What Price Peace?

Part 1

WHAT PRICE PEACE?

FREDERICK J. LIBBY

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Additional copies of this pamphlet may be obtained from the National Council for Prevention of War 532 Seventeenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.

Issued January, 1925

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

Potential causes of war confront us on every hand. Peace has not come. Our military men tell us that getting ready for war is the way to peace. It is their duty to prepare the nation for war. This method, however, will not bring peace. It will only hasten another world war, and that would fatally weaken our white civilization.

To possess peace with justice and security, we must build machinery adequate to settle all international disputes that might cause war, and we must create behind the machinery a world opinion so strong that no nation will defy it. Small national armed forces theoretically can supplement world opinion, but the reliance must be on world opinion. Competitive armaments, the result of fear or ambition, must be progressively abolished by international agreement. International understanding and goodwill must be consistently cultivated beginning in the schools. The road to peace is a long uphill road.

For machinery we shall require a court for our legal disputes and a town meeting of the world for the rest. I favor immediate adherence to the existing World Court with the Hughes reservations. For the world town meeting, I believe that we should join the existing League of Nations with reservations on Articles X and XVI in order that we may avoid both legal and moral commitments to use either military or economic force. These seem to me to be the first two steps towards peace.

The third step is the outlawry of war. Since this will involve sacrifice of sovereignty in certain respects for the sake of peace, with a voluntary agreement to submit to the proper tribunal all disputes that threaten war, it requires a higher development of the will to peace than does the creation of the Court and League. It will fail if attempted as a political device to perpetuate the status quo. It can succeed only when the nations, and especially the great powers, are willing to be just, have a reasonable appreciation of one another’s problems, and are actuated by a fair degree of goodwill.

The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes and Senator Borah’s proposal for the outlawry of war should be studied together in the light of the concrete problems to be solved, especially the political and human problems. I believe that the provision for “sanctions” to be automatically applied is impracticable.

A conference for the reduction and limitation of land, sea, and air armaments is imperatively needed in the interest of economy and world peace. No one knows how soon such a conference can be held with reasonable assurance of even partial success. All nations must participate. I believe that a conference of this kind would now be more fruitful if held in Geneva than if held in Washington.

The interim policy for the United States should be to avoid increasing armaments, holding “defense days,” and the like. Our aggressive and growing militarism is bringing us no added security and is engendering fear and suspicion at home and abroad. On the other hand, as mighty armaments give a sense of security and stability――albeit a mistaken sense――I expect no substantial reduction by America alone.

WHAT PRICE PEACE?

By Frederick J. Libby

“PEACE! PEACE!” WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE

We are farther from peace than we were in 1922. The French occupation of the Ruhr and the passage by Congress of the Japanese Exclusion Act were blows at the very heart of world peace. Hate has been growing in Europe. Militarism has been given a new lease of life in Germany and in Japan. The question of race equality has been made a permanently living issue to be coupled in future years with the problems raised by white domination over peoples that want to be free.

New Alsace Lorraines――such as the Polish Corridor――have been created by the Versailles Treaty. Religious and race antagonisms, kept acute by the economic imperialism of the white race, stir the awakening Mohammedan world.

Militarist and narrow nationalist groups in every country flood the press with propaganda breathing fear or hate. A new race in armaments has started. Our Monroe Doctrine, in view of the growing importance of the immigration question, contains dangerous possibilities insofar as it may be regarded as a commitment to go to war for Latin-American policies. Taken in conjunction with certain acts of aggression on our part and with the utterances of our jingoes, which are reprinted from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn, it injects poison constantly into our relations with Latin America, so that our military guarantee of two continents brings us no gratitude but only suspicion from our grown-up and unwilling wards.

The Dawes Plan is a fleeting ray of sunshine in a dark and ominous sky. We are not drifting into permanent peace.

NO SALVATION IN INCREASING PREPAREDNESS

Our military men tell us to get ready for war. This is their duty. We are surrounded by potential causes of war. In their optimistic or disingenuous moments, our militarists talk of “peace by preparedness.” “America must be so strong that no nation will dare attack her,” is a popular slogan.

Preparedness never has prevented war and it never will. Germany had that slogan. Look at her! History shows that preparedness has always led to war. It can lead nowhere else.

We build; our rivals build――cruisers, airplanes, gas factories, submarines, armies. We build more; they build more. A race in armaments starts, and this always ends in war.

General Frederick B. Maurice of the British army says: “I used to believe that if you want peace, you must prepare for war; but I have come to see that, if you prepare for war thoroughly and efficiently, you will get war.”

ANOTHER WORLD WAR WOULD FINISH US

Militarist theories predicate winning one’s wars. No nation won the last war. France is less secure than in 1914; England is less prosperous. All the “victor” nations are staggering under taxes and armaments; and there are the multitudinous dead.

Herbert Hoover at Los Angeles on Armistice Day declared that another great war would be the “cemetery of civilization.” Winston Churchill describes it as the “general doom.” His article entitled “Shall We Commit Suicide?” should be widely read.

Part 2

A war of airplanes, poison gas, and hate――a baby killers’ war――the women conscripted and exterminated with the men――a city wiped out at a time――America’s cities almost as vulnerable as Europe’s, now that airships and submarines carry planes――such a war would surely be the twilight of the white civilization. We should perish as other civilizations in the brief span of human history have perished before us.

Consequently, while war is threatening from every quarter, preparedness for war offers no hope to any nation――not even the hope of victory. Increasing preparedness can only hasten the “general doom.” Our sole hope of survival lies in preparing adequately and intelligently for peace.

HISTORY HAS SHOWN A SUCCESSFUL WAY OUT

The way out of the perilous chaos into which godless and stupid policies have brought the world is a way that has proved uniformly successful. It has been tried so far in cities, states, and nations. It worked in the Maine township where I grew up, and it works equally well on a national scale in every civilized land on which the sun shines. It is now universally practised――except between nations.

MACHINERY PLUS PUBLIC OPINION

We call it, roughly speaking, the substitution of law for war. To express it more accurately, our present task is to build machinery adequate to settle all disputes that might cause war, and to build behind that machinery a sound world opinion capable of bearing very heavy strains.

Machinery unsupported by public opinion is dead. On the other hand, public opinion without machinery through which to function is helpless.

These are the two main tasks. At the same time, armaments must be reduced by international conferences, war must be outlawed, and goodwill must be cultivated. The development of goodwill should be begun in the schools.

THE MACHINERY ESSENTIAL

In Maine we had both a court and a town meeting to keep us out of war. The court dealt with our legal disputes and the town meeting with the rest. Both were supported by public opinion. The strength of this opinion made the work of our one policeman light. The system worked.

In California in ’49, men relied on pistols for justice and security. It did not work. Thugs could shoot as straight as honest men. So in California they shifted from the war system to the law system and were able before long to forbid the carrying of pistols. Obviously, this change of method was wrought without changing human nature.

The progress of civilization has been characterized by just such an extension of the reign of law. One step remains to be taken. Since it works everywhere else, we should enthrone law between nations. As I see it, the essential institutions necessary are those with which New Englanders are familiar――a court for the world’s legal disputes and a town meeting for the rest.

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