War bond

“ Let dangers go; thy war shall be with me,
But such a war as breaks no bond of peace.
Speak thou fair words, I'll cross them with fair words;
Send thou sweet looks, I'll meet them with sweet looks;
Write loving lines, I'll answer loving lines;
Give me a kiss, I'll countercheck thy kiss:
Be this our warring peace, or peaceful war. ”

“ A loan of money to one of the belligerents, or supplying him with other means of carrying on a war, if done with the view of aiding him in the war, would be a violation of neutrality. But an engagement made in time of peace to furnish a nation a certain number of ships, or troops, or other articles of war, may afterward, in time of war, be fulfilled. ”

“ If this high-toned doctrine continues where will it end? We shall soon see every nation arming to the teeth for the sake of her national honor and safety, and draining her treasury for the purpose of building dreadnaughts and providing armaments. When such a state of things exists can international peace be perpetuated? Will not occasion be found to test those war implements and to utilize the naval and military men? When you purchase a knife don't you expect to use it? ”

“ Whether he win or lose, for ages to come shall the name of my home planet be associated with the thoughts of war, death and conquest."
He spoke, thought Ramey with a strange tingling in his spine, more truly than he knew. And a dim wonderment grew in Ramey that he, a Twentieth Century man, should listen to a prediction made centuries before his birth, and recognize that prophecy to have been fulfilled. For in the world from which Ramey had come, the name of Vibhishana's homeland, Mars, was invariably, inevitably, associated with thoughts of war, death and conquest. ”

“ Recognizing that a permanent peace must be based upon mutual confidence and goodwill between the nations, which can only be shown effectively by the abandonment of all material preparations for war, this Conference urges the abolition of armaments, the disbanding of military and naval forces, and the prohibition of the manufacture and import or export of munitions of war. ”

“ After all, the main responsibility for good shooting had to fall on observers who could actually see the target, and when we think of the splendid work of our soldiers in the war, we must not forget to give full credit to the tireless men whose duty it was to watch, to the men on wings who dared the fierce battle-planes of the enemy, to the men afloat high in the sky who must leap at a moment's notice from under a blazing mass of hydrogen, and finally to the men who crept out to perilous vantage-points at risk of instant death, in order to make the fire of their batteries tell. ”

“ When bad blood is likely to arise between individuals the very worst policy to pursue is to furnish them with weapons. And so it is with nations. Consider, if you will, the neck-and-neck race between Great Britain and the German Empire in the construction of battleships. [Page 106] What fool will call that preparation for war a guaranty of peace? We might be disposed to admit the sincerity of those who say we must arm and ever arm to maintain peace, except that they are too often men with professional and business interests at stake. ”

“ The great World War was more than two-thirds over when America entered the struggle, and yet in a sense this country was in the war from its very beginning. Three great inventions controlled the character of the fighting and made it different from any other the world has ever seen. These three inventions were American. The submarine was our invention; it carried the war into the sea. The airplane was an American invention; it carried the war into the sky. We invented the machine-gun ”

“ Guarding always the territory and protecting the sovereignty of its members the league will develop mutual interests so important that a new and powerful tie will bind the countries together in addition to the bond furnished by the necessity for defense. That necessity itself will grow less, armaments may be curtailed and the forces now engaged in mutual destruction may become available for raising in many ways the level of human life. ”

“ In peace and in war, on burning sands under the equator, or on eternal snow in the frigid zone, for pleasure or for business, well fed or starving, he is always not only ready, but eager, to the utmost of his strength, to serve a master, but too often inconsiderate, ungrateful to him, and unjust. ”

“ While the travellers of a train are peacefully taking their seats, artillery-men, horses, and cannon, on a contiguous set of rails, are occasionally as quietly embarking in carriages, horse-boxes, and trucks, which are subsequently hooked on to a mass of passengers perfectly unconscious of the elements of war which are accompanying them. ”

“ The policy of gigantic armaments cannot in the very nature of things ensure any final settlement of disputes between States. It leads, and can only lead, to an intolerable [101] situation from which war comes to be regarded by diplomacy as the only escape. ”

“ To watchers of the present conflict it seems an intolerable thought that, after the fighting is done, we should once more return to a condition of “armed peace,” with jealous, distrustful, and revengeful Powers piling up armaments and plotting singly or in groups against their neighbors until Europe is plunged into another war more terrible, more bloody, and more costly than this. ”

“ Germany was always on the lookout for any device that might prove useful in war, and when the Germans dug themselves in after the First Battle of the Marne, they had large quantities of hand-grenades for their men to toss over into the trenches of the Allies. These missiles proved very destructive indeed. They took the place of artillery, and were virtually hand-thrown shrapnel.
The French and British were entirely unprepared for this kind of fighting, and they had hastily to improvise offensive and defensive weapons for trench warfare. ”

“ The spirit and patriotism of the people in furnishing the supplies, volunteering for the service, and standing to the contest in the general wreck of the finances and the currency, without regard to their own losses—and the heroic courage of the army and navy, and of the militia and volunteers, made the war successful and glorious in spite of empty treasuries; and extorted from a proud empire that security in point of fact which diplomacy could not obtain as a treaty stipulation. ”

“ In the army and navy no reductions can, with reason, be required. At a moment like this, when all Europe is in arms; when, from the farthest borders of Poland, to the extremities of the Spanish Peninsula, the war-shout has gone forth; when not merely monarchs are at enmity, but nations are in arms! ”

“ As the war went on, both the Russians and the Japanese bought up all the machine-guns they could secure.58 They learned what could be done with the aid of barbed wire to retard the enemy while the machine-guns mowed them down as they were trying to get through.
A man with a machine-gun is worth a hundred men with rifles; such is the military estimate of the weapon. The gun fires so fast that after hitting a man it will hit him again ten times while he is falling to the ground. ”

“ It is difficult to pick out the most important inventions of this decade because sufficient time has not elapsed to determine which are most deserving of mention. The Great World War stimulated invention in all civilized lands. Aeronautics developed faster in the five years of war than it could in twenty-five years of peace. Of course, engines of war developed to a remarkable degree. Among the lighter pieces we saw the development of the Lewis gun, and then the Browning gun. The most important invention was the tank. ”

“ And if any one insists on looking at the settlement from the point of view of material advantage—and that point of view will and must be taken—it may be urged, without a shadow of doubt, that any and every nation, the conquerors no less than the conquered, would gain from a reduction of armaments far more than they could possibly gain by pecuniary indemnities or cessions of territory which would leave every nation still arming against the others with a view to future squandering of resources in another great war. ”

“ It is the fashion for politicians (and I am sorry to find them supported by eminent statesmen) to preach the doctrine of armaments; they allege that in order to preserve peace it is necessary to be prepared for war, that a nation with a large army or navy commands respect, and that her word carries weight. This argument cuts both ways, for a nation occupying such a commanding position may be unreasonable and a terror to weaker nations. ”

“ In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty—for it will be a very practical duty—of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. ”

“ With respect to certain treaties of alliance, whose object is to collect the greatest possible number of bayonets as a mutual security against other powers, who, on their side, seek to protect themselves by uniting their forces, nobody can see in them anything else than a guarantee for an armed peace, which, by the necessity of its nature, leads to war. ”

“ Almost everybody hopes that, when this war is over, it will be possible to secure the conditions of a lasting peace by reducing the power of militarism and by setting the relations between nations on a better footing. ”

“ Our arms having been everywhere victorious, having subjected to our military occupation a large portion of the enemy's country, including his capital, and negotiations for peace having failed, the important questions arise, in what manner the war ought to be prosecuted and what should be our future policy. ”

“ A treaty agreement to refer all differences within the league for adjudication either to arbitration or to a permanent court.
“The present war,” says the platform in part, “has made it clear that the arming of all nations menaces the peace of all. A common reduction of armaments under an international agreement seems to present itself as the sole condition of tolerable security and welfare of all. Such a consummation would give to humanity its own possible compensation for the unparalleled tragedy of the war.” ”

“ May it-not, sir, be farther affirmed, that by insuring in other nations, they may injure their allies by falling into our hands, but do not the less benefit us? that if they do not grow weaker, we at least are strengthened; but that by insuring among us, whatever steps are taken, the equilibrium of the war is preserved always the same? ”

“ It would be the common and equal utility of all nations. [36] 'War is mischief upon the greatest scale.' [37] Among the causes or occasions of war have been 'enterprizes of conquest': means of prevention are confederations of defence, defensive alliances, and general guarantees. Attempts at monopoly in commerce, insolence of the strong toward the weak, and tyranny of one nation toward another, have been the causes or occasions of war: means of prevention are confederations defensive, and conventions limiting the number of troops to be maintained. ”

“ Deploring the destructive war between the two most powerful of the eastern nations and anxious that our commercial interests in those countries may be preserved and that the safety of our citizens there shall not be jeopardized, I would not hesitate to heed any intimation that our friendly aid for the honorable termination of hostilities would be acceptable to both belligerents. ”

“ I remember being told by a right hon. gentleman, in the course of a private conversation in the House, that 'if an angel came down from heaven to write my dispatches, I could not prevent Europe from a war in six months'. Well, Sir, not months, but years, rolled by, and no war took place. It was the anxious desire of the Government of Earl Grey to prevent war; and the maintenance of peace was one of the objects at which they expressly aimed, and succeeded. ”

“ On the day after the armistice—the very day when our war with just Germans was over, when the deeper, realer, more intimate, more desperate war Germany had precipitated upon all nations with themselves, begins, why should the men and women who had been working every afternoon for the men of this nation, in the Red Cross, talk about reducing to a peace basis? ”

“ They sought concessions, opportunities for investment, command of resources, exclusive trade, spheres of influence. Private negotiations were backed by diplomacy, and year after year diplomacy was backed by an ever more impressive show of naval and military power.
But we did not believe that the Great War impended. There would still be restricted wars here and there of course, but more and more they could be prevented. The human mind that had mastered nature’s way could master and control the ways of man. ”

“ If the Governments of the world deny you the right of meeting, where are your weapons of warfare? On the one side armies on armies of men marshalled and equipped with all the arts and engines of war; on the other side a helpless multitude with their hands in their pockets, or paying a penny a week subscription to the great association that is to overcome by passive suffering the power of the combined treasuries of the world! ”

“ The "National war of defense" has the surprising effect of creating, even in the neutral nations, a general transformation of ownership and relative power, always in direct line with expansionistic tendencies. ”