It is only
when negotiations for peace begin that the great lesson of the futility
of huge preparations for fighting to preserve peace can be given effect.
Is it too much to expect that the whole civilized world will take to
heart the lessons of this terrible catastrophe and co-operate to prevent
the recurrence of such losses and woes? Should Germany and
Austria-Hungary succeed in their present undertakings, the whole
civilized world would be obliged to bear continuously, and to an
ever-increasing amount, the burdens of great armaments, and would live
in constant fear of sudden invasion, now here, now there--a terrible
fear, against which neither treaties nor professions of peaceable
intentions would offer the least security.
It must be admitted, however, that the whole military organization,
which has long been compulsory on the nations of Continental Europe, is
inconsistent in the highest degree with American ideals of individual
liberty and social progress. Democracies can fight with ardor, and
sometimes with success, when the whole people is moved by a common
sentiment or passion; but the structure and discipline of a modern army
like that of Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia, has a despotic or
autocratic quality which is inconsistent with the fundamental principles
of democratic society.
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