The souls of the people must be set on fire to fight a great battle for peace and to save the ideals and traditions of our forefathers from being submerged under the rising tide of militarism.
That battle must be fought with voice and pen against ignorance, indifference, and every powerful interest intrenched in selfish opposition to human advancement.
Popular interest must be stirred to its depths to create an irresistible wave of public sentiment that will sweep away all opposition to the necessary expenditures and legislation.
Every man who would be willing to serve his country in time of war must be enlisted to serve it in time of peace, by fighting in advance of war to safeguard against it and ultimately end it forever.
Every woman who wants the menace of war lifted from the lives of the women of the world must show the faith that is in her by putting her whole heart and soul into the work of enlisting her own community in this great movement to do away with war, and to save the women of the future from the inhuman cruelties and heart-breaking agonies that war has brought upon them in the past.
The people of this country must stubbornly stand their ground to check the future advance of militarism in the United States. For years it has been stealthily gaining, while the people at large have paid no heed. Military expenditures have grown larger and larger--they have trebled within a generation--and the people have voiced no vigorous protest. _They have been "asleep at the switch._"
There must be an end of this indifference of the majority of the people, who have been selfishly and self-complacently attending to their own affairs while the world has been drifting into a bloody welter of war. It is only by chance that the United States has not already been drawn into it. Complications may at any time arise which will involve this nation in war.
An interest must be awakened as tense and vivid and all-compelling as would be instantly aroused by an actual invasion of the United States by a foreign enemy, and it must be awakened far in advance of that invasion, to make sure that it never happens.
For nearly two thousand years the gentle admonition "On earth Peace, Good Will toward men" has been the ideal which the human race has been struggling to attain.