I hate war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracies, and for the starvation that stalks after it. I hate war, and never again will I sanction or support another.

Fosdick’s statement is a moral indictment of modern war grounded less in battlefield horror than in war’s downstream civic and spiritual damage. He frames war as a generator of systemic evils: propaganda and habitual lying, durable cycles of resentment, the political centralization that enables dictatorships, and the economic collapse that yields hunger. The closing vow—refusing ever again to “sanction or support another”—signals a conversion-like resolve, typical of post–World War I disillusionment among liberal Protestant leaders. The quote’s force lies in its cumulative catalogue: war is not an isolated event but a corrosive social condition that deforms truth, democracy, and human welfare long after the shooting stops.