Kirby Page

“The way of disarmament and of mutual aid and of international cooperation is a highly dangerous way. It is not safe. But it is safer, safer than the race of armaments and the third world war.”

“Instead of spending our money on preparedness to fight, we should pour out billions in a common effort to solve common problems around the earth... on the scale of present preparations for total war. ...This vast sum should be spent on food, clothing, shelter, medicine, seed, fertilizer, livestock, machinery, tools and other requirements of efficient production and distribution. ...Instead of spending billions on preparedness to wage war with pestilence, vast sums should be spent on health measures and the eradication of plague from the face of the earth.”

“In the Baruch proposal our government suggested the creation of the International Authority by the United Nations to which would be given a complete monopoly of all atomic installations, materials and stockpiles. This authority should be given power of inspection and power to call for the punishment of violators.”

“We Christians should urge our government to destroy all its atomic bombs, stop making any additional ones, and stop all preparations to wage war with biological weapons. Such actions would... place our government in an advantageous position to plead with all other nations to join with us in an international treaty of disarmament by as rapid stages as possible.”

“It is no longer possible to place a halo around war and speak of it in idealistic terms.”

“The race of armaments is nothing less than a race to mutual suicide.”

“These mighty weapons of explosion and fire are already obsolete, and the improved weapons of today will be dwarfed by the monstrous weapons of tomorrow.”

“Self-centeredness is death. Centeredness in God and in his people brings life.”

“An infant crying in the crib can better appreciate the character of its mother than we can fathom the full nature of God.”

“Should a patriot, in an endeavor to defend his country and to preserve high values, be willing to perpetrate atrocities upon women and children of other lands, accept the doctrine that the end justifies the means, follow the practice of military necessity, inflame passions through distortion and falsehood, bow down before a god of war, and forsake the way of Jesus?”

“War is method. War is atrocity. War is wholesale falsehood. War is the practice of military necessity. War is the utter denial of the spirit and example of Jesus.”

“War is not high ideals. War is not noble objectives. War is not gallant heroism. War is not sacrificial devotion.”

“A deep fog of obscurity is thrown about war by the use of misleading and confusing terms.”

“The premise is debatable that the perpetration of atrocities is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the poisoning of the public mind with distortion and falsehood designed to inflame passions is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the banishment of a loving Father of all men and the bowing down before a god of war is sometimes a patriot's duty. But if these be obligations resting upon patriots, let them be claimed as such in plain unvarnished language.”

“Atrocity supplants compassion and mercy. Mutual forbearance and mutual forgiveness are suppressed as treason. The overcoming of evil by doing good is looked upon as impracticable and dangerous to national welfare. The war method has no place in it for the spirit and practices of Jesus.”

“Continued adherence to the doctrine of military necessity will lead to mutual suicide.”

“The totalitarian nature of modern war renders invalid the distinction between combatants and non-combatants.”

“The United States not only helped to encircle Germany with a strangle-hold but continued to maintain that starvation blockade for more than seven months after the Armistice, on the ground that if the blockade were lifted Germany might refuse to accept the peace treaty. No sane American desired to prolong the process of starving German women and children; this atrocity was continued because it was considered necessary. No idea is more inextricably interwoven into war than the doctrine of military necessity.”

“The war method substitutes the doctrine of necessity for ethical ideals. ...That is right which contributes to victory; that is wrong which magnifies the threat of defeat.”

“The war method includes falsehood as an integral part. Truth is indeed a casualty of war.”