Ernest Crosby, Garrison the non-resistant

[70] and artificial arrangement of things formed and perpetuated in the last resort by the mailed hand of society, held ever in readiness to crush the offender. The physical struggle has never ceased, disguise it as we may endeavor. Society has always been a Donnybrook Fair, and it is high time that we should be ashamed of our manners, for nothing could be more vulgar than this everlasting appeal to the cudgel.

And the way to stop is to stop! This seems such a simple remedy that men will have none of it. Yes, violence is an evil, they say; let us put it down by more violence. And we start out, each of us with his own ideas and his own weapons, and we proceed to break each other's heads again, and in so doing we are repeating the old useless conflicts of the Pharaohs. This noisy, bloody business is not the real history of the world. Its real history is the history of ideas. The real battle that counts is in the minds and hearts of men. Let us order our armies up to that plane. And at our best, I repeat it, we all feel a call to rise to that higher level. There is something degrading in the use of force against others, and we are all conscious of it at the time. It is impossible to kick anything, I do not care what, and feel human. Catch yourself flagrante delicto the next time and