It is a result. It is a result of poverty especially of poverty of thought. Just so long as great masses of people live in poverty, just so long will there be war. The urge to war, springing as it does from the desire to take the fruits of another's production, will ever be present until the peoples of the world have learned to produce in abundance for themselves until it has been proven that it is easier to make than to take. Agreements not to make war, agreements to arbitrate differences between nations, and all the paraphernalia of diplomacy are of only temporary use in preventing war, because they treat war as a disease whereas it is only the symptom of the disease.
Every war has an economic cause.
All treaties that have been duly engrossed and signed to date have served to prevent only such wars as no one wanted. That which is really important is the turning away from the treatment of war as a cause, which is at best a negative treatment, and the turning toward, not the prevention of war or the preservation of peace, but the making of prosperity universal. And prosperity can be made the natural state of being. That has been demonstrated, and the United States has made the demonstration. He wanted to create high-paying jobs so everyone could buy what they wanted.