The Daily Alaska Empire

New Weapon of War
(Cincinnati Enquirer)

A new poison has been developed, according to a recent report—a poison so potent that a single ounce could destroy all humanity from the Mexican border to the Arctic Ocean. A speck of the substance, far too small for the eye to see, is sufficient to take a man's life. The poison might be used at some future time as an instrument of war, scientists believe. At present the formula is in the hands of the United States.

According to the men who devised the powerful crystal drug, its manufacture is both simple and cheap. Even the smallest nation might find the secret—and at almost any time. In the hands of an unscrupulous aggressor, the poison might be used with results too horrible even to contemplate.

We have written before that man's knowledge seems to be the only real threat to his existence. The point is emphasized again with this new announcement. Fortunately, in the past, man's ingenuity has been able to build counteragents which have saved him from his earlier discoveries. But new weapons now are so completely and instantaneously destructive that the day may come when man will have no time to invent counter-mechanisms.

Compared to some of the new chemical formulas, the atom bomb, we are told, is puny. The bomb can destroy ships and factories and men, but on a limited scale. Poisons and poison gases of types already existing could wipe out entire States and could be distributed with comparative ease. Such weapons, in the hands of an enemy, could more than nullify any temporary advantage which the atom bomb might give. Even a threat to use such chemicals would cancel any possibility of use of the bomb which, at best, could destroy only a comparatively small ratio of enemy strength. From a single airfield, long-range planes could carry enough poison or poison gas to kill every living thing from the Atlantic to the Appalachians; from New England to Florida.

Someday—perhaps that time is now—the human race will have perfected such devilish devices that each nation will be forced to perpetual peace as a matter of self-preservation. That will be possible, however, only if we don't kill each other in the meantime!