Chapter 10

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? 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 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 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 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.

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

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,

Till the war drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furl'd In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World.

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 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.

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:

Glory to God in the highest, Peace on earth, good will toward men.

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 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. 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 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.

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

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.

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 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 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.