The professional
pacificist has at times festered in the diseased tissue of almost every
civilisation; but it is only within the last three-quarters of a century
that he has been a serious menace to the peace of justice and
righteousness. In consequence, decent citizens are only beginning to
understand the base immorality of his preaching and practice; and he has
been given entirely undeserved credit for good intentions. In England as
in the United States, domestic pacificism has been the most potent ally
of alien militarism. And in both countries the extreme type has shown
itself profoundly unpatriotic. The damage it has done the nation has
been limited only by its weakness and folly; those who have professed it
have served the devil to the full extent which their limited powers
permitted.
There were in England--just as there are now in America--even worse foes
to national honour and efficiency. Greed and selfishness, among
capitalists and among labour leaders, had to be grappled with. The
sordid baseness which saw in the war only a chance for additional money
profits to the employer was almost matched by the fierce selfishness
which refused to consider a strike from any but the standpoint of
the strikers.
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