LDS Freedom Forum

I regret to say, indeed I am almost ashamed to say, that at the moment, our military branches seem in almost complete control of our own government. They appear to dominate Congress, and under the circumstances, we may assume they are in sufficient control of our foreign relations to be able to set the international scene.

...if the plans of the militarists carry, we shall become as thoroughly militarized as was Germany at her best, or worst. Certain it is we are being generously dosed with that sovereign narcotic, which designing militarists have in the past always administered to their peoples, the doctrine that to ensure peace we must maintain a great army and gigantic armaments. But this ignores, indeed conceals, the unvarying historical fact that big armies have always brought, not peace, but war which has ended in a hate that in due course brings another war.

Our militarists will no more be able to let a great army lie unused than they were able to withhold the use of the atom bomb once they had it, even though some military men are now quoted as saying the war was won before the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiromshima. Under the threat that Germany was perfecting such a bomb, we were justified in perfecting ours. But it may well be a disaster to civilization for us unnecessarily to have initiated its use. Some of us think it was shameful.

All this is not the way to peace, but to war.