Children and War. Documents presented to the Delegates to the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments.

(Capek, Mann, Asch, others) Children and War. Documents presented to the Delegates to the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments. Save the Children International Union, Geneva, 1932. Original thick wrappers, 9"x 5", 92pp. Provenance: gift from the International Committee to the Library of Congress, with the business card of the Union attached to the front wrapper with a paper clip, and with the LC rubber stamp on rear cover. VG copy. Contains thoughtful and forceful contributions by Karel Capek, Thomas Mann, Solomon Asch, John Galsworthy, and other international writers. ".(I)n England, in 1917, 600.000 children had to leave school and work for a livelihood; this work affected the health of seven to ten per cent., and juvenile criminality rose from 46 to 56 per cent. In France, infantile mortality among certain classes went up from ten to forty-four per cent; after the war, the number of widows with children was 470.000. In Italy the orphans numbered 380.000, and 120.000 children were living in the greatest poverty. Even in neutral States, rickets affected forty-one per cent of the child population. One could go on piling up examples, but enough has been cited to prove that war works greater ravages among the children than among the fighting forces. To remedy all this, it is not enough to humanise War: War must be abolished. Were a regiment to begin firing on crowds of children, humanity would be staggered. But in reality, every war costs us the lives of hundreds of thousands of children even if they are not deliberately massacred. To-day, no excuse whatever can be found for our deeds; nor can we plead ignorance, for the figures are there, and their speech is plain and pitiless."--Karel Capek [R.U.R.] [++] Only FIVE copies are located in WorldCat, with only two of those in the U.S.…