Page:Frank David Ely -Why defend the nation? Sound Americanism... (1924).pdf/40



HE pacifist would have the world believe that peace, like a ripe apple hanging low, can be plucked by any passerby who desires delectable fruit. But one of analytical mind who will exercise it mildly will soon convince himself otherwise.

Peace, like character, is the effect gained by right living. Peace is national character, sought always by nations who hold right above wrong, and is never lightly relinquished even when the Hun is knocking down the door. And then, as soon as the intruder is evicted, properly chastised, and the fray terminated, there is the desire, due to this national character, to immediately clean house, tidy up the ruins of war, and resume with the least possible delay those conditions of life which are commended by the Creator and loved by all right-thinking men and women.

Peace and war are opposites; when one enters, the other departs. Both are direct effects of adopted lines of conduct, productive of definite and sure but opposite results. Honorable dealings; adherence to high ideals of freedom, liberty, justice, and truth; Christianity, and respect for the rights of others will produce and maintain peace, just as aggrandizement, unfairness in commerce, lack of principle, greed, untruth, falsity, and disrespect for the progress and teachings of a Christian civilization will as surely produce the effect called war.

In peace as in war, the essential factor, basically unchanged since the beginning of time, is man. The emotion, the sentiment, the spirit of man is what determines the character of every nation, and the same qualities determine progress toward peace or war.

Civilization, employing a thin veneer, dresses man so that his savage and bestial instincts are indiscernible; but touch a sore spot—cut through the veneer—and like an enraged lion the primitive being emerges, lashed to a fury. Man’s