ating down
the opposition to world peace.

Men have begun to realize the terrible cost, the unbelievable
wastefulness of actual war, and the preparation for possible war. When
we read that the armed peace of Europe the past thirty-seven years has
cost $111,000,000,000, nearly as much as the aggregate value of all
the resources of the United States, the richest nation on earth, the
figures are so appalling that mortal mind cannot conceive them, and
they lose their force. When we remember that two thirds of the
national revenues of the United States are spent on wars past or
prospective, the matter comes closer home. When we realize that the
cost of a single battleship exceeds the value of all the grounds and
buildings of all the colleges and universities in Illinois, the
figures have more meaning to us. And when we reflect that the cost of
a single shot from one of the great guns of that battleship would
build a home for an American family, a comfortable home costing $1700,
the common man realizes that the richest nation on earth cannot afford
to go to war nor prepare for war.

But mere money is one of the cheapest things in all the world. The
price of war never can be paid in gold. Not in national treasuries can
you see the payment of that price, where smug, well-groomed
politicians sign bonds and bills of credit. If you would see the
payment of that price of war, you must go to the place of war. With
all your senses open, step upon the battlefield. Smell the smoke of
burning powder, the reek of charging horses, the breath of fresh, red,
human blood. Feel the warmth of that blood as you seek to stanch the
wound in the breast of one of the world's bravest, dying for he knows
not what. Hear the screams of the shells, the booming roar of the
cannonade, the clash of the onslaught, the shrieks of the wounded, the
groans of the dying, the last gasp of him whose life has reached its
end. Such is the infernal music of war. See the victim of the conflict
reel in the saddle and fall headlong. Cast your eyes on the mangled
forms of godlike men, fallen in the midst of fullest life. Come in the
night after the battle and look upon the ghastly faces upturned in the
moonlight. Gaze on the windrows of the dead, Mars's awful harvest,
that impoverishes all and enriches none, and you know something of the
cost of war.

And yet we have seen but little. Could we but enter the wasted homes
and see the broken hearts that war has made; cou