With all the Te Deums that have risen in cathedrals, and hosannas that were sung for conquering Caesars when earth and sky were shaken like a carpet with their welcome at the gate; with all the splendor of shining accoutrements of guardsmen and Uhlans and cuirassiers; with all the investiture of romance that poet and painter and even the sensitive historian have been able to confer upon it--war remains what it is: an abysmal and sickening reversion to the primitive brute in man. It must still be a sight “to grieve high heaven and make the angels mourn” that men created in the image of their Maker, endowed with a diviner instinct beyond the body’s need or transient existence, could sink so far, and in the slough of primordial animality forget the very light of life and their immortal destiny for the sake of the mere fiction of power on land, sea and even in the throbbing and embattled air through which the prayers of women ascend like silent flame to God. The World’s Best Intellects on War JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU: War is the foulest fiend that ever vomited forth from the mouth of hell. THOMAS JEFFERSON: I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: There never was a good war or a bad peace. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON: My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE: The more I study the world, the more am I convinced of the inability of force to create anything durable. PAUL ON MARS HILL: God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. ANDREW CARNEGIE: We have abolished slavery from civilized countries, the owning of man by man. The next great step that the world can take is to abolish war, the killing of man by man. GEORGE WASHINGTON: My first wish is to see the whole world at peace, and the inhabitants of it as one band of brothers, striving which should most contribute to the happiness of mankind. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive * * * to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. EMANUEL KANT: The method by which states prosecute their rights cannot under present conditions be a process of law, since no court exists having jurisdiction over them, but only war. But through war, even if it result in victory, the question of right is not decided. THE SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY