File:Peace-at any price (1916) (14779190505).jpg

Identifier: peaceatanyprice00brow (find matches)
Title: Peace--at any price
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Browne, Porter Emerson, 1879-1934
Subjects:
Publisher: New York (etc.) D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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Text Appearing Before Image:
Peace— at Any Price
——————————
"What I wish," says the dear
young friend, "is the words and
music of this opera. I've been sit-
ting here for an hour now, like a
correspondence school cantatrice
from from South Bend listening to the
Wagnerian cycle in the original
tongue, and the occasional out-
croppings of lucidity that reach my ears
cause what little intelligence I may
have to think its being insulted, and,
as the man says, being insulted by
experts. If I am wrong, I humbly
apologize, and I would like to be set
right."
He fronts up before the platform,
standing stiffly, heels together. Then
it comes to me in a minute that he's
(29)

Peace—at Any Price
——————————
a soldier. At about the same moment
I could see the same idea begin to
coagulate in the place where
the Great Pacifist thought he did his
thinking. His smile slips a couple of
notches.
"I shall be very glad to explain
my views more fully to you at some
other time and place," he says.
"No time like the present,"
says the Lad with the Wrist Watch.
"Furthermore, Im not at all stingy,
I don't want so much honor all to
myself. I want all these other folks
to share it with me."
"But," protests the Great Pacifist,
"this is an address, not a debate."
"Then," says the Lad with the
(30)
Text Appearing After Image:
Peace—at Any Price
——————————
Wrist Watch, "we'll just change it.
I've had all the address I need for
one evening, and some left over to
take back to the boys in the
trenches."
In the meanwhile, as you can
imagine, there began to arise a ripple
of excitement. The Lad with the
Wrist Watch was talking loudly
enough for all to hear. So was the
Great Pacifist. Also the dignified
inmates on the rostrum.
At length a prosperous steel mag-
nate, of Fifth Avenue and Pittsburg,
who made peace in public and armor
plate in private, ventured a suggestion.
"Put him out", he says.
(31)
Peace—at Any Price
——————————
"You can't," says the Lad with the
Wrist Watch.
"Why can't we?" says the Steel
Magnate.
"Because you'd have to use force,"
says the Lad with the Wrist Watch.
"And you don't believe in force," he
says. "You've all said so."
The Steel Magnate's jaw drops.
"All you can do," says the Lad
with the Wrist Watch, "is to sit there
and set me an example. But if I
don't choose to follow it, you can't be blamed
for that, now can you?"
"No," says the Steel Magnate. I'
mean yes."Then, looking kind of
batty, he goes into executive session
with a well-known and justly-pop-
[32]

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