Chapter II: Part 2

In the absence of a world Court of Justice empowered by the stronger nations to settle international disputes, and armed with power to enforce its decrees, world peace can only be maintained by a proper adjustment of the balance of power. If all the great nations or groups of nations were about equally armed and equally prepared, the chance of wars would be minimized. The present conflagration in Europe and Asia is due largely to the fact that rival powers were nowhere nearly equally balanced. One power so amazingly surpassed the others in preparedness that conflicting forces could not be held in check. Had England and France been as prepared for war as Germany, and as efficiently organized, or had Germany been as negligent as England, the war could hardly have occurred. It would not have cost England a tithe of what she has already expended in this war to have been so well prepared as to have enabled her to absolutely hold the balance of power.

The argument that at the close of the present great war any of the belligerent nations will be too exhausted to attack us, will hardly hold water. The victor will have a great organized military establishment, with troops inured to war, and perhaps filled with the spirit of war. To such a power a rich, unarmed nation like ours might be an easy prey. At the conclusion of our civil war this country, although it had been for four years fighting an exhaustive war, was, from a military standpoint, stronger than it ever was before or ever has been since.

We may perhaps in time rely for peace on world ideals of peace, but until such ideals are of universal acceptance we cannot put our trust in them. We hope that our nation may, at the end of this war, be instrumental in organizing a world tribunal for Judicial Settlement, but in order to have weight in the world councils looking to that end, we shall have to speak with a strong voice. We shall have to be strong not only in ideals, but in real and potential force.

ONE PREDICTION FULFILLED—WHAT OF THE NEXT?

Writing in 1889, Hall, the famous English publicist, predicted that the conduct of the next great war would be hard and unscrupulous, but he added: “There can be very little doubt that if the next war is unscrupulously waged it will also be followed by a reaction toward increased stringency of law. I look forward with much misgiving to the manner in which the next great war will be waged, but with no misgiving at all to the character of the rules which will be acknowledged ten years after its termination by comparison with the rules now considered to exist.”

The prediction of the great publicist, made so many years ago, as to the next great war, has come true. The intervening wars have been trifling by comparison and marked by no material increase in severity, but the present war has passed all the bounds of precedent and even of imagination. Let us hope that the prophecy as to the modification of the laws of war after the present conflict is ended will be as measurably fulfilled.

The invention and application of death-dealing machinery and chemicals may even give the prophecy a larger fulfillment by the abolition of war altogether. For this we humbly hope and pray.

THE ADMINISTRATION FORCE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF INTERNATIONAL
JUSTICE

HON. FRED DENNETT

A court is created for the purpose of administering justice, under law.

“This then is the general significance of law, a rule of action dictated by some superior being.” And then the great teacher of the English Common law lays down the principles of the moral law “that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due”; and of the law of nature “that man should pursue his own true and substantial happiness,” adding, “that this is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law; for the several articles into which it is branched in our systems amount to no more than demonstrating that this or that action tends to man’s real happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destructive of man’s happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.”

From these two prior laws he derives the “third kind of law to regulate this mutual intercourse, called the ‘law of nations,’ which, cannot be dictated by any, but depends entirely upon the rules of natural law, or upon mutual compacts, treaties, leagues, and agreements between these several communities: in the construction also of which compacts we have no other rules to resort to, but the law of nature: being the only one to which all the communities are equally subject.”

The “natural law” is no longer the controlling “law.”

That which most promptly suggests itself to the mind of the ordinary man, when law is talked of, is not the moral law or the natural law, but municipal law, “a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong.”

The tendency towards the enactment of man made statutes has magnified the “municipal Law,” until it is in the way of becoming the only law, and as it overshadows, then the principles of the moral law and the law of nature gradually are dwarfed, and become atrophied. The law of commerce is the “municipal law”; and as the commercial instinct becomes greater, the municipal law becomes the prevailing law. Statutory law takes the place of “common law.” Ethics are replaced by written inhibitions. The moral law becomes evanescent; men consult the revised codes to find the boundaries of that search for happiness, instead of consulting their inner consciousness.

It follows that there is left no such law as “international law,” for there are no statutes to bind nations and no supreme power to enforce a rule of conduct, and the ethics of natural law are not a world restraining force.

The evil of statutory law—necessary as it is—lies in the fact that man becomes prone to look to the numerous volumes to find a guidance of conduct. Nations are formed of members of society. If the units of the nations have become trained to look to the statutes for the control of actions, and feel at liberty to do those things which are not forbidden therein, they, as part of the nation, will refuse to be guided in their relationship with other nations by anything except their personal inclinations; moral ethics as a rule of conduct having disappeared.

Instead of the restraint of respect and love a new controlling sense is established, that of fear.

A court is created as a means by which to administer justice. Without the power to compel the observance of its decrees a court is but a comedy.

If there be no supreme power, there can be no supreme court. For without a supreme power there can be no way of establishing a responsible force having vested in it the duty of compelling the observance of the decrees of a supreme tribunal.

If a Supreme Court of International Justice be established and there be created an international force to enforce the decrees thereof, the units of that force will be responsible to the nations from whom they are taken, and not to the Supreme Court, unless that Supreme Court become more than a judicial body; it must become also a supreme administrative body of the United States of the World. Enforcement of a decree is impossible unless there is unity of force back of it. If a majority be relied upon, then the majority may be found to change. Government can only prevail when the opinion of the majority becomes the accepted doctrine of the whole. Otherwise revolution.

The Supreme Court of International Justice, to be of practical use, must pass from its position of Supreme Court to Supreme Controlling body. An utopian dream, which may in the generations to come be a reality. But not for generations.

Without a supreme controlling body there must be something to substitute in moral effect. There has existed a something which has been one influence to prevent nations from being always at war, when their individual advancement was opposed.

Dread; a greater controlling power than fear.

Dread of devastation; dread of wanton destruction; dread of extermination.

War is undertaken by a weaker power only when the alternative is dread of something even greater than devastation or wanton destruction—dread of extermination.

But the dread of war has ceased to prevent war; because the horrors of war had lost their vividness.

That universal peace will some day reign supreme must be accepted by all who believe in a progressive civilization. This includes all the thinking world. If there is to be universal peace, and if it is not to come through a consolidation of all nations, which is extremely improbable, then it must come from some controlling feeling, which will in itself create the administrative branch of the Supreme Court of International Justice.

The police force to compel observance with the decrees of this Supreme Court will be incorporeal: It will be Dread.

There never will be established an international corporeal force capable of enforcing the obedience to the decrees of this Court. That means the establishment of a war force to prevent war; it is foolish in its conception. The power against which a decree is to be enforced will withdraw its representatives from the international force, and by the establishment of alliances, just as at present, meet with arms the force of arms.

If it be a weak nation; it will do, as it does now—obey the mandate through fear, unless the mandate means extermination, when it will fight. National extermination, while fighting, is better than extermination without resistance.

The first power for enforcement will be “Dread.” A greater dread than exists to-day, because of a greater object lesson of horror than has existed heretofore.

All things, that are, have a reason for their existence. The present conflagration must have its raison d’être. In orderly evolution it is not to be presumed that the reason is for the world control by any one power. That suggestion might meet the conceit of a nation, but would not meet the approbation of the world.

Nations having deviated from the moral law, the individuals thereof having gradually become accustomed to written rules of regulation, it has been necessary to substitute something for the moral code, for the present, until the moral code can once more take its rightful place.

Dread will be enthroned as the enforcer of agreements. Dread of war will prevent war.

That this may come about, it is necessary that there shall be a concrete example of the horrors of war in all its awful intensity. As nations have increased and as armaments have been multiplied, it is necessary that the lesson of “dread” must be planted firmly.

The times were ripe for the lesson. The wonders of art can bring before an audience a scene of horror as it was enacted thousands of miles away.

Hence the horrors of the present war. It must not be thought for a moment that they have reached their climax. They will be permitted to continue until they have increased to such intensity that men will mention war with bated breath, and nations that pretend to civilization will arm only to protect themselves from uncivilized countries; until the uncivilized become civilized and armaments cease.

But the first great preventive of war will be “Dread,” succeeded in the ultimate by the acceptance of the rule of ethics.

Man may create a Court of International Justice. God alone can create the force back of it for the enforcement of its decrees.

Out of that which appears evil, good does come. The sufferings of the battlefield will be sanctified by the generations of warless existence.

There were the burnt offerings and sacrifices of the Old Testament. They were symbolical.

The battlefields of Europe are the burnt offerings for perpetual peace.

The power of enforcement will first be practical, “Dread,” but as this is a base reason, it will gradually be changed by the light of a better understanding into the rule of ethics.

A WORLD COURT DEMANDED BY A NEW WORLD LIFE

BY
JOSIAH STRONG

There is, I think, a widespread impression that great world events of profound importance are now preparing. The break-down of time-honored theories of international relations based on armed force would seem to mark the end of the present war as a favorable time for the reconstruction of the political relations of the nations on a higher plane.

Since the beginning of the simplest form of life on this planet, there has been down through all the ages, a stream of tendency toward increasing diversity, and toward a more complex and more highly organized form of life. This biological law is also the great law of social progress, that is, first, differentiation, and then, coördination and integration. Or, in other words, there is, first, the development of diversity, and then, the organization of these diverse elements into a social unity.

For thousands of years nations and races became increasingly unlike until within the memory of living men, when this time-long stream of tendency, having accomplished its work, was reversed; and now, for nearly a century, there has been an increasing tendency toward oneness—the coördination and integration of different peoples into one great world life. This new tendency was caused by the application of steam to transportation by land and sea. In the first stage of international commerce transportation by caravans and row boats was so costly that only luxuries, such as gems, precious spices, and silks, were articles of commerce. This concerned only the few. The second stage was introduced by the application of sails and the discovery of the mariner’s compass, which made it possible to transport many of the conveniences of life, which affected increasing numbers. The third, and present, great stage of commerce began when railways brought the produce of continents to the seaboard, and the triple expansion engine made great merchant vessels possible. As a result, the necessaries of life are now transported in immense quantities, which fact vitally affects the entire people. These conditions have created an interdependence of the nations from which there is no escape. If a nation is agricultural, it is dependent on others, both for markets and for manufactures; if it is a manufacturing nation, it is dependent on others, both for markets and for food.

When an agricultural people attempt to make themselves independent of other nations by establishing their own manufactures, they soon discover that by a sort of _mechanical Malthusianism_ machinery inevitably increases several times as fast as population; hence the nation no sooner becomes independent of those who wish to sell than it becomes dependent on those who wish to buy. The only possible way to avoid such national interdependence is to adjure modern civilization.

The differentiation and organization of a world industry, which necessitates an ever-increasing international dependence, has created this new world life. In earlier ages, when nations were economically independent, political independence was natural and inevitable. Of course there could be no world-consciousness when a common world life did not exist, and each sovereign nation was sufficient unto itself. But as the world’s economic life becomes more nearly one—as it certainly will under the quiet compulsion of economic law—the increasing interdependence of nations places the well-being of each increasingly in the keeping of others; and their relations to each other become more and more vital until their mutual service becomes a matter of life and death. If, for instance, all other peoples should make and enforce a declaration of non-intercourse with Great Britain, that nation would literally perish in a few months.

Evidently, the increasing interdependence of the nations is creating new international rights and duties, but there is no World Legislature to recognize and legalize them; there is no World Court to interpret and apply them; and there is no World Executive to enforce and vitalize them. Precisely here appears one of the most obscure and, at the same time, one of the most potent causes of the war.

The economic and industrial organization of the world has far outgrown the political organization of the world. And in spite of all efforts to keep the peace, this will continue an active cause of war until there has been provided for the new world life an adequate body politic. Until then governments will undertake, by military power, to make, interpret, or enforce a law of nations to please themselves; and this seizure of civil functions on the part of armed force is war; it is an attempt to make might right; it is the law of the jungle; it is the abnegation of civilization; it is anarchy between nations.

Now that the world is coming to self-consciousness, it must accept the responsibility of its future, and take intelligent direction of it. The new tendency toward world integration is permanent because it is due to new conditions which are permanent. This cosmic movement toward coördination and integration is the very essence of the new civilization which is reshaping the world. Nations and individuals have unconsciously, and, therefore, unintelligently, and slowly adapted themselves to these changed and changing conditions. Now is the accepted time to undertake a readjustment which shall be _conscious_ and, therefore, _intelligent_—a broad-minded “coöperation with the real tendency of the world.” which Carlyle called the “insight of genius.”

The new world life means, sooner or later, a world consciousness, a world conscience, a world ethics, and a World Court, together with the other departments of an organized political life embodied in a Federation of the World.

RURAL COÖPERATION IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

BY
GEORGE K. SHAW

In the Annual Reports for 1914 of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, there are some interesting data upon the social effects of Coöperation in Europe. This report was prepared by the Rev. Chas. O. Gill, Field Investigator for the Commission on the Church and Social Service. In making his investigations he visited no less than twelve countries and gained information as to two others from members of the Commission who visited them.

In a previous volume entitled, “The Country Church,” Mr. Gill had pointed out that there is no satisfactory solution of the problem of rural life apart from the reorganization of rural business. For this reason it was determined to make a study of European countries that had given serious attention to the organization of farmers for business purposes. One object of the study was to learn what part the rural churches should take in a movement necessary for the preservation of a high standard of country life and for insuring the possibility of a successful rural church.

It was found that in most of the area covered the coöperative movement had passed beyond the experimental stage. Rural coöperation in Europe is more than half a century old.

Probably the best known example of the success of rural coöperation is found in Denmark. Much has been written about the wonderful transformation wrought in that country by union of effort among her farmers. Coöperation has been one of the most essential factors by which the people of Denmark have rescued themselves from a condition of extreme economic distress and attained a prosperity which, considering Denmark’s limited natural resources, is most remarkable, it is due chiefly to this that Denmark has more wealth per capita than any other country in Europe.

In Italy, the business of the Federation of Coöperative Agricultural Associations has grown since 1895 not less than 43 per cent. in any five year period, while the number of its agricultural societies grew from 1892 to 1910 no less than ten-fold. The business of its coöperative credit institutions more than doubled in the four-year period from 1908 to 1912.

The movement has also been successful in Hungary. In 1912 there were 8,000 parishes into which the activities of coöperative societies extended. Up to the outbreak of the war coöperation had also made great progress in Belgium, while in Holland the coöperative idea has been making leaps and bounds during the past ten years. Here, as in other countries, including Austria, Russia, France, and Switzerland, it has been demonstrated that coöperation is a necessary condition of general agricultural prosperity.

But Germany affords the best example of agricultural coöperation on a large scale. In the twenty-year period from 1890 to 1910 the number of German coöperative agricultural societies grew from 3,000 to 25,000. From 1892 to 1908 the membership of coöperative societies for collective purposes grew from 12,000 to 213,000, and the membership of coöperative dairy societies from 51,500 to more than 1,250,000. Mr. Gill remarks: “It is due to coöperation more than to any other one thing that Germany has been able to increase her agricultural productivity fifty per cent. in fifty years, until now, though smaller in area than our state of Texas, it produces 95 per cent. of the food of 66,000,000 people.”

Thus it will be seen that agricultural coöperation has worked well both in small countries and in great. The good results have been incalculably great especially among the poor farmers. It has emancipated them from the usurer. In many places the small farmers had never known freedom from oppressive creditors until the founding of rural coöperative institutions. By capitalizing the common honesty of the poor, coöperation has secured for the small farmer, at the lowest rates of interest, money to be used by him in his necessary operations. Agricultural coöperation in distribution has enabled the farmer to work for his own support instead of for the support of a large number of superfluous distributors. Before the introduction of coöperation the small farmer had been forced to buy inferior goods at high prices and to sell his products at prices unreasonably low. But coöperation changed all this. It enabled the small farmer to place himself on the level with the large farmer in producing articles of good quality, as well as in the matter of prices received for them; also to obtain goods of guaranteed quality at moderate prices. Thus while coöperation has promoted efficiency on the farm, it has also secured the farmer freedom in the market, and has contributed to the higher life of the home.

So it is not alone in material betterment that coöperation has blessed the farmers. It has done a great work in promoting education; in launching benevolent enterprises for members; in enriching the rural social life. The coöperative societies have made grants to village libraries, organized circles for reading and acting, and established evening clubs. They have also appointed local cattle shows and regular meetings in which instructive lectures on coöperation, agriculture and other topics are delivered. They have formed gymnastic societies and bathing establishments, cattle and poultry breeding societies, local nursing centres, infant aid associations, anti-consumption leagues, and engaged in a great variety of other good works.

The recreational and educational buildings are paid for and managed by the people. Consequently the people get what they want and make use of what they get. The coöperative buildings become the most complete social-centre houses in existence. Each building is a kind of club for men, women and children where they spend their leisure hours and become acquainted and neighborly.

Nor is this the whole benefit. It has been observed that coöperation has had a marked effect in the promotion of thrift and morals and temperance. The coöperator as a rule gets out of debt and begins to save. This increases his independence and self-respect. The closer association with his neighbors puts him more upon his good behavior. Many a hard drinking laborer has, under such influences, quit his evil habits and rescued his family from wretchedness. All this naturally leads to an increase of honesty and business integrity. Where there is a small rural coöperative credit society a person cannot borrow from it unless he has acquired a reputation for reliability. As a consequence a loan comes as a certificate of character, while the refusal of a loan may well lead the would-be borrower to serious reflection. As a result people come to care more for their reputation in their dealings with one another. Honesty comes to be an essential quality in business efficiency.

Another all-powerful influence of coöperation is found in the promotion of democracy. The coöperative movement is essentially democratic in origin. Success can be attained only by equality of opportunity, mutual consideration and fair treatment. This naturally promotes political efficiency also, because the education and the closer association found in coöperation lead each individual to realize his responsibility and to endeavor to use his voting power intelligently and wisely.

The effect in the promotion of Peace, Brotherhood, and Religion, is thus indicated in the report: “It was observed by members of the American Commission that in nearly all the European countries the great body of the coöperators, especially among the leaders, think of agricultural coöperation as a sort of social reform and in some cases almost as a religion. The admirable moral and social results are recognized everywhere. Not only has it taught illiterate men to read, made dissipated men sober, careless men thrifty, and dishonest men square, but it has made friends of neighbors who had been enemies, while estrangement among men on account of religious antipathies and the inheritance of ancient feuds have yielded to its influence and disappeared. It could scarcely be expected that a movement with such beneficial results could have been inaugurated and successfully furthered apart from close association with the Christian churches. In many of the coöperative enterprises the clergymen have played an important part. The sympathetic participation in and promotion of the coöperative movement on the part of the church is a logical and almost necessary result of the existence of a movement of such a character, since many of the ends for which the church is striving are effectually accomplished by coöperative institutions while these institutions, in their purposes and endeavors, necessarily command the sympathy and allegiance of every sincere and disinterested churchman.”

It would be well if an exhaustive report of this kind could be made upon the social effects of rural coöperation in the United States. We know that the coöperative movement has made some progress in this country, but in comparatively few localities has it assumed the comprehensiveness and thoroughness which has characterized it in Denmark and Germany. Coöperative movements are not unknown to the cities, but in a business way there is far more need for them in the rural districts, for the population of those districts is more scattered and the farmer, when working alone, is more helpless in the face of combinations that may be formed against him. A great many instances have come to public knowledge where the farmer has received very inadequate prices for his products while the consumer in the cities has at the same time been compelled to pay prices which appear extortionate. Who has not heard of the farmers’ apples rotting on the ground because he could not afford to market them at the price offered, while the consumer has at the same time complained that his apples were costing him too much? This is at times true of a great many products. Farmers usually sell in competition with each other, at the wholesale price, and buy what they need at the retail price. Before the days of coöperation the Denmark farmer was as a rule wretchedly poor; but when he joined with his neighbors and they appointed a selling agent in London, who guaranteed quality of product, he began to obtain the best London prices, to secure cheaper transportation rates and also saved the commissions formerly paid to a number of middle men. His agents in London and other cities also bought goods for distribution among the coöperative farmers at wholesale prices.

In our middle western states the coöperative movement started first with coöperative creameries, many of which proved very successful. In some rural districts the farmers are organized and have provided warehouse facilities for storing their surplus products until a satisfactory market can be obtained, and have learned to sell and buy through their own agents. In such communities the farmers are thrifty and prosperous, and their social life and activities makes the country as desirable a place of residence, so far as that is concerned, as the neighboring cities—and in some respects much more so. There is no reason why the American farmers and rural dwellers cannot profit as largely by coöperation as the people of any part of Europe. The chief economic problem of any country is proper distribution of products and labor. With a proper distribution of labor there would not be the congestion that often makes the unemployment problem so serious in some districts, and there would not be the inequality of reward for industry that makes some too rich and the large masses too poor. The rural communities are the backbone of the nation’s prosperity. All the wealth comes primarily from the land.

THE MOBILIZATION OF PUBLIC OPINION

BY
JOHN EDWARD OSTER

At present the question that is most prominent before the world is that of peace. Almost everybody whom we meet has some opinion regarding this question which he is ready to express. How has this opinion been formed? It is certainly true that very, very few have thought carefully over this question, or have studied it in a fair unbiased manner. There are wide differences of opinion, and without the slightest doubt there are very good and legitimate reasons for these wide differences. They arise chiefly, perhaps, because of different local circumstances affecting educational conditions, or the conditions of influential classes of society, and a thousand and one other reasons, which may carry more or less weight.

Practically every family has members who were more than once directly affected by the absence of peace—war, and have wished for peace, or without knowing it, had the pacifist spirit. Almost every person is likely to feel a sense of deep injury under the pressure of an unpleasant burden, and naturally thinks the issue or whatever it is must be fought out with iron and blood. An opinion of some kind is there, which is made up mostly of sentiment, based upon a somewhat erroneous knowledge of some few facts in the situation. No matter which side of the fence individuals are on, they have gained their ideas mostly from newspapers, or from chance talks here and there, with men whom they believe, in most instances to be much better informed than themselves, consequently they are using the same source of information in most instances, and conviction is simply deepened by a constant repetition of the thought.

Again, most people form their opinions and judgments without due examination; they have a leaning toward one side of the question from other considerations than those belonging to it; and many have an unreasonable predilection toward the militaristic idea thinking that the pacifist stands for weakness and possesses cowardly spirit. The minds of many are biased on account of the vigorous propaganda carried out by the militarists in the form of large armaments, and international tangles, war scares and many other things which make international peace appear as an utter impossibility.

It has been said that the first and most practical step in obtaining what one wants in this world, is wanting it. Naturally a person would think that the next step would be expressing what one wants, but usually consists in wanting it still more and more until one can well express it. This is particularly true when the thing a person wants is something which concerns the whole world, for here all these other individuals who must be asked perhaps have but a very slight interest in what one wants. Until a large number desire a thing strong enough, and wish for it hard enough to say it, and get it outside of themselves, and perhaps make it contagious so that the thought will be catching to every person exposed to it, nothing happens at all.

Every man who, in some public place, like a book, paints the picture of his heart’s desire, and who throws forth as upon a screen where all men may see them his most immediate and pressing ideals, performs a very important service to humanity. If a man’s sole interest were to find out what all men living in the world to-day, need and want most, and what is necessary for their welfare, the best and only way for him to do it, would be for him to write clearly, and quite definitely so that we could all compare notes, on exactly what he wanted himself.

The thing that the populations of the earth want and need as a whole in this darkness and din of the world is safety and security in the pursuits of life, liberty, and happiness. Too many persons, with a pugnacious tenacity, cling to the idea that world peace is an idle and futile dream. Even so, nothing is more visionary, than trying to run a world without dreams, especially an economic world such as the one we live on. It is because even bad dreams are better on this foot stool than having no dreams at all, that so called bad people are in a wholesale measure allowed to run it. The one factor in economics to be reckoned with in the final and practical sense, is the desire to do right. An ideal to be sure, but at some time or other, it was an ideal that aroused the wrong passions, and now it is only another corrective ideal that will arouse the right passion. The next step by our political economists is the statement of a shrewd, dogged, realizable ideal, and that is _universal peace between nations_.

The great upheavals which precede changes of civilization, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the foundation of the Arabian Empire, seem at first sight determined more especially by political transformations, foreign invasions, or the annihilation and overthrow of dynasties. A more attentive study of these events shows that behind their apparent causes, the real cause, as a rule, is seen to be, a modification in the opinions of the populations. The true historical upheavals are not those which compel astonishment by their spectacularity, and impetuous violence, and vehemence. The only important changes whence the renewal of civilization is a resultant, affects ideas, opinions and beliefs.

The landmarks of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human opinion, and the reason these great memorable events are so rare, is, because there is nothing so stable in a race, as the inherited groundwork, and fundamental foundation of its opinions. The present epoch, without a doubt, is one of these critical times, in which the opinion of mankind, is undergoing a great transformation.

There are two fundamental factors at the bottom of this transformation. The first, caused by the wholesale destruction of life and property, which shakes to pieces the political and social beliefs in which all the elements of our civilization are rooted. The second is the creation of entirely new conditions of existence of thought as the result of multitudinous scientific, modern, and industrial discoveries. The opinions of the past, although half destroyed, being still very powerful, as the present state of militarism proves, and the opinions which are to replace them, being still in a process of transformation, the present age represents a period of transition and political confusion.

As yet, we cannot say exactly what will be evolved some day from this necessarily somewhat chaotic period. What will be the fundamental ideas on which the societies that are to succeed our own, will be built up? At present, there is no manner of knowing. It is perfectly clear, that the societies of the future will have to reckon with a new power, and that power is public opinion. On the ruins of so many ideas formerly considered beyond discussion, and now either dead or dying, of so many sources of authority that successive revolutions have destroyed, this power, which alone has arisen in their stead seems soon destined to absorb the others. While practically all of our ancient beliefs are tottering and disappearing, while the old pillars of society are giving way, one by one, the power of public opinion is the only force that is growing, and of which the prestige is steadily and continually on the increase. The age we are about to enter, will, in truth, be governed by public opinion.

Less than a century ago the traditional policy of European States and the rivalries of sovereigns were the principal factors that shaped events, consequently the opinion of the masses did not count, and was scarcely noticed. To-day the opposite state of affairs predominates, and it is the traditions which used to obtain in politics, and the individual tendencies and rivalries of rulers, which are counting for less and less; while, on the contrary, the voice of the people has become preponderant. It is this voice that dictates their conduct to rulers, whose endeavor it is, to take notice of its utterances.

Practically all the world’s masters, all the founders of religions or empires, the apostles of all beliefs, eminent statesmen, and in a more modest sphere, the mere chiefs of small groups of men have always been unconscious psychologists, possessed of an instinctive and often very scientific knowledge of the character of public opinion. It was mostly this accurate knowledge that enabled them so easily to establish their complete mastery as was so often done.

Napoleon had a marvellous insight into the public opinion of the country over which he reigned, but he, at times, completely misunderstood it, and overshot the mark, and as a rule completely misunderstood the public opinion of other nations. It was because he misunderstood it that he engaged in Spain, and notably in Russia, in conflicts in which his power received blows, which were destined within a brief period of time to ruin it. Neither did the most subtle advisers of Napoleon understand public opinion, as they should have done, for Talleyrand wrote him, that: “Spain would receive his soldiers as Liberators.” The real truth of the matter was, that it received them as beasts of prey. A slight acquaintance with public opinion in that case would have easily foreseen this reception.

Public opinion rules and is practically as unattackable as our religious ideas were in the Middle Ages. Imagine a modern free thinker translated into those days of the Middle Ages. Can you think that, after having ascertained the sovereign power of the religious opinion that was then in force, that he would have been tempted to attack it? Having fallen into the hands of a judge disposed to have him burned at the stake, under the imputation of having concluded a pact with the Devil, or of having participated in the Witches’ Sabbath, would it have occurred to him to dispute the existence of the Devil or of the Witches’ Sabbath? It were as wise to oppose a cyclone with discussion as public opinion, which is a slow growth and gradually comes from within, or, in other words, is the product of education.

As a consequence of the slowness of the movement of the psychological characteristics of races, great stability and fixity, which prevents the overthrow of the equilibrium of races, and their works, is the result. Only in the long run, and by slow hereditary accumulations, is it possible for the psychological and the anatomical elements of the human species to be transformed. The evolution of civilization depends wholly on these transformations.

Public opinion is often made by prominent factors, such as wants, the struggle for life, the action of certain surroundings, the progress of industry and the sciences, education facilities, wars, etc. Ideas do not become public opinion, until, as the consequence of a very slow elaboration, they have descended from the mobile regions of thought, to that stable, and unconscious region of the sentiments, in which the motives of our intentions are elaborated. They then become elements of character and begin to influence conduct. It is this line up of unconscious ideas, that give us character. The idea of international Peace, has been at work for several generations, and on account of the slowness of our mental transformations, many generations of men are needed to secure the triumph of new ideas, and many generations are necessary to cause old ideas to disappear. During the Middle Ages, there were two principal ideas: Religious and feudal. Its arts, literature and whole conception of life were derived from these ideas, until the time of the Renaissance when they began to change; and also the conception of life, the arts and literature underwent an entire transformation.

No matter what the nature of the ideas may be, whether scientific, artistic, philosophic, or religious, the mechanism of its propagation remains identically the same. With International Peace, it is the same, and must first be adopted, as has been done, by a small number of apostles, the intensity of whose faith and the authority of whose names give great prestige. As soon as these apostles succeed in convincing a small circle of adepts and thus form new apostles, the new idea enters into the domain of discussion, where it first arouses universal opposition, because it necessarily clashes with much that is very old and well established. The apostles who defend it are naturally greatly excited by the opposition, which causes them to defend the new idea with energy and diligence. The new idea becomes more and more a subject of discussion, and of course is entirely accepted by the one side and entirely rejected by the other side, with almost as much vehemence. These impassioned debates help the progress of the idea very materially, and it keeps going and going, and the new generations who find it controverted tend to adopt it merely because it is a progressive measure, and because young people, always eager to be independent, find wholesale opposition to old ideas to be the most accessible form of originality.

Consequently, the new idea continues to gain in strength, and finally it does not need any more support, and spreads everywhere by the mere effect of imitation, acting with contagion, a faculty with which humans are very heavily endowed. Just as soon as the mechanism of contagion intervenes, the idea enters on the phase which necessarily signifies ultimate success, and it then becomes public opinion, and takes on a penetrating and subtle force, which spreads it progressively among all intellects, creating simultaneously a sort of special receptive atmosphere or a general manner of thinking. Like the fine dust of the prairie, which penetrates everywhere, it finds its way into the interior of all the conceptions, and all the productions of an epoch, and the idea and its consequences, then form part of that compact stock of hereditary commonplaces loaded on us by education. Thus the idea has triumphed, and has entered the domain of public opinion, where it has nothing to fear.

The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is a fine example of the reception accorded an idea by public opinion as I have illustrated above. For seventy years the apostles of the political doctrine that the direct election of United States Senators by the people is best for them, kept hammering away with their arguments, until it was finally adopted as an amendment to the Constitution. The object of most arguments are at first abhorred, finally endured, and eventually embraced.

The idea of International Peace like the Seventeenth Amendment, has practically run its prescribed course for adoption. It has reached the point where progress is rapid. Of the various ideas which guide a civilization, some rest confined with the upper grades of the nation, while others go deep down among the population. As a rule they arrive there much deformed, but, when they do arrive there, the power they exert over primitive minds incapable of much reasoning is wonderfully large. Under such conditions the idea represents something that is practically invincible, and its efforts are hurled forward with violence analagous to a stream that has overflown its banks. There are always hundreds of thousands of men in a nation of the larger sort who are ready to risk their lives to defend an idea as soon as this idea has actually convinced or subjugated them.

International Peace has been talked and discussed for so many years, that the time is now ripe for it to be inaugurated as part of the international law of the world.

OUR NATIONAL STAGE-FRIGHT

BY
EDWARD F. MURPHY

Quite recently our country was merely a pupil at the Hague, a student of the Science of Peace. In her studies she manifested a little more zest, and evidently progressed much more rapidly than her companions. For, when a very significant test came from Mexico, she passed the examination gloriously. Her answer to the great Mexican question was implicitly this: no matter how great a grievance may be, it is less a grievance than war, since war includes all grievances. The world admired her wisdom. The Hague smiled approval.

True, to preserve peace with Mexico, we had to leave Mexico at war with herself. The malodorous moral vapors from that civil seethe are still filling our country with nausea. But if we allow our laudable and just indignation to be tempered with reflection, we shall have to confess that war would only enrage our illiterate neighbors to even grosser excesses; at best, could finally quell their restlessness for only a time; at worst, would create for us more difficulties than it would solve. Besides, to add to Mexico’s crimes the ravages of our weapons would be to increase the world’s woes; to increase them at a time when all hell seems to be conspiring against the human race. Grievances, better than anything else, bear postponement. They are proved by the test of time. If real, they endure.

Mexico is now in the throes of liberty-birth. She is painfully working out her destiny, just as we and other nations have done before her. She has a right to be let alone. There will be time enough for us to settle with her when she has settled with herself. There is honor for us in the waiting. In the interim, humanity, the universal law, demands that we do our diplomatic and charitable utmost to win the innocent sufferers in Mexico from torment.

Our country’s attitude toward Mexico has won for her a unique distinction. From pupil, she has become teacher of peace. Europe’s agonized eyes are now appealingly fixed on her. Naturally, such a sudden and unexpected elevation has somewhat dazed her. She doubts that her voice will be heard, or, if heard, be heeded, in the unearthly clangor of arms. She is apprehensive that stray shots from the war-zone may ricochet across the Atlantic and inflict wounds upon her which it would be dishonor not to redress. This nervousness, forsooth, is a kind of stage-fright. She is much like a player, possessed of all such requisites as talent, memory, and trappings, but timorous of throat difficulties and gallery missiles at the première.

We are a people of energy, hence of nerves, hence of imagination, hence of fears. But let us compose ourselves. Poor performers are deservedly criticized. The world is our audience; it is expecting great things; shall we give it disappointment? No, of course not! But are we not making a bad début?

Comes a murmur from all sides the regular army and the navy should be augmented. Those who dare say nay are forthwith stigmatized as madmen. At the outbreak of the European War, however, armaments were acknowledged by everyone as the cause of the conflict. But now it seems that belligerency has so heated our blood that cool reason has been boiled out of our heads. Facts, nevertheless, remain; even though our opinions and sentiments have changed. Whether we at present care to consider it or not, it is a sorry truth that Europe’s armies have rendered the Hague helpless and inaugurated an era of horrors.

And now, must we, the only nation influential enough to champion Peace, genuflect to Mars?

Notwithstanding the lively jeers of militaristic scribes, the statement stands that the possession of weapons is the strongest stimulus to their use. Germany armed to the teeth, felt too puissant for Peace; too easily she found a cause for war: the world weeps. Experience is the queen of instructors; but do her pupils always learn? Mammoth calamities have testified, and are at this moment witnessing, that martial means to avert trouble draw down on men their greatest sorrows. They have caused History to be couched with a sword-point and blood. The nations across the sea are now madly struggling for life, although up to a few months ago, they were cheerfully and blindly making ready for death,—creating the instruments with which to slay one another. Are we, who should be wise with a firm realization of their lack of wisdom, about to be false to our national policy and follow the unhappiest of examples? If the defects of our present national defence speak to foreign countries of our weakness, an increase of militia would indicate military design. A reputation for bellicoseness, fully as much as for impotence, invites complications. Martial rivalry, suspicions, and jealousies are the recipe for disaster.

With military combustibles in perfect order, a tiny spark from Servia set Europe on fire. If we similarly prepare for disaster, the slightest of grievances will serve to prepare disaster for us. Indeed, even with our present limited army, many of us wax perkily indignant, defiant, and menaceful over sundry occurrences. Some hotly mumble that the Tennessee incident is not yet settled; though, in truth, it is difficult, in cool consideration, to establish any reason for continued heat. Others with flashing eye, grumble over the alleged maltreatment of Americans in the belligerent countries; though all United States citizens were bidden home at the very beginning of the contest, and were given every reasonable means of conveyance. Which facts assuredly stamp the troubles of those who have deliberately remained abroad as personal and not national affairs. The moral is this: if, without an adequate national weapon of defence, we are inclined to take such haughty umbrage upon such inferior provocation, how much greater and dangerous will be our resentments, when we are animated with the confidence inspired by an ample military array!

In these turbulent days, when some excuse for war is encountered at almost every turn, the consciousness of unpreparedness is our greatest defense. Our weakness is our salvation. If we clothe ourselves with strength, there is little doubt that certain noisy newspapers which, despite the President’s express wishes, are even now doing their subtle best to stir up mischief, will goad us on to a proof of that strength. God only knows where we shall be, if we forge for ourselves the grim means to get there! And, if the war-god finds homage in the United States, the only remaining powerful luminary of Peace will have set. The world will be enveloped with affliction. Chaos will reign.

But why do we fear the possible advent of turmoil? It is quite improbable. Shackled with a thousand problems and interests of her own, Europe could not harm us, even if she would. Far from desiring to hurt us, however, she seeks to be helped by us. Ours is a sacred trust. Peace and plenty are our charge. While the terrible conflict rages, we can mitigate its ravages. When it closes, we shall have the moral and material wherewith to revive and cure a maimed and bleeding continent. Shall we be such traitors to humanity as to adopt measures which may imperil that trust?