conscription. They were taught to exalt it as a strife for oppressed
and helpless peoples; the prelude to a new brotherhood and cooperation
among the nations, and to that reign of justice which is the
antecedent condition of peace.

"They did their part. With adventurous faith they glorified their
cause and offered their fresh lives to make it good. Their sacrifice,
the idealism which lay behind it in their respective communities--the
unofficial perceptions that they, the fathers and mothers and the
boys, were fighting to vindicate the supremacy of the moral over the
material factors of life--this has made an imperishable gift to the
new world and our children's lives. When an entire commuity rises to
something of magnanimity, and a nation identifies its fate with
the lot of weaker states, then even mutilation and death may be
gift-bringers to mankind.

"But it is more significant to our purpose to note that the blood of
youth had hardly ceased to run before the officials began to dicker
for the material fruits of conquest. Not how to obtain peace but how
to exploit victory--to wrest each for himself the larger tribute from
the fallen foe--became their primary concern. So the youth appear to
have died for a tariff, perished for trade routes and harbors, for
the furthering of the commercial advantages of this nation as against
that, for the seizing of the markets of the world. They supposed they
fought 'to end business of that sort' but they returned to find their
accredited representatives contemplating universal military service
in frank expectation of 'the next war.' They strove for the
'self-determination of peoples' but find that it was for some people,
but not all. And as for the cooperation among nations, Judge Gary has
recently told us that, as a result of the war, we should prepare for