Paoli High School
Paoli, Oklahoma
Ashlee O’Pecko
War And Peace
"People are becoming too intelligent ever to have another big war. Statesmen have not anything like the prestige they had years ago, and what is educating the ordinary people against war is that they are mixing so much. The moto-car, radio, and such things are the great mixers. . .I believe that the last war was too much an educator for there ever to be another on a large scale." Henry Ford 1928 (The American Scrap Book)
Henry Ford grew up with an interest in mechanical things. In 1879 at the age of 16 he left home to a near by city called Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist. From 1888 to 1899 he was a mechanical engineer, then later a chief engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. After experimenting for several years, in 1896 he founded the Ford Motor Company.
The war in which Ford is talking about is the war we know as World War I. This war took place in August of 1914. It involved many countries from Europe as well as the United States. This war was one of the most violent and destructive wars in European history. World War I end in November of 1918.
Henry Ford spoke too soon when he said "I believe that the last war was too much an educator for there ever to be another on a large scale." In the year of 1939 another war began which we called World War II. This war killed more people, destroyed more property, and disrupted more lives than any other war in our history. It also brought about the downfall of western history and led to the rise of the Soviet Union. The development of the atomic bomb during this war brought about the nuclear age. World War II ended in 1945.
During World War II, in 1939, Billy Graham was appointed by a church in the Southern Baptist Convention, he received a solid foundation at the Florida Bible Institute. In 1943 he graduated from Wheaton college. After that he joined Youth for Christ, an organization founded for ministries to youth and servicemen during War World II. During the post-war era he preached throughout the United States and in Europe. Today Graham is 82 years old and his ministries are known around the globe. He has preached in the heart of New York, in remote African Villages, and in Australia. Since 1977 Mr. Graham has preached in virtually every country, including the former Soviet Union.
Billy Graham has a point when he says "We must have military power to keep madmen from taking over the world," because in order to have peace in our country, we must have military power. On September 11, 2001, we showed how great our military power is, even people who weren’t in the army wanted to go fight for our country. When Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein tried to take over our world and way of life our men of honor stood and fought back.
Another man that had something important to say about war far was Arnold Toynbee. Arnold Toynbee was a philosopher and a reformer, he was also a British and English economic historian. After he graduated in 1878, he became a tutor at Balliol College, the University of Oxford. From 1919 to 1924 he served as the professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine history at the University of London. From 1925 till his retirement in 1955 he was the director of studies in the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Toynbee was also the research professor of international history at London University. During World War I and World War II he served in the Foreign Office of the British government, he represented them at the peace conferences after both wars were finished. Arnold Toynbee’s influences on his students and on his contemporaries was great. He only lived to be 31 years old and died on October 22, 1975 in York, England. One of the many books Toynbee wrote is a twelve-volume series called A Study of History. This work is based on Toynbee’s thesis that history reflects the process of civilizations rather than one of nations. It compares the study of 26 civilizations in world history. He analyzes their origin, growth, and disintegration. Toynbee’s hypothesis says that "the failure of a civilization to survive was the result of its inability to respond to moral and religious challenges, rather than to physical or environmental challenges."
When Toynbee says "History teaches us that when a barbarian race confronts a sleeping culture the barbarians always win." this is not always true. On September 11, 2001, life was going as usual in New York, Washington, California, and all over the country until 8:45 a.m. when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center. At 9:06 a.m. United Airline 175 crashed into the second World Trade Center. At 9:40 a.m. American flight 77 plowed into the southeast of the Pentagon, it killed over 100 people. And at 10:37 a.m. United Airlines 93 was also headed for Washington but it crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, it is the only plane that didn’t make its target. We were being attacked. Before this America was sleeping. This attack woke us up, we fought back and we won. The belief in God has never been higher, patriotism has never been stronger, and Americans have never been more united. We stood up for America, placed our hands over our hearts, and held our heads up high, telling everyone that America will never perish.