minds obsessed with the spirit of revenge or conquest, hands clenched to
strike, hearts eager to invade.

"Every military implement is designed to cut or crush, to wound and
kill. Nations at peace help one another with humanity's normal
tenderness of heart at times of pestilence, of famine, of disaster.
Nations at war exert their every ounce of strength to force upon their
adversaries hunger, destruction, and death. Starvation of the enemy
becomes a detail of what is considered good military strategy in war
time, just as world-embracing charity has become a characteristic of
all civilization during times of peace. Must we not admit flotillas
carrying grain to famine-stricken peoples to be more admirable than
fleets which carry death to lands in which prosperity might reign if
undisturbed by war?"

"But do you not admit that wars sometimes have helped the forces of
civilization in their conquest against barbarism?"

"War has not been the chief force of civilization against barbarism,"
Mr. Carnegie replied with emphasis. Then he continued more thoughtfully:

"That is one way of saying it. Another is, no effort of the forces of
civilization against barbarism is war in the true sense of the word.

"Such an armed effort is a part of the force pushing barbarism backward,
and therefore, in the last analysis, tends toward kindness and peace;
while, in the sense in which we use the word, war means the
retrogression of civilization into barbarism. It is usually born of
greed--greed for territory or for power.

"Such war as that of which we all are thinking in these days is war
between civilized men. One civilized man cannot improve another
civilized man by killing him, although it is not inconceivable that a
civilized man may do humanity a service by destroying human savages, for
with the savages he must destroy their savagery.

"But a war in civilized Europe destroys no savagery; it breeds it, so
that it and its spawn may defile future generations.

"There has been much balderdash in talk about unselfish motives as the
origin of warfare. It is safe to say that 99 per cent of all the
slaughter wrought by civilization under the cloak of a desire to better
bad conditions really has been evil. It is impossible to conceive of
general betterment through general slaughter. There have been few
altruistic wars."

"But how about our Spanish war?" I asked. "Surely it was not greed which
sent our men and ships to Cuba."

"No," s