There has been no war for more
than a century--perhaps two centuries--into which the nation has entered
with so general a belief that its action is justified. We rejoice to be
assured that this is the general feeling of the people of the United
States, whose opinion we naturally value more than we do that of any
other people.
Most persons in this country, including all those who work for peace,
agree with you in deploring the vast armaments which European States
have been piling up, and will hope with you that after this war they may
be reduced--and safely reduced--to slender dimensions. Their existence
is a constant menace to peace. They foster that spirit of militarism
which has brought these horrors on the world; for they create in the
great countries of the Continent a large and powerful military and naval
caste which lives for war, talks and writes incessantly of war, and
glorifies war as a thing good in itself.
It is (as you say) to the peoples that we must henceforth look to
safeguard international concord. They bear the miseries of war, they
ought to have the power to arrest the action of those who are hurrying
them into it.
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