Top 15 Lillian Wald Quotes

Internationally the outlook is more disturbing. Despite the united front against war among the plain people of the earth, as expressed through conferences not only of pacifists, but of college faculty and students, of labor bodies, of women's associations, of radical and temperate organizations, the cloud of war darkens the horizon and the German influence cannot be ignored. Many people regard the Chancellor as insane or neurotic, perhaps in part because through all his denunciations and illogical conclusions he has shown no gleam of humor; nevertheless his leadership seems for the moment to sway the German nation. (p323)

As I look back, it seems to me that our efforts toward peace, even in the midst of war, bulk large in the story I have set myself to tell; they show, that a small group having profound and selfless interest in the going world is not useless, and its position and its influence may without embarrassing publicity contribute to the clarification of problems of the day. (chapter XII p285)

Militarism is an evil growth which threatens our industrial democracy, our political institutions, our educational ideals and our international relationships. If the good things for which this country stands are to go on, clarion voices must ring out against movements that would destroy those precious possessions. The spirit of militarism has invaded us. It threatens the great constructive up-building, life-saving social work. To stamp it out, to recover the ground we have lost, to build upon them, — that is the task confronting all those who have the true interests of democracy at hear. We believe that militarism is opposed to democracy and that great numbers of citizens everywhere fear not so much an invading army but this other danger so close upon us — militarism. Good and true citizens of the great American Republic are united in this.

At the base our plan for getting the people of the two countries into instant actual contact with an understanding of each other would always prevent this.

We intend to continue our own peculiar methods, peculiar they are said to be for “pacifist.” I am told that we are violating the popular conception of this group, and one newspaper which strongly disapproved of our aggressiveness against preparedness hysteria, said that, judging from our belligerency, we were the ones who “put the fist in pacifist.”

The small group that directed this committee, and the enormous number of men and women who have affiliated themselves in one way or another with its propaganda, consider themselves true patriots of America, — patriotism that is borne of the passionate love for the best that is in America, not for rich America nor for successful America, but for the America of democracy, of ideals, and the America that stand for the things essential to a world of love and law and order.

It seemed to us the sinister reversion to the war system would be at the cost of democracy.

Militaristic propaganda cloaked under the reasonable name of “preparedness.”

The task of organizing human happiness needs the active cooperation of man and woman: it cannot be relegated to one half of the world. And active cooperation for such noble ends cannot be secured unless men and women really work together. The women have been experiencing the growth of a new consciousness, an integral element in the evolution of self government, and as a result many women believe that they can best represent the human interests in government, at least that they can best represent themselves in those measures that immediately concern them and for which tradition and experience have fitted them.

Florence Nightingale lifted the vague, casual, though kindly and devoted, feeling of women into organized, efficient and invaluable service; she enlarged the nurse’s vision to sympathy for great groups outside her family or particular tribe.

At a stage in history when women were first organizable they came together to protest against war and to offer reasonable substitutes for settling international disagreements.

The conception of religion has extended from the individual to society; a true religion fills the need of both. Economics and government and a rational view of religion are based on human needs; and fundamental human needs underlie the so-called labor and women’s movements.

When war and human sacrifice of the many have been banished, as that of the individual has been, eyes will be opened and ears unstopped, and men and women will understand all the wrongs of Society, and work together, nations with nations.

Though the hatred and the enmity that have been stirred up are not real, the suffering and the desolation and the outrages that have come to men and to the women and the children are real. These pitiless sacrifices must stop.

The horrors of war that stir the thinking world have been least noticed by the historians. The violation of women, and even children, is hardly included in the term “atrocity.” Yet so abhorrent are these things that the brutality of war passeth understanding, and men and women must so dedicate themselves to tis cause that it can never come into the world again.