Liberty Memorial Park

MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL

Built By Kansas Citians, Embraced By the Nation

Soon after World War I ended, Kansas City leaders formed the Liberty Memorial Association (LMA) to create a lasting monument to the men and women who had served in the war. In 1919, the LMA and citizens of Kansas City raised more than $2.5 million in just 10 days. The equivalent of roughly $34 million today, this staggering accomplishment reflected the passion of public sentiment for the Great War that had dramatically changed the world. More . . .

 

 

 

 

National World War 1 Museum and Memorial

 

Entrance to the Museum with a bridge crossing over a field of poppies

 

 

 

 

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

George Orwell

 

 

 

Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.

Albert Einstein 

 

 

 

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Albert Einstein

 

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

George Orwell

 

 

 

The curse of modern times is the preponderance of male hormones in places where they can do long-term damage. Even if were not talking about wars between nations or assaults on nature, there's still that aggressiveness that keeps us apart from each other and the problems we need to be working on.

Robert James Waller

 

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

George Orwell 

 

 

One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

Aldous Huxley

 

 

 

War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory.

Albert Pike

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

Guy de Maupassant 

 

 

There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the boundaries of one's country; but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization.

Oscar Straus

 

To silence criticism is to silence freedom.

Sidney Hook

 

 

Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.

Erich Fromm

 

 

 

The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war.

Sydney J. Harris

 

 

 

Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.

Emma Goldman

 

 

 

 

There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

Abraham Lincoln

 

 

Christianity has not conquered nationalism; the opposite has been the case nationalism has made Christianity its footstool.

Sir Arthur Keith 

 

 

War is the business of barbarians.

Napoleon Bonaparte

 

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

George Orwell

 

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

Martin Luther King Jr.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

 

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

Charles de Gaulle

How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business.

Albert Einstein

 

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Bertrand Russell

 

 

War would end if the dead could return.

Stanley Baldwin

 

 

 

What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.

Aldous Huxley

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

Howard Zinn

 

 

 

 

 

Nationalism . . . is like cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you.

Daniel Fried

 

 

 

War is the only game in which both sides lose.

Walter Scott

 

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?

Pablo Casals

 

 

 

 

 

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.

George Bernard Shaw

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

George Washington

 

 

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity.

James Bryce

 

 

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.

Malcolm X

 

 

 

Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. ... Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

Emma Goldman

 

 

 

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

George Berard Shaw

 

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.

Albert Einstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What generates war is the economic philosophy of nationalism: embargoes, trade and foreign exchange controls, monetary devaluation, etc. The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.

Ludwig von Mises

 

 

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

Arthur C. Clark

 

Our true nationality is mankind.

H.G.Wells

 

There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the boundaries of one's country; but by a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization.

Oscar Straus