Look at it any way you will, war, according to the pacifist notion, is a real Klondike for manufacturers of war-materials. The peace sophists have been able to put two and two together, with the conclusions that such an opportunity for profit is too strong for human nature to resist, and that, as they have found room for the motive, they have proved the crime. Of course, their accusation is a pretty severe arraignment of human nature, after all these years of civilization and Christian enlightenment. It is strange how human nature can have improved so much lately, as claimed by the pacifists, and how the spirit of brotherhood and good-will can have suddenly become so dominant that the peoples of the earth now despise war, and are so afflicted with the horrors of it that, just as soon as the great European War is over, they are not going to fight any more, while still the makers of war-materials remain in the primitive savagery of the stone age. It seems to me that, if human nature has so improved as to be an efficient bar to a nation against waging war for plunder, regardless of the advantage and the profit, it ought also to be a similar bar to inventors and manufacturers of war-materials, and to army and navy officers, against precipitating war for pecuniary or personal advantage. But, according to pacifist reasoning, those "interested parties" are more endowed with the spirit of the hyena than with the spirit of brotherhood. Perhaps, however, the manufacturers of war-materials, and army and navy officers, were not home when the great improvement in human nature knocked at their door. If considerations of mere personal profit are sufficient to make the best of us foster war, which the peace fanatics esteem wholesale murder, it is strange that the inventors and manufacturers of drugs and medicines, the proprietors of drugstores, and the medical profession and undertakers, do not form a league and co-operate in spreading infectious diseases, in order to create a greater demand for their wares and for their services. Of course, the reason may be that they have not yet thought of it, and it may be wrong for me to suggest the thing to them. Still, it is queer that it has not been suggested to them by what the pacifists have said concerning the conduct of our army and navy officers and of the inventors and manufacturers of war-materials. Let us see what the facts actually are: The inventors and manufacturers of war-materials, and our army and navy officers, by virtue of the study and experience that qualify them for their business or profession better than others, are also qualified better than others to judge what are our actual needs for national defense. If the manufacturers of war-materials, and our army and navy men, are to be convicted of inciting war on the evidence that by so doing they create a demand for their services, then necessarily others benefited by a like demand may be convicted on the same evidence.