Thus, if I may be
permitted to quote from a book of mine recently published:
"Our sons were bade to enter it as a 'war to end war,' a final
struggle which should abolish the intolerable burdens of armaments and
conscription. They were taught to exalt it as a strife for oppressed
and helpless peoples; the prelude to a new brotherhood and cooperation
among the nations, and to that reign of justice which is the
antecedent condition of peace.
"They did their part. With adventurous faith they glorified their
cause and offered their fresh lives to make it good. Their sacrifice,
the idealism which lay behind it in their respective communities--the
unofficial perceptions that they, the fathers and mothers and the
boys, were fighting to vindicate the supremacy of the moral over the
material factors of life--this has made an imperishable gift to the
new world and our children's lives. When an entire commuity rises to
something of magnanimity, and a nation identifies its fate with
the lot of weaker states, then even mutilation and death may be
gift-bringers to mankind.
"But it is more significant to our purpose to note that the blood of
youth had hardly ceased to run before the officials began to dicker
for the material fruits of conquest. Not how to obtain peace but how
to exploit victory--to wrest each for himself the larger tribute from
the fallen foe--became their primary concern.
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