Henry Watterson

“ Unless Patrick Henry was wrong—unless Washington and the men of the Revolution were wrong, that time is upon us. It is lie to pretend that the world is better than it was; that men are truer, wiser; that war is escapable; that peace may be had for the planning and the asking. The situation which without any act of ours rises before us is as exigent as that which rose brefore the Colonists in America when a mad English King, claiming to rule without accountability, asserted the right of Kings and sent an army to enforce it. ”

“ Why should we worry? Food-stuffs soaring—war stuffs roaring—everybody making money—the mercenary, the poor of heart, the mean of spirit, the bleak and barren of soul, could still plead the Hypocrisy of Uplift and chortle: 'I did not raise my boy to be a soldier.' Even the Lusitania did not awaken us to a sense of danger and arouse us from the stupefaction of ignorant and ignoble self-complacency. ”

“ Each of these three years the German Kaiser was making war upon us. He was making war secretly, through his emissaries in destruction of our industries, secretly through his diplomats plotting not merely foreign but civil war against us, and, as we now know, seeking to foment servile and racial insurrection; then openly upon the high seas levying murder upon our people and visiting all our rights and claims with scorn and insult—with scorn and insult unspeakable—at this moment pretending to flout us with ignominy and contempt. Where would the honest passivist draw the line? ”