Mrs. Henry Villard,
President of Women's Peace Conference.
| Must the pride with which women point to the life saving character of the work of the numberless charitable agencies throughout the country—with a resultant lowering of the death rate in our great cities—be offset by the slaughter of our best beloved ones on the field of battle or their death by disease in camps? No longer ought we to be called upon to be particeps criminis with men to the extent of being compelled to pay taxes which are largely used for the support of the army and navy. Moreover, a recourse to war as a means of righting wrongs is full of peril to the whole human race. Not only are bodies killed, but the ideals which alone make life worth living are for the time being lost to sight. In place of those finer attributes of our nature—compassion, gentleness, forgiveness—are substituted hatred, revenge and cruelty. |
He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.—Swift.