International cooperation; Peace; World War, 1914-1918
To this question I answer: If a man is left in the world when this
conflict is ended who glories in deliberate war, he is too bad to live
in civilized society. Certain it is that the vast majority of men and
women are already convinced that the desire for war, henceforth and
forever, is wiped out of their hearts. In the stress of actual battle
or in the preparations to sustain those who fight they may forget the
fundamental folly of the whole thing for the time; but it is always at
the bottom of their hearts. What is the human power of reasoning worth,
if it is not able to devise some way to escape from this obsession of
self-slaughter?
Do not be deceived by the strut of Mars. His _Day_ has come with a
vengeance. He has shot up rapidly, like a jimson-weed, and blossomed
like a cactus. We may have laughed at him in the days of peace, but we
now look to him for protection. We cannot decry the men who are dying
for us, dying in the best sportsmanslike manner. But we do not like
their business as a business, and we wish at the bottom of our hearts
that it were abolished as a peril to humanity. And we believe that
of all who hate war, none hate it more than those who are actually
fighting in this struggle. Let us give Mars his _Day_ and all the glory
that belongs to it, but let us not forget peace while we serve war.
Nor should we be deceived by the pallid pacifist. He has his
counterpart in every struggle; and in general he serves some good
purpose in a multitude of opinions. But the day of stress and world
crisis is not his _Day_; and the practical world loses little time in
putting him in his place. The pacifist does not represent the peace
movement in its freest and most significant form. The advocates of
peace today who are best serving its promotion are those who are out in
the armies bent on putting down that nation who is the most dangerous
enemy of peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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