Chapter X: Part 10

On Saturday, May 27, 1916, Nannie and I attended by invitation, the national meeting in Washington of the League to Enforce Peace. Made an honorary vice-president and member of the executive committee, I attended its monthly meetings in New York. Officials of the society asked me to aid it by public speeches or written articles, and the editor of the New York _Evening Mail_ requested my views on the League for publication. I referred a copy of my letter to the _Mail_, to the President, Mr. Taft, and Dr. Lowell, chairman of the executive committee. It was approved by them for publication over my name as a member of the League, although of course not as an expression of the League itself; President Taft suggested that I send a copy to Secretary Short for publication by the League as a part of its literature, which I did.

After making changes suggested by Dr. Lowell, the article which follows was published by the _Mail_:

November 28, 1916.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING MAIL:

SIR: Your favor has just reached me.

You ask my opinion "as to what should be done at once or in
the near future, and what steps should be taken by the League
to Enforce Peace to help the national government create an
atmosphere wherein the voice of the American people may be heard
and heeded."

To the first I answer--Nothing. There are at present, counting
Greece, seventeen of the most powerful and civilized nations of
the world engaged in the most causeless, vengeful and barbarous
of all wars known to history.

There are perhaps actively engaged twenty-five or thirty
millions of the most destructive soldiers that ever trod the
earth, representing perhaps five hundred millions of the earth's
best civilization, whose judgment has "fled to brutish beasts,"
and nothing this nation or its people can do will change its
course or affect its termination one iota.

In fact, we have no remedies for our wrongs, more than a
bystander in a street fight, and must bide our time, meanwhile
playing the Good Samaritan under difficulties as best we can,
leaving the various roads to the various Jerichos devastated and
unpoliced.

The art and science of war has so enhanced the means of defense
and taken the pomp and circumstance from war that all the
world in arms can not again conquer and abjectly subjugate an
enlightened, homogeneous and loyal people of fifty millions.
This war can be settled only by exhaustion of many years and a
truce of perhaps a year to compose many compromises.

We have an example in our own civil war, where England, France
and Austria sought to intervene, to their own mortification and
regret, and where we (but one nation then as contrasted now with
seventeen) were as vengeful as the present combatants; but we
were all patriots, and when there came a Lincoln, a Grant and a
Lee we learned to know each other better, as in due time these
hundreds of millions of the very best, most civilized and most
patriotic people of the world will learn to know each other
better when they have developed (as they will develop) their
Lincolns, Grants and Lees, "with charity for all and malice
toward none."

They have "taken many captives home" (perhaps near four millions
each in fair proportion), but they can not as of old by slavery
"their general coffers fill"; on the contrary, their care and
keep will be a great expense and burden. Meanwhile the captives
will be learning the language of their foes and earnestly
preaching their country's cause and their own patriotism--none
entirely without reason.

Our people and nation have much mixed up the preparedness
frenzy--appropriating hundreds of millions for the best
arms and munitions--paying little heed to the "man behind"
them, who also should be the best. They, however, insult his
intelligence by offering him $15 a month, while he knows that
the nation employs as many policemen as it does soldiers, and
pays (the lower grades) from $75 to $100 per month, and as many
letter-carriers at similar rates. The soldier is as well worthy
of his hire. Statistics show the soldier's pay to be about 14
per cent of the cost of our great wars.

Preparedness will be complete when the private's pay is $50 on
entrance and graded upward. This would be less expensive than
to "make his trade the trade of all" by universal conscription.
Desertions, recruiting stations, guard-houses and courts martial
will virtually disappear. The very best and most intelligent
single men in the country will qualify and each captain will
have a long waiting list of men who will need little training
or discipline. We shall have a democratic army from which
intelligent and efficient officers can be raised.

There is no such tangible thing as "international law." All
real laws are "rules of action" entered into and agreed upon by
communities of individual rational and soul-possessing human
beings, where each individual surrenders some of his natural
rights that greater good may come to the greater number, and
where there is a latent police force (subject to call) with a
moral environment of its soul-possessing members sufficient to
make the call and enforce its mandates.

Without these two elements of the individual human conscience
there is no community on earth so civilized and righteously
inclined as to be able to conduct in peace and order a
prayer-meeting, a bank, a fair or a public game, but with
these two elements well developed, what is known as a
"gentleman's agreement" could be carried out by the righteous
soul-consciousness of public sentiment.

So-called international law has no such elements. Its rules
are generally established by powerful nations in great wars
who, in dire disaster, for self-preservation disregard and
violate previously accepted rules to suit their success and also
proclaim new rules not hitherto known or accepted, enforcing
them to serve the same ends as far as they have the power, thus
establishing precedents, leaving the wronged of the world no
remedy against such might-made laws save the might-made remedy
of war, and so so-called international law is created, the
individual rational soul-possessing human being having no voice
in its creation, repeal or enforcement.

These "precedents" are without the two essential elements,
"latent police force" and "soulful moral environment," to
compel observance. Hence there is no such tangible thing as
"international law."

Perhaps the League to Enforce Peace would be in a better
position at the close of this war to present its scheme had we
adhered to the contribution of General Jackson to so-called
international law. In 1818, when General Jackson with a punitive
expedition after Creek Indians captured Pensacola, then under
Spanish sovereignty, he arrested two British subjects, Ambrister
and Arbuthnot (one a British army officer), and tried and
executed them for selling arms to the Creek Indians.

This was accepted by England, then the ruling power of the
world, and her predecessor, Spain, and approved by the United
States.

In this present war it is obvious to all, combatants as well
as neutrals, that we are luxuriously feasting on the blood and
tears of all the combatants, and to some extent the neutrals.
For a long time custom has approved this. Now envy and jealousy
on the part of some and a conviction on the part of many that
it is unrighteous, is bringing to bear upon us a widespread
prejudice which will continue to increase in a progressive ratio
until the war ends.

This may impair our efficiency as an advocate of a league to
enforce peace.

Now, as to "what steps should be taken by the League to
Enforce Peace." I know that it realizes the magnitude of its
undertaking; but owing to the great international communication,
general intelligence, and common interest of the people of
the world, with the opportune conditions we shall have at the
termination of the war--perhaps no greater an undertaking than
that devolving upon Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and their
associates of the convention of the thirteen former free and
independent colonies, then thirteen free and independent states.

Their problem was then much as ours is today. That is to say,
to form a community of individual states after the methods and
manners of the communities of individual men above described,
wherein each individual state was to surrender some of its minor
natural rights for the greater good of the greater number.

There was then, as there are now, great misgivings and doubts
even among ourselves. The rest of the world held, through the
despotism of custom, the false doctrine that war was the natural
state of man. Academic lawyers and diplomats held, as they do
now, that there were "state's rights" and "non-justiciable
interstate cases" more potent than the rights of human beings.
So that outside America the scheme was ridiculed as visionary
and impracticable.

Our people and the colonies (then states) had become so
abhorrent of the devastation, blood and tears of a seven years'
war that they decided, through the wise men of this convention,
that the states would surrender to the general good the few
rights "without remedies" they might have and, so to speak,
charge them to "profit and loss."

This wise convention surprised the world with a constitution
of "league of states" so perfect in all its detail of
"legislation," "adjudication" and "execution" (reducing the
loss of rights without remedy to the minimum) that for 128 years
(with one regrettable exception) the nation had played the Good
Samaritan for the natural afflictions of pestilence, flood and
famine to all its people of the thirteen states (gradually
increased to forty-eight), meanwhile preventing the unnatural
afflictions of war and keeping open and well policed all the
roads to all the Jerichos within them. In the case of the
exception, the force provided proved sufficient and effective to
restore order and contentment.

To a rational mind giving the matter reasonable study it is hard
to conceive a conclusion other than that similar results may be
accomplished with a similar league of the nations of the world.

ANSON MILLS.

While there were some forty-six members of the executive committee, it was difficult to get a legal quorum of fifteen and there were never more than twenty members present, almost all from New York City or New England. It was in fact a close North Atlantic seaboard corporation.

Believing we could not organize national sentiment in favor of the League's program with so sectional a representation, I moved that the next meeting be held at Kansas City, or some other central location, to obtain a better representation of the sentiments of the whole people. I was refused a vote, but the motion was referred to the committee on management, which smothered it.

At the meetings I attended never more than fifty minutes were devoted to the discussion of an intelligent propaganda solely in the interests of the League, but there was much discussion by a few as to inducing the President, Congress, or both, to intervene in the European war. The efforts a few of us made to declare the League an organization formed to maintain a neutral attitude regarding the European war, so that when peace should come the society might have greater opportunity to carry its righteous propaganda successfully to both victors and vanquished, were uniformly referred to the Committee on Management and never heard of again.

When the United States declared war the few members of the committee present declared the League not neutral but belligerent. My view, expressed in a letter to the Secretary, was that since our Government had accepted the gage of "Trial by Combat" it was the first duty of every American to put forth every energy to attain success, postponing nobler aspirations until flags of truce should be flying from both friends and foes. To that end I suggested we postpone our next meeting until victors and vanquished alike be so prostrated with wretchedness, poverty and shame for their cruelties and barbarities, that they would lend more willing ears to the propaganda we had so much at heart. This course not being taken, I notified the Secretary, that by participating in the war as an organization, the League had in my opinion so destroyed its capacity for good that my further attendance at the Executive Committee meetings could serve no useful purpose. My resignation was accepted.

In my opinion, the League made two serious errors: First, in Article III of its constitution where it excepted "non-justiciable" cases from the control of the proposed league. It is unsafe to devise any law or rule of action which permits of too numerous or too ill-defined exceptions. If criminal law exempted non-justiciable questions from the jurisdiction of courts, no criminal, even the most heartless murderer, could be convicted. The ingenuity of lawyers could always prove some non-justiciable element entered into the crime. The same would be true of nations. Those most powerful and best prepared for war would assume greater latitude in defining what was justiciable and would show less punctiliousness in endeavoring to establish their definition than nations smaller and less well prepared. Statesmen and diplomats working in secret would easily show any question about to lead to war as "non-justiciable" and not to be presented to the international court set up by a league composed of many nations too weak to be respected by the powerful.

The second mistake was to yield, as an organization, to the allurements of "Trial by Combat," and to endeavor, as a league, to induce our nation to intervene in the present war. Members might take this course as individuals, but, when they made it the act of a league for _peace_ they stultified the league, and in my opinion, destroyed any great power for usefulness the league might have in the future.

TRIAL BY COMBAT

PERSONAL TRIAL BY COMBAT

I hope to show a close analogy between the personal trial by combat legalized throughout Europe for many hundreds of years (now legal nowhere, practically abandoned in all civilized countries), and international trial by combat, still existing throughout the world. Describing conditions before the middle ages, George Nielson, in his "Trial by Combat," says:

"=Nothing was too high for it, nothing too low. It would establish the virtue of a queen, test the veracity of a witness, or re argue the decision of a judge; it would hang a traitor, a murderer, or a thief; it would settle a disputed point of succession, give a widow her dower, or prove a questioned charter. From such high arguments as these, it descended with equal ease to discuss debts of every kind and of whatever amount, and a French monarch earned a title as a reformer when he disallowed it where the principal sum in plea was under five sous.="

This legalized method of trial was used prior to any historical record, but Gundobald, King of Burgundy, in 501, established the law permanently in his kingdom, where it was continued for over eleven hundred years. Replying to the remonstrances of one of his bishops, he said: "=Is it not true that the event both of national wars and private combats is directed by the judgment of God? And does not Providence award the victory to the juster cause?="

Of a later period, Nielson says:

"=When the fourteenth century began, the duel had ceased to be in any real sense a living proper part of law. On the continent and in the British Isles it was alive a thousand years and more after the enactment of Gundobald.="

The incident of David and Goliath was quoted by some as a divine authorization of trial by combat.

Throughout Europe, England, and even America, it was a personal privilege of men of honor, until the middle of the nineteenth century, when, to the great honor of America, be it said, the good sense, intelligence and courageous action of the American people caused its abolition.

Some claimed the unlegalized continuance of it to be necessary because of the non-justiciable questions of honor raised between disputants; also this method of trial was not available to common people, but only to what were known as gentlemen and so-called men of honor.

Until the first part of the 19th century judges on the bench, lawyers in court, and other public functionaries, supposed to belong to that small class of people "of honor" wore swords, wigs and knee breeches when officiating, after the manner of barons, squires and knights errant of the mediæval ages.

As examples of personal trial by combat, I select the four most famous duels fought in America during the fore part of the last century:

Burr-Hamilton, 1804; Baron-Decatur, 1820; Graves-Cilley, 1838, and Terry-Broderick, 1859.

Burr, Baron, Graves and Terry were the challengers, and all were skilled professional duellists, and each killed his antagonist.

At the time of their duel, Burr and Hamilton were among the foremost men of the country, Burr being Vice-President, and Hamilton perhaps the most influential politician. Burr was forty-eight and Hamilton forty-seven, conspicuous and able from boyhood. They served together on General Washington's staff when mere youths, although Washington soon found it necessary to relieve Burr. He retained Hamilton, and later made him one of his cabinet.

Though both were from New York, they headed opposite political parties. Hamilton's influence defeated Burr's appointment as brigadier general in 1789, and also his hope of securing a foreign mission. When Burr and Jefferson were candidates for the Presidency in 1800, Hamilton threw his influence against Burr and Jefferson was elected.

During these fifteen years of political rivalry Hamilton said many severe things of Burr. Rendered desperate by his successive disappointments, Burr forced a quarrel on "a trivial bit of hearsay" in a letter of a Dr. Cooper. This went the rounds of the press, stating Hamilton had said he had a "despicable" opinion of Burr. Burr sent his friend Van Ness with a letter demanding Hamilton admit or deny having expressed such an opinion. Hamilton declined to submit to such a vague and sweeping inquiry, while stating his readiness to avow or disavow any specific statement, closing his letter with the formula used by those who expected to accept a challenge if tendered. After further correspondence Burr sent Hamilton a formal challenge, which was accepted. Hamilton wrote a statement for publication after the meeting, announcing his religious and moral opposition to duelling. He stated he had no malice toward Burr, and accepted the challenge only because of the imperious custom which would destroy his public usefulness if he declined. He added that he did not wish to kill Burr, and intended to reserve his first fire in the hope that it would induce a reconciliation. If it did not, he might perhaps reserve his second fire. This declaration, of course, was unknown to the public or to Burr. In a note to his wife and six children he beseeched their forgiveness, declaring he was forced to accept by public sentiment.

They met at Weehawken, N. J., July 11, 1804. At the signal Burr fired, Hamilton sprang convulsively upon his toes, reeled--at which moment he involuntarily discharged his pistol--and then fell forward upon his face and remained motionless. His ball rustled the branches seven feet above the head of his antagonist and four feet wide of him. Hearing it, Burr looked up to see it had severed a twig. Seeing Hamilton falling, he advanced with a manner and gesture expressive of regret, but, urged from the field by his friends, without speaking he turned about and withdrew.

Public indignation in New York became violent. The grand jury found a true bill against Burr and the Vice-President of the United States fled the jurisdiction of his State.

During his remaining thirty-two years, he gradually lost the confidence of his countrymen. With no hope of achieving former ambitions, he formed the ill-fated expedition in the West known as Burr's Conspiracy, planning to abandon or dismember his own country and make a conquest in Mexico. He died in 1836 at the age of eighty, despised throughout the United States.

_Baron and Decatur_

Baron and Decatur were both advocates of the duello.

While in command of the U. S. Frigate Chesapeake off Hampton Roads, in time of peace, Baron was hailed by Captain S. P. Humphreys, commanding the British Frigate Leopard, and ordered to lie to and deliver over alleged deserters on board the Chesapeake. His brother officers accused him of failing to make preparations to defend his frigate when he was attacked and compelled to surrender to Captain Humphreys.

Baron called for a court of inquiry. Decatur was a member of the subsequent court martial, although junior to Baron. Before the court martial was sworn, Decatur advised Baron that he felt prejudiced against him and feared he could not do him justice, suggesting Baron exercise his right to object to being tried by him. Baron declined, and Decatur reluctantly sat on the court, which suspended Baron for five years. This he took much to heart, making frequent applications for reinstatement. One of these applications passed through Decatur's hands. When he could not recommend Baron's reinstatement, Baron took offense and threatened a challenge. Decatur replied that he felt no animosity toward Baron, but had made his endorsement through a conscientious conviction of duty. He hoped Baron would not resort to extremes, but, if he did, would feel bound to accommodate him. Baron responded with a formal challenge, which Decatur accepted.

Just before they were placed in position, Baron remarked, "Commodore Decatur, I hope when we meet in another world we will be better friends."

Decatur promptly replied, "I have never been your enemy."

The distance was ten paces. Both were excellent shots, and firing simultaneously, both fell, Baron seriously, and Decatur fatally wounded.

Baron lived thirty years, becoming the senior officer of the navy, but he never wholly reinstated himself in the good opinion of either his brother officers or the people of his country.

_Graves and Cilley_

Graves and Cilley were congressmen from Kentucky and Maine, respectively. Cilley, in debate in the House, reflected on the character of Mr. Webb, editor of the New York _Courier and Inquirer_, who sent a note by his friend Graves demanding an explanation. Not wanting a controversy with Webb, Cilley declined to receive the note, expressing his high respect for Graves. According, however, to the duellists' hair-line theory of honor, Cilley's refusal to receive the note from Graves implied a reflection upon the latter and after some correspondence Graves sent a challenge to Cilley, which he accepted.

They met on the road to Marlborough, Maryland, Graves attended by Mr. Wise, his second, and Cilley by his friend, Mr. Jones. The weapons were rifles, the distance about 92 yards. They exchanged two shots without effect. After each shot efforts were made to reach an accommodation, thwarted by Graves and his seconds. After the second, Graves said, "I must have another shot," and asked Wise to prevent a prolongation of the affair by proposing closer quarters, if they missed repeatedly. But at the third shot, Cilley dropped his rifle, cried, "I am shot," put both hands to his wound, fell, and in two or three minutes expired, shot through the body.

The committee of seven appointed by the House of Representatives to investigate this affair reported that early on the day on which Cilley met his unfortunate end, James Watson Webb, Daniel Jackson, and William H. Morell agreed to arm, repair to Cilley's rooms and force him to fight Webb with pistols on the spot, or pledge his word to give Webb a meeting before he did Graves. If Cilley would do neither, they agreed to shatter his right arm.

Finding Cilley was not at his lodgings, they went to Bladensburg, where it was said the duel was to take place. It was agreed that Webb would approach Cilley, claim the quarrel, insist on fighting him and assure him if he aimed at Graves, Webb would shoot him. Not finding the party at Bladensburg, they returned to the city to await the result of the duel. A statement drawn up by Webb, signed by Jackson and Morell, and published in the New York _Courier and Inquirer_, says: "It is unnecessary to add what would have been the course of Colonel Webb if Mr. Graves, instead of Mr. Cilley, had been injured. Suffice it to say that it was sanctioned by us and, however much we deplore it, we could not doubt but the extraordinary position in which he would have been placed would have warranted the course determined upon." It is difficult to imagine what is here darkly shadowed, if it be not that, had Cilley survived the encounter with Graves, and had the latter suffered it, it would then have been Cilley's fate to have encountered an assassin.

A prominent politician, Graves never fully recovered from his countrymen's universal condemnation of the killing of Cilley, who had tried in every honorable way to avoid the meeting. He did not die in as great disgrace as other duellists, but the affair marred his career.

_Terry and Broderick_

Terry was an advocate of the duello. Broderick had previously fought with a Mr. Smith.

Terry from Texas, Broderick from New York, went to California as Forty-Niners.

Both rose to prominence in politics. Terry became Chief Justice of the State, and Broderick a senator in Congress. Later they became political adversaries, Terry pro-slavery and Broderick anti-slavery.

While at breakfast in a San Francisco hotel, Broderick read an address Terry had delivered in Sacramento. Angered by something Terry had said, he remarked to a friend, "I have said that I considered him the only honest man on the supreme bench, but now I take it all back." A Mr. Perley, an English subject, asked Broderick if he meant Terry. Being answered "yes" he at once resented the reflection on Terry. Broderick cut him short with some curt remark, whereupon Perley challenged Broderick, but the latter declined because of the political canvass then in progress. On September 7, 1859, Broderick's party was overwhelmingly defeated, and he emerged from the contest dispirited and in ill health. As soon as Terry knew the result of the election, he tendered his resignation as chief justice and sent Broderick a note by his friend Benham, demanding a retraction of the remarks overheard by Perley. Admitting the words, Broderick observed Terry was "the best judge as to whether this language affords good grounds for offense." Terry sent a formal challenge by Benham, which Broderick accepted, and on September 13th they met.

Terry had passed a comfortable night, but Broderick's friends had taken him to a house where he got little rest, and he came on the field unrefreshed and without even a cup of coffee. The pistols had very delicate hair triggers, and Terry had practiced with them. They were strange to Broderick, and he had difficulty in handling them. When, according to the custom, the seconds searched both, McKibben, Broderick's second, merely touched Terry's vest. But Benham manipulated his hands up and down Broderick's person as though he thought to discover a coat of mail. This annoyed Broderick at a time when he needed to be calm. When word was given, Broderick fired and missed. Then Terry took deliberate aim and Broderick fell, fatally wounded.

The day of Broderick's funeral public sentiment changed suddenly in the late senator's favor, and against Terry. He lost standing in his party, and although a great lawyer and a universally popular man, became something of an outcast in California. He was indicted, but the case was transferred to another court and dismissed.

His end was violent. He had harbored resentment against Stephen J. Field, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, for a certain decision unfavorable to Terry's wife, widely known as Sarah Althea Hill, and also because he had not hesitated to send both Terry and his wife to jail for resisting and assaulting a United States marshal in open court. Field's friends were informed that Terry threatened violence, and when Field returned to California after Terry's release from jail he was accompanied by a deputy marshal as body guard. Terry sought Field, entered a restaurant where Field was seated, walked directly back of him and struck the venerable justice in the face. Nagle, the body guard, shot Terry, who died instantly.

These four duels are mentioned here because they involved citizens of the highest prominence. They proved clearly to the American people that King Gundobald's law that "Providence awards the victory to the juster cause" was wholly untenable.

After the Burr-Hamilton affair severe laws were passed against duelling; but the influence and power of its advocates rendered it difficult to get an indictment from a grand jury or a conviction from a petit jury. After the Terry-Broderick duel, however, it became easy, and so many convictions were obtained that this mode of trial was permanently banished from America. Today no one could give better evidence of unrighteous and murderous intentions than to challenge another to trial by combat.

It should not be difficult to draw an analogy between this barbarous and cruel method of trying so-called non-justiciable cases and that of the great and powerful nations, which make the same false claim that differences between them are non-justiciable and only to be settled by trial by combat.

If, as the world has decided, questions of honor between individuals are justiciable, it must also be true that no question of honor between nations is non-justiciable.

NATIONAL TRIAL BY COMBAT

Of the present war, I want to record my conviction that, as we are in it, whether wisely or no, it is the duty of every American to help prosecute it with all his abilities until peace is attained.

But of war in general, I have much to say. As personal trial by combat has disappeared from all civilized lands, so national trial by combat will, I believe, be abolished by force of public opinion, at no very distant date.

The manner in which this, the greatest of all reforms, can best be brought about has been with me a matter of the greatest interest, to which I have given much reflection.

My profession, and Nannie's attachment to it and to me, led us to see more of humanity than falls to the lot of most. We lived in almost every State and Territory in the Union, and in several foreign countries, mingling with many races. We knew the negro, a short time as slaves, but for over fifty years emerged from bondage, as household help, as soldiers and as citizens. We learned their racial instincts, hopes, aspirations and ambitions. As closely, in service with and over them, we knew the wild Indians. We knew closely and intimately, both officially and in private life, the misunderstood Mexicans, and the Chinese and Japanese, who are so misunderstood by our own people.

This intercourse with many races taught us that men in their instincts, hopes, ambitions, passions and dislikes are much the same the world over, and that no race or nation can claim any very great superiority over any other. In the inherent desire to be of use, all have practically the same good purposes as far as environment will permit, and as it is given them to see. Those whose efforts win greater academic civilization and consequently greater power often develop a mistaken sense of duty to compel less fortunate neighbors to take on suddenly that state of civilization and progress they have been thousands of years in acquiring, arguing that it is "_Manifest Destiny_" that they could do better with these people and their belongings than they could do themselves. It is a short step to the further mistaken doctrine that "_The End Justifies the Means_," and the means is always conquest and subjugation by the doctrine that "_Might Makes Right_."

This logic consolidated the different German nations into one central power, and, under the present Kaiser, organized a militarism for the purpose of conquering and subjugating the world. Hannibal, Alexander, Cæsar and Spain's rulers, accomplished and maintained wicked and tyrannous powers for an average of 300 years. When oppression became unbearable, their subjects freed themselves by bloody rebellions.

Lately England (by destroying the Spanish Armada and building one of her own) began ruling all the seas and straits of the world, its commerce and trade "by orders in council," confiscating the mail, censoring the news of the world, and is no less arbitrary in controlling the sea and commerce by navalism than those who controlled the land by militarism.

England, however, during the last three hundred years, has been more beneficent and benevolent than any of her predecessors. The best ruler the world has ever had, she abandoned to some extent her right to rule the land by allying herself with some of the most powerful nations of the world, while maintaining rule of the seas by overwhelming navalism.

Though we are now her ally, Americans should ponder well what our position in the world will be after the present war.

Flags of truce, if they should appear today, would find about 40 millions of soldiers of the seventeen combative nations in arms, who have taken captive, in fair proportion, some 4,500,000 prisoners, who are now face to face with their captors, learning each other's language, their hopes, and aspirations and arguing, none altogether without reason, their aims in the war.

This, like the conditions of our own Civil War, presents the grandest peace table ever known to history, all having been eye witnesses, and for the most part, unwilling participants in the despotic cruelties, participated in more or less by all the armies, formulating an enduring peace without vainglorious victory in contradistinction to their secretive, vengeful rulers, the politicians and diplomats who would have no peace without vainglorious victory.

In the years to come, these unselfish arbitrators may prevail and establish the principles of a democratic peace and a confederacy of the world's nations to control it. This must come not only on land, but on all the seas and straits and in commerce, for a democratic peace is just as necessary for the betterment of humanity on the seas as on the land. An oligarchal government of the seas and straits is just as detrimental to the peace and prosperity of the world as an oligarchal government anywhere else. In the face of a peace of this character insincere and unrighteous formulations will melt away as did those of the politicians, diplomats, carpetbaggers and Ku Klux before the well formed judgment of the "Blue and the Gray" engaged in our Civil War by which we were enabled to establish an enduring peace without vainglorious victory.

Peace will leave at least 40 millions of the most efficient small arms ever known, probably 10 million machine guns of the same character; three hundred thousand cannon, large and small; thousands of war-ships, all with corresponding munitions and equipments for which the world will then have little use.

Peace will find most of these soldiers with three or four times their number employed as accessories to the army, discharged without vocation, and, perhaps, 100 million expatriated citizens, poor, helpless and starving men, women and children, wandering on the face of the earth. All these several hundred millions must be provided for in food, shelter and raiment. How to do it will be the greatest problem mankind has ever faced.

The bonded indebtedness of the world is, perhaps, today 100 billions, and after flags of truce are flying, it will necessitate, perhaps, one or two years to compose a satisfactory peace among the many nations at war; so, that before it will be practicable to disarm and free these hundreds of millions of unemployed, the bonded indebtedness will probably increase to 200 billions. If it be attempted to enforce the punitive doctrine that "to the victors belong the spoils," it is obvious that it would be wholly impossible for the victors to maintain these bonds and maintain their national armies necessary to enforce reparations and indemnities, and the world would be compelled to face at least a partial repudiation. It would take hundreds of years for the vanquished to indemnify and repair, and hundreds of billions to support the necessary armies to enforce the penalties. Whereas, if the individual nations could be relieved of the support of armies and navies, they could readily indemnify and restore themselves in twenty years, and advantageously charge the expense to "Profit and Loss."

To palliate and partially remedy this distressing situation, three courses may be presented to the American people:

=_First._ An alliance with the victorious nations claiming new-found democratic emperors by Divine right, (hereditary royal families, lords and nobles), for the future preservation of the peace of the world. Such an alliance could hardly prove more successful in the future than similar alliances have proven in the past, and would only engender and breed similar opposing alliances in a comparatively short space of time, probably embracing the yellow races, which would produce a similar world war, besides which it would make "scraps of paper" of our Constitution framed by Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, and Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people and for the people."=

=_Second._ Apparently a better remedy: a policy of isolation carried out by building ships for coast defense only, by girding our seacoast and our international borders with a broad gauge national railway, capable of carrying the heaviest ordnance and transporting strong armies rapidly; by building emplacements, magazines and trenches, and manufacturing and storing at strategic points heavy artillery, small arms, ammunition and equipment for at least two million men; forming a regular army of several hundred thousand men with pay equal to, or even greater, than that of other government employees, to serve but one short enlistment. When thoroughly trained and disciplined, they would be returned to civil life subject to call in an emergency. This in a few years would provide several million efficient soldiers. With the present airplane scouts the approach of any foe could be detected and announced so as to assemble an army either on the land or seashore that would destroy any possible force that could approach us. America is better situated for such isolation than any other quarter of the globe that nature has given to a homogeneous people, because we produce all the necessities of life. The rest of the world would be obliged to make terms with us for the necessities they can not live without, of which fact this war is a perfect exemplification.=

=_Third._ Certainly the most promising and feasible course, if the tyranny of the world's custom can be overcome as it has been in personal trial by combat, is to federate all the nations of the world under a constitution similar to the constitution of the original thirteen States, now the greatest nation in the world, and that of the Swiss cantons, now the oldest fundamentally unchanged government in the world.=

=This plan ought to be offered at the coming peace table with the United States a controlling factor in its accomplishment. We will be stronger, less impoverished, less distressed and less bitterly antagonistic than any of the other warring nations, with a President capable of leading his people, known to be in sympathy with control of the world's peace.=

=A spontaneous call from the peace societies of America is suggested for a convention of all the nations of the earth having a population of three million or more, with a democratic or republican government with powers derived from the consent of the governed, to consider a confederacy of the world's nations, to which all should be invited to enter by "knocking at the door," and subscribing to the constitution then to be formed.=

=That the nations so confederated should take over all the seas, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, those at Dover and Calais, those between Japan and Korea and the Panama Canal, together with adequate adjacent lands, and build tunnels thereunder and maintain them free to the passage of persons and property of all nations save those who may fail to confederate.=

=That this confederacy should have as its main feature the establishment of an itinerant arbitral government with, perhaps, five capitals, say, at these straits so taken over.=

=The world government should consist of a Congress of not over two senators from each nation, and not over four hundred representatives, proportioned to the population of each nation, selected in the constitutional manner of each nation. The government should be executive, legislative and judicial; the executive chosen by the Senate, to choose his cabinet from the Senate. All government officers would serve a limited number of years, save the judges, who would serve for life. The government to sit five years at each capital in turn.=

=That the nations so confederated should take over, intern and maintain in approximate equal portions at the five mentioned points, all instrumentalities of the nations confederated for the destruction of life and property in international wars, not necessary for the preservation of law and order within the respective nations, or, required by the police force of the confederacy to guarantee to nations confederated, free passage through all the seas, straits, canals and tunnels under its control, of all persons, ships and commerce.=

=That the National police collect from nations who fail to confederate a toll at least equal to their proportion of the total expenses of the confederated administration.=

=That each nation reciprocally with others, control within their own borders, citizenship, migration, emigration, taxation, militia and police for the preservation and maintenance of their laws, but no nation, whether of the confederacy or not to be permitted to have armed vessels at sea.=

=Any nation, whether a member of the confederacy or not, would have the right to present a grievance, if it agreed to abide the decision of the confederacy's court. No nation, whether of the confederacy or not, would be allowed to disturb the peace of the world by entering into war with any other nation without first presenting its grievance to the world's court and obtaining permission therefrom.=

=Nations, like individuals, often have wrongs without adequate remedies, which are better served to the general good by waiving them to other nations as individuals do to their communities.=

HONOLULU

In 1915 Nannie and I spent some time at the exposition at San Francisco. Previous visits to many other international expositions enabled us intelligently to understand the superiorities of the various exhibits. We thought the best showing, outside of our own country, was made by Canada, the next best by Germany, and the third best by the Japanese.

From there we went to Honolulu, spending a month in the most interesting island of Oahu. Stopping at the Moana Hotel, we enjoyed our visit there perhaps as well as any we ever made. Numerous friends, our favorite nephew, Captain Carl Anson Martin, with his interesting wife, Agnes, among them, showed us many courtesies. We visited every place of interest, and particularly enjoyed watching the wonderful surf riding. Many journeys in the mountains showed us the sea from all directions. Captain Martin took us to Tantalus Beach, where, though we were old people, we were able to climb five hundred feet of the ruggedest part of Tantalus, a mountain some twenty-five hundred feet high, with the younger ones. I believe Nannie was as strong and vigorous and enjoyed her outing as much as she did forty years before.

The island has a population of about one hundred and fifty thousand, only seven per cent native Americans, the rest Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese. The original Hawaiians have practically disappeared from the earth as a result of so-called missionary efforts to Christianize them by presenting them with a Bible with the right hand and a bottle of rum with the left.

This mixed population presents a most embarrassing problem. Race prejudices of the few Americans who claim to control officially, politically, and socially the destiny of the island will not permit them to allow their children to attend the very efficient public schools. This creates classes as in England and other autocratic nations. By separation of growing citizens, division of the people against their so-called American rulers will soon result. People of alien nationalities, estranged from their rulers, will hardly help maintain our government. Although I have never seen our other insular possessions, I fear the same danger and embarrassment regarding the perpetuity of the republic exists there also.

Hawaii has a most interesting museum presided over by Professor William T. Brigham, of Boston, a man of about my age, who has spent most of his life on the island. He told us much of interest about the climate, animals, flowers, shrubbery and forests. On the Boundary Commission I learned to determine the age of trees by their girdles of growth, caused by the frost driving the sap down during the winter. I asked Professor Brigham whether in a tropical torrid climate where there was no return of sap to the earth these girdles existed. He showed me a cut from a large tree with its cross section polished, showing no sign of girdles. The growth is constant and solid.

On returning to the States we spent some time with our old friends in El Paso. In recognition of the part we had played in the development of the city, the city council changed the name of St. Louis Street, in front of our building, to Mills Street, a monument to our name which will outlast the building.

CONCLUSION

Our last visit to El Paso was on March 3, 1917, when Nannie, Constance and I went there to meet Captain Overton, who had been in San Francisco on business. We stayed for a few days with our good friends, Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Stevens. While in El Paso I had ptomaine poisoning, and was in great pain and very miserable for most of the visit. Nannie was greatly distressed, and worried about me both there and on the journey home. I completely recovered, but only seventeen days after reaching Washington Nannie was taken suddenly ill with angina pectoris, and, after a month's suffering, died on May 14, 1917.

Until this last illness she had always been well and very active, taking great interest in her home and spending much time and thought on doing good to her many relatives and friends. She had no inordinate love of life, but often expressed the fear that she might outlive her health and strength and become a care to others. Among her last words to me were, "Anson, I wanted to live four or five years more, as there are some things I hoped to do."

THE END

"How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on."

APPENDIX

The Organization and Administration of the United States Army

Address before the Society of the Army of the Cumberland

Address before the Order of Indian Wars, on "The Battle of the Rosebud"

THE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

JANUARY 22, 1897

A partial course at the Military Academy, four years' experience as a citizen of Texas--there in contact with the Army during its sorest trials--and a service of thirty-six years as a commissioned officer both in the Cavalry and Infantry (in the field without leave or sickness during the War) and at twenty-five separate and independent posts during the subsequent years, with a fair share in Indian campaigns of this latter period, has convinced me--against my will and inclination--that the Army is not now and never has been organized or administered in its own interests, the interests of the people, nor in harmony with the other institutions (national, state, or corporate) of the Republic.

These pages are written with a view of making as full and free criticism and exposition of the faults and errors as they have occurred to me, and the remedies as they have suggested themselves, as is proper for me to do under paragraph 5 of the Army Regulations, with the full knowledge that the rôle of the innovator or reformer is generally obnoxious to mankind, so given to the worship of ancestral methods in all the affairs of life, but more markedly, perhaps, in the profession of arms, the very mission of which is to maintain the order of things as they exist, so that at present I can hardly hope to have the support of perhaps even a majority of my brother officers, for the reason that they are supposed (erroneously, I think) to be the beneficiaries of the system and methods here assailed.

With this prelude and the faithful promise to "Nothing extenuate nor set down aught in malice," I will proceed with my theme without apology.

A careful study of the history of our country will show that neither the great patriots and statesmen who founded and secured our liberties, nor those who have followed and maintained them, have ever at any time seriously considered the subject of _a permanent military establishment_, save to declare in the Constitution "_That Congress shall have power * * * to raise and support armies_," and that "_a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free State_," and providing at various and sundry times to this date by legislative enactments for the enrollment of "_every male citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five_" as the well regulated militia, and that each citizen so enrolled "_shall within six months thereafter provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of the musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain the proper quantity of powder and ball; or, with a good rifle, knapsack, shot pouch and powder horn, twenty balls, suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed and accoutred, and provided, when called out into exercise, or into service; * * * that commissioned officers shall, severally, be armed with a sword or hanger,[1] and a spontoon; and that from and after five years from the passage of this act, all muskets for arming the militia, as herein required, shall be of bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound_," and "_for making farther and more effectual provisions for the protection of the frontiers of the United States_."

[1] See Cullem's "Art of War," page 26, describing the "Frank" soldier of the Sixth Century.

In carrying out these projects they adopted for the government of the troops so authorized, with very little alteration, the Articles of War, Regulations, Pay and Allowances, and Systems of Organization, with the Laws, written and unwritten, then in force in Great Britain; and in the main the military establishment of the United States for both Regulars and Militia so remains to the present day.

Jefferson and his contemporaries had busied themselves assiduously before, during, and after the Revolution, in erasing from the statute books of the Colonies and the Congress, all vestige or semblance of support of a personal and despotic government, such as titles of nobility, established church, primogeniture and the entailment of estates, all of which had played so great a part in upholding cruel and despotic governments of the great nations of civilization, to the end that freeing the people from the all-powerful influence of these ruling classes, they might establish a free and permanent government, where all just powers should be derived "_from the consent of the governed_"; so that by the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 they had not only destroyed all these privileged classes, but had established a government so unique in all its leading characteristics that it differed in every feature save one, _the War Department_, from any great nation known to history; complicated, yet symmetrical; its executive, legislative, and judicial powers blending--both Federal and State--in harmonious whole.

From its Supreme Court at the Nation's Capital down through its inferior auxiliaries in the districts of all the States and Territories, and in each State and Territory on down through their Supreme Courts with their auxiliaries, and still on down through the county, corporate and justices' courts in the counties and cities, there is no cause of action, civil or criminal, possessed by any party--individual or corporate--but there is a well-defined and easily accessible remedy in original, appellate, and final jurisdiction; so simple that the young lawyer just entering upon practice can, without hesitation, file his complaint in the proper direction; when once filed, though it may proceed to that of last resort--the Federal Supreme Court--there is no confusion or conflict between the judges, marshals, sheriffs, or constables, county, State, or Federal. But when these legal authorities have exhausted their power to suppress the lawless and make their call upon the executive of the nation to protect the lives and property of the law-abiding (their dearest and most sacred rights), neither the President nor the Governor, the Marshal nor the Sheriff, the officer commanding the Federal troops nor the officer commanding the State troops have any rules of law for their mutual and common guidance and government; too often local passion and political prejudice blind a just conception in otherwise good men and endanger the public safety. The Army (and its supplement--the Navy) being the only unimproved inheritance left us from Great Britain.