---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Jaques, John
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 1
number: 6
published: 1898-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'John Jaques, "War, a Poem," *Improvement Era* 1, no. 6 (April 1898): 425–426.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera16unse
start_page: 425
end_page: 426
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1898-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera16unse
  publication_year: 1898
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1898, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# War, a Poem

<!-- page:425 -->

WAR

                  A lady, talking with the Duke of
                      Wellington, once proudly said
                 'A victory is a glorious thing, sir,"
                      But he sadly shook his head.

                 In answering her the Duke's remark was
                     Like this, which I here repeat
                 'Than victory there is but one thing worse,
                    "That one thing, ma'm, is defeat."

<!-- page:426 -->

——

       War is debt and bonds and taxes,
            Principal and interest too.
       Interest makes debts more than double,
            Ere is paid all that is due.

       War produces untold suffering,
            Cripples, widows, orphans makes,
       Thousands sends to graves untimely
           Every thing it wants it takes.

       War is waste and reckless ruin,
           Equity and morals go.
       Hatred, famine, plague   —   all evils

            In war's path relentless flow.

      "War is hell. "   So Sherman called it,
            Hell upon the earth indeed.
       War is all crimes concentrated.
           War's their harvest and their seed.

       War is rapine.    That's sufficient
            To disgust an honest man.
       War is murder.   That should put it
            Under universal ban.

       Hail!   That grand Millennial era,
           When dread war's alarms are o'er
       Swords and spears and guns abolished,
          Nations shall learn war no more.

                                             John Jaques.