Who is for war now? Its adventure, its heroism? Bah! Yet this is not all.
For war spares none. It desecrates the beauty of the earth; it ruins, it destroys, it wastes; it starves children; it drives out old men, and women, homeless. And most terrible of all, it brings agony to every household: it is like a plague of the firstborn. Do not think I have forgotten you, O women, and old men. You, too, have to endure the agony of the arena; you are compelled to sit and watch us fight the beasts. Every mother is there in agony, watching her baby, and unable to stretch a finger to help. This, too, is war--the anguish of mothers whose sons perish, of wives who lose their husbands, of girls robbed for all time of marriage and motherhood.
And this vile thing is still perpetrated upon the earth among peoples who have long ago declared human sacrifice impossible and barbaric.
This then is a basal fact. We have faced it fairly. The instrument is vile. What then of the motive? What is the motive which drives us to use this evil instrument? And I see you fathers and mothers waiting to hear what I shall say. For there are people who whisper that we who are fighting are vindictive, that we lust for the blood of our enemies, that we are coarse and brutal, that we are unholy champions of what we call a just cause. Again let us face the facts. And to these whisperers I answer boldly: “Yes! we are coarse, some of us; we are vindictive; we hate; we do not deny it.” For war in its vileness taints its human instruments too. When Davidson died I cried death upon his murderers. I called them devils, and worse. I am not ashamed.
That is not the point. What I or Tommy may be at a given moment is not the point. The question is, with what motives did we enter this war, agree to take up this vile instrument? We cannot help if it soils our hands. What is our motive in fighting in the arena? What provokes the dumb heroism of our soldiers? Why did men flock to the colours, volunteer in millions for the arena? You know. I who have lived with them eight months in France, I also know. It was because a people took up this vile instrument and used it from desire of power. Because they trampled on justice, and challenged us to thwart them. Because they willed war for the sake of wrong; because they said that force was master of the world, and they set out to prove it.