Part 22

The distance was ten paces. Both were excellent shots, and firing simultaneously, both fell, Baron seriously, and Decatur fatally wounded.

Baron lived thirty years, becoming the senior officer of the navy, but he never wholly reinstated himself in the good opinion of either his brother officers or the people of his country.

_Graves and Cilley_

Graves and Cilley were congressmen from Kentucky and Maine, respectively. Cilley, in debate in the House, reflected on the character of Mr. Webb, editor of the New York _Courier and Inquirer_, who sent a note by his friend Graves demanding an explanation. Not wanting a controversy with Webb, Cilley declined to receive the note, expressing his high respect for Graves. According, however, to the duellists' hair-line theory of honor, Cilley's refusal to receive the note from Graves implied a reflection upon the latter and after some correspondence Graves sent a challenge to Cilley, which he accepted.

They met on the road to Marlborough, Maryland, Graves attended by Mr. Wise, his second, and Cilley by his friend, Mr. Jones. The weapons were rifles, the distance about 92 yards. They exchanged two shots without effect. After each shot efforts were made to reach an accommodation, thwarted by Graves and his seconds. After the second, Graves said, "I must have another shot," and asked Wise to prevent a prolongation of the affair by proposing closer quarters, if they missed repeatedly. But at the third shot, Cilley dropped his rifle, cried, "I am shot," put both hands to his wound, fell, and in two or three minutes expired, shot through the body.

The committee of seven appointed by the House of Representatives to investigate this affair reported that early on the day on which Cilley met his unfortunate end, James Watson Webb, Daniel Jackson, and William H. Morell agreed to arm, repair to Cilley's rooms and force him to fight Webb with pistols on the spot, or pledge his word to give Webb a meeting before he did Graves. If Cilley would do neither, they agreed to shatter his right arm.

Finding Cilley was not at his lodgings, they went to Bladensburg, where it was said the duel was to take place. It was agreed that Webb would approach Cilley, claim the quarrel, insist on fighting him and assure him if he aimed at Graves, Webb would shoot him. Not finding the party at Bladensburg, they returned to the city to await the result of the duel. A statement drawn up by Webb, signed by Jackson and Morell, and published in the New York _Courier and Inquirer_, says: "It is unnecessary to add what would have been the course of Colonel Webb if Mr. Graves, instead of Mr. Cilley, had been injured. Suffice it to say that it was sanctioned by us and, however much we deplore it, we could not doubt but the extraordinary position in which he would have been placed would have warranted the course determined upon." It is difficult to imagine what is here darkly shadowed, if it be not that, had Cilley survived the encounter with Graves, and had the latter suffered it, it would then have been Cilley's fate to have encountered an assassin.

A prominent politician, Graves never fully recovered from his countrymen's universal condemnation of the killing of Cilley, who had tried in every honorable way to avoid the meeting. He did not die in as great disgrace as other duellists, but the affair marred his career.

_Terry and Broderick_

Terry was an advocate of the duello. Broderick had previously fought with a Mr. Smith.

Terry from Texas, Broderick from New York, went to California as Forty-Niners.

Both rose to prominence in politics. Terry became Chief Justice of the State, and Broderick a senator in Congress. Later they became political adversaries, Terry pro-slavery and Broderick anti-slavery.

While at breakfast in a San Francisco hotel, Broderick read an address Terry had delivered in Sacramento. Angered by something Terry had said, he remarked to a friend, "I have said that I considered him the only honest man on the supreme bench, but now I take it all back." A Mr. Perley, an English subject, asked Broderick if he meant Terry. Being answered "yes" he at once resented the reflection on Terry. Broderick cut him short with some curt remark, whereupon Perley challenged Broderick, but the latter declined because of the political canvass then in progress. On September 7, 1859, Broderick's party was overwhelmingly defeated, and he emerged from the contest dispirited and in ill health. As soon as Terry knew the result of the election, he tendered his resignation as chief justice and sent Broderick a note by his friend Benham, demanding a retraction of the remarks overheard by Perley. Admitting the words, Broderick observed Terry was "the best judge as to whether this language affords good grounds for offense." Terry sent a formal challenge by Benham, which Broderick accepted, and on September 13th they met.

Terry had passed a comfortable night, but Broderick's friends had taken him to a house where he got little rest, and he came on the field unrefreshed and without even a cup of coffee. The pistols had very delicate hair triggers, and Terry had practiced with them. They were strange to Broderick, and he had difficulty in handling them. When, according to the custom, the seconds searched both, McKibben, Broderick's second, merely touched Terry's vest. But Benham manipulated his hands up and down Broderick's person as though he thought to discover a coat of mail. This annoyed Broderick at a time when he needed to be calm. When word was given, Broderick fired and missed. Then Terry took deliberate aim and Broderick fell, fatally wounded.

The day of Broderick's funeral public sentiment changed suddenly in the late senator's favor, and against Terry. He lost standing in his party, and although a great lawyer and a universally popular man, became something of an outcast in California. He was indicted, but the case was transferred to another court and dismissed.

His end was violent. He had harbored resentment against Stephen J. Field, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, for a certain decision unfavorable to Terry's wife, widely known as Sarah Althea Hill, and also because he had not hesitated to send both Terry and his wife to jail for resisting and assaulting a United States marshal in open court. Field's friends were informed that Terry threatened violence, and when Field returned to California after Terry's release from jail he was accompanied by a deputy marshal as body guard. Terry sought Field, entered a restaurant where Field was seated, walked directly back of him and struck the venerable justice in the face. Nagle, the body guard, shot Terry, who died instantly.

These four duels are mentioned here because they involved citizens of the highest prominence. They proved clearly to the American people that King Gundobald's law that "Providence awards the victory to the juster cause" was wholly untenable.

After the Burr-Hamilton affair severe laws were passed against duelling; but the influence and power of its advocates rendered it difficult to get an indictment from a grand jury or a conviction from a petit jury. After the Terry-Broderick duel, however, it became easy, and so many convictions were obtained that this mode of trial was permanently banished from America. Today no one could give better evidence of unrighteous and murderous intentions than to challenge another to trial by combat.

It should not be difficult to draw an analogy between this barbarous and cruel method of trying so-called non-justiciable cases and that of the great and powerful nations, which make the same false claim that differences between them are non-justiciable and only to be settled by trial by combat.

If, as the world has decided, questions of honor between individuals are justiciable, it must also be true that no question of honor between nations is non-justiciable.

NATIONAL TRIAL BY COMBAT

Of the present war, I want to record my conviction that, as we are in it, whether wisely or no, it is the duty of every American to help prosecute it with all his abilities until peace is attained.

But of war in general, I have much to say. As personal trial by combat has disappeared from all civilized lands, so national trial by combat will, I believe, be abolished by force of public opinion, at no very distant date.

The manner in which this, the greatest of all reforms, can best be brought about has been with me a matter of the greatest interest, to which I have given much reflection.

My profession, and Nannie's attachment to it and to me, led us to see more of humanity than falls to the lot of most. We lived in almost every State and Territory in the Union, and in several foreign countries, mingling with many races. We knew the negro, a short time as slaves, but for over fifty years emerged from bondage, as household help, as soldiers and as citizens. We learned their racial instincts, hopes, aspirations and ambitions. As closely, in service with and over them, we knew the wild Indians. We knew closely and intimately, both officially and in private life, the misunderstood Mexicans, and the Chinese and Japanese, who are so misunderstood by our own people.

This intercourse with many races taught us that men in their instincts, hopes, ambitions, passions and dislikes are much the same the world over, and that no race or nation can claim any very great superiority over any other. In the inherent desire to be of use, all have practically the same good purposes as far as environment will permit, and as it is given them to see. Those whose efforts win greater academic civilization and consequently greater power often develop a mistaken sense of duty to compel less fortunate neighbors to take on suddenly that state of civilization and progress they have been thousands of years in acquiring, arguing that it is "_Manifest Destiny_" that they could do better with these people and their belongings than they could do themselves. It is a short step to the further mistaken doctrine that "_The End Justifies the Means_," and the means is always conquest and subjugation by the doctrine that "_Might Makes Right_."

This logic consolidated the different German nations into one central power, and, under the present Kaiser, organized a militarism for the purpose of conquering and subjugating the world. Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar and Spain's rulers, accomplished and maintained wicked and tyrannous powers for an average of 300 years. When oppression became unbearable, their subjects freed themselves by bloody rebellions.

Lately England (by destroying the Spanish Armada and building one of her own) began ruling all the seas and straits of the world, its commerce and trade "by orders in council," confiscating the mail, censoring the news of the world, and is no less arbitrary in controlling the sea and commerce by navalism than those who controlled the land by militarism.

England, however, during the last three hundred years, has been more beneficent and benevolent than any of her predecessors. The best ruler the world has ever had, she abandoned to some extent her right to rule the land by allying herself with some of the most powerful nations of the world, while maintaining rule of the seas by overwhelming navalism.

Though we are now her ally, Americans should ponder well what our position in the world will be after the present war.

Flags of truce, if they should appear today, would find about 40 millions of soldiers of the seventeen combative nations in arms, who have taken captive, in fair proportion, some 4,500,000 prisoners, who are now face to face with their captors, learning each other's language, their hopes, and aspirations and arguing, none altogether without reason, their aims in the war.

This, like the conditions of our own Civil War, presents the grandest peace table ever known to history, all having been eye witnesses, and for the most part, unwilling participants in the despotic cruelties, participated in more or less by all the armies, formulating an enduring peace without vainglorious victory in contradistinction to their secretive, vengeful rulers, the politicians and diplomats who would have no peace without vainglorious victory.

In the years to come, these unselfish arbitrators may prevail and establish the principles of a democratic peace and a confederacy of the world's nations to control it. This must come not only on land, but on all the seas and straits and in commerce, for a democratic peace is just as necessary for the betterment of humanity on the seas as on the land. An oligarchal government of the seas and straits is just as detrimental to the peace and prosperity of the world as an oligarchal government anywhere else. In the face of a peace of this character insincere and unrighteous formulations will melt away as did those of the politicians, diplomats, carpetbaggers and Ku Klux before the well formed judgment of the "Blue and the Gray" engaged in our Civil War by which we were enabled to establish an enduring peace without vainglorious victory.

Peace will leave at least 40 millions of the most efficient small arms ever known, probably 10 million machine guns of the same character; three hundred thousand cannon, large and small; thousands of war-ships, all with corresponding munitions and equipments for which the world will then have little use.

Peace will find most of these soldiers with three or four times their number employed as accessories to the army, discharged without vocation, and, perhaps, 100 million expatriated citizens, poor, helpless and starving men, women and children, wandering on the face of the earth. All these several hundred millions must be provided for in food, shelter and raiment. How to do it will be the greatest problem mankind has ever faced.

The bonded indebtedness of the world is, perhaps, today 100 billions, and after flags of truce are flying, it will necessitate, perhaps, one or two years to compose a satisfactory peace among the many nations at war; so, that before it will be practicable to disarm and free these hundreds of millions of unemployed, the bonded indebtedness will probably increase to 200 billions. If it be attempted to enforce the punitive doctrine that "to the victors belong the spoils," it is obvious that it would be wholly impossible for the victors to maintain these bonds and maintain their national armies necessary to enforce reparations and indemnities, and the world would be compelled to face at least a partial repudiation. It would take hundreds of years for the vanquished to indemnify and repair, and hundreds of billions to support the necessary armies to enforce the penalties. Whereas, if the individual nations could be relieved of the support of armies and navies, they could readily indemnify and restore themselves in twenty years, and advantageously charge the expense to "Profit and Loss."

To palliate and partially remedy this distressing situation, three courses may be presented to the American people:

=_First._ An alliance with the victorious nations claiming new-found democratic emperors by Divine right, (hereditary royal families, lords and nobles), for the future preservation of the peace of the world. Such an alliance could hardly prove more successful in the future than similar alliances have proven in the past, and would only engender and breed similar opposing alliances in a comparatively short space of time, probably embracing the yellow races, which would produce a similar world war, besides which it would make "scraps of paper" of our Constitution framed by Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, and Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people and for the people."=

=_Second._ Apparently a better remedy: a policy of isolation carried out by building ships for coast defense only, by girding our seacoast and our international borders with a broad gauge national railway, capable of carrying the heaviest ordnance and transporting strong armies rapidly; by building emplacements, magazines and trenches, and manufacturing and storing at strategic points heavy artillery, small arms, ammunition and equipment for at least two million men; forming a regular army of several hundred thousand men with pay equal to, or even greater, than that of other government employees, to serve but one short enlistment. When thoroughly trained and disciplined, they would be returned to civil life subject to call in an emergency. This in a few years would provide several million efficient soldiers. With the present airplane scouts the approach of any foe could be detected and announced so as to assemble an army either on the land or seashore that would destroy any possible force that could approach us. America is better situated for such isolation than any other quarter of the globe that nature has given to a homogeneous people, because we produce all the necessities of life. The rest of the world would be obliged to make terms with us for the necessities they can not live without, of which fact this war is a perfect exemplification.=

=_Third._ Certainly the most promising and feasible course, if the tyranny of the world's custom can be overcome as it has been in personal trial by combat, is to federate all the nations of the world under a constitution similar to the constitution of the original thirteen States, now the greatest nation in the world, and that of the Swiss cantons, now the oldest fundamentally unchanged government in the world.=

=This plan ought to be offered at the coming peace table with the United States a controlling factor in its accomplishment. We will be stronger, less impoverished, less distressed and less bitterly antagonistic than any of the other warring nations, with a President capable of leading his people, known to be in sympathy with control of the world's peace.=

=A spontaneous call from the peace societies of America is suggested for a convention of all the nations of the earth having a population of three million or more, with a democratic or republican government with powers derived from the consent of the governed, to consider a confederacy of the world's nations, to which all should be invited to enter by "knocking at the door," and subscribing to the constitution then to be formed.=

=That the nations so confederated should take over all the seas, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, those at Dover and Calais, those between Japan and Korea and the Panama Canal, together with adequate adjacent lands, and build tunnels thereunder and maintain them free to the passage of persons and property of all nations save those who may fail to confederate.=

=That this confederacy should have as its main feature the establishment of an itinerant arbitral government with, perhaps, five capitals, say, at these straits so taken over.=

=The world government should consist of a Congress of not over two senators from each nation, and not over four hundred representatives, proportioned to the population of each nation, selected in the constitutional manner of each nation. The government should be executive, legislative and judicial; the executive chosen by the Senate, to choose his cabinet from the Senate. All government officers would serve a limited number of years, save the judges, who would serve for life. The government to sit five years at each capital in turn.=

=That the nations so confederated should take over, intern and maintain in approximate equal portions at the five mentioned points, all instrumentalities of the nations confederated for the destruction of life and property in international wars, not necessary for the preservation of law and order within the respective nations, or, required by the police force of the confederacy to guarantee to nations confederated, free passage through all the seas, straits, canals and tunnels under its control, of all persons, ships and commerce.=

=That the National police collect from nations who fail to confederate a toll at least equal to their proportion of the total expenses of the confederated administration.=

=That each nation reciprocally with others, control within their own borders, citizenship, migration, emigration, taxation, militia and police for the preservation and maintenance of their laws, but no nation, whether of the confederacy or not to be permitted to have armed vessels at sea.=

=Any nation, whether a member of the confederacy or not, would have the right to present a grievance, if it agreed to abide the decision of the confederacy's court. No nation, whether of the confederacy or not, would be allowed to disturb the peace of the world by entering into war with any other nation without first presenting its grievance to the world's court and obtaining permission therefrom.=

=Nations, like individuals, often have wrongs without adequate remedies, which are better served to the general good by waiving them to other nations as individuals do to their communities.=

HONOLULU

In 1915 Nannie and I spent some time at the exposition at San Francisco. Previous visits to many other international expositions enabled us intelligently to understand the superiorities of the various exhibits. We thought the best showing, outside of our own country, was made by Canada, the next best by Germany, and the third best by the Japanese.

From there we went to Honolulu, spending a month in the most interesting island of Oahu. Stopping at the Moana Hotel, we enjoyed our visit there perhaps as well as any we ever made. Numerous friends, our favorite nephew, Captain Carl Anson Martin, with his interesting wife, Agnes, among them, showed us many courtesies. We visited every place of interest, and particularly enjoyed watching the wonderful surf riding. Many journeys in the mountains showed us the sea from all directions. Captain Martin took us to Tantalus Beach, where, though we were old people, we were able to climb five hundred feet of the ruggedest part of Tantalus, a mountain some twenty-five hundred feet high, with the younger ones. I believe Nannie was as strong and vigorous and enjoyed her outing as much as she did forty years before.

The island has a population of about one hundred and fifty thousand, only seven per cent native Americans, the rest Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese. The original Hawaiians have practically disappeared from the earth as a result of so-called missionary efforts to Christianize them by presenting them with a Bible with the right hand and a bottle of rum with the left.

This mixed population presents a most embarrassing problem. Race prejudices of the few Americans who claim to control officially, politically, and socially the destiny of the island will not permit them to allow their children to attend the very efficient public schools. This creates classes as in England and other autocratic nations. By separation of growing citizens, division of the people against their so-called American rulers will soon result. People of alien nationalities, estranged from their rulers, will hardly help maintain our government. Although I have never seen our other insular possessions, I fear the same danger and embarrassment regarding the perpetuity of the republic exists there also.

Hawaii has a most interesting museum presided over by Professor William T. Brigham, of Boston, a man of about my age, who has spent most of his life on the island. He told us much of interest about the climate, animals, flowers, shrubbery and forests. On the Boundary Commission I learned to determine the age of trees by their girdles of growth, caused by the frost driving the sap down during the winter. I asked Professor Brigham whether in a tropical torrid climate where there was no return of sap to the earth these girdles existed. He showed me a cut from a large tree with its cross section polished, showing no sign of girdles. The growth is constant and solid.