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Title: Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association

Author: Intercollegiate Peace Association

Editor: Stephen F. Weston

Release Date: October 1, 2009 [EBook #30150]

Language: English

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PRIZE ORATIONS

OF THE

INTERCOLLEGIATE PEACE ASSOCIATION

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

STEPHEN F. WESTON, Ph.D.

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE ASSOCIATION

PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, ANTIOCH COLLEGE
YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO

FOREWORD BY

CHARLES F. THWING

BOSTON
THE WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION
1914

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED
TO THE

MISSES MARY AND HELEN SEABURY

WHOSE INTEREST AND ASSISTANCE
HAVE MADE POSSIBLE THE ORATIONS OF THE
INTERCOLLEGIATE PEACE ASSOCIATION

CONTENTS

[Page vii]

FOREWORD

These orations are selected from hundreds of similar addresses spoken in recent years by hundreds of students in American colleges. I believe it is not too bold to say that they represent the highest level of undergraduate thinking and speaking. They are worthy interpreters of the cause of peace, but they are, as well, noble illustrations of the type of intellectual and moral culture of American students. Whoever reads them will, I believe, become more optimistic, not only over the early fulfillment of the dreams of peace among nations, but also over the intellectual and ethical condition of academic life.

For the simple truth is that the cause of peace makes an appeal of peculiar force to the undergraduate. It appeals to his imagination. This imagination is at once historic and prophetic. War makes an appeal to the historic imagination of the student. His study of Greek and Roman history has been devoted too largely to the wars that these peoples waged. Marathon, Salamis, Carthage, are names altogether too familiar and significant. By contrast he sees what this history, which is written in blood, might have become. If the millions of men slain had been permitted to live, and if the uncounted treasure spent had been economically used, the results in the history of civilization would have been far richer and nobler. He notes, too, does this student, that [Page viii] if the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth had been free from wars in Europe, humanity would now have attained a far higher level of physical and intellectual strength. The historic imagination of the student pictures, as his reason interprets, such conditions. His prophetic imagination likewise exercises its creative function. The student sees nations to-day dwelling in armed truces and moving to and fro as a soldiery actual or possible. He realizes that war puts up what civilization puts down, and puts down what civilization elevates. He reads the lamented Robertson's great lecture on the poetry of war, but he knows also, as Robertson intimates, that "peace is blessed; peace arises out of charity." The poetry of peace is more entrancing than the poetry of carnage. To this primary element in the mind of the undergraduate—the imagination—our great cause therefore makes an appeal of peculiar earnestness.

To the reason of the college man, also, the cause of peace makes a peculiar appeal through its simple logic. War is most illogical. It breaks the law of the proper interpretation of causality. When two nations of adjacent territory cannot agree over a boundary line, why should settlement be made in terms of physical force? When two nations fail to see eye to eye in adjusting the questions of certain fishing rights, why should they incarnadine the seas in seeking for the truth to be applied in settlement? In civil disputes, why, asks the student, should rifles be employed to discover truth and right? War is an intellectual anachronism, a breach of logic. Of course, one may reply, humanity is not logical in its reasoning any more than it is exact in its observing. [Page ix] Of course it is not; but the college is set to cast out the rule of no-reason and to bring in the reign of reason. Peace furnishes a motive and a method of such advancement. Peace is logic for the individual and for the nation.

The illogical character of war is also made evident by the contrast between the college man as a thinker and war itself. The college man who thinks sees truth broadly; war interprets life narrowly, at the point of the bayonet. The college man who thinks sees truth deeply; war makes its primary appeal to the superficial love of glory, of pomp, and of circumstance. The college man who thinks sees truth in its highest relations; war is hell. The college man who thinks sees truth in long ranges and in far-off horizons; war is emotional, and the warrior flings the years into the hours. The college man who thinks, thinks accurately, with logic, with reason; war does not think—it strikes. "Strike," the college man may also say, "but hear!" he cries; "yes, think." If the college can make the student think, it has created the greatest force for making the world and the age a world and an age of peace.

It is plain enough, too, that the economic side of war makes a tremendous appeal to the student. The cost of the battleship Indiana was practically $6,000,000; the total value of grounds and buildings of the colleges and universities in Indiana is slightly more than $7,000,000, and the productive funds are $4,000,000. The total cost of the battleship Oregon was more than $6,500,000; the total value of grounds and buildings of the universities and colleges of Oregon is less than $2,000,000, and the productive funds amount to hardly more than [Page x] $2,000,000. The cost of the battleship Iowa was nearly $6,000,000, and the productive funds of all the colleges and universities of the state are only $5,000,000. The battleship Kentucky cost $5,000,000; in the colleges of that state the total amount of productive funds is only $2,000,000, and the total value of grounds and buildings, $3,000,000. The battleship Alabama cost more than $4,500,000, and the entire property, real and personal, of all the universities and colleges in that state is less than $4,000,000. The cost of the battleship Wisconsin was more than $4,500,000; the whole value of all grounds and buildings of the colleges and universities of the state is only slightly more than $7,000,000. The battleship Maine cost more than $5,000,000, and the entire value in grounds, buildings, and productive funds of the colleges and universities of that state is little more than $5,000,000.

The value of the buildings of five hundred colleges and universities in this country was estimated in a recent year at $262,000,000, and the productive funds at $357,000,000. Leaving out those now in course of construction, the total cost of the battleships and armored cruisers of the United States named after individual states is $325,000,000.

The cost of maintaining these battleships during the fiscal year of 1910, though many were in commission but a small part of the year, amounted to no less than $33,000,000. The amount which all the colleges and universities in this country received in tuition fees in 1911 was only $20,000,000; and the entire income received both from fees and productive funds was only about $34,000,000. In other words, when one takes into [Page xi] account the depreciation of the battleship or armored cruiser, the entire cost of the thirty-eight battleships for a single year is greater than the administration of the entire American system of higher education.

Is it not painfully manifest that the cost of war constitutes a mighty argument for the economic mind of the student?

Moreover, I am inclined to believe that the very difficulties belonging to the triumph of our great cause constitute ground for its closer relationship to the college man. The college man wishes, as well as needs, a hard job. The easy task, the rosy opportunity, makes no appeal. He is like Garibaldi's soldiers, who, when the choice was once offered them by the commander to surrender to ease and safety, chose hardship and peril. The Boxer revolution in China was followed by hundreds of applications from college men and women to be sent forth to China to take the place of the martyrs. The difficulties in the progress of the great cause are of every sort and condition. Industrial narrowness and commercial greed, military and political ambitions, sectional zeal, national jealousy, the sensitiveness of each nation in matters of national honor, the glamour of the good and the beautiful under the sentiment of patriotism, the historic honor attending death for one's country, the ease of creating war scares among the people, the looseness of the organization of the higher forces of the world—all these conditions and more pile up into a Pelion on Ossa as a part of the difficulties standing in the progress of our great movement. But such difficulties inspire rather than deter. The student says, "I will; therefore I can." He also says, "I can; therefore [Page xii] I will." He knows that the forces fighting for him are more than those that fight against him, strong as these are. Man in his noblest relationships, the songs of the poet (the best interpreter, from Homer and Virgil to the "Winepress" of Alfred Noyes), the torture, the pains, the sufferings, the woes, the vision of the prophet of a loving and perfect humanity, the reason of logic—all these and more are to him inspirations, and strengthen him in his great quest. He is a knight of the Holy Grail that is filled from the river of the water of life.

Perhaps, furthermore, the cause makes its most impressive appeal to the collegian in its internationalism, or interpatriotism. This internationalism addresses itself to his own international appreciation. The collegian is a patriot. He is a patriot not only against a foreign country but often against certain parts of his own country—loyal to the interests which he believes a section of his own nation properly represents. The German students have fought for their Fatherland; they have also fought for the liberal sentiments of their own land against reactionary movements, as in 1848. In the American Civil War no brighter record is to be found than is embodied in the tablets in Memorial Hall, Cambridge, or in Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina. But the collegian possesses the international sense, and possesses it more and more deeply with each passing decade. His is the international mind, interpreting phenomena in terms of common justice. His is the international heart, feeling the universal joys and sorrows, woes and exultations. His is the international will, seeking to do good to all men. His is the international conscience, weighing right and duty in the [Page xiii] scales of divine humanity. Whatever interpretation he gives to the sayings of Paul that God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has fixed the bounds of their habitation,—whether he stops with the words "the face of the earth" or whether he goes on to interpret the limitations of their residence,—it is nevertheless true that his mind, his heart, his will, and his conscience do go out toward all nations in their endeavor to realize their highest racial and interracial peace. No man is a foreigner to him.

I have, I trust, said enough to intimate that these orations arise out of a natural and normal condition of the student mind and heart. They also, in subject as well as in origin, bear a special message of cheer and hopefulness to all who have a good will toward the collegian and toward the great cause for which we all are laboring.

CHARLES F. THWING
President

Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio

[Page 1]

PRIZE ORATIONS

THE INTERCOLLEGIATE PEACE ASSOCIATION

Origin. In the autumn of 1904 President Noah E. Byers of Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, a Mennonite college, invited to a conference representatives of all the colleges in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that are conducted by those religious denominations that advocate nonresistance as one of their essential religious principles. Such bodies are the Mennonites, the Dunkards, and the Quakers. In the spring of 1905 a more specific invitation was sent out, with the result that a conference was held at Goshen College, June 22-23, 1905. This date is important, since the call of President Byers for such a conference was the first active step ever taken to interest the college world, and particularly undergraduates, in the great movement for world peace founded upon the idea of human brotherhood. While the conference did not take place until a month after President Gilman had suggested to the Lake Mohonk Conference, in May, 1905, that it should extend its peace work to the colleges and universities, yet the call for the conference was several months prior to the action of the Mohonk Conference.

Eight institutions were represented at this conference—Goshen, Earlham, Central Mennonite, Ashland, [Page 2]Wilmington, Juniata, and Penn colleges and Friends' University. No definite plan of work had been mapped out, but a simple organization was effected, and arrangements were made for a second conference at Earlham College (Society of Friends). Professor Elbert Russell of Earlham College was elected president, and upon him devolved most of the work of arranging for the second conference, which was held April 13-14, 1906. For this conference no denominational lines were drawn, it being felt that all colleges and universities should be interested in this important work. Hence invitations were sent to all institutions of higher learning in both Indiana and Ohio. Eight institutions were represented: Indiana, three—Earlham and Goshen colleges and Indiana University; Ohio, five—Antioch, Denison, Miami, Wilmington, and Central Mennonite. This representation was small, considering the importance of the conference and the excellent program that had been arranged for by Professor Russell. But notwithstanding the small number of institutions represented, the conference was a marked success, made so very largely by the many excellent addresses—among others, those of Edwin D. Mead, Benjamin F. Trueblood, Professor Ernst Richard of Columbia University, and Honorable William Dudley Foulke.

On the last day of the conference the delegates from the different colleges met and perfected a permanent organization, which it was agreed should be called the Intercollegiate Peace Association. Thus, after a year of preliminary work, the Intercollegiate Peace Association came into definite and permanent existence on April 14, 1906. At this meeting Dean William P. Rogers of the Cincinnati Law School was elected president, and [Page 3]Professor Elbert Russell, secretary and treasurer. The president and the secretary, President Noah E. Byers of Goshen College, and Professor Stephen F. Weston of Antioch College constituted the executive committee. The writer has remained on the executive committee from the beginning, as either an elected or an ex-officio member.

Two methods of propaganda were adopted: intercollegiate oratorical contests, and public addresses on peace questions before the student body and faculties of colleges and universities. It was also agreed that the work should begin with Ohio and Indiana and gradually extend to other states. Although no definite plan was formulated until a year later, at the meeting at Cincinnati, it was understood from the outset that it should be the aim gradually to extend the field of work, so that ultimately most of the institutions of higher learning in practically all of the states should be embraced within the organization and participate in the contests.

Purpose. The purpose of the association has been quite definitely set forth in my "Historical Sketch"[1] and in my report for 1912. From these the following statement is very largely borrowed. The fundamental purpose of the Intercollegiate Peace Association is to instill into the minds and hearts of the young men of our colleges and universities the principle that the highest ideals of justice and righteousness should govern the conduct of men in all their international affairs quite as much as in purely individual and social matters, and that, therefore, the true aim of all international dealings should be to settle differences, of whatever nature, by peaceful methods through an appeal to the noblest human instincts and [Page 4] the highest ideals of life, rather than by the arbitrament of the sword through an appeal to the lower passions; and, further, both on humanitarian and economic grounds, to arouse in the youth of to-day an appreciation of the importance of a peaceful settlement of international disputes, and to inculcate a spirit antagonistic to the inhuman waste of life and the reckless waste of wealth in needless warfare.

This appeal to the idealism of youth is founded upon the psychological fact that it is the ideals of life that determine the conduct of life. It is ideals that rule the world; hence the importance of right ideals based upon a comprehensive understanding of the real nature and deepest implications of human fellowship. The alleged impracticability is not in the ideal but in the difficulty of making the ideal such a dominant part of our being that it shall consistently direct our activities under every circumstance. One of the essential conditions of human progress is the conviction that such ideals are vital to the highest attainments and that these should be the aim of all our strivings. Unfortunately such a standard of life is far from being realized. Policy rules largely in the world of practical life; either high ideals are considered impracticable, or there is no attempt to enforce consistency between belief and practice.

Mindful of the further fact that the ideals and habits of thought and action that prevail in mature life are those that are formed in youth, the Intercollegiate Peace Association turns to the young manhood of the undergraduate for its field of operations. The aim is to give such a firm mold to the ideals of the undergraduate that they shall for all time shape his activities to the end of [Page 5]righteous conduct in all international dealings. In particular, the aim is to cultivate in the young men of our colleges and universities such sentiments and standards of conduct as will insure their devotion to the furtherance of international peace through arbitration and other methods of pacific settlement rather than by battleships—standards of conduct based upon the fundamental truth that conflicts between men, and therefore principles of right and justice, can be rightly settled only through the mediation of mind, and that every effort to settle them by force is not only illogical, a psychological impossibility, but is the way of the brute, not the way of man, whose nature touches the divine. All the more important must this work with the undergraduate be considered when we reflect that it is the young men in our colleges and universities to-day who will mold the public opinion and the national and international policy of the next generation; for it is such young men as these that will control the pulpit and the press, the legislation and the diplomacy of the future. It is this fact that gives such peculiar importance to the work of the Intercollegiate Peace Association. To quote from the report of the secretary for 1912:

"Other peace societies are laboring to create a public sentiment to-day in favor of international peace, through arbitration of all international differences. This is very essential. But the Intercollegiate Peace Association is founded upon the belief that the cause of peace will not triumph in a day, and that it is therefore of the utmost importance that right ideals be rooted into the minds of those who will give expression to the public opinion of the future. In brief, it is building more for the [Page 6]future than for the immediate present. The millennium of peace will not come until the ideals of a Christian civilization take deeper root in the minds and hearts of those who are the leaders of thought and action. One of the crying sins of to-day is that professions of righteous living in accordance with Christian ethical ideals are not taken seriously. Note the disgraceful policy that has been pursued with regard to Turkey by the nations of Europe that profess to be disciples of the Prince of Peace. Hence it is of the utmost importance that those who are to become the future translators of ideals into action shall be imbued with right principles of life and of human relations. To this end it is sought to cultivate the right sentiment against war, and for international peace, among the undergraduates of our colleges; for what the undergraduate thinks about and reads about to-day will very largely determine his future principles and his conduct, and it is he who is destined to mold the ideals, shape the policies, and determine the actions of the people of to-morrow."

Methods and Results. To carry out these purposes two things are essential: an awakened interest in the cause of peace, and some definite and effective method for molding sentiments and habits of thought that will persist with such vitality that they will give shape to future conduct and activities. To arouse an interest in the subject, on the part of both professors and students, it was believed at the outset that public addresses would be effective, and it was hoped that the association would be able to inaugurate a course of such addresses in our colleges and universities. It was, however, soon found that to finance such a course would require more money [Page 7] than we could hope to command for some time to come. In consequence, very little has been done along this line further than to arrange for occasional addresses and to encourage chapel talks. It is this field of work that the Lake Mohonk Conference voted to adopt at the suggestion of Dr. Gilman. The conference also found it difficult to carry out the plan, and our association was invited to assume the whole of this work—a request we would gladly have accepted, but which we were compelled to decline for want of funds. It is a very important field of work and could be made very effective toward realizing the ultimate goal of the Intercollegiate Peace Association, for its effect would undoubtedly be the enlistment of a much larger number of the students in the oratorical contests, which must be our chief reliance for getting international peace ideas to take a vital root in the undergraduate mind. If we cannot secure the necessary funds for carrying on this important work, it is hoped that some other peace society will do it for us, for such addresses could be made a most effective complement to our work.

Being compelled to abandon the public addresses for want of money, we have concentrated most of our efforts upon the intercollegiate oratorical contests as perhaps the most effective method for carrying out the purpose of the association. The contests are bound to arouse an interest in the subject, while the preparation of orations is sure to ingrain thoughts, sentiments, and convictions that will be indelible in the character of the young men who participate in the contests. While the contests are oratorical in their nature, their primary purpose is not the cultivation of oratory. Oratory is simply used as a [Page 8]means to an end—the cultivation of right ideas of justice and righteousness between nations. That such a result will accrue is assured both in psychological principles and in experience. Every student who produces a well-prepared oration in bound to make the thoughts and sentiments expressed a part of his being. The oration would not be effective if it were otherwise. The writer has heard scores of these orations, and he is convinced of the sincerity and earnestness of the orators. Moreover, letters written to him by those who have won prizes, attesting their interest in and their devotion to the cause, by reason of their participation in the contests, give ample evidence that the contests are bearing fruit. Nor can one read the orations in this volume without being convinced of their sincerity.

Indeed, the reason why we do not have intercollegiate debates instead of contests in oratory is because of the psychological truth, amply justified by experience, that the student who prepares for the negative side of a peace question would tend to have his thoughts permanently fixed along the lines of the advocates of great armaments. It is not that the student should not know the arguments opposing the ideas of the advocates of peace by arbitration. We would not cultivate bigotry even in a good cause. We would have him know the facts, as indeed he must before he can present any arguments for peace that would have any significance. But an acquaintance with the opposing arguments is quite a different thing, in its effect upon the thought of the student, from making that thought his own and publicly defending it.

Other results may be mentioned. While the cultivation of oratory is not a function of the Intercollegiate [Page 9]Peace Association, it does foster oratory as a valuable if not an indispensable instrument for effecting its own end. In fact, the oratorical contests are something more than agencies for interesting undergraduates in the peace movement. The cultivation of the art of expression and of public speaking, now very generally provided for in college and university curriculums, is of especial significance to the work of this association. For it is not alone of importance that the graduate who leaves his alma mater should be indoctrinated with a message of peace for the world; that his message may be effective, he must also have attained some proficiency in the art of clear and forceful diction and in the art of delivering his message in a pleasing and convincing manner. Therefore, it is not without reason that our contests are for the most part under the immediate direction of the department of English, or of whatever departments have charge of the public speaking in the various colleges and universities.

A further factor in these contests is their cultural value, both moral and intellectual. They necessarily cultivate the highest ethical conceptions, historical and political knowledge, and careful and logical thinking. To quote from the secretary's report for 1912: "The work of the Intercollegiate Peace Association is a great force for righteousness between nation and nation, and so between man and man, and therefore may be considered as supplementary to the more strictly moral and intellectual culture in our institutions of higher learning. The ethical value is not the only value of the contests. In the preparation of orations the undergraduate necessarily informs himself of historical conditions, of the economic and social effects of war, of the legal and [Page 10]constitutional principles involved, and of the problems, difficulties, and principles concerned with international relations. It is this early beginning of an intelligent understanding of the problems involved, together with the right moral insight, that must count for future effectiveness in shaping international policies and practices." Finally, while these contests have chiefly in mind the shaping of the public opinion of coming generations, they are by no means a negligible factor in their influence upon the public opinion of to-day. The contests—local, state, and interstate—are heard by many hundreds of people every year, and in many cases by persons who would otherwise seldom come in contact with peace sentiments. The permeating influence in college circles extends beyond those who participate in the contests. The influence of any single contest may indeed be small, but so too is the influence of any one peace conference or congress. The task of molding public opinion along the lines of any human uplift is always slow, and only gradually do the influences of this character permeate and take possession of the social mind; but every influence leaves its impression. It is only by persistent activities and cumulative effects that the social mind can be aroused to a full consciousness of any great moral issue, and still more true is this when that moral issue is of national or international importance. The many peace societies, the Intercollegiate Peace Association among them, are just such persistent activities, which, by gradually producing cumulative effects, will ultimately reap their reward. But more perhaps than other peace societies does the Intercollegiate Peace Association concern itself with the social mind and the social conscience of the future.

[Page 11] The Contests. The first oratorical contest was held at the University of Cincinnati, May 17, 1907. Arrangements were made for the participation of only Ohio and Indiana colleges. State contests were not held, but fourteen orations were submitted from as many different institutions, nine from Ohio and five from Indiana. The writers of eight of these were selected by judges on thought and composition to take part in the speaking contest. Four were from Ohio and four from Indiana. Indiana won both the first and the second prize. The first prize was won by Paul Smith of DePauw University with the subject, "The Conflict of War and Peace." The second prize went to Lawrence B. Smelser of Earlham College, whose subject was "The Solving Principles of Federation."

The second contest was held at DePauw University, May 15, 1908. Carrying out the plan adopted at the meeting at Cincinnati, the contestants were selected by means of State contests, and an invitation was extended to the colleges and universities of Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin to participate in the contest. Wisconsin did not respond, but contests were held in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. By special arrangement Juniata College was allowed to represent Pennsylvania without a state contest. Glenn P. Wishard of Northwestern University won the first prize; subject, "The United States and Universal Peace." The second prize was won by H. P. Lenartz of Notre Dame University; subject, "America and the World's Peace."

The third Interstate contest took place at The University of Chicago, May 4, 1909, in connection with the Second National Peace Congress. Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, [Page 12]Illinois, and Wisconsin were represented, all having held State contests. Levi T. Pennington of Earlham College won the first prize; subject, "The Evolution of World Peace." The second prize went to Harold P. Flint of Illinois Wesleyan University; subject, "America the Exemplar of Peace."

The fourth annual contest was held at the University of Michigan, May 13, 1910. There were six contestants, Pennsylvania having come regularly into the association. Arthur F. Young of Western Reserve University won the first prize; subject, "The Waste of War—The Wealth of Peace." The second prize went to Glenn N. Merry of Northwestern University; subject, "A Nation's Opportunity."

The fifth annual contest was held at Johns Hopkins University, May 5, 1911, in connection with the Third National Peace Congress. There were seven contestants, Maryland being represented for the first time. The first prize was won by Stanley H. Howe, Albion College, Michigan, and the second prize by Wayne Walker Calhoun, Illinois Wesleyan University. Mr. Howe's subject was "The Hope of Peace," and Mr. Calhoun's, "War and the Man." This contest was one of the most successful that had been held up to that time. It was greeted by one of the largest audiences that had attended any of the sessions of the Peace Congress, and the comparison of the orations, in both thought and delivery, with the speeches given in the congress, was very favorable to the young orators. A general enthusiasm was evoked for the contests. Yet there was much fear that this contest might prove to be the last, there being no assurance [Page 13]ahead for adequate funds to carry on the work. It was decided, however, not to give up without further trial, a decision well justified by subsequent developments.

Assistance being secured from the Carnegie peace fund, eleven states held contests in 1912. In addition to the seven that participated in the contest at Baltimore, four additional states were added—New York, North Carolina, Iowa, and Nebraska. With so many states, it became necessary for the first time to divide them into groups. Two groups were formed, an Eastern and a Western. The Western Group, of five states, held its contest at Monmouth College, Illinois, April 26, and the Eastern Group, of six states, at Allegheny College, Pennsylvania, May 3. No prizes were given at either of these contests, but an arrangement was made with the Lake Mohonk Conference by which the ranking orator in each contest should meet and contest for first and second place at Mohonk Lake at the time of the Lake Mohonk Conference. The contest at Mohonk was held May 16, the contestants being Percival V. Blanshard of the University of Michigan, who represented the Western Group, and Russell Weisman of Western Reserve University, who represented the Eastern Group. The title of Mr. Blanshard's oration was "The Roosevelt Theory of War," and that of Mr. Weisman's, "National Honor and Vital Interests." The Misses Seabury gave a first prize of $75 and a second prize of $50. The judges awarded the first prize to Mr. Blanshard and the second prize to Mr. Weisman. So great, however, was the interest of the guests at Mohonk Lake, and so nearly equal in merit were the orations, that a gentleman present gave [Page 14]an additional $25 to Mr. Weisman to make the prizes equal, and Mr. Joshua Bailey of Philadelphia gave each of the contestants an additional $50.

Five additional states—Maine, Massachusetts, Texas, Missouri, and South Dakota—participated in the contests of 1913, making sixteen states holding contests. Of these states three groups were formed, an Eastern, a Central, and a Western. The Central Group held its contest at Goshen College, Indiana, April 25; the Western Group at St. Louis, May 1, as part of the program of the Fourth American Peace Congress; and the Eastern Group at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, May 13. The same arrangements were made as in the preceding year—that the contestant holding the highest rank in each group should meet in a final contest at Mohonk Lake. No prizes were given, except that the Business Men's League of St. Louis gave a prize of $100 for the contest at St. Louis. The contest at Mohonk was held May 15, and three prizes were given by the Misses Seabury—$100, $75, and $50. Paul B. Blanshard of the University of Michigan, a twin brother of the Mr. Blanchard who won the first prize in 1912, represented the Central Group and won the first prize with the subject, "The Evolution of Patriotism." Calvert Magruder, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, represented the Eastern Group and won the second prize. His subject was "Certain Phases of the Peace Movement." Vernon M. Welsh, Knox College, Illinois, represented the Western Group and won the third prize. His subject was "The Assurance of Peace."

Growth. The growth of the Intercollegiate Peace Association, like that of most social movements, was slow in the first few years of its existence, but with the gradual [Page 15]accretion of new states it has gained in momentum, and is to-day increasing with such rapidity that only the lack of financial support will prevent it from embracing in its contests within another two years practically every state in the Union. Starting with two states at the Earlham Conference in 1906 and the first contest in 1907, it added three states in 1908, one in 1910, and one in 1911, making seven states participating in the contests of 1911. Four more states were added for the contests of 1912, and five additional ones for the contests of 1913 (nine states in two years), making sixteen states in all. Since the contest in May, 1913, eight states have been added for the contests of 1914, while the work of organization is being carried on in several other states. By 1915 at least thirty states will be holding contests if money can be secured for properly financing them. Four groups are now definitely organized: an Eastern, a Central, a Western, and a Southern. A Pacific Group is in process of being organized. Thus, in seven years from the first contest we have become a national association, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Lakes to the Gulf.

Prizes and Finances. In order to encourage the young men to enter the contests, the plan of offering prizes was adopted at the outset. The national association made itself responsible for the state prizes, leaving the local institutions to provide for such local prizes as they could arrange for. In some places such prizes are given, being provided for in different ways, and in some places no local prizes are given. At first only $50 and $25 were given for the two state prizes, but after the second year it was made a definite policy of the association to make [Page 16]the first state prize $75 and the second prize $50. With rare exceptions, in the case of the second prize, this policy is now maintained. In New York, however, there is a first prize of $200 and a second prize of $100, given by Mrs. Elmer Black. For the past two or three years the national association has made itself responsible for the first prize only, leaving the states to look after the second prize, though the secretary also looks after many of the second prizes. No prizes are regularly given in the group contests, but it is hoped that a plan may be evolved for giving one prize, as the expenses of the winning contestant are large. At the national contest at Mohonk Lake, prizes are given to each contestant. In 1914 these prizes will probably range from $40 to $100.

The prize money has come from various sources. In 1908 Mr. Carnegie gave $1000, and in 1909 he gave $700. The Misses Seabury, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, gave $500 a year from the first. They gave $750 in 1913 and will give $1000 for prizes in 1914. In Illinois La Verne W. Noyes has annually given the first prize of $75 and Harlow N. Higginbotham the second prize of $50. In Michigan R. E. Olds gave the first prize until 1913, and J. H. Moores the second prize until 1914. In Ohio Samuel Mather and J. G. Schmidlapp furnish the prizes for 1914. In New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland the prizes are given by individuals at the instigation of peace societies. In some states the second prize is given by some individual or through a collection from a number of individuals. The balance of the prizes are paid out of the subvention of $1200 that has been allowed for the past three years out of the Carnegie endowment fund. In [Page 17]1913 the prizes amounted to $2400. In 1914 they approximate $3400, apart from any local prizes that may be given.

The annual subvention of $1200 from the Carnegie peace fund is wholly inadequate to meet the growing needs of this association. Since this subvention was first granted, the number of states has been more than doubled, and it takes about $600 a year to run the secretary's office. Unless more money is secured from some source, the association will be unable to grow beyond its present limits.

Officers and Organization. The organization of the Intercollegiate Peace Association has been a gradual development, and has undergone modifications to meet the changing conditions due to the considerable enlargement of the territory embraced within its sphere of activity, chief of which has been the practical impossibility of getting representatives to a national meeting from such a large extent of territory. At first there were a president, secretary, and treasurer, and an executive committee, with the college presidents of Ohio and Indiana as vice presidents. At the meeting at DePauw University, in 1908, it was decided to create state committees, that should have charge of the work in their respective states. As the states grew in numbers the plan of having vice presidents was abandoned. In 1911 the chairmen of the state committees were made members of an advisory council, and in 1913 the executive committee was reorganized so that there should be one member from each group of states in addition to the president and secretary. When the organization is fully matured the elected members of the executive committee will be a [Page 18] self-perpetuating body, only one or two going out of office in any one year, reëlection being permitted. The executive committee will elect the president, executive secretary, and treasurer, and the president and the executive secretary will appoint the members of the advisory council, who will be ex-officio chairmen of the state committees. The officers up to date have been as follows:

Presidents: Dean William P. Rogers, Cincinnati Law School, 1906-1907; Professor George W. Knight, Ohio State University, 1907-1908; Professor Elbert Russell, Earlham College, 1908-1910; Dean William P. Rogers, 1910-1911; President Charles F. Thwing, Western Reserve University, 1911-.

Secretaries: Professor Elbert Russell, 1906-1908; Mr. George Fulk, Cerro Gordo, Illinois, 1908-1911; Professor Stephen F. Weston, Antioch College, 1911-.

Treasurers: Professor Elbert Russell, 1906-1908; Professor Stephen F. Weston, 1908-.

Orations. In the seven years in which the contests have been held, about twelve hundred orations have been written, a little more than one half of these in the past two years. The number written in 1914 will not fall far short of five hundred. For some time we have desired to publish a volume of the prize orations, and within the past few years there has been considerable demand for such a volume, as many would-be contestants are anxious to see what they will have to measure up to in order to win. Outsiders interested in the contests have also desired such a publication. The present collection was therefore projected, and the World Peace Foundation willingly undertook to issue it as one of the books in its International Library.

[Page 19] The ten orations that have been selected for this volume out of the twelve hundred have all won the first prize in interstate contests. The first five are the first prize orations in the national contests of the first five years before the group contests were organized, and were selected by a series of local, state, and interstate contests out of about five hundred and fifty orations delivered. The last five, selected by a series of contests out of about six hundred and fifty, are the first prize orations of the group contests of the past two years. They were delivered in the national contests at Mohonk Lake at the time of the Lake Mohonk Conferences. The fact that many of the second prize orations, and indeed a number of the others, were given first place by some of the judges is indicative of the general high character of all the orations, so that the ten selected orations are very fairly typical of the thought and sentiment of the whole twelve hundred. It is therefore believed that the publication of these orations will be of great value not only as a stimulus to prospective contestants but as a convincing proof of the quality of the work that the undergraduate students of the country are doing in the contests. They are evidence that these contests call out a high grade of intellectual and moral culture, showing as they do keen and clear thinking and high moral ideals.

There is included as an appendix to these orations the Pugsley prize oration of 1913, by Bryant Smith, a senior in Guilford College, North Carolina, a sample of the prize essays annually submitted for the Pugsley prize of $100 offered through the Lake Mohonk Conference by Chester DeWitt Pugsley of Yonkers, New York. The essay is also fittingly printed in this volume because [Page 20]Mr. Smith represented the state of North Carolina in the Eastern Group contest of the Intercollegiate Peace Association in 1912, while still another reason for including it is the hope that others who have taken part in the oratorical contests, and who are thereby excluded from entering those contests again, may be encouraged to try for the Pugsley prize.

Subjects of Orations. In view of the fact that so many orations have been written on peace subjects, it is worthy of note that the topics have seldom been duplicated, and that when the same topic has been twice used, the handling of it has been so different that little duplication has been noticeable. Each oration well represents the originality and the individuality of the writer or orator. Duplication is shown in the quotations, and it is therefore suggested that quotations be sparingly used.

Not the least interesting feature of the orations is the combination of idealism and practicality, which they reveal in the minds of the contestants. Truly, these young men "have hitched their wagon to a star," the star of universal good will.

To show the wide range of subjects chosen, and therefore the scope and many-sidedness of the peace question, the following list of titles already used is given here. They are also given as suggestions to future writers of orations, for there is no objection to choosing subjects previously used. Even if there is some duplication of thought, it makes little difference, since the contests are seldom held twice in the same place. Included in the list are some titles that show variations in the way of stating the same thing, and these variations should be suggestive to future writers of orations.

[Page 21]

[Page 23] Acknowledgments. The Intercollegiate Peace Association is greatly indebted to many state and city peace societies for coöperation and assistance. They have materially strengthened our work and made possible the enlargement of the field of our activities. To their secretaries we are deeply indebted. The fullest coöperation of the peace societies, each assisting and supplementing the work of others wherever possible, will bring the most fruitful and the most speedy results, and the fact that we have received such coöperation indicates a full appreciation of the value of the work being done in these contests. We wish also to express our gratitude to the many individual contributors of prizes, especially to the Misses Seabury, for their interest, encouragement, and generosity, because without their assistance our association could not have survived. To the Misses Seabury we are also under obligation for lending their rights over the texts of orations for this publication. For the subvention from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace we thank the American Peace Society, through whose agency it comes to us. For the publication of this volume we are deeply grateful to the World Peace Foundation, without whose coöperation the book could not have been published. To Edwin D. Mead and Denys P. Myers the editor owes his sincere thanks for suggestions and corrections of the manuscript. We trust that the volume will be amply justified by the good that it will do.

STEPHEN F. WESTON
Executive Secretary

[Page 24]

SUPPLEMENT

The Contests of 1914. This volume was projected to be published before the Lake Mohonk Conference in May, but it was decided to include the five orations given in the national contest of 1914, and so make the volume complete for the year of issue. The last five orations, then, are the winning ones in the group contests of 1914, contesting for place in the national contest at Mohonk Lake, May 16, 1914. They are the picked orations of over four hundred and fifty prepared in one hundred and twenty colleges and universities, representing twenty-two states. The fifteen orations in the volume are the winning orations out of more than sixteen hundred and fifty written by the student body of the country in the past eight years.

In 1914 six additional states took part in the contests, making twenty-two organized into five groups. The Pacific coast and Southern groups were added during the year to the three groups organized in 1913. Three of the groups held their contests on May 1—the North Atlantic at the College of the City of New York, the Central at Western Reserve University, and the Western at Des Moines College. The Southern Group held its contest at Vanderbilt University on May 10. On the Pacific coast only Oregon was ready, and the winner of her state contest was permitted to represent the group in the national contest. Utah and California are planning to enter the contests of 1915. Virginia, West Virginia, and South Carolina are organizing, and a sixth group will then be formed—the South Atlantic Group.

S. F. W.

[Page 25]

THE CONFLICT OF WAR AND PEACE

By Paul Smith, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana
First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at the University of Cincinnati, May 17, 1907

[Page 26]

[Page 27]

THE CONFLICT OF WAR AND PEACE

The past ages have witnessed a long conflict between two opposing principles—the principle of might and the principle of right. The first instituted the duel between equals and condemned the impotent to slavery; the second ordained the courts of civil justice and signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The principle of might licensed despotism and degraded the many in the service of the few; the principle of right proclaimed democracy and consecrated the few to the service of the many. Thus in the realm of the individual and of the state the diviner conception has won its triumphs, and to-day force is tolerated only as it serves the cause of justice. But in the larger international sphere the advocates of might prolong the ancient cry for war; the disciples of right protest in a gentler demand for peace.

The partisans of war urge four capital reasons in behalf of their principle: personal glory, moral education, class interest, and national egoism.

We have as a heritage of our military past, not a sense of the grim tragedy of war, but traditions which award the highest meed of personal glory to the warrior. The roster of the world's heroes contains two classes of names—great soldiers and great altruists. Poet and orator and populace unite to do honor to him who was not afraid to fight and to die for his home, his king, his liberty, his country, his convictions. Bravery has ever won its laurel crown, for an instinct within us applauds [Page 28] physical courage and aggressiveness. And the gilded uniform and clanking sword, the drumbeat and the bugle call, the camp fire and the "far-flung battle line," stand as the most dramatic expressions of a deep sentiment, primitive and thrilling.

Akin to this martial hero worship is the argument that success in war gives training for the higher contests of peace. Out of the war of 1776 the nation took George Washington for President; out of the Mexican War, Zachary Taylor; out of the Civil War, General Grant; out of the Spanish War, Theodore Roosevelt. The badge of the Grand Army of the Republic is a certificate of merit. The cross of the Legion of Honor opens the door to social and political and business prosperity. Battle is regarded as a supreme test of sturdy manhood, and the harsh discipline of the camp as education for the finer arts of the council. War creates a heroism which later devotes itself to spiritual ends.

Moreover, say the advocates, the interests of class require force for their conservation. The hereditary nobility of Europe was founded by military process for military purposes, and, with the passing of war, loses its warrant for existence. On the other hand, it is claimed that the under classes may come into the enjoyment of their inalienable rights, common to all humanity, only by means of the sword. Witness the peasantry of Russia! Even in America so great a prophet as Henry Ward Beecher foresaw a tragic day when the bivouac of capital would be set against the camp of labor. And lesser seers are not lacking who freely predict, even for our democratic land, a desperate rebellion of a proletariat of poverty against an aristocracy of wealth.

[Page 29] Finally, the demands of national egoism are urged in behalf of war. For example, Japan needs new territory for her growing millions and must assume the conqueror's rôle. Or France goes mad with the lust of empire and goes forth untamed until the day of Waterloo. Or Great Britain must have new markets; and, falsely reasoning that trade follows the flag, and the flag follows the bayonet, she seizes a realm upon which the sun may never set. Or the interests of white men and yellow men, of black men or red men, clash; and then the cannon must be the final test, might must make right, and the strongest must survive. The greed of territorial aggrandizement, the spirit of national adventure, the longing for commercial supremacy, the honor of a country, the pride of racial achievement—each is urged to justify the necessity for bloodshed and carnage. Such are the arguments of the advocates of war.

To balance these, the advocates of peace plead four greater considerations: against personal glory, the economic cost of militarism; against the moral education of war, the higher heroism of peace; against class interests, the sanctity of human life; and against national egoism, the deeper spirit of national altruism.

A single modern battleship costs more than the combined value of the property and endowment of all the colleges of a certain great state. Two thirds of the money passing through the treasury of the Republic goes to the support of the military system. Computing two hundred dollars a year as the average loss to society occasioned by the withdrawal of each soldier and sailor from productive toil, and adding this sum to the war budgets of the nations for the past fifty years, we obtain [Page 30] a total of billions, beyond the reach of all imagination. The money which armies, navies, wars, and pensions have cost the world in fifty years would have installed in China a system of education equal to that of the United States; would have transformed the arid deserts of India into a modern Eden by irrigation; would have laid railways from Cape Town to the remotest corner of Africa; would have dug the Panama Canal; and, in addition, would have sent a translation of the Bible, of Shakespeare, Homer, Goethe, and Dante to every family on the globe. In a word, the wealth spent on wars in the last half century would have transformed life for a majority of human beings. The stoppage of this waste will shorten the hours of labor, reduce pauperism, elevate the peasantry of Europe, lighten taxation, and work an economic revolution.

The argument for moral education mistakes national gratitude to warriors for tribute to the training of the camp. But grant that war develops the combative qualities, the argument forgets a darker moral phase. It forgets the moral wrecks which are the sad products of war; it forgets the effect of the loss of the refining influence of womanhood upon the soldier; it forgets the debasement of sinking men to the physical type of life. And the argument assumes that peace has no "equivalent for war," declared by a famous educator to be the greatest need of the age. Courage and endurance are as necessary in social reforms as in carnal battle. To wrestle against principalities and powers and rulers of the world-darkness calls forth the maximum powers of manhood. Wendell Phillips stands in the ranks of heroes as high as Philip Sheridan. The moral loss from war transcends the moral gain.

[Page 31] Yet war levies toll more tragic than any toll of dollars, more appalling than any moral cost. A famous painting reveals the world's conquerors, Xerxes, Cæsar, Alexander, Napoleon, and a lesser host, mounted proudly on battle steeds, caparisoned with gorgeous trappings; but the field through which they march is paved with naked, mutilated corpses, the ghastly price of glory. The trenches at Port Arthur were filled level-full with the bodies of self-sacrificed martyrs, and upon this gruesome slope the final charges were made. Stripped of all sentiment, war is organized and wholesale murder, a savage and awful paradox which proclaims the shallowness of civilization. Said General Sherman: "Only those who have never heard a shot, only those who have never heard the shrieks of the wounded nor the groans of the dying, can cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation." God grant the world may soon heed the Voice, sounding down from the solemnity of Sinai, laying the divine command upon each man and each nation: "Thou shalt not kill!"

There yet remains the ethical argument for peace. Will any one say that the supreme duty of altruism is binding upon men as individuals, and not binding upon the same men acting conjointly as a nation? When the people and the statesmen of one nation are able to put themselves in the places of the statesmen and of the people of another nation; when there is a common will to do international justice rather than to despise the weaker country; when not selfish interest alone, but the greatest good of the greatest number, becomes the driving impulse of humanity; when the thrill of fraternity crosses geographical lines and pauses not on the shores [Page 32] of the seas—then war will be impossible, the energies of the world will turn to the constructive arts, and from the midst of contentment unshadowed by hunger, from prosperity unmenaced by want, in the peaceful spirit of the Christ, the world will sing:

All great reforms have begun with "star-led" men and have moved from individuals to groups and from groups to the nation. In every distinct advance of the race prophetic persons have anticipated the trend of the ages and have adopted new codes for themselves; the higher morality has spread by agitation to include a larger group, and finally it has become the policy of the nation. Thus slavery went, and political equality came.

And thus war must go and peace must come. First, we find protest against the killing of individuals by individuals. The duel fell into disrepute and at last was forbidden by law. The carrying of weapons became unfashionable and at length was made a crime. With the growth of the moral sense, mutual trust took the place of armed neutrality. The present situation is ready for [Page 33] the larger application of these principles. The argument which abolished the carrying of weapons must frown upon excessive national armaments. As the individual duel was superseded by personal arbitration, so the national duel must be superseded by national arbitration. The reason that maintains the civil court for the settlement of individuals' disputes calls for a higher court for the settlement of national disputes. Not alone among men, not alone within states, but among the nations, right, not might, must rule; not force, but justice; and written as the world's supreme mandate, as the highest human law from which there may be no appeal, must be the unshaken law of national righteousness.

Tennyson's words were accounted a poet's fancy when he wrote:

Yet the present year[1] will witness the fulfillment of that prophecy. Disarmament and arbitration will be considered this summer, not by agitators, not by theorists, nor yet prophetically by poets; but in June, at the invitation of our own President,[2] an actual international conference will assemble, a Parliament of the World, composed of official representatives of every nation of the globe. Thus we see the foregleams of an approaching day. The time is not far distant when war will glide into the grim shadows of a scarce-remembered past, when battles will pass into the oblivion of forgotten horrors. Then [Page 34] will society realize its dreams of a kingdom of heaven upon earth, where the barbaric lure of fighting will be lost; where no class lines may exist save those freely acknowledged by a common justice; where national egoism maintains no armies for conquest and no navies for aggrandizement; where economic resources are devoted, not to mutual physical destruction, but to splendid spiritual enlargement; where "every nation that shall lift again its hand against a brother, on its forehead will wear forevermore the curse of Cain"; and where, in the realization of a vast, racial brotherhood, is fulfilled the prophetic angel's song, "Peace on earth, good-will to men." Ruskin, the modern bard of peace, has sung:

[Page 35]

THE UNITED STATES AND UNIVERSAL PEACE

By Glenn Porter Wishard, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, May 15, 1908

[Page 36]

[Page 37]

THE UNITED STATES AND UNIVERSAL PEACE

Political and religious reforms move slowly. We change our beliefs and at the same time hold fast to old customs. Farsighted public opinion has declared war to be unchristian; sound statesmanship has stamped it as unjust; the march of events has, in a majority of cases, proved it to be unnecessary—and yet we continue to build mammoth engines of destruction as if war were inevitable. Truly, the millennium is not at hand, nor is war a thing of the past; but whereas war was once the rule, now it is the exception. This is an age of peace; controversies once decided by force are now settled by arbitration. Europe, once the scene of continuous bloodshed, has not been plundered by conquering armies for more than a generation, while the United States has enjoyed a century of peace marred by only five years of foreign war. The four notable conflicts of the last decade have been between great and small powers, and have been confined to the outposts of civilization; while during the same period more than one hundred disputes have been settled by peaceful means. The willingness to arbitrate has been manifest; the means have been provided; the Permanent International Court, established by the Hague Conference in 1899, actually lives, and has already adjudicated four important controversies.[1] [Page 38] But arbitration, you say, will never succeed because the decisions cannot be enforced. You forget that already some two hundred and fifty disputes have been settled by this method, and in not one instance has the losing power refused to abide by the decision.

Yesterday the man who advocated universal peace was called a dreamer; to-day throughout the world organized public opinion demands the abolition of war. Yesterday we erected statues to those who died for their country; to-day we eulogize those who live for humanity. Yesterday we bowed our heads to the god of war; to-day we lift our hands to the Prince of Peace.

I do not mean to say that we have entered the Utopian age, for the present international situation is a peculiar one, since we are at the same time blessed with peace and cursed with militarism. This is not an age of war, yet we are burdened by great and ever-increasing armaments; the mad race for naval supremacy continues, while the relative strength of the powers remains practically the same; the intense and useless rivalry of the nations goes on until, according to the great Russian economist, Jean de Bloch, it means "slow destruction in time of peace by swift destruction in the event of war." In Europe to-day millions are being robbed of the necessaries of life, millions more are suffering the pangs of abject poverty in order to support this so-called "armed peace." Note the condition in our own country. Last year we expended on our army, navy, and pensions sixty-seven per cent of our total receipts. Think of it! In a time of profound peace more than two thirds of our entire expenditures are charged to the account of war.

[Page 39] We do not advocate radical, Utopian measures; we do not propose immediate disarmament; but we do maintain that when England, Germany, France, and the United States each appropriates from thirty to forty per cent of their total expenditures in preparation for war in an age of peace, the time has come for the unprejudiced consideration of the present international situation. Why do the great powers build so many battleships? President Roosevelt, Representative Hobson, and others would have us believe that England, Germany, and France are actually preparing for war, while the United States is building these engines of destruction for the purpose of securing peace. But what right have we to assume that our navy is for the purpose of preserving peace, while the navies of the European powers are for the purpose of making war? Is not such an assumption an insult to our neighbors? As a matter of fact, England builds new battleships because Germany does, Germany increases her navy because France does, while the United States builds new dreadnoughts because other nations pursue that policy. Call it by whatever honey-coated name you will, the fact, remains that it is military rivalry of the most barbarous type, a rivalry as useless as it is oppressive, a rivalry prompted by jealousy and distrust where there should be friendship and mutual confidence. There is riot one of the powers but that would welcome relief from the bondage of militarism; the demand for the limitation of armaments is almost universal. Believing that to decry war and praise peace without offering some plan by which the present situation may be changed is superficial, we hasten to propose something practicable.

How, then, shall we put an end to this useless rivalry [Page 40] of the nations? At present a general agreement of the great powers on the limitations of military establishments seems impossible. It remains for some powerful nation to prove to the world that the great armaments are not necessary to continued peace, with honor and justice. Some nation must take the first step.[2] Why not the United States? The nations of Europe are surrounded by powerful enemies, while the United States is three thousand miles from any conceivable foe. They are potentially weak, while our resources are unlimited. They have inherited imperialism; we have inherited democracy. Their society is permeated with militarism; ours is built on peace and liberty. Our strategic position is unequaled, our resources are unlimited, our foreign policy is peaceful, our patriotism is unconquerable. In view of these facts, I ask you, What nation has the greatest responsibility for peace? Are not we Americans the people chosen to lift the burden of militarism from off the backs of our downtrodden brother?

Now what are we doing to meet this responsibility? On the one hand, we are performing a great work for peace. Many of our statesmen, business men, and laborers, united in a common cause, are exerting a tremendous influence in behalf of arbitration and disarmament. On the other hand, we are spending more on our military establishment than any other world power;[3] we are building more battleships than any other nation;[4] we are [Page 41] no longer trusting our neighbors; we are warning them to beware of our mailed fist; and we are thereby declaring to the world that we have lost our faith in the power of justice and are now trusting to the force of arms.

And why this paradoxical situation? Why do we at the same time prepare for war and work for peace? It is simply because many of our statesmen honestly believe that the best way to preserve peace is to prepare for war. It is true that a certain amount of strength tends to command respect, and for that reason a navy sufficient for self-defense is warranted. Such a navy we now have. Why should it be enlarged? Naval enthusiasts would have us prepare, not for the probable but for the possible. Seize every questionable act of our neighbors, they say, magnify it a thousand times, publish it in letters of flame throughout the land, and make every American citizen believe that the great powers are prepared to destroy us at any moment. Having educated the people up to a sense of threatened annihilation, they burden them with taxes, build artificial volcanoes dedicated to peace, parade them up and down the high seas, and defy the world to attack us. Then, they say, we shall have peace. Is this reasonable? As sure as thought leads to action, so preparation for war leads to war. This argument that the United States, since she is a peace-loving nation, should have the largest navy in the world in order to preserve peace is illogical and without foundation. By what divine right does the United States assume the rôle of preserving the world's peace at the cannon's mouth? Since when has it been true that might makes right, and that peace can be secured only by acting the part of a bully? It is unjust, it is [Page 42] unpatriotic, it is unstatesmanlike, for men to argue that the United States should browbeat the world into submission; that she should build so many battleships that the nations of the Eastern hemisphere will be afraid to oppose the ironclad dragon of the Western Hemisphere. Peace purchased at the price of brute force is unworthy of the name. Surely the United States cannot afford to be guilty of such an injustice. If we wish to be free; if we wish to remain a true republic; if we purpose to continue our mighty work for humanity, we must limit our preparations for war. The best way to preserve peace is to think peace, to believe in peace, and to work for peace.

The extent to which the great powers will go in order to secure enthusiasm for their military establishments is almost beyond comprehension. Each nation has its great military rendezvous, its grand naval parades, its magnificent display of gorgeous military uniforms, its wave of colors, blare of trumpets, and bursts of martial music. The United States is now sending her navy around the world—for the purpose of training the seamen?—certainly, but also that the youth of our land may be intoxicated by the apparent glory of it all, and thus enlist for service; that the American citizens may be aroused to greater enthusiasm by this magnificent display of the implements of legalized murder, and thus be willing to build more floating arsenals rather than irrigate arid lands, develop internal waterways, build hospitals, schools, and colleges.

The trouble with such exhibitions is, that it displays only the bright side of militarism. If in place of the Russian battleships they should display the starving masses [Page 43] of dejected and despised beings who pay for those battleships; if in place of the gay German uniforms they should exhibit the rags of the disheartened peasants who pay for those uniforms; if in place of the grand parade they should produce masses of wounded men and rivers of blood; if in place of the stirring martial music they should produce the writhing agonies and awful groans of dying men; if in place of sham war they should produce actual war,—their exhibitions would make militarism unbearable.

Again, we are told that we have suddenly become a world power, and that we must prepare to exercise a new diplomacy under new conditions. We must increase our navy, they say, to enforce this new diplomacy. We must prepare to fight in behalf of the Monroe Doctrine. But why, I ask, cannot this new diplomacy be enforced as American diplomacy has always been enforced? We promulgated the Monroe Doctrine without a navy; we have maintained it for over eighty years without the show of force. If our new diplomacy is right, it is as strong as the world's respect for righteousness; if it is wrong, a hundred battleships cannot enforce it.

We have become a world power, and therefore we have a world-wide responsibility, and that responsibility is to establish justice, not force; to build colleges, not battleships; to enthrone love, not hate; to insure peace, not war. Our mission is to strike the chains from the ankles of war-burdened humanity. Our duty is to proclaim in the name of the Most High our faith in the power of justice as opposed to the force of arms. May it be said of us that we found the world burdened with militarism, but left it blessed with peace; that we found liberty [Page 44] among the strong alone, but left it the birthright of the weak; that we found humanity a mass of struggling individuals, but left it a united brotherhood. May it be said of us that we found peace purchased by suffering, but left it as free as air; that we found peace bruised and stained with militarism, but left it ruling the world through love and liberty. May it be said of us that we fulfilled our mission as a world power; that we were brave enough and strong enough to lead the world into the path of universal peace.

[Page 45]

THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD PEACE

By Levi T. Pennington, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana
First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at The University of Chicago, May 4, 1909

[Page 46]

[Page 47]

THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD PEACE

In the progress of the world the dream of yesterday becomes the confident hope of to-day and the realized fact of to-morrow. As old systems fail to meet new conditions and new ideals, they are discarded; and into the limbo of worse than useless things is passing the system of human sacrifice to the Moloch of international warfare. For centuries world peace has been the dream of the poet, the philanthropist, the statesman, and the Christian. That dream is becoming a confident hope. This generation should see it an accomplished fact.

There was a time when individual prowess determined the issue of every difference. Might made right, so it was thought, and the winner in any controversy was he who had the heaviest club, the strongest arm, or the thickest skull. Man's interrelationships multiplied as humanity advanced; with each new relation came new causes for quarrel, and for a time advancing civilization brought but increase in murders and assassinations.

We know the process by which personal combat ceased; how the duel replaced murder and ambush and assassination; how courts of law replaced the duel. The dreamer saw the day when personal combat should be no more; the man of mind refuted all the arguments in favor of the duel of men; the constructive statesman of that early day instituted courts of law and equity. Men who had a difference insisted that it was their quarrel [Page 48] and they alone could settle it; but reason saw that two combatants inflamed by passion are least fitted of all men to see where justice lies. Many held that where honor is involved, no one can adjust the difficulty but those most directly concerned; but reason saw that a man's honor cannot be vindicated by killing his enemy or being killed by him. Men said, "If personal combat is abolished, courage and strength will perish from the earth." But reason saw that personal combat in a selfish cause does not bring out the highest type of courage; and that there are opportunities enough for the exercise of the highest and best moral and physical courage to keep valor alive forever. It was finally urged that there would be no power to enforce the decree if personal differences were left to the adjudication of others; but reason said, "That power will come with the need for it." And so courts of law and equity arose, based on the need of humanity; laws were passed defining rights and limiting aggression; and when one man wronged another, that wrong was settled in court by the power of the whole people and not in personal combat with the bludgeon or the knife.

For similar reasons wars between states and tribes have ceased; and face to face with the inevitable logic of past progress stands the world to-day. Though humanity has been slow to see it, the truth has begun to dawn in the hearts of men—that international wars are no more to be justified than civil strife, tribal warfare, or personal combat. Gradually the omnipotent power of right is overcoming the inertia of humanity, and the world is moving. One by one the awful truths concerning war are forcing themselves upon the consciousness [Page 49] and the conscience of men. The mighty power of fact is beating down the opposition to world peace.

Men have begun to realize the terrible cost, the unbelievable wastefulness of actual war, and the preparation for possible war. When we read that the armed peace of Europe the past thirty-seven years has cost $111,000,000,000, nearly as much as the aggregate value of all the resources of the United States, the richest nation on earth, the figures are so appalling that mortal mind cannot conceive them, and they lose their force. When we remember that two thirds of the national revenues of the United States are spent on wars past or prospective, the matter comes closer home. When we realize that the cost of a single battleship exceeds the value of all the grounds and buildings of all the colleges and universities in Illinois, the figures have more meaning to us. And when we reflect that the cost of a single shot from one of the great guns of that battleship would build a home for an American family, a comfortable home costing $1700, the common man realizes that the richest nation on earth cannot afford to go to war nor prepare for war.

But mere money is one of the cheapest things in all the world. The price of war never can be paid in gold. Not in national treasuries can you see the payment of that price, where smug, well-groomed politicians sign bonds and bills of credit. If you would see the payment of that price of war, you must go to the place of war. With all your senses open, step upon the battlefield. Smell the smoke of burning powder, the reek of charging horses, the breath of fresh, red, human blood. Feel the warmth of that blood as you seek to stanch the wound in the breast of one of the world's bravest, dying for he [Page 50] knows not what. Hear the screams of the shells, the booming roar of the cannonade, the clash of the onslaught, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the last gasp of him whose life has reached its end. Such is the infernal music of war. See the victim of the conflict reel in the saddle and fall headlong. Cast your eyes on the mangled forms of godlike men, fallen in the midst of fullest life. Come in the night after the battle and look upon the ghastly faces upturned in the moonlight. Gaze on the windrows of the dead, Mars's awful harvest, that impoverishes all and enriches none, and you know something of the cost of war.

And yet we have seen but little. Could we but enter the wasted homes and see the broken hearts that war has made; could we go to the almshouses and soldiers' orphans' homes and see widows and children by the thousand suffering the doled-out charity of state or nation because war has robbed them of their rightful protectors; could we but realize the agony of the broken home, a thousandfold worse than the agony of the battlefield,—then might we know more of the real cost of war.

And still our idea would be inadequate, though we realized the full measure of every groan and heartache. Earth's most priceless treasures are still more intangible things, the treasures of justice and kindliness and love. In that higher realm the cost of war is most terrible and most deadly. The spirit of war in the soldier sets aside the moral law, makes human life seem valueless, human suffering a thing to be disregarded, human slaughter an honorable profession. The war spirit blinds the eye of the statesman, till wrong seems right, folly seems expediency, and the death of thousands seems preferable [Page 51] to the life and happiness of all under terms of peace not dictated by his own will. Justice is dethroned, and revenge takes up the iron scepter and lets fly the thunderbolt. The war spirit perverts the mind of the publicist, till the achievements of honorable peace sink into insignificance, and the press clamors for the war that means money to the publisher but death to innocent thousands who can have no possible interest in the conflict. The war spirit takes possession of the pulpit, and the minister called to preach the loving message of the Prince of Peace stirs up the spirit of contention and animosity, of hate and murder. Could we but draw aside the curtain and, back of the tinsel and gold braid, see the crime, the hate, the moral degradation that war always brings, never again would a friend of humanity ask for war.

But the eyes of the world are opening to the fact that the cost of war is far too high in money and in men, in suffering and sacrifice, and in those higher values of justice and kindliness and love. And as the thought once grew that personal differences might be settled without personal combat, so men are looking toward the settlement of international difficulties without recourse to the sword. They have seen that every argument against the duel of men applies with still greater force against the duel of nations. And the world has moved farther toward world peace in the past twenty-five years than in all the centuries of history that have preceded. World peace has become not the dream of the poet but the confident hope of the world, whose realization is the task whose accomplishment is set for the men of this generation.

[Page 52] One by one the obstacles to world peace are being broken down. Commerce has destroyed much of international prejudice. Community of interest has obviated many former causes of quarrel. The sophistical arguments of the friends of war are being answered by the logic of hard facts. Warfare has been ameliorated by international agreement. Vast reaches of territory have been neutralized. Unfortified cities are no longer to be bombarded in any country. Actual disarmament has taken place between the United States and Canada, between Chile and Argentina.[1] Norway and Sweden have separated peaceably. Bulgaria has achieved her independence without bloodshed. The Dogger Bank incident, which a century earlier would have plunged England and Russia into war, has been adjusted amicably. Two Hague Conferences have advanced tremendously the progress of international amity. Over eighty arbitration treaties are now in force. We already have a permanent high court of nations, to which are being referred questions that would once have resulted in war. And we are nearer than the dreamer of last century dared hope to "the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world."

[Page 53] But not yet has the millennium dawned. In the face of all this progress, armies and navies are stronger and more burdensome than ever. The United States spends more on wars past and prospective than for all educational purposes, and England, France, Germany, Russia, groan under the burdens of the armed peace of Europe. Armed to the teeth, the nations of the world lie watching one another. The mind of the world is convinced that war is futile and terribly wasteful. The heart of the world is convinced that war is cruel and inexcusable. The conscience of the world has admitted that war is wrong and morally unjustifiable. And still the preparation for war goes on, and unless conditions are changed, war is inevitable. What is to be done? The world's will must be moved, and men must be led to do what they have already admitted is right and just and expedient.

As we have led in other days, so must America lead to-day. As the light of republican government and complete justice to the individual first saw full dawn in the United States, so the eyes of the world are turned toward us to see the dawn of world peace, and full justice to all the nations. It is ours to lead. The example of the United States will do more than a century of argument and conference. America should begin the disarmament that will eventually mean the triumph of world peace.

We have naught to fear. We are far distant from the storm centers of the world. We have no foes within that demand a large standing army, and there are no enemies without that are anxious to try conclusions with us on land or sea. Then away with war talk and war scares and "jingoism." In time of peace let us prepare for peace, that all the world may enjoy peace. American [Page 54] disarmament will be a tremendous stride toward the accomplishment of the world's desire—the cessation of international warfare; a great world's court, to settle all international differences; an international police force, to give effect to the decrees of this court; and the end of the burdens of armies and navies under which the whole world is groaning. Let heart and voice and pen, pulpit and press and platform, soldier and statesmen and private citizen, ask for peace, and not for war.

This is a part of the world's larger hope. Pessimists there are who say that human nature is belligerent, and that war will never be abolished. But international warfare has already seen the handwriting on the wall. Mars has been weighed in the balances and found wanting. The fruitless slaughter of the millions is not to be forever nor for long. Let us hasten the day when the rolling war drum will be hushed forever, the bugle note no longer call to carnage; when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Love shall take the place of Hate, and Justice sit on the throne instead of Greed. Some day in the not distant future the nations that have all these centuries bowed before the god of war shall own eternal allegiance to the Prince of Peace. And "of the increase of His government and of Peace there shall be no end."

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THE WASTE OF WAR—THE WEALTH OF PEACE

By Arthur Foraker Young, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at the University of Michigan, May 13, 1910

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THE WASTE OF WAR—THE WEALTH OF PEACE

In the worship of Mars, Herodotus tells us, the ancient Scythian erected an old scimitar at the summit of a huge brush heap. To this, as a symbol of the great god of war, he offered not only the produce of the land but also human life in sacrifice. We shudder as we picture the priest standing over his victim, his hands wet with the blood of his fellow man. We cry out in horror as we think of the lives these peoples sacrificed. We call it an inhuman glorification of a pagan deity. We call it a ruthless waste of wealth and human life. These practices we pronounce to be the result of a popular delusion—a false sense of obligation to the spirit of war. Yet from the time the Scythian drew the blood of his victim in homage to the great war god, even down to our own day, the nations have paid homage to Mars.

Though we boast of our progress in civilization, history reveals the fact that we, too, have been the victims of the Scythian's delusion. Is it not a fact that one of the most terrible customs of savage men counts among its followers to-day all the nations of the earth? The subtlest skill of the scientist, the keenest intelligence of the statesman, vast stores of the world's resources, are devoted to maintaining great armies and navies, to inventing new means of attack or defense, to enlarging and making more deadly the enginery of war. What is [Page 58] our boast of civilization, while we tolerate this devotion of so many men and so much of wealth to war? Is this not a sacrifice essentially pagan in spirit? Are we not still paying unrighteous homage to Mars?

Why, then, we ask, do nations make provision for war the first necessity of national life? Behold Russia. A few years ago, in time of famine, spending millions of money for war equipment when millions of her own peasantry were slowly starving for the lack of one dollar's worth of food per month. What motive impelled Russia to this heathen conduct? It was solely that Germany, France, England, Japan, and the United States had great armies and navies against which starving Russia must be prepared to defend herself. What dire stress compels England to-day to perpetuate her program of naval supremacy when she is struggling in the throes of budget difficulties which seem all but unsolvable? What is it that compels Germany and France to tax themselves until they fairly stagger under the burden of military expenditures? Naught other than a suicidal lust for military power. Naught other than the infatuation of the dizzy, competitive war dance of mutual destruction—each nation blindly driven by all, and all by each.

We as Americans profess to find in the conduct of Russia, in the militarism of England and Germany and France, examples of militarism run rampant. How our hearts have warmed within us when we have thought of our own republic as the happy envied nation, free from the burden of militarism! Our farmer has gone singing about his work, apparently not having to carry on his back a soldier, as does the European peasant. Our mechanic has freely plied his trade without thought of supporting [Page 59] a sailor. Yet how can we say that the United States in buying battleships and erecting coast defenses, in arming her soldiers with Krag-Jörgensens, has not been deprived of schools, colleges, and opportunities essential to happiness and prosperity? In a decade we have spent nearly a billion dollars on our navy alone. Yes, we have aped the military fashions of Europe and have set a new standard of military waste.

Verily our national advancement waits on militarism. Inland waterways should be improved; forests must be safeguarded; other natural resources of untold value should be conserved; millions of acres of desert lands should be improved; millions in swamps should be redeemed. The problem of the nation's food supply is becoming urgent; for its solution we must look more and more to scientific methods in agriculture. Yet contrast the support our government gives these vital interests with war's mighty drain on our treasury. Congress appropriated $648,000,000 for all expenditures in 1910. Of this amount $407,000,000 were appropriated for war expenditures and the glories of militarism. For this same year agriculture received for all its needs the comparatively paltry sum of $12,000,000. In spite of the fact that our nation is devoting two thirds of its enormous national expenditures to war, our militarists point to our vast national wealth and sneer at the niggardly mortals who object to spending it for guns.

It is evident that no nation is yet beyond the infatuation for display of the splendors of war, yet in every one there are signs of a new power that is coming upon us. All are thinking less of the glories of war—of the beat of the drum, of the rhythmic tread of regiments, of [Page 60] glittering sabers and of monster battleships—and are thinking more and more of the glories of peace, of thriving industries, of magnificent libraries, of comfortable homes, and of more efficient schools. Obviously, though we still possess a war spirit, we are seeing with a clearer vision that the waste of war is depriving us of the fullest measure of the wealth of peace. Our frame of mind is much the same as that of the ragged street urchin who, having lost his day's earnings, thinks of a hundred things which he might have spent it for. The same spirit is permeating every nation. The American manufacturer, the Russian peasant, the English mechanic, the German scientist, the French scholar, are all asking themselves, "Why need the world continue to carry this Atlantean burden of war?"

Already this sentiment has accomplished practically all that can be done in humanizing war. It has outlawed the dumdum bullet, it has enforced radical sanitary measures, it has neutralized the Red Cross and brought its ministrations to the relief of the sufferings of war. But humanized war is not the goal of this sentiment. As long as there is an increase of armaments there will be war; as long as the battle rages there will be waste and suffering. The same sentiment which has humanized war now demands war's abolition. It has already accomplished something toward this end in making the settlement of international disputes through arbitration more probable than war. What it has not accomplished is the discrediting of militarism. It has failed to stop the growth of armaments. Can we expect our regiments to find contentment in the irksome routine of training camp with never a thought of charging the enemy? Can we [Page 61] expect to man the seas with fleets of war just for gay parade and cruises around the world? Can we expect that our skilled gunners will be satisfied to practice, practice always, and never long for human targets? It is against arming nations for battle and tempting them to fight that the peace sentiment is rousing itself and is being organized. It is in this labor that peace societies the world over are performing valiant service. Their great mission is the creation of an intelligent public opinion, a force more potent than government itself.

What, for instance, was the purpose of the founder of this Intercollegiate Peace Association? Not, I take it, to give men a chance to win petty oratorical triumphs; not, I suppose, to bring together speakers to entertain such audiences as this—or to weary them. But their object must have been to set the men of our colleges to thinking on the great question of peace. In such ways are peace societies using the platform and the press to establish a firm basis for unity and peace throughout the world.

Yesterday the advocate of world peace was called a dreamer; to-day rapidly organizing public opinion demands the abolition of war and recognizes the wealth and culture of peace. Yesterday we erected statues to those who died for their country; to-day we cheer the Gladstones, the McKinleys, the Roosevelts, who live for humanity. Yesterday we bowed the knee to Mars; to-day we join in peans to the Prince of Peace. Yes, the new spirit of the day is fraternal; it is undaunted; it is for mankind. Even now the world's geniuses are mustering the soldier citizens of every nation for a peaceful conflict. The great battles of to-morrow are to be fought [Page 62] in quiet laboratories, in legislative halls, in courts of justice, and on the broad battlefields of productive labor.

The final outcome is, indeed, irresistible. Racial movements have mixed all peoples; the oceans have become the world's common highways; the air is filled with voices speaking from city to city and from continent to continent; an international postal system makes the world's ideas one; there is quick participation of mankind in the fruits of invention and research. We behold financial and economic enterprises world-wide in their outreach; we feel the force of social projects and social ideals that concern not one but every nation; and we are participating in missionary movements that affect not one but every race, and are changing the very face of nature itself. Our world is a world unified beyond all possible conception a century ago, and the world unity is a certain stepping stone to world peace.

The world never offered grander opportunity to the nations for leadership—not for leadership in military splendor, but for leadership in the sublime paths of peace. For the United States this call means not only opportunity but even obligation. Already this country has performed well her duty in fostering international arbitration. She has been a party to half of the cases where disputes between nations have been referred to the Hague Tribunal. Arbitration is performing its mission with more and more efficiency, yet each year the war budgets of the nations are increasing. The peace sentiment now demands a decrease of armaments, a conversion of the waste of war into the wealth of peace. To demonstrate that this is practicable is the immediate opportunity before us, our present obligation. What is our waste of war expressed [Page 63] in terms of the wealth of peace? Notice! Two thirds of the cost of one dreadnought, like the mammoth Florida launched but yesterday, would erect and furnish a veritable palace for every foreign ambassador and minister of the United States, thus solving a perplexing problem of our diplomatic service. One twenty-second of the cost of one dreadnought would support for one year the entire force of the American Board of Foreign Missions in their work of proclaiming our gospel of peace. One half the cost of one dreadnought would erect and equip twenty-five manual-training schools, teaching the rudiments of a trade to forty thousand young people each year. The cost of two dreadnoughts would provide every state in the Union with a half-million dollars with which to save the juvenile delinquents from criminal courts and schools of vice behind prison bars. The cost of one dreadnought, wisely spent each year in the fight against tuberculosis, would make the white plague in a single generation a disease as rare as smallpox is to-day.

Where now we are erecting battleships and forts, it is for us to build libraries and schools. Where now we drain our treasuries in equipping men to fight their fellow men, it is for us to arm against the common enemy, disease. Where now we pour out our wealth before the pagan Mars, it is for us to devote our treasure to supporting the works of the Prince of Peace.

Such a victory for peace would make America not simply a world power: it would make her the world leader. Will we stop tagging at the heels of Great Britain and Germany and travel this broadening road in which we can be first? How humiliating to struggle along, a trailer in the military procession! How noble to set the [Page 64] daring example of living up to the belief in peace! Will we say: "See our hands; we bear no bludgeons. Search us; we carry no concealed weapons. Militarism we have thrown to the scrap heap of practices discredited and vicious. We have stopped war's wanton waste of men and treasure; we rejoice in the growing wealth of peace ideals realized"? Thus shall we speed the steadily growing public opinion of the world, to the bar of which must finally come every nation which does aught to break or hinder the world's peace.

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THE HOPE OF PEACE

By Stanley H. Howe, Albion College, Albion, Michigan
First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Johns Hopkins University, May 5, 1911

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THE HOPE OF PEACE

The history of civilization is a record of changing ideals, and ideals are best reared in the hearts of the world's young men. Inevitably, nations look toward the cradle for their future and intrust the care of their destiny to the hands of youth. "Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men," declared Edmund Burke, "and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation." When the blood of youth is sluggish and impure; when the young hold wealth more dear than worth, remove the check of virtue from their selfish aims, establish Mammon as their god, and, ambitious to govern the world, forget how to govern themselves,—then nations choke and die. But when the blood of youth is rich and pure, pulsating through the veins of the universe with strong, resistless surge; when fathers teach anew the angel's message of good will and peace, and sons build high their goal upon a pedestal of service and of truth,—then nations breathe and live. What hope, then, asks the world, finds the doctrine of peace in the ideals and aspirations of America's youth to-day?

The nation faces a charge of militarism. It is the indictment of her critics that never before in American history has the government entertained an attitude so hostile toward her neighbors and so dangerous to the interests of peace. They point to the attempt to fortify the Canal and [Page 68] cry out that America would drain her treasury to build a monument of reproach to international integrity. They criticize the vast appropriations for the navy and declare that America is starving her poor that she may more pompously parade the seas. They protest against the "war-game" on the Rio Grande[1] and even charge that in the interest of a Wall Street king America invites the world to arms. And these are not illusions. The lure of gold has turned the nation from her mission. The spirit of commercialism has eclipsed the sentiment of brotherhood and tempted the Republic to barter her honor for the price of imperial supremacy. Wherein, then, again asks the world, finds America hope for the future? And to the charges of her critics, with their dismal prophecy of a "wrong forever on the throne," this is the nation's answer and defense—that an eclipse is never permanent, that the world stays not in the valley of the shadow forever, and that the solution of the problem, the fulfillment of a national mission, and the hope of world peace find their common assurance in the changing ideals of America's aspiring young men.

The young American is essentially ambitious. He is wont to seek the shortest path to leadership, and, when blocked at one highway, to turn with undiminished ardor to another. And his ideal is a mirror of the age in which he lives. In revolutionary days he covets the glory of a minuteman, and in the deeds of Warren and Putnam finds the consummation of his hopes. Again, in the hour of civil war his eyes turn toward the battlefield—and from her boys under twenty-one the Union draws [Page 69] eighty-five per cent of her defenders. But fortunately for America this drama of the youth's ideal has one more act. The lure of fife and drum has become a thing of the past. The glamour of military life has become a dream of yesterday. The young man is learning that the prize of battle is never equal to the price. And with the growing conviction of the folly and futility of international strife must disappear the last apology for war. Nations will cease to struggle, not when they have learned that war is a tragedy but when they have discovered that it is a farce.

And the youth of to-day is learning it. In the same deplorable conditions which the nation's critics have regarded as an alarming tendency toward militarism, he reads a message of the absurdity of war. Militarism itself is revealing a mission. Based as it is on the spirit of aggrandizement, it is teaching to youth the economic value of a human life. It is uncovering its own selfish motives and betraying its own senseless ends. It is impressing the world with the truth that battles are fought for purse string and not for principle. It is teaching to youth a new ideal; it is itself the answer to complaints of friends and calumnies of foes. It is the cloud before the dawn. It heralds the coming of the brightest epoch yet chronicled in American history. It is the realization of that glorious prophecy of John Hay that the time is coming when "the clangor of arms shall cease, and we can fancy that at last our ears, no longer stunned by the din of armies, may hear the morning stars singing together and all the sons of God shouting for joy."

And is this but the dream of a visionary? Is it merely the fancied perception of an inexistent star? Is it nothing [Page 70] more than a groundless hope and an alluring vagary? The answer is visible everywhere. And the hope of peace finds its safest assurance among the institutions of learning in America. James Bryce has referred to the United States as the nation having the largest proportion of its young men in college. In the last month of June more than fifty thousand collegians wore the cap and gown of graduation. It is to the trust of the college-bred man that the peace movement confides its future, and modern education assumes no greater responsibility than the training of the new world-citizen. Already the school has become the most potent factor in the new uplift. The youth is no longer dependent upon the newspaper for his knowledge of world-politics. An intelligent study of foreign affairs is at last regarded as of as much importance as a study of the past. To broaden the young man's vision of the world, prominent educators are even advocating traveling fellowships. In twenty-five of the larger universities of America an association of Cosmopolitan Clubs is establishing the groundworks for a wider international fraternity. Plans are already under way to have an organized delegation of more than a hundred students of all nationalities present at the third Hague Conference. Day by day the problem of world-unity is becoming more and more deeply embedded in the mind and thought of the rising generation. More and more is youthful patriotism becoming a realization of the truth that "Above all nations is humanity." The lure of war is losing its magnetic power and the brotherhood of man becoming more and more an international reality. A sentiment for universal peace is sweeping the world, and behind the defenses of advancing civilization, armed with the strength [Page 71] of a lofty and unselfish purpose, stands an army of America's young men, mustered from the nation's colleges, enlisted to serve for an eternity, and invulnerable in the protection of a new and a conquering ideal.

Therefore the significance of the young man in the world's affairs to-day is something more than a fancy. Again and again the plea for world-harmony hears a response in the changing ideals of a new generation. The growing sentiment of the educated youth of Japan finds its crystallization in the efforts of Count Okuma toward the consummation of world-disarmament. The spirit of the youth of England finds expression in the ambitious dream of George V, whose hope it is to tie the bond of Anglo-Saxon unity, long since dissevered by George III. Among the young men of Russia the life of the great philosopher of world-citizenship has left a lasting conviction of the senselessness of war. Even in imperialistic Germany the reckless building of dreadnoughts brings out a vigorous and uncompromising protest from the thinking youth of the land. In America a vision of the international parliament of man, growing large in the minds of her leading statesmen, finds expression in the continued philanthropy of a great industrial king. And, most significant of all, these are the world-wide examples that the college man enthrones in the empire of his thoughts. Sixty thousand European students, bound together by the cosmopolitan ties of a peace fraternity, have ceased to glorify the triumphs of the battlefield. The commentaries of the hero-worshiper to-day do not record the names of a Marlborough or a Bonaparte. Rather does the young man find his idols in the more humble annals of a Tolstoy or a Hay. And the new ideal of international [Page 72] peace is not merely the religion of a few enthusiasts. In an individual way these apostles of peace voice to the world the spirit of the unnumbered thousands of obscurer men whose lives and talents are directed, not to the construction of material kingdoms but to the building of a better and more world-wide brotherhood.

Such is the Hope of Peace. The nation's critics may continue their indictment, and, pointing out the crises of the hour, paint in dismal hues a picture of the problems never to be solved except by shot and shell. Her skeptics, blinded by thought of the errors of the past, may prophesy the desecration of her honor and the disappointing failure of her hopes. The press may pen a graphic story of the military spirit of the age, and frowning patriarchs relate the deeds of golden days gone by. But underneath this cloud that overhangs, and almost hidden in the gloom of history's disparagement, the new world-citizen discerns the birth-light of a brighter and more steadfast star,—perceives the coming triumph of good will and peace,—and the awakened eyes of expectant America look forward with promise to the dawn of that new day when a nation shall be judged by the weight of its cross and not by the wealth of its crown.

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THE ROOSEVELT THEORY OF WAR

By Percival V. Blanshard, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
First Prize Oration in the Western Group Contest, 1912, and in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 16, 1912

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THE ROOSEVELT THEORY OF WAR

Ex-President Roosevelt has made this astounding statement, "By war alone can we acquire those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life." These words, coming from the lips of a nation's idol, have fallen like a bomb shell in the camp of the pacifists. Not that Mr. Roosevelt's opinion was of overwhelming weight, but that he was voicing the opinion of some of the most influential thinkers of the modern world. Not long before the German philosopher Nietzsche had taken a like position, and he was indorsed by Von Moltke, the statesman; Ernest Renan, the historian; Hegel, the philosopher; Charles Kingsley and Canon Farrar, the divines. We must have a care, we peace advocates, how we treat such men's opinions. If they are right; if, as they maintain, war develops a nation, then we are fighting against the instrument of our own salvation and smothering the only hope of the nation itself.

But are they right? Does war make for national greatness? Before we can give a rational verdict we must answer certain other questions. What is our nation, anyway? What are the factors that make for its greatness? And how does war affect these factors?

Plainly our nation is not some abstraction that haunts the marble halls at Washington. Nor is it our vast dominion on which, like England's, the sun never sets. You will find it rather in workshop and store and factory; [Page 76] it is no more nor less than our men. If the capital at Washington is founded on pygmy manhood, it will be blown away like thistledown before some passing wind of revolution. Russia, Turkey, Spain, will tell you that. If our men are giants, the nation will be lasting as adamant. England and Germany and America are monumental testimonies.

Now what are the qualities in our men that make the nation great?

Here a problem in analysis confronts us. Let us go about it as does the student in the laboratory. He dissects a plant or mineral to find the mysteries of its nature. We are to dissect a civilization to find the factors of its strength. One little specimen will reveal the secrets of the whole species. So one sample of civilization will show the hidden springs of all. Go with me to the public square of any modern city and there you will behold the qualities that build all civilization. From the hum and rattle and roar that rises from the sea of humanity come a thousand various voices, but all speak of one theme—industry. There in the center of the throng and press a slender monument rises, crowned perhaps with a figure of Liberty or Justice. It tells you a simple story of Idealism. Yonder stands a silent, vine-clad church, crowned by a mighty finger pointing heavenward and beckoning always to the higher life. What need of going farther? Industry, Idealism, Morality—already we have found the secret of human success, the triple key to all advance, of man or group or nation. Here is Carlyle, with his gospel of labor, the labor that conquers all things; here is Ruskin, with his exalting idealism, that gives an aim and purpose to all human toil; here is the great [Page 77] apostle Paul himself, who transfigures that toil and exalts that purpose with his everlasting gospel of moral sublimity. Here is our threefold criterion, by which every nation must stand or fall. The Anglo-Saxon is what he is through unceasing industry, perpetual aspiration, and moral strength. The Central African is what he is through inbred sluggishness, total lack of purpose, and almost total absence of morality.

These are the basic elements of national greatness. But the great question still remains, How does war affect them?

Concerning the effect of war on labor, we declare unhesitatingly that the two are everlasting foes, and that whenever War lays hands on Labor's throat, it strangles her. This is part of the inevitable program of war, for note that it is on the laboring men that the dreadful claims of war must fall. Mark its course. A bugle sounds the call to arms. From workshop, mill, and factory the laborers pour forth; out go the men into a trade where plunder and robbery are a means of livelihood; when pillage and slaughter wane, indolence becomes the order of the day; commerce degenerates into blockade-running by sea and marauding by land. How tame the life of peace to this wild life of war! And all the time the love of toil is fading from men's minds; at home the factory wheels are turning more and more feebly, and when at last the sword is laid aside, there is only "confusion worse confounded," for the channels of labor are choked with men reared in habits of indolence or trained in the school of vice. Before the scar on that nation's industry can finally be healed, decades and perhaps centuries of peace must pass away.

[Page 78] But if war is a scar on the nation's industry, it is likewise a blot on her ideals. Though this element of idealism at first seems visionary and impractical, it is one of the foundation stones of progress. The fixed gulf between what man is and what he knows he might be is the decisive factor in his advance. Ideals are the pulleys of the unseen, round which man throws his hopes and aims, by which he pulls himself across the chasm and into the larger life. To advance at all, man must have ideals—for himself, for his family, for his nation. But mark the effect of war on these ideals. In place of the ideal of peace—to serve men and uplift them—one is taught the ideal of war—to make himself the most widely feared of professional murderers. Instead of the ideal of peace—to make his family comfortable, happy, and prosperous—comes in the war ideal, by whose terms the family head deserts his own flock to kill other family heads for the eternal glory of the Stars and Stripes. As for his ideal of the nation's greatness, we have ample testimony that when bullets and cannon balls cone crashing through the splendid structure of his purpose, it speedily crumbles into an ignominious desire to hide himself behind the nearest tree. No; do not say that war builds up ideals; it tears them down and tramples them in the dust; aye more, it sets back crime itself where they should rightly stand.

But if war so dethrones a nation's ideals, what may it not do to a nation's morality? Imagine if you can a million men, the core of the national power, turning themselves into machines to carry out blindly the schemes of leaders who may be right or wrong; schooled in the belief that manslaughter is manliness, that the rash courage of the brute is above the moral courage of a man; [Page 79] forgetful of the meaning of human life; thoughtless of a thing so common as death; heedless of its eternal consequences. No wonder Channing cried so bitterly: "War is the concentration of all human crimes. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, rapacity, and lust. If it only slew men, it would do little. But it turns man into a beast of prey. Here is the evil of war, that man, made to be the brother, becomes the deadly foe of his kind; that man, whose duty is to mitigate suffering, makes the infliction of suffering his study and end."

No, Mr. Roosevelt, for once at least you are wrong! We cannot believe that war builds up a nation. Rather will we believe those words of Herbert Spencer, more sweeping but far more true, "Advance to the highest forms of man and society depends on the decline of militancy and the growth of industrialism."

"But wait," you say; "all this is theory and abstraction. We want matters of fact. Your case may be true as philosophy, but you have failed to ground it in example." So it is to history that our last appeal must be made, for, says Bolingbroke, "History is philosophy, teaching by example." Every decree of her stern tribunal is impartial and irrevocable. War the tonic or war the poison? She is the final judge. She will take you back, if you will, to her childhood days and point you out vast empires, owning the known world, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Medes, and Persians, fearful fighters all of them. But no, not quite all either. On a sandy stretch of seashore, half hidden by the unwieldy empires around it, we see a timid, peaceful little people called the Hebrews; they alone, from all that mighty company, have stood the "wreckful siege" of thirty centuries. Watch its sinister [Page 80] movement down the ages and you will see the war cloud hover over Greece, and her republics melt to nothing in disunion and decay. It hovers over the Huns, and they suddenly sink from sight; over Islam, and its civilization crumbles faster than it grew; over Spain, and all the New World treasures cannot save her from decay. Finally, like the cloud no bigger than a hand, it rises from the island of Corsica and moves toward Central Europe. All too well does Europe know its meaning. From north and south, from east and west, she pours into the field the finest armies that the Old World ever saw. Then she pauses. Europe grows tense with a nameless dread. The storm cloud blackens, hovers lower, then bursts with all its fury through the continent. For ten long years, at the command of an imperial butcher, the soil is drenched with blood, the sky grows lurid from burning Paris to burning Moscow, three million homes are draped in black. Grand, indeed, and glorious! But Europe lost more than her gorgeous standards, more than her ruined cities; she left her manhood on those bloody fields.

We might extend the awful picture, but the story is the same, dread tale of death for nations as for men. Is not this enough? Is it not clear that this traitor to labor, this despoiler of ideals, this foe to morality, is not the benefactor but the destroyer of nations? And shall we not "here highly resolve" no longer to walk in this "valley of the shadow of death," but to hasten toward the dawning of a brighter, purer day? For in spite of pessimism, in spite of scholarship, in spite of history, the day is

[Page 81]

NATIONAL HONOR AND VITAL INTERESTS

By Russell Weisman, Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio
First Prize Oration in the Eastern Group Contest, 1912, and Second Prize in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 16, 1912

[Page 82]

[Page 83]

NATIONAL HONOR AND VITAL INTERESTS

The day for deprecating in general terms the evils of war and of extolling the glories of peace is past. Such argument is little needed. International trade requires peace. International finance dictates peace. Even armies and navies are now justified primarily as agents of peace. Yet so wantonly are these agents looting the world's treasuries that they are themselves forcing their own displacement by courts of arbitration. The two hundred and fifty disputes successfully arbitrated in the past century challenge with trumpet-tongued eloquence the support of all men for reason's peaceful rule. To-day no discussion is needed to show that if war is to be abolished, if navies are to dwindle and armies diminish, if there is to be a federation of the world, it must come through treaties of arbitration. In this way alone lies peace; yet in this way lies the present great barrier to further progress—the conception which many nations, especially the United States, hold of "national honor and vital interests." The reservation from arbitration of so-called matters of national honor and vital interests constitutes the weak link in every existing arbitration treaty between the great powers of the world. This reservation furnishes the big-navy men all the argument they need. It destroys the binding power of the treaties by allowing either party to any dispute to refuse arbitration. It was by this reservation that the United States Senate so lately [Page 84] killed the British and the French treaties. And I contend here to-night that the one subject which imperatively demands discussion is national honor and vital interests. That the next important step must be the exposure of the reactionary influence of the United States in excepting these matters from arbitration.

Only fifteen months ago President Taft made his memorable declaration that this barrier ought to be removed from the pathway of peace. He proposed that the United States negotiate new treaties to abide by the adjudication of courts in every international issue which could not be settled by negotiation, whether involving honor or territory or money. The next morning the proposal was heralded by the press throughout the world. A few days later the halls of Parliament resounded with applause when Great Britain's secretary of state for foreign affairs announced that his government would welcome such a treaty with the United States. France soon followed. Then, to the surprise of all, hesitating Germany and cautious Japan showed a like willingness to enter into such agreements. Universal peace seemed all but realized.

The cause was at once borne up on a mighty wave of public opinion. The peace societies were in a frenzy of activity. Mass meetings of indorsement were held in England and America. Editorials of approval appeared in all parts of the world. The movement was now irresistible. Within eight months the British and the French treaties were drafted. Three of the greatest nations of the world were at last to commit themselves unreservedly to the cause of international peace. Even disputes involving national honor should not halt the beneficent work of high courts of law and of reason. The day when [Page 85] the treaties were signed, August 3, 1911, was hailed as a red-letter day in the annals of the civilized world. It was proclaimed the dawn of a new and auspicious era in the affairs of men and of nations.

During all the months preceding the action of the Senate on these treaties the only statesman of any prominence to raise his voice in opposition was ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. The gist of his successive and violent attacks on the treaties is contained in this utterance, which I quote, "It would be not merely foolish but wicked for us as a nation to agree to arbitrate any dispute that affects our vital interests or our independence or our honor." In this spirit, to the surprise and disappointment of the whole nation, the Senate amended the treaties out of their original intent, and placed upon them limitations that defeated their purpose. By the Senate's action the United States is still committed to the pretense that there may be occasion for a just and solemn war, that vital interests and national honor may force us to fight.

What, then, are the vital interests that can be conserved only by saber and bullet? Nothing more, nothing less, according to various acknowledged authorities, than a state's independence and its territorial integrity. Did the keen mind of our former president really foresee the seizure of some of our territory by England or France? Yet he protests it that it would be "not merely foolish but wicked for us as a nation to agree to arbitrate any dispute that affects our vital interests." Did Senator Lodge and his threescore colleagues who amended the treaties actually fear an attempt to overthrow our form of government, to destroy our political institutions, or to take [Page 86] away those individual rights and sacred privileges upon which our government was founded? Yet to save us from such fate they refused unlimited arbitration.

For the United States to except from arbitration her vital interests is obvious pretense. To add thereto her national honor is extreme hypocrisy. What is national honor? No man knows. It is one thing to-day; another, to-morrow. It may involve an indemnity claim, a boundary line, a fisheries dispute. In fact, any controversy may be declared by either party, at will, to be a question of national honor. Thus in the hands of an unskilled or malicious diplomacy, any question which was originally a judicial one may become a question of national honor. What, then, will we arbitrate? Every case in which a favorable award is assured us. If we want Texas, we send an army after it. Every case that does not rouse our anger. Let the Maine blow up and we fight. A treaty with an elastic exception like this is a farcical sham and a delusion.

It is high time the true and humiliating significance of these fearsome phrases should be as familiar to every taxpayer as is the burden of bristling camps and restless navies. Read the record of Great Britain's first offer of unlimited arbitration in the Olney-Pauncefote treaty of 1897. There, too, you will find national honor and vital interests clogging the machinery of universal peace. By these same exceptions the Senate emasculated that treaty and defeated the spirit of the agreement. Is it conceivable that the Senate actually feared that our interests would be imperiled by that treaty? Did it delve out some hidden dangers which escaped the careful scrutiny of both the English and American embassies, some peril [Page 87] unforeseen by the keen judicial mind of President Cleveland, who characterized the defeat of the treaty as "the greatest grief" of his administration.

But this is not all. The American representatives at both Hague Conferences were the first to place these same limitations on all arbitration proposals.

Look at it from what point of view you will, our government's conduct must appear humiliating. Considering the fact that universal arbitration treaties have proved practical, it is well-nigh incredible. Behold our bellicose sister American republics. Argentina and Chile, Brazil and Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, all have agreements for the arbitration of all questions whatsoever. All the Central American republics are bound by treaty to decide every difference of whatever nature in the Central American Court of Justice. Denmark's three treaties with Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands withhold no cause, however vital, from reason's peaceful sway. Norway and Sweden likewise have an agreement to abide by the decision of the Hague Court in whatever disputes may occur. The very existence of all these treaties is significant, yet even more significant is the fact that they have been triumphantly tested. Norway and Sweden at one extremity of the globe and Argentina and Chile at the other have thus quietly settled disputes in which their honor and interests were seriously involved.

Do you ask further evidence of the hypocrisy with which our Senate parades our national honor and our vital interests to the undoing of a grand work? Search our history and you will find it in abundance. In the great case of the Alabama claims, Charles Francis Adams pronounced the construction of Confederate ships in [Page 88] English ports to be a violation of the international law of neutrality. This certainly was a question of national honor and vital interests, yet he pleaded for arbitration. In reply Lord John Russell said, "That is a question of honor which we will never arbitrate, for England's honor cannot be made the subject of arbitration." The case was debated for six years. Then came England's "Grand Old Man," the mighty Gladstone, with a different view. "It is to the interest," he said, "not only of England and the United States, but of the world, peaceably to settle those claims." He submitted them to a joint high commission. England lost and paid. Thus the honor of both nations was successfully arbitrated. Likewise the Newfoundland fisheries case had been a bone of contention between Great Britain and America from the day our independence was recognized. As late as 1887 it threatened to become the cause of war. No question ever arose which more vitally affected the interests of America, yet the Senate recently accepted a settlement by arbitration. Similarly, the Alaska fur seal dispute, the Alaskan and the Venezuelan boundary disputes, and the northeast boundary controversy all involved both the vital interests and the national honor of England and America, yet all were satisfactorily and permanently arbitrated. So excited were we over our northwest boundary that the principal issue of a political campaign was "The whole of Oregon or none! Fifty-four forty or fight!" Yet we peaceably acquiesced in a treaty that gave us neither.

Yes, our honor may be arbitrated. If we are ill-prepared for war, we arbitrate. If we are sure of a favorable award, we arbitrate. But we must have a loophole, an ever-ready escape from obligation. Posing as the most enlightened nation on the face of the globe, [Page 89] we refuse entirely to displace those medieval notions according to which personal honor found its best protection in the dueling pistol, and national honor its only vindication in slaughter and devastation. To unlimited arbitration we refuse to submit.

Fifteen years ago England, the mighty England, gave us her pledge that no cause should ever justify war. This pledge our Senate in the name of honor refused. Unlimited arbitration agreements were suggested at both Hague Conferences. Americans promptly placed restrictions upon them in the name of honor. Again has England with enthusiasm just offered us unrestricted arbitration. Again she is repulsed by our Senate in the name of honor. France, too, bears to our doors an unqualified pledge of arbitration. France, too, is repulsed by our Senate in the name of honor. Germany and Japan express a desire to settle every question at the bar of justice. Impelled by honor we pass their desire unheeded. Our Clevelands, our Olneys, our Edward Everett Hales, our Carl Schurzes, our John Hays, have all urged unlimited arbitration. Our Davises and Clarks and Platts and Quays in Senate seats have undone their work in the name of honor. Our Charles Eliots and Nicholas Butlers, our Albert Shaws and Hamilton Holts, now plead for universal peace through unlimited arbitration. Senators Bacon and Lodge and Heyburn and Hitchcock, apparently impelled by constitutional prerogative, party prejudice, or personal animosity, now cast their votes for limitations in the name of honor. From the platform of peace conferences, from the halls of colleges, from the pulpit and the bench, from the offices of bankers and merchants and manufacturers, from the press, with scarcely a column's exception, there arises a swelling [Page 90] plea for treaties of arbitration that know no exceptions. In the name of honor that plea is defied.

Honor? No, an ocean of exception large enough to float any number of battleships for which pride and ambition may be willing to pay! Honor? No, a finical and foolish reservation that at any moment may become a maelstrom of suspicion and rage and hatred and destruction and death! Honor? No, a mountainous barrier to peace that must be leveled before there can be progress! Honor? No, the incarnation of selfishness, the cloak of shrewd politics, the mask of false patriotism! National honor? No, national dishonor!

Before the nations of the world the United States stands to-day in an unenviable light. It is a false light. Since the days of William Penn and Benjamin Franklin our people have led in much of the march upward from the slough of weltering strife. Many a stumbling block to progress we have removed from the rugged pathway, but for fifteen years our government has refused to touch the barrier of national honor and vital interests. England and France have now laid this duty squarely at our door. "It is a social obligation as imperative as the law of Moses, as full of hope as the Great Physician's healing touch." Let us here highly resolve that there shall be uttered a new official interpretation of national honor and vital interests, an interpretation synonymous with dignity and fidelity, sincerity, and integrity, and confidence in the vows both of men and of nations. "If we have 'faith in the right as God gives us to see the right,' we shall catch a vision of opportunity that shall fire the soul with a spirit of service which the darkness of night shall not arrest, which the course of the day shall not weary."

[Page 91]

THE EVOLUTION OF PATRIOTISM

By Paul B. Blanshard, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
First Prize Oration in the Central Group Contest, 1913, and in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 15, 1913

[Page 92]

[Page 93]

THE EVOLUTION OF PATRIOTISM

Robert Southey has asked through the lips of a little child the greatest peace question that the world has known. He pictures a summer evening on the old battlefield of Blenheim. On a chair before his vine-clad cottage sat old Kaspar while his grandchildren, Wilhelmine and Peterkin, played on the lawn. Suddenly Peterkin from a nearby brook unearthed a skull and, running, brought it to Kaspar's knee. The old man took the gruesome thing from the boy, and told him that this had been the head of a man killed in the great battle of Blenheim. Then little Wilhelmine looked up into her grandfather's face and said:

Here we have the central question in the problem of war. Why do men fight? Through the answer to that question lies the path to world-peace.

Few men fight to-day for glory. Modern militarism has no place for Lancelots and Galahads. The glory of the regiment has absorbed the glory of the individual. Few men fight to-day to gain great wealth. The treasures that glittered before Pizarro do not tempt our soldiers. Material wealth is more easily won in factory or farm or mill. Few men fight to-day for religion. The conquest of religion has become a conquest of peace; the very ideal of peace is an end of religion itself. Glory, [Page 94] wealth, religion—these are no longer the causes of war. Then why do men fight? The answer is obvious. Men fight to-day for patriotism. Patriotism is the cause of war.

The next step in our reasoning is more difficult. If patriotism is the cause of war, how shall we treat the cause to destroy the result? Shall we attempt to abolish patriotism as Tolstoy would have us do, or shall we try to change its nature so that war as a natural result will be impossible? To answer these questions we must study patriotism from its very beginnings. We must ask: What is patriotism? Where did it come from? What place has it in our life?

Observe first the simplest cell of life, the amœba. We can watch it through the microscope. It is so tiny that it keeps house in a drop of water. It has neither emotion nor consciousness, in the human sense. It lives a while, and then splits in two to form other cells that have no connection with each other. Yet this infinitesimal bit of life has an instinct, the instinct to save itself. Watch an amœba as fire is brought near. It immediately moves away. Its every act is regulated by this one instinct, self-preservation.

Now let us leave the microscope and go outdoors. Over there is a bird in a tree top, feeding its young in a nest. Suppose that a fire should suddenly consume the tree. Would the mother bird fly away in safety? No, it would die on its nest in the effort to save its young. There is more than self-preservation here. The scientist will tell you that the instinct has expanded to include the preservation of the offspring.

And now turn to primitive man. The recent excavations in Sussex will give us a picture of him. He is a [Page 95] wild, gorilla-like figure that creeps beneath the trees. He can leap with lightning force on his prey. He drapes his body with bearskins, and eats meat from fingers that end in claws. And yet with all his savage ferocity, this is more than an animal. This is a man. In his breast there stir the instincts of a man. In his life we see the vital element of patriotism, love. His little savage family is more precious to him than all the world. He will fight and die, not only for self-preservation but for those who to him are "brother and sister and mother." This is the stamp of the human. This is the potentially divine.

But as the storms of war beat about these little savage families, the sense of common danger welded them into one. Out of grim necessity friendship came, and friendship gave birth to patriotism. Loyalty and sacrifice were not limited to the family; men fought and died for their tribe.

And now let us turn the microscope upon ourselves. We would fight for our country. We say because we love our country. We call that feeling patriotism. It is more extended than the savage love of tribe; it gives loyalty to a great government and democratic principles. We speak of that feeling as divine, but it is terribly human. Its expression is the same harsh ferocity that inspired the life of the savage.

To-morrow America goes to war. In great black type we read the call for men, and a sense of common danger thrills us. In the evening by a street lamp's glare we watch a passionate agitator who points to a flag that we have learned to love. The tramp, tramp of passing regiments and the sound of martial music thrill us. We lay down our tool or pen and march to the front. And then [Page 96] comes the first engagement. The air is blackened with rifle smoke; the roar of cannonry deafens us. Dazed, we crouch behind an earthwork while the enemy creeps through the smoke. Suddenly they charge. We fire, but they surge on through the smoke. They mount the earthwork. We leap together! Men scream hoarsely! Musket butts crash! Daggers plunge into quivering flesh! Divine feeling! Glorious patriotism!

The passing of this savage patriotism is inevitable. The whole course of nature is against it. The very history of development will tell you that. Loyalty has never been an immutable thing. It has been a ceaseless and irresistible growth from the individual to the family, to the tribe, to the nation. The time for a world-patriotism has come. Why should men limit their loyalty by a row of stones and trees that we call a boundary? Why are men patriots, anyway, except to save their privileges and their government? The primitive patriot had no choice but to fight. He was put down in a little plot of cleared ground hemmed in by mighty forests, and made to hew out a home in a vast world of enemies. But how far we have come from him! The twentieth-century world is a little world. Our earth is like an open book. We have cut through the jungle wastes of Africa; we have photographed the poles. We sell and buy things from Greenland and Java. In such a civilization war-patriotism has no place. It is no longer the only guide to self-preservation; it has become the most terrible instrument of self-destruction. And for just this reason war-patriotism must go. It runs counter to the whole trend of nature itself. It is diametrically opposed to the mission of patriotism in the world. Just as those little [Page 97] savage families joined hands in tribal loyalty, just as the scattered clans and tribes united under national government, so nations must clasp hands around the globe in a new spirit of "worldism" that shall make war impossible.

But we cannot gain a world-spirit by a sudden destruction of our patriotism. We will never usher in tranquillity with a crash. The nihilism of Tolstoy would plunge us into lawlessness and anarchy, for the chief element of patriotism we must keep. "What is that element?" you ask. It is the willingness of the individual to sacrifice his welfare for the welfare of the group. There we have the stem of the world-spirit of to-morrow. But the blossom will not burst forth in a night. It must come by an unfolding and a growth. We cannot climb to universal peace upon a golden ladder and cut the rungs beneath us. Evolution builds on the past. The final spirit of "worldism" will be a broadening and a deepening and a humanizing of the spirit of sacrifice which is the noblest element in our patriotism.

"But," you ask, "if the evolution of patriotism is inevitable, what have we to do with it? Why should we meddle with the course of nature?" We reply that the evolution must come through you. We are not "puppets jerked by unseen wires." "Consciousness," says Bergson, "is essentially free." Man the savage or man the philosopher—he alone can decide. Let him purify patriotism with Christianity and he has brotherhood; adulterate it with avarice and he has war. The evolution of patriotism is not a physical thing. Listen to Huxley, "Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of the ethical process." The evolution of patriotism, then, is a moral thing, and [Page 98] morality is man-made. We are men, but we can be supermen. We are patriots of a nation. We can be patriots of the world.

The evolution of patriotism is no theorist's dream. It is a palpable fact. The patriot of one age may be the scoundrel of the next. A turn of the kaleidoscope and Paul the convict trades places with Nero the Emperor. Who was the ideal ancient patriot? The statesman, Pericles? The thinker, Plato? No. The most efficient murderer, a Macedonian boy. "I must civilize," he says. So he starts into his neighbor's country with forty thousand fighters at his back. Does Persia yield its banner? No. Then crush it. Does Thebes resist? Then burn it to the ground. Do the women prate of freedom? Load them with slave chains. What? Do they still hold out? Then slaughter the swine. And as men watch him wading through seas of blood, riding roughshod over prostrate lives and dead hopes and shattered empires, the blind age cries out, "O godlike Alexander!"

"Godlike!" Oh, but there's new meaning in that word to-day. How much nobler a picture our modern patriot presents! Not waving the brand of destruction, not a king of murder will you find the great patriot of to-day. His thunderbolt of conquest was a host of righteousness. His empire was built in the hearts of men. In the teeming slums of the world's greatest city he lifted the standard of the Christ. Haggard children stretched out hands for bread. He fed them with his last crust. Thousands were dying in the city's filth. He pointed them to a more Beautiful City where pain should be no more. And when the body of William Booth was borne through the silent throngs of London streets, a million heads were bowed [Page 99] in reverence to this patriot of a purer day. In every hamlet of civilization some heart called him godlike.

Is not the trend of patriotism clear? Are not the seeds of a new world-loyalty already in our soil? The trumpet call to war can never rouse this newer patriotism. The summons "peace on earth and good will to men"—that is the future bugle call. And for us the task is clear. To take our destiny into our own hands, to throw off the prejudices of nationalism, to turn our faces resolutely to the future and strive for that summit of brotherhood and universal peace, that

[Page 100]

[Page 101]

CERTAIN PHASES OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT

By Calvert Magruder, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland
First Prize Oration in the Eastern Group Contest, 1913, and Second Prize in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 15, 1913

[Page 102]

[Page 103]

CERTAIN PHASES OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We are gathered here this evening in the confident expectation that a rule of reason will soon be established among the nations. It has been a hard, at times almost a discouraging, fight—for it is difficult to convince the world of its own insanity, and lovers of peace have often been tempted to cry in their despair, "How long, O Lord, how long?"

But there have always been men, with vision unaffected by martial glamour, who have foreseen in the logic of the world's history the inevitable end of war, and we have progressed now to a point where peace is the normal condition in international relationships. But it is an armed peace, founded on the false principle of suspicion and distrust, and we come now to consider the practical question of what the third Hague Conference can do to establish peace upon a firm and enduring foundation.

You will remember that the First Hague Conference established a so-called Permanent Court of Arbitration. It is not a definite, tangible tribunal, but merely a panel of a hundred or more men from whom the arbiters in each specific case may be selected; and therefore, though it is a great step in the right direction and though it has accomplished some good work, it has not commanded full confidence and recognition. To supplement this court [Page 104] the Conference of 1907 proposed a new organization—a Judicial Court of Arbitration, to be composed of seventeen judges of recognized legal authority, to sit for terms of twelve years, and to be competent to decide all cases. Here, then, is the nucleus of an easily accessible supreme court of the world, whose decisions would soon build up a new system of international law. Its composition, jurisdiction, and procedure are agreed upon. The vital problem, a mode of selecting the judges, remains unsettled. Evidently, then, the first great duty of the next Hague Conference is to put into operation this court, of which all the nations recognize the need and desirability.

Following logically the establishment of competent machinery for arbitration comes the second great duty of that conference—the passage of a convention binding the nations to resort to this court in all cases that fail of ordinary diplomatic settlement. The Judicial Court of Arbitration, if the nations are not bound to use it, would certainly fail of its purpose. A general treaty making arbitration obligatory is not too much to demand, for the Conference of 1907 declared itself unanimous "in recognizing the principle of compulsory arbitration." Separate arbitration treaties mounting into the hundreds have been negotiated between individual nations, but almost all contain that fatal reservation of questions of "honor and vital interests." Honor and vital interests—could any words be more vague and indefinite? Are these not the very cases which interested nations are least competent to decide? A complete answer to that silly reservation is found in our hundred years' peace with Great Britain. As John W. Foster, that keen student of our diplomatic history, has said, "The United [Page 105] States can have no future dispute with England more seriously involving the territorial integrity, the honor of the nation, its vital interests, or its independence, than those questions which have already been submitted to arbitration." Denmark has agreed with Italy and the Netherlands to arbitrate all questions that fail of diplomatic settlement, thus insuring perpetual peace between those nations. Here indeed is the pathway of true national honor.

Coincident with the establishment of the legal machinery for arbitration and the growth thereof, we would naturally have expected a cessation in the mad race for armament-supremacy. But the very reverse has happened, and to deal firmly with this contradictory situation is the third great duty of the next Hague Conference. Of what avail are our Courts of Arbitral Justice when this intolerable economic waste is permitted! To limit armaments was the avowed purpose of the First Hague Conference, but nothing was accomplished save the adoption of a neatly worded resolution that the limitation aforesaid is "highly desirable for the enlargement of the material and moral well-being of humanity." In 1907 the subject was again under discussion, the nations exhorted to a serious examination of the question—and there the matter rested. We have reached now an insufferable stage where effective action must be taken. Let us hear no more that deceptive catch phrase, "If you want peace prepare for war." When bad blood is likely to arise between individuals the very worst policy to pursue is to furnish them with weapons. And so it is with nations. Consider, if you will, the neck-and-neck race between Great Britain and the German Empire in the construction of battleships. [Page 106] What fool will call that preparation for war a guaranty of peace? We might be disposed to admit the sincerity of those who say we must arm and ever arm to maintain peace, except that they are too often men with professional and business interests at stake. In England there have been amazing revelations of this sinister condition—armament companies with peers, members of Parliament, newspaper owners, officers of the army and navy, as stockholders; enormous appropriations forced through Parliament by interested parties; periodic war scares in newspapers inspired by armament syndicates. Only recently we read how the great Krupp firm of Germany had been exposed in its practice of bribing officials to obtain valuable military information and furnishing French newspapers with war-scare articles calculated to induce Germany to increase her armament orders. In Russia and France they face a similar state of affairs. Here in the United States we are undoubtedly not free therefrom. And then there are the navy leagues in every country, playing upon the fears of the nations by startling tales of what the others are doing, and so on through an endless chain, manufacturing a demand for battleships in the name and under the guise of patriotism. We shrink from the contemplation of such greed and selfishness, and appeal for relief to the third Hague Conference.

We come now to a consideration of the fourth prime duty devolving upon that conference. Ocean commerce in war should be rendered inviolable. In effecting this we not only abolish a barbarous custom, but at the same time remove one of the chief causes of great navies. As long as the safety of the merchant marine is not guaranteed by international agreement, just so [Page 107] long will nations with commercial aspirations build enormous navies for their protection. It is true England has hitherto opposed this reform,—confident in her naval supremacy,—but she cannot again fly in the face of a general demand without too great a sacrifice of prestige.

Here, then, are four important problems of the peace movement, all difficult, but not impossible of solution when we remember that the Conference of 1907, in good faith, I believe, adopted the following declaration, "That, by working together during the past four months, the collected powers not only have learnt to understand one another and to draw close together, but have succeeded ... in evolving a very lofty conception of the common welfare of humanity." Whether these fine words breathe sincerity or hypocrisy the next Hague Conference has ample opportunity to prove.

And now, what shall we say of the position of America in this war against war? Her boundless resources; her amalgamation of men from all parts of the world into one people; her impregnable geographical situation; her embodiment of the three cardinal principles of world-union (federation, interstate free trade, interstate courts); the genius and ideals of our government—all give America a logical leadership. She can boast of the first peace society in the world, of a glorious record of arbitration, of a long list of the wisest international statesmen, of a most advanced position at The Hague upon the questions of ocean commerce, courts of justice, arbitration, limitation of armaments. But there is the darker view. The treaties negotiated by Secretary Knox with France and with England, agreeing to arbitrate every question that fails of diplomatic [Page 108] settlement—those treaties were rejected by the United States Senate. There was a transcendent opportunity to lay the foundation for a speedy realization of peace universal, with France and England willing, yes, even anxious to coöperate—and America failed! Mr. Taft has shown that if the position of the Senate is accepted as international law, then we may as well bid farewell to any hopes of leadership in the peace movement, for our nation could then enter upon no general arbitration agreements because of the prerogative of the Senate in each specific case to accept or refuse arbitration.

It is at this point, Ladies and Gentlemen, that there is work for the humblest of us to do. In the intellectual field we can aid in the creation of an intelligent, forceful public opinion that will induce the Senate to recede from its fatal attitude, and that will resist a false, cheap patriotism which is relentlessly endeavoring to crush America 'neath the burden of militarism. Then in the moral field we can stimulate and foster a peaceful attitude, a sentiment for peace, in the hearts of our countrymen; and until this is accomplished there can be no peace universal, for, as Senator Root has said, "The questions at issue between disputing nations are nothing, the spirit that deals with them is everything." And finally, in the educational field, let us take heed that the men and women of our rising generation are taught the glorious pages of our arbitration history as well as they know the battles of our country. Let us take care that it is grounded into their minds and habits of thought from earliest years, that "peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."

[Page 109] In conclusion, let us not be deceived by that vain apology for war, that it is necessary to keep alive the heroic spirit and to stimulate manly courage. Despite the noble side in war, its bestial side predominates; its larger effect upon men is demoralizing. And if it be glorious to die for a cause, how much nobler to live and strive for an ideal, utilizing the talents that God gave us for its realization! The movement for peace is not one of weaklings and mollycoddles. It is championed by red-blooded men, daring to bear the ridicule of the thoughtless and to fight for the preconceptions of humanity. Peace has her heroes in daily life—miners, mariners, policemen, firemen, men of every station, displaying the nobility of their souls often unheralded and unsung. The venerable William T. Stead, bearing across the ocean his message of international good will, sacrificed his life on the Titanic that others might live. He was a hero, yes, but a hero of peace.

It would be an insult to your intelligence to prove the self-evident proposition that war is uneconomic, unscientific, unchristian. The movement for its elimination, above all, is logical and practical, and should appeal to every man. Is it nothing to you? Yes, it is a great deal to you. Merely let your imaginations picture the day when the seventy per cent of our national revenue now sacrificed on the altar of folly is diverted to the arts of peace, to the amelioration of social conditions, to advancing the happiness of our people—at peace with all other peoples in the assurance of international law and love. Ladies and Gentlemen, if we but do our duty, the dawn of that great day will come in our generation!

[Page 110]

[Page 111]

THE ASSURANCE OF PEACE

By Vernon M. Welsh, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois
First Prize Oration in the Western Group Contest, 1913, and Third Prize in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 15, 1913

[Page 112]

[Page 113]

THE ASSURANCE OF PEACE

The birth and rapid rise of the present movement for international peace are events of recent years. The nineteenth century found its welcome in the smoking cannon and crimsoned fields of Hohenlinden. At its close the first great peace conference of The Hague was in session. One hundred years ago Napoleon was sweeping across Europe in his terrible attempt to create an empire. To-day France, England, and America have agreed on treaties that declare for unbroken peace. Touched by the wand of progress, the Utopian ideal of yesterday has become the dominant political issue of to-day. It is pertinent, then, that we seek the true nature of this revolution. Is it borne on the crest of a popular impulse that will recede as rapidly as it has risen, or is it a permanent movement, the product of natural forces working through ordinary channels?

The nineteenth century represents a break with the past. Swept into the mighty current of transition, the habits and customs of a thousand years have disappeared. With the development of natural resources, the establishment and growth of the factory system, the use of means of rapid communication, nations have entered upon a new era. Commerce and industry have come to dominate thought and action and are transforming the very life of the world. Defying the rigorous climate of both the poles, trade has penetrated the frozen recesses of Hudson [Page 114] Bay and made of the Falkland Islands a relay station in the progress of victorious industry. Nor is the equatorial heat more discouraging. The thick jungles of Africa have yielded their secrets, and the muddy waters of the Amazon are churned by propellers a thousand miles from the sea. International trade routes traverse the seas, connecting continent with continent. In forty years this commerce has increased from two billions to thirty billions. Giant corporations have ignored political boundaries, carried trade wherever profitable, and are supplying the varied demands of entire communities. Tariff walls, but lately effective barriers, are crumbling before the onslaught of trade. Nations are no longer independent. The wheat from Canada and the Dakotas feeds the mill workers of Sheffield and the nobility of Berlin. The failure of the Georgia cotton crop halts the looms of England and raises the cost of living throughout Europe. Nations can no longer exist as self-sufficient economic units. Never before were they so mutually interdependent. Never before has the welfare and security of one state depended upon the enterprise and diligence of another. And the movement for international peace is the chance offspring of these new social forces, at once a protest and a warning against the wrecking of modern economic structures by the ruthless hand of war.

Commerce, the most important of these new forces, flourishes unprejudiced by armaments and military prestige. In the open competition of the world's markets stronger powers meet and suffer from the rivalry of states that have no military standing. Relative to population, Norway has a carrying trade three times as great [Page 115] as England's. With her million trained warriors Germany is beaten by the merchants of Holland. The flag of little Denmark flies at more mastheads than does the Stars and Stripes. Where then is the commercial advantage supposed to attend superior military strength?

But it is to prevent the seizure of its commerce by others that nations must empty their treasuries to keep ironclads afloat. Yet what could be gained by attempted confiscation? If Germany annihilated England's navy to-morrow, how would she profit? Commerce is a process of exchange, the continuance and promotion of which is dependent upon the degree of mutual profit. Commercial gain is not a consequent of military success. It is since England seized the gold fields, diamond mines, and fertile plateaus of lower Africa that British securities have dropped twenty points. In 1871 Germany humbled and humiliated France almost beyond toleration, yet her share of the world's commerce has not been augmented thereby. So would it be with England. True, Germany might commit some depredations and hinder the passage of trade, but what would be her motive? How could she gain? Even if the British Isles were depopulated, it is doubtful whether Germany would benefit. For by what miracle would Germany be able to develop the facilities, the shipyards, mills, factories, foundries, mines and machinery, to supply the trade which the foremost of commercial nations has been generations in building up? Germany's banner might wave over the Bank of England, her excise boats police the Thames and the Clyde, yet she would behold the trade of a conquered province going to foreign nations. Trade does not follow the flag. Undisturbed by political changes or military [Page 116] reverses, it flows in constantly widening channels wherever productive fields are found.

And in the waging of war, do we reckon the direct cost to commerce? The commercial relations of the entire world are disturbed. Prolonged conflict is accompanied by the closing of the bank and the factory, the dismantling of the shop and mill, and the lengthening of the bread line in every city and town. In what state of prosperity and happiness might not France have been had Napoleon never lived? With half a century gone, our own country is still suffering from the devastation of the Civil War. Our commerce with South America is scarcely beyond the point it had reached before our week-end tiff with Spain. Yet there are those who prate of national honor and of war as insuring prosperity. From the leader of a newborn national party we hear that without a periodic war America would become effeminate and weak, her aggressive commercial life timid and corrupt, and within a few brief years the great Republic would sink to a fourth-rate power. Up, brave Americans, and man the guns! Awake, sons of freedom, and sweep the seas! Fourteen years without a war; our beloved land is ruined. You men of the factory and mill, you men of property and business, you producers of the nation's wealth, forward into the carnage; burn the homes of thrift and industry, for commerce will be enriched thereby; ravage the fields and despoil the cities, for this will insure vigorous national life; impoverish happy peoples, spread famine and pestilence through fertile valleys, mark the sites of contented villages with smoldering ruins, defy your Christian God, and kindle the fires of hell in human breasts; commit violence, [Page 117] treachery, rapine, ay, murder,—for the eternal glory of the Stars and Stripes. Yet commerce and industry—the glittering prizes which every nation covets when it builds a dreadnought or enlarges its army—demand that the creative forces of peace supplant the destructive wastes of war.

To-day the financial relationships of nations are inextricably entangled. The big banks in the capitals of the world are in communication with each other every second of the day. During the American crisis in 1907 the bank rate in England went up to seven per cent, forcing many British concerns to suspend operations. Because of the Balkan War the bank rate in Berlin, Paris, and Vienna is the highest in twenty years, and European securities have depreciated over six billion dollars. Foreign investments are raising insuperable barriers to war. Should the French bombard Hamburg to-day they would destroy the property of Frenchmen. Let Emperor William capture London, loot the Bank of England, and he will return to find German industry paralyzed, the banks closed, and a panic sweeping the land. Let English regiments again move to invade the United States, English warships draw up in battle line to attack our seaports, and four billions of the earnings of the English people would bar the way. To the victor of the present the spoils of war are valueless. Japan, victor over the great Russian Empire, staggers under a colossal debt. The Italian government hears rumbles of discontent, because the cost of winning a victory has been too great. What better proof do we need that war is profitless, that it means financial suicide? It has been transformed from a gainful occupation into [Page 118] economic folly, and war will cease because the price is becoming prohibitive.

In this movement for peace, capital's strongest ally is her most active enemy. Raised to a position of independence and power by the Industrial Revolution, labor is wielding an effective influence. The complexity of modern business has aroused workingmen in every country to a common interest and sympathy. The International Congress of Trade Unions, representing twenty countries and over ten million men, has declared for universal disarmament. Just last month eighty-five thousand coal miners in Illinois resolved that if the United States declared war on a foreign power, they would call a general strike.

And why not? Why should the workingmen of one country offer themselves as targets for those of another? Why should the workers of Germany be taxed to support a war against England, Germany's best market? Can the rice growers of Japan profit by killing Americans to whom they sell their produce? War means suffering and want, and the laborer has come to know it. He is cold to the sight of its flaunting flags and the sound of its grand, wild music, for he sees the larder bare, funds exhausted, and hunger at the door. He refuses to sacrifice his body and the welfare of his family upon the altar of Mars. No longer can kings and emperors satisfy their grasping ambitions. Armed by the ballot, the masses are to-day supreme. Never again will the cruel hand of tyranny press to their lips the poisoned cup of death. Their sway is absolute. The destinies of nations are in their keeping. The decree has gone forth that war must cease.

[Page 119] Born of these greater movements, a host of influences bring nearer the dawn of peace. The express and the wireless have supplanted the oxcart and the courier. Chicago and Boston are closer to-day than New York and Albany a century ago. Within the hour of their occurrence events that happen in Paris are published in Chicago and St. Louis. Political boundaries are fading before larger interests. Every railroad train crossing the frontier, every ship plying the seas, every article of commerce, every exchange of business, every cable conveying news from distant lands—all these are potent factors in the cause of international peace. Add to these the conciliating influence of foreign investments, the telephone and telegraph, travel, education, democracy, religion, and you have marshaled a host for peace whose clarion trumpets shall never sound retreat. Casting aside the prejudice of ages, modern industrialism flings around the world the economic bonds against which the forces of militarism are powerless.

Here, then, in the world-wide operations of commerce and industry is the assurance of peace. The skeptic may scoff and the cynic point to Mexico and the Balkans, but the Industrial Revolution has produced a multitude of influences that are knitting the nations into an indissoluble unity. Men are beginning to realize the integrity of mankind, and a world-consciousness is arising. Kindness and justice—yesterday but community ideals—are extending their sway throughout the earth. Even while bayonets are bared in conflict and cannon thunder against hostile camps, the magic of our civilization is weaving bonds of union that cannot be broken. Peace, not war, is the true grandeur of nations; love, not hate, is the [Page 120] immutable law of God; and so surely as governments and kings are powerless to divide when home and factory would bind, some not too distant day will find the battle flags all furled, the sword's arbitrament abandoned, and the world at peace.

[Page 121]

EDUCATION FOR PEACE

By Francis J. Lyons, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, representing the Southern Group
First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 28, 1914

[Page 122]

[Page 123]

EDUCATION FOR PEACE

Time was when war was beneficial. Historians have justified the spread of knowledge by the sword. At the world's awakening, it was well that the new thought should be diffused even at the sacrifice of human blood. It was justified because there was no other means. We have to cast our imagination back through the centuries and realize that then there were no railroads, no telegraph, no newspapers; that man was bound by narrow limits; and the elemental processes of the world were undiscovered. We do not criticize Alexander for conquering the eastern perils, for he carried in his phalanxes the spirit of new-discovered thought. We do not denounce Rome for piercing the unknown realms with her legions, for she was the mother of a new belief. But this was at the dawn of history, when erudition was in its struggling embryo, and the physical was the better part of man. Man went forth to battle as a religion.

The world grew partly wise, and man preached the gospel of brotherhood. But it did not last. The changing of the peoples smoldered the fires of rising intelligence, and the world rolled back again in darkness—a darkness long and black. Centuries passed, and a new light came, slowly but courageously. Man blinkingly came forth, dazed and unsteady. The light grew, and man grew with it; but rooted deep in his heart was the love of war of his ancestors. In a different spirit, it is [Page 124] true; but it was there, and he went forth to battle not because it was religion, but because it was brave.

The world rolled on; war grew; it developed with the state; it became an art; was studied—and now our cycle turns. It faces us as a custom backed up by the centuries—deep-rooted, a consumer that yields no returns and, what with our modern appliances, a terror to the hearts of all the world. Men fought in the early ages because they thought it was just; men fought in the Middle Ages because they considered it brave; men of our modern age will banish war because it is a fallacy.

Do you know that to maintain our so-called prestige we spend seventy per cent of our national income? Think of it! Seventy per cent to maintain our present status and to prepare for the future! Think of that awful drain; think, if applied in other channels, what good could be done! We are proud of our battleship Texas. She is a noble war dog; yet do you realize that if we had applied the money spent on her in our own state we could have had one gigantic paved highway twice the distance from El Paso to Galveston? We could have had two hundred high schools, representing $75,000 each. We could have raised our institutions of higher learning to a level with any of the East or North. Fifteen millions gone for a floating war machine which in twenty years will be a piece of rusted, useless iron; fifteen millions for a sailing dragon who, each time one of her big guns speaks, wastes the equivalent of a four-year college education for some youth—$1700—for a single shot. Our war dogs sail the seas; our soldiers parade our forts; and we look on and raise a joyous hubbub as the [Page 125] nations of the world rush madly on, wasting themselves in the race for military supremacy.

Have you ever considered yourself transported to some celestial height, and there, from the regions of the infinite, allowed to view a battle on earth? How foolish it must seem, these pygmies coming forth to make war. See them as they charge and wound and kill! See brother slay brother! See the wounded left to die! Hear the cries of distress, and picture the grief that follows all! Men battling to conquer; men assuming the prerogative of a god—how foolish, yet how serious! And these artificial lines that men call boundaries, how punctiliously they are guarded! "Take but a hundred feet, and we shall war with thee." How foolish this too must seem when viewed from above—that we should carry on war over even a slight infraction on any imaginary, mathematical line.

We cherish the thought that the youth of our land are being taught self-restraint. It is ever impressed upon them that there are courts of justice for the settlement of controversies. Law and order have become stock phrases, dinned into their ears at every turn. The man who would settle his difficulty by trying the physical metal of his adversary is of the past. By the new order he is taboo as a savage. Individual self-restraint rings out in our vocabulary as nationally descriptive. The babe at the mother's knee learns first the virtue of it; the child at school is tutored to it soundly; the man in life is lectured with it regularly. Brotherhood! Love! Self-restraint!

But what of the self-restraint of the nation? In the teaching of the individual, is it not odd and inconsistent [Page 126] that we forget the teaching of the unit? We paint the inner rooms of our national character with colors bright and pleasing, but the exterior, though weathering the heavier storms, is forgotten. If the child be taught that individuals should arbitrate their differences, can he not learn that the individual nations are subject to the same rule? If arbitration is best for each man, surely it must be best for all. If the child be taught that self-restraint is the boasted characteristic of the model American, should he not learn that the model American nation should be self-restraining? Let us learn this lesson, and surely we will never war. Herein shall we find the solution of this great problem. We can preach about peace and write pretty orations, but if we are to impress it upon the hearts of the world, we must teach it, and in a systematic manner. It is not to be learned in a day. It is the labor of a generation and more. It must be a fully developed characteristic. Man is learning self-development; now we must turn to the bigger ideals—national restraint, national development, international brotherhood.

Do you say this is idealism—visionary? On the contrary, it is thoroughly practicable. The only way to attain world-peace is for the individual citizen to think peace, to teach peace, and to act in accordance with such thoughts and teachings. Just as public opinion causes war, so only through cultivated public opinion can we hope for peace. I do not say to sink our battleships and turn free our army. I do not argue that we should quit guarding ourselves and throw ourselves open to the world; but what I seek is that we should turn our faces with bright hope to the future, eager to assist in the [Page 127] abolition of all that tends to war, eager to assist in the only proper way—the enlightenment of the world-nations.

The call comes naturally to America, the land of new belief; America, the New World of Opportunity, as Emerson calls it; the land cut off from the conventional past; a land that has taken world-leadership in the march of a single century. To America, where problems are studied and fallacies dethroned, the birthplace and the abiding home of democracy; to America, the Christian, the civilized! What will the answer be? Already we can hear the faint responses, as yet vague and indistinct, the drowned murmurings of the wiser tongues. These must grow into a national anthem whose echo will challenge the powers of the world and startle them into the consciousness of the new brotherhood. We will answer:

"Yes, we have learned the lessons of the centuries—that war is a fallacy, and armed peace its ill-sprung child; that man is no longer savage; that with enlightened mind he has controlled his warring instinct; that human love is a mightier power than war; and that we are one in the brotherhood of the Master.

"Let us stand before the nations, clad in simple honesty, panoplied in elemental justice; let us appeal to the common conscience of the world; let us say to the war-made powers, there is a way out, and we will lead. We will help you police the sea; we will give our constabulary to a quota of peace, but we are through. No great standing army, no more leviathan battleships. We trust to what we boast of as the highest attainment of the age, the innate justice of civilized humanity."

To such a national summons, how will Texas respond? Facing the Mexican boundary for eight hundred miles, [Page 128] Texas is to-day peculiarly the guardian of our nation. The situation calls not for agitation and jingoism, bit for rare patience, sanity, and self-control. Through troubled waters our chosen captain is guiding the Ship of State. It is no time for mutiny, but rather a time for obedience.

In this critical hour let every loyal citizen say with a contemporary poet:

[Page 129]

NATIONAL HONOR AND PEACE

By Louis Broido, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, representing the North Atlantic Group
Second Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 28, 1914

[Page 130]

[Page 131]

NATIONAL HONOR AND PEACE

Since the dawn of history the teachers, thinkers, and prophets of mankind have prayed and labored for the abolition of war. In the process of the centuries, their hope has become the aspiration of the mass of men. Growing slowly, as do all movements for righteousness, the cause of peace first claimed the attention of the world in the year 1899, when Nicholas of Russia called the nations together to discuss ways and means for the arbitration of international differences and for the abolition of war. From that day on, the movement for peace has progressed by leaps and bounds, and to-day it has reached the highest point of its development.

Already nations have signed treaties to arbitrate many of their differences. Holland, Denmark, Argentina, and Chile have agreed to arbitrate every dispute. But these nations are not potent enough in world affairs for their action to have an international influence. It remains for the great powers like England, France, Germany, and the United States to agree to submit every difficulty to arbitration, and thus take the step that will result in the practical abolition of war.

If one would find the reasons that thus far have kept the great powers from agreeing to submit all differences to arbitration, his search need not be long nor difficult. The Peace Conference of 1907 reports that the objections to international arbitration have dwindled to four. [Page 132] Of these objections the one commonly considered of most weight is this: "We will not submit to arbitration questions involving our national honor." Even so recently as the spring of 1912, our own Senate refused to give its assent to President Taft's proposed treaties with France and England to arbitrate all differences, and refused on the ground that "we cannot agree to arbitrate questions involving our national honor." This is the statement that you and I as workers for peace are constantly called upon to refute.

Let us, therefore, consider what honor is. For centuries honor was maintained and justice determined among men by a strong arm and a skillfully used weapon. It mattered not that often the guilty won and the dishonorable succeeded. Death was the arbiter, honor was appeased, and men were satisfied. But with the growth of civilization there slowly came to man the consciousness that honor can be maintained only by use of reason and justice administered only in the light of truth. Then private settlement of quarrels practically ceased; trial by combat was abolished; and men learned that real honor lies in the graceful and manly acceptance of decisions rendered by impartial judges.

As men have risen to higher ideals of honor in their relations with one another, so nations have risen to a higher standard in international affairs. Centuries ago tyrants ruled and waged war on any pretext; now before rulers rush to arms, they stop to count the cost. Nations once thought it honorable to use poisoned bullets and similar means of destruction; a growing humanitarianism has compelled them to abandon such practices. At one time captives were killed outright; there was a [Page 133] higher conception of honor when they were forced into slavery; now the quickening sense of universal sympathy compels belligerent nations to treat prisoners of war humanely and to exchange them at the close of the conflict. At one time neutrals were not protected; now their rights are generally recognized. A few hundred years ago arbitration was almost unknown; in the last century more than six hundred cases were settled by peaceful means.

During the last quarter of a century we have caught a glimpse of a new national honor. It is the belief that battle and bloodshed, except for the immediate defense of hearth and home, is a blot on the 'scutcheon of any nation. It is the creed of modern men who rise in their majesty and say: "We will not stain our country's honor with the bloodshed of war. God-given life is too dear. The forces of vice, evil, and disease are challenging us to marshal our strength and give them battle. There is too much good waiting to be done, too much suffering waiting to be appeased, for us to waste the life-blood of our fathers and sons on the field of useless battle. Here do we stand. We believe we are right. With faith in our belief we throw ourselves upon the altar of truth. Let heaven-born justice decide." Here is honor unsmirched, untainted! Here is pride unhumbled! Here is patriotism that is all-embracing, that makes us so zealous for real honor that we turn from the horrors of war to combat the evils that lie at our very doors.

We know that faith in such national honor will abolish war. We know, too, that men will have war only so long as they want war. If this be true, then, just as soon as you and I, in whose hands the final decision for or [Page 134] against war must ever rest, express through the force of an irresistible public opinion the doctrine that our conception of national honor demands the arbitration of every dispute, just so soon will our legislators free themselves from financial dictators and liberate the country from the dominance of a false conception of national honor.

Do you say this ideal is impractical? History proves that questions of the utmost importance can be peacefully settled without the loss of honor. The Casa Blanca dispute between France and Germany, the Venezuela question, the North Atlantic Fisheries case, the Alabama claims—these are proof indisputable that questions of honor may be successfully arbitrated. "Does not this magnificent achievement," says Carl Schurz of the Alabama settlement, "form one of the most glorious pages of the common history of England and America? Truly, the two great nations that accomplished this need not be afraid of unadjustable questions of honor in the future."

In the face of such splendid examples, how meaningless is the doctrine of the enemies of peace, "We will not arbitrate questions of national honor. We will decide for ourselves what is right and for that right we will stand, even if this course plunges us into the maelstrom of war. We will not allow our country to be dishonored by any other." Well has Andrew Carnegie expressed the modern view: "Our country cannot be dishonored by any other country, or by all the powers combined. It is impossible. All honor wounds are self-inflicted. We alone can dishonor ourselves or our country. One sure way of doing so is to insist upon the unlawful and unjust demand that we sit as judges in our own case, [Page 135] instead of agreeing to abide by the decision of a court or a tribunal. We are told that this is the stand of a weakling, that progress demands the fighting spirit. We, too, demand the fighting spirit; but we condemn the military spirit. We are told that strong men fight for honor. We answer with Mrs. Mead: 'Justice and honor are larger words than peace, and if fighting would enable us to get justice and maintain honor, I would fight! But it is not that way!'" For it is impossible to maintain honor by recourse to arms; right may fall before might, and, viewed in the light of its awful cost, even victory is defeat. In the words of Nicholas Murray Butler: "To argue that a nation's honor must be defended by the blood of its citizens, if need be, is quite meaningless, for any nation, though profoundly right in its contention, might be defeated at the hands of a superior force exerted in behalf of an unjust and unrighteous cause. What becomes of national honor then?"

Too long have we been fighting windmills; we must struggle with ourselves; we must conquer the passions that have blinded our reason. We have been enrolled in the army of thoughtlessness; the time has come to enroll in the army of God. We have followed a false ideal of honor; we must disillusion ourselves and the world. If men declare that the preservation of courage and manliness demand that we fight, let us lead them to the fight, not against each other, but against all that is unrighteous and undesirable in our national life. Men still cling to an ancient conception of national honor; let us convince them that there is a newer and higher conception. Men still declare that peace is the dream of the poet and prophet; let us prove by historical example that [Page 136] questions, even of national honor, can be happily settled by arbitration. If men despair, let us remind them that to-day, as never before, the mass of men are slowly and surely working out God's plan for this great cause.

The day of triumph is not far distant. Already the moving finger of Time paints on the wide horizon, in the roseate tints of the dawn, the picture of Peace—Peace, the victory of victories, beside which Marathon and Gettysburg pale into insignificance; victory without the strains of martial music, unaccompanied by the sob of widowed and orphaned; victory on God's battlefield in humanity's war on war.

[Page 137]

THE NEW NATIONALISM AND THE PEACE MOVEMENT

By Ralph D. Lucas, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, representing the Central Group
Third Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 28, 1914

[Page 138]

[Page 139]

THE NEW NATIONALISM AND THE PEACE MOVEMENT

Nationalism is a precious product of the centuries. The world has paid a tremendous price to widen the political unit until its boundaries include continents. It has been an equally difficult task to weld the spirit of diverse peoples into a homogeneous whole. And the story of this development constitutes a heritage not soon to be given up. The tales of victory and defeat are held even more dear to a united people than life itself. Rightly will any nation jealously defy him who dares advance to plunder its possessions. And it is well that men do not wish to surrender it upon slight provocation. That has been a good diplomacy that sought to protect the nation by war. By the extension of political unity peoples gain moral and physical strength. Thrift becomes more common and moral courage greater when a people strike forward with common aims. And in proportion as the nation as a whole enjoys these advantages and opportunities, the individual widens his horizon in peaceful association with fellow men and receives a benefit beyond computation.

But, good as nationalism has been in the past, a gradual change seems to be overtaking the world's politics. National diplomacy hesitates where a century ago it was firm. Forces which once drove the nations apart seem now to be drawing them together. The discord of [Page 140] disputes seems to be disappearing in the harmony of coöperation. It is no longer possible to determine easily what a nation's interests really are. And it is of the forces that are bringing about this change in the policies of nations, of this new nationalism and its bearing upon the peace movement, that I wish to speak.

Within the last two centuries economic forces have worked a mighty revolution. Continents have been converted into communities. The prosperity of our eastern industries controls the activities of the West, and a disturbance from any section throws a tremor over all. Tribal barter has developed into a world-wide commerce until the most distant nation may easily acquire the products of another. Steel rails weave a web of commercialism among the peoples, and the cable welds them in a mighty network which, responsive to every flash of news, brings all the nations into a mutuality of interests. So interdependent are the nations and so vital are their relations that a single fluctuation in the most distant market finds a response in our own. A slight disorder in Wall Street strains the whole financial world. And thus through intercourse in commerce, industry, the press, Christian missions, and scholastic research a system has been developed that holds no place for the selfish policy of exploiting backward peoples. We no longer consider the advance of alien peoples in wealth and prosperity as a menace to our own. There is being developed a strong international public opinion which realizes that anything that destroys the well-being of one member is the concern of all.

In the light of these facts, future world-politics can have no place for the settlement of disputes by force. [Page 141] A declaration of war by one of the large powers to-day would be more terrible than it has ever been in the past. The man of business, of education, of philanthropy, of civic advancement cannot reasonably advocate a policy that would ruin business, stagnate education, increase poverty, and turn progress over to the ravages of manslaughter. Industry cannot continue when the shoulder that should turn the wheels of industry grows weary beneath the weight of the musket. Education cannot proceed when libraries and lecture halls are deserted for the camp and fortress. A Tolstoy with all his power of vivid presentation does not overdraw the picture. The moral fiber and physical strength of a people must forever afterward bear their scars. A struggling people can never rid themselves of the evil effects of the conflict, although they may rejoice in the valor of their heroes. Nations cannot afford to become the theaters of carnage and bloodshed and the rendezvous of commercial and moral pirates and civic grafters.

Why, then, do nations throw away their strength in the building and equipping of armies and navies? The advocates of militarism tell us that we need a navy to protect our commerce. Possibly it is true that under the present system of international law this is somewhat excusable; for although private property on land is exempt from confiscation and the old forms of privateering have long ago been abolished by an agreement of the powers, yet the policy does not apply to maritime warfare. Enemy's goods in enemy's ships are still subject to seizure. But while this argument does hold for the present, the condition could easily be remedied. Because a man with foreign capital operates ships instead [Page 142] of factories, why is there any special reason for exposing his property to depredation? In the light of common sense such a policy seems absurd. And it should be one of the first aims of our diplomats to eliminate all possibility of this licensed robbery, for as long as it exists there will always be the cry for extravagant expenditure in order to preserve international peace.

But even if we should not need a navy to protect our commerce, again the opponents of the policy of settling international disputes by arbitration say that we need armies and navies to preserve our honor. They tell us that there are certain questions which cannot be submitted to any tribunal; that a nation must reserve the right to submit only those questions it sees fit. Surrender this right, and prestige and self-respect are gone and we become a nation of "mollycoddles" whose patriotism has no virile qualities. It is true that the independence and security of each nation is essential to international life. It is self-governing nations, not subjugated ones, that make possible a strong international life. But the converse is equally true. An international life made up of independent, coöperating, and mutually helpful nations is the best security by which national life can be guaranteed. Those who say that questions of national honor cannot be submitted to a tribunal have a wrong conception of the essence of national life. Love of country means more than a mere willingness to serve as a target for the enemy's guns. We would not deduct one iota from the respect and honor due those who have served the nation on the field of battle. But what a service they might have rendered if they had been spared that life to live serving their fellow men and contributing to [Page 143] the vigor of the race! None of us will give up his firm resolve to defend his own country with all his strength. But theirs is a cheap patriotism which depends for its expression upon the thrilling note of fife and drum. The great test of patriotism is the everyday purpose to deal justly with one's neighbor. Let him who would be a patriot and serve the nation put his life into the work close at hand, and, with a civic temper and moral courage that can grip the scourge, rid our social life of its damning influences. This is the spirit of true national honor. This it is that makes of a nation a real nation. The call to arms is but another signal of the defeat of the underlying principles of civilization.

Only slowly will any large number of the people accept these new conceptions. But there are already hopeful signs. The growing sentiment is rapidly crystallizing. The developing code of international equity as expressed by the establishment of such an institution as the Hague Court is a step in the right direction. The peaceful settlement of the Venezuelan boundary dispute was an honor to the nations involved. And the work of the International Commission of Inquiry in the Dogger Bank episode between Russia and England is significant of the trend. Again, a modern innovation was wrought when the International Conference in 1906 settled the conflicting interests of Germany, France, and Spain in Morocco. Within the last century the powers ratified over two hundred treaties, each providing for the peaceful settlement by tribunals of specified international disputes. It is true that most peace treaties have dealt almost exclusively with legal questions. The nations have hesitated to submit all international differences to [Page 144] a court of arbitration. But the spirit for arbitral settlement is widening. And this spirit is not for a mere avoidance of war, but seeks the substitution of a better method than war for determining justice between nations. Each nation has its own individual problems to deal with, and in this respect all cannot proceed according to set rules. The movement does not mean the extinction and obliteration of nationality and national rights. The individual has not been minimized because he consents to submit his differences with his fellow men to a court for settlement. And this must be the ultimate attitude of nations whose honor we have a right to guard jealously.

What, then, shall be our program? Whatever attitude is to be adopted, most people agree that the day of universal peace is far in the future. The Balkans and Mexico remind us of the difficulty lying before the coming generations. But the numerous peace societies whose purpose it is to circulate authentic documents, that the great mass of citizens may be brought into sympathetic touch through accurate information, are doing much for the cause. The erection of the Hague Court gives something lasting and tangible to work from. And, above all, the nations will rise to higher standards principally by adopting the ideals of the individual. As man has risen above his barbaric ideals, so will the nations throw their military expenditures into the coffers of public welfare as they come more and more to judge their successes, not by victories in war but by achievements in education, commerce, industry, and artizanship. And, proceeding with such aims, the established international court must be the medium through which all differences will be settled. We shall discover that our internal [Page 145] policy of dealing with the individual can be more easily applied to international relations than was at first supposed. And having reached this point in the evolution of international peace, there must be added to the international court a world-wide police force. As the system develops and our prejudices are abandoned, a method of policing must stand as an enforcer of international law. Until then there is little hope that military expenditures will radically diminish, for we cannot reasonably abolish our present methods unless we have something secure to substitute.

Perhaps such a system will not abolish the utter possibility of war. Only the future can tell us what heights of success the policy will reach. There are those of us who have high hopes because we believe in the good sense of the American people and of our great contemporaries. By the past we are made confident of the future. But if the goal is to be reached, it is for us as individual citizens to contribute our influence toward developing the attitude of peace among our fellow men. For our international welfare and for the honor of the newest of great nations, may we in this issue throw our influence, as a united people, on the side of a higher international morality! May the united peoples of the world abolish the prejudices of misconceptions and, drawn together by common interests, resolve that the priceless heritage of centuries shall not be imperiled by war! And thus over a warring humanity the breaking day of peace shall be hastened, at whose high noon there shall be heard not the clashing of arms but the increasing hum of prosperity under the sway of the new and better national life.

[Page 146]

[Page 147]

MAN'S MORAL NATURE THE HOPE OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

By Victor Morris, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon representing the Pacific Coast Group
Fourth Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 28, 1914

[Page 148]

[Page 149]

MAN'S MORAL NATURE THE HOPE OF UNIVERSAL PEACE

Two thousand years ago the coming of a Prince of Peace, the Prince of Peace, inaugurated the fulfillment of the prophetic promise that "peace shall cover the earth," and that "man shall learn war no more forever." From the time of Jesus until now men have passively accepted the idea, but have failed to do their part in its fulfillment. To-day there are few indeed but believe that it would be desirable to abolish war. Many also feel in a way that war is brutal. But here our feelings on this great question largely end. We are not aroused to talk, and work, and fight against war as inhuman, as economic folly, as unreason, and especially as an immorality and a sin. Now we are not here to harangue about the physical sufferings wrought through war, but we are here to inquire and find out what we can do about it. How are we going to attack the war problem in order to bring about action, instead of simply talk and discussion? In considering this war problem it is well to bear in mind the fact that war is a resultant of a deeper cause, the war spirit. The war spirit is the spirit of him who first made war in heaven; the war spirit—ambitious, aggressive, covetous and revengeful, rampant through the centuries, never conquered by force, in war subdued only by exhaustion. This war spirit still exists to scourge the nations with war, to stagger with its problem of war the [Page 150] brains of statesmen believing in peace. How are we to attack this stupendous problem? What appeal can we make to the nations that will be strong enough to do away with the war spirit?

In order to overthrow this mighty evil, certainly every possible force must be enlisted. The thought which I wish to bring to you is this: While such appeals as those to economy and to reason are of value, they are not in themselves strong enough to cause the nations to abolish war; and hence, in view of the real inner nature of the war spirit, man's moral nature, working through a developed conscience upon war, is the only force strong enough to effect universal peace.

Against war peace-advocates appeal with force from a business standpoint, on grounds of economy and financial expediency. The vast system of international trade and commerce calls for world peace. The prosperity of world-industries and business requires good will and brotherhood between the nations. So heavy, also, have the burdens of war and militarism become that three fourths of our own expenditures go for war purposes, past and present, and in Great Britain two thirds are so spent.[1] Every German citizen, it is said, carries a soldier on his back. By the testimony of financiers and ministers of state themselves, nothing but financial ruin and bankruptcy await the nations if the present military tragedy continues. But has this obvious condition of affairs affected the race for armaments? Not unless it has accelerated it. To every appeal to economy the reply is that the outlay is necessary if we are to exist at [Page 151] all. But even suppose that for a season the economic motive should lead us to abolish war, as soon as financial advantage was apparent to a nation through war it is evident that all restraints would be removed and war ensue again. The same motive used to abolish war would bring war once more. Again, when we remember that it is the deeper cause, the war spirit, that we must quench, we can understand why this appeal is often made to those who bear not. So far as the great mass of men is concerned, purely economic considerations cannot change the spirit and impulses of the soul. History reveals no great uplifting of humanity or change in ideals as having arisen through purely economic or financial considerations.

The peace plea has also been based on grounds of reason. Clearly has it been pointed out that reason demands that no person shall sit in judgment on his own case, yet this we do in a resort to arms. War is not arbitrament by reason, but arbitrament by the sword. Every plain argument of reason condemns war and militarism. The arguments of reason have, indeed, been strong, and have attracted much attention, resulting in the settlement of many disputes by arbitration. But as concerns the final wiping out of war and the surrendering of heavy armaments, reason alone cannot present a permanent powerful appeal, for it is easy in times of stress to plead that reason and justice demand the war. Never was there a fight but the contending parties claimed they were justified. But the chief fact that seems to put reason in the category of impotent appeals is the fact that it is an appeal to the mind, while the war spirit can only be removed by an appeal to the heart, wherein it resides. We may reason with nations all we [Page 152] please, but when the war fury arises, then all the reasoning proves to have been in vain, the appeal to the mind turns out to be too feeble.

Appeals to economy and reason, then, are appeals we must make, but they are too weak in themselves to make a permanent impression against the war spirit. We must then look for some additional, some more compelling, force.

Let us examine the real inner nature of war, for this ought surely to throw some light upon our problem. War is not economy; it is not reason. Is war, then, morality? Is it virtue? It would hardly seem necessary for us to answer this question, for modern civilized nations long ago recognized blood feuds with their kindred as contrary to real morality, as nothing but murder; but they seem unable to recognize that war is just the same—nothing but legalized, organized murder. From the use of violence in settling our international disputes arise all the deadly passions of the soul, such as treachery, insolence, revenge, and a murderous spirit, with the accompanying fruits of robbery, misery, and blood. Surely, O nations! nothing which bears such fruits can be anything but corrupt, for a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

Look also at its relationship to civilization and citizenship, and its effects upon theme. "War and civilization," said one of the great English ministers, "are contradictory terms, even as Christ and Mars." Particularly damaging is the effect of war upon citizens. For does it not blunt the sensibilities, harden the heart, inflame the mind with passions, and deaden the consciences of men? [Page 153] Said the same great English preacher, "The sword that smites the enemy abroad, also lays bare the primeval savage within the citizen at home." And again, "War is not so horrible in that it drains the dearest veins of the foe, but in that it drains our own hearts of the yet more precious elements of pity, mercy, generosity, which are the lifeblood of the soul."

What now must be our conclusion about war? Had we ten thousand voices, surely every one would be in honor bound to declare war an immorality. Every incident of war declares it such. Every result of battle hands down the same decree. In the words of a famous Russian battle painter, we too may define war as "the antithesis of all morality."

This clear idea of the real inner nature of war ought surely to enable us to find our ground of attack. Since war is sin and war is crime, the conclusion which we draw is, that if it is possible ever to abolish war, man's conscience, his sense of right and wrong, is the only force powerful enough to accomplish the result.

The great searchlight of morality must be turned on war—a searchlight which is always bright and strong and which never has failed to reveal the truth. To turn this on full and strong means to awaken the consciences of men. It must be an individual proposition—not simply the developed consciences of a few leaders who may be submerged by the war spirit of the masses, but there must be developed consciences of all the people individually. All our arbitration treaties and the actual settlement of disputes by arbitration are of great value and should be pressed as far as possible; but are these sufficient forces to develop the consciences of men against [Page 154] war as an immorality and a sin? What are the forces that have always come to our support against an immorality and a sin?

How about our churches? Have they been doing their duty? Have they made it clear that war is sin and war is crime? Has not the Church been too easy? Has its voice sounded clear and strong on this world-evil? Surely a duty rests upon the ministry to be insistent in its characterization of war. What peace-advocates must do is to urge this upon the Church and bring it to a realization of its duty. Church members know the character of war and simply need to have the matter brought home to their hearts.

What about our schools,—not simply the colleges and universities, but all the schools,—which offer fertile ground to sow the seeds of peace? Thus far in the history of our schools too much emphasis has been laid upon military history, etc. Dates and events of national wars have been thoroughly drilled into students, and the glory and blaze of war brought out. We have actually made it a glory and a virtue. One of the most encouraging signs of the times, however, is the fact that many of our text-books are dropping out the prolonged study of wars and centering more on the peaceful pursuits of the nation and the commercial relations with foreign powers. How about direct peace teaching in the lower schools? How much of it do we include in the work? None at all. Many are the speakers who address the schools on war reminiscences, but few indeed are the appeals made for peace. Not until this movement is strongly emphasized in our schools from the very beginning can we hope completely to drive out the war spirit; for time is [Page 155] required to develop in the individual conscience a full realization of the real nature of war, and such development should begin with the plastic period of youth.

With Church and school lined up on the side of peace, the home teaching will soon fall in line; and Church, school, and home combined can develop so strong a conviction concerning war, can make so forceful an appeal to man's moral nature, that the war spirit will take its leave and be gone forever.

We always look to history for a confirmation of our beliefs, and let us glance now to the records of the past and learn her teachings.

First of all, look at the duel as the mode of settling a personal difficulty if peaceful settlement appeared impossible. First, it was heartily accepted as a gentlemanly, honorable, and brave mode of settlement. Then, tolerated and simply suffered to exist. Finally, condemned by conscience as an immorality and a sin, it was banished from civilized nations.

Look also at slavery. At first heartily accepted as a divine arrangement. Then tolerated by the world as undesirable, yet not necessarily wrong. Next its overthrowal attempted on grounds of pity and of reason; until finally, recognized as an immorality and a sin, it too was blotted from the pages of civilization.

No great uplift of humanity, no great movement in civilization, but has found its path to success in the developed moral sense of man. No great change in civilized institutions but has found itself produced by the dynamic, moving forces of morality.

War must be abolished. Only the great powers of morality are vital enough, are dynamic and powerful [Page 156] enough, to carry out our peace program. These forces lie dormant, and simply need stimulation and development. Recognizing the impotency of appeals to economy and to reason, what are we going to do?

In the name of humanity let us impeach war and the war spirit. It is a traitor to every ideal of civilization and of justice. It is the instrument of hatred and of pride, the agent of jealousy and of avarice. In the name of the dead and dying, in the name of justice, which it dethrones, in the name of those whose loved ones it demands, we impeach war as a traitor, guilty of all high crimes and misdemeanors. What else shall we do? Stir up from its greatest depths the heart of man. Educate his conscience till he is unwilling to suffer war to exist. Begin early in Church, school, and home to instil in the minds of young and old continually the true conception of war, that it is an immorality, contrary to every principle of Christianity and to every teaching of our Christ.

Let us bring into the conflict against war the great, dynamic, motive force—the Moral Nature of Man. And when we shall have thus developed the consciences of men, there will henceforth be laid up for us a crown of victory, as there will then be a fuller realization that in man's moral nature is the Hope of Universal Peace.

[Page 157]

THE TASK OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

By Harold Husted, Ottawa University, Ottawa, Kansas, representing the Western Group
Fifth Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 28, 1914

[Page 158]

[Page 159]

THE TASK OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Age by age, civilization advances. Each successive era has contributed that invention or accomplished that achievement which has placed another round in the great ladder of civilization. The development of many small states into powerful nations, and many wonderful improvements in other fields, such as steam navigation, the railroad, the telegraph, and wireless communication, crown the last as the greatest of centuries in the history of the human family. It is difficult to understand why the human mind, whence these mighty inspirations originated, has been incapable of realizing that there still remains the most degrading, the most deteriorating, the foulest blot that ever disgraced this world—the killing of civilized men, by men, as a permissible mode of settling international disputes. This world can never attain its highest standard of civilization until this one disgraceful blemish, called war, is obliterated. It is the collective task of the people living in this twentieth century to bring into reality the millennium of Tennyson,

The beginning of this social task, then, is the enlightenment of the peoples as to the immorality, waste, and ineffectiveness of war. God commanded, "Thou shalt not kill." Who shall presume to declare that this precept [Page 160] was directed not to nations but to individuals only? that one man shall not kill, but nations may? We are horrified at the report of a single murder, yet, if viewed from the light of truth, what is war but wholesale murder? What tongue, what pen, can describe the bloody havoc of the battle of Gettysburg, where, between the rise and set of a single sun, fifty thousand of our fellow men sank to earth, dead or wounded?

What sentiment in human hearts which needs to be perpetuated sent rank after rank, column after column, of blue soldiers against the impregnable stone wall of Fredericksburg? And who will place the blame for the carnage of Cold Harbor elsewhere than upon the folly of misguided patriotism and cruel, selfish interests that made the bloody battle possible?

Every soldier is connected, as all of us, by dear ties of kindred, love, and friendship. Perhaps there is an aged mother, who fondly hoped to lean her bending form on his more youthful arm; perhaps a young wife, whose life is entwined inseparably with his; perchance a sister, a brother. But as he falls on the field of battle, must not all these suffer? His aged mother surely falls with him. His young wife is suddenly widowed, his children orphaned. That husband's helping hand is forever stayed. A parent's voice is stilled, and the children's plaintive cries for their loving father fall on unheeding ears. Tell me, friends, you who know the bitterness of parting with dear ones whom you watched tenderly through the last hopeful moments, can you measure your anguish? Yet, what a contrast! Your dear ones departed soothed by kindness and love, while the dying soldier gasped out his life on the battlefield alone.

[Page 161] And what a waste is war! We are just beginning to realize the tremendous cost, the incalculable wastefulness, not only of actual war but of the preparation for future possible wars. For the current fiscal year ending June 30, 1914, the United States has appropriated in round numbers $535,000,000, in preparation for future wars and because of wars fought in the past. Sixty-seven cents out of every dollar expended by our national government goes to feed the present-day mania for war, present and past, leaving only thirty-three cents out of each dollar for the combined expense of the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of our national government. When we realize that the cost of a single battleship exceeds the total value of all the grounds and buildings of all the colleges and universities in the state of Kansas, the figures indicating this expense have more meaning to us. And when we reflect that the cost of a single shot from one of the great guns of that battleship is $1700, enough to send a young man through college, the common man realizes that the United States cannot afford to go to war or even prepare for war.

And all this suffering and cost are to no purpose. War is utterly ineffectual to secure or advance its professed object. The wretchedness it involves contributes to no beneficial result, helps to establish no right, and, therefore, in no respect promotes harmony between the contending nations.

When the Saviour was born, angels from heaven sang to the children of the human family this benediction:

[Page 162] And at last, in the beginning of this twentieth century, nations seem to be visibly approaching that unity so long hoped and prayed for; and that nation which shall precede all others in the abolition of war will be crowned by history with everlasting honor. The risk will be very little, the gain incalculable.

We are coming to believe that the most significant fact about man and his civilization is their improvability. Individual inventive genius has added improvement after improvement until it would seem that man's mastery over nature is to be well-nigh complete as these ideas and inventions are socialized and extended to benefit all. We are now entering the era of social achievement when mankind unitedly undertakes by organization and coöperation mightier tasks than ever accomplished before. Many dreadful diseases are disappearing before preventive medicine, and sanitary science is eliminating many plagues; pestilence is coming to be a thing of the past. Human welfare is now the concern of coöperative mankind, and social science will condemn and banish war or fail to establish itself as an applied science. It can be done! It ought to be done! It will be done!

And although this consummation seems to many far away, it may be accomplished by very simple methods. It only waits the time of concerted action on the part of the leading nations when the principles of arbitration can be invoked more fully, and a world-court established with plenary powers for settling all disputes between the nations.

International legislation has occurred repeatedly, though no world-court has as yet been established. In the case of the Universal Postal Union we have what [Page 163] is tantamount to world-legislation, in that all civilized nations have entered into a formal agreement regarding the delivery of mail. Another instance of practical world-legislation is that of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Many other examples might be given in which several nations are parties to an agreement regarding some important measure, such as the respect paid to the flag of truce, the regulations concerning commerce on the high seas, and the etiquette of diplomacy. Paramount in world-importance has been the agreement of the leading nations of the world in the establishment of the Hague conferences for the amelioration of war.

Since a conference of nations can meet and decide on the mitigation of the horrors of war, it is certainly conceivable that a tribunal of nations can prevent war. Such a tribunal would in no respect differ from the Supreme Court of the United States in its fundamental foundations. As our Supreme Court is final in settling all disputes in this country, so the international court would be final in adjusting all controversies between the nations. And such a court is clearly the next decisive step in the promotion of this great task of securing world-peace.

If nations can agree to establish war as their arbiter of peace, why can they not establish a more peaceful substitute? It is possible, for there is nothing in the nature of strife that cannot be settled, no quarrel that cannot be judged, no difficulty that cannot be satisfactorily adjusted.

With the establishment of a true world-court, there would rise on the vision of the nations for the first time the prospect of justice for the united whole of mankind. [Page 164] Justice to the smaller countries would be secured; encroachments by the strong upon the weak would be prevented; the moral standard of politics would be uplifted; and though every step would be exposed to the selfishness, corruption, and love of despotism that are prevalent in all men, yet is it not reasonable to suppose that, as progress is now being made in the various nations for overcoming these evils, so it would be made in this united whole, to the unspeakable benefit of mankind?

This country has been foremost in the promotion of this great movement to organize the world. It is especially fitting that the United States should take the lead. The greatest nation having a government of the people and by the people, with the longest experience and the greatest success, is best fitted to lead others. We have the form of national government which foreshadows the form of world-government. Theoretically, our states are sovereign; all rights which are not formally surrendered by accepting the Constitution of the United States are reserved to them. In a like manner, referring to the establishment of a world-court, the nations individually will be expected to surrender to the nations collectively only such jurisdiction as pertains to the settling of their controversies.

A world-court would appeal to the strongest, the purest, and the deepest thinkers of every race. It would cover a new field, appealing to reason and altruism and justice. It would by its very effect upon individuals tend to develop the qualities it demands, and would prove a mighty influence for uplifting the intellectual and moral standards not only of men but nations. It would by its very international nature annihilate all [Page 165] national antipathies and promote an era of universal good will and genuine understanding.

To send a husband or father, glorious in the perfection of physical manhood, out on the field of carnage to be slain in an effort to settle international difficulty or to uphold fancied national honor, is unquestionable barbarism. It is far more humane to terminate disputed questions by arbitration than by the keen-edged sword. International peace compacts can hold mankind together by unbreakable yet unburdensome bonds and greatly promote prosperity and social progress. The wanton woe and waste that inevitably follow in the train of war will soon be things of the past. The twentieth century, already so full of radiant promise, so enlivened by a new social conscience, will devote its collective energies to the abolition of war and the substitution of its successor—a world-court, based on the facts of humane solidarity and the principles of international peace.

[Page 166]

[Page 167]

THE PRESENT STATUS OF INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

By Bryant Smith, Guilford College, North Carolina, a Senior in Guilford College
Prize-Winning Essay in the Pugsley Contest, 1912-1913

[Page 168]

THE PUGSLEY PRIZE-ESSAY CONTESTS

In 1908 Mr. Chester DeWitt Pugsley, then an undergraduate student in Harvard University, gave $50 as a prize to be offered by the Lake Mohonk Conference for the best essay on "International Arbitration" by an undergraduate student of an American college. The prize was won by L. B. Bobbitt of Baltimore, a sophomore in Johns Hopkins University. The following year (1909-1910) a similar prize, of $100, was won by George Knowles Gardner of Worcester, Massachusetts, a Harvard sophomore. A like prize of $100 in 1910-1911 was won by Harry Posner of West Point, Mississippi, a senior in the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College.

The prize of 1911-1912, of which John K. Starkweather of Denver, Colorado, a junior in Brown University, was the winner, was the first offered to men students only (other similar prizes having been offered to women students) in the United States and Canada.

In the fifth Pugsley contest (1912-1913) the prize was awarded to Bryant Smith of Guilford College, North Carolina, a senior in Guilford College at the same place, whose essay follows. The judges were Chancellor Elmer Ellsworth Brown of New York University, Rollo Ogden, editor of the New York Evening Post, and Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles, U.S.A., retired.

Each winner is invited to the Lake Mohonk Conference next following, where he publicly receives the prize from its donor, Mr. Pugsley.

[Page 169]

THE PRESENT STATUS OF INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

The first concerted effort looking toward an eventual world-wide peace was the Hague Conference of 1899, where representatives of twenty-six nations assembled in response to a rescript from the Czar of Russia, whose avowed purpose, as set forth in the rescript, was to discuss ways and, if possible, devise means, to arrest the alarming increase in expenditures for armaments which threatened to bankrupt the national governments.

Unable to accomplish anything definite in this respect because of the vigorous opposition headed by Germany, the delegates turned their attention toward giving official recognition and concrete form to ideas which had already obtained in the settlement of international disputes, and toward the formation of a court before which the nations might have their differences adjudicated. The principles embodied in good offices and mediation and commissions of inquiry have given gratifying evidence of their efficiency, each in its respective capacity. The original achievement of the conference, however, was the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The composition of this court was to include not more than four persons from each of the signatory powers; from which panel, in case of an appeal to arbitration, each party was to select two judges, who, in turn, should elect their own umpire unless otherwise provided by the disputants. That it would [Page 170] be subject to criticism might have been expected. That twenty-six nations could unanimously agree upon any court whatever was the real occasion for surprise. The four cases arbitrated during the eight years intervening between this and the Second Hague Conference served to bring out its defects, chief of which were its decentralized and intangible nature. Nominally a court, in reality it was but a panel scattered all over the world from which a court could, with great difficulty and expense, be selected. Nominally permanent, in reality it had to be re-created for each case to be judged.

The Second Hague Conference, working on a basis of this short experience, undertook to remedy these inherent defects in the arbitral machinery by leaving the Permanent Court just as it was, and by creating besides an International Court of Prize to serve a special function indicated by its name, and a court of Judicial Arbitration to supplement the work of, if not eventually to supplant, the former court. To insure greater impartiality and also to encourage the weaker powers the expenses of the new court, instead of falling upon the litigants in each case, were to be prorated among the ratifying powers. To insure greater tangibility and permanency the new court was to be composed of only seventeen members, each to serve a term of twelve years at a salary of $2400 per annum, with an additional $40 for each day of actual service. Furthermore, the court was to meet once a year and to elect each year a delegation of three of its members to sit at The Hague for settling minor cases arising in the interval between regular sessions, having the power also to call extra sessions of the entire court whenever occasion should [Page 171] demand. To insure a more judicial personnel the convention specifies that members shall be qualified to hold high legal posts in their respective countries. The method by which members of the court were to be appointed—the one point upon which the delegates were unable to agree—was deferred for subsequent determination.

This, in addition to the one hundred and fifty-odd treaties privately entered into by two or more nations, many of which contain pledges to submit certain classes of disputes to the Permanent Court, is, in brief, what has been accomplished by way of constructive political organization by the modern peace movement.

How much does this signify? In view of the present attitude of the social mind, what are we to infer from this as bearing upon the ultimate outcome of international arbitration? It shall be the purpose of this paper to answer that question.

In an address before the Mohonk Conference of 1911 Dr. Cyrus Northrup, ex-president of the University of Minnesota, said: "What is really wanted is not continued talking in favor of peace with the idea of converting the people; for the people are already converted! They are ready for peace and arbitration!" In the October number of the Review of Reviews for 1909, Privy Councillor Karl von Stengel, one of the German delegation to the First Hague Conference, is quoted as follows: "It must be stated emphatically that in its ultimate aims the peace movement is not only ... Utopian, but ... dangerous...." These quotations are given as typical of the attitude manifested by the two extremes, the injudiciously optimistic and the ultraconservative, [Page 172] toward every social reform. All true progress pursues a course intermediate to these two.

The idea entertained by so many enthusiastic peace advocates, that the world is ready for peace if we but had institutional facilities adequate to carry out the will of the people, is erroneous. In all democratic states political institutions are but a concrete expression of the social mind, the media created by the people, through which society executes its will. "With a given phase of human character ... there must go an adapted class of institutions."[1] Therefore, I submit that if the people were ready for peace they could easily provide the means necessary for its accomplishment.

The first gentleman quoted above drew his conclusion from the indications that of the two million inhabitants of his state, one million nine hundred thousand would favor arbitration as shown by the enthusiasm manifested at a meeting of the state peace society a few weeks before. Similar conditions in other parts of the country, he thought, would corroborate the application of his assertion to the entire country. Such a conclusion is fallacious in that it fails to consider three essential facts about the people of the United States which largely determine the attitude of any people toward war. First, they have no grievance. Second, no appeal is being made to their patriotic bias. Third, their emotions and passions are quiescent.

The first of these needs only brief mention. No people in this enlightened age wishes to fight as a matter of course, regardless of any reasonable pretext. If nations never had any personal interests involved, there would, [Page 173] of course, be no more war. In this respect the people of the United States are not ahead of the other parts of the civilized world. Disinterested parties have been in favor of peace for two thousand years.

The other two facts deserve more extended consideration.

The disposition in individuals to pluck motes out of their neighbors' eyes and leave beams in their own, in the nation becomes what Herbert Spencer calls the bias of patriotism. According to him patriotism is but an extended self-interest. We love our country because our own interests and our country's interests are one. Unable to view international affairs apart from national interests, we are handicapped in making those balanced judgments necessary to judicial arbitration. An act reprehensible under the Union Jack becomes patriotic under the Stars and Stripes. At both Hague Conferences all the powers were seemingly in favor of curtailing expenditures for armaments. The unprecedented increase in expenditures which followed bespeaks their sincerity, or, rather, bespeaks each nation's mistrust of the sincerity of others. A number of years ago the Farmers' Alliance, organized in some of the Southern tobacco states, voted to reduce the acreage of tobacco for a given year in order to raise the price. So many members tried to profit by this opportunity to realize a high price for a big crop that there was a greater acreage planted that year than ever before. Can we expect better of groups than of the individuals of which the groups are composed? Most nations question the justice of Russia's policy leading up to the war with Japan, England's course in South Africa, and America's attitude toward the Philippines; yet the [Page 174] body of citizens of each of these three countries, while concurring in the general opinion concerning the other two, justifies its own government's actions with patriotic pride.

The chief respect in which this bias interferes with the progress of international arbitration is in restricting the scope of general arbitration treaties, the average formula of such treaties excluding all questions which involve "national honor and vital interests." A greatly modified survival of the spirit which in primitive peoples regarded the tribe over the mountain or across the stream as a fit object of hatred and fear, the objection to a judicial settlement of such questions assumes that a nation's honor and vital interests are goods peculiar in that they may be inconsistent with justice. The attitude of the United States toward the recently proposed treaty between England and America may be taken as typical of the attitude which prevails on this subject generally. The formulators of the treaty took an advanced step in that, instead of reserving questions of national honor and vital interests, they provided for the arbitration of all differences which are "justiciable in their nature by reason of being susceptible of decision by the application of principles of law or equity," thereby recognizing the judicial nature of arbitration. The action of the Senate, however, which sustained the opinion of the majority report of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, objecting to the last clause of Article III of the treaty,[2] [Page 175] would indicate that the significance of a general arbitration treaty attaches not so much to the definition of its scope as to who shall determine what cases conform to the definition. It would seem that the nature of the reservation is relatively unimportant so long as its interpretation devolves upon the parties at variance. The majority report, objecting to the delegation to the joint high commission of the power to determine the arbitrability of cases in terms of the treaty, contains this statement[3] in which the minority report likewise concurs: "Every one agrees that there are certain questions which no nation ... will ever submit to the decision of any one else." As cases of this nature it enumerates territorial integrity, admission of immigrants, and our Monroe Doctrine. The significance of this insistence upon a means of evasion is evident. There is not yet enough international confidence. The powers are not yet ready to submit to unlimited arbitration.

The other enemy to rational judgment—and rational judgment must be the only basis of arbitration—is the danger of emotionalism. The average man is yet largely irrational. When cool and self-possessed, and when his prejudices and traditions do not interfere, he can pass rational judgment upon questions in which his own interests are not concerned; but when his passions are aroused he dispenses with any effort to reason and acts in obedience to blind impulse. He knows that it is expensive to fight, that it is dangerous, and that it is wrong; but when he is provoked, he fights. The characteristics of the average man are the characteristics of society. We have not yet outgrown the mob.

[Page 176] Interwoven with this impulsive temperament and associated with some of the most cherished affections of the human heart is the spirit of war, developed by thousands of generations of ancestral conflict and passed on to us as a heritage to be rooted out of our nature before we shall realize in its fullness the ideal for which we strive. Mortal conflict sanctified by religion, devastation idealized by literature, pillage justified by patriotism, fellow-destruction ennobled by self-sacrifice—these form a complex of contradictory emotions from which men are as yet unable to unravel the one essential characteristic of war; namely, the attempt to dispense justice in a trial by battle, and make it stand out in its revealed inconsistency, dissociated from its traditional concomitants of which it is neither part nor parcel. The romance of knighthood and chivalry still appeals to the human heart, notwithstanding the fact that war, love, and religion, the knight's creed, are an inconsistent combination. Most men can be made to see this in their minds, but cannot be made to feel it in their souls. Many old Civil War veterans, who would not consent for their sons to volunteer in the Spanish-American War, would have gone themselves had they been able. Some did go. To men so disposed it is useless to talk of the horrors of war. Give us a just grievance; let some competent enthusiast inflame this passion with a war cry like "Remember the Maine," "Fifty-four forty or fight," "Liberty or death," and, reënforced by the animal inherent in man, it will arouse popular demonstrations devoid of all reason, creating a force that cannot be controlled by a cold, calculating intellect. Can you listen to a bugle call on a clear, still night without a quickening of the pulse [Page 177] as there flashes through your soul a suggestion of all past history with its marshaling hosts and heroic deeds? Can you see a military parade without a suggestion of "Dixie" and the Star Spangled Banner, or feeling your bosom swell with patriotic pride? This association may be, and doubtless is, a delusion, but it is a delusion developed and fortified by thousands of years of custom and precedent and it would be contrary to the history of human progress if man should become disillusionized in one generation. It may take centuries. If we are to have international arbitration in the near future, we must have it in spite of this spirit of war rather than by destroying the spirit. In fact, the only practical way to destroy it is to let it, like vestigial organs of which biologists tell us, degenerate from disuse. This inherited emotional tendency remains as a threat with which we, as exponents of arbitration, must reckon before we are justified in saying that the world is ready for peace.

Because of these two social characteristics—the patriotic bias which perverts judgment, and uncontrolled passions which submerge reason—the educational propagandists still have a task to perform.

Let us now examine the stand-pat idea that unlimited arbitration is but a dream as expressed in the quotation from Privy Councillor Stengel. This is farther from the truth than the other extreme just discussed. He who will, with an unprejudiced mind, examine cross sections of history at widely separated stages, cannot fail to see that along with the growing tendency of reason to predominate over passion, superstition, and custom there has been a parallel tendency to restrict militarism as a social activity. From a war conceived as religion to war [Page 178] as patriotism, then war as commercialism and the tool of ambition, man is now coming to the more rational conception of war as the despoiler of nations. David speaks of the "season of the year" when nations went forth to battle. Fifteen hundred years later governments pretended at least to justify their military operations on rational grounds. To-day war is the last resort, and even its most ardent defenders do not attempt to justify it except in disputes which involve national honor and vital interests.

In view of the foregoing facts it is evident that the modern peace movement has by no means the whole of the task to perform. Rather, we can almost justify ourselves in the assumption that war is not long to remain one of our social inconsistencies and that it is now making its last, and, therefore, most determined, stand on questions of national honor and vital interests.

Among the numerous forces contributing to this evolution of international peace, the chief agencies have been, and still are, moral and industrial. These same forces are working to-day with cumulative effect.

Warfare is becoming more and more inconsistent with the ethical spirit of the times. Men may talk of the expenses, horrors, and devastations of war as paramount causes for the tendency to substitute arbitration; but antedating all other causes, underlying and strengthening all others, is the slowly changing social conscience which, as each generation passes, appreciates more fully warfare's inconsistency with justice and antagonism to right. This same cause found civilized society taking keen delight in the heathen barbarity of a gladiatorial combat, and has transformed and lifted it up to where [Page 179] it is horrified at a bull-baiting or a prize fight. It found human beings with absolute power of life and death over other human beings and has evolved the view that all men are created free and equal. It found individuals settling questions of honor by a resort to arms, and has substituted therefor a judge, counsel, and a jury. These three institutions—gladiatorial combats, slavery, and dueling—were no more regarded in their day as only temporary phenomena of social evolution than is war so regarded by military sympathizers of to-day; yet these have one by one been eliminated, and war is fast becoming as much out of harmony with the ethical spirit of this age as was each of the above out of harmony with the spirit of the age which dispensed with it, and the effort to demonstrate that war is just as dispensable is meeting with success. The teachings of Christ, who two thousand years ago announced the doctrine of human brotherhood and surrendered his life to make this doctrine effective, have slowly but surely wrought their leavening influence upon the source of all war; namely, the hearts of men. Warfare has for centuries been gradually yielding to this deepening consciousness and that it must eventually, if not soon, take its place beside the long-discarded gladiatorial profession, the outlawed slave trade, and the discountenanced custom of the duelist must be evident to any one who takes more than a superficial view of the great determining forces which shape human progress.

Besides moral forces, industrial forces were mentioned as a factor tending to the adoption of arbitration. During recent times, under the impetus caused by the relatively modern innovations of steam, electricity, and the [Page 180] press, this class of causes has been unusually effective. Industry has overstepped international boundary lines. Through the division of labor we are passing from the independence of nations to the interdependence of nations. International banking, transportation, and commerce, by establishing communities of interest in all parts of the world, are binding the peoples of the earth into one great industrial organization. As striking evidence of this development, more than one hundred and fifty international associations[4] and more than thirty-five international unions of states have been formed. The modern intricate system of communication is a veritable nervous system which, in the event of any local paralysis or upheaval, informs the entire industrial organism. The figure is no longer "the shot heard, round the world," but becomes "the pulse-beat felt, round the world." If Spencer's definition of patriotism—that is, coextensive with personal interests—is correct, the bias of patriotism cannot retard the progress of arbitration much longer, for patriotism will be a world-wide feeling, since personal interests are no longer restricted to nationality.

No, Herr Stengel, each passing year finds the causes which make for war weakened and the causes which make for arbitration proportionately reënforced. The skeptics are the dreamers and the peace workers are the practical men of affairs.

From the foregoing synopsis of the technical accomplishments of the modern peace movement to date, and from the effort to interpret their significance in the light of fundamental social characteristics and the present social attitude, I trust three things have become evident:

[Page 181] First. The movement for international peace through arbitration, far from being a mere bubble on the surface of society to be burst by the first war cloud which appears on the horizon, is a movement, centuries old, coincident with social evolution, deep-rooted in the very nature of a developing world-wide civilization.

Second. International peace through arbitration is not to be a ready-made affair, coming in on the crest of some wave of popular enthusiasm as was expected by many in 1899.

Third. Being an outgrowth of the natural laws of human development, a result so much deeper and more fundamental than political laws can produce, international peace through arbitration may be furthered, but cannot be accomplished, by legislation; may be delayed, but cannot be prevented, by the neglect to legislate. To undertake to hasten arbitration by forcing legislative proceedings beyond what the people will indorse, would be as futile as to turn up the hands of the clock to hasten the passage of time.

To those who can appreciate these facts there is no occasion for discouragement in the suspicious attitude manifested by the powers toward any definite step in the direction of unrestricted arbitration, apparently so inconsistent with their general pacific professions. "Rapid growth and quickly accomplished reforms are necessarily unsound, incomplete, and disappointing."[5]

With the truth of these deductions granted, it would seem safe to assume that the institutions for the settlement of international difficulties will develop in much the same way as have the institutions for the settlement [Page 182] of difficulties between individuals. It should be profitable, therefore, to compare the present growth of arbitration with the evolution and decay of the various modes of trial as the idea of judicial settlement diffused itself through the mind of the English people causing established forms to give way to something better. Dispensing with the blood feud, which hardly deserves the name of trial, the oldest form of such institution was trial by ordeal which, according to Thayer in his "Evidence at the Common Law," seems to have been "indigenous with the human creature in the earliest stages of his development." This form gradually fell into disuse before the more rational form of compurgation introduced into Teutonic courts in the fifth century. In 1215 it was formally abolished. Compurgation was abolished in 1440 as its inferiority to trial by witnesses became fully recognized. In the latter form, instituted early in the ninth century, when the witnesses disagreed the judicial talent of the day conceived of no other method of decision than to fight it out. Thus we have trial by witnesses and trial by battle developing concurrently, although they were recognized as distinct forms. After two centuries of effort to abolish it, trial by battle was made illegal in 1833, the last case recorded as being so decided occurring in 1835. Out of the trial by witnesses has evolved our modern trial by jury, at first limited to certain unimportant cases, then having its sphere extended as its superiority became more evident, until finally it superseded all other forms and to-day is the accepted mode of settling even questions of honor.

The growth and extension of international arbitration has not been dissimilar to this. Six cases were arbitrated [Page 183] in the eighteenth century, four hundred and seventy-one in the nineteenth, while more than one hundred and fifty cases have been arbitrated during the first thirteen years of the twentieth century. Between the First and Second Hague Conferences only four uses were submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Since the Second Conference, notwithstanding the unsatisfactory disposition of the Venezuelan affair, eight cases have been tried, a ninth is pending, a tenth will soon be docketed if the United States is not to act the hypocrite in her international relations by refusing to submit to England's request to arbitrate the question as to whether or no we exempt our coastwise vessels from toll duty through the Panama Canal. Defects have been detected in the Permanent Court of Arbitration and we are well on the way toward a better court. Representatives of only twenty-six nations took part in the deliberations of the First Hague Conference; representatives of forty-four nations took part in the deliberations of the Second Hague Conference. Wars of aggression and conquest, though not formally outlawed, are effectively so, and arbitration for the recovery of contract debts is now practically obligatory. As time passes and its feasibility gains credence, arbitration, like the jury trial, will extend its sphere of usefulness until it too settles questions of honor. Nor need we imply from this analogy that it will take such an age to accomplish this result. Because of the increased mobility of society, resulting from the greater like-mindedness and consciousness of kind incident to our modern communities of interests and systems of communication, and from our greater susceptibility to rational rather than traditional appeals, a reform [Page 184] can be wrought more easily and the people can adjust themselves to the change far more readily than several centuries ago.

Bearing in mind, then, our attempted analysis of counter social forces at work, our deductions from this analysis and the foregoing analogy the significance of which grows out of the truth of these deductions, let us conclude with a suggestion as to what the next Hague Conference should attempt. It should, of course, like the former Conferences, extract as many teeth as possible from war. As to improving our arbitration facilities, its first task evidently should be to determine some method whereby members of the Judicial Arbitration Court shall be apportioned and selected. If, as has been suggested, it is decided to use the same scheme of apportionment as that for the International Court of Prize, the provision that each party to a case shall have a representative on the bench should be changed so as to provide that neither party shall have a representative on the bench. If this court is not to be a misnomer like the Permanent Court of Arbitration, its rulings must be in accord with the principles of jurisprudence rather than with the spirit of compromise such a provision would tend to produce. With this accomplished and the Judicial Court of Arbitration put in practical working order "of free and easy access" to the powers, it may be doubted whether anything further can be done. If the powers can be made to agree to submit to the court all cases growing out of the disputed interpretation of treaties, a great advance will have been made, but it is doubtful whether the present state of public opinion would indorse such a progressive step. These international [Page 185] legislators can do no more than provide channels through which the spirit of international peace can exercise itself as it expands, and the Judicial Court of Arbitration, at the optional use of the nations, conforms admirably to this requirement. The delegates should, therefore, avoid the universal tendency of such bodies to legislate too much. None of these Hague Conferences can alone accomplish the ultimate purpose of the so-called dreamers, but each Conference may be a landmark on the upward journey toward that consummation, anticipated by Utopians from the earliest times, foretold by prophets from Micah and Isaiah to Robert Burns and Tennyson, labored for by practical statesmen from Hugo Grotius to William H. Taft, when each man shall be a native of his state and a citizen of the world.

AUTHORITIES

For acts and conventions of Hague Conferences:

For data concerning proposed treaty with England:

For statistics of arbitration treaties:

For development of trial by jury:

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