War by James Logan Mosby

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 26, 1914

War

By James Logan Mosby

THE journal Life recently offered a prize of three hundred dollars for the best essay on "War." This prize was won by the following essay, written by James Logan Mosby:—

I was conceived in passion, hatred, envy, and greed, born in the morning of antiquity, and have a genealogy whose every page drips with the red blood of murdered innocence. I respect neither the feebleness of gray hairs, the helplessness of infancy, nor the sacredness of virtue, and walk, iron-shod, ruthlessly and impartially, over the form of the weakling or the form of the giant.

I paint the midnight skies a lurid glow from the burning homes I have ravaged, and I turn peaceful scenes of rural beauty, where God's own creatures dwell together in amity, into a raging hell. I set neighbor against neighbor in deadly combat, and I incite the brother to slay his brother.

I make puppets of kings, princes of paupers, courtiers of courtesans, and thieves of respected subjects; and empires melt before my breath as does mist before the morning sunlight.

I make of religion fanaticism; the heathen I make a fiend incarnate; and of all men I make playthings devoid of reason and justice. Through intrigue I make the intelligent powerful, the unscrupulous wax fat on the spoils of blood-won victories gained by others, and the less learned suffer for their own ignorance.

Famine, want, and misery follow in my path; I lay waste green fields, and still the hand of industry. I pillage the land of its resources, but contribute nothing of benefit to mankind, leaving pestilence to stalk ghostlike in my wake and complete the work of destruction. I lay a heavy tribute upon my most loyal subjects for the maintenance of my establishment; I squander the vitality and lives of those who serve me faithfully, yet return to the world nothing but ruin and ashes. The baubles of fame I confer on some are the empty shells of false standards wherein the license to commit murder and rapine is held to be the insignia of glory by a mistaken civilization.

I can offer no excuse for my having come into existence, nor can I give one plausible reason why I should not cease to be, other than that so long as men who wield influence are permitted to gratify their selfish desires and ambitions at the expense of the many who must carry the burdens and endure the suffering, so long will I continue to exact my toll of sorrow, devastation, and death. For I am pitiless—devoid of all feeling; I fear neither man nor God; I am amenable to no law, and I am in myself the Law and the Last Resort.

I AM WAR!