That human attribute which, more than any other, distinguishes man from the brute, is imagination. Also, it is the attribute which, more than any other, differentiates the normal man from the criminal. If, in imagination, a would-be murderer could foresee the distorted face and the despairing agony of his dying victim, and could foresee the tear-streaming eyes of those mourning for him, he would, unless brazened against every feeling of pity, stay his hand. If those who, through their ignorance, false belief, or hypocrisy and desire for publicity, are planning to sacrifice the unimaginable thousands of our best young men in the bloody shambles of war, as an offering to false faith, vanity, or hypocrisy, could only foresee in imagination the long lines of manhood swept and annihilated by the withering fire of an enemy, without guns to return that fire, then possibly they might submerge personal limelight-lust for considerations of mercy.
If you believe them, and speak as they are speaking, and advise as they are advising, against adequate national defense, you should at once change your belief, and use your voice and every resource at your command in future to forefend this country and avert the great useless sacrifice.
Come, young lady reader, let us, in imagination, stand together on the firing-line: Those regiments lining up are from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts. They are forming for a charge. It is the only way. Those shells, bursting among them with such deadly effect, are shrapnel from the quick-firing guns of the enemy placed just over the crest of yonder distant ridge; and those huge plunging projectiles, which throw up great inverted cones of earth, with fragments of men, are from the enemy's big howitzers, located under cover of the wood that fringes the horizon.
If we only had the necessary quick-firing field-guns and shrapnel ammunition, and the necessary field howitzers, we might dislodge or silence those deadly batteries of the enemy. At any rate, we should be able to engage them efficiently and cover the charge of our troops. We should also be able to storm that line of trenches, to the discomfiture of the enemy hidden there in vast numbers, and thus to prepare for the onset of our men. But we have neither the guns nor the ammunition.
See—the order is given. Onward they go. Watch them, the brave fellows! Why does the front line lie down so suddenly, with a few left standing? My friend, they are not lying down; they are dead. But they are not all killed, a large number of them are wounded. They are torn in every inconceivable, horrible manner of mutilation. And look!—the other lines go down, too; some lying still, others writhing on the ground. One of those poor devils, with hands clenched in the grass and gnawing the earth, is your brother!
See—a huge howitzer shell explodes right among them. The young man whom you were to marry on his return from the war was standing on the verge of the crater when the explosion came, and he is now lying there, with both eyes blown out by the awful blast and hanging on his cheeks. There are visions of you in the blasted eyes, and there are thoughts of you in the dazed brain, and his dying breath is a whisper of your name.
Will you continue to think thoughts and speak words which may drive him to that awful death?
The picture is horrible. That of the blasted eyes is revolting. True, and for this reason it may not come within the artistic, as outlined in the philosophy of Longinus; but it is not my purpose here to be artistic. My very purpose is to visualize the horrible, because the only way for the people of this country to prevent this on-coming horror is to make the necessary military preparations for national defense.
But, young lady, this is not the end of the dreadful picture: Let us look into your home. The awful news comes—our men are beaten with enormous slaughter; father, brother, sweetheart—all your home's defenders—are dead. The invaders who have murdered them are in the street outside. There comes a summons at the door. A certain number of the enemy have been billeted to your house, and you must play the genial hostess. Though they get drunk, and ill-treat you beyond the power of words to tell, there remains no remedy. Your dear ones, who were your natural defenders, have been sacrificed on the altar of false faith in defenselessness as a deterrent of war.