Part 19

War cripples the nation physically by cutting off without posterity its strongest and boldest men. The key of national strength in the future is found in the good parentage of to-day. The basis of national greatness is indicated in the principles of Eugenics. To be well born is the first step to an effective life. "Like the seed is the harvest." This is the law of heredity. It applies to races of men as well as to breeds of horses or of sheep. No nation has ever fallen from leadership, intellectual or physical, save through breeding from inferior stock. The causes of all decline may be sought among these three factors, emigration, immigration, war. Rome fell when her streets swarmed with the sons of slaves, scullions, sutlers, adventurers, men who were not Romans. When, after her wars, internal and external, "Only cowards remained, and from their brood came forth the new generations." The culture of Greece passed away when war had obliterated the Greeks. "Send forth the best ye breed" and you will breed from the second best. First best, second best, third best and fourth among the yeomanry of Europe have been swallowed up in war in the "Obscene seas of slaughter" over which Europe has gloried and gloated through all these deluded ages.

The decline in the physique of the average man in France has been usually cited in evidence of this tendency. But the same causes have produced like effects in every warlike nation, and the decline in stature is one of the least important of the results of reversal of selection. These changes are just as marked in England and Scotland, as in France, and they are not wanting in Germany. The loss of dash and initiative is one of these results. Havelock Ellis observes: "The reckless Englishmen who boldly sailed out from their little island to fight the Spanish Armada were long ago exterminated; an admirably prudent and cautious race has been left alive." Better men would make better history. Braver men would not cower at the war scares of to-day. Men of character and initiative would not wallow in the London slums. The sons of those war could not use, swell the records of pauperism. It is not the strength of the strong but the weakness of the weak that invites and perpetuates paternalism and tyranny, two names for the same thing. "Slaves may have wrongs, but only free men have rights."

Another count against the War System, not unrelated to this, is its pollution of the blood of the race. The "White Slave Traffic" goes with the "Conscription Act," both outgrowths of the War System. Army movement and barrack life have been leading, though not exclusive, causes of the widespread diffusion of infectious diseases, one of the most alarming features of civilization to-day.

Another count against war, as yet scarcely realized, is found in the vandalisms by which it has destroyed so much of worth as well as of intellectual importance in the art and the architecture of the past. War respects nothing. It was German bombs which burned the library at Strassburg. The devastation of the art world is chargeable to war. As I write this there rise before me the paintings in the gallery at Munich, of the twenty-one cities of Greece, from Sparta to Corinth, from Eleusis to Salamis, not as they are now, largely fishing hamlets by the blue Ægean Sea, not as they were in the days of the glory of Greece--but as ruined arches and broken columns, half buried in the ashes of war, the war which blotted out Greece from the world history.

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It is plain that sooner or later such a system must come to an end. The influences that have abolished cannibalism, slavery, and religious persecution must in the end do away with international war. It seems also clear that this result will not be obtained primarily in any direct way by official action. The administrators of nations must follow public opinion rather than create it. Where public opinion demanded the burning of witches, the officials had only to see that it was done decently and in order. At the most, they could only limit the number to be consumed on any one occasion.

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What is our line of attack on the War System?

For the suppression of war we must have a public opinion. And this opinion must not rest only on the fact that war is brutal and hideous. That is only half the struggle. There are many good men to whom the brutal is also the heroic, and still others to whom evil methods are condoned by success. We must further convince the world, that is, the common man, the man on the street, that modern war attacks his pocket.

The modern phases of the Peace Movement differ from the earlier ones in being educational rather than emotional. The early workers were convinced that war was wicked and unholy, and with this they were usually content to rest their case.

With the same conviction as to the immorality of war, in the bottom of his heart, the modern worker tries to find the facts. What is the historical evolution of war? What are its effects, economic, biological, moral? What can be found as a national substitute? And side by side with the study of war and war problems, rises the fabric of international law. We may not say that the modern method is more righteous than the earlier, or even more effective. But the treatment of the subject from all its various points of view, and not mainly from that of morals and religion, reaches a much wider audience and has a more immediate effect upon public opinion.

It is an immediate purpose of the Peace Movement to make war a last resort, not the first one, in times of international differences. To this and every agency which tends to postpone action and give the blood time to cool, must contribute.

In civil life, there has been through the ages, a steady movement from violence to law, from the ordeal of private combat to the arbitration of the courts. In like fashion, we would extend and strengthen the parallel tendency among nations. Already arbitration is everywhere welcomed as a means of composing differences. Conciliation goes before arbitration and is a factor of equal importance. The very existence of an Arbitral Tribunal before which differences may be brought, itself insures that most differences will be adjusted without its agency. If war is really the last resort, very few nations will ever come to it, and the War System will decline through neglect, as of obvious uselessness.

But so long as the War System is in full force, there is always danger of war. So great an agency can never be fully under control. Its existence insures the presence of a powerful group of men, anxious to test its powerful machinery and impatient of civil authority. The War System is designed for war, defensive of course, but it is a maxim of war, as of football, that the best defense is to be the first to score.

As to the Arbitration treaties and the hundreds of disputes which have been settled for all time by the tribunals at The Hague, no verdict thus obtained has yet been rejected or opposed, and none is likely to be. The public opinion of the world would be as wholly opposed to the repudiation of an adverse verdict as it would be to the repudiation of a national debt. The verdict and the debt involve the same sanction of national honor.

The discussion as to the need of an international police to enforce decisions made at The Hague, is therefore wide of the mark as there can be no occasion for the use of force in such a connection.

It is becoming more and more evident in Europe that the greatest single asset of the Peace Movement is the success of the republic of America.

America is opposed to the War System. There is a much larger percentage of pacifists in the United States than in any other of the larger nations. For one thing, it is relatively easy to be a peace man in a republic. No criticism or obloquy attaches to it. But in Europe, the direction of least resistance is to follow the wake of the War System.

In spite of the unhallowed sums we have carelessly spent to build up a War System, we have none. We shall never have any. Should we pass under its yoke we should cease to be America. Even our admirals and generals do not belong to the War System. They are civilians in spirit, sometimes in disguise, but permeated with ideas of law and justice, a condition far removed from that of the professional war maker of the continent of Europe.

The impression of America as a great factor in international conciliation receives impetus with the celebration of the hundred years of Anglo-Saxon peace, with its lesson of the unguarded and therefore perfectly defended 4,000 miles of Canadian frontier. This impression has been strongly emphasized by the admirable skill by which President Wilson has up to the time of this writing, honorably avoided war with Mexico, a war which was considered inevitable in most political circles in Europe. While on the one hand the United States cannot have the secret treaty, the cherished tool of the War System since the days of Machiavelli, and while Democracy is a form of government fitted for minding one's own business, and for nothing else, it is recognized that the United States must and should take the lead in conciliation and in arbitration, as she is now taking the lead in furnishing means for a world-wide survey of the War System, and for the resultant propaganda for its abrogation.

THE MACHINERY FOR PEACE

It is understandable that Germany and Great Britain should consider their armies, their battleships, dreadnoughts, super-dreadnoughts, and invincibles as constituting the chief machinery for peace. In celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession to the imperial throne the Kaiser was hailed as "the true and central factor of the past peaceful policy of Germany." These were Lord Blyth's words, in recognizing the avowed policy of the Emperor to preserve peace through the utmost practicable preparation for war; and ex-President Taft, who would refer to arbitrators even questions of national honor, spoke of this apologist of arming for conflict between nations as the "greatest single individual force in the practical maintenance of the peace of the world." The Kaiser's silver jubilee was the signal for unstinted acknowledgment by the leading men of the world that His Majesty's policy had preserved the peace of the German Empire for a generation. In its exterior relations Germany had looked too terrible to encounter, and the romantic, warlike spirit that distinguishes the Teuton had found vent in the service of preparation. The young Germans, both aristocratic and bourgeois, were encouraged by every means to train, to show, to be martial, but not to fight. And it will be recalled that Germany refused to discuss the limiting of armaments at The Hague only because the Conference was not empowered to deal finally with it.

In response to the Czar's call, delegations of twenty-six Powers attended in 1899 the First Hague Conference; forty-three Powers were represented at the Second Conference in 1909. These gatherings formulated the world's opinion against many of the evils of war. Their agreements expressly forbade international bloodshed except between the actual fighting forces. They made it unlawful to sack cities, to take or destroy private property on land, or to menace the peace and safety of non-combatants. Those who observe that the nations have not yet agreed to do away with war overlook the fact that the non-combatant millions within belligerent nations may not be molested in lives or property, save that they must bear the war's financial burdens. With respect to most of the civilized dwellers of earth the sword is forever sheathed. Among the fighters, too, wounds are quickly bound, and quarter is expected and given.

The machinery of peace governing this world society is not complete. It provides a way of peaceful settlement of disputes by arbitration. It lacks a court such as that whose decisions, backed by police and the more potent sentiment of the people, guard the king's peace in civilized communities. But arbitration has done much to keep the peace of nations. The experience of the United States is in point. Up to the time of the Second Hague Conference Mr. John Bassett Moore finds records of more than sixty arbitrations, the tribunals sitting with overlapping terms of years that aggregate a hundred and twenty-five--exceeding in number the years of this nation's life. The total cost of these tribunals was doubtless much more than would have been the expense of an actual court kept always in session.

Before The Hague Conferences, the American Government had already been participating in what was tantamount to a permanent tribunal of arbitration. The questions adjusted were of every class, not merely pecuniary claims, but questions affecting what are called "vital interests and national honor." The case of the Creole, for instance, brought the United States and Great Britain close to war, and later, in 1842, nearly caused a rupture of the conferences between Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton--a rupture which would almost inevitably have led to hostilities. The case came before a tribunal of arbitration in 1853, and was so quietly disposed of that the public paid no attention to the award. Then there was the negotiation of the Alabama Claims by Hamilton Fish. Lord John Russell answered our proposal to Great Britain, that it involved the honor of Her Majesty's Government, of which it alone was guardian, and the claims were not subject to arbitration. After being examined and critically formulated, they were eight years later submitted to the tribunal at Geneva, and settled. Mr. Roosevelt, opposing President Taft's treaties of arbitration with Great Britain and France, objected that they would embrace "questions of vital interest and honor." Perhaps he had not studied the cases of the Creole and the Alabama.

The values involved in American arbitral proceedings have been enormous. More than a thousand claims were adjusted in cases of the United States against Mexico in 1868, and a thousand more counterclaims of Mexico were disposed of under one commission, the total amount involved being well over half a billion dollars. And the arbitral awards of the tribunals in which America participated have in every case been final. Not one of the awards to which the United States has been a party but was carried into effect by both Governments concurrently. In rare cases new facts discovered have reopened the proceedings, but on such occasions the parties proceeded to end them in a spirit of justice and equity.

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It was to nations trained in self-restraint that the Russian Emperor addressed his rescript of August 24, 1898, recognizing the fact that the preservation of peace had been put forward as the object of international policy. More terrible engines of destruction were being wrought, and the intellectual and physical strength of the nations, with their labor and capital, were diverted from their natural uses and wasted. Economic crises threatened the world because of war preparations, the while sentiment against war's devastation found concrete embodiment in arbitrated disputes. A conference was proposed to limit armaments, to prevent armed conflicts, and to mitigate the atrocities of war. The twenty-six nations that met at The Hague on May 18, following, codified the international laws of war and peace already existing. Delegates of the forty-three nations that met in the Second Conference on June 15, 1907, amended and strengthened these codes, added to them, and appointed the meeting of the Third Conference, to be held in 1915.

In the first two Conferences the rights and duties of neutrals were defined, the employment of force for the recovery of contract debts was renounced, and it was laid down that the "right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited." The bombardment of undefended towns was prohibited, together with the discharge of projectiles from balloons, the use of bullets that expand or flatten in the human body, the poisoning of wells, pillage, violation of "family honor," confiscation of private property, the laying of automatic contact mines that do not become speedily harmless, the seizing of submarine cables, destruction of monuments and works of art, and interference with religious customs. The killing treacherously of individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army or of those who have surrendered was outlawed and it was forbidden to make improper use of a flag of truce, or of the national or military colors of the enemy, or of the Red Cross badges.

The progress in these agreements reached by the Second Conference is notable, in that it forbade that the rights and acts of a member of the hostile nation be abolished, suspended, or regarded as inadmissible in a court of law; that a belligerent compel a man to fight against his own country, even though he were in the belligerent's service before the war broke out, or to force the inhabitants of seized territory to give information about the army of the other belligerent, or about its means of defense. While all appliances for transmission of news and for transport, whether by land, sea, or air, may be seized, together with depots of arms and all munitions of war--even if belonging to private individuals--they must be restored when peace is made, with due award of damages. The inhabitants of a territory are to be regarded as belligerents only if they "carry arms openly," and that is to be the test of their belligerency. Besides all this, the rights of prisoners of war are sedulously guarded.

This code, relating to the laws and customs of war, received what many critics of the Conferences regard as an undue amount of attention; it was even charged that, in effect, it legitimatized war. It did quite the contrary. Francis Lieber drew up for President Lincoln in the second year of the American civil war rules, which Lincoln ratified and promulgated in the famous General Orders No. 100--the first code regulating the conduct of armies in the field. The international convention drawn by the Brussels Conference of 1874, had its origin, as acknowledged by its President, Baron Jomini, in these rules of Lieber and of President Lincoln. To the United States honor is due, not for legitimatizing war between nations, but for beginning to restrict its operations to the actual fighters and their works of attack and defense. At The Hague the work of the Brussels Conference became in turn a basis for reaffirming this principle, and for restricting more closely the field of combat.

Moreover, the principles of the Geneva Red Cross Convention were adapted to naval war. Machinery for rescue and treatment of the sick, wounded, and shipwrecked men of the world's navies was provided.

An International Prize Court was established, which, in the opinion of Elihu Root, should later develop into the court of justice for the nations. The only obstacle to ratifying the convention for this court was swept away by the code of laws of naval war embodied in the Declaration of London, and drawn in February, 1909, by delegates of the European Powers and the United States. The liability to capture of the merchant ships of belligerents throws their commerce largely into the hands of neutrals. Efforts to prevent neutrals from trading with the enemy follow. Then blockades, searches, and seizure of contraband goods stir up strife with other nations, and give occasion for general war. The American war of 1812 with Great Britain resulted from such causes, the effects of which, again, the two nations barely escaped during our Civil War; and the sinking of British merchantmen by Russia during its war with Japan provoked strong resentment. Excepting two questions, those respecting the conversion of merchant ships into warships on the high seas, and as to whether the nationality or the domicile of the owner shall be considered in determining "enemy property," the London declaration embodies clear and definite rules on which the International Court of Prize may render just decisions.

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The measures for restricting the field of actual war were accompanied at The Hague by the erection of machinery for the pacific settlement of international disputes. That was work of prevention, and it was in four parts.

In the first part the contracting Powers agree to "use their best efforts to insure the pacific settlement of international differences."

The second provides that proffers of good offices and mediation by a third State, never shall be regarded as unfriendly. Throughout the Turko-Italian and Turko-Balkan Wars, and during the Inter-Balkan conflict, the European Powers acted as mediators under this provision, and smoothed the way to peace.

The third part provided for international commissions of inquiry, such as were comprehended in President Taft's proposed treaties of arbitration with Great Britain and France, and Secretary Bryan's proposed treaties with the Central American republics and with the Powers of Europe and Asia. The intent of these commissions is to investigate the causes of complaint and publish them, trusting to international public opinion to accomplish a just settlement. This machinery worked to bring about the voluntary payment by Russia of $300,000 damages for the destruction of British fishing boats, fired on mistakenly by Admiral Rozhdestvensky in his ill-fated expedition against Japan. Again, the report of a commission on the French steamer Tavignano, seized by the Italian torpedo boat Fulmine during the Turko-Italian War, and concerning the attack on the Tunisian mahones Kamouna and Gaulois, was accepted July 23, 1912, and referred for the final solution of equities to The Hague Court of Arbitration.

This court--the fourth instrumentality--is composed of three distinct bodies; namely, the Permanent Administrative Council, the International Bureau, and the Court of Arbitration proper. The Permanent Council is made up of the diplomatic envoys of the signatory Powers accredited to the Netherlands, besides the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs, and was constituted after its ratification by nine of the Powers. The Council is permanent in the sense that its members are always at The Hague; it controls the International Bureau, appointing its staff and methods of administration, and reporting the proceedings of the court to the signatory Powers.

The International Bureau receives all the documents and stipulations in disputed cases, where arbitration is agreed upon and referred to The Hague, acting as a board of registry. It places its staff at the disposal of tribunals of arbitration, and occasionally of those not constituted at The Hague, and its expenses are paid by the Powers.