“You bought the war. Were you an interventionist?
Then you bought it because you knew it was the price of freedom.
Were you an isolationist? Then you bought it because you wouldn’t
pay the lesser price of stopping the first aggressions. Did you vote?
For whom? For men who went to Washington and revealed that
they didn’t know anything about armies or navies or nations or
industry? If you did, you were buying the war–this one–the
expensive one. Did you do nothing? Not even vote? Then you
bought more of this war than anybody else because this is the
war of men who wanted the world and it was made possible by the
men who wanted no part of anything–no part of the vigilance that
maintains liberty–no part of the responsibility for all that means
freedom for each–no cost and no trouble.
War is not a natural catastrophe like an earthquake. Men make
war. They begin its manufacture during peacetime with harsh
envies and schemes to exploit the irresponsibility of others. The last
peace, during which this war was fomented, held its share of injus-
tices; far beyond that, it was a queasy slough of irresponsibility,
default, and disclaimer.
You are buying the next peace with this war. Are you trying to
purchase a replica of the peace that failed? And, if you are not,
have you studied why it failed–why America failed–why you
failed? In that study are the reasons for which we fight and the
explanations of why we failed. If you search them out and under-
stand them you will be able and ready to pay the cost of enduring
peace. For peace, like war, is also the work of the people. You.”
Philip Wylie.
Flyleaf statement excerpted from “Generation of Vipers”[war edition],
published by Farrar and Rinehart, Inc. New York, Toronto, 1942.