The Fruits of War and Greed
What a lurid commentary is shed on our "Christian" civilization by the glorifying of war, manifest in the welcomes of American troops from the Philippines, and more manifest in London's welcome of the London Imperial Volunteers from South Africa. First, there was the farce of thanksgiving service at St. Paul's, then a civic reception, and then an eight-hour march through a mob-jammed street, filled with enthusiastic patriots, and whisky-drunk, war-mad humanity. It is reported that ten persons were killed, over two hundred seriously hurt, and more than one thousand treated by the ambulance corps. The mad mob could not be managed by 22,000 troops and 4,000 police. In the evening a saturnalia of drunkenness reigned. One report says that "women were insulted, kissed, or thrown down with impunity in street fights. Pursued at the sweet will of inebriate brawlers from the sidewalks, they streamed along historic thoroughfares shouting, sobbing, brandishing peacock feathers with insane depravity. Many of them offered no exception to the rule of drunkenness." Few of the returning soldiers, it is said, participated in the orgies. "They seemed to be forgotten in the general desire to take advantage of the opportunity of unbridled debauch, and the defiance of all law, order, and decency." And this is the logical outcome of the war and greed spirit, which is coming to possess men.