Smoke Screens.
The big guns of modern battleships fire so far and with such deadly accuracy that they are certain to destroy any ship that gets within their range. There is only one defense against them, and that is a smoke screen.
This smoke screen is caused by oil fuel, which can be turned on or off at will, and which burns with more or less smoke according to the amount of air allowed the furnaces. It is dense and impenetrable. Under cover of it the pursued vessels can change their course and slip away. The Germans used this device in the battle off Jutland in the North Sea.
That is well enough in war. In fact, whatever in war prevents the loss of life has my cordial approval. What I object to is the use of the smoke screen in private life.
Have you not often talked with an ignoramus who hid his ignorance under a dense cloud of big words and pompous sentences? Your mind flounders about among them. You think he must mean something, but you cannot for the life of you see what it is. The smoke cloud is very impressive, and he "gets away with it."
Sometimes you are arguing with another man, and getting the best of the argument very decidedly, but of a sudden your opponent springs a cloud of arguments quite aside from the point. They must be answered, however; at least, you must show that they are quite aside from the point. And while you are doing that you lose the thread of your logic. The battle is lost.
Smoke screens are constantly employed by infidels in their tricky mouthings. They are frequently used by crafty politicians. Editors have been known to employ them on the editorial page. They are not unknown in the annals of athletics. Scientific discussions are familiar with them. In fine, wherever it is necessary, or thought to be necessary, to avoid a fair and honest fight in the open, out are poured these smoke screens of evasion.
I detest them. Don't you?