In fact, the modern humane war against disease has made life much safer for the soldier. That is to be admitted. But there has occurred so far but one conspicuous radical exception to the general rule of a much greater percentage of deaths from disease than from bullets and bayonets in war time. That, of course, is the record of the Japanese armies in the Russo-Japanese war. The records of the recent war in the Balkan States are like those of a century ago.
