Staring at the Yawning Precipice of World War III

   As the world stumbles blindly toward a new World War, led by the bankers, the Military Industrial Complex, world organizations, and alliances, it might do well to remember the slaughtered bodies and minds that come with such a senseless conflict. Most wars are seen as madness when looked back upon from a future vantage point. It is always best to step back and think before sending the best and brightest of your population into the bloody killing fields. (Just look at the murdered youth of Ukraine.) World War I began 110 years ago on July 28, 1914. A most senseless and devastating war.

     Unfortunately most wars are fought against the wishes of the citizens of the nations that fight them. Woodrow Wilson campaigned and won as the anti-war candidate, and within months of election, was sending American boys to Europe; continuing a war where both sides were exhausted and that was about to end.  The entrance of America and the “victory” of the allies, laid the seeds for World War II. In this column published in Windham, on January 21, 1916 by William S. Harris, he questions how Christianity can support war and still be the religion of the Prince of Peace.

    “A clergyman of some prominence in the state, in an address after defining Militarism as ‘the policy of government by which the nation trusts in force for the achievement of its ambitions in disregard of its claims of justice, humanity, and international morals,’ apparently endorses this policy by avowing: ‘There is only one way to meet the militarist that history records: that is with his own weapons on the field of battle.’ ”

     “From some other statements in the same strain some of which I myself heard the preacher make, I think I do not misapprehend and misrepresent his position., and I cannot refrain from recording a protest against such teaching by those called to interpret and apply the principles of religion and to be leaders in public opinion. It is their place to give us not only warning from the past, but inspiration for the future. Those who believe that humanity should make progress upward and onward need to look ahead as well as back.”

    “One hesitates to denounce war to the full extent of his conviction because so many excellent and esteemed men who fought in out Civil War seem to think that arguments for peace are a personal reflection on them. Do they realize that the Civil War ended 50 years ago? If our people have made one-half the progress in the moral realm in these fifty years that they have made in material inventions and scientific knowledge. Who will say that the Civil War could not now be adjusted without bloodshed?”

     “The apologies for militarism appear to amount to something like this: So long as we have to del with bad men, there is no use for any one to try to be good. The good need not try to make the bad better, but should descend to their level and overpower them with their own evil weapons.”

     We are told that the ‘national honor’ (whatever that may be) can be vindicated only by giving blow for blow. The noble statement of President Wilson that a ‘nation can be too proud to fight,’ I heard ridiculed in a sermon by the clergyman referred to. He should have

He should have lived a hundred years ago, when a high-toned gentleman could not be too proud to fight his personal enemy or friend if differences involving ‘honor’ arose between them.  The due then must decide which was right , and one or the other must be killed to uphold somebody’s honor!”

      The civilized world has outgrown that barbarous foolishness. We even have laws to forbid individual from arming and avenging their disputes. The time is ripe for nations to discard that primitive way of settling differences and to speedily find some way worthy of intelligent, not to say moral, beings. Is it not a least an idea worth working for? Even though the advocates of force have only derision and the cry of ‘mollycoddle and poltroon for those who believe the Christian world at least after two thousand years, should be approximating the precepts of the great Teacher.”

     The attempt is sometimes made to justify war in the present age by an appeal to the Old Testament. If this can be done, certainly other evils such as human slavery and polygamy, can be so justified, institutions which the Christian consciousness of this age has utterly repudiated, but which never caused one half the havoc and misery that war has caused.” (Slaves might disagree) Again, if the Old Testament had been sufficient for the world’s moral needs, why did Christ come and teach and exemplify a morality far in advance of that which the world had previously known? Christ recounted things which had been allowed ‘by them of old time,’ but, he affirmed, ‘I say unto you’— something higher and better.”

    Christianity was not needed to teach men courage or patriotism. The Spartans, centuries before Christ, were as courageous and patriotic as any people ever have been or ever need to be. The ‘new commandment’ pf Christianity is love, good-will, brotherhood. There is no place in the teachings , example, or spirit of Christ for the hatred, selfish ambitions, and jealousies from which wars spring and which wars in turn aggravate. Christianity has made men more willing to suffer, to die if need be, in defense of truth and principle, but we can not believe that the spirit of Christ has ever made man more inclined to kill of injure his fellow man.”

     We are told that our country’s only safety lies in having an army and navy sufficient to repel any nation that with to attack us; specifically, I presume, Germany and Japan, or both together. But why stop at two nations? Looking at history and human nature one can imagine Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Turkey, Italy and Spain, Japan. China, and a few more banding themselves together to despoil America! Why assume that we can have the privilege of fighting them one or two at a time? If to meet force with force is our only hope, when are we safe? What amount of preparedness will avail?”

     “No, our security is in obeying the command of God and of reason ’to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.’ If, as Voltaire said, ‘God is always on the side of the heaviest battalions.’ away with such a God. The ally of cruelty and injustice! He is worse than useless in the evolution of humanity. Shame on a so-called Christianity that has nothing better to offer as a principle of action than might makes right, and force can only be overcome by force. The whole diea us far aside from the teachings of Christ. Even the Old Testament is full of the teaching that righteousness and not superior force is the sures defense of a nation as it Is of an individual.”

     Politicians do not implement a draft unless that are planning a war; like the one which is happening asymmetrically at this very moment.  A war we cannot possibly win, as we have carelessly abandoned or given much of our weaponry away, leaving us totally defenseless, save the outmoded Navy and the nuclear option, which are no options at all. Maybe we should take care of our own massive problems before we tell the world how to live.