Nations Like Individuals.
"In such circumstances nations must be like individuals under similar conditions. The individual believing himself to have been in the right, yet finding himself beaten in his efforts to maintain it, will not accept the situation philosophically; he will be angry and rebellious; he will nurse what he believes to be his wrong.
"To nurse a wrong, whether it be real or fancied, is to help it grow in the imagination, and that must mean at least the wish to find some future means of righting it, either by strategy or increased strength.
"There are two things which humanity does not forget—one is an injury, and, no matter how strongly some may argue against the truth of this contention, the other is a kindness.
"In the long run both will be repaid. And nations, like individuals, prefer the coin which pays the latter debt. Military force never has accomplished kindness. Kindness means industrial armies decked with the garlands of peace; military armies, armed and epauletted, must mean minds obsessed with the spirit of revenge or conquest, hands clenched to strike, hearts eager to invade.
"Every military implement is designed to cut or crush, to wound and kill. Nations at peace help one another with humanity's normal tenderness of heart at times of pestilence, of famine, of disaster. Nations at war exert their every ounce of strength to force upon their adversaries hunger, destruction, and death. Starvation of the enemy becomes a detail of what is considered good military strategy in war time, just as world-embracing charity has become a characteristic of all civilization during times of peace. Must we not admit flotillas carrying grain to famine-stricken peoples to be more admirable than fleets which carry death to lands in which prosperity might reign if undisturbed by war?"
"But do you not admit that wars sometimes have helped the forces of civilization in their conquest against barbarism?"
"War has not been the chief force of civilization against barbarism," Mr. Carnegie replied with emphasis. Then he continued more thoughtfully:
"That is one way of saying it. Another is, no effort of the forces of civilization against barbarism is war in the true sense of the word.
"Such an armed effort is a part of the force pushing barbarism backward, and therefore, in the last analysis, tends toward kindness and peace; while, in the sense in which we use the word, war means the retrogression of civilization into barbarism. It is usually born of greed—greed for territory or for power.