remind you that there was a time when
George Washington, who is now revered as the father of his country, was
denounced as a disloyalist, when Sam Adams, who is known to us as the
father of the American Revolution, was condemned as an incendiary, and
Patrick Henry, who delivered that inspired and inspiring oration that
aroused the colonists, was condemned as a traitor.

"They were misunderstood at the time. They stood true to themselves, and
they won an immortality of gratitude and glory.

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are
involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right. In
every age there have been a few heroic souls who have been in advance of
their time, who have been misunderstood, maligned, persecuted, sometimes
put to death. Long after their martyrdom monuments were erected to them
and garlands were woven for their graves.

"I have been accused of having obstructed the war. I admit it.
Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone. When I
think of a cold, glittering steel bayonet being plunged in the white,
quivering flesh of a human being, I recoil with horror. I have often
wondered if I could take the life of my fellow men, even to save my own.

"Men talk about holy wars. There are none. Let me remind you that it was
Benjamin Franklin who said, 'There was never a good war or a bad peace.'

"Napoleon Bonaparte was a high authority upon the subject of war. And
when in his last days he was chained to the rock of St. Helena, when he
felt the skeleton hand of death reaching for him, he cried out in
horror, 'War is the trade of savages and barbarians.'

"I have read some history. I know that it is ruling classes that make
war upon one another, and not the people. In all of the history of this
world the people have never yet declared a war. Not one. I do not
believe that really civilized nations would murder one another. I would
refuse to kill a human being on my own account. Why should I at the
command of anyone else or at the command of any power on earth?

"Twenty centuries ago one appeared upon earth whom we know as the Prince
of Peace. He issued a command in which I believe. He said, 'Love one
another.' He did not say, 'Kill one another,' but 'Love one another.' He
espoused the cause of the suffering poor--just as Rose Pastor Stokes
did, just as Kate Richards O'Hare did--and the poor heard him gladly. It
was not long before he aroused the il