Excerpt from Preparedness for National Defense: An Address Delivered Before the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the National Civic Federation on January 18, 1916, at Washington, D. C., Together With a Letter Written on the Sane Subject to the National Security League Dated January 19, 1916 For 17 months war such as has never been known in the history of man has been devouring life and consuming the handiwork of men. Such a stupendous horror has compelled men to think deeply of the principles underlying our institutions and the spirit that makes for human progress and liberty. Before the outbreak of the present war many believed that a great war involving many nations was no longer possible; that men had developed ideals of justice and of humanity that would prevent the possibility of their taking the lives of fellow men, even in the name of legitimate warfare. They hoped much - their ideals were untested. With the declaration of war the men of each country rushed to their flags. Soon there were mobilized thousands of men fighting for conflicting ideals. When it was necessary to decide whether they proposed to stand by and see another nation invade their fatherland, trample upon their national ideals, ruthlessly disregard solemn pledges given in treaties, they found that there were some things of higher value than peace. They found that there are dangers of peace more far-reaching than the dangers of war. They realized that it is better to fight and die for a cause than to maintain peace and their physical safety at the sacrifice of their manhood and of the ideals that ennoble life. And yet it is not an unbeautiful theory that has been dissipated by the shot and the smoke of the European war. There were many who held that an organized society was possible upon a basis of the brotherhood of man, in which all had regard for the rights of others and would subordinate their selfish interests to the welfare of others. This ideal made paramount the sanctity of human life and regarded war as a relic of barbarism possible only because institutions of justice had not been sufficiently developed. Wage earners generally of all civilized countries proclaimed and indorsed this ideal and declared that they would use every means within their power to prevent war even to the extent of stopping all of the industries of the nations through a general strike. There were many extreme pacifists who could find no justification for war or the use of force in international affairs. And I, too, found this ideal attractive. In a speech made in April, 1899, in Tremont Temple, Boston, I said: The organized wageworker learns from his craft association the value of humanity and of the brotherhood of man, hence it is not strange that we should believe in peace, not only nationally, but internationally. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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