“How, dear lady? _Government is force_--never was anything else--never can be until man is redeemed and this world is peopled by angels. Man is in the zoological period of his development. Scratch the most cultured man beneath the skin and you find the savage. Scratch the proudest nation of Europe beneath the skin and you find the elemental brute. I do not believe in forcing our mothers, our sisters, our wives and sweethearts into the blood-soaked mud of battle trenches. That work is the dangerous and difficult duty of man. So the ballot, on which peace or war depends, is his duty--not his right or privilege--” “Give us the ballot and we will make war impossible,” Virginia broke in. “How? If women vote with their men, their voting will mean nothing. We merely multiply the total by two. We do not change results. If women vote against the men on an issue of war or peace, will men submit to such a feminine decision? Certainly not. Force and force alone can decide the issue of force. Back of every ballot is a bayonet or there’s nothing back of it. The breath of revolution will drive such meaningless ballots as chaff before a whirlwind--” “We’ll stop your blood-stained revolutions!” Virginia cried. “All right. Do so and you stop the progress of humanity. The American Revolution was blood-stained. It gave us freedom. The Civil War was blood-stained. It freed this nation of the curse of slavery and sealed the Union for all time. There are good wars and bad wars. True war is the inevitable conflict between two irreconcilable moral principles. One is right--the other wrong. One must live--the other die. Wrong may triumph for a day. Right must win in the end or else the universe is ruled by the Devil, not by God. You cannot abolish war until the Devil is annihilated and God rules in the souls and lives of men and in their governments as well.” For the moment the woman was swept from the moorings of her pet arguments. She quickly recovered. “We are going to make America the moral and spiritual leader of mankind!” she cried with elation. “Yes, I know. In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World--your poet’s dream as far removed from the beastly realities of life today as Heaven is from Hell--” “We are going to make this dream a living fact in the world--and free America shall lead the way--” “And how will you begin?” “By setting the proud example of building our national life on spiritual realities first, not on guns and forts. We will begin the disarmament of the world--” “And end your movement by surrender to the armed bullies of Europe!”