1917_The_Finished_Mystery_Text

under the guise of Patriotism the civilgovernments of earth demand of peace-lovingmen the sacrifice of themselves and their lovedones and the butchery of their fellows, and hail itas a duty demanded by the laws of heaven."Everybody of importance in the early years ofthe twentieth century was an ardent champion ofpeace. A crowd of royal peacemakers in a worldsurcharged with thoughts and threats of war, aband of lovers strolling down an avenue whichthey themselves had lined with lyddite shells andtwelve-inch guns. Prince Bulow, Sir HenryCampbell-Bannermann, Mr. H.H. Asquith, Mr.John Hay, and Mr. Elihu Root, pacific in temper,eloquent in their advocacy of the cause ofinternational good will, were a galaxy of peacelovingstatesman under a sky black with thethunder-clouds of war. English and Germanpapers were discussing invasions, and the needof increased armaments, at the very time thattwenty thousand Germans in Berlin wereapplauding to the echo the friendly greetingsFM248of a company of English visitors. While tenthousand boys and girls in Tokyo were singingloving greetings to our naval officers, there weremen in the United States rushing from city tocity urging the people to prepare for anAmerican-Japanese war. After each new peaceconference there was a fresh cry for more guns.While the Palace of Peace at The Hague wasbuilding, nations hailed the advent of the airshipas a glorious invention, because of the service itcould render to the cause of war. The fountainsfrom which there flowed these dark and swollenstreams of war rumor were all located within themilitary and naval encampments. It was theexperts of the army and navy who were alwaysshivering at some new peril, and painting sombrepictures of what would happen in case newregiments were not added to the army andadditional battleships were not voted for thefleet. It was in this way that legislative bodiescame to think that possibly the country wasreally in danger; and looking round for a ground