These men are
military mad. To our ideal of representative government their own
idea is as far opposed as is martial law to the free speech of our town
meetings.
One returning from the war is astonished to find how little of the true
horror of it crosses the ocean. That this is so is due partly to the strict
censorship that suppresses the details of the war, and partly to the
fact that the mind is not accustomed to consider misery on a scale so
gigantic. The loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, the wrecking of
cities, and the laying waste of half of Europe cannot be brought home
to people who learn of it only through newspapers and moving
pictures and by sticking pins in a map. Were they nearer to it, near
enough to see the women and children fleeing from the shells and to
smell the dead on the battle-fields, there would be no talk of
neutrality.
Such lack of understanding our remoteness from the actual seat of
war explains. But on the part of many Americans one finds another
attitude of mind which is more difficult to explain. It is the cupidity
that in the misfortunes of others sees only a chance for profit.
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