Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

All wars are planned by older men in council rooms apart

Written by Grantland Rice 1880–1954 · American sportswriter, columnist & poet
Verified Free to reuse

The line opens Rice’s poem “The Two Sides of War,” published in his syndicated column “The Sportlight” in the New York Tribune on 26 March 1921. Quote Investigator published and transcribed that printing — located by researcher Jonathan Lighter — which reads “All wars are planned by older men / In council rooms apart” — the familiar “old men” wording is a later alteration.

Last verified 22 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“All wars are planned by older men in council rooms apart” Grantland Rice, "The Two Sides of War," in his column "The Sportlight," New York Tribune, 26 March 1921, p. 11.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Grantland Rice — American sportswriter, columnist & poet. Theme: "All wars are planned by older men in council rooms apart". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "All wars are planned by older men in council rooms apart". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The 1921 printing

Poem
The Two Sides of War
Published in
“The Sportlight,” New York Tribune, 26 March 1921, p. 11, col. 2
Author
Grantland Rice (1880–1954)
Published by
Quote Investigator, 2 February 2020 (citation located by Jonathan Lighter)

All wars are planned by older men
In council rooms apart,
Who plan for greater armament
And map the battle chart.

… But where their sightless eyes stare out
Beyond life’s vanished joys,
I’ve noticed nearly all the dead
Were hardly more than boys. opening and closing stanzas

Wording follows the 1921 New York Tribune text as transcribed by Quote Investigator. Widely circulated online copies differ in several words — see below.

Quote Investigator: the 1921 New York Tribune printing

How the line travelled

Public domain

The poem was first published in the New York Tribune on 26 March 1921. Works published in the United States before 1931 are in the public domain there, so this text may be quoted freely.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Know a source that supports or challenges this? Add a link →

Paste a URL and we’ll check it. This doesn’t change the page — it goes to our review queue, and if it holds up we update the record with a citation.

Fact-check

Who it gets pinned on, and what actually changed

The attribution to Rice is sound; the wording and the speaker are what go wrong in circulation.

“All wars are planned by old men” altered

Rice wrote “older men.” The 13th edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (1955) printed “old men,” and later reference works — including the Macmillan Dictionary of Quotations (1989) — carried the shortened form forward, per Quote Investigator ↗.

Herbert Hoover different line

Hoover’s 1944 remark — “Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die” — is a separate statement on the same theme, quoted in the Chicago Tribune and documented alongside Rice’s poem by Quote Investigator ↗. It is not the source of Rice’s verse.

Herman Melville precursor, not source

The sixth line of “The March into Virginia,” in Melville’s Battle-Pieces (1866), reads “All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys” ↗ — the same sentiment, different lines. Quote Investigator lists it as an antecedent, not as the origin of Rice’s stanza.

Poetry-aggregator versions variant text

Copies circulating online read “Who call for greater armament,” “martial note” and “vanished toys.” The 1921 newspaper printing transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗ reads “Who plan for greater armament.” Quote Investigator does note that Rice’s own 1955 collection The Final Answer and Other Poems reprints the poem with the first verse identical to 1921 and the later verses revised slightly — which may account for the later-stanza readings. The first-stanza reading “call for greater armament” is documented in neither printing.

The line is genuinely Grantland Rice’s, first printed in his column in the New York Tribune on 26 March 1921 — and he wrote “older men,” per Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

Rice was writing in 1921, with the Great War close behind him and arguments over “greater armament” still live. The poem is four short stanzas of exactly one idea, stated twice: elders vote, boys die.

Its afterlife is bigger than its author. The verse escaped the sports page, entered quotation dictionaries, and now circulates mostly as a stand-alone epigram — usually in the smoothed “old men” form and often with no name attached at all. Herbert Hoover’s separate 1944 remark on the same theme travels in the same company.

I’ve noticed nearly all the dead / Were hardly more than boys.

Why the wording drifted

Two things happened to the text. First, quotation books trimmed it: the earliest printing of the shortened “old men” form that Quote Investigator records is the 13th edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (1955), and the 1989 Macmillan Dictionary of Quotations carries it too. Quote Investigator does not establish where the change originated.

Second, the poem now travels through poetry aggregator sites in a version that differs from the 1921 printing at several points (“call for greater armament,” “martial note,” “vanished toys”). There is one documented lead: Quote Investigator notes that Rice’s own 1955 collection The Final Answer and Other Poems reprints the poem with the first verse identical to 1921 but the later verses revised slightly, which may account for the later-stanza variants. The first-stanza reading “call for greater armament” is documented in neither printing, so treat the 1921 newspaper text as the reference.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Leadership Justice Truth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: All Wars Are Planned by Older Men in Council Rooms Apartquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: publishes the 26 March 1921 New York Tribune printing (located by Jonathan Lighter), records the “old men” variant in Bartlett’s 13th edition (1955), and sets Rice’s poem beside Hoover’s separate 1944 line.
Grantland Rice (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org

Biography of Henry Grantland Rice (1 November 1880 – 13 July 1954), sportswriter, columnist and poet.
Herman Melville, “The March into Virginia”en.wikisource.org

The 1866 poem containing “All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys” — an earlier expression of the same idea that Quote Investigator cites as an antecedent.
“Two Sides of War (All Wars)” — audio readingarchive.org

Internet Archive audio item presenting the poem under its popular title, credited to Grantland Rice — an example of how the poem circulates today.
The poem as it circulates onlinewww.poemhunter.com

A widely copied text of the poem, credited to Henry Grantland Rice, showing the variant readings (“call for greater armament,” “martial note,” “vanished toys”) that differ from the 1921 newspaper printing.

The author

About Grantland Rice

Grantland Rice

1880–1954 · American sportswriter, columnist & poet

Henry Grantland Rice was the most widely read American sportswriter of the early twentieth century, syndicated for decades under the column title “The Sportlight” and best remembered for christening Notre Dame’s “Four Horsemen.” He was also a working versifier: his columns carried original poems, and he published books of verse. “The Two Sides of War” is the Rice poem that circulates most widely outside the sports pages — a short, plain-spoken piece about who votes for war and who dies in it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary printing

Grantland Rice, “The Sportlight” (containing the poem “The Two Sides of War”), New York Tribune, March 26, 1921, page 11, column 2; citation located by Jonathan Lighter, printing published and transcribed by Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: All Wars Are Planned by Older Men in Council Rooms Apart,” February 2, 2020.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘All wars are planned by older men in council rooms apart’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/all-wars-are-planned-by-older-men-in-council-rooms-apart/

Copied