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Title: The World Court (Vol. I, No. 1, Aug. 1915)
Author: Various
Release date: November 11, 2023 [eBook #72098]
Language: English
Original publication: New York City: International Peace Forum, 1915
Credits: hekula03 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD COURT (VOL. I, NO. 1, AUG. 1915) ***
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The World Court
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TABLE OF CONTENTS, AUGUST, 1915
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WORLD COMMENT 3
MATERIAL PROBLEMS MUST BE SETTLED FIRST
THE ASSAULT ON J. P. MORGAN
WON’T DANCE TO OUR MUSIC
SECRETARY BRYAN’S RESIGNATION
NO INTERVENTION IN MEXICO
A WOMAN’S DEPARTMENT
A LESSON TO BE HEEDED
NEW PROBLEMS
PEACE BY COMPULSION
PREPAREDNESS FOR WAR
MR. LANSING’S PROMOTION
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
PIRATICAL PERSECUTION OF BIG BUSINESS HALTED
ONE ESSENTIAL FACTOR OF A PEACE LEAGUE
THE REALPOLITIKER AND THE IDEALPOLITIKER
IDEALISM NOT PRACTICALLY POTENT
GERMAN SOCIALISTS FOR PEACE
EDITORIALS 11
WORLD PEACE
CRIMINAL WAR TALK
A PREMATURE MOVEMENT
THE IDEALS OF PEACE AND THE REALITIES OF WAR
ONE PREDICTION FULFILLED
THE ADMINISTRATION FORCE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE
_By Hon. Fred Dennett_ 17
A WORLD COURT DEMANDED BY A NEW WORLD LIFE _By Josiah Strong_ 19
RURAL COÖPERATION IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES
_By George K. Shaw_ 21
THE MOBILIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION _By John Edward Oster_ 24
OUR NATIONAL STAGE FRIGHT _By Edward F. Murphy_ 28
THE WAR STATE _By Winter Russell_ 30
PEACE THROUGH ECONOMIC PRESSURE _By Herbert S. Houston_ 33
THE WORK OF THE WORLD COURT CONGRESS _By Jeremiah W. Jenks_ 38
U. S. SUPREME COURT, THE PROTOTYPE OF A WORLD COURT
_By William Howard Taft_ 39
THE CLEVELAND CONGRESS _By John Wesley Hill_ 47
REVIEW OF BOOKS 52
THE INFORMATION DESK 56
THE WORLD COURT
Published Monthly by the
INTERNATIONAL PEACE FORUM
18 EAST 41st STREET
NEW YORK CITY
John Wesley Hill, D.D., LL.D., George K. Shaw, Associate and
Editor Managing Editor
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Subscription Price, One Dollar a Year Single Copies, Ten Cents
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Entered as Second Class Matter, September 16, 1912, at the Post
Office at New York Copyright, 1915, by the International Peace Forum
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
WORLD COMMENT
MATERIAL PROBLEMS MUST BE SETTLED FIRST
The developments of the Great War, up to date, do not hold out any
hope that Idealism will be respected until the war is finished and the
passions of the belligerents are cooled. It is evident that the practical
and material problems must first be solved, leaving the ethical ones
for later adjustment. It is to be feared, indeed, that the war will
settle down not only into a ghastly conflict of blood and destruction,
but also into one of retaliation and cruelty, in which all the laws of
war hitherto recognized will be ignored and all international law will
become a dead letter. The old Latin motto, _Inter arma silent leges_, is
already construed more literally in practice than it was by the pagans
of the pre-Christian era. Modern inventions of death-dealing machinery,
poisonous gases and explosives, deadly air craft and submarines, have
furnished an excuse to declare the former international rules for the
conduct of war obsolete, and it is a question if this avowal will not
become more pronounced as the war progresses. The world is confronted
with the horrible possibility that war will come to mean actually, as
it always has in theory, the denial of all humanity, all justice, all
fairness, all chivalry, all mercy, and become a struggle to the death not
a bit less brutal than that of the wild beasts of the jungle.
THE ASSAULT ON J. P. MORGAN
The attempted assassination of J. P. Morgan, the eminent financier, was
undoubtedly the work of a crank, or a man crazed by too much brooding
over the bloody tragedy now enacting in the theatre of the great war.
It is the men of prominence who are usually the objects of attacks from
the demented. The assassination of Presidents Garfield and McKinley
was unmistakably the work of cranks whose murderous instincts had been
set aflame by irresponsible newspaper talk and reckless political
criticism. The mind of the man Holt who shot Mr. Morgan appears to have
been unsettled in much the same manner. The incident tends to emphasize
and bring home to every one the necessity for putting a curb upon the
tongue and to refrain from vicious war talk. It is a time especially
in this country, to soothe instead of to arouse passion. The spirit of
neutrality should sit upon the tongue and the pen, preside at the feast,
and accompany us in our daily round of duties. Let there be one great
country in which the demon of strife and murder is not let loose. It is
not always possible to protect a man against a crank, but it is possible
to restrain the evil speech which breeds cranks.
WON’T DANCE TO OUR MUSIC
In the face of such a possibility a peaceful and unarmed nation like the
United States is absolutely powerless to interfere with more effect than
the twittering of sparrows against the combats of eagles. We may pipe our
tunes of peace in Mr. Bryan’s most resonant voice, but the ensanguined
nations will not listen. If we fortunately keep out of the war, our
reserve of moral force and idealism may be potent at some future day.
SECRETARY BRYAN’S RESIGNATION
Whatever may be the judgment of William J. Bryan’s motives in resigning
the position of Secretary of State in President Wilson’s cabinet, there
is an almost universal feeling of relief at the accomplished fact. We
doubt if there is a single one even of Mr. Bryan’s warmest admirers
who would not admit, if brought to an honest confession, Mr. Bryan’s
utter incompetency for such a place. President Wilson was doubtless
conscious of Mr. Bryan’s failings when he grafted him into his cabinet,
but he was moved by political considerations which at the time seemed
to be compelling. And there is no doubt that Bryan has been highly
useful to Wilson in bringing the Democratic party, to which Wilson was
comparatively a stranger, to the support of the administration. Bryan’s
services in the Cabinet have been purely political. At the time the
appointment was tendered him there was no dream of the outbreak of the
great war which has imposed such a burden and strain upon the office of
Secretary of State in conducting our foreign relations. There was to
be sure the Mexican trouble, which was serious enough, but at the time
probably not appreciated at its full gravity. There is a widespread
belief that the fundamental mistake of our Mexican policy was due to
Mr. Bryan’s impracticable idealism. At that time the President was not
fully awake to the weakness of Bryan’s character, and carelessly allowed
himself to be committed to a policy of drift and pusillanimity which,
instead of saving Mexico from anarchy, has resulted in plunging it into
the worst anarchy in its history, and has confronted the United States
with possibly the hard necessity of military intervention to save the
Mexican people from utter destruction. This is a result that was not
sought by Mr. Bryan, but it is a result which his vacillation invited.
By the time the European situation developed President Wilson was better
acquainted with Secretary Bryan, and he judiciously took the conduct of
the State Department, so far as it concerned the European crisis, into
his own hands. This has saved us from a fatal involvement which could
hardly fail to embroil us with one or more of the belligerent powers.
For it is usually weakness and not strength which embroils a country in
war when the country is seeking to avoid war. Secretary Bryan displayed
such a capacity for blundering, such actual imbecility when it came
to grappling with practical questions, that his presence in the State
Department always endangered the smashing of diplomatic crockery as the
presence of a bull in a China shop endangers the smashing of actual
crockery. President Wilson is entitled to credit for seizing the reins
of our foreign relations and holding them with a firm hand the moment he
became convinced of the utter incompetency and uselessness of the driver
he had selected. The retirement of Bryan is a load off the shoulders of
his administration which may save it from the utter ruin which threatened
it. The country breathes more freely that Bryan has gone. In private life
his platitudes and puerile philosophies can do comparatively little harm,
notwithstanding his accomplishments as an orator, his personal magnetism,
and his apparent sincerity. In their long acquaintance with him on the
stump and the rostrum the American people have come to size him up
pretty correctly. They look upon him much as they would upon an actor
with a pleasing voice and presence who entertains but does not convince.
His exposition of the beatitudes and generally accepted moralities,
and his reiteration of common-place and tawdry sentiment passes off
harmlessly like a glow of summer lightning so long as he is a private
citizen, and we all have to be thankful that he no longer speaks with an
official voice.
NO INTERVENTION IN MEXICO
The arrest of General Huerta on the Mexican border on a charge of
violating the neutrality laws of the United States by plotting another
Mexican revolution within our borders, adds new spice to the Mexican
situation. Perhaps one revolution more or less in Mexico wouldn’t make
much difference, but the United States is bound to protect its neutrality
and not permit the various factions of Mexican banditti to carry on their
operations or to enlist men on our soil. No actual or would-be Mexican
leader has as yet displayed sufficient patriotism to subordinate his
personal ambitions to the welfare of his country. These leaders are not
amenable to advice from Washington, and hence there does not appear to
be any way for the United States to enforce order and protect life and
property in Mexico short of intervention. However, intervention is not to
be thought of for the present. This is a very inopportune time for our
country to engage in a military adventure in Mexico. President Wilson, in
a speech last winter, asserted that the Mexican people had the same right
to cut each other’s throats as the people of Europe had. If that was true
then, it is equally true now. The stories of anarchy and starvation among
the Mexican people are no doubt greatly exaggerated. We are so informed
by a gentleman who has spent the last two years in and near Mexico. He
says that the soil of the country is so rich and the skies so kindly that
a very little labor suffices to raise ample food, and that conditions
in all the towns he visited were orderly and business going on as usual.
Most of the men make a business of fighting for some chief, while the
women and children do the work and keep the pot boiling. Almost all the
casualties are among the belligerents who have adopted fighting as an
industry. It was so in Europe during the formative years of the various
nations. Mexico’s political development is about that of the twelfth or
thirteenth century in Europe. We should wait patiently until some leader
arises strong enough to dominate the situation and enforce order, in the
mean time bringing to bear such moral influences as we can to hasten the
pacification of our sister republic. But we do not think that public
sentiment in the United States is ready to approve the shedding of red
American blood in a Mexican crusade to compel that people to adopt our
ideals.
A WOMAN’S DEPARTMENT
A woman’s Department of the International Peace Forum, under the
leadership of Mrs. Alice Gitchell Kirk, with headquarters at Cleveland,
Ohio, has been organized. This Department will have a Bureau in the WORLD
COURT magazine, conducted by Mrs. Kirk, who is a well known writer and
lecturer who has been prominent in many activities for the promotion of
the welfare of her sex and of the rising generation. The purpose of the
Department is to promote the cause of National and International Amity
by the application of safe and sane principles to world problems; to set
clearly before the American people the ideals at issue between American
thought and life as compared with the economic, social and political
theories which spell revolution and ruin; to exemplify and reinforce the
faith of the people in personal initiative as the mainspring of all real
social, industrial, political and moral well-being; to encourage the
study of the laws of hygiene and so conserve life and promote happiness
and usefulness; to promote a loyal adherence to the institutions by
which America has come to be a land of peace, liberty, and progress under
law; to uphold the American ideal of home; the dignity of womanhood, and
the rights of childhood; the love of country, the supremacy of the flag,
and to maintain the everlasting reality of religion as the foundation of
civilization.
A LESSON TO BE HEEDED
The wonders that Germany has accomplished in this war, not only in
the marching and fighting of her armies, but in civic and industrial
organization sets the pace for the world, which all the nations will have
to approximate in the immediate future, or fall hopelessly behind. After
waging war for a year against five great nations and several small ones,
in which the number of men engaged and the expenditure of war material
has been unparalleled, Germany shows no signs of exhaustion. She has
demonstrated that her people cannot be starved out. She has demonstrated
that she has an unlimited supply of men and munitions. While the armies
of the opposing nations have frequently suffered from lack of ammunition,
the Germans have always had an ample supply notwithstanding the
lavishness of their expenditure. And in the civil life the whole people
of the country not engaged in military operations have been organized and
employed so as to produce the best results in supporting the war. The
method, the careful planning, the foresight, displayed by the civil and
military administrators have never before been equaled by any nation in
the history of the world. The marvelous German efficiency is the natural
outflow of this method and foresight combined with the energy of the
German character. In comparison with the German method the method of the
other nations seems haphazard. Other elements of the German power are
industry, frugality and careful attention to details. Nothing is allowed
to be wasted. The same marvelous organization and method was displayed
by Germany in peace before the present war broke out. The strength that
the nation displayed in industry and commerce was no accident, any more
than is the strength she is now displaying in war. Here in the United
States especially the lesson of Germany should be taken to heart. We need
it in peace, and we may need it in war. We have the most vast and varied
resources of any nation on earth, and our methods are the most wasteful.
Our people possess phenomenal energy, but they waste much of it in
frivolity. They have the most abounding wealth, and they dissipate it in
extravagance. With the frugality and patience and method and organization
of the Germans our nation could lead the world in peace or in war, in
science, in education and in ethics.
NEW PROBLEMS
The invention and application of the submarines and the airships
unquestionably call for new rules of warfare on land and sea. The German
contention that the submarine cannot be held to the requirement of
notice and search required of surface water craft would, if allowed,
work against Germany if she had a navy and merchant marine afloat. It is
because the German fleets, except the submarines, are practically swept
from the seas, that the contention of Germany in regard to the submarines
now works almost exclusively in her favor. A prominent American
manufacturer, who has had much to do with the development of the modern
submarine, asserted, in a recent interview, that the United States should
concentrate its naval expenditures on the construction and operation of
submarine craft. He avers that with a fleet of five hundred submarines of
an approved type, efficiently manned, the coasts and coast cities of the
United States could be perfectly protected against armed invasion. With
such submarines watching, he says, no hostile ships could approach our
coast and every hostile troop transport could be easily sunk. This is a
question for experts, but it is evident that the development of submarine
warfare is going to lead to great changes in the rules of the game. The
same may be said with regard to air craft. If a German, French or English
aircraft drops bombs behind the enemy’s lines and hits non-combatants,
men, women and children, or neutrals, are the nations sending out the
aircraft to be held to particular liability? It is evident that the
aircraft cannot give notice before the attack, cannot warn the civilians
to get out of the way, cannot search the buildings on which they drop
the bombs to see if they contain war material. H. G. Wells, the eminent
British author, is out with an article in which he declares that the way
to beat Germany is through the air; that England must send out aircraft
by the tens of thousands and drop explosives all over Germany, blow up
their arsenals and ammunition factories, their supply depots of all
kinds, and carry the war home to the German people. If such a mode of
warfare is adopted by all the nations can any restrictions be placed upon
it—and will any restrictions be placed upon the operations of submarine
craft?
PEACE BY COMPULSION
Some of the weaknesses and inconsistencies of the plan proposed by the
Philadelphia League of Peace meeting are succinctly set forth in a
communication from Hon. James Brown Scott in this issue of the WORLD
COURT. It will be seen that the approval or adoption of such a plan by
the United States would place the government and people of this country
in a very equivocal position. To begin with, we should have to discard
the advice given by George Washington in his Farewell Address, not to
entangle ourselves in the wars and politics of European nations; and in
the second place we should have to place the Monroe Doctrine in pawn. We
should have either to abandon our independence as a sovereign nation, or
else place ourselves in the inconsistent attitude of approving the use of
force to coerce other powers while refusing ourselves to be coerced; and
by implication we would place ourselves in the rôle of a bully to the
weaker nations and of subserviency to the strong powers—unless we want to
obligate ourselves to join in a war against the strong powers regardless
of our preparedness or ability to carry on such a conflict.
The proposition to furnish a contingent to a posse comitatus to enforce
the judgment of a World Supreme Court stands on a very different
footing. The League of Peace plan would compel us to furnish a force to
compel any other nation to come before the Council of Conciliation. The
proposition formulated at Cleveland by the World Court Congress was to
first establish the International Court by consent and agreement of the
Powers, and then to help furnish a posse comitatus in case of necessity,
to execute the decrees of the court. Any nation taking its case before
a World Court voluntarily, would thereby tacitly agree to submit to the
judgment of such Court, and in case it proved recalcitrant compulsion to
compel its submission would be justified legally and morally.
PREPAREDNESS AND WAR
At a recent meeting at Cooper Institute one of the speakers was
interrupted with the question: “Is Europe to-day an example of peace by
preparedness?” The inference of the question was that preparedness for
war, so far from preventing war, tends to breed war. This would be true
if all nations would disarm. Europe to-day is not an example of peace by
preparedness, but of war through unequal preparedness. Only one nation
was thoroughly prepared for war, and that nation, in the conflict thus
far, has proved the victor on all the battle fronts. If the other great
nations had been equally prepared, there would undoubtedly have been no
war. Half measures never led to satisfactory results. France and England
and Russia knew, or should have known, that Germany was better prepared
for war than any nation in all history ever was before. They made a show
of preparation, but when the war began they were not half prepared. They
had ample warning which they neglected to heed. They are now reaping the
bitter fruit of their folly. Preparedness for war is not an insurance of
peace if one potentially rival nation is permitted to so far exceed the
others as to outclass them. Preparation for war is useless unless it is
adequate.
MR. LANSING’S PROMOTION
The promotion of Robert Lansing to be Secretary of State following Mr.
Bryan’s resignation is a recognition of the principle of selecting men
for public place for demonstrated fitness to perform the duties of the
position rather than for political availability. It is not known that
Mr. Lansing has any political influence to speak of. But as Mr. Bryan’s
assistant he demonstrated the possession of a comprehensive knowledge
of international law, sound judgment, and the diplomatic instinct.
He has been all along the real Secretary of State whom the President
consulted, while Mr. Bryan was merely the figurehead. It is of course an
open question whether it would not have been better for the President to
appoint a man of national reputation and commanding ability to occupy
the chief place in his Cabinet, relying upon Mr. Lansing for the detail
and technical work. Such an appointment might have added strength to
the Wilson administration, but while Mr. Lansing occupies the place the
people of the country will have a comfortable feeling that no foolish
mistakes are likely to be made, and that no half baked or hair brained
theories will be promulgated to complicate our foreign relations and make
our State Department a laughing-stock.
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Colonel House, President Wilson’s personal representative, who spent some
time in the principal capitals of Europe in the endeavor to ascertain
whether there was any tangible peace sentiment which could be utilized
by the United States as a basis of mediation, has apparently convinced
the President that any movement in that direction would be useless at
present. Col. House came in touch with the leading soldiers and statesmen
of the various belligerent nations, and he found that no nation was ready
to accept any peace terms that the enemy would be likely to offer. One
important phase of public sentiment in Germany, as stated by Col. House
is the idea that Germany’s most important interests lie in colonial
expansion and the incidental development of over-seas commerce, rather
than in territorial expansion in Europe itself. To this end Germany,
it is believed, will demand as a condition of peace the freedom of the
seas—that is, the recognition of the principle that the property, except
contraband, of all private owners shall be exempt from seizure on the
high seas in time of war. This is a principle for which the United States
has always contended. There is no reason why private property on the seas
should not be exempt from seizure the same as is private property on the
land. Germany’s ambition for colonial expansion may be of vital interest
to the United States if that ambition takes the direction of colonial
expansion on any part of the American continents. It may be that when
peace comes to be arranged our Monroe Doctrine will be subject to closer
examination than it ever has been before, and if any disposition is shown
by the contracting powers to contravene it, it will be up to the people
and government of this country to decide whether they will let down the
bars or firmly maintain it. And if we are to maintain it, the question of
our physical power to do so will have to be considered.
PIRATICAL PERSECUTION OF BIG BUSINESS HALTED
The decision of the Federal Court in the suit brought for the dissolution
of the United States Steel Corporation holds out some hope to business
men that the persecution of big business in this country merely because
it is big, is to cease. The case has to go to the Supreme Court of the
United States, but the decision of this tribunal in the Cash Register
Company case leads to the reasonable inference that it will uphold the
decision of the lower court in the Steel Corporation case. The essence of
the Cash Register decision is that the mere ability to commit the crime
of combination in restraint of trade is not equivalent to the commission
of the crime. The Cash Register Company, by reason of its bigness, could,
had it been so inclined, put smaller concerns out of business by unfair
competition; but the evidence adduced failed to prove that it had done
so. The lower court gave it a clean bill of health, and the Supreme Court
tacitly approved the verdict of the lower court. The government lawyers
denounced the Cash Register Company in unmeasured terms virtually on the
ground that its size made it a menace to competition, but the courts
refused to hold it guilty because it possessed power which it did not
exercise.
Nothing could show up in a clearer light the folly of the Government’s
persecution of big business. To dissolve a corporation, or to penalize
it, simply because it possesses the power to commit an offense which it
does not commit, would be equivalent to ordering the arms of a stalwart
citizen cut off lest he use his fists to pound some weaker citizen to a
jelly. The attitude of this administration towards business, if we judge
it by some of the prosecutions for which it stands responsible, is that
success in business is an evidence of an evil disposition and a menace to
all other business. If the Federal Courts have successfully called a halt
upon this piratical attitude towards the country’s industry and commerce,
the people of the country have reason to thank God for the Federal Courts.
ONE ESSENTIAL FACTOR OF A PEACE LEAGUE
Any grouping of powers in a League of Peace which leaves Germany out of
the account must fail. There is no doubt that peace in Europe could be
brought about quickly if Germany would offer moderate terms. For so
far as the war has proceeded Germany is actually the victor. If peace
were declared now on the basis of the status quo, Germany would be in
possession of foreign soil which would vastly increase her resources and
her prestige, and would have an army in being and stores of ammunition
surpassing that of all the other belligerents combined. If Germany would
enter into a League of Peace with the other great powers to compel the
peace of the world, there would be no doubt of the ability of such a
league to keep any and all nations from war; but with Germany left
out, her veto upon any plan of compulsory peace would be sufficient to
wreck it. We are only stating the situation as it stands to-day. What
changes in it the future will make we cannot predict. It is evident that
Germany’s power cannot be materially crippled except by a long war. If
the Allies can hold her in check and continue to hold the seas, that may
bring about German exhaustion of which there are no signs at present.
Such a prolongation of the war will also bring about the exhaustion
of the other nations, so that their people will be ready for a just
international arrangement to insure universal peace. But even then
Germany will be a power to be reckoned with, and any League of Peace or
International Bund that aims to be effective will have to include the
great Germanic peoples.
THE REALPOLITIKER AND THE IDEALPOLITIKER
Mr. David Jayne Hill, former American Ambassador to Germany, says, in
a recent magazine article, that there are two antagonistic schools of
thought regarding the application of moral principles to international
affairs: First, the Realpolitiker, who hold that international rights
have no other basis than superior strength—in brief, that Might makes
Right. Second, the Idealpolitiker, who desire to place the entire
international system upon the basis of strictly moral conceptions.
It is generally recognized by publicists that as a matter of fact there
is at present no enforceable international law. There are certain rules
for the conduct of war set up, but no means of enforcing them. And as for
the matter of declaring war, there is absolutely no recognized restraint.
One nation may declare war against another for revenge, for conquest,
for subjugation, or for the purpose of restraining and crippling its
trade. In short, international law as it exists to-day is nothing more
than a system of ethics or public opinion. Public opinion often makes its
influence felt in a nation, and may become enacted into enforceable laws.
But there is no means of enforcing ethics as between nations, and any
nation which feels itself strong enough to do so, may defy world opinion.
An international tribunal for Judicial Settlement, which we might call a
World Supreme Court, established by the consent and coöperation of the
great powers, could gradually erect a body of international law that
would be both ideal and real. This is the only way in which international
law will ever come to have any actual, positive, binding force.
IDEALISM NOT PRACTICALLY POTENT
In spite of this fact, there are idealists like Former Secretary Bryan
who, while insisting that the United States should set up as a sort of
moral mentor for the world, nevertheless contend that we should not
increase our armament. They proclaim themselves advocates of peace at any
price. This may be correct as a mental attitude, but in these strenuous
times, when the most powerful nations are appealing to physical force
to adjust questions which might better have been settled by diplomacy,
the still small voice of moral suasion, though coming from potentially
powerful America, is not likely to be heard, above the din of battle. We
can record our protests, of course, but so far as any practical measures
to enforce humanity are concerned, we are quite powerless. Our government
should either keep out of the mess, and wait for returning reason, after
the war is over, to pave the way to universal peace through Judicial
Settlement—or, we should immediately proceed to place ourselves in a
condition of preparedness for war.
GERMAN SOCIALISTS FOR PEACE
Utterances of various Socialist leaders and newspapers in Germany in
favor of peace have recently filtered out of Germany, and have aroused
considerable interest. The German Socialists differ materially from the
Socialists of many other countries, in the fact that they constitute
a recognized and responsible political party which has a large
representation in the German parliament. The idea has widely prevailed
that the German people were absolutely united in favor of carrying on
the war to the point of “world domination or downfall,” but now we find
men and publications of influence deprecating the idea of conquest
and annexation of territory, or an invasion of the liberties of other
peoples. They declare that the mass of the German people want peace,
and that Germany’s military victories place the German government in a
position to negotiate peace with justice and honor.
Whether these utterances represent any deep or widespread sentiment in
Germany, we have no means of knowing. But their publication serves to
inspire a hope that the implacable purpose of Germany to carry on a war
of conquest has been exaggerated, and that discussion of terms of peace
might not be premature even now, if some feasible plan were presented.
EDITORIALS
“THE WORLD COURT” makes its début to-day. It supplants the magazine
formerly published by the International Peace Forum, entitled _The Peace
Forum_ but as will be observed, it undertakes a much larger and far
more vastly important work in its ambition to further the creation of
a World Court. As a magazine, an effort has been made in this initial
issue to give it all the veneer and finesse of the latter-day periodical.
As the months proceed, every effort will be made by the men of letters
associated with it and its contributors to further its value as a
publication of world wide importance. The necessity for such a magazine
was made patent at the recent World Court Congress. The delegates and
many men of affairs who participated in that epochal Conference realized
the enormous importance of an organ to voice the sentiment for this great
project.
During the past few months, the work of the International Peace Forum has
been specifically directed to the project of furthering the institution
of a true International Court of Justice, which was adopted in principle
by the forty-four nations composing the Second Hague Conference (1907),
including Germany and Great Britain. The suggestion has also met the
approval of many State Legislatures, leading Chambers of Commerce and
other representative civic, industrial, educational and religious bodies.
It received a mighty impulse and enthusiastic endorsement at the recent
largely attended World Court Congress, at Cleveland, Ohio.
This project is thus no chimerical scheme or iridescent dream, but a
well matured plan which if properly sustained will prove a powerful
factor in insuring the future peace of the world. Such a tribunal as
is contemplated would not only be able to adjudicate specific disputes
but would gradually build up a body of International Law as potent in
preserving the peaceful relations of nations as the body of domestic laws
is in preserving peaceful relations among the citizens and states of the
several nations.
In becoming more specifically the organ and representative of this
world-wide movement, this magazine broadens its field and adopts a name
more expressive of its larger mission.
_The Peace Forum_, during the four years of its existence, has steadily
grown in circulation and usefulness and influence. It has become the
medium through which many of the most distinguished writers and speakers
have sought to reach the public. THE WORLD COURT will continue to be the
medium of expression of such contributors of national and international
reputation. In coöperation with them it will continue to advocate peace
in all relations of private and public and international life, with the
specific object in view of extending the principle of judicial settlement
which now lies at the foundation of the civil authority of nations,
until it becomes the foundation of all international relations, when
nations will no more think of submitting their differences to a duel
between armies and navies than individuals in civilized and well ordered
countries would think of resorting to the arbitrament of the private duel.
Not only will THE WORLD COURT advance the idea of judicial settlement in
relation to world disputes, but will strive to establish the principle as
the basis of national peace and prosperity. This is a work which should
appeal to all business and professional men, indeed, to all toilers
whether with hand or head. Laborers in all fields are entitled to the
fruits of their toil. The humble worker with his hands is not to be
dispossessed by the confiscatory programme, any more than is the farmer,
the merchant, the manufacturer or the educated specialist. It is a trite
saying that the interests of capital and labor are identical,—a truism
no one dares formally to dispute; but there is no doubt that in the
enactment of legislation and the execution of laws, representatives of
these respective interests have acted as if they were antagonistic, and
one has sought to get the better of the other. Judicial settlement can
alone hold the scales of justice evenly balanced and thereby guarantee
fair play. The toiler working with hand or brain is employing a capital
given him by nature, and with industry and frugality under the operation
of the rule of equal opportunity, he may accumulate the capital of
money, goods, machinery, or land, which in effect gives him additional
earning power. Thus, one class is constantly merging into the other, and
each is equally interested in the integrity, and independence of the
courts. Both are equally interested in the preservation of the rights of
personal property and in opposing legislative and executive invasion of
their rights. Both are equally opposed to bureaucracy in the government
and interference with private management. The laborer does not want
to be compelled to labor for a wage arbitrarily fixed by a government
bureau, nor should a railroad or other industry be compelled to submit
to harrassing and paralyzing control. Experience has demonstrated
that railroads, telephones, telegraphs and other utilities are more
efficiently conducted under private than under public ownership, as are
mills, shops, and stores. A multitude of government commissions help to
give a multitude of jobs to a multitude of politicians, but they do not
reduce the cost of living.
Efficiency is evolved by private effort and not by official
meddlesomeness. Law is only beneficially operative when backed by public
opinion strong enough to vitalize and enforce it.
The broad platform of “The World Court” is peace at home and abroad,
peace in society, in the church, in business and industry; immunity of
business and industry from the menace of such malicious inquisition under
the protection of a Government Commission as Chairman Walsh attempted
in a manner that aroused the protest even of the Commission of which he
is the head. We invite all who believe in peace, in law and order and
justice, in the reliance upon judicial rather than warlike processes
for the defense of the individual and the state, to unite with us in the
movement for judicial settlement. What we propose is to place National
morality on a plane with the standard of individual morality, which has
brought about the reign of law and order in the enlightened nations. This
plane of morality would do away with public war as it has done away with
private war. International Judicial Settlement will react beneficially
upon National Judicial Settlement and lead to the adoption of higher
standards, both in National and International life.
CRIMINAL WAR TALK
Among the most insidious and reckless foes to peace are those who are
constantly predicting wars between the United States and other nations.
At the present time there is absolutely no reason why the United States
should go to war with any nation on earth. The favorite pastime of some
alarmists for several years past has been to predict war between this
country and Japan. Nobody can show any reason why we should attack Japan,
and all the evidence and all the signs of the times go to show that Japan
has not the least intention of attacking us.
A Minneapolis journalist who recently returned from a six months’ stay
in the Orient, and who was present with the Japanese at the siege of
Tsing-tao, gives some cogent reasons why Japan will not seek war with the
United States, despite some disputes over the immigration question and
possibly in regard to the open door in China.
Japan at the present time is in financial difficulties. The existing war
has kept tourists from her shores and curtailed her trade, while putting
her to large expenses in war preparation. Not one penny of the war debt
incurred in the war with Russia has yet been paid. What is holding Japan
together to-day is her export of tea and silks to the United States.
Millions of her citizens are dependent upon these trades for their
livelihood. Japan doesn’t want the Philippines because she has now ample
territory more geographically and climatically favorable to her needs,
and she is not greatly exercised over the emigration question, because
she needs immigrants herself. The government would much rather keep the
people at home—besides her naval and military experts are wise enough
to know that they would stand little chance in attempting to fight the
United States across eight thousand miles of ocean.
The talk of war with Germany or England, whichever may be the winner in
the European conflict, after that awful contest is finished, is equally
pernicious and damnable. There is no reason why we should go to war
with either. The United States intends to observe all the obligations
of neutrality and so to conduct herself as to win the respect and good
will of all the combatants. It would require a supreme act of folly on
our part to drive us into war with any European country. So long as we
observe our moral obligations we are in no danger of attack.
A PREMATURE MOVEMENT
During the month of June “A League of Peace” was organized in
Philadelphia. The tentative proposals of the originators of the movement,
as reported in articles in the daily papers, is to obtain “an agreement
from the various nations of the world to submit all differences to
adjudication or arbitration, to use their military forces to prevent any
one of their number from going to war before all questions in dispute
shall have been submitted to an international court or council; and that
the powers in the agreement codify rules of international law by which
they shall abide.” In order to give the movement an appearance of solid
backing a formidable list was published of the names of prominent men who
had been invited to the Philadelphia conference.
Any careful and intelligent student of the world situation must
recognize the fact that an effective agreement of this character among
nations is impossible before the conclusion of the great war in Europe
and Asia. The most powerful nations of the world are engaged in this
Titanic struggle, and it is not supposable that they will enter into
an arbitration agreement before the terms of peace are concluded. Any
agreement made by any number of nations omitting the now belligerent
nations would be futile, for the nations at war command vast armies and
navies and stores of war material and military organization against which
the now peaceful nations would contend in vain.
The proposition of the Cleveland World Court Congress was practicable
and feasible. It was to formulate a plan and have it ready to submit to
a world conference after the present war is over, if possible with the
moral support of the United States and the other American nations.
Our government could well afford to support a movement of that kind after
the war, but it could not afford to join an arbitration league before the
war ends, which proposes to back up its demands by military force.
It will be remembered that in signing The Hague Convention the American
delegates made the reservation that no provision should be so construed
as to require the United States of America to depart from its traditional
policy of not intruding upon or interfering with, or entangling itself
in the political questions or policy of internal administration of any
European state. This was in accordance with the traditional policy of the
United States, embodied in Washington’s Farewell Address, which was under
no circumstances to interfere in the affairs of Europe. We certainly
could not be a party to an agreement to lend our military forces, in
combination with the military forces of other nations, to prevent one
European nation from going to war with another. We might, after the war,
become a party to an agreement to organize a World Court for Judicial
Settlement and to contribute our contingent to the posse comitatus of
such world court, on the invitation of all the powerful nations of both
hemispheres.
The negative part of our Monroe Doctrine is the restraining injunction
of Washington’s Farewell Address. We do not propose to meddle in the
affairs of Europe, and President Monroe warned the European nations that
we would not permit them to meddle in the political affairs of this
hemisphere or to attempt to impose their political systems upon any of
the American nations. If we start in to interfere now, in accordance
with the so-called “League of Peace” proposition, what becomes of our
Monroe doctrine? The war in Europe will have to be fought out to some
definite conclusion before any effective and compelling League of Peace
is possible.
As indicating the attitude of a portion of the press toward this movement
we reproduce the following editorial from the Detroit _Free Press_.
THE LEAGUE OF PEACE
The new scheme for a League of Peace can make very little appeal to
practical minds that give it real attention. Like all such plans it is
largely visionary and based upon assumptions and premises which have no
basis in fact because they fail to take into account the fundamentally
static selfishness of human nature. The leaders of this movement strike
ground only at one point and then impotently. They recognize the fact
that anything done in the way of working for permanent peace must be
accomplished through force and not by moral suasion.
Their scheme is to gather together the powers of the earth into a peace
league, the members of which will pool their military and naval strength
for the common good. No country will thereafter be permitted to make war
upon another until certain measures of prevention have been taken and
certain formalities observed, all with a view to settling the trouble
in a peaceful way. If a government transgresses, the whole world will
immediately jump on its back.
This is an extension of the international police idea of visionaries who
only a short year ago were still telling the world that conflicts between
great powers were at an end and that establishments for the prosecution
of war might henceforth be limited to police armaments for keeping in
order the smaller and less civilized nations such as the Balkan states
and Mexico. Naturally the European war has smashed this illusion. But it
has not discouraged the illusionists.
A very important defect in the League of Peace scheme is that it cannot
be guaranteed to work, and a plan of this sort which cannot be guaranteed
is likely to become a greater menace to peace through backfire than no
agreement at all. It means a close association and conflict of unmixable
interests and ambitions which are sure to create friction of a most
inflammatory sort.
Suppose the United States and Japan and the great powers of Europe and
the A. B. C. alliance join this league. Suppose after the league is
duly organized two of the most powerful states, states relatively as
strong as Germany and Russia were at the outset of the present war, get
into a wrangle. Suppose they disregard their promises and incontinently
go to war. How are they to be stopped and disciplined? Only through a
general world war beside which the one now in progress might sink into
insignificance. The whole population of the globe might be obliged to
fight in order to keep the peace.
A great defect in all these schemes of peace promotors and disarmament
enthusiasts is that they hope to create an artificial condition of
placidity without natural incentive, and fail to take into account the
element of self-interest which alone can make a peace pact of practical
value. Alliances, ententes and treaties among nations having common
interests have played large parts in the history of the world and have
led to prolonged periods of peace as well as to bloody wars, but they
generally have been enduring and valuable in close proportion to the
strength of their appeal to self-interest among the parties concerned.
THE IDEALS OF PEACE AND THE REALITIES OF WAR
=WAR AND THE IDEALS OF PEACE.= By HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL, L. H. D., D. S.
published by Duffield & Co. New York.
“War and the Ideals of Peace,” is rather an abstruse study of the mental
and psychological processes which form human character and lead to human
action. It is mainly a discussion of the validity of the contention that
recurrent wars are inevitable because man is governed by the inexorable
laws of nature, which compel him to contend for dominance. The author
admits that man is by nature a fighting animal, but contends that he
possesses also “creative spontaneity,” and may by his own efforts mould
and shape ideals that will enable him to triumph over the natural bent of
his disposition. Thus individuals may be led in the ways and thoughts of
peace and mould the policy of nations to peace rather than war.
This is obviously true. It is shown in the history of nations, in the
fact that through enlightened public sentiment many nations, especially
during the past one hundred years, have been impelled to peace when there
was temptation to war. The exceptions, when wars have occurred, have been
due to the fact that enlightened public sentiment suffered a relapse
or reversion and favored war. The antidote for war undoubtedly lies in
developing the individual conscience, setting its creative spontaneity to
work to formulate peace ideals—in short, to get the mass of men to think
peace instead of war. Public sentiment is simply the superior weight of
individual opinion, and if public sentiment is decisively for peace, the
nation in which such public sentiment prevails will not go to war except
to repel aggression.
This leads us to a point of disagreement with the author of the book in
his practical application of his theories to the correct policy for this
country to pursue. That we should stand at all times for the principles
of peace no right-thinking man will deny. But that to realize these
principles it is the duty of this nation to disarm without a simultaneous
agreement of the other great nations to do likewise, we emphatically
deny. Dr. Marshall says:
“We are a specially privileged people, free at present from
enemies who might wish to attack us, and able to arm without too
long delay should we see signs of growing danger of aggression.
If we failed of alertness we might by a bare chance be caught
unprepared by some enemy not now in sight, but it were surely
better to take this small risk than to waste our energies in what
is likely to be uncalled for preparation. Protected as we are
by our broad ocean boundaries we have a unique opportunity to
show to the world the benefits accruing to a state that does not
spend a large proportion of its resources upon implements of the
construction of implements of destruction and upon the training
of large bodies of citizens to their employment. Did I, as an
individual, find living at some distance from me a first class
prize fighter, marvelously efficient, but at the time thoroughly
exhausted, it would surely appear stupid for me to take my time
and energies from the pursuits for which I seem fitted in order
to devote myself to the attempt to become what could not at best
be more than a second rate prizefighter, really because of fear
that the first rate prizefighter might regain his strength and at
some future time run amuck and do me injury.”
The present mode of fighting, as developed in the trenches of Belgium and
France, which takes all the glamour and romance and glory out of war, and
reduces it to a dismal contest of organization and machinery, requires,
for its successful prosecution, preparation of forces and machinery which
demands much time. The recruiting, organization, training and equipment
of men to fight modern battles is also a work of considerable time. In
the preparation of naval defense time is still a more essential factor.
The ocean which separates us from Europe is no longer a barrier, but a
highway. The transportation of men and arms and munitions is far easier
and more expeditious by sea than by land. So the broad ocean is no longer
our protection.
The analogy of the prizefighter and the private citizen misses the mark.
The prizefighter is held in check by the local police force which all
governments and municipalities must possess, no matter how peaceful their
ideals. If there were an international police force capable of preserving
the peace among nations, then it would not be necessary for a nation to
arm, any more than it is now necessary for the private citizen to arm.
But in the absence of such a protection it is necessary for each nation
to look to its own protection.
In the absence of a world Court of Justice empowered by the stronger
nations to settle international disputes, and armed with power to enforce
its decrees, world peace can only be maintained by a proper adjustment
of the balance of power. If all the great nations or groups of nations
were about equally armed and equally prepared, the chance of wars would
be minimized. The present conflagration in Europe and Asia is due largely
to the fact that rival powers were nowhere nearly equally balanced. One
power so amazingly surpassed the others in preparedness that conflicting
forces could not be held in check. Had England and France been as
prepared for war as Germany, and as efficiently organized, or had Germany
been as negligent as England, the war could hardly have occurred. It
would not have cost England a tithe of what she has already expended
in this war to have been so well prepared as to have enabled her to
absolutely hold the balance of power.
The argument that at the close of the present great war any of the
belligerent nations will be too exhausted to attack us, will hardly hold
water. The victor will have a great organized military establishment,
with troops inured to war, and perhaps filled with the spirit of war. To
such a power a rich, unarmed nation like ours might be an easy prey. At
the conclusion of our civil war this country, although it had been for
four years fighting an exhaustive war, was, from a military standpoint,
stronger than it ever was before or ever has been since.
We may perhaps in time rely for peace on world ideals of peace, but until
such ideals are of universal acceptance we cannot put our trust in them.
We hope that our nation may, at the end of this war, be instrumental in
organizing a world tribunal for Judicial Settlement, but in order to have
weight in the world councils looking to that end, we shall have to speak
with a strong voice. We shall have to be strong not only in ideals, but
in real and potential force.
ONE PREDICTION FULFILLED—WHAT OF THE NEXT?
Writing in 1889, Hall, the famous English publicist, predicted that
the conduct of the next great war would be hard and unscrupulous, but
he added: “There can be very little doubt that if the next war is
unscrupulously waged it will also be followed by a reaction toward
increased stringency of law. I look forward with much misgiving to the
manner in which the next great war will be waged, but with no misgiving
at all to the character of the rules which will be acknowledged ten years
after its termination by comparison with the rules now considered to
exist.”
The prediction of the great publicist, made so many years ago, as to
the next great war, has come true. The intervening wars have been
trifling by comparison and marked by no material increase in severity,
but the present war has passed all the bounds of precedent and even of
imagination. Let us hope that the prophecy as to the modification of the
laws of war after the present conflict is ended will be as measurably
fulfilled.
The invention and application of death-dealing machinery and chemicals
may even give the prophecy a larger fulfillment by the abolition of war
altogether. For this we humbly hope and pray.
THE ADMINISTRATION FORCE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF INTERNATIONAL
JUSTICE
HON. FRED DENNETT
A court is created for the purpose of administering justice, under law.
“This then is the general significance of law, a rule of action dictated
by some superior being.” And then the great teacher of the English
Common law lays down the principles of the moral law “that we should
live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his
due”; and of the law of nature “that man should pursue his own true and
substantial happiness,” adding, “that this is the foundation of what we
call ethics, or natural law; for the several articles into which it is
branched in our systems amount to no more than demonstrating that this
or that action tends to man’s real happiness, and therefore very justly
concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature
or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destructive of man’s
happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.”
From these two prior laws he derives the “third kind of law to regulate
this mutual intercourse, called the ‘law of nations,’ which, cannot be
dictated by any, but depends entirely upon the rules of natural law, or
upon mutual compacts, treaties, leagues, and agreements between these
several communities: in the construction also of which compacts we have
no other rules to resort to, but the law of nature: being the only one to
which all the communities are equally subject.”
The “natural law” is no longer the controlling “law.”
That which most promptly suggests itself to the mind of the ordinary
man, when law is talked of, is not the moral law or the natural law, but
municipal law, “a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power
in a state, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong.”
The tendency towards the enactment of man made statutes has magnified the
“municipal Law,” until it is in the way of becoming the only law, and
as it overshadows, then the principles of the moral law and the law of
nature gradually are dwarfed, and become atrophied. The law of commerce
is the “municipal law”; and as the commercial instinct becomes greater,
the municipal law becomes the prevailing law. Statutory law takes the
place of “common law.” Ethics are replaced by written inhibitions. The
moral law becomes evanescent; men consult the revised codes to find the
boundaries of that search for happiness, instead of consulting their
inner consciousness.
It follows that there is left no such law as “international law,” for
there are no statutes to bind nations and no supreme power to enforce
a rule of conduct, and the ethics of natural law are not a world
restraining force.
The evil of statutory law—necessary as it is—lies in the fact that man
becomes prone to look to the numerous volumes to find a guidance of
conduct. Nations are formed of members of society. If the units of the
nations have become trained to look to the statutes for the control of
actions, and feel at liberty to do those things which are not forbidden
therein, they, as part of the nation, will refuse to be guided in their
relationship with other nations by anything except their personal
inclinations; moral ethics as a rule of conduct having disappeared.
Instead of the restraint of respect and love a new controlling sense is
established, that of fear.
A court is created as a means by which to administer justice. Without the
power to compel the observance of its decrees a court is but a comedy.
If there be no supreme power, there can be no supreme court. For without
a supreme power there can be no way of establishing a responsible force
having vested in it the duty of compelling the observance of the decrees
of a supreme tribunal.
If a Supreme Court of International Justice be established and there be
created an international force to enforce the decrees thereof, the units
of that force will be responsible to the nations from whom they are
taken, and not to the Supreme Court, unless that Supreme Court become
more than a judicial body; it must become also a supreme administrative
body of the United States of the World. Enforcement of a decree is
impossible unless there is unity of force back of it. If a majority
be relied upon, then the majority may be found to change. Government
can only prevail when the opinion of the majority becomes the accepted
doctrine of the whole. Otherwise revolution.
The Supreme Court of International Justice, to be of practical use, must
pass from its position of Supreme Court to Supreme Controlling body. An
utopian dream, which may in the generations to come be a reality. But not
for generations.
Without a supreme controlling body there must be something to substitute
in moral effect. There has existed a something which has been one
influence to prevent nations from being always at war, when their
individual advancement was opposed.
Dread; a greater controlling power than fear.
Dread of devastation; dread of wanton destruction; dread of extermination.
War is undertaken by a weaker power only when the alternative is dread of
something even greater than devastation or wanton destruction—dread of
extermination.
But the dread of war has ceased to prevent war; because the horrors of
war had lost their vividness.
That universal peace will some day reign supreme must be accepted by all
who believe in a progressive civilization. This includes all the thinking
world. If there is to be universal peace, and if it is not to come
through a consolidation of all nations, which is extremely improbable,
then it must come from some controlling feeling, which will in itself
create the administrative branch of the Supreme Court of International
Justice.
The police force to compel observance with the decrees of this Supreme
Court will be incorporeal: It will be Dread.
There never will be established an international corporeal force capable
of enforcing the obedience to the decrees of this Court. That means
the establishment of a war force to prevent war; it is foolish in its
conception. The power against which a decree is to be enforced will
withdraw its representatives from the international force, and by the
establishment of alliances, just as at present, meet with arms the force
of arms.
If it be a weak nation; it will do, as it does now—obey the mandate
through fear, unless the mandate means extermination, when it will fight.
National extermination, while fighting, is better than extermination
without resistance.
The first power for enforcement will be “Dread.” A greater dread than
exists to-day, because of a greater object lesson of horror than has
existed heretofore.
All things, that are, have a reason for their existence. The present
conflagration must have its raison d’être. In orderly evolution it is not
to be presumed that the reason is for the world control by any one power.
That suggestion might meet the conceit of a nation, but would not meet
the approbation of the world.
Nations having deviated from the moral law, the individuals thereof
having gradually become accustomed to written rules of regulation, it
has been necessary to substitute something for the moral code, for the
present, until the moral code can once more take its rightful place.
Dread will be enthroned as the enforcer of agreements. Dread of war will
prevent war.
That this may come about, it is necessary that there shall be a concrete
example of the horrors of war in all its awful intensity. As nations have
increased and as armaments have been multiplied, it is necessary that the
lesson of “dread” must be planted firmly.
The times were ripe for the lesson. The wonders of art can bring before
an audience a scene of horror as it was enacted thousands of miles away.
Hence the horrors of the present war. It must not be thought for a moment
that they have reached their climax. They will be permitted to continue
until they have increased to such intensity that men will mention war
with bated breath, and nations that pretend to civilization will arm only
to protect themselves from uncivilized countries; until the uncivilized
become civilized and armaments cease.
But the first great preventive of war will be “Dread,” succeeded in the
ultimate by the acceptance of the rule of ethics.
Man may create a Court of International Justice. God alone can create the
force back of it for the enforcement of its decrees.
Out of that which appears evil, good does come. The sufferings of the
battlefield will be sanctified by the generations of warless existence.
There were the burnt offerings and sacrifices of the Old Testament. They
were symbolical.
The battlefields of Europe are the burnt offerings for perpetual peace.
The power of enforcement will first be practical, “Dread,” but as this
is a base reason, it will gradually be changed by the light of a better
understanding into the rule of ethics.
A WORLD COURT DEMANDED BY A NEW WORLD LIFE
BY
JOSIAH STRONG
There is, I think, a widespread impression that great world events of
profound importance are now preparing. The break-down of time-honored
theories of international relations based on armed force would seem
to mark the end of the present war as a favorable time for the
reconstruction of the political relations of the nations on a higher
plane.
Since the beginning of the simplest form of life on this planet,
there has been down through all the ages, a stream of tendency toward
increasing diversity, and toward a more complex and more highly organized
form of life. This biological law is also the great law of social
progress, that is, first, differentiation, and then, coördination and
integration. Or, in other words, there is, first, the development of
diversity, and then, the organization of these diverse elements into a
social unity.
For thousands of years nations and races became increasingly unlike
until within the memory of living men, when this time-long stream of
tendency, having accomplished its work, was reversed; and now, for nearly
a century, there has been an increasing tendency toward oneness—the
coördination and integration of different peoples into one great world
life. This new tendency was caused by the application of steam to
transportation by land and sea. In the first stage of international
commerce transportation by caravans and row boats was so costly that only
luxuries, such as gems, precious spices, and silks, were articles of
commerce. This concerned only the few. The second stage was introduced
by the application of sails and the discovery of the mariner’s compass,
which made it possible to transport many of the conveniences of life,
which affected increasing numbers. The third, and present, great stage
of commerce began when railways brought the produce of continents to the
seaboard, and the triple expansion engine made great merchant vessels
possible. As a result, the necessaries of life are now transported in
immense quantities, which fact vitally affects the entire people. These
conditions have created an interdependence of the nations from which
there is no escape. If a nation is agricultural, it is dependent on
others, both for markets and for manufactures; if it is a manufacturing
nation, it is dependent on others, both for markets and for food.
When an agricultural people attempt to make themselves independent of
other nations by establishing their own manufactures, they soon discover
that by a sort of _mechanical Malthusianism_ machinery inevitably
increases several times as fast as population; hence the nation no sooner
becomes independent of those who wish to sell than it becomes dependent
on those who wish to buy. The only possible way to avoid such national
interdependence is to adjure modern civilization.
The differentiation and organization of a world industry, which
necessitates an ever-increasing international dependence, has created
this new world life. In earlier ages, when nations were economically
independent, political independence was natural and inevitable. Of course
there could be no world-consciousness when a common world life did not
exist, and each sovereign nation was sufficient unto itself. But as the
world’s economic life becomes more nearly one—as it certainly will under
the quiet compulsion of economic law—the increasing interdependence of
nations places the well-being of each increasingly in the keeping of
others; and their relations to each other become more and more vital
until their mutual service becomes a matter of life and death. If, for
instance, all other peoples should make and enforce a declaration of
non-intercourse with Great Britain, that nation would literally perish in
a few months.
Evidently, the increasing interdependence of the nations is creating new
international rights and duties, but there is no World Legislature to
recognize and legalize them; there is no World Court to interpret and
apply them; and there is no World Executive to enforce and vitalize them.
Precisely here appears one of the most obscure and, at the same time, one
of the most potent causes of the war.
The economic and industrial organization of the world has far outgrown
the political organization of the world. And in spite of all efforts to
keep the peace, this will continue an active cause of war until there
has been provided for the new world life an adequate body politic. Until
then governments will undertake, by military power, to make, interpret,
or enforce a law of nations to please themselves; and this seizure of
civil functions on the part of armed force is war; it is an attempt to
make might right; it is the law of the jungle; it is the abnegation of
civilization; it is anarchy between nations.
Now that the world is coming to self-consciousness, it must accept the
responsibility of its future, and take intelligent direction of it.
The new tendency toward world integration is permanent because it is
due to new conditions which are permanent. This cosmic movement toward
coördination and integration is the very essence of the new civilization
which is reshaping the world. Nations and individuals have unconsciously,
and, therefore, unintelligently, and slowly adapted themselves to these
changed and changing conditions. Now is the accepted time to undertake a
readjustment which shall be _conscious_ and, therefore, _intelligent_—a
broad-minded “coöperation with the real tendency of the world.” which
Carlyle called the “insight of genius.”
The new world life means, sooner or later, a world consciousness, a world
conscience, a world ethics, and a World Court, together with the other
departments of an organized political life embodied in a Federation of
the World.
RURAL COÖPERATION IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES
BY
GEORGE K. SHAW
In the Annual Reports for 1914 of the Federal Council of the Churches
of Christ in America, there are some interesting data upon the social
effects of Coöperation in Europe. This report was prepared by the Rev.
Chas. O. Gill, Field Investigator for the Commission on the Church and
Social Service. In making his investigations he visited no less than
twelve countries and gained information as to two others from members of
the Commission who visited them.
In a previous volume entitled, “The Country Church,” Mr. Gill had pointed
out that there is no satisfactory solution of the problem of rural life
apart from the reorganization of rural business. For this reason it was
determined to make a study of European countries that had given serious
attention to the organization of farmers for business purposes. One
object of the study was to learn what part the rural churches should
take in a movement necessary for the preservation of a high standard
of country life and for insuring the possibility of a successful rural
church.
It was found that in most of the area covered the coöperative movement
had passed beyond the experimental stage. Rural coöperation in Europe is
more than half a century old.
Probably the best known example of the success of rural coöperation
is found in Denmark. Much has been written about the wonderful
transformation wrought in that country by union of effort among her
farmers. Coöperation has been one of the most essential factors by which
the people of Denmark have rescued themselves from a condition of extreme
economic distress and attained a prosperity which, considering Denmark’s
limited natural resources, is most remarkable, it is due chiefly to this
that Denmark has more wealth per capita than any other country in Europe.
In Italy, the business of the Federation of Coöperative Agricultural
Associations has grown since 1895 not less than 43 per cent. in any five
year period, while the number of its agricultural societies grew from
1892 to 1910 no less than ten-fold. The business of its coöperative
credit institutions more than doubled in the four-year period from 1908
to 1912.
The movement has also been successful in Hungary. In 1912 there were
8,000 parishes into which the activities of coöperative societies
extended. Up to the outbreak of the war coöperation had also made great
progress in Belgium, while in Holland the coöperative idea has been
making leaps and bounds during the past ten years. Here, as in other
countries, including Austria, Russia, France, and Switzerland, it has
been demonstrated that coöperation is a necessary condition of general
agricultural prosperity.
But Germany affords the best example of agricultural coöperation on a
large scale. In the twenty-year period from 1890 to 1910 the number of
German coöperative agricultural societies grew from 3,000 to 25,000.
From 1892 to 1908 the membership of coöperative societies for collective
purposes grew from 12,000 to 213,000, and the membership of coöperative
dairy societies from 51,500 to more than 1,250,000. Mr. Gill remarks: “It
is due to coöperation more than to any other one thing that Germany has
been able to increase her agricultural productivity fifty per cent. in
fifty years, until now, though smaller in area than our state of Texas,
it produces 95 per cent. of the food of 66,000,000 people.”
Thus it will be seen that agricultural coöperation has worked well both
in small countries and in great. The good results have been incalculably
great especially among the poor farmers. It has emancipated them from
the usurer. In many places the small farmers had never known freedom
from oppressive creditors until the founding of rural coöperative
institutions. By capitalizing the common honesty of the poor, coöperation
has secured for the small farmer, at the lowest rates of interest, money
to be used by him in his necessary operations. Agricultural coöperation
in distribution has enabled the farmer to work for his own support
instead of for the support of a large number of superfluous distributors.
Before the introduction of coöperation the small farmer had been forced
to buy inferior goods at high prices and to sell his products at prices
unreasonably low. But coöperation changed all this. It enabled the small
farmer to place himself on the level with the large farmer in producing
articles of good quality, as well as in the matter of prices received
for them; also to obtain goods of guaranteed quality at moderate prices.
Thus while coöperation has promoted efficiency on the farm, it has also
secured the farmer freedom in the market, and has contributed to the
higher life of the home.
So it is not alone in material betterment that coöperation has blessed
the farmers. It has done a great work in promoting education; in
launching benevolent enterprises for members; in enriching the rural
social life. The coöperative societies have made grants to village
libraries, organized circles for reading and acting, and established
evening clubs. They have also appointed local cattle shows and regular
meetings in which instructive lectures on coöperation, agriculture and
other topics are delivered. They have formed gymnastic societies and
bathing establishments, cattle and poultry breeding societies, local
nursing centres, infant aid associations, anti-consumption leagues, and
engaged in a great variety of other good works.
The recreational and educational buildings are paid for and managed by
the people. Consequently the people get what they want and make use
of what they get. The coöperative buildings become the most complete
social-centre houses in existence. Each building is a kind of club for
men, women and children where they spend their leisure hours and become
acquainted and neighborly.
Nor is this the whole benefit. It has been observed that coöperation has
had a marked effect in the promotion of thrift and morals and temperance.
The coöperator as a rule gets out of debt and begins to save. This
increases his independence and self-respect. The closer association
with his neighbors puts him more upon his good behavior. Many a hard
drinking laborer has, under such influences, quit his evil habits and
rescued his family from wretchedness. All this naturally leads to an
increase of honesty and business integrity. Where there is a small rural
coöperative credit society a person cannot borrow from it unless he has
acquired a reputation for reliability. As a consequence a loan comes as a
certificate of character, while the refusal of a loan may well lead the
would-be borrower to serious reflection. As a result people come to care
more for their reputation in their dealings with one another. Honesty
comes to be an essential quality in business efficiency.
Another all-powerful influence of coöperation is found in the promotion
of democracy. The coöperative movement is essentially democratic in
origin. Success can be attained only by equality of opportunity, mutual
consideration and fair treatment. This naturally promotes political
efficiency also, because the education and the closer association found
in coöperation lead each individual to realize his responsibility and to
endeavor to use his voting power intelligently and wisely.
The effect in the promotion of Peace, Brotherhood, and Religion, is thus
indicated in the report: “It was observed by members of the American
Commission that in nearly all the European countries the great body of
the coöperators, especially among the leaders, think of agricultural
coöperation as a sort of social reform and in some cases almost as
a religion. The admirable moral and social results are recognized
everywhere. Not only has it taught illiterate men to read, made
dissipated men sober, careless men thrifty, and dishonest men square, but
it has made friends of neighbors who had been enemies, while estrangement
among men on account of religious antipathies and the inheritance of
ancient feuds have yielded to its influence and disappeared. It could
scarcely be expected that a movement with such beneficial results could
have been inaugurated and successfully furthered apart from close
association with the Christian churches. In many of the coöperative
enterprises the clergymen have played an important part. The sympathetic
participation in and promotion of the coöperative movement on the part of
the church is a logical and almost necessary result of the existence of a
movement of such a character, since many of the ends for which the church
is striving are effectually accomplished by coöperative institutions
while these institutions, in their purposes and endeavors, necessarily
command the sympathy and allegiance of every sincere and disinterested
churchman.”
It would be well if an exhaustive report of this kind could be made upon
the social effects of rural coöperation in the United States. We know
that the coöperative movement has made some progress in this country,
but in comparatively few localities has it assumed the comprehensiveness
and thoroughness which has characterized it in Denmark and Germany.
Coöperative movements are not unknown to the cities, but in a business
way there is far more need for them in the rural districts, for the
population of those districts is more scattered and the farmer, when
working alone, is more helpless in the face of combinations that may be
formed against him. A great many instances have come to public knowledge
where the farmer has received very inadequate prices for his products
while the consumer in the cities has at the same time been compelled to
pay prices which appear extortionate. Who has not heard of the farmers’
apples rotting on the ground because he could not afford to market them
at the price offered, while the consumer has at the same time complained
that his apples were costing him too much? This is at times true of
a great many products. Farmers usually sell in competition with each
other, at the wholesale price, and buy what they need at the retail
price. Before the days of coöperation the Denmark farmer was as a rule
wretchedly poor; but when he joined with his neighbors and they appointed
a selling agent in London, who guaranteed quality of product, he began
to obtain the best London prices, to secure cheaper transportation rates
and also saved the commissions formerly paid to a number of middle men.
His agents in London and other cities also bought goods for distribution
among the coöperative farmers at wholesale prices.
In our middle western states the coöperative movement started first with
coöperative creameries, many of which proved very successful. In some
rural districts the farmers are organized and have provided warehouse
facilities for storing their surplus products until a satisfactory market
can be obtained, and have learned to sell and buy through their own
agents. In such communities the farmers are thrifty and prosperous, and
their social life and activities makes the country as desirable a place
of residence, so far as that is concerned, as the neighboring cities—and
in some respects much more so. There is no reason why the American
farmers and rural dwellers cannot profit as largely by coöperation as
the people of any part of Europe. The chief economic problem of any
country is proper distribution of products and labor. With a proper
distribution of labor there would not be the congestion that often makes
the unemployment problem so serious in some districts, and there would
not be the inequality of reward for industry that makes some too rich and
the large masses too poor. The rural communities are the backbone of the
nation’s prosperity. All the wealth comes primarily from the land.
THE MOBILIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION
BY
JOHN EDWARD OSTER
At present the question that is most prominent before the world is that
of peace. Almost everybody whom we meet has some opinion regarding this
question which he is ready to express. How has this opinion been formed?
It is certainly true that very, very few have thought carefully over
this question, or have studied it in a fair unbiased manner. There are
wide differences of opinion, and without the slightest doubt there are
very good and legitimate reasons for these wide differences. They arise
chiefly, perhaps, because of different local circumstances affecting
educational conditions, or the conditions of influential classes of
society, and a thousand and one other reasons, which may carry more or
less weight.
Practically every family has members who were more than once directly
affected by the absence of peace—war, and have wished for peace, or
without knowing it, had the pacifist spirit. Almost every person is
likely to feel a sense of deep injury under the pressure of an unpleasant
burden, and naturally thinks the issue or whatever it is must be fought
out with iron and blood. An opinion of some kind is there, which is
made up mostly of sentiment, based upon a somewhat erroneous knowledge
of some few facts in the situation. No matter which side of the fence
individuals are on, they have gained their ideas mostly from newspapers,
or from chance talks here and there, with men whom they believe, in
most instances to be much better informed than themselves, consequently
they are using the same source of information in most instances, and
conviction is simply deepened by a constant repetition of the thought.
Again, most people form their opinions and judgments without due
examination; they have a leaning toward one side of the question from
other considerations than those belonging to it; and many have an
unreasonable predilection toward the militaristic idea thinking that the
pacifist stands for weakness and possesses cowardly spirit. The minds of
many are biased on account of the vigorous propaganda carried out by the
militarists in the form of large armaments, and international tangles,
war scares and many other things which make international peace appear as
an utter impossibility.
It has been said that the first and most practical step in obtaining
what one wants in this world, is wanting it. Naturally a person would
think that the next step would be expressing what one wants, but usually
consists in wanting it still more and more until one can well express
it. This is particularly true when the thing a person wants is something
which concerns the whole world, for here all these other individuals who
must be asked perhaps have but a very slight interest in what one wants.
Until a large number desire a thing strong enough, and wish for it hard
enough to say it, and get it outside of themselves, and perhaps make it
contagious so that the thought will be catching to every person exposed
to it, nothing happens at all.
Every man who, in some public place, like a book, paints the picture of
his heart’s desire, and who throws forth as upon a screen where all men
may see them his most immediate and pressing ideals, performs a very
important service to humanity. If a man’s sole interest were to find out
what all men living in the world to-day, need and want most, and what
is necessary for their welfare, the best and only way for him to do it,
would be for him to write clearly, and quite definitely so that we could
all compare notes, on exactly what he wanted himself.
The thing that the populations of the earth want and need as a whole in
this darkness and din of the world is safety and security in the pursuits
of life, liberty, and happiness. Too many persons, with a pugnacious
tenacity, cling to the idea that world peace is an idle and futile dream.
Even so, nothing is more visionary, than trying to run a world without
dreams, especially an economic world such as the one we live on. It is
because even bad dreams are better on this foot stool than having no
dreams at all, that so called bad people are in a wholesale measure
allowed to run it. The one factor in economics to be reckoned with in
the final and practical sense, is the desire to do right. An ideal to be
sure, but at some time or other, it was an ideal that aroused the wrong
passions, and now it is only another corrective ideal that will arouse
the right passion. The next step by our political economists is the
statement of a shrewd, dogged, realizable ideal, and that is _universal
peace between nations_.
The great upheavals which precede changes of civilization, such as the
fall of the Roman Empire and the foundation of the Arabian Empire, seem
at first sight determined more especially by political transformations,
foreign invasions, or the annihilation and overthrow of dynasties. A more
attentive study of these events shows that behind their apparent causes,
the real cause, as a rule, is seen to be, a modification in the opinions
of the populations. The true historical upheavals are not those which
compel astonishment by their spectacularity, and impetuous violence, and
vehemence. The only important changes whence the renewal of civilization
is a resultant, affects ideas, opinions and beliefs.
The landmarks of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes
of human opinion, and the reason these great memorable events are so
rare, is, because there is nothing so stable in a race, as the inherited
groundwork, and fundamental foundation of its opinions. The present
epoch, without a doubt, is one of these critical times, in which the
opinion of mankind, is undergoing a great transformation.
There are two fundamental factors at the bottom of this transformation.
The first, caused by the wholesale destruction of life and property,
which shakes to pieces the political and social beliefs in which all
the elements of our civilization are rooted. The second is the creation
of entirely new conditions of existence of thought as the result of
multitudinous scientific, modern, and industrial discoveries. The
opinions of the past, although half destroyed, being still very powerful,
as the present state of militarism proves, and the opinions which are to
replace them, being still in a process of transformation, the present age
represents a period of transition and political confusion.
As yet, we cannot say exactly what will be evolved some day from this
necessarily somewhat chaotic period. What will be the fundamental ideas
on which the societies that are to succeed our own, will be built up?
At present, there is no manner of knowing. It is perfectly clear, that
the societies of the future will have to reckon with a new power, and
that power is public opinion. On the ruins of so many ideas formerly
considered beyond discussion, and now either dead or dying, of so many
sources of authority that successive revolutions have destroyed, this
power, which alone has arisen in their stead seems soon destined to
absorb the others. While practically all of our ancient beliefs are
tottering and disappearing, while the old pillars of society are giving
way, one by one, the power of public opinion is the only force that is
growing, and of which the prestige is steadily and continually on the
increase. The age we are about to enter, will, in truth, be governed by
public opinion.
Less than a century ago the traditional policy of European States and the
rivalries of sovereigns were the principal factors that shaped events,
consequently the opinion of the masses did not count, and was scarcely
noticed. To-day the opposite state of affairs predominates, and it is
the traditions which used to obtain in politics, and the individual
tendencies and rivalries of rulers, which are counting for less and less;
while, on the contrary, the voice of the people has become preponderant.
It is this voice that dictates their conduct to rulers, whose endeavor it
is, to take notice of its utterances.
Practically all the world’s masters, all the founders of religions or
empires, the apostles of all beliefs, eminent statesmen, and in a more
modest sphere, the mere chiefs of small groups of men have always been
unconscious psychologists, possessed of an instinctive and often very
scientific knowledge of the character of public opinion. It was mostly
this accurate knowledge that enabled them so easily to establish their
complete mastery as was so often done.
Napoleon had a marvellous insight into the public opinion of the country
over which he reigned, but he, at times, completely misunderstood it,
and overshot the mark, and as a rule completely misunderstood the public
opinion of other nations. It was because he misunderstood it that he
engaged in Spain, and notably in Russia, in conflicts in which his power
received blows, which were destined within a brief period of time to ruin
it. Neither did the most subtle advisers of Napoleon understand public
opinion, as they should have done, for Talleyrand wrote him, that: “Spain
would receive his soldiers as Liberators.” The real truth of the matter
was, that it received them as beasts of prey. A slight acquaintance with
public opinion in that case would have easily foreseen this reception.
Public opinion rules and is practically as unattackable as our religious
ideas were in the Middle Ages. Imagine a modern free thinker translated
into those days of the Middle Ages. Can you think that, after having
ascertained the sovereign power of the religious opinion that was then
in force, that he would have been tempted to attack it? Having fallen
into the hands of a judge disposed to have him burned at the stake, under
the imputation of having concluded a pact with the Devil, or of having
participated in the Witches’ Sabbath, would it have occurred to him to
dispute the existence of the Devil or of the Witches’ Sabbath? It were as
wise to oppose a cyclone with discussion as public opinion, which is a
slow growth and gradually comes from within, or, in other words, is the
product of education.
As a consequence of the slowness of the movement of the psychological
characteristics of races, great stability and fixity, which prevents the
overthrow of the equilibrium of races, and their works, is the result.
Only in the long run, and by slow hereditary accumulations, is it
possible for the psychological and the anatomical elements of the human
species to be transformed. The evolution of civilization depends wholly
on these transformations.
Public opinion is often made by prominent factors, such as wants, the
struggle for life, the action of certain surroundings, the progress of
industry and the sciences, education facilities, wars, etc. Ideas do
not become public opinion, until, as the consequence of a very slow
elaboration, they have descended from the mobile regions of thought,
to that stable, and unconscious region of the sentiments, in which the
motives of our intentions are elaborated. They then become elements
of character and begin to influence conduct. It is this line up of
unconscious ideas, that give us character. The idea of international
Peace, has been at work for several generations, and on account of the
slowness of our mental transformations, many generations of men are
needed to secure the triumph of new ideas, and many generations are
necessary to cause old ideas to disappear. During the Middle Ages, there
were two principal ideas: Religious and feudal. Its arts, literature and
whole conception of life were derived from these ideas, until the time of
the Renaissance when they began to change; and also the conception of
life, the arts and literature underwent an entire transformation.
No matter what the nature of the ideas may be, whether scientific,
artistic, philosophic, or religious, the mechanism of its propagation
remains identically the same. With International Peace, it is the same,
and must first be adopted, as has been done, by a small number of
apostles, the intensity of whose faith and the authority of whose names
give great prestige. As soon as these apostles succeed in convincing
a small circle of adepts and thus form new apostles, the new idea
enters into the domain of discussion, where it first arouses universal
opposition, because it necessarily clashes with much that is very old
and well established. The apostles who defend it are naturally greatly
excited by the opposition, which causes them to defend the new idea
with energy and diligence. The new idea becomes more and more a subject
of discussion, and of course is entirely accepted by the one side and
entirely rejected by the other side, with almost as much vehemence. These
impassioned debates help the progress of the idea very materially, and it
keeps going and going, and the new generations who find it controverted
tend to adopt it merely because it is a progressive measure, and because
young people, always eager to be independent, find wholesale opposition
to old ideas to be the most accessible form of originality.
Consequently, the new idea continues to gain in strength, and finally
it does not need any more support, and spreads everywhere by the mere
effect of imitation, acting with contagion, a faculty with which humans
are very heavily endowed. Just as soon as the mechanism of contagion
intervenes, the idea enters on the phase which necessarily signifies
ultimate success, and it then becomes public opinion, and takes on a
penetrating and subtle force, which spreads it progressively among
all intellects, creating simultaneously a sort of special receptive
atmosphere or a general manner of thinking. Like the fine dust of the
prairie, which penetrates everywhere, it finds its way into the interior
of all the conceptions, and all the productions of an epoch, and the idea
and its consequences, then form part of that compact stock of hereditary
commonplaces loaded on us by education. Thus the idea has triumphed, and
has entered the domain of public opinion, where it has nothing to fear.
The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is a fine
example of the reception accorded an idea by public opinion as I have
illustrated above. For seventy years the apostles of the political
doctrine that the direct election of United States Senators by the people
is best for them, kept hammering away with their arguments, until it was
finally adopted as an amendment to the Constitution. The object of most
arguments are at first abhorred, finally endured, and eventually embraced.
The idea of International Peace like the Seventeenth Amendment, has
practically run its prescribed course for adoption. It has reached
the point where progress is rapid. Of the various ideas which guide a
civilization, some rest confined with the upper grades of the nation,
while others go deep down among the population. As a rule they arrive
there much deformed, but, when they do arrive there, the power they exert
over primitive minds incapable of much reasoning is wonderfully large.
Under such conditions the idea represents something that is practically
invincible, and its efforts are hurled forward with violence analagous
to a stream that has overflown its banks. There are always hundreds of
thousands of men in a nation of the larger sort who are ready to risk
their lives to defend an idea as soon as this idea has actually convinced
or subjugated them.
International Peace has been talked and discussed for so many years,
that the time is now ripe for it to be inaugurated as part of the
international law of the world.
OUR NATIONAL STAGE-FRIGHT
BY
EDWARD F. MURPHY
Quite recently our country was merely a pupil at the Hague, a student of
the Science of Peace. In her studies she manifested a little more zest,
and evidently progressed much more rapidly than her companions. For, when
a very significant test came from Mexico, she passed the examination
gloriously. Her answer to the great Mexican question was implicitly this:
no matter how great a grievance may be, it is less a grievance than war,
since war includes all grievances. The world admired her wisdom. The
Hague smiled approval.
True, to preserve peace with Mexico, we had to leave Mexico at war with
herself. The malodorous moral vapors from that civil seethe are still
filling our country with nausea. But if we allow our laudable and just
indignation to be tempered with reflection, we shall have to confess that
war would only enrage our illiterate neighbors to even grosser excesses;
at best, could finally quell their restlessness for only a time; at
worst, would create for us more difficulties than it would solve.
Besides, to add to Mexico’s crimes the ravages of our weapons would be to
increase the world’s woes; to increase them at a time when all hell seems
to be conspiring against the human race. Grievances, better than anything
else, bear postponement. They are proved by the test of time. If real,
they endure.
Mexico is now in the throes of liberty-birth. She is painfully working
out her destiny, just as we and other nations have done before her. She
has a right to be let alone. There will be time enough for us to settle
with her when she has settled with herself. There is honor for us in the
waiting. In the interim, humanity, the universal law, demands that we do
our diplomatic and charitable utmost to win the innocent sufferers in
Mexico from torment.
Our country’s attitude toward Mexico has won for her a unique
distinction. From pupil, she has become teacher of peace. Europe’s
agonized eyes are now appealingly fixed on her. Naturally, such a sudden
and unexpected elevation has somewhat dazed her. She doubts that her
voice will be heard, or, if heard, be heeded, in the unearthly clangor
of arms. She is apprehensive that stray shots from the war-zone may
ricochet across the Atlantic and inflict wounds upon her which it would
be dishonor not to redress. This nervousness, forsooth, is a kind of
stage-fright. She is much like a player, possessed of all such requisites
as talent, memory, and trappings, but timorous of throat difficulties and
gallery missiles at the première.
We are a people of energy, hence of nerves, hence of imagination, hence
of fears. But let us compose ourselves. Poor performers are deservedly
criticized. The world is our audience; it is expecting great things;
shall we give it disappointment? No, of course not! But are we not making
a bad début?
Comes a murmur from all sides the regular army and the navy should be
augmented. Those who dare say nay are forthwith stigmatized as madmen. At
the outbreak of the European War, however, armaments were acknowledged
by everyone as the cause of the conflict. But now it seems that
belligerency has so heated our blood that cool reason has been boiled
out of our heads. Facts, nevertheless, remain; even though our opinions
and sentiments have changed. Whether we at present care to consider it
or not, it is a sorry truth that Europe’s armies have rendered the Hague
helpless and inaugurated an era of horrors.
And now, must we, the only nation influential enough to champion Peace,
genuflect to Mars?
Notwithstanding the lively jeers of militaristic scribes, the statement
stands that the possession of weapons is the strongest stimulus to their
use. Germany armed to the teeth, felt too puissant for Peace; too easily
she found a cause for war: the world weeps. Experience is the queen of
instructors; but do her pupils always learn? Mammoth calamities have
testified, and are at this moment witnessing, that martial means to avert
trouble draw down on men their greatest sorrows. They have caused History
to be couched with a sword-point and blood. The nations across the sea
are now madly struggling for life, although up to a few months ago,
they were cheerfully and blindly making ready for death,—creating the
instruments with which to slay one another. Are we, who should be wise
with a firm realization of their lack of wisdom, about to be false to our
national policy and follow the unhappiest of examples? If the defects of
our present national defence speak to foreign countries of our weakness,
an increase of militia would indicate military design. A reputation for
bellicoseness, fully as much as for impotence, invites complications.
Martial rivalry, suspicions, and jealousies are the recipe for disaster.
With military combustibles in perfect order, a tiny spark from Servia
set Europe on fire. If we similarly prepare for disaster, the slightest
of grievances will serve to prepare disaster for us. Indeed, even with
our present limited army, many of us wax perkily indignant, defiant, and
menaceful over sundry occurrences. Some hotly mumble that the Tennessee
incident is not yet settled; though, in truth, it is difficult, in cool
consideration, to establish any reason for continued heat. Others with
flashing eye, grumble over the alleged maltreatment of Americans in the
belligerent countries; though all United States citizens were bidden home
at the very beginning of the contest, and were given every reasonable
means of conveyance. Which facts assuredly stamp the troubles of those
who have deliberately remained abroad as personal and not national
affairs. The moral is this: if, without an adequate national weapon of
defence, we are inclined to take such haughty umbrage upon such inferior
provocation, how much greater and dangerous will be our resentments, when
we are animated with the confidence inspired by an ample military array!
In these turbulent days, when some excuse for war is encountered at
almost every turn, the consciousness of unpreparedness is our greatest
defense. Our weakness is our salvation. If we clothe ourselves with
strength, there is little doubt that certain noisy newspapers which,
despite the President’s express wishes, are even now doing their subtle
best to stir up mischief, will goad us on to a proof of that strength.
God only knows where we shall be, if we forge for ourselves the grim
means to get there! And, if the war-god finds homage in the United
States, the only remaining powerful luminary of Peace will have set. The
world will be enveloped with affliction. Chaos will reign.
But why do we fear the possible advent of turmoil? It is quite
improbable. Shackled with a thousand problems and interests of her own,
Europe could not harm us, even if she would. Far from desiring to hurt
us, however, she seeks to be helped by us. Ours is a sacred trust.
Peace and plenty are our charge. While the terrible conflict rages, we
can mitigate its ravages. When it closes, we shall have the moral and
material wherewith to revive and cure a maimed and bleeding continent.
Shall we be such traitors to humanity as to adopt measures which may
imperil that trust?
Perchance we sniff complications with Japan. Yet we have received
diplomatic assurances from that quarter which should leave us reasonably
easy. But if our sense of prudence is so strong that we must provide for
emergencies, let us cast about for means which do not spell danger We
shall not have to look far, nor ponder much. For securing our country
against future catastrophe, there is an obvious method, much cheaper,
more effective, and less jeopardous than army-building. It is simply
a promotion of that principle whose presence is really the cause of
Germany’s greatness and whose decay is the most ominous of England’s
menaces: national spirit. Let us not posit the safety of our country in
the hands of 120,000 paid soldiers. As patriots, each and every one of us
should keep the precious spirit of the nation aglow in his own breast.
Then, if disaster threatens, we shall meet it in a phalanx against which
it can but patter in vain. Millions, armed with disinterested love of
country, are much more mighty than thousands, equipped with perfunctory
training, brand new guns, and nicely burnished swords. For, the security
of our land is in ourselves, not in our army. When the Spanish-American
War burst upon us, we were, so far as militia goes, unprepared, but, in
point of national spirit, we were practically a unit. Like magic, unity
made soldiery appear. The call for volunteers was answered by many more
than could be accommodated. If we are now as united as we were then,
why are we fearfully clutching about for new defences? If we are not,
let us earnestly endeavor to be. The condition of England is a darkly
significant example to spur us on. In her hour of greatest trial, those
on whom she chiefly relies for sustenance, her seamen, have leapt at
her throat, demanding what she is ill able to give. They fervidly argue
that their increased risks should and must be renumerated with increased
salaries. They prefer a fat pay-roll to their country’s welfare. Much
will England’s vast navy and great army avail her, if her children thus
fall away from her best interest and from each other. Heaven forbid that
any similar division should obtain in America during time of public
distress! To prepare against it, is by far more prudent, serviceable, and
necessary, than to rear armies.
In fine, let us not insult the Peace with which our land is blessed, by
presenting it with arms!
THE WAR STATE
BY
WINTER RUSSELL
The war state stands before us to-day proud and unafraid. It is however
self-conscious. To use the figures and similes of Carlisle in his
“Characteristics” like Doctor Kitchener, it has a good system. It is not
like the Indian war state that knew no other kind of state and therefore
didn’t realize that it had a system nor was it like Countryman and “had
no system.” The war state to-day has a system and it glories in it. Its
rules are God’s laws and man’s vices and crimes are its virtues. It knows
its purposes which it says are divine.
Those purposes are first to secure order within, second to make war
without. It might almost say that its purpose is to make war without. In
no sense of the word does it make war without so that it can keep order
within. Its purpose therefore is to make war for it keeps order within
so it can better make war without. It might almost say, in fact, it does
say that if it did not make war it would have no right to exist. If it
doesn’t make war better than another it has no right to exist. It makes
war that it may grow, that it may develop, that it may progress, that
it may enlarge itself. It ceases from war for the time being only that
it may prepare to make war again. War is its health, its vocation. Its
provisional peace is its novitiate, its apprenticeship, its years of
training. Should it cease to grow and enlarge itself, it would thereby
cease to be healthy and true to its main purpose.
An axiom with many people is that the truth or falsity of many if not
all contentions can be found by magnifying them or trying to make them
universal. If the contention of the world state is valid this axiom would
seem to have found its Waterloo, for it is obvious that if the perfect
war state is ever achieved it must constantly grow, it must extend its
boundaries continuously. When the war state shall have reached its zenith
it will fall into the inevitable decay and degeneration that comes
with peace, unless it should divide the World state up into tiny and
imperfect war states and begin over again the centuries which were spent
in warfare, to see from which centre of the globe the new war state shall
spread itself. For it is apparent that since war is necessary, a world of
peace would almost be worse than no world at all.
If wars cannot come with the inevitableness with which astute ministers
try to clothe them they must be consciously and openly caused merely for
the sake of having war.
It may be said and it indeed often is that such a conclusion is
impossible, that no constantly growing war state can evolve. War’s
spokesmen say that power too widespread places the beneficent uses of
conflict beyond the reach of the majority of such a state and malign
peace causes inner decay. Eternal bloodshed it would appear is the price
of national health. And several hostile war states must forever rock
progress in its crimson cradle.
This presents to us the other horn of the logical dilemma. All states
owe it to themselves and to the world to become thoroughly militarized.
Hatred and rivalry must be constantly cherished. Socialism’s dream of an
international brotherhood that has beguiled the hearts of many who fear
most of its other principles is indeed only a dream to be dispelled when
the State’s real function is exercised.
Iron, hinting its own scarcity, must be primarily used for Busy Berthas,
submarines and breast piercers. Motor trucks which it was hoped were to
be the disseminators of food and strength are to become the swift germs
of international disease.
Much of the ever-growing spring of inventive geniuses must be turned from
its natural channel of construction to flow through the ways of death
and destruction. The works we glory in in times of peace must become the
enemies of life. Ships that float upon the bosom of the air deal their
horrible and flaming shafts. The dove-like aeroplane becomes the eye of
the army dragon.
War states shall build this commerce but to destroy it as children knock
down their toy houses. Philanthropists shall attempt to soften and heal
the sore spots of society but to see the nations’ statesmen tear and rend
the living flesh, leaving ulcers that cannot close for years.
The war state of course has satisfactory reasons for making war for
growth and development. It must make war to spread its civilization
and destroy other civilizations. There could be no concert or symphony
of civilizations properly speaking. Civilizations serve their purposes
only as they die and pass away. The myriads of philanthropists, social
workers, statesmen and jurists in various states that have not received
the gospel of war are not building for all time. They are building
primarily to render more glorious the victory of the war state. Artists
that create, architects that build are only making structures whose rôle
in man’s history is to be noble ruins.
Physicians and scientists shall study man’s body, make warfare upon his
unseen enemies, plan and plot the life of health, spend years in study
and research, that they may save a few from the plagues of typhoid, of
pneumonia, consumption and the other afflictions of man’s body only to
see man’s latest death dealing toy destroy in seconds the healthful
tissues it has taken years to build. They shall see their systems of
sanitation and hygiene fall like a phantom castle in the air. Disorder,
rapine and lust shall spread more disease than health boards could
cure or prevent in a decade, and last of all they shall find themselves
marshalled and arrayed as one of the brigades in the cohorts of death.
The students of sociology and of economic reform will plan and contrive
systems of life that shall create and preserve the rights and property of
all only to see them swept away as the tidal wave sweeps away a city in
its ruthless coming on. Education realizing as it does that its purpose
is not only to instruct but to nourish and tutor the soul, to win the
mind to love and inspiring thoughts, sees its gentle years made worse
than wasted by the hours of passion and hatred that lengthen into weeks,
months and years of war. It sees its histories made hateful and horrid
with the tales of grief and death. Seeking in some small way to assist
the church in its work of winning love for one’s neighbor, it has to
place upon its shelves the stories that engender hate and fear. Not the
good things that our neighbors have done us but the ill that we have done
to them and they have done to us are made the subject of story and glory.
Art is conscripted to herald forth the might, majesty and mystery of
hell, caparisoned in all the trappings of death’s glitter and brandishing
the latest implement of pain. Poetry’s sweet notes become rasping and
strident as they reiterate the tales that should only be told or sung by
the furies and witches of Hades.
Two thousand years ago we were told that no man could serve two masters
and yet the apologists of war tell us with astounding frankness that the
morals of the state and of the individual not only can but should be
different. Man can at the behest of state, wound, maim, tear, and kill,
he may commit rape, robbery, arson and murder and yet be virtuous. He can
do this and still be expected to go back to his home and be as noble and
loved a rational creature as he was before. While he is doing this and
spreading misery, those whom he has left behind for a time or forever are
also ennobled and inspired and those to whom he comes, whose villages
are crushed by shot and shell and rendered a flaming sacrifice on the
altar of war, are taught the power of godlike soldiers. The time will
come, however, when we shall realize that man cannot serve not only God
and Mammon but he cannot serve God and Mars. Who knows but we are simply
awaiting the scientist who shall show the unerring and uninterrupted
flood from the horrors of war to the criminal years of peace. The seeds
that we sow in the years of hatred and pain bring forth the fruit that
fill our prisons and render our normal life so fretful and feverish.
The war state tells its people to forgive and forget, to coöperate, to
sacrifice, to be unselfish and yet it says to its people: “You as a unit
shall not coöperate, you shall fight, you shall not forgive and forget,
you shall cherish revenge and nourish the passion to retaliate. You shall
not as a people make sacrifices, you shall take from others and make
others sacrifice.” Either Mars or God, must and will at length prevail.
The world cannot forever serve them both.
The war state is to its neighbor as the robber is to the unprepared
banker. The war state says: “You have had years to prepare for war and
you have not prepared. You have put your strength to the uses and arts
of peace, you have developed the mind and the spirit of your people and
since you have neglected its iron body you must render tribute unto me.”
So a robber might say to a bank president: “You have had time to build
your vault of steel and install your burglar alarms yet you have not
prepared and I have come with my revolver and lantern to deprive you of
your well earned gain. I shall deprive you even of the earnings of the
poor that have been entrusted to you, for might makes right and force is
the power that rules the world.” The pugilist might as well say to the
college president: “You have had years to develop your muscles, and to
perfect yourself in the art of fisticuff and self-defense and you have
neglected it, therefore I shall assume your position and if you like
it not I shall give you a knockout blow and drag you from your college
office.”
A world of harmony, a world that shall in truth know the music of the
spheres will not be known until it becomes a world of forgiveness, of
international coöperation and sacrifice. As difficult as it was and long
as it took, the modest forgiveness that has marked the relations of the
North and South and the wholeness that has blessed that forgiveness and
coöperation is an unquestionable witness to the virtue and necessity of
applying to peoples and states the same virtues and the same ethics that
we apply one to another. We have got to limit not only the war state but
the war man. We have got to realize that not only as individuals but as
states, we are all members one of another. Nationalism is in its best
sense, a virtue just as individualism is in its best sense a virtue. The
individual should give to the world the best that is in him and so should
the state, but no more can a state give it by making war than can a man
by being an enemy of his fellows.
Much of the nationalism that we hear about is worse than useless
because it engenders hatred and nourishes pride. Who to-day thinks that
Hayne’s ideal was higher than Webster’s? What is there in being a South
Carolinian, or of the State of Massachusetts, so important as being a
citizen of the United States or what is there about being a citizen of
the United States so glorious as being a brother of all mankind?
PEACE THROUGH ECONOMIC PRESSURE
HOW COMMERCE CAN BE AN EFFECTIVE FORCE BEHIND THE WORLD
COURT—ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE WORLD COURT CONGRESS
IN CLEVELAND ON MAY 14TH
BY HERBERT S. HOUSTON
DELEGATE TO THE CONGRESS FROM THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE
UNITED STATES
The President of the United States has spoken in strong, sane words, in
the message to Germany published this morning, and the country will be
behind him and with him to a man. In the clear logic of a great mind the
distinction is made that no agency of warfare should be employed that,
by its own limitations, cannot respect the accepted rules of war. That
argument I believe will be accepted by the neutral nations and ultimately
by the world. In effect, it is a declaration that if there is to be war
it must be conducted according to the rules of the game, according to the
rules and limitations which Germany and the other nations of the world
have set up through the centuries.
TO ESTABLISH A WORLD COURT
But, gentlemen, this Congress stands for a bigger thing than the rules of
war—it stands for the rules of peace. It represents a serious endeavor
to establish a World Court that shall ultimately bring about the end
of war. The thing that has struck me in this Congress from the opening
day is its upright downright seriousness. It is essentially a Congress
of ways and means. The desirability of peace, the absolute necessity of
peace in a world that claims to be civilized is taken for granted—no one
discusses it. What everyone is discussing instead is a sane, wise plan
of securing peace. Ex-President Taft in his unusually able state-paper
has proposed a plan for a World Court; Judge Parker has endorsed it in
his address; a great banker like Emerson McMillan has outlined a plan by
which the members of such a Court can be chosen; William Dudley Foulke in
his scholarly paper last night proposed a plan of orderly progress for
a League of the Nations, following the analogy of our own Confederation
and our own Constitution; and James Brown Scott, in the able address we
have just heard this morning, has pointed out the present status of the
Hague Tribunal and shown how we can go forward from the point of great
accomplishment that the world has already reached.
THE FORCE TO PUT BEHIND THE COURT
In much of this discussion reference has been made to the power to put
behind a World Court in order to make it effective. Now I wish to speak
briefly of economic pressure as the most truly international force
and as the most efficient possible force to put behind this proposed
World Court. That great leader and teacher of Ohio and the country, Dr.
Washington Gladden, said to me yesterday, “The world on the old basis is
bankrupt. It must be reorganized on a new basis.” Appreciation of that
fact, it seems to me, is the chief significance of this Congress. And
the world can be reorganized on a new basis if it will avail itself of
one of its greatest forces, the force of international commerce, which
can be applied as economic pressure to establish justice and to serve
civilization.
GREAT POWER OF ECONOMIC PRESSURE
Let us briefly examine economic pressure. Of what does it consist and how
could it be applied? The most effective factors in world-wide economic
pressure, such as would be required to compel nations to take justiciable
issues to a World Court for decision and to submit to its decrees, are
a group of international forces. To-day money is international because
in all civilized countries it has gold as the common basis. Credit based
on gold is international. Commerce based on money and on credit is
international. Then the amazing network of agencies by which money and
credit and commerce are employed in the world are also international.
Take the stock exchanges, the cables, the wireless, the international
postal service and the wonderful modern facilities for communication and
inter-communication—all these are international forces. They are common
to all nations. In the truest sense they are independent of race, of
language, of religion, of culture, of government and of every other human
limitation. That is one of their chief merits in making them the most
effective possible power, used in the form of economic pressure to put
behind a World Court.
INTERNATIONAL CLEARING HOUSE PROPOSED
Business to-day is really the great organized life of the world. The
agencies through which it is carried forward have created such a maze of
interrelations that each nation must depend on all the others. A great
Chicago banker, John J. Arnold, Vice-President of the First National Bank
of that city, said to me this week that so closely drawn and interwoven
had become the economic net in which the world was immeshed that if
the great war could have been postponed four or five years it would
never have swept down upon men like a thunderbolt of destruction. As
an additional strand of great strength in the warp and woof of modern
progress, Mr. Arnold believes that an International Clearing House will
come—in fact that it is an inevitable development in international
finance. It was my privilege to hear him make a notable address before
the last meeting of the American Investment Bankers’ Association in
Philadelphia in which he proposed such a Clearing House for settling
balances between nations, just as our modern Clearing Houses now settle
balances between Banks in cities in which they are located. Beyond
question such an International Clearing House, when established, would
quickly become an invaluable auxiliary to a World Court, helping to
give it stability and serving, when occasion arose, as a mighty agency
through which economic pressure could be applied.
And I believe Mr. Arnold is right in his view that an International
Clearing House is bound to come. Business, finance and commerce are now
so truly international that there is a manifest need of it. As a strong
proof of this let me remind you that when this war broke, forty per cent.
of the securities of the world were held internationally.
HOW ENGLAND AND FRANCE PREVENTED WARS
Now economic pressure is not a new thing in the world. It has been
used before by one nation against another and usually with tremendous
effectiveness. When Philip was organizing the great armada the merchants
of London persuaded the merchants of Genoa to withhold credit and moneys
from the Spanish King. The result was that the armada was delayed for
over a year, and then the English were prepared to meet the shock. What
could be done three centuries ago for a year to delay a Power so great as
Spain then was could be done in this century far more effectively. And it
has been employed in this century. When the German Emperor dispatched the
gunboat to Agadir bringing on the acute crisis with France, I happened
to be in Paris. On the fourth day of the crisis I was having luncheon
at the Grand Hotel with a young French banker of the Credit Lyonnais. I
remarked on the fact that the crisis was becoming less acute and inquired
the reason. “We are withdrawing our French investments from Germany,” was
the rejoinder, “and that economic pressure is relieving the situation.”
As we all know, it not only relieved the situation but it served as a
definite means to prevent a war that seemed imminent. Now I submit that a
force which England could use against Spain in the Sixteenth Century and
that France could use against Germany in the Twentieth Century—in each
case let me remind you a single nation was applying force against another
single nation and that nation its enemy—I submit that that force can be
applied by all nations collectively against another nation that refuses
to settle in a World Court a justiciable issue.
THREE WAYS TO APPLY ECONOMIC PRESSURE
Economic pressure could be applied in three ways:
First: To compel nations to submit justiciable questions to the
World Court.
Second: To compel nations to submit to the decrees of the World
Court.
Third: To serve as a penalty against an offending nation for
breaking a Hague Convention.
A nation that should decline to take justiciable questions to the World
Court, after having agreed with other nations to do so, would manifestly
become an outlaw. Why shouldn’t other nations immediately declare an
embargo of non-intercourse with an outlaw nation, refusing to buy from
that nation or sell to that nation or have any intercourse whatsoever
with that nation? In this connection I should like to read the resolution
that I offered yesterday.
Believing that commerce as the organized business life of the
world is interdependent because international, and believing that
it can become a great conservator of the world’s peace, therefore
be it
RESOLVED, by this World Court Congress that the next Hague
Conference be urged in the interest of peace, to provide as a
penalty for the infraction of its conventions or for a refusal
to submit all justiciable issues to arbitration, that an embargo
shall be declared against the offending nations by the other
signatory nations, as follows:
1—Forbidding an offending nation from buying or selling within
their territory or territory under their control.
2—Forbidding an offending nation from raising money through the
sale of bonds, or of any other forms of debt, within their
territory or territory under their control. Be it further
RESOLVED that the President and officers of this World Court
Congress be instructed to take all possible and proper means to
secure the adoption by the next Hague Conference of this proposal
to apply the economic pressure of commerce as the most efficient,
humane and civilized means of insuring the world’s peace by
making the proposed World Court effective.
ADVANTAGES OVER INTERNATIONAL POLICE FORCE
One of the great advantages of economic pressure is that it can be
applied from within, rather than from without. You will recall that
Mr. Marburg, in his very interesting address yesterday, spoke of the
question that has arisen in many minds as to whether military force
should be put behind a World Court. As you know there has been a standing
proposal for an international police force. Colonel Roosevelt has often
urged the necessity for such a force with his wonted vigor. But after
all isn’t this proposal, stripped, likely to turn out to be merely
militarism masquerading under another name? The fighting armies abroad
are composites from different countries, an actual and destructive
international police force in operation right now. No gentle euphemism
can disguise the grim front of Mars. Unless an international police
force is subjected to the most drastic control and used under the most
compelling limitations it is in danger of provoking the very war it is
organized to avoid. War breeds war, as all history shows. The epigram
of David Starr Jordan in a speech at the Economic Club in New York
a few weeks ago, envisaged a fact, for it is true, as he said, that
“when every one is loaded, some one is going to explode.” I will admit
that an international police force may serve some good purpose as an
international sheriff to aid in carrying forward the due and orderly
processes of a World Court. But when it comes to enforcing the decrees of
such a Court, I would set over against an international police force,
as being incomparably more powerful and of incomparably greater ease in
use, the compelling and world-wide force of commerce. Economic pressure
touches the war chest of every country. Instead of fighting with bullets
let us fight with the money and credit that must be behind bullets. And
the world can fight in that way to protect the civilization that has
been slowly and painfully built up through the centuries if it will
use the force of commerce that stands ready to its hand. This force of
commerce can be applied from within. Nations can declare an economic
embargo against an offending nation. Or it is more accurate to say the
offending nation raises an economic embargo itself by its own act in
breaking its pledge to other nations and placing itself outside the pale
of civilization by becoming an outlaw.
THE QUESTION OF PROFIT OR LOSS
Or course, the one apparently strong and valid argument to be brought
against economic pressure is that it would bring great loss to the
commerce of the nations applying it. But that loss would be far less
than the loss brought by war. And there would be no loss whatever if
war were avoided. Still to the automobile factories in these great Lake
Cities, working over time on war contracts, to the farmer enchanted with
the magic of “dollar wheat” and to those especially affected by mounting
export balances an economic pressure that resulted in smaller trade may
seem an astonishing measure to adopt. But ask the cotton growers who had
their market cut from under them by war; consider the virtual moratorium
in this country when the exchanges closed, bringing an incalculable loss
in shrinkage in security values and affecting all business; consider
the industrial survey made in New York and other cities during the past
winter showing that unemployment had increased threefold; listen to the
poignant human appeal from our Charity Organizations; at least one must
grant that the shield of Mars has two sides. And it has always had two
sides. But the burnished side is not that which reflects the ghastly
image of war.
WHAT A TRIAL BALANCE OF COMMERCE SHOWS
If a balance could be rightly struck in this country is there any one
who believes that our interests would be best served by war in some
other country? This is quite apart from any question of humanity or
civilization. Let it be a trial balance of commerce alone and it will
show a heavy debit against war. And an accounting will show the same
result in all other countries. If this be true, with only current
commerce entering into the equation, how staggeringly true it becomes
when the piled up debts caused by war are considered. Economists who
have examined the matter state that this war has already cost over forty
billions of dollars. And the end is not yet.
So why shouldn’t business, which has been binding the world more closely
together for centuries, be employed to protect the world against the
waste and loss of war? Hague Conferences have sought earnestly for
penalties that would save their Conventions from being treated as mere
“bits of paper.” Penalties that every nation would be bound to respect
could be enforced through economic pressure. The loss in trade would be
small or great in proportion to the amount and duration of the pressure;
but it would be at most only an infinitesimal fraction of the loss caused
by war.
THE WORLD COURT CAN BE ESTABLISHED
The Chairman reminds me that my twenty minutes is expiring. So let me
briefly refer in conclusion to that wonderful address made by Rabbi
Silverman yesterday. In it he seemed to say that religion had broken down
because the war had come. As he spoke I was reminded of going across
Illinois a week ago this morning. I lifted the curtain of my sleeper
berth and there in a little town we were passing through stood a church
with the cross shining above it in a golden radiance across the great
green stretches of the valley—a scene of peace. Then I thought how the
cross and the temple and the mosque were looking down that very May
morning in the valleys of the Vistula, the Marne and the Rhine on guns,
on soldiers and armed camps—a scene of war. Then I thought that the other
strong spiritual forces of the world had not been sufficiently powerful
to bring wars to an end. In the great Public Library here in Cleveland
and in the Libraries of all the warring nations are the works of Goethe
and Schiller, of Hugo and Balzac, of Shakespeare and Milton, of Tolstoi
and Turgenieff—all imperishable contributions to the world’s intellectual
life, but still they have not ended war. Your orchestras as well as those
of Paris, Berlin and London, play the music of Beethoven, Tschaikowsky,
Berlioz and Haydn, and music is one of the most spiritual of the arts,
but it has not ended war. Painting and sculpture are part of the common
heritage of mankind but they have not ended war. Isn’t it possible that
the world has depended too much on these spiritual forces? By that I
mean, the world has not yet been brought to the stage of civilization by
these forces where it can depend on them wholly to end war. The world has
had churches and schools and libraries and galleries—but the world like
this great city and this country and every other city and country needs
a Court House. To my mind, all these spiritual forces have been working
through the generations toward a time, toward this very time, when the
world would be ready for a World Court. That Court is within our grasp.
What is needed is to give it force and power through economic pressure
that will compel its use and it will forthwith become a mighty bulwark of
civilization, protecting the world from the waste and futility and the
utter tragedy of war.
THE WORK OF THE WORLD COURT CONGRESS
CONDENSATION OF AN ARTICLE BY JEREMIAH W. JENKS OF THE NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY, IN THE JUNE “REVIEW OF REVIEWS”
One of the catchwords of the great World Court Congress held in Cleveland
in May was “In time of war prepare for peace.” There can be no doubt that
the accumulating horrors of the present war are turning the minds of the
people of all countries, neutral as well as belligerent, toward peace as
never before. As the war drags on and it becomes more and more evident
that there is to be no crushing victory for either side, belligerent
and neutral nations alike are casting about for methods, other than the
absolute weakness of a vengeful or greedy rival, that should be sure
decidedly to lessen, if not absolutely to prevent, the evils of war in
the future.
Mr. John Hayes Hammond, as chairman of the one hundred distinguished
leaders of thought, business and government, has taken up the idea of an
International Court before which the governments of the world may appear
to find a solution for their international justiciable problems. It seems
eminently reasonable and probable that plans well thought out may be not
only acceptable, but welcomed at the close of the war, by a sufficient
number of states to insure a permanent establishment of such a Court,
whose decisions would settle finally all questions of a justiceable
nature.
In the great meeting at Cleveland Judge Alton B. Parker, in a significant
address lauded the patriotic endeavors of Former President Taft to
forward the movement toward the lessening of war by arbitration treaties,
and introduced Mr. Taft, whose learned and eloquent address made the
plan for a World Court appear eminently practicable through its close
analogy to the United States Supreme Court and that court’s treatment of
the questions that are justiceable.
In subsequent meetings of the World Court Congress the growth of the
judicial element in international arbitration was carefully traced. The
much-disputed question of the composition of the World Court and the best
form for the organization were fully treated, by Theodore Marburg, the
former United States minister at Brussels, and by Mr. Emerson McMillin,
of New York City, who presented a detailed plan providing for the
selection of judges by an electoral college to be chosen by the different
nations who should have an equal representation as regards their
sovereignty, but have further representation in the electoral college in
proportion to their population and the extent of their commerce.
The eloquent addresses not only stirred the enthusiasm of the great
audiences, but men of statesmanlike minds were looking forward to
practical definite results. Before the World Court Congress adjourned
steps were taken to make the Committee of One Hundred a permanent body,
and so to organize public opinion, with the aid of other associations,
of legislative bodies, and of the press, that it will prove of distinct
assistance to the administration at Washington, which has seemed ready at
any fitting moment to support the movement practically.
UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT THE PROTOTYPE OF A WORLD COURT
BY
HON. WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
Institutional advances in the progress of the world are rarely made
abruptly. They are not like Minerva, who sprang full-armed from the
brain of Jove. If they are to have the useful feature of permanence
they must be a growth so that the communities whose welfare they
affect may grow accustomed to them as natural and so accept them. Our
so-called Anglo-Saxon civil liberty with its guaranties of the Magna
Charta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus
Act and the Independence of the Judiciary, constituting the unwritten
British Constitution, made our American people familiar with a body
of moral restraints upon executive and legislative action to secure
the liberty of the individual. The written limitations upon Colonial
legislative action in Colonial charters granted by the Crown and their
enforcement by the Privy Council of England probably suggested to the
framers of our Federal Constitution that the principles of British
Constitutional liberty be given written form and be committed to a
Supreme and Independent Court to enforce them as against the Executive
and Congress, its coördinate branches in the Government. The step,
epochal as it was, from judicially enforcing such limitations against
a subordinate Legislature under a written charter of its powers, to a
judicial enforcement of the limitations imposed by the sovereign people
on the Legislature and Executive that they the people had created in
the same instrument, was not radical but seemed naturally to follow.
The revolted Colonies after the Revolution, though united by a common
situation and a common cause in their struggle with Great Britain, and
acting together through the Continental Congress in a loose and voluntary
alliance, were sovereigns independent of each other. The Articles of
Confederation, which declared their union to be permanent, were not
agreed to and ratified in such a way as to be binding until some five
years after the Declaration of Independence. Meantime it had become
increasingly evident that, strong as were their common interests, they
had divergent ones, too, which might embarrass their kindly relations.
The leagues of Greece had furnished an example of confederations of
small States, forced together by a common oppressor and foe, which had
found it wise to settle their own differences by some kind of arbitral
tribunal. The office which the Privy Council and the Crown had filled in
settling inter-colonial controversies suggested an analogy less remote
than those in Grecian history and prompted the adoption of a substitute.
So there was inserted in the Articles of Confederation a provision for a
“court to determine disputes and differences between two or more States
of the Confederation concerning boundary jurisdiction or any other cause
whatever.” The complainant State was authorized to present a petition to
Congress stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing. Notice
of this was to be given by order of Congress to the other State in the
controversy, and a day was assigned for the appearance of the two parties
by their lawful agents who should agree upon judges to constitute a court
for hearing the matter in question. If they could not agree, Congress
was then to name three persons out of each of the thirteen States. From
this list each party was required alternately to strike out one until the
number was reduced to thirteen, and from these thirteen not less than
seven nor more than nine names, as Congress should direct, were in the
presence of the Congress to be drawn by lot, and the persons whose names
were so drawn, or any five of them, constituted the court to hear and
finally determine the controversy.
Proceedings were instituted under this provision before the Constitution
by New Jersey against Vermont, by New York against Vermont, by
Massachusetts against Vermont, by Pennsylvania against Virginia, by
Pennsylvania against Connecticut, by New Jersey against Virginia, by
Massachusetts against New York, and by South Carolina against Georgia.
Only one of these cases came to hearing and decision by a court selected
as provided. That was the case of Pennsylvania against Connecticut,
involving the governmental jurisdiction over the valley of Wyoming and
Luzerne county. The court met and held a session of forty-one days
at Trenton in New Jersey. Able counsel represented the parties, and
the court made a unanimous decision in favor of Pennsylvania, without
giving reasons. A compromise is suspected, because Connecticut promptly
acquiesced, and soon thereafter, with the approval of the Pennsylvania
delegation, Congress passed an act accepting a cession by Connecticut
of all the lands claimed by it west of the west line of Pennsylvania,
except the Western Reserve, now in Ohio, which Connecticut was thus given
ownership of, and which it sold and settled. A number of the other cases
were compromised, and in some no proceedings were taken after the initial
ones.
In the Constitutional Convention the necessity for some tribunal to
preserve peace and harmony between the States was fully conceded by
all, but the form of court was the subject of some discussion. One
proposal was that the Senate should be a court to decide between the
States all questions disturbing peace and harmony between the States,
while the Supreme Court was given only jurisdiction in controversies
over boundaries. Ultimately, however, the judicial power of the United
States exercised through the Supreme Court was extended to “controversies
between States,” without exception.
To those who do not closely look into this jurisdiction of the Supreme
Court it seems no different from that of the ordinary municipal court
over controversies between individuals. The States are regarded merely
as municipal or private corporations subject to suit process, trial,
and judgment to be rendered on principles of municipal law declared by
statute of State Legislature or Congress, or established as the common
law. It is assumed that the Constitution has destroyed the independence
and sovereignty of the States and made the arrangement a mere domestic
affair. This is a misconception. The analogy between the function of
the Supreme Court in hearing and deciding controversies between States
and that of an international tribunal sitting to decide a cause between
sovereign nations is very close. When the suit by one State against
another presents a case that is controlled by provisions of the Federal
Constitution, of course there is nothing international about it. But most
controversies between States are not covered by the Federal Constitution.
That instrument does not, for instance, fix the boundary line between two
States. It does not fix the correlative rights of two States in the water
of a non-navigable stream that flows from one of the States into another.
It does not regulate the use which the State up stream may make of the
water, either by diverting it for irrigation or by using it as a carrier
of noxious sewage. Nor has Congress any power under the Constitution to
lay down principles by Federal law to govern such cases. The Legislature
of neither State can pass laws to regulate the right of the other State.
In other words there is nothing but international law to govern. There
is no domestic law to settle this class of cases any more than there
would be if a similar controversy were to arise between Canada and the
United States.
For many purposes, the States are independent sovereigns and not under
Federal control. They have lost the powers which the people in the
Constitution gave to the Central Government; but in the field of powers
left to them each is supreme within its own limits, and by the exercise
of that power may trespass on the exercise of similar power by its
neighbor. How is such a conflict to be settled? It may be by diplomacy,
i.e., by negotiation and compromise agreement, but this under the
Constitution must be with the consent of Congress. It might be settled by
war, but the Constitution forbids. And the State invaded by the forces of
another State can appeal to the General Government to resist and suppress
the invasion, no matter what the merits of the quarrel. In other words,
one of the attributes of sovereignty and independence which the people in
ordaining the Constitution took away from the States was the unlimited
power to make agreements between each other as to their respective
rights, and the other was that of making war on each other when other
means of settlement failed.
What did the people through the Constitution substitute for these
attributes of unrestricted diplomatic negotiation and compromise and
the right to go to war over such interstate issues? The right of the
complaining State to hale the offending State before the Supreme Court
and have the issue decided by a binding judgment.
Now, can the complaining State bring every issue between it and another
State before the Supreme Court? No. The only issues which the Court
can hear and decide are questions which in their nature are capable
of judicial solution. Mr. Justice Bradley first called such questions
“justiciable,” and Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice Brewer used the
same term. There are issues between States of a character which would
be likely to lead to high feeling and to war if they arose between
independent sovereignties, and which the Supreme Court cannot decide
because they are not capable of judicial solution. In such cases between
States of course there can be no war, because the Federal Government
would suppress it. Therefore, if an amicable understanding cannot be
reached, the States are left with an unsettled dispute between them and
no way of deciding it. They must put up with the existing state of things.
There have been several interesting cases before our Supreme Court
illustrating the character of the jurisdiction I have been describing.
Chicago built a sewage canal to drain her sewage with the aid of the
waters of Lake Michigan into the Desplaines River, then into the
Illinois, and then into the Mississippi, from which St. Louis and other
Missouri towns derived their water supply. The Governor of Illinois was
empowered to open the canal. The State of Missouri brought suit in the
Supreme Court of the United States to enjoin the State of Illinois and
the Sanitary District of Chicago from continuing the flow, on the ground
that the impurities added to the Mississippi water had greatly increased
the typhoid fever in Missouri. It was held that this was a subject matter
capable of judicial solution—that Missouri was the guardian of her
people’s welfare and had a right to bring such a suit, and, if she made a
clear case, to enjoin such use of the Mississippi and its tributaries.
Mr. Justice Shiras, in upholding the jurisdiction (Missouri vs. Illinois,
180 U.S. 208, 241), spoke for the Court as follows:
“The cases cited show that such jurisdiction has been exercised in cases
involving boundaries and jurisdiction over lands and their inhabitants,
and in cases directly affecting the property rights and interests of a
State. But such cases manifestly do not cover the entire field in which
such controversies may arise, and for which the Constitution has provided
a remedy; and it would be objectionable, and indeed impossible, for the
Court to anticipate by definition what controversies can and what can not
be brought within the original jurisdiction of this Court.
“An inspection of the bill discloses that the nature of the injury
complained of is such that an adequate remedy can only be found in this
Court at the suit of the State of Missouri. It is true that no question
of boundary is involved, nor of direct property rights belonging to the
complainant State. But it must surely be conceded that, if the health
and comfort of the inhabitants of a State are threatened, the State
is the proper party to represent and defend them. If Missouri were an
independent and sovereign State, all must admit that she could seek a
remedy by negotiation, and, that failing, by force. Diplomatic powers and
the right to make war having been surrendered to the General Government,
it was to be expected that upon the latter would be devolved the duty
of providing a remedy, and that remedy, we think, is found in the
Constitutional provisions we are considering.”
This hearing was on demurrer. When the case came before the Court again
on the merits, Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the judgment of the Court,
and, while affirming the jurisdiction of the Court, pointed out the
difficulties the Court has in exercising it and the care it must take in
doing so. He said in the course of his opinion:
“It may be imagined that a nuisance might be created by a State upon a
navigable river like the Danube which would amount to a _casus belli_ for
a State lower down unless removed. If such a nuisance were created by a
State upon the Mississippi, the controversy would be resolved by the more
peaceful means of a suit in this Court.”
Speaking of this provision in the Constitution extending the judicial
power to controversies between States, Mr. Justice Bradley in Hans vs.
Louisiana (134 U.S. 1-15) said:
“Some things, undoubtedly, were made justiciable which were not known
as such at the common law; such, for example, as controversies between
States as to boundary lines, and other questions admitting of judicial
solution. And yet the case of Penn vs. Lord Baltimore (I Ves. Sen. 444)
shows that some of these unusual subjects of litigation were not unknown
to the courts even in Colonial times; and several cases of the same
general character arose under the Articles of Confederation, and were
brought before the tribunal provided for that purpose in those articles
(131 U. S. App. 1). The establishment of this new branch of jurisdiction
seemed to be necessary from the extinguishment of diplomatic relations
between the States. Of other controversies between a State and another
State, or its citizens, which, on the settled principles of public law,
are not subjects of judicial cognizance, this Court has often declined to
take jurisdiction.”
A very satisfactory discussion of the scope of the power of the Supreme
Court to settle controversies between States is contained in Mr. Justice
Brewer’s opinion in the suit brought by Kansas against Colorado to
restrain the latter from absorbing so much of the water of the Arkansas
River flowing from Colorado into Kansas as seriously to interfere with
the supply of water from the river for irrigation purposes in Kansas. He
said (206 U. S. 95, 99):
“When the States of Kansas and Colorado were admitted into the Union they
were admitted with the full powers of local sovereignty which belonged
to other States (Pollard v. Hagan, supra; Shively v. Bowlby, supra;
Hardin v. Shedd, 190 U. S., 508, 519); and Colorado by its legislation
has recognized the right of appropriating the flowing waters to the
purposes of irrigation. Now the question arises between two States, one
recognizing generally the common law rule of riparian rights and the
other prescribing the doctrine of the public ownership of flowing water.
Neither State can legislate for nor impose its own policy upon the other.
A stream flows through the two and a controversy is presented as to the
flow of that stream. It does not follow, however, that because Congress
cannot determine the rule which shall control between the two States,
or because neither State can enforce its own policy upon the other, the
controversy ceases to be one of a justiciable nature, or that there is
no power which can take cognizance of the controversy and determine the
relative rights of the two States. Indeed, the disagreement, coupled with
its effect upon a stream passing through the two States, makes a matter
for investigation and determination by this Court....
“As Congress cannot make compacts between the States as it cannot in
respect to certain matters by legislation compel their separate action,
disputes between them must be settled either by force or else by appeal
to tribunals empowered to determine the right and wrong thereof. Force
under our system of government is eliminated. The clear language of the
Constitution vests in this Court the power to settle those disputes. We
have exercised that power in a variety of instances, determining in the
several instances the justice of the dispute. Now, is our jurisdiction
ousted, even if, because Kansas and Colorado are States sovereign and
independent in local matters, the relations between them depend in any
respect upon principles of international law? International law is no
alien in this tribunal....
“One cardinal rule, underlying all the relations of the States to each
other, is that of equality of right. Each State stands on the same level
with all the rest. It can impose its own legislation on no one of the
others, and is bound to yield its own views to none. Yet, whenever, as
in the case of Missouri v. Illinois, 180 U. S., 208, the action of one
State reaches through the agency of natural laws into the territory of
another State, the question of the extent and the limitations of the
rights of the two States becomes a matter of justiciable dispute between
them, and this Court is called upon to settle that dispute in such a
way as will recognize the equal rights of both and at the same time
establish justice between them. In other words, through these successive
disputes and decisions this Court is practically building up what may not
improperly be called interstate common law.”
Controversies between one State and another, or its citizens, which are
not justiciable or capable of judicial solution find examples in the
suits brought before the Supreme Court. One case of which the Supreme
Court refused to take jurisdiction was Wisconsin vs. the Pelican
Insurance Company (1 U. S.), in which the State of Wisconsin sought to
enforce against a Louisiana insurance company a judgment rendered in a
Wisconsin court for penalties imposed by a Wisconsin statute upon foreign
insurance companies for failure to comply with statutory regulations of
its business. It was held that neither under international comity nor law
was one nation required to enforce extra-territorially the criminal law
of another nation, and that therefore the controversy presented was not
one of which as between the States of the Union the Supreme Court could
take cognizance. Again, in Louisiana vs. Texas, 176 U. S., 1, Louisiana
sought to restrain the Governor of Texas from so enforcing a quarantine
law as to injure the business of the people of Louisiana. The law itself
on its face was a proper one for the protection of Texas. In dismissing
the suit the Court said:
“But in order that a controversy between States, justiciable in this
Court, can be held to exist, something more must be put forward than
that the citizens of one State are injured by the maladministration of
the laws of another. The State cannot make war, nor enter into treaties,
though they may, with the consent of Congress, make compacts and
agreements. When there is no agreement, whose breach might create it, a
controversy between States does not arise unless the action complained of
is State action, and acts of State officers in abuse or excess of their
powers cannot be laid hold of as in themselves committing one State to a
distinct collision with a sister State.
“In our judgment, this bill does not set up facts which show that the
State of Texas has so authorized or confirmed the alleged action of
her health officer as to make it her own, or from which it necessarily
follows that the two States are in controversy within the meaning of the
Constitution.”
CONTROVERSIES BETWEEN INDEPENDENT NATIONS SUGGEST THEMSELVES
WHICH ARE NOT CAPABLE OF JUDICIAL SOLUTION AND YET ARE QUITE
CAPABLE OF LEADING TO WAR
Thus suppose _C_ nation in the exercise of its conceded powers admits to
its shore, and indeed to its citizenship, the citizens or subjects of _A_
nation and excludes those of _B_ nation from both. The discrimination is
certainly within the international right of _C_ nation, but it may lead
to acrimony and war. This is not a justiciable question, nor one that
could be settled by a court.
The so-called General Arbitration Treaties negotiated by Secretary
Knox with France and England used the word “justiciable” to describe
the kind of questions which the parties bound themselves to submit to
arbitration. They defined this to include all issues that could be
decided on principles of law or equity. The issue whether a question
arising was justiciable and arbitrable was to be left to the decision of
a preliminary investigating commission. The term justiciable and indeed
the whole scheme of these treaties were suggested by the provision for
settling controversies between States in the Federal Constitution and
the construction of it by the Supreme Court. The controversies between
States, decision of which was not determined by rules furnished by the
Constitution or by Congressional regulation, were strictly analogous to
questions arising between independent nations, and were to be divided
into justiciable and non-justiciable questions by the same line of
distinction. The treaties were not ratified by the United States Senate,
but their approval by England and France and by the Executive of this
country constitutes a valuable and suggestive precedent for the framing
of the Constitution and jurisdiction of an arbitral court to be one of
the main features of a league of peace between the great nations of the
world.
Now, is it idle to treat such a league as possible? Well, let us take
England and Canada. For a hundred years we have been at peace. For that
century we have had a frontier between us and Canada four thousand miles
long which is entirely undefended by forts or navies. We have had issue
after issue between the two peoples that because of their nature might
have led to war. But we have settled them by negotiation, or, when that
has failed, by arbitration, until now it is not too much to say that the
“habit” of arbitration between us is so fixed that a treaty to secure
such a settlement in future issues would not make it more certain than
it is. I concede that conditions have been favorable for the creating
of such a customary practice. The two peoples have the same language
and literature, the same law and civil liberty and the same origin and
history. Each had a wide domain, in the settlement and development of
which their energies and ambitions have been absorbed. The jealousies and
encroachments of neighbors in the thickly populated regions of Europe
have not been present to stir up strife. And yet we ought not to minimize
the beneficent significance of this century of peace by ignoring the fact
that many of the issues which we have settled peaceably seemed at the
time to be difficult of settlement and likely to lead to war. The Alabama
Claims issue and the Oregon Boundary dispute were two of this kind.
It is interesting to note that we now have two permanent arbitral
English-American Commissions settling questions. One of them is to
determine the equitable rules to govern the use of waters on our national
boundary in which both nations and their citizens have an interest, and
to apply them to causes arising. The analogy between the function which
the Supreme Court performed in the Kansas and Colorado case in regard
to the use of the Arkansas River and that of this Commission in respect
to rivers traversing both countries and crossing the border is perfect.
Having thus reached what is practically the institution of a League and
Arbitral Court with England and Canada for the preservation of peace
between us, may we not hope to enlarge its scope and membership and give
its benefits to the world?
Will not the exhaustion in which all the belligerents, whether victors or
vanquished, find themselves after this awful sacrifice of life and wealth
make them wish to make the recurrence of such a war less probable? Will
they not be in a mood to entertain any reasonable plan for the settlement
of international disputes by peaceable means? Now, can we not devise such
a plan? I think we can.
The Second Hague Conference has proposed a permanent court to settle
questions of a legal nature arising between nations. But the signatories
to the convention would under such a plan not be bound to submit
such questions. Nor were the conferring nations able to agree on the
constitution of the court. But the agreement on the recommendation for
the establishment of such a court shows that the idea is within the
bounds of the practical.
To constitute an effective League of Peace we do not need all the
nations. Such an agreement between eight or nine of the Great Powers of
Europe, Asia, and America would furnish a useful restraint upon possible
wars. The successful establishment of a Peace League between the Great
Powers would draw into it very quickly the less powerful nations.
What should be the fundamental plan of the League?
It seems to me that it ought to contain four provisions. In the first
place, it ought to provide for the formation of a court which would be
given jurisdiction by the consent of all the members of the League to
consider and decide justiciable questions between them or any of them,
which have not yielded to negotiation, according to the principles of
international law and equity, and that the court should be vested with
power, upon the application of any member of the League, to decide the
issue as to whether the question arising is justiciable.
Second—A Commission of Conciliation for the consideration and
recommendation of a solution of all non-justiciable questions that
may arise between the members of the League should be created, and
this Commission should have power to hear evidence, investigate the
causes of difference, and mediate between the parties and then make its
recommendation for a settlement.
Third—Conferences should be held from time to time to agree upon
principles of international law, not already established, as their
necessity shall suggest themselves. When the conclusions of the
Commission shall have been submitted to the various parties to the League
for a reasonable time, say a year, without calling forth objection, it
shall be deemed that they acquiesce in the principles thus declared.
Fourth—The members of the League shall agree that if any member of the
League shall begin war against any other member of the League, without
first having submitted the question, if found justiciable, to the
Arbitral Court provided in the fundamental compact, or without having
submitted the question, if found non-justiciable, to the Commission of
Conciliation for its examination, consideration, and recommendation, then
the remaining members of the League agree to join in the forcible defense
of the member thus prematurely attacked.
First—The first feature involves the principle of the general arbitration
treaties with England and France, to which England and France agreed,
and which I submitted to the Senate, and which the Senate rejected or
so mutilated as to destroy their vital principle. I think it is of the
utmost importance that it should be embraced in any effective League
of Peace. The successful operation of the Supreme Court as a tribunal
between independent States in deciding justiciable questions not in
the control of Congress nor under the legislative regulation of either
State furnishes a precedent and justification for this that, I hope,
I have made clear. Moreover, the inveterate practice of arbitration,
which has now grown to be an established custom for the disposition of
controversial questions between Canada and the United States, is another
confirmation of the practical character of such a court.
Second—We must recognize, however, that the questions within the
jurisdiction of such a court would certainly not include all the
questions that might lead to war, and therefore we should provide some
other instrumentality for helping the solution of those questions which
are non-justiciable. This might well be a Commission of Conciliation—a
commission to investigate the facts, to consider the arguments on both
sides, to mediate between the parties, to see if some compromise cannot
be effected, and finally to formulate and recommend a settlement. This
may involve time, but the delay, instead of being an objection, is really
one of the valuable incidents in the performance of such a function by
a commission. We have an example of such a Commission of Conciliation
in the controversy between the United States and Great Britain over the
Seal Fisheries. The case on its merits as a judicial question was decided
against the United States, but the world importance of not destroying the
Pribiloff Seal herd by pelagic sealing was recognized and a compromise
was formulated by the arbitral tribunal, which was ultimately embodied in
a treaty between England, Russia, Japan, and the United States. Similar
recommendations were made by the court of arbitration which considered
the issues arising between the United States and Great Britain in respect
to the Newfoundland Fisheries.
Third—Periodical conferences should be held between the members of the
League for the declaration of principles of international law. This is
really a provision for something in the nature of legislative action by
the nations concerned in respect to international law. The principles of
international law are based upon custom between nations established by
actual practice, by their recognition in treaties and by the consensus
of great law writers. Undoubtedly the function of an Arbitral Court
established as proposed in the first of the above suggestions would lead
to a good deal of valuable judge-made international law. But that would
not cover the whole field. Something in the nature of legislation on the
subject would be a valuable supplement to existing international law. It
would be one of the very admirable results of such a League of Peace that
the scope of international law could be enlarged in this way. Mr. Justice
Holmes, in the case of Missouri vs. Illinois, to which I have already
referred, points out that the Supreme Court in passing on questions
between the States and in laying down the principles of international
law that ought to govern in controversies between them should not and
can not make itself a legislature. But in a League of Peace there is no
limit to the power of international conferences of the members in such a
quasi-legislative course, except the limit of the wise and the practical.
Fourth—The fourth suggestion is one that brings in the idea of force.
In the League proposed, all members are to agree that if any one member
violates its obligation and begins war against any other member, without
submitting its cause for war to the Arbitral Court if it is a justiciable
question, or to the Commission of Conciliation if it is otherwise, all
the members of the League should unite to defend the member attacked
against a war waged in breach of plighted faith. It is to be observed
that this does not involve the members of the League in an obligation to
enforce the judgment of the Court or the recommendation of the Commission
of Conciliation. It only furnishes the instrumentality of force to
prevent attack without submission. It is believed it is more practical
than to attempt to enforce judgments after the hearing. One reason is
that the failure to submit to one of the two tribunals the threatening
cause of war for the consideration of one or the other is a fact easily
ascertained, and concerning which there can be no dispute, and it is a
palpable violation of the obligation of the member. It is wiser not to
attempt too much. The required submission and the delay incident thereto
will in most cases lead to acquiescence in the judgment of the Court or
in the recommendation of the Commission of Conciliation. The threat of
force against plainly unjust war—for that is what is involved in the
provision—will have a most salutary deterrent effect. I am aware that
membership in this League would involve on the part of the United States
an obligation to take part in European and Asiatic wars, it may be, and
that in this respect it would be a departure from the traditional policy
of the United States in avoiding entangling alliances with European or
Asiatic countries. But I conceive that the interest of the United States
in the close relations it has of a business and social character with
the other countries of the world—much closer now than ever before—would
justify it, if such a League could be formed, in running the risk that
there might be of such a war in making more probable the securing of the
inestimable boon of peace to the world that now seems so far away.
THE CLEVELAND CONGRESS
BY
JOHN WESLEY HILL
This is a topsy-turvy world to-day. Thinking men—and women too, for
that matter, stand aghast at the harking backward to barbarism. In one
fell swoop, as it were, from a plane of ostensible civilization the
greater part of the civilized universe has been plunged into a veritable
maelstrom; an indescribable cataclysm of heinous warfare and matchless
bestiality. Danté in his wildest dreams painted no such Inferno and the
end blacker in perspective than the background of a Doré painting is not
yet!
Out of the chaos what may come is a matter of rife speculation for future
historians. But that there is a sovereign remedy for the avoidance
and future recurrence of such world racking evils of carnal pillage,
wholesale murder and strife, is a fact that cannot be gainsaid and the
keynote for that panacea was sounded at Cleveland on three gala days,
this last May, when the first great World Court Congress was held with an
enthusiasm and earnestness almost unprecedented in the history of such
assemblages in this country.
This whole land was just awakening from a commercial and industrial
somnolence, unrecorded except in days of panic and war at home, when
the Congress was convened on May 12th and the progenitors of the great
movement had many misgivings as to their ability to induce the staid
business man of this country to lay aside his duties even for the
movement and attend.
Marts and ’changes had been closed; industries idle and nearly the whole
business world at a standstill for months past when the call for the
Congress was sounded and it was thought by some of its warmest advocates
that so many difficulties beset the way that but a meagre gathering could
be assembled. To the astonishment and gratification of the big men back
of the movement just the reverse was true and it is doubtful if a more
representative body of Americans ever assembled under one roof. A one
time President, Senators of the State and Nation, members of Congress,
great Captains of Industry, Educationalists, Bankers, Brokers, Ministers
of the Gospel, diplomats and men of conspicuous prominence in nearly
every walk in life thronged the immense armory in which the Congress was
in session for three days, and the initial movement for a great World
Court begun.
Some idea of the intense interest in the all-important prospect may
be had from the statement that no less than twenty-eight governors of
various states of the Union signed the call for the Congress. More than
one thousand delegates answered the roll call, representing national and
civic life in all its different branches. Some of the more conspicuously
prominent men present were ex-President William Howard Taft, John Hays
Hammond, Judge Alton B. Parker, Henry Clews, Theodore Marburg, Rabbi
Joseph Silverman, James Brown Scott, of the Carnegie Peace Foundation,
Denys P. Myers, of the World Peace Foundation, Hon. Bainbridge Colby, of
New York, Dr. Francis E. Clark, Dr. Samuel T. Dutton, Hon. Henry Lane
Wilson, William Dudley Foulke, Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio, Harry
A. Garfield, son of the late President Garfield, Thomas Raeburn White,
Bascom Little, Herbert S. Houston, Vice-President of Doubleday, Page &
Co., Thomas B. Warren, Senator Warren G. Harding, Emerson McMillin, and
numerous others.
From noon on Wednesday, May 12th, until late Friday evening, the Congress
was constantly in session and many memorable addresses were made by men
notable in the world of affairs. The various addresses delivered put
peace before the world as a business proposition. They discussed the
economic side of war and demonstrated that peace is necessary to business
stability and prosperity, that war directs and masters men, money,
and measures, diverts them from the legitimate channels of industry
and concentrates effort upon destruction instead of the constructive
processes which are essential to public and private welfare. The horrible
slaughter and devastation of war are brought to the consciousness of
the people of all countries by the gigantic contest now raging, more
vividly than ever before, and the emotions engendered lead many good men
and women to the suggestion of all kinds of idealistic and impracticable
schemes for bringing the war to an end and ushering in universal peace.
But when we look at the character of the nations engaged in the struggle
and of the men who direct the policies of these nations, and at the deep
underlying causes which precipitated the conflict, we perceive that peace
cannot be restored by mere sentiment, nor can the permanence of peace if
it is once secured, be guaranteed by mere paper treaties. The problem of
peace is a problem which requires law as the basis of its solution. It
is a problem which cannot be solved by sentimentalists and dreamers, but
must be grappled by strong and clear visioned men. The failure of many
merely sentimental peace movements in the past has tended to bring the
cause of peace into ill repute. Those who called the World Court Congress
at Cleveland felt that the time had come when strong hands were needed
to launch an effective movement, and they accordingly summoned an array
of men which has never been surpassed in any gathering, for collective
wisdom, knowledge of the world, experience, and practical business sense.
The discussion conducted by these men was in no wise historical or
sciolistic, but based upon the solid foundation of reason, law, justice,
and feasibility. The speakers were informed by knowledge and experience;
many were adepts in the science of business and finance and government
and practical politics. Some were experts in international law, and
diplomacy. The plan they proposed must commend itself to practical
business men for its workability, no less than to idealists for its
justice and essential benevolence.
One great, rhymic, world-bettering ideal was the motif, the soul
inspiring theme of all those addresses and invocations for a World
Court—a World Court where men may carry their grievances like men, not
beasts of the field, and have their differences adjudged on the basic
principles of equity and the fundamentals of justice; a World Court
which might be a tribunal in prototype of the greatest court of the
greatest peoples in the universe; a World Court which by its rulings
would make not possible the mobocracy which menaces to-day; a court which
by its laws unto itself will preclude beyond possibility such wars of
extermination as are existent to-day!
The Congress proceeded from the very first with the machinery of a great
National Convention. It had been said that no such gathering of peace
advocates and their factional followers could be assembled without petty
bickerings, harsh argument, and debate. Nothing could be further from
the resultant fact. Not a note of discord marred the proceedings and the
preliminary work looking to the establishment of the international peace
tribunal was accomplished with dispatch and fine promise. The speakers
of honor and the delegates to a man seemed to be inspired with the work
ahead and the vital import of final achievement.
The titanic struggle between the great powers abroad was not touched
upon. Nothing was said or done that could possibly embarrass President
Wilson or his advisors and all thought and effort was for future
prevention rather than momentary cure. Former President Taft’s address,
delivered on the opening day of the Congress, had largely to do with the
question of arbitration. He dwelt upon its grave importance and did not
think it necessary in the constitution of an effective league of peace
to embody all the nations. An agreement of eight or nine of the great
powers of Europe, Asia, and America would furnish a useful restraint upon
possible wars and its successful establishment draw into it eventually
the less powerful nations. The Hon. Alton B. Parker set his seal of
approval upon such an international court and called attention to the
fact that it already had had the careful consideration of the forty-four
states comprising the Second Hague Conference; by the Institute of
International Law; by the approving leading powers since 1907 and by the
American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes at no
less than four annual conferences. A World Court patterned after our own
Supreme Court—the greatest court in the history of the world—he thought
entirely possible and practicable.
Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio inferred that the projected World Court
would give a new stamp on the sacredness of international contracts and
that he said was a guarantee of peace itself.
The World Court was just as feasible as a family court, declared Hon.
John Hays Hammond, although it did involve more elements as a tribal
court. The time was ripe, he declared, for the higher règime of pacific
reason and moral adjudication and America should voice the world groping
and moral inquiry of the race and cause them to crystallize into a new
world state “where men shall learn war no more.”
After setting forth the limitations of the World’s Court which perforce
of necessity turns to the future rather than the past the Hon. Henry Lane
Wilson asked “How vast would be the gain to humanity and civilization,
how greatly would the number of wars be reduced, and how enormously
would the horrors of conflict be diminished, if such a court were now in
existence?”
The purpose of the Congress, said Bainbridge Colby, was to bear aloft
the standards of justice and of law; of justice as the mightiest concern
of mankind—of law as its indispensable instrument. Mr. Colby positively
denied that force had dethroned reason and declared that “The purpose
of this Congress is to assert the undaunted and unshaken belief of the
freest people in the world, that God still reigns, and that justice is
mightiest in the mighty.”
Rabbi Joseph Silverman made an appeal for the awakening of a new spirit
of patriotism which would point the way to a great World Court for
peace. “We are worse off to-day,” he asserted, “than men were in the
days of savagery. The savage went forth with his bow and his arrow and
his tomahawk, and one savage could, at best, with one shot kill one
human being. But the modern civilized man goes forth with Krupp guns and
cannons and bombs and shells and submarines and automobile and airship,
and one human being to-day, with these arts and sciences of civilization,
one human being, pressing one button, with one shot can kill ten thousand
human beings, and destroy hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of
property. One savage can kill one man—one civilized man can destroy a
whole city.”
Mr. Henry Clews in an address entitled “An Epochal Event,” called
attention to the fact that the World Court Congress was an event of
supreme importance and attracted world wide attention and interest that
could not fail to help the cause of permanent peace. The movement, he
avowed, for the creation of a great International Court of Justice
“brings us a step nearer to that sublime idea of the inspired writer
when men ‘shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into
pruning hooks,’ and they shall hear no more of war upon the surface of
this fair earth.”
Emerson McMillin discussed the composition of “The World Court.” He would
not brook the thought that there was not patent and paramount need for
such an institutional tribunal. The necessity for an International Court
was so obvious that it was not a subject for discussion. The delegates of
forty-five states would not have supported it at the Hague Conference if
there had not been a great desire and a growing demand for it. He called
attention, in his warm advocacy for the establishment of the Court, to
the records of the two Hague Conferences. In 1899 it was but necessary
to suggest the creation of a World’s Court to have it promptly put aside
as impracticable. After a lapse of but eight years the 1907 Conference
adopted the following: “The Conference recommends to the signatory powers
the adoption of the project hereunto annexed of a convention for the
establishment of a Court of Arbitral Justice and its putting in effect,
as soon as an accord shall be reached upon the choice of the judges and
the constitution of the court.” This received the unanimous support of
all the conferees.
In a logical appeal for such a court, U. S. Senator Atlee Pomerene of
Ohio, presented some startling facts. “My friends,” he said, “the other
day the Cleveland _Plain Dealer_ said, editorially, that according to
the best estimates up to date there had been lost in this horrible war,
5,970,000 men. Think of it. In the great State of Ohio, which Senator
Harding and I have the honor to represent, according to the last Federal
census there were only 4,700,000 souls, men, women, and children. To-day
there are, perhaps about 5,000,000 souls in Ohio. In other words, in the
short space of about eight or nine months, nearly one million more men
have been lost than we have men, women, and children in Ohio, all because
the heads of governments are worshipping old Mars.”
Thomas Raeburn White presented to the Congress a series of technical
provisions for the appointment of judges to the International Court of
Arbitration. They could be easily surmounted, however, he thought, and
in an address on “The Method of Procedure,” the Hon. James Brown Scott
declared that great as these difficulties were in the selection of
judges, they were not insuperable.
President Harry A. Garfield, of Williams College, in a discussion on “The
Minimum Number of Nations Required to Successfully Inaugurate the Court,”
thought that four of the great powers would suffice for an inaugural.
He called attention to the fact that Mr. Thomas Raeburn White, speaking
at the third national conference of the American Society for Judicial
Settlement of International Disputes in December, 1912, analyzed the
articles of the convention providing for the establishment of the court
and showed that the question was clearly left to the Powers represented
at the conference, and could be adopted by any two or more of them
when they saw fit. There appears to be no serious dissent from this
proposition.
There were other numerous addresses by men of nation-wide importance.
There were utterances that will go down through the aeons of a new
history-making civilization.
Men who had come to the Congress with the air of dreamers went away
surcharged with the inspired atmosphere of accomplishment. As Bainbridge
Colby had said it was no new thought, no new ideal, this scheme of the
World Congress for a World Court. It had come down through the centuries.
But in the other ages, ay, even in the latter years there had been no
such dire necessity for this purposed International Tribunal. To-day
was a different day with a different need. Jew and Gentile, capitalist
and laborer touched shoulders and joined hands in the common weal and
the great cause at this World Congress for the World Court. The Rabbi
pointed out in one breath that the arrow of the savage killed one man and
the gun of civilization destroyed a whole city and all within! In the
next the figures of a grave Senator pointed to the horror that in a few
months of civilized warfare 1,000,000 more souls have been hurled into
eternity than there is population in the Buckeye State. Small wonder that
the cardinal, incontrovertible facts and figures so widely disseminated
through the press of this country have staggered the comprehension and
understanding of humanity the world over. For the wassail cries of
the royal rioters in warfare of all other ages are but miniature in
comparison with those in this era of infamy.
* * * * *
A word in conclusion to the Mayor Newton D. Baker, Bascom Little and
the people of Cleveland. Partly by chance and partly by design this
almost matchlessly beautiful lake city was selected for the initial
sessions of the World Congress. By municipal experts the world over,
Cleveland is counted one of the greatest accomplishments in latter-day
city building extant. Environment is everything and I shall always
believe that so much was accomplished at the Congress because of the
perfection of arrangements and the fitting surroundings to say nothing
of the incomparable hospitality of the city. Since my return to New York
and the offices of the International Peace Forum, I have been besieged
with inquiries in relation to these accomplishments. Beginning with the
month of July, a great magazine entitled THE WORLD COURT published under
the auspices of the International Peace Forum will make its appearance
on the book stalls. Many of these inquiries will then be answered. Its
main purpose will be to advocate the establishment of a World Court
which I am almost prone to prophesy is already assured. In addition the
magazine will carry departments of Art, Music, Literature, the Drama and
Information. Its editors and contributors will be eminent men of letters
and it will carry a department under the title of “World Comment” which
will hold and interest every thinking man in this and other lands. This
magazine will have many kind words for Cleveland. That city itself may
well feel proud of its achievements in behalf of the World Congress and a
World Court.
And for a surety it was an epoch and an honor in the brilliant history
of that great city. When the World Court is established the name of the
city of Cleveland will ever be associated with it. And the two names will
spell peace—International, national, commercial, and industrial peace—the
peace that passeth all understanding and the peace that a tired world is
crying for with that soul-racking wail that comes only from the soul of a
strong and helpless man.
* * * * *
I shall never forget the evening of the last session of the Congress.
As I wended my way out of the armory, the city arose before me in all
its multicolored splendor—the passing throngs of men whose martial
air proclaimed their success as plain as the gold lettering on the
haberdasher’s windows, the beautifully gowned and garmented women and the
streets and avenues in all their kaleidoscopic picturesqueness. And then
another picture of the cities of the old world laid bare in want and woe
and war.
God forfend such ill fortune to you, Cleveland, in the evil days for
assuredly you have contributed your share to the Cause of Peace.
REVIEW OF BOOKS
=A Short History of War and Peace.= By G. H. PERRIS, Author of “Russia
in Revolution,” “The Life and Teaching of Tolstoy,” etc. Membre de
l’Institute International de Paix. 50 cents net. Home University Library.
New York, Henry Holt & Company; London, Williams and Norgate.
Mr. Perris, who like all other authors of the Home University Library
series is a recognized authority of his subject. He gives a brilliant
summary, condensing into a nutshell the steps by which the nations have
passed from a state of constant war to a state of comparative peace, and
shows that soldiers of genius no longer appear because the environment
is unfavorable and the demand has failed, Othello’s occupation’s gone.
The mechanism of war has killed the art of war; and this mechanism is
doomed itself because, while it can reap no recompense, its cost in
use is likely to bring its owners to the pit of bankruptcy, famine and
revolution.
In summing up Mr. Perris says: “So far from being based upon unchangeable
passions, the nature of man as “a social animal” is based upon material
and moral interests which have undergone deep changes, indeed, but in a
certain general order and direction. We can trace these changes both in
the structure and the function of successive societies established in the
course of the swarming process by which the earth has been filled.” He
shows that the ideas of arbitration have been gaining ground slowly but
surely.
=Belgium.= By C. K. ENSOR, sometime scholar of Balliol College, Oxford,
England. With maps, 50 cents net. Series of the Home University Library,
number 95, pp 256. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1915.
The events of August, 1914, and their sequel have shown Belgium to many
in a new light. They have seen a nation where they had supposed that
there was only geographical expression. They have seen martial courage
where they had forgotten that it had been famous for centuries. They have
been surprised to find in this little land so much civic patriotism.
Belgium is the most accessible country on the Continent to the English:
and it has been visited by numberless Americans since Longfellow’s day,
but it is proverbially easy to overlook what lies under one’s nose.
Those of us who have long been aware that Belgium is something more than
a collection of old buildings and Old Masters, or a stopping place on
the journey to Germany or Switzerland, can but welcome the new interest
which is taken in her by the wider public on both sides of the Atlantic,
for she is worthy of it. The episode which the world pities is not an
historical accident, ennobling by chance the record of an ignoble people.
If under the ordeal they have become great, it was because they had
greatness in them.
The author in speaking of the architecture of Belgium has his doubts as
to how much of it will escape the devastation of the European War. “But
in any case the first sequel of peace in Belgium must be rebuilding.
It will be fortunate then,” the author says, “that in consequence of
the building fever of recent years the country is equipped beyond the
ordinary needs of its size with architects, builders, trained workmen,
and experience, which may enable its ruined towns to rise purified
and beautified from their ashes.” This statement may be true if the
architects, builders, trained workmen and other workers have not been
killed in battle. The devastation of Belgium, alone is argument enough
for the rest of the world to quit the foolishness of war.
=An Open Letter to the Nation with Regard to a Peace Plan.= By JAMES
HOWARD KEHLER, New York: Mitchell Kennerley. 1915, pp 25.
The letter in this neat little volume is addressed to The President, The
Ministers of Government and The Congress of the United States: To the
Members of the Peace Societies: To the Press and to the People:
There is a lot of good common sense in this letter. For example, in the
opening of the letter the author asks that the name of the War Department
be changed to that of the Peace Department, and that its Ministers
hereafter be known as Secretaries of Peace, and that what are known as
War Policies hereafter may be known as Peace Policies. He shows that in
reality the Secretary of War is really a secretary of Peace, and that his
primary office is not to make war, but to avert it, and the degree of his
prestige is in direct ratio to his success in preserving the peace and
tranquility of our people, and that our war budgets are in fact peace
budgets, etc.
Of course, we know that the Secretary of War does not have a thing to
do with the diplomatic correspondence that arranges for a war, but
nevertheless the idea of giving significance to the symbolism of the
names of the offices and their ministers has considerable value.
=The Socialists and the War.= By WILLIAM ENGLISH WALLING, author of
“Socialism As It Is,” “Progressivism and After,” etc., etc. New York:
Henry Holt & Co., 1915. 512 pp. $1.50 net.
The author here presents a documentary statement of the position of
the Socialists of all countries; with special reference to their peace
policies, and includes a summary of the Revolutionary state Socialist
measures adopted by the Governments at war. The editor of this work is a
well known writer on Socialism, being the author of “Socialism As It Is,”
“Progressivism and After,” and other books along this line, of which it
may be said that this is his best effort.
About three fourths of the book consists of documentary statements of
Socialists of all countries toward the war, and the running editorial
comments set forth vividly the conditions under which the various
statements were made with an indication of why they are important.
The Socialist and a good many others who are great on asking questions
will find a few here that are well answered in a fair way. Would the
common people of Europe have declared war? Have the peoples of Europe
definitely accepted monarchy, or is republicanism a force to be reckoned
with? If one side forced the other side to disarm, would this partial
disarmament make for total disarmament, or would it make for a war of
revenge? And many other questions of a similar nature. A large part of
the material utilized by the author, has appeared, under his editorship
in The New Review. The Socialists believe that war should be ended
immediately, or when the present European war becomes a “draw.”
=Defenseless America.= By HUDSON MAXIM. New York: Hearst’s International
Library Company. 1915. Price, $2.00, pp. 318.
This volume has been named “A call to arms against War.” A phalanx of
facts are presented upon the defenseless condition of this country. After
reading this volume we seem to be as helpless as a new-born baby. As a
fact we are a new born country. The United States is the youngest of the
family of nations, but nevertheless we are a lusty youngster.
It is a fact that self-preservation is the first law of nature.
Self-preservation should also be the first law of nations. Is that the
case in this country? Upon this subject Mr. Maxim has written this
interesting volume.
Every person has a right to his own opinions, and he also has a right
to have such opinions as he thinks are right. That is an undisputed
privilege. Many think that the United States is well enough prepared,
while on the other hand many think that this Government is in a
precarious condition on account of its lack of defensive material. Mr.
Maxim in accordance with the title of his book holds the latter view.
According to his first chapter, any statement against heavier national
armament is a dangerous preachment.
Ernest Haeckle has said that there is nothing constant but change. He
might have said also that there is a no more consistent thing in its
constancy than human inconsistency. And Herbert Spencer rightfully said
that, as he grew older, the more and more he realized the extent to which
mankind is governed by irrationality. Billings was probably right when he
said, “It is not so much the ignorance of men that makes them ridiculous
as what they know that is not so.”
=German Philosophy and Politics.= By JOHN DEWEY, Professor of Philosophy
in Columbia University. New York, 1915. Henry Holt & Co. Price, $1.25
net, pp. 134.
Dr. John Dewey, one of the world’s greatest philosophers, here gives
the unprofessional philosopher a succinct notion of the development of
classic German philosophy from Kant to Hegel. All technical details
are omitted. Professor Dewey gives some interesting side-lights on
German war philosophy, and shows how German thought took shape in the
struggle for German nationality against the Napoleonic menace, and how
profoundly that crisis affected the philosophy of morals, of the state,
and of history which has since that time penetrated into the common
consciousness of Germany.
Doctor Dewey thinks that cavalry generals who employ philosophy to
bring home practical lessons are mighty rare outside of Germany. More
significant than the words themselves are their occasion and the
occupation of the one who utters them. Outside of Germany it would be
indeed hard to find an audience where an appeal for military preparedness
would be reinforced by allusions to the Critique of Pure Reason. By
taking the statements as given by the German philosophers one can
understand the temper in which opinion in Germany meets a national
crisis. When the philosopher Eucken, who received the Nobel prize for
contributing to the idealistic literature of the world, justifies the
part taken by Germany in a world war because the Germans alone do not
represent a particularistic and nationalistic spirit, but embody the
“universalism” of humanity itself, he utters a conviction bred in German
thought by the ruling interpretation of German philosophic idealism. By
the side of this motif the glorification of war as a biologic necessity,
forced by increase of population, is a secondary detail giving a
totally false impression when isolated from its context. Philosophical
justification of war follows inevitably from a philosophy of history
composed in nationalistic terms. The author says that history is the
movement, the march of God on earth through time. Only one nation at a
time can be last and hence the fullest realization of God.
=The War and America.= By HUGO MÜNSTERBERG. D. Appleton & Co., New York
and London. 1915. $1.00 net, pp. 210.
=The Peace and America.= By PROF. HUGO MÜNSTERBERG. D. Appleton & Co.,
New York and London. 1915. Price $1.00 net, pp. 280.
These two illuminating books written by Professor Münsterberg of Harvard
University, give a wealth of information regarding the causes of the
Great War. He is known as perhaps the greatest psychologist in America
to-day. He is, however, well qualified to write on this great subject on
account of his intense interest in the outcome of the conflict, and also
on account of his great desire for peace between nations.
The War and America discusses the essential factors and issues of the
European War and their meaning and import for Americans. All the fighting
that has been done through the thousands of years past were nothing but
mere skirmishes as compared with the conflict of to-day. The one great
lesson for America in the European conflict will show that the loss and
waste will be so much larger than the righting of a possible wrong will
amount to that it will be utterly impossible to even think of going
into a war on a large scale as has been done in the Great War. All
concessions could have been granted a half dozen times over by each and
every nation involved in the conflict, and yet, the cost would have been
but a mere drop in the bucket as compared with what it now amounts to,
after one year of hostilities. Professor Münsterberg says: “A gigantic
destruction of human life such as this war demands must naturally force
on everyone the wish for a substitute which is less painful to the
imagination.” Perhaps good will come of the war in that respect. It will
be such a lesson to the world that it will be thoroughly awakened to
the real danger of the present foolish method of settling international
disputes. Professor Münsterberg is a writer of great fame, having
written more books on Psychology than any other man, he gives a broad
interpretation to that peculiar state of international affairs which have
ultimately to reckon with the Peace Movement.
THE INFORMATION DESK
An article by Ellis B. Usher, of the University of Wisconsin, in a
current magazine, says the vote of the State is steadily falling off. In
the year 1900 the percentage of votes cast to the voting population was
a fraction above 74. In 1912 the percentage had fallen to 46½, and in
1914 it was only 43. Professor Usher attributes the steady decrease in
the number of votes cast to the disgust of the voters with the primary
election laws and other meddlesome legislation. “We have attempted,” he
says, “to substitute machinery for citizenship. We have cumbered our
statute books with laws, and expected them, unaided and automatically to
create citizens faithful to their duties. Instead, this new machinery
has proved an annoyance, and a restraint upon the electorate, and has
defeated that untrammeled action by the voter that is of the highest
essence of citizenship.”
* * * * *
In his address at the annual meeting of the United States Steel
Corporation, Judge Gary the Chairman of the Board of Directors, said
there had been quite a general feeling that the government of the United
States had not pursued a well defined and consistent policy toward
business, but that on the contrary it had been the policy of some of the
governmental agencies to interfere with, to delay and obstruct natural
progress; to punish and destroy rather than to regulate and encourage. He
thought there were signs now of a fairer policy, and consequently of a
better business outlook.
* * * * *
Jose Cascales Munoz, ex-professor of sociology in the University of
Madrid, Spain, has issued an eloquent plea for peace. He says that
disarmament can be brought about only by an agreement of the stronger
powers and the formation of an international army to support the
decisions of a world court to which all international disputes must be
referred. For the establishment of such a world court a world conference
would be necessary. Professor Munoz thinks that if even three strong
nations could unite for the formation of such a world court the others
could gradually be brought into line, and little by little the work would
be made perfect.
* * * * *
The New York Peace Society has sent a letter to President Wilson setting
forth the Society’s views on national defense and armament. The letter
was signed, among others, by Andrew Carnegie, Oscar S. Straus and Jacob
H. Schiff. It declares that the United States needs a powerful navy for
defense, but never for aggression, and that our systems of national and
state militia should be extended on such a basis as to constitute an
adequate land defense.
* * * * *
Prof. Kuno Meyer, speaking of the recent activities of Japan, says: “This
is a golden opportunity for Japan. She realizes that the European nations
cannot interfere with her and that America will not.” This is attributing
selfish and material motives to Japan. If she is animated by such motives
it is certainly an opportunity for her to push for the hegemony of Asia
while the nations of Europe are cutting each other’s throats, and the
American nations are anxiously waiting to see what the effect of the
great struggle is to be upon the Western Hemisphere.
* * * * *
A correspondent of a daily paper suggests that automobiles be equipped
with “cow-catchers,” or some device which would throw any unfortunate
pedestrian, who happens to be run into, aside, instead of drawing him
under the wheels. This suggestion is worth considering. A cow-catcher on
an automobile might not be ornamental, but if it would save human life
the owners and operators of the machines could stand a little ugliness.
Besides, there is sufficient ingenuity among auto-builders to make a
device of that kind that would not be positively hideous. If properly
constructed it would often save property as well as life and limb.
[Illustration:
_The_
BILTMORE
NEW YORK
America’s Latest and Most Refined, and New York’s Centermost Hotel
Only hotel occupying an entire city block, Vanderbilt and Madison
Avenues, 43rd and 44th Streets, adjoining Grand Central Terminal.
1000 ROOMS OPEN TO OUTSIDE AIR 950 WITH BATH
ROOM RATES FROM $2.50 PER DAY
_Suites from 2 to 15 rooms for permanent occupancy_
Large and small Ball, Banquet and Dining Salons and Suites specially
arranged for public or private functions.
JOHN McE. BOWMAN
_President_
]
[Illustration:
_Reproduced from an actual photograph_
_Rock Ballast, Electric Power, Third Rail, Electric Automatic
Signals._
]
“The Water Level Route”
“There is a certain
solidity and permanence
about this concern which
smacks of nothing
unfinished.”
_Albert W. Atwood
in Harper’s Weekly_
[Illustration: NEW YORK CENTRAL LINES]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_ and bold text in =equals
signs=.
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