The gentle and charming lover of little children, Eugene Field, wrote: “I hate wars, armies, soldiers, guns, and fireworks.”[269] “And he shall judge among the nations, and he shall rebuke many people. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”[270] James Russell Lowell:[271] “The laborin’ man and laborin’ woman Have one glory and one shame; Ev’y thin’ thet’s done inhuman Ingers all on ’em the same.” And Tolstoi thus:[272] “Every war—even the briefest—with its accompaniment of ruinous expenses, destruction of harvests, thefts, plunder, murders, and unchecked debauchery, with the false justifications of its necessity and justice, the glorification and praise of military exploits, of patriotism and devotion to the flag, with the pretense of care for the wounded, etc.,—will, in one year, demoralize men incomparably more than thousands of thefts, arsons and murders committed in the course of centuries by individual men under the influence of passion.” Let the women’s literary clubs and circles, many of them devotees of John Ruskin, consider the following lines from his pen:[273] “But Occult Theft—Theft which hides itself even from itself, and is legal, respectable, and cowardly,—corrupts the body and soul of man, and to the last fibre of them. _And the guilty thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it, are the Capitalists_,—that is to say, those who live by percentages on the labor of others.—The _Real_ war in Europe—is between these thieves and the workman, _such as these thieves have made him_. They have kept him poor, ignorant, and sinful, that they might without his knowledge gather for themselves the produce of his toil. At last a dim insight into the fact of this begins to dawn upon him.” As to thieves: Think of stealing several years of a man’s life when he is in the prime of young manhood, by tearing him from his own friends and loved ones, forcing a rifle into his hands, and compelling him for years to learn the vile science and art of human butchery. Thus are the best years of millions of the choicest young men in Europe stolen—stolen by a class,—a class of prominent kidnappers, industrial and political thieves, “leading citizens” hypocritically wearing a mask called “Patriotism.” Think of many millions thus stolen—stolen from their parents, stolen from their brothers and sisters, stolen from their wives and children. When the working class think about war and see the vast theft of their lives they will astound the world with their protest. And the mothers will take part in this protest. (=14=) Didn’t Christ say in substance: “I came not to send peace, but a sword?”