Mother Bickerdyke - As I Knew Her #260268

War is a corporate expression of the barbaric element still left in civilization. It witnesses to the ignorance, weakness and wickedness of man. Poor human nature, distrustful of its diviner leadings, unmindful of the heavenly guiding, rushes to war. There has never been a war that might not have been avoided had the saner counsels of the wise obtained. Frankly admitting, then, that the sword, bullet and bayonet are but extensions of the fang, claw and horn, it readily follows that the time is coming when, like their brute fore runners, they will gradually become ornamental traditions, then linger awhile as abortions until they are finally abolished forever. Meanwhile we must as frankly admit that there are condi tions more dire than war; that liberty, justice and honor are more valuable than life, and that when these cannot be won or maintained in life or by living, they must be purchased by the blood of the noblest, the lives of the best. There can be but one supreme justification for war, viz., liberty and the just chances that go therewith. That war, then, is the noblest that secures the highest results in these directions.