The time will come when it will be universally recognized that what is morally wrong in an individual cannot be right in a community. To glorify by the sacred name of patriotism national sentiments and actions flowing from them, which would be intolerable if found in individuals, is to hold in our hands the balances of deceit and to tamper with the fine equilibrium of the moral sense. A war cannot be carried on without a resort to methods which, taken by themselves, are always and only evil. For the committing of these things men are decorated and honored. We need to look beneath the outward appearance of things.
War is made to look a magnificent spectacle.
The gaping crowd admires the pomp and pageantry of militarism. The appeal is cleverly made to the craving for the sensational and the spectacular. Serried ranks, shining helmets, gorgeous uniforms, glittering weapons, prancing horses, flying banners, the proud bearing of the participants, stirring martial music hypnotizes the imagination of the beholder. But the inward spirit is the very cruelty and bitterness of hell. War is a colossal imposition on the moral judgment of mankind.