The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit by Ralph Waldo Trine online

XII THE WORLD WAR--ITS MEANING AND ITS LESSONS FOR US

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"I loathe war and militarism. I have fought them for twenty years. But I am a historian, and I know that bullies thrive best in an atmosphere of meekness. As long as this military system lasts you must discourage the mailed fist by showing that you will meet it with something harder than a boxing glove. We do not think it good to admit into the code of the twentieth century that a great national bully may still with impunity squeeze the blood out of its small neighbours and seize their goods."

We need not fear militarism arising in America as long as the fundamental principles of democracy are preserved and continually extended, which can be done only through the feeling of the individual responsibility of every man and every woman to take a keen and constant interest in the matters of their own government--community, state, national, and now international. We must realise and ever more fully realise that in a government such as ours, the people are the government, and that when in it anything goes wrong, or wrongs and injustices are allowed to grow and hold sway, we are to blame.

Universal military training has not militarised Switzerland nor has it Australia. It is rather the very essence of democracy and the very antithesis of militarism.

"Let each son of Freedom bear
His portion of the burden. Should not each one do his share?
To sacrifice the splendid few--
The strong of heart, the brave, the true,
Who live--or die--as heroes do,
While cowards profit--is not fair!"

Many still recall that not a few well-meaning people at the close of the Civil War proclaimed that, with upwards of two million trained men behind him, General Grant would become a military dictator, and that this would be followed by the disappearance of democracy in the nation. But the mind, the temper, the traditions of our people are all a guarantee against militarism. The gospel, the hallucination of the shining armour, the will to power, has no attraction for us. We loathe it; nor do we fear its undermining and crushing our own liberties internally. Nevertheless, it is true that vigilance is always and always will be the price of liberty. There must be a constant education towards citizenship. There must be an alert democracy, so that any land and sea force is always the servant of the spirit; for only otherwise it can become its master--but otherwise it will become its master.

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