PART III
TOWARDS THE FUTURE
THE NEW OUTLOOK
[Sidenote: The war, a Katharsis for humanity.]
No one dare predict just what the end of this world war will be, or when that end will come. It is possible, of course, that this cataclysm marks the end of centuries of progress, and it is possible that man in 1914 crossed over the watershed of civilization and is now to descend on the other side towards steadily growing barbarism and the steadily extending rule of force. That I say is possible; but I for one am an unconquerable optimist. I prefer to read history differently and to see in this appalling catastrophe what the Greek called a _katharsis_, a cleansing of the spirit. I prefer to think of it as history’s way of teaching beyond peradventure or dispute the fallacy and the folly of the old ways and the old policies. Surely that struggle for the balance of power which the historian Stubbs described as the principle which gives unity to the plot of modern history,—surely that struggle has proved its futility. Surely we can see the vanity of Ententes and Alliances and of a division of the world into heavily armed camps each waiting for an opportunity or for an excuse to pounce upon the other. Surely the international politics of a Palmerston, or a Disraeli, or a Bismarck, striking and splendid as they were in their own way,—surely those policies are put behind us and are outgrown forever.
A democratic federated people can teach the world democracy and the use of the federative principle. A people devoted to civil liberty and to international honor, no less lightly held than the honor of an individual—that people can teach the world the foundations upon which to rebuild the shattered fabric of international law and of broken treaties.
[Sidenote: We must think internationally!]
The outlook before the people of the United States has changed. When Joseph Chamberlain returned from South Africa his message to the people of Great Britain was: “You must learn to think imperially.” The message which any American alive to the world’s situation to-day must bring to his fellow citizens is, you must learn to think internationally! Domestic policies and problems are perhaps no less important than they have been in the past, but by their side and for the immediate future surpassing them in interest and in importance are the international problems and the international policies of the people of the United States. For those problems and for those policies we must prepare—prepare thoughtfully, seriously, speedily; for when the war shall be ended, we may truly say, as Gambetta said to the French people forty-five years ago, “Now that the danger is past, the difficulties begin.”
_Nicholas Murray Butler, Address at 147th Annual Banquet of Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, Nov. 18, 1915._
ABOVE THE BATTLE
[Sidenote: The tragedy and heroism of self-sacrificing youth!]
O young men that shed your blood with so generous a joy for the starving earth! O heroism of the world! What a harvest for destruction to reap under this splendid summer sun! Young men of all nations, brought into conflict by a common ideal, making enemies of those who should be brothers; all of you, marching to your death, are dear to me. Slavs, hastening to the aid of your race; Englishmen fighting for honor and right; intrepid Belgians who dared to oppose the Teutonic colossus, and defend against him the Thermopylæ of the West; Germans fighting to defend the philosophy and the birthplace of Kant against the Cossack avalanche; and you, above all, my young compatriots, in whom the generation of heroes of the Revolution lives again; you, who for years have confided your dreams to me, and now, on the verge of battle, bid me a sublime farewell....
O my friends, may nothing mar your joy! Whatever fate has in store, you have risen to the pinnacle of earthly life, and borne your country with you. And you will be victorious. Your self-sacrifice, your courage, your whole-hearted faith in your sacred cause, and the unshaken certainty that, in defending your invaded country, you are defending the liberty of the world—all this assures me of your victory, young armies of the Marne and Meuse, whose names are graven henceforth in history by the side of your elders of the Great Republic. Yet even had misfortune decreed that you should be vanquished, and with you France itself, no people could have aspired to a more noble death. It would have crowned the life of that great people of the Crusades—it would have been their supreme victory. Conquerors or conquered, living or dead, rejoice! As one of you said to me, embracing me on the terrible threshold: “A splendid thing it is to fight with clean hands and a pure heart, and to dispense divine justice with one’s life.”
[Sidenote: But have the leaders done their duty by you!]
You are doing your duty, but have others done theirs? Let us be bold and proclaim the truth to the elders of these young men, to their moral guides, to their religious and secular leaders, to the Churches, the great thinkers, the leaders of socialism; these living riches, these treasures of heroism you held in your hands; for what are you squandering them? What ideal have you held up to the devotion of these youths so eager to sacrifice themselves? Their mutual slaughter! A European war! A sacrilegious conflict which shows a maddened Europe ascending its funeral pyre, and, like Hercules, destroying itself with its own hands!
And thus the three greatest nations of the West, the guardians of civilization, rush headlong to their ruin, calling in to their aid Cossacks, Turks, Japanese, Cingalese, Soudanese, Senegalese, Moroccans, Egyptians, Sikhs and Sepoys—barbarians from the poles and those from the equator, souls and bodies of all colors. It is as if the four quarters of the Roman Empire at the time of the Tetrarchy had called upon the barbarians of the whole universe to devour each other.
Is our civilization so solid that you do not fear to shake the pillars on which it rests? Can you not see that all falls in upon you if one column be shattered? Could you not have learned if not to love one another, at least to tolerate the great virtues and the great vices of each other? Was it not your duty to attempt—you have never attempted it in sincerity—to settle amicably the questions which divided you, the problem of peoples annexed against their will, the equitable division of productive labor and the riches of the world? Must the stronger forever darken the others with the shadow of his pride, and the others forever unite to dissipate it? Is there no end to this bloody and puerile sport, in which the partners change about from century to century—no end, until the whole of humanity is exhausted thereby?
[Sidenote: The cowardice of fatalism!]
The rulers who are the criminal authors of these wars dare not accept the responsibility for them. Each one by underhand means seeks to lay the blame at the door of his adversary. The peoples who obey them submissively resign themselves with the thought that a power higher than mankind has ordered it thus. Again the venerable refrain is heard: “The fatality of war is stronger than our wills.” The old refrain of the herd that makes a god of its feebleness and bows down before him. Man has invented fate, that he may make it responsible for the disorders of the universe, those disorders which it was his duty to regulate. There is no fatality! The only fatality is what we desire; and more often, too, what we do not desire enough. Let each now repeat his _mea culpa_. The leaders of thought, the Church, the Labor Parties did not desire war.... That may be.... What then did they do to prevent it? What are they doing to put an end to it? They are stirring up the bonfire, each one bringing his fagot.
The most striking feature in this monstrous epic, the fact without precedent, is the unanimity for war in each of the nations engaged. An epidemic of homicidal fury, which started in Tokio ten years ago, has spread like a wave and overflowed the whole world. None has resisted it; no high thought has succeeded in keeping out of the reach of this scourge. A sort of demoniacal irony broods over this conflict of the nations, from which, whatever its result, only a mutilated Europe can emerge. For it is not racial passion alone which is hurling millions of men blindly one against another, so that not even neutral countries remain free of the dangerous thrill, but all the forces of the spirit, of reason, of faith, of poetry, and of science, all have placed themselves at the disposal of the armies in every State. There is not one amongst the leaders of thought in each country who does not proclaim with conviction that the cause of his people is the cause of God, the cause of liberty and of human progress. And I, too, proclaim it.
Strange combats are being waged between metaphysicians, poets, historians—Eucken against Bergson; Hauptmann against Maeterlinck; Rolland against Hauptmann; Wells against Bernard Shaw. Kipling and D’Annunzio, Dehmel and de Régnier sing war hymns, Barrès and Maeterlinck chant pæans of hatred. Between a fugue of Bach and the organ which thunders _Deutschland über Alles_, Wundt, the aged philosopher of eighty-two, calls with his quavering voice the students of Leipzig to the holy war. And each nation hurls at the other the name “Barbarians....”
[Sidenote: Come! Let us make a stand!]
Come, friends! Let us make a stand! Can we not resist this contagion, whatever its nature and virulence be—whether moral epidemic or cosmic force? Do we not fight against the plague, and strive even to repair the disaster caused by an earthquake? Or must we bow ourselves before it, agreeing with Luzzatti in his famous article that “_In the universal disaster, the nations triumph_”? Shall we say with him that it is good and reasonable that “the demon of international war, which mows down thousands of beings, should be let loose,” so that the great and simple truth, “love of our country,” be understood? It would seem, then, that love of our country can flourish only through the hatred of other countries and the massacre of those who sacrifice themselves in the defense of them. There is in this theory a ferocious absurdity, a Neronian dilettantism which repels me to the very depths of my being. No! Love of my country does not demand that I shall hate and slay those noble and faithful souls who also love theirs, but rather that I should honor them and seek to unite with them for our common good....
[Sidenote: We are at heart all brothers!]
There was no reason for war between the Western nations; French, English, and German, we are all brothers and do not hate one another. The war-preaching press is envenomed by a minority, a minority vitally interested in maintaining these hatreds; but our peoples, I know, ask for peace and liberty and that alone. The real tragedy, to one situated in the midst of the conflict and able to look down from the high plateaus of Switzerland into all the hostile camps, is the patent fact that actually each of the nations is being menaced in its dearest possessions—in its honor, its independence, its life. Who has brought these plagues upon them? Brought them to the desperate alternative of overwhelming their adversary or dying? None other than their governments, and above all, in my opinion, the three great culprits, the three rapacious eagles, the three empires, the tortuous policy of the house of Austria, the ravenous greed of Czarism, the brutality of Prussia. The worst enemy of each nation is not without, but within its frontiers, and none has the courage to fight against it. It is the monster of a hundred heads, the monster named Imperialism, the will to pride and domination, which seeks to absorb all, or subdue all, or break all, and will suffer no greatness except itself. For the Western nations Prussian imperialism is the most dangerous. Its hand uplifted in menace against Europe has forced us to join in arms against this outcome of a military and feudal caste, which is the curse not only of the rest of the world but also of Germany itself, whose thought it has subtly poisoned. We must destroy this first: but not this alone; the Russian autocracy too will have its turn. Every nation to a greater or less extent has an imperialism of its own, and whether it be military, financial, feudal, republican, social, or intellectual, it is always the octopus sucking the best blood of Europe. Let the free men of all the countries of Europe when this war is over take up again the motto of Voltaire: “_Ecrasons l’infâme!_”
[Sidenote: Not revenge, but the re-establishment of justice!]
When the war is over! The evil is done now, the torrent let loose and we cannot force it back into its channel unaided. Moreover crimes have been committed against right, attacks on the liberties of peoples and on the sacred treasuries of thought, which must and will be expiated. Europe cannot pass over unheeded the violence done to the noble Belgian people, the devastation of Malines and Louvain, sacked by modern Tillys.... But in the name of heaven let not these crimes be expiated by similar crimes! Let not the hideous words “vengeance” and “retaliation” be heard; for a great nation does not revenge itself, it re-establishes justice. But let those in whose hands lies the execution of justice show themselves worthy of her to the end.
It is our duty to keep this before them; nor will we be passive and wait for the fury of this conflict to spend itself. Such conduct would be unworthy of us who have such a task before us....
[Sidenote: Take risks for the honor of humanity!]
The neutral countries are too much effaced. Confronted by unbridled force they are inclined to believe that opinion is defeated in advance, and the majority of thinkers in all countries share their pessimism. There is a lack of courage here as well as of clear thinking. For just at this time the power of opinion is immense. The most despotic of governments, even though marching to victory, trembles before public opinion and seeks to court it. Nothing shows this more clearly than the efforts of both parties engaged in war, of their ministers, chancellors, sovereigns, of the Kaiser himself turned journalist, to justify their own crimes, and denounce the crimes of their adversary at the invisible tribunal of humanity. Let this invisible tribunal be seen at last, let us venture to constitute it. Ye know not your moral power, O ye of little faith! If there be a risk, will you not take it for the honor of humanity? What is the value of life when you have saved it at the price of all that is worth living for?...
_Et propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas_....
But for us, the artists and poets, priests and thinkers of all countries, remains another task. Even in time of war it remains a crime for finer spirits to compromise the integrity of their thought; it is shameful to see it serving the passion of a puerile, monstrous policy of race, a policy scientifically absurd—since no country possesses a race wholly pure. Such a policy, as Renan points out in his beautiful letter to Strauss, “_can only lead to zoological wars, wars of extermination, similar to those in which various species of rodents and carnivorous beasts fight for their existence. This would be the end of that fertile admixture called humanity, composed as it is of such various necessary elements._” Humanity is a symphony of great collective souls; and he who understands and loves it only by destroying a part of those elements, proves himself a barbarian and shows his idea of harmony to be no better than the idea of order another held in Warsaw.
[Sidenote: We are builders of the City of God!]
For the finer spirits of Europe there are two dwelling-places: our earthly fatherland, and that other City of God. Of the one we are the guests, of the other the builders. To the one let us give our lives and our faithful hearts; but neither family, friend, nor fatherland, nor aught that we love has power over the spirit. The spirit is the light. It is our duty to lift it above tempests, and thrust aside the clouds which threaten to obscure it; to build higher and stronger, dominating the injustice and hatred of nations, the walls of that city wherein the souls of the whole world may assemble.
I feel here how the generous heart of Switzerland is thrilled, divided between sympathies for the various nations, and lamenting that it cannot choose freely between them, nor even express them. I understand its torment; but I know that this is salutary. I hope it will rise thence to that superior joy of a harmony of races, which may be a noble example for the rest of Europe. It is the duty of Switzerland now to stand in the midst of the tempest, like an island of justice and of peace, where, as in the great monasteries of the early Middle Ages, the spirit may find a refuge from unbridled force; where the fainting swimmers of all nations, those who are weary of hatred, may persist, in spite of all the wrongs they have seen and suffered, in loving all men as their brothers.
I know that such thoughts have little chance of being heard to-day. Young Europe, burning with the fever of battle, will smile with disdain and show its fangs like a young wolf. But when the access of fever has spent itself, wounded and less proud of its voracious heroism, it will come to itself again.
Moreover I do not speak to convince it. I speak but to solace my conscience ... and I know that at the same time I shall solace the hearts of thousands of others who, in all countries, cannot or dare not speak themselves.
_Romain Rolland, in Journal de Genève, September 15, 1914._
THE NEW IDEALISM
[Sidenote: Germany wishes lasting peace.]
What wishes may we have for the future? What tasks and what prospects does the New Year unroll before us? Naturally, our first wish is for a decisive victory,—a victory which will bring us an honorable peace. A discussion of how the conditions of peace should be drawn up seems to us premature, in fact it runs counter to our feeling; for we are still too much under the tension and excitement of the fight to pursue such thoughts. However, it may be said that the German people unanimously desire a settlement which will guarantee a lasting peace and which will prevent further wars. Moreover, the wish is general that, when it is time for peace negotiations, not only professional diplomats, but also representatives of the various professions and industries shall be consulted. Just as war is an affair of the whole people, so, in its conclusion, the voice of the whole people should have due weight.
[Sidenote: Life must be reinvigorated after the war.]
Closely bound up with the desire for an honorable peace is the hope that the mighty spiritual movement, which the war has called forth, may continue to influence German life after the war. This war must be the starting-point of a new epoch. The tremendous sacrifices which it entails will be justified only in case new life comes forth out of loss and death and the achievements of the moment are transformed into permanent gain. In this connection we think, first of all, of the wonderful consciousness of unity which the war has awakened. The long history of the German people furnishes no counterpart of such a unity of sentiment as we enjoy to-day. We must now see to it that this unanimity of purpose is deeply implanted in German life. Since, through common effort, so much has been accomplished during the war, when peace has been re-established, no one should be prevented from cooperating in the solution of our common tasks. In the future there should be no discrimination on account of political partisanship, whether in the pursuit of a profession or in the holding of a public office.
But especially must we hope that the sense of belonging together, the sense of being dependent on each other, the sense of being under obligation to each other will persist beyond the war into peace. It is, however, not only for the feelings of the individuals, but also for our national life, that we should seek to win lasting gain from the storms of the present. All the earnestness and all the mighty force, which we have now exerted, must be used in an energetic fight against all that has threatened to lower our standards of life.
Such a reinvigoration of German idealism parallels a similar movement which has spread throughout the whole of humanity. Old forms of life have often been found too narrow; they have, moreover, frequently lost their basis in our minds. Therefore, the position of man in the universe has seemed obscure and the purpose of his life has become very uncertain. On the other hand, there now awakens a deep longing for the restrengthening, deepening and inner renewal of life.
[Sidenote: German life must not be narrowly national.]
As Germans, we must consider our attitude towards the world of as much importance as our attitude towards ourselves. We must not allow ourselves to indulge in a narrow national life. We must not, and shall not, have a false racial pride. On the contrary, we must ceaselessly broaden our lives, steadily preserving our inter-relations with all mankind. Our great nation cannot attain its proper level without keeping the whole of humanity in mind. We wish to think highly enough of ourselves to believe that we are capable of drawing to ourselves everything great and good, that has arisen or shall arise anywhere, so that we may use it in building up the ethical civilization (Wesenkultur) which our nature demands.
_Rudolf Eucken, “German Thoughts and Wishes for the New Year, 1915.”_
THE FUTURE OF PATRIOTISM
[Sidenote: Patriotism is a retreat to what seems secure and protecting.]
There is another way of looking at this matter which will appeal to those who are speculating upon the future of mankind. Any one who thinks about the possibility of a world state is stopped to-day by the fact that there is no world patriotism to support it. How are we to transfer allegiance from the national to the international State?
The answer depends upon an analysis of nationality. I have described it as a retreat to the authority and flavor of our earliest associations, as a defensive-offensive reaction to what seems to us secure. Our loyalty turns to what we associate with our protection and our ambitions. The reason we are not loyal to mankind in general or to The Hague or to internationalism is that these conceptions are cold and abstract beside the warmth of the country and place where we were born. Impressed by the fear of Russian invasion, the internationalism of German socialists vanished. Internationalism offered no protection. The German army did. To be a German was to be part of a tangible group with power; to be a citizen of the world was to be homeless everywhere.
[Sidenote: Patriotism cries to-day for expansion.]
And yet we find Canadians and Australians and New Zealanders fighting and dying for a thing called the British Empire, a vague, formless organization of one-quarter of the human race. What is it that has produced this super-national patriotism? Nothing less, it seems to me, than a realization that the protection and growth of the Dominions is bound up with the strength of the Empire. Home is the place where you are safe; loyalty reaches back to the source of your security. That is why danger has welded the British Empire instead of disintegrating it.
Imagine the Empire shattered, its navy gone, and the Dominions left to fetch for themselves. What would Canada and Australia do? They would, it seems to me, develop a great loyalty to the United States. They would not face the world alone. They would have to find some larger political organization in which they could feel secure.
In other words, loyalty overflows the national State because in the world to-day the national State is no longer a sufficient protection. People have got to a point in their development where isolation terrifies them. They want to be members of a stronger group. In Europe they turned to a system of alliances because no nation dared to stand alone. We have turned in this country in part to an understanding with Great Britain, in part to the Latin-American States. All of which proves that patriotism is not a fixed quantity, that it is not attached to the map as it was drawn when we were at school, and that it is not only capable of expansion, but is crying for it.
Fear has almost always played a large part in welding States together. The fear of England was a great argument for federal union under our Constitution; the sense of weakness in the presence of unfriendly neighbors undoubtedly helped to break down the separatism of the little German principalities. Just as the appearance of an enemy tends to blot out political differences within a nation, so it will often unite a number of nations. The rise of Germany had that effect on the Great Powers of Europe; the fear of her created a league almost coextensive with western civilization. It covered up the feud between France and England which comes down through the centuries; it jolted together an understanding with Russia, the great bogy of liberals.
It is not pleasant to think of fear as one of the most powerful forces that unify mankind. It would be more gratifying to think that cooperation was always spontaneous and free. But the facts will not justify this belief. The inner impulse to compose differences seems often to work most actively when there is pressure from without. Forced by danger to cooperate, men seem to discover the advantages of cooperation. The Germans are daily discovering good qualities in the Turks; the British are seeing deeper into the souls of Russians....
The only way in which, world organization can command a world patriotism is by proving its usefulness. If it affords a protection and produces a prosperity such as the national State cannot produce, it will begin to draw upon the emotions of men. If they are capable of loving anything so abstract and complicated as the British Empire, or even the United States, they are not incapable of attaching themselves to a still larger State. For the moment it was evident that patriotism could embrace something more extensive and abstract than a village which a man might know personally, world organization ceased to be an idle dream. If men could be citizens of an empire scattered over all the seas, there was no longer anything inconceivable about their becoming citizens of a State which covered modern civilization. The idea has ceased to be a psychological impossibility.
[Sidenote: Problem is to broaden the basis of loyalty.]
Our problem is to broaden the basis of loyalty. And for that task we have considerable experience to guide us. Within a hundred and twenty-five years we have seen the welding together of the United States, Germany, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. We have seen small rival States converted into members of federal unions. We have watched patriotism expand from the local unit to the larger one. We have seen Massachusetts patriots converted into American patriots, Bavarians into Germans, Venetians into Italians. In the last few years we have been witnessing the growth of an imperial patriotism within the British Empire.
[Sidenote: Loyalty will not stop at existing frontiers.]
There is, so far as I can see, not the least ground for supposing that the broadening of loyalty must stop at the existing frontiers. The task of the great unifiers, like Hamilton, Cavour, and Bismarck, looked just as difficult in their day as ours does now. They had States’ rights, sovereignty, traditional jealousy, and economic conflicts to overcome. They conquered them. Who dares to say that we must fail?...
Loyalty is a fluctuating force, not attached by any necessity to some one spot on the map or contained within some precise frontier. Loyalty seeks an authority to which it can be loyal, and when it finds an authority which gives security and progress and opportunity it fastens itself there. The problem of world organization is to attach enough loyalty to the immature World State to enable it to weather the inevitable attacks.
_Walter Lippmann, “The Stakes of Diplomacy,” pp. 172-188._
THE FUTURE OF CIVILIZATION
[Sidenote: Our task is to extend the sphere of Law.]
What hopes dare we cherish, in this hour of conflict, for the future of civilization?
The great, the supreme task of human politics and statesmanship is to extend the sphere of Law. Let others labor to make men cultured or virtuous or happy. These are the tasks of the teacher, the priest, and the common man. The statesman’s task is simpler. It is to enfold them in a jurisdiction which will enable them to live the life of their soul’s choice. The State, said the Greek philosophers, is the foundation of the good life; but its crown rises far above mere citizenship. “There where the State ends,” cries Nietzsche, echoing Aristotle and the great tradition of civilized political thought, “there _men begin_. There, where the State ends, look thither, my brothers! Do you not see the rainbow and the bridge to the Overman?” Ever since organized society began, the standards of the individual, the ideals of priest and teacher, the doctrines of religion and morality, have outstripped the practise of statesmanship. For the polestar of the statesman has not been love, but law. His not the task of exhorting men to love one another, but the simpler duty of enforcing the law, “Thou shalt not kill.” And in that simple, strenuous, necessary task statesmen and political thinkers have watched the slow extension of the power of Law, from the family to the tribe, from the tribe to the city, from the city to the nation, from the nation to the Commonwealth. When will Law take its next extension? When will warfare, which is murder between individuals and “rebellion” between groups of citizens, be equally preventable between nations by the common law of the world?
The answer is simple. When the world has a common will, and has created a common government to express and enforce that will.
[Sidenote: The World is already one great Society.]
In the sphere of science and invention, of industry and economics, as Norman Angell and others have taught us, the world is already one Great Society. For the merchant, the banker, and the stockbroker political frontiers have been broken down. Trade and industry respond to the reactions of a single, world-wide, nervous system. Shocks and panics pass as freely as airmen over borders and custom-houses. And not “big business” only, but the humblest citizen, in his search for a livelihood, finds himself caught in the meshes of the same world-wide network. “The widow who takes in washing,” says Graham Wallas, in his deep and searching analysis of our contemporary life, “fails or succeeds according to her skill in choosing starch or soda or a wringing machine under the influence of half a dozen competing world-schemes of advertisement.... The English factory girl who is urged to join her Union, the tired old Scotch gatekeeper with a few pounds to invest, the Galician peasant when the emigration agent calls, the artisan in a French provincial town whose industry is threatened by a new invention, all know that unless they find their way among world-wide facts, which only reach them through misleading words, they will be crushed.” The Industrial Revolution of the past century, steam-power and electricity, the railway and the telegraph, have knit mankind together, and made the world one place.
[Sidenote: But it lacks a common will and emotion.]
But this new Great Society is as yet formless and inarticulate. It is not only devoid of common leadership and a common government; it lacks even the beginnings of a common will, a common emotion, and a common consciousness. Of the Great Society, consciously or unconsciously, we must all perforce be members; but of the Great State, the great World-Commonwealth, we do not yet discern the rudiments. The economic organization of the world has outstripped the development of its citizenship and government—the economic man, with his far-sighted vision and scientific control of the resources of the world, must sit by and see the work of his hands laid in ashes by contending governments and peoples. No man can say how many generations must pass before the platitudes of the market and the exchange pass into the current language of politics.
In the great work which lies before the statesmen and peoples of the world for the extension of law and common citizenship and prevention of war there are two parallel lines of advance.
[Sidenote: The ideal of Inter-State Law must be revived.]
One road lies through the development of what is known as International, but should more properly be called _Inter-State Law_, through the revival, on a firmer and broader foundation, of the Concert of Europe conceived by the Congress of Vienna just a hundred years ago—itself a revival, on a secular basis, of the great medieval ideal of an international Christendom, held together by Christian Law and Christian ideals. That ideal faded away forever at the Reformation, which grouped Europe into independent sovereign States ruled by men responsible to no one outside their own borders. It will never be revived on an ecclesiastical basis. Can we hope for its revival on a basis of modern democracy, modern nationality, and modern educated public opinion? Can Inter-State Law, hitherto a mere shadow of the majestic name it bears, almost a matter of convention and etiquette, with no permanent tribunal to interpret it, and no government to enforce it, be enthroned with the necessary powers to maintain justice between the peoples and governments of the world?
Such a Law the statesmen of Great Britain and Russia sought to impose on Europe in 1815, to maintain a state of affairs which history has shown to have been intolerable to the European peoples. There are those who hope that the task can be resumed, on a better basis, at the next Congress. “Shall we try again,” writes Professor Gilbert Murray, “to achieve Castlereagh’s and Alexander’s ideal of a permanent Concert, pledged to make collective war upon the peace-breaker? Surely we must. We must, at all cost and in spite of all difficulties, because the alternative means such unspeakable failure. We must learn to agree, we civilized nations of Europe, or else we must perish. I believe that the chief counsel of wisdom here is to be sure to go far enough. We need a permanent Concert, perhaps a permanent Common Council, in which every awkward problem can be dealt with before it has time to grow dangerous, and in which outvoted minorities must accustom themselves to giving way.”
[Sidenote: Peace will be based on Law.]
Other utterances by public men, such as Mr. Roosevelt and our own Prime Minister, might be cited in the same sense; but Professor Murray’s has been chosen because he has the courage to grasp the nettle. In his words the true position is quite clearly set forth. If Inter-State Law is to become a reality we must “be sure to go far enough.” There is no half-way house between Law and no Law, between Government and no Government, between Responsibility and no Responsibility. If the new Concert is to be effective it must be able to compel the submission of all “awkward problems” and causes of quarrel to its permanent Tribunal at The Hague or elsewhere; and it must be able to enforce the decision of its tribunal, employing for the purpose, if necessary, the armed forces of the signatory Powers as an international police. “Outvoted minorities must accustom themselves to giving way.” It is a bland and easy phrase; but it involves the whole question of world-government. “Men must accustom themselves not to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” the earliest law-givers might have said, when the State first intervened between individuals to make itself responsible for public order. Peace between the Powers, as between individuals, is, no doubt, a habit to which cantankerous Powers “must accustom themselves.” But they will be sure to do so if there is a Law, armed with the force to be their schoolmaster towards peaceable habits. In other words, they will do so because they have surrendered one of the most vital elements in the independent life of a State—the right of conducting its own policy—to the jurisdiction of a higher Power. An Inter-State Concert, with a Judiciary of its own and an army and navy under its own orders, is, in fact, not an Inter-State Concert at all; it is a new State: it is, in fact, the World-State. There is no middle course between Law and no Law: and the essence of Statehood, as we have seen, is a Common Law....
In discussing proposals for a European Council, then, we must be quite sure to face all that it means. But let us not reject Professor Murray’s suggestion off-hand because of its inherent difficulties: for that men should be discussing such schemes at all marks a significant advance in our political thought. Only let us be quite clear as to what they presuppose. They presuppose the supremacy, in the collective mind of civilized mankind, of Law over Force, a definite supremacy of what may be called the civilian as against the military ideal, not in a majority of States, but in every State powerful enough to defy coercion. They presuppose a world map definitely settled on lines satisfactory to the national aspirations of the peoples. They presuppose a _status quo_ which is not simply maintained, like that after 1815, because it is a legal fact and its disturbance would be inconvenient to the existing rulers, but because it is inherently equitable. They presuppose a similar democratic basis of citizenship and representation among the component States. They presuppose, lastly, an educated public opinion incomparably less selfish, less ignorant, less unsteady, less materialistic, and less narrowly national than has been prevalent hitherto. Let us work and hope for these things: let us use our best efforts to remove misunderstandings and promote a sense of common responsibilities and common trusteeship for civilization between the peoples of all the various sovereign States; but meanwhile let us work also, with better hopes of immediate if less ambitious successes, along the other parallel road of advance.
[Sidenote: We must work for “The Principle of the Commonwealth.”]
The other road may seem, in this hour of dreams and disaster, of extremes of hope and disillusionment, a long and tedious track: it is the old slow high road of civilization, not the short cut across the fields. It looks forward to abiding results, not through the mechanical cooperation of governments, but through the growth of an organic citizenship, through the education of the nations themselves to a sense of common duty and a common life. It looks forward, not to the definite establishment, in our day, of the World-State, but only to the definite refutation of the wicked theory of the mutual incompatibility of nations. It looks forward to the expression in the outward order of the world’s government of what we may call “the Principle of the Commonwealth,” of Lord Acton’s great principle of the State composed of free nations, of the State as a living body which lives through the organic union and free activity of its several national members. And it finds its immediate field of action in the deepening and extension of the obligations of citizenship among the peoples of the great, free, just, peace-loving, supra-national Commonwealths whose patriotism has been built up, not by precept and doctrine, but on a firm foundation of older loyalties.
[Sidenote: This is a world-principle.]
The principle of the Commonwealth is not a European principle: it is a world-principle. It does not proceed upon the expectation of a United States of Europe; for all the Great Powers of Europe except Austria-Hungary (and some of the smaller, such as Holland, Belgium, and Portugal) are extra-European Powers also. Indeed if we contract our view, with Gladstone and Bismarck and the statesmen of the last generation, to European issues alone, we shall be ignoring the chief political problem of our age—the contact of races and nations with wide varieties of social experience and at different levels of civilization. It is this great and insistent problem (call it the problem of East and West, or the problem of the color-line) in all its difficult ramifications, political, social, and, above all, economic, which makes the development of the principle of the Commonwealth the most pressing political need of our age. For the problems arising out of the contact of races and nations can never be adjusted either by the wise action of individuals or by conflict and warfare; they can only be solved by fair and deliberate statesmanship within the bosom of a single State, through the recognition by both parties of a higher claim than their own sectional interest—the claim of a common citizenship and the interest of civilization. It is here, in the union and collaboration of diverse races and peoples, that the principle of the Commonwealth finds its peculiar field of operation. Without this principle, and without its expression, however imperfect, in the British Empire, the world would be in chaos to-day.
We cannot predict the political development of the various Great Powers who between them control the destinies of civilization. We cannot estimate the degree or the manner in which France, freed at last from nearer preoccupations, will seek to embody in her vast dominion the great civilizing principles for which her republic stands. We cannot foretell the issue of the conflict of ideas which has swayed to and fro in Russia between the British and the Prussian method of dealing with the problem of nationality. Germany, Italy, Japan—here, too, we are faced by enigmas. One other great Commonwealth remains besides the British. Upon the United States already lies the responsibility, voluntarily assumed and, except during a time of internal crisis, successfully discharged, of securing peace from external foes for scores of millions of inhabitants of the American continent. Yet with the progress of events her responsibilities must yearly enlarge: for both the immigrant nationalities within and the world-problems without her borders seem to summon her to a deeper education and to wider obligations.
[Sidenote: The responsibility of the British Commonwealth to hold the scales of Peace, and to bring home to all the meaning of Law.]
But upon the vast, ramifying, and inchoate Commonwealth of Great Britain lies the heaviest responsibility. It is a task unequally shared between those of her citizens who are capable of discharging it. Her task within the Commonwealth is to maintain the common character and ideals and to adjust the mutual relations of one quarter of the human race. Her task without is to throw her weight into the scales of peace, and to uphold and develop the standard and validity of inter-State agreements. It is a task which requires, even at this time of crisis, when, by the common sentiment of her citizens, the real nature and purpose of the Commonwealth have become clear to us, the active thoughts of all political students. For to bring home to all within her borders who bear rule and responsibility, from the village headman in India and Nigeria, the Basutu chief and the South Sea potentate, to the public opinion of Great Britain and the self-governing Dominions, the nature of the British Commonwealth, and the character of its citizenship and ideals, and to study how those ideals may be better expressed in its working institutions and executive government—that is a task to which the present crisis beckons the minds of British citizens, a task which Britain owes not only to herself but to mankind.
_Alfred E. Zimmern, “The War and Democracy,” pp. 371-382._
TOWARDS THE PEACE THAT SHALL LAST
[Sidenote: War must pass away like human sacrifice.]
At every stage of warfare in the past, men and women in all nations have endeavored to abate and lessen it. Their repeated endeavors have been answered by repeated wars, until the present war in Europe completes the works of death, desolation, and tyranny.
In spite of this, these protests against war are destined to succeed; as once before in the history of the race, the sentiment of pity, of respect for human life, called a halt to senseless slaughter.
There came a time in the history of the Greek and Jewish people when a few set their faces against _human sacrifice as a religious rite_ of their highest faith,—bound up, like our wars, with old fealties and solemn customs and with their most desperate fears. Humble men and women, out of sheer affection for their kind, revolted. In face of persecution and ridicule, they warned their countrymen that in pouring human blood upon altars to the gods, they wrought upon their kind more irreparable wrong than any evil against which they sought to forefend. Finally, there came to be enough people with courage and pity sufficient to carry a generation with them; and human sacrifice became a thing of the past.
It took the human race many centuries to rid itself of human sacrifice; during many centuries more it relapsed again and again in periods of national despair. So have we fallen back into warfare, and perhaps will fall back again and again, until in self-pity, in self-defense, in self-assertion of the right of life, not as hitherto, a few, but the _whole people of the world_, will brook this thing no longer.
OUR RIGHT TO PROTEST
[Sidenote: We have a right to protest against war.]
By that opportunity, now ours as never before, to weigh the case against war and to draw the counts from burning words spoken by those who protest and who are of all peoples—_we make single judgment and complete indictment_.
By that good fortune which has placed us outside the conflict; by that ill fortune by which the belligerent and his rights have heretofore bestrode the world; by mine-strewn channels, and by international codes which offer scant redress—_we speak as people of a neutral nation_.
By the unemployed of our water-fronts, and the augmented misery of our cities; by the financial depression which has curtailed our school building and crippled our works of good-will; by the sluicing of human impulse among us from channels of social development to the back-eddies of salvage and relief—_we have a right to speak_.
By the hot anger and civil strife that we have known; by our pride, vain-glory, and covetousness; by the struggles we have made for national integrity and defense of our hearthstones; by our consciousness that every instinct and motive and ideal at work in this war, however lofty or however base, has had some counterpart in our national history and our current life—_we can speak a common language_.
By that comradeship among nations which has made for mutual understanding; by those inventions which have bound us in communication and put the horrors of war at our doors; by the mechanical contrivances which multiply and intensify those horrors; by the quickening human sympathies which have made us sensitive to the hurts of others—_we can speak as fellow-victims of this great oppression_.
By our heritage from each embattled nation; by our debt to them for languages and faiths and social institutions; for science, scholarship and invention; by the broken and desolated hearts that will come to us when the war ends; by our kinships and our unfeigned friendships—_we can speak as brothers_.
By all these things, we hold the present opportunity for conscience-searching and constructive action to be an especial charge upon us; upon the newcomers among us from the fatherlands; and upon the joint youth of all the peoples of the two Americas.
WHAT WAR HAS DONE AND IS DOING
_Its Blights_
[Sidenote: War has blighted Life.]
War has brought low our conception of the _preciousness of human life_ as slavery brought low our conception of human liberty.
It has benumbed our growing sense of the _nurture of life_; and at a time when we were challenging Reichstag, Parliament, and Congress with the needlessness of infant mortality and child labor, it entrenches a million youths with cold and fever and impending death.
[Sidenote: It has violated humanity.]
It has thwarted the chance of our times toward the _fulfilment of life_, and scattered like burst shrapnel the hands of the sculptors and the violinists, the limbs of the hurdlers and swimmers, the sensitive muscles of the mechanics and the weavers, the throats of the singers and the interpreters, the eyes of the astronomers and the melters—every skilled and prescient part of the human body, every type of craft and competence of the human mind.
It has set back our promptings toward the _conservation of life_; and in a decade when England and France and Russia, Germany and Austria and Belgium, have been working out social insurance against the hazards of peace, it throws back upon the world an unnumbered company of the widowed and the fatherless, and of aged parents left bereft and destitute.
It has blocked our way toward _the ascent of life_, and in a century which has seen the beginnings of effort to upbuild the common stock, has cut off from parenthood the strong, the courageous and the high-spirited.
_Its Injuries_
It has in its development of armaments, pitted human flesh against machinery.
It has wrested the power of self-defense from the hands of free-men who wielded lance and sword and scythe, and has set them as machine-tenders to do the bidding of their masters.
[Sidenote: It has turned effort into destruction.]
It has brought strange men to the door-sills of peaceful people; men like their own men, bearing no grudges one against another; men snatched away from their fields and villages where their fathers lie buried, to kill and burn and destroy till this other people are driven from their homes of a thousand years or sit abject and broken.
It has stripped farms and ruined self-sustaining communities, and poured into a bewildered march for succor, the crippled and aged and bedridden, the little children and the women great with child unborn.
It has razed the flowing lines in which the art and aspiration of earlier generations expressed themselves, and has thus waged war upon the dead.
It has tortured and twisted the whole social fabric of the living.
It has burdened our children and our children’s children with a staggering load of debt.
It has inundated the lowlands of the world’s economy with penury and suffering unreckonable, hopelessly depressing standards of living already much too low.
It has rent and trampled upon the net-work of world cooperation in trade and craftsmanship which had made all men fellow-workers.
It has whetted a lust among neutral nations to profit by furnishing the means to prolong its struggles.
It has blasted our new internationalism in the protection of working women and children.
It has distracted our minds with the business of destruction and stayed the forward reach of the builders among men.
It has conscripted physician and surgeon, summoning them from research and the prolongation of life to the patchwork of its wreckage.
It has sucked into its blood and mire our most recent conquests over the elements—over electricity, and air and the depths of ocean; and has prostituted our prowess in engineering, chemistry and technology, to the service of terror and injury.
It has bent our achievements in transportation into runways, so that neither volcanoes nor earthquakes, nor the rat-holes of famine, but only the plagues can match war in unbounded disaster.
_Its Wrongs_
It has in its compulsory service made patriotism a shell, empty of liberty.
It has set up the military independent of and superior to the civil power.
It has substituted arbitrary authority and the morals of foot-loose men who escape identity in the common uniform, for the play of individual conscience, and that social pressure which in household and village, in neighborhood and State, makes for individual responsibility, for decency, and fair play.
It has battened on apathy, unintelligence and helplessness such as surrender the judgment and volition of nations into a few hands; and has nullified rights and securities, such as are of inestimable value to the people and formidable to tyrants only.
It has threatened the results of a hundred martyrdoms and revolutions, and put in jeopardy those free governments which make possible still newer social conquests.
It has crushed under iron heels the uprisings of civilization itself.
_Its Evils_
[Sidenote: It has poisoned intelligence.]
It has turned the towers of art and science into new Babels, so that our philosophers, and men of letters, our physicists and geographers, our economists and biologists and dramatists, speak in strange tongues, and to hate each other has become a holy thing among them.
It has made were-wolves of neighboring peoples, in the imaginations of each other.
It has put its stamp upon growing boys and girls, and taught them to hate other children who have chanced to be born on the other side of some man-made boundary.
It has massed and exploded the causes of strife, fostering religious antagonisms and racial hates, inbreeding with the ugliest strains of commercialism, perverting to its purposes the increase of over-dense populations and their natural yearning for new opportunities for enterprise and livelihood.
It has not only shattered men’s breasts, but loosened the black fury of their hearts; so that in rape, and cruelty, and rage, we have ancient brutishness trailing at the heels of all armies.
It has found a world of friends and neighbors, and substituted a world of outlanders and aliens and enemies.
It has lessened the number of those who feel the joys and sorrows of all peoples as of their own.
It has strangled truth and paralyzed the power and wish to face it, and has set up monstrous and irreconcilable myths of self-justification.
It has mutilated the human spirit.
It has become a thing which passeth all understanding.
STRIKING HANDS
[Sidenote: We must join in throwing off this tyranny.]
We have heard the call from overseas of those who have appealed to men and women of good-will in all nations to join with them in throwing off this tyranny upon life.
We must go further; we must throw open a peace which shall be other than a shadow of old wars and a prelude to new. We do more than plead with men to stay their hands from killing. We hail living men. As peace-lovers, we are charged with the sanctity of human life; as democrats and freemen we are charged with its sovereignty.
By the eight million natives of the warring States living among us without malice or assault one upon another, let us leave the occasions of fighting no longer for idle war boards to decide.
By the blow our forebears struck at barbarism when they took vengeance out of private hands, let us wrest the manufacture of armaments and deadly weapons from the gun-mongers and powder-makers who gain by it.
By those electric currents that have cut the ground from under the old service of diplomacy, and spread the new intelligence, let us put the ban upon intrigue and secret treaties.
For we hold that not soldiers, nor profit-takers, nor diplomats, but the people who suffer and bear the brunt of war should determine whether war must be; that with ample time for investigation and publicity of its every cause and meaning, with recourse to every avenue for mediation and settlement abroad, war should come only by the slow process of self-willing among men and women who solemnly publish and declare it to be a last and sole resort.
[Sidenote: America must lead the nations.]
With our treated borderland, 3000 miles in length without fort or trench from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which has helped weld us for a century of unbroken peace with our neighbors to the north, we would spread faith not in entrenched camps but in open boundaries.
With the pacts of our written constitutions before us which bind our own sovereign States in amity, we are convinced that treaty-making may be lifted to a new and inviolable estate, and lay the foundations for that world organization which for all time shall make for peace upon earth and good-will among men.
With our experience in lesser conflicts in industrial life, which have none the less embraced groups as large as armies, have torn passions and rasped endurance to the uttermost, we can bear testimony that at the end of such strife as cleaves to the heart of things, men are disposed to lay the framework of their relations in larger molds than those which broke beneath them.
With our ninety million people drawn from Alpine and Mediterranean, Danubean, Baltic, and Slavic stocks; with a culture blended from these different affluents, we hold that progress lies in the predominance of none; and that the civilization of each nation needs to be refreshed by that cross-breeding with the genius and the type of other human groups, that blending which began on the coast lands and islands of the Ægean Sea where European civilization first drew its sources from the Euphrates and the Nile.
[Sidenote: We must lead through our own ideals in the war on war.]
With memories of the tyranny which provoked our Revolution, with the travail still upon us by which we in our turn have paid for the enslavement of a people, with the bitterness only now assuaged which marked our period of mistrust and reconstruction, we bear witness that boundaries should be set where not force, but justice and consanguinity direct; and that, however boundaries fall, liberty and the flowering-out of native cultures should be secure.
With our fair challenge to the spirit of the East and to the chivalry of the West in standing for the open door in China when that Empire, now turned Republic, was threatened by dismemberment, we call for the freeing of the ports of every ocean from special privilege based on territorial claims, throwing them open with equal chance to all who by their ability and energy can serve new regions to their mutual benefit.
With the faith we have kept with Cuba, the regard we have shown for the integrity of Mexico and our preparations for the independence of the Philippine Islands, we urge the framing of a common colonial policy which shall put down that predatory exploitation which has embroiled the West and oppressed the East and shall stand for an opportunity for each latent and backward race to build up according to its own genius.
By our full century of ruthless waste of forest, ore and fuel; by the vision which has come to us in these latter days of conserving to the permanent uses of the people, the water power and natural wealth of our public domain, we propose the laying down of a planetary policy of conservation.
[Sidenote: For the sake of freedom.]
By that tedium and monotony of life and labor for vast companies of people, which when war drums sound, goads the field worker to forsake his harvest and the wage-earner to leap from his bench, we hold that the ways of peace should be so cast as to make stirring appeal to the heroic qualities in men, and give common utterance to the rhythm and beauty of national feeling.
By the joy of our people in the conquest of a continent; by the rousing of all Europe, when the great navigators threw open the new Indies and the New World, we stand for such a scheming-out of our joint existence that the achieving instincts among men, not as one nation against another, nor as one class against another, but as one generation after another, shall have freedom to come into their own.
_Jane Addams_, _Lillian Wald_, _Paul U. Kellogg_.
APPENDIX
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
1. INTERNATIONAL
NEUTRAL CONFERENCE FOR CONTINUOUS MEDIATION, STOCKHOLM
[Sidenote: Ford Neutral Conference at Stockholm.]
_To the Governments, Parliaments and Peoples of the Warring Nations_:
A conference composed of delegates from six neutral countries—Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States—has been convened at Stockholm upon the initiative of Henry Ford to work for the achievement of an early and lasting peace, based upon principles of justice and humanity. This conference represents no government. It has no official sanction. It represents the good will of millions throughout the civilized world who cannot stand idly by while the deadly combat rages unchecked. It does not attempt to impose its judgment upon the belligerents, but its members, as private individuals, unhampered by considerations which restrain governments, have resolved to do everything within their power to promote such discussion as may tend to bring the belligerents together on just and reasonable terms.
Through a thousand channels utterances have already reached the conference pleading that a long continuance of the struggle will mean ruin for all, but as both sides believe that only complete victory can decide the issue, ever new sacrifices of blood and treasure are made, exhausting the present and impoverishing the future. Still, we are convinced that an agreement between the warring nations might even now be reached were certain universal principles to be accepted as a basis of discussion; principles which cannot be violated with impunity, whatever the military results of the war.
The first duty of a neutral conference, then, is to call attention to those universal principles and concrete proposals upon which agreement seems possible, and upon which there may be founded a peace that will not only satisfy the legitimate demands of the warring nations themselves, but also advance the welfare of humanity at large. The neutral conference does not propose to discuss all the issues at stake. Nor does it desire to set forth a plan for the construction of a perfect world. But it emphasizes the universal demand that peace, when it comes, shall be real, insuring mankind against the recurrence of a world war. Humanity demands a lasting peace.
In presenting this appeal to governments, parliaments and peoples for discussion and comment the neutral conference hopes that no formal objection may prevent its sympathetic consideration both by those in authority and by the people whom they represent.
(_A_) _Right of Nations to Decide Their Own Fate._—History demonstrates that dispositions contrary to the wishes of the peoples concerned bring with them the danger of future wars of liberation. Hence the acceptance of these principles appears generally to be regarded as an essential prerequisite to the satisfactory settlement of this war; namely, that no transfer of territory should take place without the consent of the population involved, and that nations should have the right to decide their own fate.
It follows that the restoration of Belgium must first be agreed upon before there can be an understanding between the belligerent powers. Furthermore, the occupied French territory should be returned. A reconsideration of the difficult Alsace-Lorraine question is also an absolute necessity. The independence of Serbia and Montenegro should be assured.
In its wider interpretation, the principle of the right of nations to decide their own fate postulates the solution of a problem like the Polish question by guaranteeing the union of the Polish nation as an independent people. Further applications would be the adjustment of the frontiers between Austria and Italy, as far as possible, according to the principle of nationality; autonomy for Armenia under international guarantee, and the solution of various national questions in the Balkans and in Asiatic Turkey by international agreement.
(_B_) _Economic Guarantees._—Economic competition is generally admitted to be one of the causes of the present war. Hence the demand becomes more and more insistent that the economic activity of all peoples should be afforded development on equal terms. The recognition of the principle of the open door in the colonies, protectorates, and spheres of influence would be an important step in this direction, as would also the internationalization of certain waterways, e. g., the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. The German colonies ought to be returned, the exchange of colonies made possible by satisfactory compensation, and Germany’s access to the Near East guaranteed.
(_C_) _Freedom of the Seas._—The principle of the freedom of the seas should be recognized.
(_D_) _Parliamentary Control of Foreign Policy._—Effective parliamentary control of foreign policy should be established, so that secret treaties and secret diplomacy may no longer endanger the most vital interests of the nation.
(_E_) _International Organization._—Far more important, however, for the welfare of humanity than the solutions thus far suggested is the creation of an international organization, founded, upon law and justice, which would include an agreement to submit all disputes between States for peaceful settlement. Hence the almost universal opinion that in the coming treaty of peace the principle of such an international order of justice must be accepted.
(_F_) _Disarmament._—Equally important with the insistence upon an international organization is the demand that disarmament be brought about by international agreement.
(_G_) _A World Congress._—In order to bring about the creation of an international order of justice it will be necessary to secure the adherence thereto of both belligerents and neutrals. The difficulties that result from the present catastrophe do not affect the warring nations alone. They affect the whole world. In their settlement the whole world should participate. A world congress should therefore be called together. Such a congress should concern itself with more than the immediate questions arising out of this war. Problems like that of guaranteeing political and spiritual freedom to special nationalities united with other peoples, though not direct issues of this war, are nevertheless of vital importance to the future maintenance of peace.
In the foregoing an attempt has been made to suggest a possible approach to the task of uniting again the international bonds that have been torn asunder in this fratricide war. Whatever may be the ultimate solution, there is abundant evidence of the growing conviction among belligerents and neutrals alike that the hope of the world lies in the substitution of law and order for international anarchy. The neutral conference, therefore, feels justified in hoping that the end of this war will witness the institution of an international order of justice which shall make possible an enduring peace for all mankind.
Easter, 1916.
CENTRAL ORGANIZATION FOR A DURABLE PEACE
The Hague.
[Sidenote: Central Organization for Durable Peace.]
An important international gathering was held at The Hague from the seventh to the tenth of April, 1915. The meeting, for which arrangements had been made by the “Dutch Anti-War Council,” who sent invitations to a limited number of persons, was composed of more than thirty people, belonging to the following countries: United States of America, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Letters of sympathy were also received from Denmark, France, Italy, Russia and Spain.
The object of the meeting was not to suggest steps to bring the war to an end, but to consider by what principles the future peace of the world could be best guaranteed. After full discussion a minimum program was unanimously adopted.
MINIMUM-PROGRAM
1. No annexation or transfer of territory shall be made contrary to the interests and wishes of the population concerned. Where possible their consent shall be obtained by plebiscite or otherwise.
The States shall guarantee to the various nationalities, included in their boundaries, equality before the law, religious liberty and the free use of their native languages.
2. The States shall agree to introduce in their colonies, protectorates and spheres of influence, liberty of commerce, or at least equal treatment for all nations.
3. The work of the Hague Conferences with a view to the peaceful organization of the Society of Nations shall be developed.
The Hague Conference shall be given a permanent organization and meet at regular intervals.
The States shall agree to submit all their disputes to peaceful settlement. For this purpose there shall be created, in addition to the existent Hague Court of Arbitration (a) a permanent Court of International Justice; (b) a permanent international Council of Investigation and Conciliation. The States shall bind themselves to take concerted action, diplomatic, economic or military, in case any State should resort to military measures instead of submitting the dispute to judicial decision or to the mediation of the Council of Investigation and Conciliation.
4. The States shall agree to reduce their armaments. In order to facilitate the reduction of naval armaments, the right of capture shall be abolished and the freedom of the seas assured.
5. Foreign policy shall be under the effective control of the Parliaments of the respective nations.
Secret treaties shall be void.
UNION OF INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: BRUSSELS
_Secretary-General_: Paul Otlet.
[Sidenote: Union of International Associations.]
Project of World-Charter (“Charte Mondiale”), by M. Paul Otlet.
1. Court of arbitration and court of justice.
2. Council of inquiry and conciliation.
3. Council of States, taking in concert diplomatic, economic and military measures. International armed force consisting of national contingents under an international general staff.
4. International Parliament with two houses—the lower composed of delegates from the various Parliaments; upper, of delegates from the international associations representing the fundamental social forces.
5. No annexation and no right of conquest. Guarantee of rights of minorities. Freedom of nationalities.
6. Democratic control of foreign policy. Suppression of alliances and of secret treaties.
7. Considerable reduction of armies, and application of war budgets to education, etc.
8. Freedom of commerce, at least in colonies.
9. Woman suffrage. Reform of education and of the press.
INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF PEACE (BUREAU INTERNATIONAL DE LA PAIX)
_President_: H. La Fontaine.
[Sidenote: International Bureau of Peace.]
1. Neutral States should be called to participate in the peace negotiations, because a permanent peace ought to be guaranteed by the signature of all the powers of the world.
2. No annexations must take place without the consent of the populations concerned. In all the States of diverse nationalities the rights of minorities must be guaranteed.
3. There should be established an international organization of States, with permanent bodies and especially an international tribunal before which will be brought international disputes.
4. Armaments must be reduced according to general agreement and placed under an international control. All industrial establishments occupied with the manufacture of munitions must be expropriated.
5. Diplomacy in all the nations must be put under the control of parliaments and public opinion. All treaties and agreements which are not made public and have the ratification of the representative bodies of the nation are to be considered null and void.
6. All alliances, offensive or defensive, are to be prohibited.
7. To all colonies without distinction must be applied the principle of the “open door.” No State shall be able to impose a tariff system on another. The development of free trade through international agreements must be furthered.
8. The public institutions and the honor of each nation are to be protected against foreign insult by penal regulations internationally devised and guaranteed by an international judicial body.
9. A new peace conference is to be called with the object of establishing the permanent character of the institution and ensuring its automatic reunion.
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF WOMEN
The Hague, Holland, April 28th, 29th, 30th, 1915
[Sidenote: International Congress of Women.]
In a preparatory meeting of English, German, Belgian and Dutch women, held at Amsterdam (February, 1915), the following resolutions were drawn up to be put before the International Congress:
I. _Plea for definition of terms of peace._
Considering that the people in each of the countries now at war believe themselves to be fighting, not as aggressors but in self-defense and for their national existence, this International Congress of Women urges the Governments of the belligerent countries, publicly to define the terms on which they are willing to make peace and for this purpose immediately to call a truce.
II. _Arbitration and conciliation._
This International Congress of Women, believing that war is the negation of all progress and civilization, declares its conviction that future international disputes should be referred to arbitration or conciliation; and demands that in future these methods shall be adopted by the governments of all nations.
III. _International pressure._
This International Congress of Women urges the Powers to come to an agreement to unite in bringing pressure to bear upon any country which resorts to arms without having referred its case to arbitration or conciliation.
IV. _Democratic control of foreign policy._
War is brought about not by the peoples of the world, who do not desire it, but by groups of individuals representing particular interests. This International Congress of Women demands therefore that Foreign Politics shall be subject to Democratic Control; and at the same time declares that it can only recognize as democratic a system which includes the equal representation of men and women.
V. _Transference of territory._
This International Congress of women affirms that there should be no transference of territory without the consent of the men and women in it.
VI. _Women’s responsibility._
This International Women’s Congress is convinced that one of the strongest forces for the prevention of war will be the combined influence of the women of all countries and that therefore upon women as well as men rests the responsibility for the outbreak of future wars. But as women can only make their influence effective if they have equal political rights with men, this Congress declares that it is the duty of all women to work with all their force for their political enfranchisement.
VII. _Women delegates in the conference of the powers._
Believing that it is essential for the future peace of the world that representatives of the people should take part in the Conference of the Powers after the war, this International Women’s Congress urges, that among the representatives women delegates should be included.
VIII. _Woman suffrage resolution._
This International Women’s Congress urges, that in the interests of civilization the Conference of the Powers after the war should pass a resolution affirming the need in all countries of extending the parliamentary franchise to women.
IX. _Promotion of good feeling between nations._
This International Congress of Women, which in itself is evidence of the serious desire of women to bring together mankind in the work of building up our common civilization, considers that every means should be used for promoting mutual understanding and good will between the nations and for resisting any tendency to hatred and revenge.
RESOLUTIONS OF WOMEN’S INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONGRESS AT THE HAGUE
I.—WOMEN AND WAR
1. _Protest._
We women, in International Congress assembled, protest against the madness and the horror of war, involving as it does a reckless sacrifice of human life and the destruction of so much that humanity has labored through centuries to build up.
2. _Women’s Sufferings in War._
This International Congress of Women opposes the assumption that women can be protected under the conditions of modern warfare. It protests vehemently against the odious wrongs of which women are the victims in time of war, and especially against the horrible violation of women which attends all war.
II.—ACTION TOWARD PEACE
3. _The Peace Settlement._
This International Congress of Women of different nations, classes, creeds and parties is united in expressing sympathy with the suffering of all, whatever their nationality, who are fighting for their country or laboring under the burden of war.
Since the mass of the people in each of the countries now at war believe themselves to be fighting, not as aggressors but in self-defense and for their national existence, there can be no irreconcilable difference between them, and their common ideals afford a basis upon which a magnanimous and honorable peace might be established. The congress therefore urges the governments of the world to put an end to this bloodshed and to begin peace negotiations. It demands that the peace which follows shall be permanent, and therefore based on principles of justice, including those laid down in the resolutions adopted by this congress—namely:
That no territory should be transferred without the consent of the men and women in it, and that the right of conquest should not be recognized.
That autonomy and a democratic parliament should not be refused to any people.
That the governments of all nations should come to an agreement to refer future international disputes to arbitration or conciliation, and to bring social, moral and economic pressure to bear upon any country which resorts to arms.
That foreign politics should be subject to democratic control.
That women should be granted equal political rights with men.
4. _Continuous Mediation._
This International Congress of Women resolves to ask the neutral countries to take immediate steps to create a conference of neutral nations which shall without delay offer continuous mediation. The congress shall invite suggestions for settlement from each of the belligerent nations, and in any case shall submit to all of them, simultaneously, reasonable proposals as a basis of peace.
III.—PRINCIPLES OF A PERMANENT PEACE
5. _Respect for Nationality._
This International Congress of Women, recognizing the right of the people to self-government, affirms that there should be no transference of territory without the consent of the men and women residing therein, and urges that autonomy and a democratic parliament should not be refused to any people.
6. _Arbitration and Conciliation._
This International Congress of Women, believing that war is the negation of progress and civilization, urges the governments of all nations to come to an agreement to refer future international disputes to arbitration and conciliation.
7. _International Pressure._
This International Congress of Women urges the governments of all nations to come to an agreement to unite in bringing social, moral and economic pressure to bear upon any country which resorts to arms instead of referring its case to arbitration or conciliation.
8. _Democratic Control of Foreign Policy._
Since war is commonly brought about not by the mass of the people, who do not desire it, but by groups representing particular interests, this International Congress of Women urges that foreign politics shall be subject to democratic control, and declares that it can only recognize as democratic a system which includes the equal representation of men and women.
9. _The Enfranchisement of Women._
Since the combined influence of the women of all countries is one of the strongest forces for the prevention of war, and since women can only have full responsibility and effective influence when they have equal political rights with men, this International Congress of Women demands their political enfranchisement.
IV.—INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
10. _Third Hague Conference._
This International Congress of Women urges that a third Hague Conference be convened immediately after the war.
11. _International Organization._
This International Women’s Congress urges that the organization of the Society of Nations should be further developed on the basis of a constructive peace, and that it should include:
(a) As a development of The Hague Court of Arbitration, a permanent International Court of Justice to settle questions or differences of a justiciable character, such as arise on the interpretation of treaty rights or of the law of nations.
(b) As a development of the constructive work of The Hague Conference, a permanent international conference holding regular meetings, in which women should take part, to deal not with the rules of warfare but with practical proposals for further international cooperation among the States. This conference should be so constituted that it could formulate and enforce those principles of justice, equity and good-will in accordance with which the struggles of subject communities could be more fully recognized and the interests and rights not only of the great Powers and small nations, but also those of weaker countries and primitive peoples, gradually adjusted under an enlightened international public opinion.
The International Conference shall appoint: A permanent council of conciliation and investigation for the settlement of international differences arising from economic competition, expanding commerce, increasing population and changes in social and political standards.
12. _General Disarmament._
This International Congress of Women, advocating universal disarmament and realizing that it can only be secured by international agreement, urges as a step to this end that all countries should, by such an international agreement, take over the manufacture of arms and munitions of war and should control all international traffic in the same. It sees in the private profits accruing from the great armament factories a powerful hindrance to the abolition of war.
13. _Commerce and Investments._
The Congress urges that in all countries there shall be liberty of commerce, that the seas shall be free and the trade routes open on equal terms to the shipping of all nations.
Inasmuch as the investment by capitalists of one country in the resources of another and the claims arising therefrom are a fertile source of international complications, this congress urges the widest possible acceptance of the principle that such investments shall be made at the risk of the investor, without claim to the official protection of his government.
14. _National Foreign Policy._
This International Congress of Women demands that all secret treaties shall be void, and that for the ratification of future treaties the participation of at least the legislature of every government shall be necessary.
This International Congress of Women recommends that national commissions be created and international conferences convened for the scientific study and elaboration of the principles and conditions of permanent peace which might contribute to the development of an international federation. These commissions and conferences should be recognized by the governments and should include women in their deliberations.
15. _Women in National and International Politics._
This International Congress of Women declares it to be essential, both nationally and internationally, to put into practise the principle that women should share all civil and political rights and responsibilities on the same terms as men.
V.—THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN
16. This International Congress of Women urges the necessity of so directing the education of children that their thoughts and desires may be directed toward the ideal of constructive peace.
VI.—WOMEN AND THE PEACE SETTLEMENT CONFERENCE
17. This International Congress of Women urges that in the interests of lasting peace and civilization the conference which shall frame the peace settlement after the war should pass a resolution affirming the need in all countries of extending the parliamentary franchise to women.
18. This International Congress of Women urges that representatives of the people should take part in the conference that shall frame the peace settlement after the war, and claims that among them women should be included.
VII.—ACTION TO BE TAKEN
19. _Envoys to the Governments._
In order to urge the governments of the world to put an end to this bloodshed and to establish a just and lasting peace, this International Congress of Women delegates envoys to carry the message expressed in the congress resolutions to the rulers of the belligerent and neutral nations of Europe and to the President of the United States.
These envoys shall be women of both neutral and belligerent nations, appointed by the international committee of this congress. They shall report the result of their missions to the International Women’s Committee for Constructive Peace as a basis for further action.
20. _Women’s Voice in the Peace Settlement._
This International Congress of Women resolves that an international meeting of women shall be held in the same place and at the same time as the conference of the Powers which shall frame the terms of the peace settlement after the war, for the purpose of presenting practical proposals to that conference.
CONFERENCE OF SOCIALISTS OF THE ALLIED NATIONS
London, Feb. 14, 1915.
I
[Sidenote: Socialists of Allied Nations.]
This conference cannot ignore the profound general causes of the European conflict, itself a monstrous product of the antagonisms which tear asunder capitalist society and of the policy of colonial dependencies and aggressive imperialism, against which international Socialism has never ceased to fight, and in which every government has its share of responsibility.
The invasion of Belgium and France by the German armies threatens the very existence of independent nationalities, and strikes a blow at all faith in treaties. In these circumstances a victory for German imperialism would be the defeat and the destruction of democracy and liberty in Europe. The Socialists of Great Britain, Belgium, France, and Russia do not pursue the political and economic crushing of Germany; they are not at war with the people of Germany and Austria, but only with the governments of those countries by which they are oppressed. They demand that Belgium shall be liberated and compensated. They desire that the question of Poland shall be settled in accordance with the wishes of the Polish people, either in the sense of autonomy in the midst of another State, or in that of complete independence. They wish that throughout all Europe, from Alsace-Lorraine to the Balkans, those populations that have been annexed by force shall receive the right freely to dispose of themselves.
While inflexibly resolved to fight until victory is achieved to accomplish this task of liberation, the Socialists are none the less resolved to resist any attempt to transform this defensive war into a war of conquest, which would only prepare fresh conflicts, create new grievances, and subject various peoples more than ever to the double plague of armaments and war.
Satisfied that they are remaining true to the principles of the International, the members of the Conference express the hope that the working class of all the different countries will before long find themselves united again in their struggle against militarism and capitalist imperialism. The victory of the Allied Powers must be a victory for popular liberty, for unity, independence, and autonomy of the nations in the peaceful federation of the United States of Europe and the world.
II
On the conclusion of the war the working classes of all the industrial countries must unite in the International in order to suppress secret diplomacy, put an end to the interests of militarism and those of the armament makers and establish some international authority to settle points of difference among the nations by compulsory conciliation and arbitration, and to compel all nations to maintain peace.
III
The Conference protests against the arrest of the deputies of the Duma, against the suppression of Russian Socialist papers and the condemnation of their editors, as well as against the oppression of Finns, Jews, and Russian and German Poles.
CONFERENCE OF SOCIALISTS FROM SWEDEN, NORWAY, DENMARK AND HOLLAND, HELD AT COPENHAGEN
[Sidenote: Socialists of Neutral Nations.]
The Conference states that Capitalism, in its imperialistic form, expressed by the constantly increasing armaments, and by arrogant politics of aggrandizement, supported by the secret and irresponsible diplomacy of the Great Powers, have now led the world to the catastrophe predicted and always warned against by the Social Democracy.
In this moment, when the world is struck with terror at the horrible devastation this war has caused, the Conference desires to give expression to the firm and strong will to peace, existing within the nations represented at the Conference.
The delegates are of opinion that the chief aim of the conference is to be the strengthening and uniting of that public will which, undoubtedly, in all countries, demands the end of the war in such a way that a permanent peace may be secured. To realize this aim, the conference addresses itself to the democratic workmen, particularly to those of the belligerent countries, pointing at the same time to those principles of international solidarity and proletarian conception of justice which have been sanctioned at all our international congresses. These principles were expressed by the Congress of Copenhagen, 1910, in the following way:
The parliamentary representatives of the Social Democracy are bound to work in order to realize the following aims:
1. International compulsory arbitration.
2. Restriction of the preparations for war ending in final disarmament.
3. Abolition of secret diplomacy with full parliamentary responsibility as to foreign politics.
4. Recognition of the right of self-determination of nations, of resistance to oppression and war-intrigues.
The Conference considers it the duty of all socialistic parties to be active in order to render possible an early conclusion of peace, and to work energetically in favor of such conditions of peace as may form a basis of international disarmament and of the democratization of foreign politics.
The Conference protests against the infringement of international right in the case of Belgium and expresses a hope that the Social Democracy in all belligerent countries will in the strongest way possible oppose every violent annexation at variance with the right of self-determination of the peoples.
The Conference, thus, reiterates the principles of peace of the International, and summons the International Bureau to convoke the social democratic parties to joint deliberation, if not earlier, at least at the beginning of the negotiations of peace, in order to examine the conditions of peace, because the Conference considers it absolutely necessary that the conditions of peace be not stipulated without the collaboration of the working men and women, or against their will, and summons the working class in all countries to concentrate their efforts in order to realize a permanent peace throughout the world. This war, with all its horrors, has only been possible, because the Capitalist class of the different countries still holds the power in its hands. The Conference hence summons the Socialists to work with the greatest energy in order to conquer the political power, so that Imperialism may be ruined, and that the International Social Democracy may fulfil its great mission of emancipating the people.
Copenhagen, Jan. 17-18, 1915.
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
2. UNITED STATES
LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE
OBJECTS
[Sidenote: League to enforce Peace.]
1. An International Court to try all justiciable questions.
2. A Council of Conciliation for consideration of non-justiciable questions.
3. Use of joint economic pressure and military force against signatory beginning hostilities contrary to terms of alliance.
4. Formulation and adoption of a code of international law.
The League’s proposal is that economic pressure and military force shall be used to compel signatory Powers to take their international differences to the court for adjudication rather than to the battlefield. It frankly hopes to promote peace and aid its establishment by using economic and military force.
NATIONAL PEACE CONVENTION,
HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE EMERGENCY PEACE FEDERATION, CHICAGO,
February 27 and 28, 1915.
[Sidenote: National Peace Convention.]
1. Foreign policies of nations should not be aimed at creating alliances for the purpose of maintaining the “balance of power,” but should be directed to the establishment of a “Concert of Nations,” with
(_a_) An international court for the settlement of all disputes between nations;
(_b_) An international congress, with legislative and administrative powers over international affairs, and with permanent committees in place of present secret diplomacy;
(_c_) An international police force;
(_d_) The embodiment in international law of the principle of non-intercourse, as the sanction and enforcement of international obligations.
2. The gradual reduction and final abolition of national armaments should be accomplished upon the adoption of this peace program by a sufficient number of nations, or by nations of sufficient power to ensure protection to those disarmed; such reduction should be graduated in each nation according to the degree of disarmament elected in other nations, and should be progressive until complete abolition is finally attained.
3. The manufacture of armaments for private profit should be prohibited, and the export of munitions of war from one country to another should be directly under governmental control.
4. The protection of private property at sea, of neutral commerce and of communications should be secured by the neutralization of the seas, and of such maritime trade routes as the Dardanelles and the Panama and Suez Canals.
5. National and international action should be aimed at the removal of inequitable trade barriers and other more fundamental economic causes of war.
6. The democracies of the world should be extended and reinforced by general application of the principles of self-government and of universal adult suffrage.
7. No province should be transferred from one government to another without the consent of the population of such province.
8. No treaty, alliance, or other arrangement should be entered upon by any nation, unless ratified by the representatives of the people; treaties for securing delay before commencing hostilities, and adequate machinery for insuring democratic control of foreign politics should be created.
WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION
Boston, Mass.
[Sidenote: World Peace Foundation.]
1. No territory should be transferred from one nation to another in disregard of the inhabitants, nor any readjustment be made of which the effect would necessarily be to sow the seeds of future war.
2. As the alliances and ententes of Europe have proved their incapacity to safeguard the welfare of the people, the nations of that continent should establish and maintain a representative council in order to insure mutual conference and concerted action.
3. Competition in armaments should end. The nations should agree to abandon compulsory military service and to limit military force to purposes of police and international defense.
4. All manufactures of arms, armaments and munitions for use in war should hereafter be national property. No private citizen or corporation should be permitted to engage in such manufacture. The export of such goods for use in armies and fleets should be prohibited.
5. No neutral nation should permit its citizens to make loans to belligerents for war purposes. As our own State Department has said: “Loans by American bankers to any foreign nation which is at war are inconsistent with the true spirit of neutrality.”
AMERICAN SCHOOL PEACE LEAGUE
[Sidenote: American School Peace League.]
1. _A Concert of Europe._ The surest method of establishing permanent peace is to bring about a Concert of Europe, based upon the knowledge that, with nations as with individuals, cooperation and not conflict is the law of progress. In order to insure mutual conference and concerted action, there should be organized a representative Council whose deliberations and decisions would be public. This would mark the end of offensive alliances and ententes which have proved their inability to safeguard the real and permanent interests of the people.
2. _Nationality Must be Respected._ No territory should be transferred from one nation to another against the will of the inhabitants, nor should any readjustments be made which might breed fresh wars. National boundaries should coincide as far as possible with national sentiment. No terms of settlement should be regarded as satisfactory if they impose upon any nation such harsh and humiliating terms of peace as would be inconsistent with its independence, self-respect, or well-being. All idea of revenge should, of course, be rooted out.
3. _Limitation of Armaments._ Since the policy of huge national armaments has lamentably failed to preserve peace, competition in armaments should end. The nations should agree to have no military forces other than those maintained for international police duty. Militarism should be abandoned by all nations, because they recognize the absolute futility of force as a means of advancing the moral or material well-being of any country. To facilitate the elimination of militarism, the conditions of peace should stipulate that all manufactories of arms, armaments, and munitions for use in war shall hereafter be national property. No private citizen or corporation should be permitted to engage in such manufacture.
PROGRAM OF WOMEN’S PEACE PARTY
Organized in Washington, January 10, 1915.
[Sidenote: Women’s Peace Party.]
1. The immediate calling of a convention of neutral nations in the interest of early peace.
2. Limitation of armaments, and the nationalization of their manufacture.
3. Organized opposition to militarism in our own country.
4. Democratic control of foreign policies.
5. The further humanizing of governments by the extension of the franchise to women.
6. “Concert of Nations” to supersede balance of power.
7. Action toward the gradual organization of the world to substitute law for war.
8. The substitution of an international police for rival armies and navies.
9. Removal of the economic causes of war.
10. The appointment of our Government of a commission of men and women, with an adequate appropriation, to promote international peace.
PROGRAM OF WOMEN’S PEACE PARTY
Washington, January, 1916.
1. That no increased appropriations for war preparations be voted during the present session.
2. That a joint committee be appointed to conduct a thorough investigation with public hearings, and report within the next six months upon the following matters:
a. The condition of our military and naval defenses with special reference to the expenditures of past appropriations;
b. The probability of aggressive action by other nations against the United States by reason of antagonism with respect to race, trade, national expansion, property holding in foreign lands and other causes of war;