Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association Part 6

But there have always been men, with vision unaffected by martial glamour, who have foreseen in the logic of the world's history the inevitable end of war, and we have progressed now to a point where peace is the normal condition in international relationships. But it is an armed peace, founded on the false principle of suspicion and distrust, and we come now to consider the practical question of what the third Hague Conference can do to establish peace upon a firm and enduring foundation.

You will remember that the First Hague Conference established a so-called Permanent Court of Arbitration. It is not a definite, tangible tribunal, but merely a panel of a hundred or more men from whom the arbiters in each specific case may be selected; and therefore, though it is a great step in the right direction and though it has accomplished some good work, it has not commanded full confidence and recognition. To supplement this court the Conference of 1907 proposed a new organization--a Judicial Court of Arbitration, to be composed of seventeen judges of recognized legal authority, to sit for terms of twelve years, and to be competent to decide all cases. Here, then, is the nucleus of an easily accessible supreme court of the world, whose decisions would soon build up a new system of international law. Its composition, jurisdiction, and procedure are agreed upon. The vital problem, a mode of selecting the judges, remains unsettled. Evidently, then, the first great duty of the next Hague Conference is to put into operation this court, of which all the nations recognize the need and desirability.

Following logically the establishment of competent machinery for arbitration comes the second great duty of that conference--the pa.s.sage of a convention binding the nations to resort to this court in all cases that fail of ordinary diplomatic settlement. The Judicial Court of Arbitration, if the nations are not bound to use it, would certainly fail of its purpose. A general treaty making arbitration obligatory is not too much to demand, for the Conference of 1907 declared itself unanimous "in recognizing the principle of compulsory arbitration." Separate arbitration treaties mounting into the hundreds have been negotiated between individual nations, but almost all contain that fatal reservation of questions of "honor and vital interests." Honor and vital interests--could any words be more vague and indefinite? Are these not the very cases which interested nations are least competent to decide? A complete answer to that silly reservation is found in our hundred years' peace with Great Britain.

As John W. Foster, that keen student of our diplomatic history, has said, "The United States can have no future dispute with England more seriously involving the territorial integrity, the honor of the nation, its vital interests, or its independence, than those questions which have already been submitted to arbitration." Denmark has agreed with Italy and the Netherlands to arbitrate all questions that fail of diplomatic settlement, thus insuring perpetual peace between those nations. Here indeed is the pathway of true national honor.

Coincident with the establishment of the legal machinery for arbitration and the growth thereof, we would naturally have expected a cessation in the mad race for armament-supremacy. But the very reverse has happened, and to deal firmly with this contradictory situation is the third great duty of the next Hague Conference. Of what avail are our Courts of Arbitral Justice when this intolerable economic waste is permitted! To limit armaments was the avowed purpose of the First Hague Conference, but nothing was accomplished save the adoption of a neatly worded resolution that the limitation aforesaid is "highly desirable for the enlargement of the material and moral well-being of humanity." In 1907 the subject was again under discussion, the nations exhorted to a serious examination of the question--and there the matter rested. We have reached now an insufferable stage where effective action must be taken. Let us hear no more that deceptive catch phrase, "If you want peace prepare for war." When bad blood is likely to arise between individuals the very worst policy to pursue is to furnish them with weapons. And so it is with nations. Consider, if you will, the neck-and-neck race between Great Britain and the German Empire in the construction of battleships. What fool will call that preparation for war a guaranty of peace? We might be disposed to admit the sincerity of those who say we must arm and ever arm to maintain peace, except that they are too often men with professional and business interests at stake. In England there have been amazing revelations of this sinister condition--armament companies with peers, members of Parliament, newspaper owners, officers of the army and navy, as stockholders; enormous appropriations forced through Parliament by interested parties; periodic war scares in newspapers inspired by armament syndicates. Only recently we read how the great Krupp firm of Germany had been exposed in its practice of bribing officials to obtain valuable military information and furnishing French newspapers with war-scare articles calculated to induce Germany to increase her armament orders. In Russia and France they face a similar state of affairs. Here in the United States we are undoubtedly not free therefrom. And then there are the navy leagues in every country, playing upon the fears of the nations by startling tales of what the others are doing, and so on through an endless chain, manufacturing a demand for battleships in the name and under the guise of patriotism. We shrink from the contemplation of such greed and selfishness, and appeal for relief to the third Hague Conference.

We come now to a consideration of the fourth prime duty devolving upon that conference. Ocean commerce in war should be rendered inviolable.

In effecting this we not only abolish a barbarous custom, but at the same time remove one of the chief causes of great navies. As long as the safety of the merchant marine is not guaranteed by international agreement, just so long will nations with commercial aspirations build enormous navies for their protection. It is true England has. .h.i.therto opposed this reform,--confident in her naval supremacy,--but she cannot again fly in the face of a general demand without too great a sacrifice of prestige.

Here, then, are four important problems of the peace movement, all difficult, but not impossible of solution when we remember that the Conference of 1907, in good faith, I believe, adopted the following declaration, "That, by working together during the past four months, the collected powers not only have learnt to understand one another and to draw close together, but have succeeded ... in evolving a very lofty conception of the common welfare of humanity." Whether these fine words breathe sincerity or hypocrisy the next Hague Conference has ample opportunity to prove.

And now, what shall we say of the position of America in this war against war? Her boundless resources; her amalgamation of men from all parts of the world into one people; her impregnable geographical situation; her embodiment of the three cardinal principles of world-union (federation, interstate free trade, interstate courts); the genius and ideals of our government--all give America a logical leadership. She can boast of the first peace society in the world, of a glorious record of arbitration, of a long list of the wisest international statesmen, of a most advanced position at The Hague upon the questions of ocean commerce, courts of justice, arbitration, limitation of armaments. But there is the darker view. The treaties negotiated by Secretary Knox with France and with England, agreeing to arbitrate every question that fails of diplomatic settlement--those treaties were rejected by the United States Senate. There was a transcendent opportunity to lay the foundation for a speedy realization of peace universal, with France and England willing, yes, even anxious to cooperate--and America failed! Mr. Taft has shown that if the position of the Senate is accepted as international law, then we may as well bid farewell to any hopes of leadership in the peace movement, for our nation could then enter upon no general arbitration agreements because of the prerogative of the Senate in each specific case to accept or refuse arbitration.

It is at this point, Ladies and Gentlemen, that there is work for the humblest of us to do. In the intellectual field we can aid in the creation of an intelligent, forceful public opinion that will induce the Senate to recede from its fatal att.i.tude, and that will resist a false, cheap patriotism which is relentlessly endeavoring to crush America 'neath the burden of militarism. Then in the moral field we can stimulate and foster a peaceful att.i.tude, a sentiment for peace, in the hearts of our countrymen; and until this is accomplished there can be no peace universal, for, as Senator Root has said, "The questions at issue between disputing nations are nothing, the spirit that deals with them is everything." And finally, in the educational field, let us take heed that the men and women of our rising generation are taught the glorious pages of our arbitration history as well as they know the battles of our country. Let us take care that it is grounded into their minds and habits of thought from earliest years, that "peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."

In conclusion, let us not be deceived by that vain apology for war, that it is necessary to keep alive the heroic spirit and to stimulate manly courage. Despite the n.o.ble side in war, its b.e.s.t.i.a.l side predominates; its larger effect upon men is demoralizing. And if it be glorious to die for a cause, how much n.o.bler to live and strive for an ideal, utilizing the talents that G.o.d gave us for its realization! The movement for peace is not one of weaklings and mollycoddles. It is championed by red-blooded men, daring to bear the ridicule of the thoughtless and to fight for the preconceptions of humanity. Peace has her heroes in daily life--miners, mariners, policemen, firemen, men of every station, displaying the n.o.bility of their souls often unheralded and unsung. The venerable William T. Stead, bearing across the ocean his message of international good will, sacrificed his life on the _t.i.tanic_ that others might live. He was a hero, yes, but a hero of peace.

It would be an insult to your intelligence to prove the self-evident proposition that war is uneconomic, unscientific, unchristian. The movement for its elimination, above all, is logical and practical, and should appeal to every man. Is it nothing to you? Yes, it is a great deal to you. Merely let your imaginations picture the day when the seventy per cent of our national revenue now sacrificed on the altar of folly is diverted to the arts of peace, to the amelioration of social conditions, to advancing the happiness of our people--at peace with all other peoples in the a.s.surance of international law and love.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if we but do our duty, the dawn of that great day will come in our generation!

THE a.s.sURANCE OF PEACE

By VERNON M. WELSH, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois

First Prize Oration in the Western Group Contest, 1913, and Third Prize in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 15, 1913

THE a.s.sURANCE OF PEACE

The birth and rapid rise of the present movement for international peace are events of recent years. The nineteenth century found its welcome in the smoking cannon and crimsoned fields of Hohenlinden. At its close the first great peace conference of The Hague was in session. One hundred years ago Napoleon was sweeping across Europe in his terrible attempt to create an empire. To-day France, England, and America have agreed on treaties that declare for unbroken peace.

Touched by the wand of progress, the Utopian ideal of yesterday has become the dominant political issue of to-day. It is pertinent, then, that we seek the true nature of this revolution. Is it borne on the crest of a popular impulse that will recede as rapidly as it has risen, or is it a permanent movement, the product of natural forces working through ordinary channels?

The nineteenth century represents a break with the past. Swept into the mighty current of transition, the habits and customs of a thousand years have disappeared. With the development of natural resources, the establishment and growth of the factory system, the use of means of rapid communication, nations have entered upon a new era. Commerce and industry have come to dominate thought and action and are transforming the very life of the world. Defying the rigorous climate of both the poles, trade has penetrated the frozen recesses of Hudson Bay and made of the Falkland Islands a relay station in the progress of victorious industry. Nor is the equatorial heat more discouraging. The thick jungles of Africa have yielded their secrets, and the muddy waters of the Amazon are churned by propellers a thousand miles from the sea. International trade routes traverse the seas, connecting continent with continent. In forty years this commerce has increased from two billions to thirty billions. Giant corporations have ignored political boundaries, carried trade wherever profitable, and are supplying the varied demands of entire communities. Tariff walls, but lately effective barriers, are crumbling before the onslaught of trade. Nations are no longer independent. The wheat from Canada and the Dakotas feeds the mill workers of Sheffield and the n.o.bility of Berlin. The failure of the Georgia cotton crop halts the looms of England and raises the cost of living throughout Europe. Nations can no longer exist as self-sufficient economic units. Never before were they so mutually interdependent. Never before has the welfare and security of one state depended upon the enterprise and diligence of another. And the movement for international peace is the chance offspring of these new social forces, at once a protest and a warning against the wrecking of modern economic structures by the ruthless hand of war.

Commerce, the most important of these new forces, flourishes unprejudiced by armaments and military prestige. In the open compet.i.tion of the world's markets stronger powers meet and suffer from the rivalry of states that have no military standing. Relative to population, Norway has a carrying trade three times as great as England's. With her million trained warriors Germany is beaten by the merchants of Holland. The flag of little Denmark flies at more mastheads than does the Stars and Stripes. Where then is the commercial advantage supposed to attend superior military strength?

But it is to prevent the seizure of its commerce by others that nations must empty their treasuries to keep ironclads afloat. Yet what could be gained by attempted confiscation? If Germany annihilated England's navy to-morrow, how would she profit? Commerce is a process of exchange, the continuance and promotion of which is dependent upon the degree of mutual profit. Commercial gain is not a consequent of military success. It is since England seized the gold fields, diamond mines, and fertile plateaus of lower Africa that British securities have dropped twenty points. In 1871 Germany humbled and humiliated France almost beyond toleration, yet her share of the world's commerce has not been augmented thereby. So would it be with England. True, Germany might commit some depredations and hinder the pa.s.sage of trade, but what would be her motive? How could she gain? Even if the British Isles were depopulated, it is doubtful whether Germany would benefit. For by what miracle would Germany be able to develop the facilities, the shipyards, mills, factories, foundries, mines and machinery, to supply the trade which the foremost of commercial nations has been generations in building up? Germany's banner might wave over the Bank of England, her excise boats police the Thames and the Clyde, yet she would behold the trade of a conquered province going to foreign nations. Trade does not follow the flag. Undisturbed by political changes or military reverses, it flows in constantly widening channels wherever productive fields are found.

And in the waging of war, do we reckon the direct cost to commerce?

The commercial relations of the entire world are disturbed. Prolonged conflict is accompanied by the closing of the bank and the factory, the dismantling of the shop and mill, and the lengthening of the bread line in every city and town. In what state of prosperity and happiness might not France have been had Napoleon never lived? With half a century gone, our own country is still suffering from the devastation of the Civil War. Our commerce with South America is scarcely beyond the point it had reached before our week-end tiff with Spain. Yet there are those who prate of national honor and of war as insuring prosperity. From the leader of a newborn national party we hear that without a periodic war America would become effeminate and weak, her aggressive commercial life timid and corrupt, and within a few brief years the great Republic would sink to a fourth-rate power. Up, brave Americans, and man the guns! Awake, sons of freedom, and sweep the seas! Fourteen years without a war; our beloved land is ruined. You men of the factory and mill, you men of property and business, you producers of the nation's wealth, forward into the carnage; burn the homes of thrift and industry, for commerce will be enriched thereby; ravage the fields and despoil the cities, for this will insure vigorous national life; impoverish happy peoples, spread famine and pestilence through fertile valleys, mark the sites of contented villages with smoldering ruins, defy your Christian G.o.d, and kindle the fires of h.e.l.l in human b.r.e.a.s.t.s; commit violence, treachery, rapine, ay, murder,--for the eternal glory of the Stars and Stripes.

Yet commerce and industry--the glittering prizes which every nation covets when it builds a dreadnought or enlarges its army--demand that the creative forces of peace supplant the destructive wastes of war.

To-day the financial relationships of nations are inextricably entangled. The big banks in the capitals of the world are in communication with each other every second of the day. During the American crisis in 1907 the bank rate in England went up to seven per cent, forcing many British concerns to suspend operations. Because of the Balkan War the bank rate in Berlin, Paris, and Vienna is the highest in twenty years, and European securities have depreciated over six billion dollars. Foreign investments are raising insuperable barriers to war. Should the French bombard Hamburg to-day they would destroy the property of Frenchmen. Let Emperor William capture London, loot the Bank of England, and he will return to find German industry paralyzed, the banks closed, and a panic sweeping the land. Let English regiments again move to invade the United States, English warships draw up in battle line to attack our seaports, and four billions of the earnings of the English people would bar the way. To the victor of the present the spoils of war are valueless. j.a.pan, victor over the great Russian Empire, staggers under a colossal debt.

The Italian government hears rumbles of discontent, because the cost of winning a victory has been too great. What better proof do we need that war is profitless, that it means financial suicide? It has been transformed from a gainful occupation into economic folly, and war will cease because the price is becoming prohibitive.

In this movement for peace, capital's strongest ally is her most active enemy. Raised to a position of independence and power by the Industrial Revolution, labor is wielding an effective influence. The complexity of modern business has aroused workingmen in every country to a common interest and sympathy. The International Congress of Trade Unions, representing twenty countries and over ten million men, has declared for universal disarmament. Just last month eighty-five thousand coal miners in Illinois resolved that if the United States declared war on a foreign power, they would call a general strike.

And why not? Why should the workingmen of one country offer themselves as targets for those of another? Why should the workers of Germany be taxed to support a war against England, Germany's best market? Can the rice growers of j.a.pan profit by killing Americans to whom they sell their produce? War means suffering and want, and the laborer has come to know it. He is cold to the sight of its flaunting flags and the sound of its grand, wild music, for he sees the larder bare, funds exhausted, and hunger at the door. He refuses to sacrifice his body and the welfare of his family upon the altar of Mars. No longer can kings and emperors satisfy their grasping ambitions. Armed by the ballot, the ma.s.ses are to-day supreme. Never again will the cruel hand of tyranny press to their lips the poisoned cup of death. Their sway is absolute. The destinies of nations are in their keeping. The decree has gone forth that war must cease.

Born of these greater movements, a host of influences bring nearer the dawn of peace. The express and the wireless have supplanted the oxcart and the courier. Chicago and Boston are closer to-day than New York and Albany a century ago. Within the hour of their occurrence events that happen in Paris are published in Chicago and St. Louis. Political boundaries are fading before larger interests. Every railroad train crossing the frontier, every ship plying the seas, every article of commerce, every exchange of business, every cable conveying news from distant lands--all these are potent factors in the cause of international peace. Add to these the conciliating influence of foreign investments, the telephone and telegraph, travel, education, democracy, religion, and you have marshaled a host for peace whose clarion trumpets shall never sound retreat. Casting aside the prejudice of ages, modern industrialism flings around the world the economic bonds against which the forces of militarism are powerless.

Here, then, in the world-wide operations of commerce and industry is the _a.s.surance of peace_. The skeptic may scoff and the cynic point to Mexico and the Balkans, but the Industrial Revolution has produced a mult.i.tude of influences that are knitting the nations into an indissoluble unity. Men are beginning to realize the integrity of mankind, and a world-consciousness is arising. Kindness and justice--yesterday but community ideals--are extending their sway throughout the earth. Even while bayonets are bared in conflict and cannon thunder against hostile camps, the magic of our civilization is weaving bonds of union that cannot be broken. Peace, not war, is the true grandeur of nations; love, not hate, is the immutable law of G.o.d; and so surely as governments and kings are powerless to divide when home and factory would bind, some not too distant day will find the battle flags all furled, the sword's arbitrament abandoned, and the world at peace.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE

By FRANCIS J. LYONS, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, representing the Southern Group

First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at Mohonk Lake, May 28, 1914

EDUCATION FOR PEACE

Time was when war was beneficial. Historians have justified the spread of knowledge by the sword. At the world's awakening, it was well that the new thought should be diffused even at the sacrifice of human blood. It was justified because there was no other means. We have to cast our imagination back through the centuries and realize that then there were no railroads, no telegraph, no newspapers; that man was bound by narrow limits; and the elemental processes of the world were undiscovered. We do not criticize Alexander for conquering the eastern perils, for he carried in his phalanxes the spirit of new-discovered thought. We do not denounce Rome for piercing the unknown realms with her legions, for she was the mother of a new belief. But this was at the dawn of history, when erudition was in its struggling embryo, and the physical was the better part of man. Man went forth to battle as a religion.

The world grew partly wise, and man preached the gospel of brotherhood. But it did not last. The changing of the peoples smoldered the fires of rising intelligence, and the world rolled back again in darkness--a darkness long and black. Centuries pa.s.sed, and a new light came, slowly but courageously. Man blinkingly came forth, dazed and unsteady. The light grew, and man grew with it; but rooted deep in his heart was the love of war of his ancestors. In a different spirit, it is true; but it was there, and he went forth to battle not because it was religion, but because it was brave.

The world rolled on; war grew; it developed with the state; it became an art; was studied--and now our cycle turns. It faces us as a custom backed up by the centuries--deep-rooted, a consumer that yields no returns and, what with our modern appliances, a terror to the hearts of all the world. Men fought in the early ages because they thought it was just; men fought in the Middle Ages because they considered it brave; men of our modern age will banish war because it is a fallacy.

Do you know that to maintain our so-called prestige we spend seventy per cent of our national income? Think of it! Seventy per cent to maintain our present status and to prepare for the future! Think of that awful drain; think, if applied in other channels, what good could be done! We are proud of our battleship _Texas_. She is a n.o.ble war dog; yet do you realize that if we had applied the money spent on her in our own state we could have had one gigantic paved highway twice the distance from El Paso to Galveston? We could have had two hundred high schools, representing $75,000 each. We could have raised our inst.i.tutions of higher learning to a level with any of the East or North. Fifteen millions gone for a floating war machine which in twenty years will be a piece of rusted, useless iron; fifteen millions for a sailing dragon who, each time one of her big guns speaks, wastes the equivalent of a four-year college education for some youth--$1700--for a single shot. Our war dogs sail the seas; our soldiers parade our forts; and we look on and raise a joyous hubbub as the nations of the world rush madly on, wasting themselves in the race for military supremacy.

Have you ever considered yourself transported to some celestial height, and there, from the regions of the infinite, allowed to view a battle on earth? How foolish it must seem, these pygmies coming forth to make war. See them as they charge and wound and kill! See brother slay brother! See the wounded left to die! Hear the cries of distress, and picture the grief that follows all! Men battling to conquer; men a.s.suming the prerogative of a G.o.d--how foolish, yet how serious! And these artificial lines that men call boundaries, how punctiliously they are guarded! "Take but a hundred feet, and we shall war with thee." How foolish this too must seem when viewed from above--that we should carry on war over even a slight infraction on any imaginary, mathematical line.

We cherish the thought that the youth of our land are being taught self-restraint. It is ever impressed upon them that there are courts of justice for the settlement of controversies. Law and order have become stock phrases, dinned into their ears at every turn. The man who would settle his difficulty by trying the physical metal of his adversary is of the past. By the new order he is taboo as a savage.

Individual self-restraint rings out in our vocabulary as nationally descriptive. The babe at the mother's knee learns first the virtue of it; the child at school is tutored to it soundly; the man in life is lectured with it regularly. Brotherhood! Love! Self-restraint!

But what of the self-restraint of the nation? In the teaching of the individual, is it not odd and inconsistent that we forget the teaching of the unit? We paint the inner rooms of our national character with colors bright and pleasing, but the exterior, though weathering the heavier storms, is forgotten. If the child be taught that individuals should arbitrate their differences, can he not learn that the individual nations are subject to the same rule? If arbitration is best for each man, surely it must be best for all. If the child be taught that self-restraint is the boasted characteristic of the model American, should he not learn that the model American nation should be self-restraining? Let us learn this lesson, and surely we will never war. Herein shall we find the solution of this great problem. We can preach about peace and write pretty orations, but if we are to impress it upon the hearts of the world, we must teach it, and in a systematic manner. It is not to be learned in a day. It is the labor of a generation and more. It must be a fully developed characteristic. Man is learning self-development; now we must turn to the bigger ideals--national restraint, national development, international brotherhood.

Do you say this is idealism--visionary? On the contrary, it is thoroughly practicable. The only way to attain world-peace is for the individual citizen to think peace, to teach peace, and to act in accordance with such thoughts and teachings. Just as public opinion causes war, so only through cultivated public opinion can we hope for peace. I do not say to sink our battleships and turn free our army. I do not argue that we should quit guarding ourselves and throw ourselves open to the world; but what I seek is that we should turn our faces with bright hope to the future, eager to a.s.sist in the abolition of all that tends to war, eager to a.s.sist in the only proper way--the enlightenment of the world-nations.

The call comes naturally to America, the land of new belief; America, the New World of Opportunity, as Emerson calls it; the land cut off from the conventional past; a land that has taken world-leadership in the march of a single century. To America, where problems are studied and fallacies dethroned, the birthplace and the abiding home of democracy; to America, the Christian, the civilized! What will the answer be? Already we can hear the faint responses, as yet vague and indistinct, the drowned murmurings of the wiser tongues. These must grow into a national anthem whose echo will challenge the powers of the world and startle them into the consciousness of the new brotherhood. We will answer:

"Yes, we have learned the lessons of the centuries--that war is a fallacy, and armed peace its ill-sprung child; that man is no longer savage; that with enlightened mind he has controlled his warring instinct; that human love is a mightier power than war; and that we are one in the brotherhood of the Master.

"Let us stand before the nations, clad in simple honesty, panoplied in elemental justice; let us appeal to the common conscience of the world; let us say to the war-made powers, there is a way out, and we will lead. We will help you police the sea; we will give our constabulary to a quota of peace, but we are through. No great standing army, no more leviathan battleships. We trust to what we boast of as the highest attainment of the age, the innate justice of civilized humanity."