Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Three).djvu/182

 channels of lofty enthusiasms and aspirations and devotion to high ideals? Has it not rather left behind it an era of absorbing greed of wealth, a marked decline of ideal aspirations, and a dangerous tendency to exploit the government for private gain,—a tendency which not only ran wild in the business world, but even tainted the original idealism of the war volunteers who had freely offered their lives to the Republic in obedience to patriotic impulse, and finally were made to appear as insatiate clamorers for government pensions, of which many of them never could get enough? Have they not thus been made responsible—many of them, no doubt, unjustly—for the creation of the most monstrous pension system the world has ever known,—a system breeding fraud without end, contributing largely to the demoralization of our politics, pauperizing a multitude of otherwise decent people, and imposing upon the government an enormous financial burden, which, indeed, can now be borne, but which, if the present pension system becomes a ruling precedent, will, in case we have other wars, grow to intolerable dimensions?

In view of these undeniable facts, the eulogists of war among us will do well candidly to study the history of their own country. Such study will cure them of their romantic fancies of the moral beauties of war; as it will also correct the other notion caressed by them, that bravery on the battlefield is the highest form of human prowess and efficiency. They will learn that among a people like ours, it will be easy to find a hundred men ready to storm a hostile battery or to lead a forlorn hope, when they will meet only one with the moral courage to stand up alone against the world, for his conception of truth, right, and justice, and that while it may be a brave thing to confront one's enemies, it is a far braver thing to confront even one's friend in the defense and maintenance of truth,