Chapter 9

Bryan went down to defeat again in 1900, on this new issue, and as usual epitaphs were written over his political grave. It is a favorite parlor game; but Bryan never stays dead, because there is something enduring in him. What is it? That same spokesmanship for the average man of many regions, the man of the little parlor with the melodeon or parlor organ, the plush-bound photograph album and the "History of the San Francisco Earthquake" bought by subscription from a book agent, and the grandfather's clock in the corner of the hall.

But in 1904 the Democratic leaders, tired of defeat, turned desperately to the opposite wing of the party. The radical leaders, really opportunists, forswore or hid their convictions for the sake of victory, tried to teach their unskillful tongues the language of conservatism, and joined in with the conservatives in the nomination of Parker. But Bryan did not yield; he forswore nothing, hid nothing, and he fought a lonely fight, the bravest of his life.

His fight was of one man against a multitude. Alone, he had to be everywhere; he was in the Committee on Resolutions, in the Committee on Credentials, on the floor of the convention, speaking, fighting, working, twenty hours a day. He had no one to help him; all his fellows were on the other side, strangling their convictions and fighting against him. He was insulted on the platform, even by fellow-radicals; he was elbowed aside and snarled at by men who had been more radical than himself; attempts were made to deny him a hearing. Nothing could daunt him or perturb him; he fought on until Parker was nominated, went to his hotel at dawn as the convention adjourned, and fell into his bed in utter collapse. A doctor was summoned, who said that Bryan must instantly give up all work and undergo treatment.

That evening the news came that Parker had refused to run unless the word "gold" was written into the platform; the convention was thrown into panic; the sick man rose from his bed and entered the wild and turbulent hall, white-faced, breathing with difficulty, sweat pouring down his face, and there took up the work again, single-handed still. He fought on all night, was defeated again, and went under the doctor's hands. Those speeches in that convention were really the greatest of his life, though they may not read as well as others; each of them was a battle.

Parker's defeat by Roosevelt again erased that ever-recurring epitaph over Bryan's political grave. It was evident at once that nothing could prevent him from being again the candidate in 1908. Again he was defeated, and again the epitaph was jubilantly rewritten. He was extinguished, he would never again be an influence in the party; it was, to use the phrase of 1896, 1900, and 1904, "the end of Bryan."

Again the epitaph had to be erased. He was so far from being extinguished that he became the dominating force of the convention of 1912. There is no doubt in the mind of the writer, who was there, that Bryan had given up all hope of running for President, because, as he expressed it in a thrilling midnight speech at that convention, he recognized at last that he had too many enemies ever to expect to win. But he did determine to be a king-maker if he could not be a king, and king-maker he was.

Not even the convention of 1904 showed Bryan in better light as a fighter than that of 1912. He was determined that the reactionaries should not control the convention. At the beginning he was defeated, but defeat never affected Bryan in the least in all his life, and this time, as usual, he only went on fighting. When the convention rejected him for Temporary Chairman and elected Parker, the embodiment of all he opposed, he merely took a fresh hold and fought harder.

When he swung Nebraska from Champ Clark to Wilson he had won, and thereafter Wilson's nomination was only a question of time. He was the centre of violent scenes, as when maddened men swept down upon him and shook their standards in his face and seemed on the verge of assaulting him. When he tried to get a hearing and the opposition shouted him down, he simply climbed up on the platform beside the Chairman and forced them to hear. Once, while the whole convention seemed to be yelling at him, and he stood in the midst of a whirlwind of angry noise, ex-Governor McCorkle of West Virginia, jumping up and facing him, shrieked in a voice heard above the cyclone: "Are you a Democrat?"

"My Democracy has been certified to by six and a half million voters. But," pointing his palm-leaf fan at McCorkle, with magnificent contempt, "I will ask the secretary to record one vote in the negative if the gentleman will give me his name."

He won; Wilson was nominated. He brought his great following into line for an Eastern man, and Wilson was elected. The new President, following a precedent set by Taylor, Garfield, and Harrison, made him Secretary of State.

Then Bryan showed a new side of his character to the country. He effaced himself in Wilson's interest; he became a loyal subordinate, accepting a minor place cheerfully and laboring with might and main to make the Administration a success. It is chiefly due to his efforts that it was one for its first two years. The new President was unknown to most of his party, and the legislation he recommended would have met with internal opposition but for Bryan. The Secretary whipped his followers into line even for legislation so repugnant to them as the Currency bill, and the Presidential program went through. In two years Mr. Wilson had become a definite personality to the country, and had a following of his own; but his initial success was due to Bryan, and but for Bryan Mr. Wilson might have had to face a party as divided as did Cleveland, and might have seen his Administration wrecked as Cleveland's was.

Mr. Bryan hoped to make an enduring name for himself as Secretary of State. In the years that had elapsed since he was Colonel of the Third Nebraska he had become an ardent pacifist, and he dreamed of going into history with a title greater than that of any other statesman who ever lived--for such, surely, would have been the meed of the man who abolished war. That mind of his, honest as the day, but far from great; strong but not broad, sees everything as simple, not as complex. Is there a wrong? Why, then, abolish it; it is as simple as A B C. War is wrong; therefore let us stop it. How? Why, get everybody to agree not to fight without taking a year to look into the thing. And he busied himself drafting and negotiating treaties with all the world to get it to agree to this simple but certain remedy. The "glorified circuit rider" was at the head of the Department of State of the United States. If anybody had suggested to him that there were nations which no treaty could bind, he would have answered, in the style of the prayer-meeting exhorter, "Ah! I have a higher faith in human nature." So he worked busily, building himself his niche in the temple of fame, and meanwhile the greatest war in history broke out.

With such a mind as has been described, it is evident that this event could not shake Mr. Bryan's confidence in himself or his remedies. To him it was obvious that the war came because the nations involved had not signed his treaty; if they had, Germany would have abided by it; would not have dreamed of treating it as a scrap of paper; would have waited the prescribed year, and Austria would have given Serbia the same time to reply to her ultimatum. The mischief was done, but he set about heroically to repair it; he sought to have the United States intervene as a peacemaker; he sought to prevent the United States from protecting its citizens on the high seas, since that seemed likely to lead to war; and at last, finding his efforts of no avail, he resigned.

No one who had seen him in his unequal fights for his principles on less momentous occasions could doubt that he would fight for them to the end on this greatest one. There is no parallel to his action in American history. So far as its political aspects are concerned, the nearest thing to it is Blaine's resignation from Harrison's Cabinet in 1892; but that only faintly resembles it. Blaine did not resign because of any difference in principles, but because he wanted to fight the Administration; and the superficial resemblance lies only in the similarity of the relations of the two Presidents to their Secretaries of State.

Bryan leaves the Cabinet saddened, but not disillusioned. When he had been Secretary of State two months he said that he would not have taken office "if I thought there was to be a war during my tenure." "I believe," he added, "there will be no war while I am Secretary of State, and I believe there will be no war so long as I live." It has not come out that way; it might have so easily come out that way if only Germany had signed that treaty of his! But he is not disillusioned; nothing can disillusion him; his ideal is still only a day or two ahead of him, and he resigns to fight for it, since fight for it in the Cabinet he cannot any longer.

In the Name of Peace.

By LAVINIA V. WHITNEY.

(After Kipling.)

When the last of the soldiers has fallen, and the cannons lie twisted aside, When the last of all homes has been ruined, and the heart of the youngest girl bride, We shall wake from our terrible madness, and pause for an eon or two, Till the Master of all the good soldiers shall call us to battle anew.

Then those that were brave shall be braver--they shall love with a love more fair; They shall hear, o'er a worldwide battlefield, the Voice of their God in the air; They shall have the real saints for their comrades--Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; They shall fight unembittered, and never again shall be weary at all.

And only the Master shall praise us, for only the Master shall lead; And no one shall fight for his country, and none for his honor or creed; But each for the Master Who loves him, and Teuton and Briton and all Shall fight, each the cause of the other, for the God of the Love of us All!

A World League to Enforce Peace

By William Howard Taft, ex-President of the United States.

President Wilson on June 15 denied the statement, cabled from Europe, that the United States was the only great neutral Government that had not encouraged the movement among neutral nations looking to a conference of neutrals to end the European conflict. To this Government, said the President, answering a direct inquiry, had been given no more opportunity than everybody knew in furthering a neutral movement for peace. He stated that this Government had supported everything of the sort as far as it could legitimately. It had done everything that was for peace and accommodation, he added. But the great drawback has been that none of the warring Governments has directly, that is officially, indicated that it would respond sympathetically to any suggestion that it become a party to a movement to end the war. The idea of a league of neutral nations, having for its object a concerted effort to bring about peace, is reported to be in the back of the President's mind, and members of the Cabinet have given some thought to the suggestion, which might contemplate the firm maintenance of neutral rights if peace could not be obtained, but the situation has not developed to a point where the American Government is ready to make a definite move.

Meanwhile, as the outgrowth of a series of meetings held in the Century Club, New York, terminating in a call for a conference signed by a National Provisional Committee of 109 members headed by ex-President Taft, an organization known as the League to Enforce Peace, American Branch, was formed on June 17, 1915, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The purpose of the conference was explained by Mr. Taft in his address as President, which appears in full below.

My fellow-seekers after peace, we thank you for your cordial greeting. In calling this meeting my associates and I have not been unaware that we might be likened to the tailors of Tooley Street, who mistook themselves for the people of England. We wish first to say that we do not represent anybody but ourselves. We are not national legislators, nor do we control the foreign policy of this Government. A number of us were invited to dinner at the Century Club (New York) by four generous hosts, who were deeply interested in devising a plan for an international agreement by which, when this present war shall cease, a recurrence of such a war will be made less probable.

We are not here to suggest a means of bringing this war to an end; much as that is to be desired and much as we would be willing to do to obtain peace, that is not within the project of the present meeting.

We hope and pray for peace, and our hope of its coming in the near future is sufficient to make us think that the present is a good time to discuss and formulate a series of proposals to which the assent of a number of the great powers could be secured. _We think a League of Peace could be formed that would enable nations to avoid war by furnishing a practical means of settling international quarrels, or suspending them until the blinding heat of passion had cooled._

When the World Conference is held our country will have its official representatives to speak for us. "We, Tailors of Tooley Street," will not be there, but if, in our sartorial leisure, we shall have discussed and framed a practical plan for a league of peace, our official representatives will be aided and may in their discretion accept it and present it to the conference as their own.

There are Tooley Streets in every nation today and the minds of earnest men are being stirred with the same thought and the same purpose. We have heard from them through various channels. The denizens of those Tooley Streets will have their influence upon their respective official representatives. No man can measure the effect upon the peoples of the belligerent countries and upon the peoples of the neutral countries--the horrors and exhaustion that this unprecedented war is going to have. It is certain they all will look with much more favorable eye to leagues for the preservation of peace than ever before.

_In no war has the direct interest that neutrals have in preventing a war between neighbors been so closely made known._

This interest of neutrals has been so forced upon them that it would require only a slight development and growth in the law of international relations to develop that interest into a right to be consulted before such a war among neighbors can be begun. This step we hope to have taken by the formation of a Peace League of the Great Powers, whose primary and fundamental principle shall be that no war can take place between any two members of the league until they have resorted to the machinery that the league proposes to furnish to settle the controversy likely to lead to war.

If any member refuses to use this machinery and attacks another member of the league in breach of his league obligation, all members of the league agree to defend the members attacked by force.

We do not think the ultimate resort to force can be safely omitted from an effective League of Peace. We sincerely hope that it may never become necessary, and that the deterrent effect of its inevitable use in case of a breach of the league obligation will help materially to give sanction to the laws of the league and to render a resort to force avoidable.

We are not peace-at-any-price men, because we do not think we have reached the time when a plan based on the complete abolition of war is impracticable. So long as nations partake of the frailties of men who compose them, war is a possibility, and that possibility should not be ignored in any League of Peace that is to be useful. We do not think it necessary to call peace-at-any-price men cowards or apply other epithets to them. We have known in history the most noble characters who adhered to such a view and yet whose physical and moral courage is a heritage of mankind.

To those who differ with us in our view of the necessity for this feature of possible force in our plan, we say we respect your attitude. We admit your claim to sincere patriotism to be as just as ours. We do not ascribe your desire to avoid war to be a fear of death to yourselves or your sons; but rather to your sense of the horrors, injustice, and ineffectiveness of settling any international issue by such a brutal arbitrament. Nevertheless, we differ with you in judgment that, in the world of nations as they are, war can be completely avoided.

_We believe it is still necessary to use a threat of overwhelming force of a great league with a willingness to make the threat good in order to frighten nations into a use of rational and peaceful means to settle their issues with their associates of the league._ Nor are we militarists or jingoes. We are trying to follow a middle path.

Now what is the machinery, a resort to which we wish to force an intending belligerent of the league--it consists of two tribunals, to one of which every issue must be submitted. Issues between nations are of two classes:

First--Issues that can be decided on principles of international law and equity, called justiciable.

Second--Issues that cannot be decided on such principles of law and equity, but which might be quite as irritating and provocative of war, called non-justiciable.

The questions of the Alaskan boundary, of the Bering Sea seal fishing, and of the Alabama Claims were justiciable issues that could be settled by a court, exactly as the Supreme Court would settle claims between States. The questions whether the Japanese should be naturalized, whether all American citizens should be admitted to Russia as merchants without regard to religious faith, are capable of causing great irritation against the nation denying the privilege, and yet such nations, in the absence of a treaty on the subject, are completely within their international right, and the real essence of the trouble cannot be aided by a resort to a court. The trouble is non-justiciable.

_We propose that for justiciable questions we shall have an impartial court to which all questions arising between members of the league shall be submitted._ If the court finds the question justiciable, it shall decide it. If it does not, it shall refer it to a Commission of Conciliation to investigate, confer, hear argument, and recommend a compromise.

We do not propose to enforce compliance either with the court's judgment or the Conciliation Commission's recommendations. We feel that we ought not to attempt too much--we believe that the forced submission and the truce taken to investigate the judicial decision or the conciliatory compromise recommended will form a material inducement to peace. It will cool the heat of passion, and will give the men of peace in each nation time to still the jingoes.

The League of Peace will furnish a great opportunity for more definite formulation of the principles of international law. The arbitral court will amplify it and enrich it in their application of its general principles to particular cases. They will create a body of Judge-made law of the highest value. Then the existence of the league will lead to ever-recurring congresses of the league, which, acting in a quasi-legislative capacity, may widen the scope of international law in a way that a court may not feel able or competent to do.

This is our plan. It is not so complicated--at least, in statement. In its practical application difficulties now unforeseen may arise, but we believe it offers a working hypothesis upon which a successful arrangement can be made.

We are greeted first by the objection that no treaties can prevent war. We are not called upon to deny this in order to justify or vindicate our proposals as useful. We realize that nations sometimes are utterly immoral in breaking treaties and shamelessly bold in avowing their right to do so on the ground of necessity; but this is not always the case. We cannot give up treaties because sometimes they are broken any more than we can give up commercial contracts because men sometimes dishonor themselves in breaking them. We decline to assume that all nations always are dishonorable, or that a solemn treaty obligation will not have some deterrent effect upon a nation that has plighted its faith to prevent its breach. _When we add to this the sanction of an agreement by a number of powerful nations to enforce the obligation of the recalcitrant and faithless member, we think we have a treaty that is much more than a "scrap of paper"--and we base our faith in this on a common-sense view of human nature._

It is objected that we propose only to include the more powerful nations. We'll gladly include them all. But we don't propose to have the constitution of our court complicated by a demand for equal representation of the many smaller nations. We believe that when we have a league of larger powers the smaller powers will be glad to come in and enjoy the protection that the league will afford against the unjust aggression of the strong against the weak.

It is suggested that we invite a conference of neutral nations to bring about measures for present peace and to formulate demands as to the protection of neutral rights. This may be a good plan, but, as Kipling says, that is another story.

The League to Enforce Peace

Personnel and Text of the Resolutions Adopted

RESOLUTIONS.

[Adopted in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, June 17, 1915.]

Throughout 5,000 years of recorded history, peace, here and there established, has been kept, and its area has been widened, in one way only. Individuals have combined their efforts to suppress violence in the local community. Communities have co-operated to maintain the authoritative state and to preserve peace within its borders. States have formed leagues or confederations or have otherwise co-operated to establish peace among themselves. Always peace has been made and kept, when made and kept at all, by the superior power of superior numbers acting in unity for the common good.

Mindful of this teaching of experience, we believe and solemnly urge that the time has come to devise and to create a working union of sovereign nations to establish peace among themselves and to guarantee it by all known and available sanctions at their command, to the end that civilization may be conserved, and the progress of mankind in comfort, enlightenment, and happiness may continue.

We, therefore, believe it to be desirable for the United States to join a league of nations binding the signatories to the following:

1. All justiciable questions arising between the signatory powers, not settled by negotiations, shall, subject to the limitations of treaties, be submitted to a judicial tribunal for hearing and judgment, both upon the merits and upon any issue as to its jurisdiction of the question.

2. All other questions arising between the signatories and not settled by negotiation shall be submitted to a Council of Conciliation for hearing, consideration, and recommendation.

3. The signatory powers shall jointly use forthwith both their economic and military forces against any one of their number that goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, against another of the signatories before any question arising shall be submitted as provided in the foregoing.