Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association Part 3

There was a time when individual prowess determined the issue of every difference. Might made right, so it was thought, and the winner in any controversy was he who had the heaviest club, the strongest arm, or the thickest skull. Man's interrelationships multiplied as humanity advanced; with each new relation came new causes for quarrel, and for a time advancing civilization brought but increase in murders and a.s.sa.s.sinations.

We know the process by which personal combat ceased; how the duel replaced murder and ambush and a.s.sa.s.sination; how courts of law replaced the duel. The dreamer saw the day when personal combat should be no more; the man of mind refuted all the arguments in favor of the duel of men; the constructive statesman of that early day inst.i.tuted courts of law and equity. Men who had a difference insisted that it was their quarrel and they alone could settle it; but reason saw that two combatants inflamed by pa.s.sion are least fitted of all men to see where justice lies. Many held that where honor is involved, no one can adjust the difficulty but those most directly concerned; but reason saw that a man's honor cannot be vindicated by killing his enemy or being killed by him. Men said, "If personal combat is abolished, courage and strength will perish from the earth." But reason saw that personal combat in a selfish cause does not bring out the highest type of courage; and that there are opportunities enough for the exercise of the highest and best moral and physical courage to keep valor alive forever. It was finally urged that there would be no power to enforce the decree if personal differences were left to the adjudication of others; but reason said, "That power will come with the need for it."

And so courts of law and equity arose, based on the need of humanity; laws were pa.s.sed defining rights and limiting aggression; and when one man wronged another, that wrong was settled in court by the power of the whole people and not in personal combat with the bludgeon or the knife.

For similar reasons wars between states and tribes have ceased; and face to face with the inevitable logic of past progress stands the world to-day. Though humanity has been slow to see it, the truth has begun to dawn in the hearts of men--that international wars are no more to be justified than civil strife, tribal warfare, or personal combat. Gradually the omnipotent power of right is overcoming the inertia of humanity, and the world is moving. One by one the awful truths concerning war are forcing themselves upon the consciousness and the conscience of men. The mighty power of fact is beating down the opposition to world peace.

Men have begun to realize the terrible cost, the unbelievable wastefulness of actual war, and the preparation for possible war. When we read that the armed peace of Europe the past thirty-seven years has cost $111,000,000,000, nearly as much as the aggregate value of all the resources of the United States, the richest nation on earth, the figures are so appalling that mortal mind cannot conceive them, and they lose their force. When we remember that two thirds of the national revenues of the United States are spent on wars past or prospective, the matter comes closer home. When we realize that the cost of a single battleship exceeds the value of all the grounds and buildings of all the colleges and universities in Illinois, the figures have more meaning to us. And when we reflect that the cost of a single shot from one of the great guns of that battleship would build a home for an American family, a comfortable home costing $1700, the common man realizes that the richest nation on earth cannot afford to go to war nor prepare for war.

But mere money is one of the cheapest things in all the world. The price of war never can be paid in gold. Not in national treasuries can you see the payment of that price, where smug, well-groomed politicians sign bonds and bills of credit. If you would see the payment of that price of war, you must go to the place of war. With all your senses open, step upon the battlefield. Smell the smoke of burning powder, the reek of charging horses, the breath of fresh, red, human blood. Feel the warmth of that blood as you seek to stanch the wound in the breast of one of the world's bravest, dying for he knows not what. Hear the screams of the sh.e.l.ls, the booming roar of the cannonade, the clash of the onslaught, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the last gasp of him whose life has reached its end. Such is the infernal music of war. See the victim of the conflict reel in the saddle and fall headlong. Cast your eyes on the mangled forms of G.o.dlike men, fallen in the midst of fullest life. Come in the night after the battle and look upon the ghastly faces upturned in the moonlight. Gaze on the windrows of the dead, Mars's awful harvest, that impoverishes all and enriches none, and you know something of the cost of war.

And yet we have seen but little. Could we but enter the wasted homes and see the broken hearts that war has made; could we go to the almshouses and soldiers' orphans' homes and see widows and children by the thousand suffering the doled-out charity of state or nation because war has robbed them of their rightful protectors; could we but realize the agony of the broken home, a thousandfold worse than the agony of the battlefield,--then might we know more of the real cost of war.

And still our idea would be inadequate, though we realized the full measure of every groan and heartache. Earth's most priceless treasures are still more intangible things, the treasures of justice and kindliness and love. In that higher realm the cost of war is most terrible and most deadly. The spirit of war in the soldier sets aside the moral law, makes human life seem valueless, human suffering a thing to be disregarded, human slaughter an honorable profession. The war spirit blinds the eye of the statesman, till wrong seems right, folly seems expediency, and the death of thousands seems preferable to the life and happiness of all under terms of peace not dictated by his own will. Justice is dethroned, and revenge takes up the iron scepter and lets fly the thunderbolt. The war spirit perverts the mind of the publicist, till the achievements of honorable peace sink into insignificance, and the press clamors for the war that means money to the publisher but death to innocent thousands who can have no possible interest in the conflict. The war spirit takes possession of the pulpit, and the minister called to preach the loving message of the Prince of Peace stirs up the spirit of contention and animosity, of hate and murder. Could we but draw aside the curtain and, back of the tinsel and gold braid, see the crime, the hate, the moral degradation that war always brings, never again would a friend of humanity ask for war.

But the eyes of the world are opening to the fact that the cost of war is far too high in money and in men, in suffering and sacrifice, and in those higher values of justice and kindliness and love. And as the thought once grew that personal differences might be settled without personal combat, so men are looking toward the settlement of international difficulties without recourse to the sword. They have seen that every argument against the duel of men applies with still greater force against the duel of nations. And the world has moved farther toward world peace in the past twenty-five years than in all the centuries of history that have preceded. World peace has become not the dream of the poet but the confident hope of the world, whose realization is the task whose accomplishment is set for the men of this generation.

One by one the obstacles to world peace are being broken down.

Commerce has destroyed much of international prejudice. Community of interest has obviated many former causes of quarrel. The sophistical arguments of the friends of war are being answered by the logic of hard facts. Warfare has been ameliorated by international agreement.

Vast reaches of territory have been neutralized. Unfortified cities are no longer to be bombarded in any country. Actual disarmament has taken place between the United States and Canada, between Chile and Argentina.[1] Norway and Sweden have separated peaceably. Bulgaria has achieved her independence without bloodshed. The Dogger Bank incident, which a century earlier would have plunged England and Russia into war, has been adjusted amicably. Two Hague Conferences have advanced tremendously the progress of international amity. Over eighty arbitration treaties are now in force. We already have a permanent high court of nations, to which are being referred questions that would once have resulted in war. And we are nearer than the dreamer of last century dared hope to "the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world."

[1] The famous "disarmament" between the Argentine Republic and Chile was brought about by a series of four doc.u.ments of May 28, 1902, one of July 10, 1902, and one of January 9, 1903. A preliminary protocol declares the disposition of both countries "to remove all causes for trouble in their international relations." A general treaty of arbitration unlimited in scope was signed for a period of ten years. A convention bound each country to "desist from acquiring the vessels of war now building for them, and from henceforth making new acquisitions." Article II says that "the two governments bind themselves not to increase their naval armaments during a period of five years, without previous notice." As a result of arbitration resulting from this series of agreements the frontier was disarmed and remains free from military posts. New naval programs of both countries were formulated after the expiration of the period of abnegation, and dreadnoughts are now in course of construction.--_Editor._

But not yet has the millennium dawned. In the face of all this progress, armies and navies are stronger and more burdensome than ever. The United States spends more on wars past and prospective than for all educational purposes, and England, France, Germany, Russia, groan under the burdens of the armed peace of Europe. Armed to the teeth, the nations of the world lie watching one another. The mind of the world is convinced that war is futile and terribly wasteful. The heart of the world is convinced that war is cruel and inexcusable. The conscience of the world has admitted that war is wrong and morally unjustifiable. And still the preparation for war goes on, and unless conditions are changed, war is inevitable. What is to be done? The world's will must be moved, and men must be led to do what they have already admitted is right and just and expedient.

As we have led in other days, so must America lead to-day. As the light of republican government and complete justice to the individual first saw full dawn in the United States, so the eyes of the world are turned toward us to see the dawn of world peace, and full justice to all the nations. It is ours to lead. The example of the United States will do more than a century of argument and conference. America should begin the disarmament that will eventually mean the triumph of world peace.

We have naught to fear. We are far distant from the storm centers of the world. We have no foes within that demand a large standing army, and there are no enemies without that are anxious to try conclusions with us on land or sea. Then away with war talk and war scares and "jingoism." In time of peace let us prepare for peace, that all the world may enjoy peace. American disarmament will be a tremendous stride toward the accomplishment of the world's desire--the cessation of international warfare; a great world's court, to settle all international differences; an international police force, to give effect to the decrees of this court; and the end of the burdens of armies and navies under which the whole world is groaning. Let heart and voice and pen, pulpit and press and platform, soldier and statesmen and private citizen, ask for peace, and not for war.

This is a part of the world's larger hope. Pessimists there are who say that human nature is belligerent, and that war will never be abolished. But international warfare has already seen the handwriting on the wall. Mars has been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

The fruitless slaughter of the millions is not to be forever nor for long. Let us hasten the day when the rolling war drum will be hushed forever, the bugle note no longer call to carnage; when "nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Love shall take the place of Hate, and Justice sit on the throne instead of Greed. Some day in the not distant future the nations that have all these centuries bowed before the G.o.d of war shall own eternal allegiance to the Prince of Peace. And "of the increase of His government and of Peace there shall be no end."

THE WASTE OF WAR--THE WEALTH OF PEACE

By ARTHUR FORAKER YOUNG, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at the University of Michigan, May 13, 1910

THE WASTE OF WAR--THE WEALTH OF PEACE

In the worship of Mars, Herodotus tells us, the ancient Scythian erected an old scimitar at the summit of a huge brush heap. To this, as a symbol of the great G.o.d of war, he offered not only the produce of the land but also human life in sacrifice. We shudder as we picture the priest standing over his victim, his hands wet with the blood of his fellow man. We cry out in horror as we think of the lives these peoples sacrificed. We call it an inhuman glorification of a pagan deity. We call it a ruthless waste of wealth and human life. These practices we p.r.o.nounce to be the result of a popular delusion--a false sense of obligation to the spirit of war. Yet from the time the Scythian drew the blood of his victim in homage to the great war G.o.d, even down to our own day, the nations have paid homage to Mars.

Though we boast of our progress in civilization, history reveals the fact that we, too, have been the victims of the Scythian's delusion.

Is it not a fact that one of the most terrible customs of savage men counts among its followers to-day all the nations of the earth? The subtlest skill of the scientist, the keenest intelligence of the statesman, vast stores of the world's resources, are devoted to maintaining great armies and navies, to inventing new means of attack or defense, to enlarging and making more deadly the enginery of war.

What is our boast of civilization, while we tolerate this devotion of so many men and so much of wealth to war? Is this not a sacrifice essentially pagan in spirit? Are we not still paying unrighteous homage to Mars?

Why, then, we ask, do nations make provision for war the first necessity of national life? Behold Russia. A few years ago, in time of famine, spending millions of money for war equipment when millions of her own peasantry were slowly starving for the lack of one dollar's worth of food per month. What motive impelled Russia to this heathen conduct? It was solely that Germany, France, England, j.a.pan, and the United States had great armies and navies against which starving Russia must be prepared to defend herself. What dire stress compels England to-day to perpetuate her program of naval supremacy when she is struggling in the throes of budget difficulties which seem all but unsolvable? What is it that compels Germany and France to tax themselves until they fairly stagger under the burden of military expenditures? Naught other than a suicidal l.u.s.t for military power.

Naught other than the infatuation of the dizzy, compet.i.tive war dance of mutual destruction--each nation blindly driven by all, and all by each.

We as Americans profess to find in the conduct of Russia, in the militarism of England and Germany and France, examples of militarism run rampant. How our hearts have warmed within us when we have thought of our own republic as the happy envied nation, free from the burden of militarism! Our farmer has gone singing about his work, apparently not having to carry on his back a soldier, as does the European peasant. Our mechanic has freely plied his trade without thought of supporting a sailor. Yet how can we say that the United States in buying battleships and erecting coast defenses, in arming her soldiers with Krag-Jorgensens, has not been deprived of schools, colleges, and opportunities essential to happiness and prosperity? In a decade we have spent nearly a billion dollars on our navy alone. Yes, we have aped the military fashions of Europe and have set a new standard of military waste.

Verily our national advancement waits on militarism. Inland waterways should be improved; forests must be safeguarded; other natural resources of untold value should be conserved; millions of acres of desert lands should be improved; millions in swamps should be redeemed. The problem of the nation's food supply is becoming urgent; for its solution we must look more and more to scientific methods in agriculture. Yet contrast the support our government gives these vital interests with war's mighty drain on our treasury. Congress appropriated $648,000,000 for all expenditures in 1910. Of this amount $407,000,000 were appropriated for war expenditures and the glories of militarism. For this same year agriculture received for all its needs the comparatively paltry sum of $12,000,000. In spite of the fact that our nation is devoting two thirds of its enormous national expenditures to war, our militarists point to our vast national wealth and sneer at the n.i.g.g.ardly mortals who object to spending it for guns.

It is evident that no nation is yet beyond the infatuation for display of the splendors of war, yet in every one there are signs of a new power that is coming upon us. All are thinking less of the glories of war--of the beat of the drum, of the rhythmic tread of regiments, of glittering sabers and of monster battleships--and are thinking more and more of the glories of peace, of thriving industries, of magnificent libraries, of comfortable homes, and of more efficient schools. Obviously, though we still possess a war spirit, we are seeing with a clearer vision that the waste of war is depriving us of the fullest measure of the wealth of peace. Our frame of mind is much the same as that of the ragged street urchin who, having lost his day's earnings, thinks of a hundred things which he might have spent it for. The same spirit is permeating every nation. The American manufacturer, the Russian peasant, the English mechanic, the German scientist, the French scholar, are all asking themselves, "Why need the world continue to carry this Atlantean burden of war?"

Already this sentiment has accomplished practically all that can be done in humanizing war. It has outlawed the dumdum bullet, it has enforced radical sanitary measures, it has neutralized the Red Cross and brought its ministrations to the relief of the sufferings of war.

But humanized war is not the goal of this sentiment. As long as there is an increase of armaments there will be war; as long as the battle rages there will be waste and suffering. The same sentiment which has humanized war now demands war's abolition. It has already accomplished something toward this end in making the settlement of international disputes through arbitration more probable than war. What it has not accomplished is the discrediting of militarism. It has failed to stop the growth of armaments. Can we expect our regiments to find contentment in the irksome routine of training camp with never a thought of charging the enemy? Can we expect to man the seas with fleets of war just for gay parade and cruises around the world? Can we expect that our skilled gunners will be satisfied to practice, practice always, and never long for human targets? It is against arming nations for battle and tempting them to fight that the peace sentiment is rousing itself and is being organized. It is in this labor that peace societies the world over are performing valiant service. Their great mission is the creation of an intelligent public opinion, a force more potent than government itself.

What, for instance, was the purpose of the founder of this Intercollegiate Peace a.s.sociation? Not, I take it, to give men a chance to win petty oratorical triumphs; not, I suppose, to bring together speakers to entertain such audiences as this--or to weary them. But their object must have been to set the men of our colleges to thinking on the great question of peace. In such ways are peace societies using the platform and the press to establish a firm basis for unity and peace throughout the world.

Yesterday the advocate of world peace was called a dreamer; to-day rapidly organizing public opinion demands the abolition of war and recognizes the wealth and culture of peace. Yesterday we erected statues to those who died for their country; to-day we cheer the Gladstones, the McKinleys, the Roosevelts, who live for humanity.

Yesterday we bowed the knee to Mars; to-day we join in peans to the Prince of Peace. Yes, the new spirit of the day is fraternal; it is undaunted; it is for mankind. Even now the world's geniuses are mustering the soldier citizens of every nation for a peaceful conflict. The great battles of to-morrow are to be fought in quiet laboratories, in legislative halls, in courts of justice, and on the broad battlefields of productive labor.

The final outcome is, indeed, irresistible. Racial movements have mixed all peoples; the oceans have become the world's common highways; the air is filled with voices speaking from city to city and from continent to continent; an international postal system makes the world's ideas one; there is quick partic.i.p.ation of mankind in the fruits of invention and research. We behold financial and economic enterprises world-wide in their outreach; we feel the force of social projects and social ideals that concern not one but every nation; and we are partic.i.p.ating in missionary movements that affect not one but every race, and are changing the very face of nature itself. Our world is a world unified beyond all possible conception a century ago, and the world unity is a certain stepping stone to world peace.

The world never offered grander opportunity to the nations for leadership--not for leadership in military splendor, but for leadership in the sublime paths of peace. For the United States this call means not only opportunity but even obligation. Already this country has performed well her duty in fostering international arbitration. She has been a party to half of the cases where disputes between nations have been referred to the Hague Tribunal. Arbitration is performing its mission with more and more efficiency, yet each year the war budgets of the nations are increasing. The peace sentiment now demands a decrease of armaments, a conversion of the waste of war into the wealth of peace. To demonstrate that this is practicable is the immediate opportunity before us, our present obligation. What is our waste of war expressed in terms of the wealth of peace? Notice! Two thirds of the cost of one dreadnought, like the mammoth _Florida_ launched but yesterday, would erect and furnish a veritable palace for every foreign amba.s.sador and minister of the United States, thus solving a perplexing problem of our diplomatic service. One twenty-second of the cost of one dreadnought would support for one year the entire force of the American Board of Foreign Missions in their work of proclaiming our gospel of peace. One half the cost of one dreadnought would erect and equip twenty-five manual-training schools, teaching the rudiments of a trade to forty thousand young people each year. The cost of two dreadnoughts would provide every state in the Union with a half-million dollars with which to save the juvenile delinquents from criminal courts and schools of vice behind prison bars. The cost of one dreadnought, wisely spent each year in the fight against tuberculosis, would make the white plague in a single generation a disease as rare as smallpox is to-day.

Where now we are erecting battleships and forts, it is for us to build libraries and schools. Where now we drain our treasuries in equipping men to fight their fellow men, it is for us to arm against the common enemy, disease. Where now we pour out our wealth before the pagan Mars, it is for us to devote our treasure to supporting the works of the Prince of Peace.

Such a victory for peace would make America not simply a world power: it would make her the world leader. Will we stop tagging at the heels of Great Britain and Germany and travel this broadening road in which we can be first? How humiliating to struggle along, a trailer in the military procession! How n.o.ble to set the daring example of living up to the belief in peace! Will we say: "See our hands; we bear no bludgeons. Search us; we carry no concealed weapons. Militarism we have thrown to the sc.r.a.p heap of practices discredited and vicious. We have stopped war's wanton waste of men and treasure; we rejoice in the growing wealth of peace ideals realized"? Thus shall we speed the steadily growing public opinion of the world, to the bar of which must finally come every nation which does aught to break or hinder the world's peace.

THE HOPE OF PEACE

By STANLEY H. HOWE, Albion College, Albion, Michigan

First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Johns Hopkins University, May 5, 1911

THE HOPE OF PEACE

The history of civilization is a record of changing ideals, and ideals are best reared in the hearts of the world's young men. Inevitably, nations look toward the cradle for their future and intrust the care of their destiny to the hands of youth. "Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men,"

declared Edmund Burke, "and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation." When the blood of youth is sluggish and impure; when the young hold wealth more dear than worth, remove the check of virtue from their selfish aims, establish Mammon as their G.o.d, and, ambitious to govern the world, forget how to govern themselves,--then nations choke and die. But when the blood of youth is rich and pure, pulsating through the veins of the universe with strong, resistless surge; when fathers teach anew the angel's message of good will and peace, and sons build high their goal upon a pedestal of service and of truth,--then nations breathe and live. What hope, then, asks the world, finds the doctrine of peace in the ideals and aspirations of America's youth to-day?

The nation faces a charge of militarism. It is the indictment of her critics that never before in American history has the government entertained an att.i.tude so hostile toward her neighbors and so dangerous to the interests of peace. They point to the attempt to fortify the Ca.n.a.l and cry out that America would drain her treasury to build a monument of reproach to international integrity. They criticize the vast appropriations for the navy and declare that America is starving her poor that she may more pompously parade the seas. They protest against the "war-game" on the Rio Grande[1] and even charge that in the interest of a Wall Street king America invites the world to arms. And these are not illusions. The lure of gold has turned the nation from her mission. The spirit of commercialism has eclipsed the sentiment of brotherhood and tempted the Republic to barter her honor for the price of imperial supremacy. Wherein, then, again asks the world, finds America hope for the future? And to the charges of her critics, with their dismal prophecy of a "wrong forever on the throne," this is the nation's answer and defense--that an eclipse is never permanent, that the world stays not in the valley of the shadow forever, and that the solution of the problem, the fulfillment of a national mission, and the hope of world peace find their common a.s.surance in the changing ideals of America's aspiring young men.

[1] Part of the United States army was mobilized on the frontier for maneuvers, in 1911, owing to the Mexican revolutionary disturbances.--_Editor._