Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/275

Rh serve to relieve Ireland of the British connection. We all value the willingness of the Irish-born American citizens to fight for their adopted country if need be; and nobody will deny that their hearty love for their native land is, as such, entirely natural and entitled to respect. But as American citizens, having sworn exclusive allegiance to the United States, not one of them should ever forget that this Republic has a right to expect of all its adopted citizens, as to their attitude toward public affairs, especially questions of peace or war, the loyal and complete subordination of the interests of their native countries to the interests of the United States.

There are also corrupt politicians eager to plunder the public under a cheap guise of patriotism, and unscrupulous speculators looking for gambling and pilfering opportunities in their country's trouble, and wishing for war as the piratical wrecker on his rocky shore wishes for fogs or hurricanes. They deserve the detestation of every decent man.

But aside from these classes it may safely be assumed that all seriously minded American citizens earnestly hope for a continuance of the long-existing friendly relations between this country and Great Britain. General Sherman, whose memory is dear to us all, is reported to have said, in his vigorous way: “You want to know what war is? War is hell.” And nobody who has seen war as he had, and as some of us have, will question the truthfulness of this characteristic saying. True, war sometimes develops noble emotions and heroic qualities in individuals or in a people; but war is hell for all that. If our boasted civilization and Christianity are to mean anything, they should mean this: No war is justifiable unless its cause or object stand in just proportion to its cost in blood, in destruction, in human misery, in waste, in political corruption, in social demoralization, in relapse of