The Peril of the Republic of the United States of America - Percy T. Magan

“History shows that military glory is the most
unwholesome food that democracies can feed
upon. War withdraws, more than anything else, the
popular attention from those problems and interests
which are, in the long run, of the greatest
consequence. It produces a strange moral and
political color-blindness. It creates false ideals of
patriotism and civic virtue.
“Nobody is inclined to underestimate the value
of military valor; but compared with military valor
we are apt to underestimate the value of other kinds
of valor which are equally great, and no less,
sometimes even more, useful to the community. I
do not refer only to such heroism as that of the
fireman, or the member of the life-saving service
on the coast, who rescues human beings from the
flames or from the watery grave at the most
desperate risk of his own life, and whose deeds are
all the more heroic as they are not inspired by the
enthusiasm of battle, and pale into insignificance
by the side of any act of bravery done in killing
enemies in the field; I speak also of that moral
courage more important in a democracy, which
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