'Peace and the Outlook: An American View"

Peace and the Outlook

An American View

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD

Secretary of the American Branch ‘of the International Peace

Bureau, Vice-President for the United States of the League

- of Women for International Disarmament, and Corresponding
Secretary of the U. P. U. |

WASHINGTON, D. C., 1899 ©

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THOS, W. CADICK, PR.










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Peace and the Outlook



An American View

BY

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD

Secretary of the American Branch of the International Peace
Bureau, Vice-President for the United States of the League
of Women for International Disarmament, and Corresponding
Secretary. of the U. P. U.

WASHINGTON, D, C., 1800

PRICE, 1O CENTS










PEACE AND THE OUTLOOK.



By Brtva A. Lockwoop.



War is so much opposed to the general trend of thought and
spirit of our people, that it ill befits us, and we are always glad
to be out of its thraldom. |

To ve a hero is the ambition of nearly every boy, but when
it comes to killing people, to cold-blooded murder, and this is
whet war is, his better nature revolts. ,

Recently our 1,000 District Volunteers were mustered out;
and it was a time anxiously looked forward to by them. They
went forth in the flush of young manhood, anxious to go to the
front—to be marched into battle. They returned weak, sad-
eyed, and yellow; wiser, but not stronger, and some of them,
alas! will return no more. They will live in memory. They
will sleep among the honored dead, but father and mother will
wish, when some other international difficulties arise, for some
better method of settlement than the spilling of the blood of
their beloved sons. What is true of the District Regiment is
largely true of the 150,000 other enlisted young men over the
country. Anxiously and joyfully they will return to the ranks
of civil life. War in the abstract, war in history—especially
a successful war—is glorious on paper, but war in reality,
fatigue, privation, hunger, sickness, carnage—

‘‘The horrors of the conflict day,
The gloomy field of death,

The ghastly slain, the severed head,
The buzzard stooping o’er the dead—’’

are all horrible in their realities. :
Their beautiful medals will be perpetual reminders of the
Hispano-American War, and will be handed down to posterity,

and it is to be hoped and believed that the short and sharp

contest in Cuba (but the end is not yet) will make more con-
verts to peace than it can possibly make to war. Malarial
fever, typhoid fever, and vellow fever won the day with both
contending armies there, and canned beef and hunger did the
rest. Charity, love, human brotherhood, and womanly sym-






4

pathy and devotion came to the front as never before. Ladies

of high birth visited the hospitals and pest-houses to minister »

to the sick and the dying, and the seashore resorts and water-
ing-places were largely deserted for the camps and pe a
to battlefields.

Honors have been won and host, mistakes made, and jealous-
ies and rivalries created, but time will do justice to all who
sacrificed themselves to the good of all. Honest effort will re-
ceive its reward; and those who deserve to live in history will
see their names emblazoned there, without any extraordinary
efforts on their part for recognition.

THE PEACE JUBILEES,

New York, Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta
had their Peace Jubilees and hundreds of thousands of persons
joined in the speeches and music and cheers for the return of
peace; for the added glory of our arms; for new and more ex-
tensive commercial relations; for new territory and new ideals;
but whether the speeches were those for a real peace or for
exultation over our conquered foe, is the question.

Have we counted the cost? The new territory has made a
demand for a large standing army, for an increased navy, for
the pay of territorial governments, postal facilities, revenue
officers, schools, highways, forts, light-houses, and $3,000,000
has been appropriated to pay an army not our own.

THE ELECTIONS.

Many of the State elections have passed and the returns
are in; and the war had its influence in booming or depressing
the various chances of those who were fortunate enough to
Secure a nomination, and where one man has won, another,
perhaps six others, have been defeated. The Congress which
voted the war has passed into history. We have settled down
to calm, dispassionate, unpoetic, everyday life; to meet every-
_day’s necessities and obligations, and bear their responsibili-
ties, which belong to us, whether we recognize them or not;
and to do our part towards giving the cue and drift to a whole-
some moral public opinion, and upholding a true and sublime
standard of civilization.

THE PROCLAMATION.

The proclamation of peace by President McKinley, August
11, 1898, between the United States and Spain, after the sign-














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ing of the Protocol at the dxecutive Mansion at 4 o’clock, on
Friday, August 12, 1898, by M. Cambon, Ambassador for
France, and Secretary Win. Day, for the United States, was a
welcome sound to the whole world, which had been anxiously
looking on for the outcome of this entanglement. It was rati-
fied by the Senate, and the articles signed by the Queen Regent
of Spain later. |

The war in Cuba continued less than four months, and was
ene unprecedented in the annals of history, both as to: the
nature of its conception and its conclusion. Its ratification
by the Senate was the peoples’ sober second thought.

NOT A WAR FOR CONQUEST.

It was commenced ostensibly not to acquire territory, nor —

for national aggrandizement, neither was the avenging of the
Maine disaster one of the reasons put forth in the declaration
of war, but to liberate a weak and oppressed people who had
for three years been struggling for independence from Spain.

“Cuba libre,” was the cry that incited to action. Nor had the —

Cubans themselves officially asked our assistance. But Cuba
is near our border; had commercial relations with our people,
and belonged, so to speak, to the American Continent; and the
Monroe Doctrine of “America for Americans” played a proml-
nent part in the declaration. And then the magic words, “lib-
erty and equality,” which it seems after all the Cubans do not
want, and do not understand, were used in inciting our people
to action. |
MANY THINGS LEARNED.

The war is practically, not really, over, and many things
have been learned. First, that the Spaniards are not so bad
as they were painted, and not such very bad fellows after all,
and that the Cubans are not all angels, and do not yet appre-
ciate the great blessings that we desire to confer upon them;
that the climate of Cuba, with its yellow fever and malaria, is
not a desirable place for our troops, more of whom have been
slain by disease than by Mauser bullets. We enlisted and
sent into the field 260,000 men, out of whom we have made
many brigadier-generals, colonels, majors, captains, lieuten-
ants, and officers ad infinitum, and their willingness and eager-
ness to fight, even without discipline or preparation, and their
jealousy of those who did fight, shows that there is something
radically wrong with our so-called advanced civilization. War
belongs to the barbarism of the past, and the fact that both








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our common soldiers and officers ate and drank with the Span-
iards as soon as a battle was concluded, and the touching
order of the commanding officer, who said, “Don’t cheer, boys,”
when the Spaniards laid down their arms at Santiago, showed
that the innate manhood of our men and their humanity, after
all, got the better of their fighting proclivities. They vied
with each other in feeding the enemy. The sick and the
wounded were protected to an extent rarely known in warfare.
The war was carried on upon a humanitarian basis, so far as
a war could be. The rash haste of our executive departments

in sending troops, inexperienced and ill-equipped, into battle, |

without adequate preparations for their accommodation, or
proper hospital ships to bring the wounded home, cannot be
charged upon the President, whose humane Christian spirit
has shown itself through all of his official acts. The war was
torced upon him. The deaths resulting and the suffering caused
are at somebody’s door. It has taken more time and money
to explain the cause of the derelictions than it would have done
to furnish the supplies. Of course, there was no deliberate
intention to starve the troops or deprive them of proper medi-
cines, and yet all this happened to the great grief of many
a home and the disgrace of the War Department. The sol-
diers of the North and the South fought side by side under
the same commanding officers, learned to respect and love each
other, and were harmonized as never before since the War of
the Revolution. Sectional jealousy was forgotten in a com-
mon cause. Pity that the race war in the South could not also
be compromised, and become a thing of the past.

THE COST.

Congress appropriated $360,000,000 to carry on the war, and
$300,000,000 has actually been paid out, which will prove
eventually only a small portion of the cost. The dead, the
wounded, the sick, will cause an increase in our already ex-
traordinary pension list, with the cost of a large standing
army, and an increased number of sailors and marines, and
$20,000,000 for the Philippines, will tend to continue the pres-
ent war revenue tax indefinitely. We have Cuba and Porto
Rieo on our hands, and the awkward, unchristian, and dis.
eraceful problem of the Philippines to be settled. We have

‘many poor of our own in the large cities who lack the neces-

saries of a comfortable subsistence, with the many poor Cu-
bans and Porto Ricans who have been and still must be fed,
both on account of war and cyclones.






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THE BOND ISSUE.

All of the former is the result of the bond issue, without
which there could have been no war, for our Treasury was
practically empty, and the expense of the War of the Rebel-
lion not yet met. There was no way to raise this revenue ex-
cept by a tax on the people, but Congress voted this tax and
the bond issue, too, in hot haste, as soon as the demand was
made; and so great was the confidence in the Government
that the bonds were readily taken, and twice that amount
might have been secured. Money has been poured out like
water, and though ostensibly settled we are still confronted
with the Cuban debt, and the expense of the officials—Ameri-
cans, Spaniards, or Cubans—who are managing the affairs of
that. island.

The three million dollars that we have given to the Cubans
almost unasked, to induce them to lay down their arms, they
have accepted with great reluctance, and rather as a favor to
the United States. Ruskin says that “nations cannot live
upon gunpowder and iron, but upon corn and bread.”

SYMPATHY.

In the struggle we have had the sympathy of England, the
mediation and good offices of France, the growls of Russia,
Austria and Germany, with the rest of the European powers
as neutral spectators. Evidently the whole world has not ap-
proved our course, and if we can consistently drive Spain from
the Western Hemisphere we might on some other plea drive
out any other European nationality. We have lost our pres-
tige as a neutral and peace-loving nation. ‘We have forfeited
our pledge made to the Pan-American Congress in April, 1890,
that all difficulties between States on the American Continent
should be settled by arbitration, which pledge was signed on
behalf of the United States by Hon. James G. Blaine, then

Secretary of State, and by all of the South American republics,

except Chile.

The fact that the Congress of the United States never rati-
fied the treaty formulated by the Congress that it was instru-
mental in calling, and signed by their own official delegate,
who was made the presiding officer of the Congress, and whose
acts, so far as known, were approved by the whole country,
does not lessen the moral responsibility of the governments
who were parties thereto. The omission was probably due to
the incoming of a new Administration, who had no desire to
shower glory on the outgoing officials.






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There did grow out of it, however, the Bureau of American
Republics, which, with our treaties of reciprocity, have greatly
aided our commerce, and promises erander things in the
future.

NO ANNEXATION.

It was further pledged at that wonderful Congress, whieh
will become immortal, that should a war occur with any of the
American States, who were parties to the compact, on no ac
count should any of the conquered territory be annexed to the
territory of the conquering country. Where will our con-
quests in this war place us with the nations of the world? We
cannot annex Cuba and be true to ourselves, and we cannot
abandon her until she has a stable government—becomes in
fact a free and independent republic like Hayti. To the plane
of freedom and equality her people are not yet educated. The
condition of Porto Rico should have been left to a vote of her
people. The United States should not retain any portion of
the Philippines, except as a coaling station, as it destroys at
once and forever our plea of maintaining the Monroe doctrine
as to the American Continent, and will become an irritation
to Germany. As the people of Hawaii wished to be annexed,
their position is different. With them it is protection.

THE EFFECT.

We are now confronted with the grave question as to what
the effect will be of annexing to the United States all of these
various and stray pieces of territory, with their conglomerate
population of whites, Tagals, Indians, Kanakas and negroes,
speaking their different tongues, having their various habits
and religions, and making of them United States citizens, with
all that it implies, and eventually converting them into so
many sovereign States with their own Senators and Repre-
sentatives to sit in the United States Congress and help tu
make laws for us. A sister republic is all right, but a sister
State is one of the family. In the latter case we may have the
yellow fever and malaria victims of Cuba and Porto Rico, the
lepers of Hawaii, and also the Chinese; and the polygamists
and canibals of the Philippines, and who shall say that they
may not come? With the large foreign emigration formerly

invited to this country and now swarming in our large cities
and over the fruitful prairies of the West, not yet fully assimi-—
lated to our people and familiar with our institutions, we have

a large and expensive family that our frequent strikes render

Pas
y

it even now difficult to control. Will the newcomers give us
strength and add to our own civilization, who are themselves
not yet fully removed from barbarism? They may increase
our commerce, add to our exports and imports, make places for
our disgruntled politicians, and for some of the graduates of
West Point and Annapolis. Can we extend to them our com-
mon school system? Our people are being taxed to feed,
clothe and shelter them now. If this could have been done
without bloodshed the whole world would have applauded.
Can we harmonize the Spanish and Cuban residents and make
them respect the powers that be, without a constant disposi-
tion, inherited through a term of years,,to rise in rebellion
and cut each others’ throats? Can Aguinaldo and his follow-
ers become peaceful subjects? The United States Govern-
ment, after sending home the Spanish troops and their families
last year, and paying for the summer tour for 25,000 or 30,000
souls, still has a white elephant on its hands with its new
acquisitions and its increased army and navy. It has under-
taken to carry on one of the jargest establishments of chari-
ties and corrections known to the civilized world. Will the
plea that we can give to them a better government, and a bet-
ter religion; that we propose to make of the Philippines an
open door to the commerce of the world, admitting on terms
of absolute equality all civilized nations, excuse us for taking
forcible possession of their territory, thus depriving Spain of
her revenues and her lands, because she is weaker than we
are, and killing thousands of Filipinos? |

THE PRECEDENT.

‘But this is not all. What will be the effect of this prece-
dent by the largest republic on the civilized world? What will
be its effect on the United States herself with reference to
future interference with other governments whose colonial pos-
sessions are not managed to suit our ideas of justice and hu-

manity? It brings up the Armenian question, towards which

all the European powers folded their hands and looked indif-

-ferently on, while we attempted to feed the starving Arme-

nians and many other intricate problems. Will we be willing

to countenance in some other nation a similar interference?

Have we really gained added respect, and is the stability of
our republic any better assured? Our army and navy must
now be distributed between these possessions, and a seacoast
of which we have heretofore complained as being inadequately
protected, and which will require much added vigilance and a




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larger expenditure of money. Will our new possessions, as |

named in the Protocol, raise up statesmen whose wisdom will
add to the councils of the nation, and whose calm deliberations
will fit them to govern our new possessions? Have climatic
conditions anything to do with. brains and statesmanship?
Did we really need territory?

OUR ARBITRATIONS.

Our thirty-five years of peace since the War of the Rebellion,
and our many successful arbitrations before and since, have
not been wholly lost on our people, notwithstanding the bellig-
erency developed by the Hispano-American War. Since this
agitation begun, the Venezuelan question has been. satisfac-
torily settled, and virtually by the arbitrament of the United
States. The Behring Sea award, the result of the treaty of
Paris, which was a source of irritation to our British friends,
has been paid in one lump sum, and our difficulties with Can-

ada on account of the fisheries on the Atlantic and Pacific —

coasts, have been settled. The dispute about the boundary of
the Northwest Territory and Alaska, has been referred to a
Peace Commission, and is now in process of amicable settle-
ment, but the work of the Commission is slow. Two distin-
guished members, one on each side, Dingley and Herschel,
have died; and though the contention is obstinately adhered
to by both parties, an adjustment in the near future is as-
sured. :

FRANCE.

We have ratified a commercial treaty of much importance
with France, and the scope of this treaty has been enlarged.

This, with the admirable diplomacy of M. Cambon in bringing

about a truce peace with Spain, binds the two nations to-
gether, and will pave the way for the permanent Treaty of
Arbitration with France, to which the United States invited
that nation in 1892, and which was unanimously accepted by
the French Chamber of Deputies, the treaty-making power,
July 8, 1895. The French Government, since that time, has
demanded to know of the State Department at Washington
why that treaty has not been ratified. Although in every well-
established country the king never dies, the rapid change of

control in the affairs of our country by a new Presidential suc-

cession every four years has prevented many good intentions
from being carried into effect. An eight years’ term and no
re-election would be better. |

~ Ree a ingens sagen


11

SWITZERLAND.

This plucky little republic that stands as a monument to the
freedom of the world, and who has reaped a fortune out of her
inaccessible and untillable mountains, from the hordes of tour-
ists who visit them, accepted the invitation of the United
States for a permanent treaty of arbitration as soon as con-
venient after its reception in 1892, and in 1896 demanded to
know of our Government why her response had not been ac-
cepted. “Still the situation remains unchanged. The United
States has a habit of issuing invitations, and then not meeting
its guests half way.

| DENMARK.

Which is but another name for neutrality, and in the veins

of whose people flows the blood of the hardy Norsemen, ac-
cepted the invitation of the United States for a permanent
treaty of arbitration in the latter part of 1892, following Switz-
erland. Like the other invitations made by our Government
to the European powers, the proposed treaty, whose terms
have all been agreed upon, still remains unratified. Denmark
has three colonial possessions in the West Indies, namely,
Santa Cruz, St. Thomas, and St. John, and so has a foothold on
the American Continent, while France owns Martinique and
Guadaloupe among the West Indies; St. Pierre and Miquelon,
north of Newfoundland, and French Guiana in South America,
and Jamaica belongs to Great Britain.

OUR PERMANENT TREATY OF ARBITRATION WITH GREAT BRITAIN,

which was signed in the State Department at Washington
January 11, 1897, by Sir Julian Pauncefote, Ambassador for
the Empire of Great Britain, and Hon. Richard Olney, Secre-
tary of State for the United States, but which failed of ratifi-
eation by the United States Senate February 1, 1897, the vote
standing 48 Senators for ratification and 23 Senators opposed,
or less than a two-thirds majority, four Senators not voting
and many others being paired, would probably have been re-
considered at the last session of Congress had not the issues

of the war, now so happily at an end, absorbed every other
consideration. Our indefatigable peace friend, William Ran-
-dall Cremer, M. P., who took so much interest in this treaty

as to make a trip across the Atlantic and spend several months
in Washington in the interest of its consummation, computes
that this vote represented 49,578,727 persons in favor of ratifi-










12

cation and 25,958,984 persons opposed to it. Undoubtedly
arbitration is the desire of a large majority of the American
people. The course of Great Britain during the recent war
between the United States and Spain has won so many friends
for our country, and the advantages of an Anglo-American
alliance have been so apparent during the recent hostilities,
that it is not improbable that such a permanent treaty, the
terms of which have all been agreed upon, may be ratified at
some future day. !

Great Britain has so many interests on this continent in her
Canadian possessions and the Northwest Territories, and the
United States in Alaska, and these immense territories which
are now being so rapidly settled are opening up so many pos-
sibilities and so many resources, even independent of the seal
fisheries and gold fields, that a permanent alliance between
these two English-speaking people would go a long way in
the future toward insuring the peace of the world.

COMMERCE.

“The completion of the great trans-continental railway
through Russia and Siberia to the Behring Sea, which now
lacks 1,100 miles of completion, will soon link together the
ereat nations of the world, and make it possible to go around
the world by rail, with the exception of a few miles across the
Behring Sea from Vladivostok to St. Michaels, and will mark
a new epoch in the commercial relations of the United States,
Russia, Japan and China. At the present rate of work that
road will be completed in three and one-half years. Three
women cyclers are even now contemplating circumnavigating
the globe with their wheels. 3

THE NICARAGUAN CANAL.

The cutting through the Isthmus of Darien this much-need-
ed waterway, which will be one of the necessities of the near
future, thus connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by short
route, and which, but for the short-sighted policy of Congress,
would have been completed long ago, when Costa Rica and
Nicaragua were willing to make ample concessions of terri-
tory, will open a direct route to Cuba and the West Indies for
San Francisco, Seattle and St. Michaels, without the tedious
voyage around Cape Horn; and as it must become essentially
a neutral waterway for the nations of the earth, like the Suez
Canal, it will be another great victory for pacification and






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commerce. The “State and Nation” says: “The more the true,
helpful interests of men and nations are furthered, the more
the base and brutal interests—their instincts crushed out—
are effectually thrust in the background. * Po ae
peaceful, benificent ponerse of the world are essentially the
only glorious ones.” England will: have something to say
about this canal on account of the concessions made in the
-Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.

It is mutual commercial interests and their unfoldment that
will in the near future tend to carry out the treaties when
consummated. Great railroad connections, ship canals, and
neutral water highways are bringing the people together in
closer bonds of relationship, and the needless sacrifice of
human life, or even cruelty to animals, is becoming monstrous
in the eyes of a true civilization. To this humane sentiment
and to the advancement of the treaties, the peace people, and
the peace societies of this country and of Europe, have con-
tributed largely. It would be invidious to mention names.
Outside of these, the Peace Bureau, which stands out as a
beacon light to ‘the world, and the Universal Peace Con-
gresses and Conferences, whose influence and literature are
well known on two continents, are revolutionizing the old
heathen idea that a nation’s grandeur depends upon her con-
quests, or upon the magnitude and strength of her military
and naval forces. Manufactures and commerce, letters and
the arts, and a government whose benificence extends to her
humblest citizens, constitute the glory of a nation. Let the
United States turn her naval ships into commercial ships, un-
til the Stars and Stripes shall be known to every clime and
on every sea.

DISARMAMENT.

The noble inspiration of Czar Nicolas II. to call an inter-
national conference for disarmament, far-reaching and sweep-
ing as it was in its possibilities for good, and radical as the
innovation was with many Governments, has nevertheless
been received with favor with most of the European powers,
and President McKinley willingly accepted the invitation and
sent delegates. It was of much interest to peace people as to
who the delegates would be, but the selections proved to be
very ¥ wise ones. The United States has disarmed 150,000 men
since this invitation was sent out, and is about to disarm
~ 100,000 more. |






14

FRANCE,

although at first impressed to accept the invitation, desired
that the question of Alsace and Lorraine should be settled be-
fore she began the discussion. If this were to be the rule, every
country would have some question to settle and something
to be restored. It was not a little thing that the Czar asked,

and many difficulties were encountered “in the solution of the

great humanitarian questions that involve the happiness and
prosperity of the world—the diverting of millions of dollars
for the maintenance of an unproductive army to the industrial

and commercial interests, and the lifting of the burdens of
taxation from the laboring and productive classes. The ef-

forts of some journals to detract from the genuineness and

unselfishness of the Czar in making this call has had little
effect in the face of the call, for the serious discussion and con-

sideration of the great questions proposed on the invitation
of so powerful a nation as Russia, could only result in good.

The Reichstag was opened by Emperor William last year
by announcing that ““Germany’s relations with all the foreign
powers continued to be friendly, and that the principal object
of his policy would be to contribute to the maintenance of
peace. Therefore, his majesty hailed with warm approval the

Czar’s magnanimous proposal for the furtherance of that ob-

ject,” and yet Germany was one of the great obstacles to the

success of the conference.
EMPEROR NICOLAS II.

The Czar Nicolas made a coup d’etat, struck the keynote
of the situation, and electrified the great Christian powers of
the world with a proposition for peace. He did not talk about
it! He did not parley, or wait for some other Government to
take the initiative, but promptly sent out the call to every
foreign Ambassador and Minister at the Court of St. Peters-
burg for the conference, declaring: ‘‘Militarism and the in-
crease of armaments fails to secure peace,” and this on the
date of the unveiling at Moscow of the monument to his illus:
trious grandfather, ‘Czar Alexander II. |

One cannot fail to see that some of the royal blood of this
ancestor is coursing in the veins of the youthful Czar who is
now guiding so well the imperial ship. In December, 1859,
Czar Alexander II., freed by a ukase, or edict, forty million
serfs in the Russian empire. It created no war; there was
no impelling force behind him to compel him to do this, but






15

a grand impulse for the good of humanity moved his soul,
and the serfs went free. On that day Mrs. Belva Lockwood

wrote:

‘*Let a glad shout of joy ascend, ~
And echo to the courts of heaven ;
To forty milliou souls an end
% To slavery now is given.

The czar has sent the mandate forth,
‘ Urged on by spirits bold and free ;
And from the regions of the north
Far southward to the surging sea,

Will freedom’s banner be unfurled
When the New Year is ushered in ;

And with new life that empire world
A renovation will begin.’’

At that date we still had negro slavery in this country.
- From the same source, the largest empire in the world and
comprising one-sixth of the habitable globe, comes the request
for the most important conference ever convened by any ruler
of empire or republic for the purpose of a general disarma-
ment and to do away with war, and he did this, not only on
humanitarian grounds, but for economic and intellectual rea-
sons. The grandeur of this conference the world does not see
even yet. Russia is today one of the great powers of the
world, although ruled by an absolute monarch; and this
avowal of a future policy of peace means a turning point in
history, and possibly, at least let us hope so, the pacification.
of the world.
The text of the ukase promulpated August 24, 1898, throwah
Count Muravieff, was as follows: “The maintenance of gen-
eral peace and the possible reduction of the excessive arma-
ments which weigh upon all nations, present themselves in
existing conditions to the whole world as an ideal towards
which the endeavors of all governments should be directed.
The humanitarian and magnanimous ideas of his majesty,
the Ismperor, my august master, have been won over to this
view in the conviction that this lofty aim is in conformity
with the most essential interest and ‘legitimate views of all
the powers; and the imperial Government thinks the present
moment would be very favorable to seeking the means.

“International discussion is the most effectual means of
insuring all people’s benefit—a real, durable peace—above all,
putting an end to the progressive development of the present
armaments. —

“In the course of the last twenty years the longing for gen-
eral . aypencetert has grown especially pronounced in “the




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consciences of civilized nations, and the preservation of peace
has been put forward as an object of international policy. It
ig in its name that great States have concluded among them-
selves powerful alliances. !

MILITARISM FAILS TO SECURE PEACE. .

“It is the better to guarantee peace that they have developed
in proportions hitherto unprecedented their military force
and still continue to increase them without shrinking from
any sacrifice. |
_ “Nevertheless, all these efforts have not yet been able to
bring about the beneficent result desired—pacification.

“The financial charges following the upward march strike
at the very root of public prosperity. The intellectual and
physical strength of the nations—labor and capital—are
mostly diverted from their natural application and are un-
productively consumed. Hundreds of millions are devoted to
acquiring terrible engines of destruction, which, though to-

day regarded as the last work of science, are destined tomor-

row to lose all their value in consequence of some fresh dis-
covery in the same field. National culture, economic progress
and the production of wealth are either paralyzed or checked
in development. Moreover, in proportion as the armaments
of each power increase, they less and less fulfill the object the
Governments have set before themselves. —

ECONOMIC SIDE OF THE QUESTION.

“The economic crisis, due in great part to the system of
armaments, and the continuous danger which lies in this
massing of war material, are transforming the ‘armed peace
of our day into a crushing burden which the peoples have
more and more difficulty in bearing. | | |

“Tt appears evident that if this state of things were to be
prolonged it would inevitably lead to the very cataclysin it is
desired to avert, and the horrors thereof make every thinking
being shudder in advance.

“To put an end to these incessant armaments and to seek
the means of warding off the calamities which are threaten-
ing the whole world—such is the supreme duty today im-_
posed upon all States.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE PROPOSED.

“Filled with this idea, his majesty has been pleased to com-
mand me to propose to all the Governments whose representa-




ly

tives are accredited to the Court of St. Petersburg the assemb-
ling of a conference which shall occupy itself with this grave
problem.

“This conference will be, by the help of God, a happy
presage for the century which is about to open. It would con-
verge into one powerful focus the efforts of all States sin-
cerely seeking to make the great conception of universal peace
triumph over the elements of trouble and discord, and it
would at the same time cement their agreement by a corporate
consecration to the principles of equity and re whereon rest
the security of States and the welfare of peoples.”

I am happy to note that all of the prominent HKuropean pow-
ers, and some of the Asiatic, as well as our own Government,
accepted this invitation, and sent illustrious representatives
to this great conference when it assembled at The Hague, and
I am sure that the prayers and best wishes of all right- think-
ing people for the ultimate success of this conference and its
humanitarian ideas went with them ’when they assembled at
the Huis Ten Bosch, the palace of a virgin queen, whose wom-
anly delicacy was only excelled by her humanity and courtesy,
the house itself having been erected by the widow of Prince
Henry of Orange.

INDIVIDUAL EFFORT.

If thoughts are things, then who shall say that the pilgrim-
age of William T. Stead to Holland’s capital, of Baroness Von
Suttner, of Benjamin I’. Trueblood, of Felix Moscheles, of
Phoebe Wright, of Lina Morgenstern,.and of other members
of the Peace Bureau and the Peace Conference, and the tele-
erams gathered together by the League of Women for Inter-
national Disarmament,with the Princess Wiszniewska as Pres-
ident; Marya-Cheliga, Secretary; Mme. Camille Flammarion,
M. D., and all the others of that noble band, whose wonderful
work for peace represented 613,682 votes and was sent to the
President of the Conference at The Hague as an expression
of the sentiment of the women of the world, of the 4,000 signa-
tures gathered by La Paix par le Droit—of the work of
Alfred Love, Rev. Amanda Deyo and the Universal Peace
Union; of Mary Wright Sewall and the International Council
of Women; of Hannah J. Bailey and the World’s W. C. T. U.,
with many other earnest souls, noted and unnoted; not one,
but all of whom, helped to create that wonderful air of peace
that pervaded not only all of the sessions of the Conference,
but the intercourse of the various delegates with each other,








18

who had come iinpat from the antipodes of the habitable
olobe to confer together for the good of humanity.

RELIGIOUS INTEREST.

Nor was this all. On December 29, 1898, there was pre-
sented to President McKinley by a delegation of ministers of
the Gospel, two peace petitions—one from the majority of the
organized Protestant Christian churches of the world, and the
other from the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, the first signed by
145 national and denominational churches existing on all of
the six continents of the globe—all asking for the reduction of
the heavy armaments maintained by Christian nations, “ready
upon provocation to go to war and settle their disputations
by bloodshed,” and they requested the influence of the United
States to favor international arbitration as a substitute for
war. The second petition asked also for a permanent and
peaceful method of settling all controversies arising between
the people of the British Empire and the Republic of the
United States of America.

Nor can we ignore the Peace Crusade gotten up by William
T. Stead and the peace societies of Europe in favor of the Dis-
armament Conference. There were many elements, and we
must not ignore the influence of the Dagblad at The Hague,
beside that of the learned gentiemen who composed the Con-
ference, that contributed to its success, nor of Fredric Bajer
and Elie Ducommnu, the stanch pillars of the Peace Bureau
at Berne.

THE WORK OF THE CONFERENCE

Was wonderful in its inception and in its outcome, even if it
did not meet the highest ideals of its warmest friends. There
are those who will tell you flippantly that it accomplished
nothing. Let us see. We quote from ‘‘La Revue Diploma-
tique,” Paris: The delegates of sixteen nations subscribed to
treaties of arbitration. Those of thirteen nations subscribed
to two other treaties. Seventeen subscribed to declarations
against projectiles thrown from high balloons. The delegates
from sixteen nations subscribed against projectiles with as-
phyxiating gas. Fifteen nations subscribed: to a declaration
interdicting explosive or expanding bullets.

Baron M. de Staal remarked in closing: “The work accom-
plished has not been as perfect as was desirable, but it has
been sincere, practical and wise. It reconciles those princi-
ples which are the basis of the rights of the people, the sov-
ereignty of the States and international solidarity.”












19

It is the first World’s Parliament ever convened, and rep-
resented every important State. It has paved the way for
five other sessions to finish the uncompleted portions of the
program, and a project for a Naval Red Cross Convention
has been drawn up. The matter of the arrest of armaments,

the pet idea of Nicolas IT., has been discussed, the principle
formally endorsed, but no acceptable scheme was reached.

A project of investigation, mediation and arbitration ap-
plicable to all international disputes has been reached, with
provision for an International Arbitration Court, thanks to
Sir Julian Pauncefote, applicable to all sorts of international
disputes, providing the permanent machinery of a bureau
with an administrative council, defining jurisdiction and pro-
cedure, and it has been unanimously adopted.

THE PEACE PEOPLE.

This was the highest ideal of our peace people in 1893-4, and
the great problem at that time to be solved was how to get
two or more nations interested to form the court and thus
make the beginning. So an Austrian member, Baron Pirquet
of Vienna, wiser than the rest, suggested that our
resolutions about the Court should be sent to. all
the Governments of Europe and the United States.
As early as 1882 our Universal Peace Union drafted
a bill which it caused to be introduced into the United
States Congress, for the purpose of the establishment of an
International Arbitration Court, and repeated the effort from
year to year until the organization of the Peace Congresses,
the Conference and the Bureau. I followed it with a paper—
an appeal to the Congress of Law Reform in Chicago In 1893.
So the work has grown from small beginnings, and individual
effort, to the combination of societies and of bureaus, until —
the peace seed sown has taken root, and now almost an exu-
berant harvest is apparent. ;

OUR DUTY.

As individuals—as atoms on the great ocean of life—we too
often forget that we each have a subtle influence which tends
to make or unmake nations; to purify or corrupt society,
which in the aggregate makes up the sum total of human life. —
We band together in societies because many persons are
stronger than one, and the great Federation of Woman’s Clubs
and the Woman’s Council has taught us that harmony and
unity in diversity give a potent strength that may, if wielded








CPR ER TA i A OE IT Fe TS



20

wisely, sway this great nation of ours into paths of right
and justice, when the title of neutral and peace-loving that
we have borne so long will be restored to us, and we will rec-
ognize with one accord the Fatherhood of God and the broth-
erhood of man. The Federation of Peace Societies and the
League of Women for Disarmament may. soon redeem the
world. But this reform to be genuine and perfect must begin
in our homes. We must teach our children to be kind and
peace-loving; impress upon them the sanctity of human life,
and set them ourselves the example of kindness and helpful-
ness to each other and of charitable thoughts, thinking no evil.
Many children are born thieves, burglars, incendiaries, and
murderers because their uneducated mothers have not re-

strained their appetites and passions, and have given birth to

criminals, instead of peaceful, law-abiding citizens. We each
owe a duty—first to ourselves to make the most of our oppor-
tunities possible, and next to society to see that our influence
upon it is pure and uplifting—to do justly, live righteously,
and honor all men.

CHARACTER OF A COUNTRY.

The whole policy and character of a country takes its cue
from its individual membership, and is cultured or savage in
the proportion that its citizens are cultivated or savage. But
war is, and always has been, brutal. Its very success is bru-

tality. It is to be hoped that the day is not far distant when

it will be banished, not only by civilized, but by savage na- |
tions, and all of their difficulties be settled by International]
Courts. The way has been opened by the Congress at The
Hague and the foundation-stone laid. A great burden has
been lifted that was weighing down the Peace Congress and
the Conference, as well as the noble men and women who have
worked so faithfully and have held together intact the Inter-
national Peace Bureau. Another Bureau with the sanction
of the Governments of the world has been created.

619 F Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.
August 27, 1899.