take its normal place.

This phenomenon is not new in the world. Everyone interested has noted
it before. It has followed all great wars. War means the breaking up of
old habits, the destruction of many inhibitions, which in the strongest
civilization are only skin deep at the best. It means the return to the
primitive feelings that once ruled man.

The Napoleonic Wars left a long heritage of crime. Every nation in
Europe was affected by them. Many years passed before the world grew
tranquil. Our Civil War brought its harvest of crime. It was felt both
North and South. It was not confined to homicide but was shown in all
sorts of criminal statistics, especially crimes of violence.

I do not write as a pacifist. There is nothing in the constitution of
man that makes pacifism anything but a dream. Man is largely ruled by
fear and hate, and it is not possible to imagine an individual or a
race that under sufficient provocation will not fight. Neither is it
possible that nations will not always, from time to time, find the
provocation sufficiently great. Individuals and nations can philosophize
and reason and make compromises when they are calm; but let them be
moved by fear and hatred, and these emotions will sweep away every other
feeling. The conditions for war were ripe in 1914, and it was inevitable
that America should be in it too. This should not make one wish for war
nor believe in war nor close one's eyes to its horrors and results. Much
less should it prevent him from trying to do his part to restore sanity
to the world.

Another consequence of war which America is passing through is the
spirit of super-patriotism. This is always aroused and must be aroused
to carry on the war. It is potent in creating the psychology that makes
men fight. Every people teaches that its own country is the best; that
its laws and institutions excel those of all other lands. This spirit is
taken advantage of and used by designing men. It is used to send to jail
those who criticise existing things. It is used to hamper and destroy
any effort to change laws and institutions. The one who criticises
conditions is a disturber and a traitor. Those who profit by existing
things are always intense patriots and by means of cheap appeals and
trite expressions seek to stifle discussion and criticism. This war has
borne a deadly harvest of restrictive legislation in America. We are no
longer an asylum for political offenders. We no longer sta