Part 5

By the courtesy of President Roosevelt the official call for the Second Hague Conference was issued by the Emperor of Russia. Forty-four nations were represented.--Editor.

THE UNITED STATES AND UNIVERSAL PEACE

By GLENN PORTER WISHARD, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, May 15, 1908

THE UNITED STATES AND UNIVERSAL PEACE

Political and religious reforms move slowly. We change our beliefs and at the same time hold fast to old customs. Farsighted public opinion has declared war to be unchristian; sound statesmanship has stamped it as unjust; the march of events has, in a majority of cases, proved it to be unnecessary--and yet we continue to build mammoth engines of destruction as if war were inevitable. Truly, the millennium is not at hand, nor is war a thing of the past; but whereas war was once the rule, now it is the exception. This is an age of peace; controversies once decided by force are now settled by arbitration. Europe, once the scene of continuous bloodshed, has not been plundered by conquering armies for more than a generation, while the United States has enjoyed a century of peace marred by only five years of foreign war. The four notable conflicts of the last decade have been between great and small powers, and have been confined to the outposts of civilization; while during the same period more than one hundred disputes have been settled by peaceful means. The willingness to arbitrate has been manifest; the means have been provided; the Permanent International Court, established by the Hague Conference in 1899, actually lives, and has already adjudicated four important controversies. But arbitration, you say, will never succeed because the decisions cannot be enforced. You forget that already some two hundred and fifty disputes have been settled by this method, and in not one instance has the losing power refused to abide by the decision.

From October 14, 1902, the date of the first decision, up to the end of 1913, the Permanent Court has rendered thirteen decisions settling international differences.--Editor.

Yesterday the man who advocated universal peace was called a dreamer; to-day throughout the world organized public opinion demands the abolition of war. Yesterday we erected statues to those who died for their country; to-day we eulogize those who live for humanity. Yesterday we bowed our heads to the god of war; to-day we lift our hands to the Prince of Peace.

I do not mean to say that we have entered the Utopian age, for the present international situation is a peculiar one, since we are at the same time blessed with peace and cursed with militarism. This is not an age of war, yet we are burdened by great and ever-increasing armaments; the mad race for naval supremacy continues, while the relative strength of the powers remains practically the same; the intense and useless rivalry of the nations goes on until, according to the great Russian economist, Jean de Bloch, it means "slow destruction in time of peace by swift destruction in the event of war." In Europe to-day millions are being robbed of the necessaries of life, millions more are suffering the pangs of abject poverty in order to support this so-called "armed peace." Note the condition in our own country. Last year we expended on our army, navy, and pensions sixty-seven per cent of our total receipts. Think of it! In a time of profound peace more than two thirds of our entire expenditures are charged to the account of war.

We do not advocate radical, Utopian measures; we do not propose immediate disarmament; but we do maintain that when England, Germany, France, and the United States each appropriates from thirty to forty per cent of their total expenditures in preparation for war in an age of peace, the time has come for the unprejudiced consideration of the present international situation. Why do the great powers build so many battleships? President Roosevelt, Representative Hobson, and others would have us believe that England, Germany, and France are actually preparing for war, while the United States is building these engines of destruction for the purpose of securing peace. But what right have we to assume that our navy is for the purpose of preserving peace, while the navies of the European powers are for the purpose of making war? Is not such an assumption an insult to our neighbors? As a matter of fact, England builds new battleships because Germany does, Germany increases her navy because France does, while the United States builds new dreadnoughts because other nations pursue that policy. Call it by whatever honey-coated name you will, the fact, remains that it is military rivalry of the most barbarous type, a rivalry as useless as it is oppressive, a rivalry prompted by jealousy and distrust where there should be friendship and mutual confidence. There is riot one of the powers but that would welcome relief from the bondage of militarism; the demand for the limitation of armaments is almost universal. Believing that to decry war and praise peace without offering some plan by which the present situation may be changed is superficial, we hasten to propose something practicable.

How, then, shall we put an end to this useless rivalry of the nations? At present a general agreement of the great powers on the limitations of military establishments seems impossible. It remains for some powerful nation to prove to the world that the great armaments are not necessary to continued peace, with honor and justice. Some nation must take the first step. Why not the United States? The nations of Europe are surrounded by powerful enemies, while the United States is three thousand miles from any conceivable foe. They are potentially weak, while our resources are unlimited. They have inherited imperialism; we have inherited democracy. Their society is permeated with militarism; ours is built on peace and liberty. Our strategic position is unequaled, our resources are unlimited, our foreign policy is peaceful, our patriotism is unconquerable. In view of these facts, I ask you, What nation has the greatest responsibility for peace? Are not we Americans the people chosen to lift the burden of militarism from off the backs of our downtrodden brother?

The widely heralded proposal in 1913 for a naval holiday by all the great powers is the first move in this direction.--Editor.

Now what are we doing to meet this responsibility? On the one hand, we are performing a great work for peace. Many of our statesmen, business men, and laborers, united in a common cause, are exerting a tremendous influence in behalf of arbitration and disarmament. On the other hand, we are spending more on our military establishment than any other world power; we are building more battleships than any other nation; we are no longer trusting our neighbors; we are warning them to beware of our mailed fist; and we are thereby declaring to the world that we have lost our faith in the power of justice and are now trusting to the force of arms.

The orator is comparing the cost of the United States army, navy, and pensions upkeep with the military establishments of other powers.--Editor.

Since naval rivalry in its acute form has centered between Great Britain and Germany, European naval building programs have exceeded those of the United States.--Editor.

And why this paradoxical situation? Why do we at the same time prepare for war and work for peace? It is simply because many of our statesmen honestly believe that the best way to preserve peace is to prepare for war. It is true that a certain amount of strength tends to command respect, and for that reason a navy sufficient for self-defense is warranted. Such a navy we now have. Why should it be enlarged? Naval enthusiasts would have us prepare, not for the probable but for the possible. Seize every questionable act of our neighbors, they say, magnify it a thousand times, publish it in letters of flame throughout the land, and make every American citizen believe that the great powers are prepared to destroy us at any moment. Having educated the people up to a sense of threatened annihilation, they burden them with taxes, build artificial volcanoes dedicated to peace, parade them up and down the high seas, and defy the world to attack us. Then, they say, we shall have peace. Is this reasonable? As sure as thought leads to action, so preparation for war leads to war. This argument that the United States, since she is a peace-loving nation, should have the largest navy in the world in order to preserve peace is illogical and without foundation. By what divine right does the United States assume the rôle of preserving the world's peace at the cannon's mouth? Since when has it been true that might makes right, and that peace can be secured only by acting the part of a bully? It is unjust, it is unpatriotic, it is unstatesmanlike, for men to argue that the United States should browbeat the world into submission; that she should build so many battleships that the nations of the Eastern hemisphere will be afraid to oppose the ironclad dragon of the Western Hemisphere. Peace purchased at the price of brute force is unworthy of the name. Surely the United States cannot afford to be guilty of such an injustice. If we wish to be free; if we wish to remain a true republic; if we purpose to continue our mighty work for humanity, we must limit our preparations for war. The best way to preserve peace is to think peace, to believe in peace, and to work for peace.

The extent to which the great powers will go in order to secure enthusiasm for their military establishments is almost beyond comprehension. Each nation has its great military rendezvous, its grand naval parades, its magnificent display of gorgeous military uniforms, its wave of colors, blare of trumpets, and bursts of martial music. The United States is now sending her navy around the world--for the purpose of training the seamen?--certainly, but also that the youth of our land may be intoxicated by the apparent glory of it all, and thus enlist for service; that the American citizens may be aroused to greater enthusiasm by this magnificent display of the implements of legalized murder, and thus be willing to build more floating arsenals rather than irrigate arid lands, develop internal waterways, build hospitals, schools, and colleges.

The trouble with such exhibitions is, that it displays only the bright side of militarism. If in place of the Russian battleships they should display the starving masses of dejected and despised beings who pay for those battleships; if in place of the gay German uniforms they should exhibit the rags of the disheartened peasants who pay for those uniforms; if in place of the grand parade they should produce masses of wounded men and rivers of blood; if in place of the stirring martial music they should produce the writhing agonies and awful groans of dying men; if in place of sham war they should produce actual war,--their exhibitions would make militarism unbearable.

Again, we are told that we have suddenly become a world power, and that we must prepare to exercise a new diplomacy under new conditions. We must increase our navy, they say, to enforce this new diplomacy. We must prepare to fight in behalf of the Monroe Doctrine. But why, I ask, cannot this new diplomacy be enforced as American diplomacy has always been enforced? We promulgated the Monroe Doctrine without a navy; we have maintained it for over eighty years without the show of force. If our new diplomacy is right, it is as strong as the world's respect for righteousness; if it is wrong, a hundred battleships cannot enforce it.

We have become a world power, and therefore we have a world-wide responsibility, and that responsibility is to establish justice, not force; to build colleges, not battleships; to enthrone love, not hate; to insure peace, not war. Our mission is to strike the chains from the ankles of war-burdened humanity. Our duty is to proclaim in the name of the Most High our faith in the power of justice as opposed to the force of arms. May it be said of us that we found the world burdened with militarism, but left it blessed with peace; that we found liberty among the strong alone, but left it the birthright of the weak; that we found humanity a mass of struggling individuals, but left it a united brotherhood. May it be said of us that we found peace purchased by suffering, but left it as free as air; that we found peace bruised and stained with militarism, but left it ruling the world through love and liberty. May it be said of us that we fulfilled our mission as a world power; that we were brave enough and strong enough to lead the world into the path of universal peace.

THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD PEACE

By LEVI T. PENNINGTON, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

First Prize Oration in the National Contest held at The University of Chicago, May 4, 1909

THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD PEACE

In the progress of the world the dream of yesterday becomes the confident hope of to-day and the realized fact of to-morrow. As old systems fail to meet new conditions and new ideals, they are discarded; and into the limbo of worse than useless things is passing the system of human sacrifice to the Moloch of international warfare. For centuries world peace has been the dream of the poet, the philanthropist, the statesman, and the Christian. That dream is becoming a confident hope. This generation should see it an accomplished fact.

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 assassinations.

We know the process by which personal combat ceased; how the duel replaced murder and ambush and assassination; 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 instituted 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 passion 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 passed 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.