Chapter III: Part 3

Enough has been said by way of introduction, to lead up to the main question, the minimum number of nations required to successfully inaugurate the court. Mr. Thomas Raeburn White, speaking at the third national conference of the American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, in December, 1912, analyzed the articles of the convention providing for the establishment of the court and showed that the question was clearly left to the powers represented at the conference and could be adopted by any two or more of them when they saw fit. There appears to be no serious dissent from this proposition. Therefore, the question is not whether two nations may of right inaugurate the court, but whether two nations can successfully set it up. What is meant by successfully? Undoubtedly this: that, when the court is set up by two or more nations, it will be resorted to not only by the nations inaugurating it, but by others for the settlement of those great questions of international right which the framers of the convention had in mind when formulating the organic act.

Our able and far-seeing Secretary of State, Elihu Root, in issuing instructions to the delegates of the second Hague Conference, set before them a distinction which I believe ought never to be lost sight of in providing for the establishment of this court. He said in substance that the court should be composed of judges representing the several great juridical systems of the world. What this court must undertake to do, if it is to lead men and nations to accept a common standard of international right, is to reconcile whatever differences now exist in the minds of men, concerning the essentials of justice. If men living under one system regard conduct as just which men living under another system think unjust, it is obvious that these differences must be reconciled. Hence, the success of the court will be more nearly assured if it is inaugurated by two nations of opposite juridical experiences and concepts than if inaugurated by several times that number, all bred under a single system. The nations represented at the Hague Conference all draw their juridical systems from one of two sources, the Civil Law of Rome or the Common Law of England. Among the large number deriving their systems from Roman origin, there are many and important shades of difference, and in some of the nations which in recent years have reorganized their codes both sources are drawn upon. Nevertheless there is generally speaking, this difference of origin to take into account. Among the eight Great Powers above named, the British Empire and the United States are the Common Law nations. The other six are inheritors of the Roman system. In a general way, these six fall into three groups, Germany and Austria in one, France and Italy in another, and Japan and Russia in still a third, unless the last two should be treated separately. It seems to me that the inclusion of representatives of the different juridical systems is so important that it becomes determinative. I should therefore say, the court can be successfully inaugurated by four of the Great Powers, provided the four include one nation of each of the following groups:

1. Great Britain and the United States;

2. France and Italy;

3. Germany and Austria-Hungary; and

4. Japan and Russia.

The court might succeed if the United States and one of the Great Powers of the Continent set it up, but in that case the success would consist in merely making a beginning, in keeping the court alive until others should join in its maintenance, whereas, with four nations uniting as above proposed, with the opportunity open to others to come in, a strong beginning would be made—in other words, the proposed court could be successfully inaugurated.

THE BREAKDOWN OF “CULTURE” AS A REDEMPTIVE FORCE

All thinking and serious people must, in the past year, spontaneously have reflected upon the shocking incongruity of the most cultured nations of the earth—Germany, France, England, Italy, and in many respects, Russia and Japan—being engaged in a warfare which has no parallel in all of humanity’s previous pages. Hitherto we have been assured that culture, science, literature, art, music, the drama, invention, discovery, technical advance, governmental efficiency, social reform, and all that belongs to the educative phases of man’s progress, constituted all the gospel we needed, and could be relied upon in any event as the mainstay of civilization and the true inspiration of man’s upward and onward course to higher and still higher degrees of attainment. Those who held otherwise and contended that these were not sufficient, but that religion and the ethical teachings of the Bible must ever be the incentive of the world’s substantial growth in depth of character, were looked upon in many quarters as somewhat narrow sectarians, or perhaps regarded superciliously as uncultivated fanatics.

But the failure of culture and mere intellectualism to secure man’s salvation is so evident and appalling in the light of what is happening on the blood-soaked soil of Europe, that the contention of the Secularists has received an answer which is indisputable and conclusive. Culture and education, admittedly the noblest products of man’s endeavor, have fallen disastrously short of the promises made in their behalf. The neglect of religion, the decay of a vital faith, have resulted in an awful catastrophe. To him who runs and reads the signs of our times, the proclamation of the prophets of religion and the ministers of Christ have proved themselves so true as to need no further substantiation. Trust in Jehovah and reliance upon the Redeemer of the world for salvation from sin and the sanctification of the human heart, have once more demonstrated their own absolute necessity.

The end of all education—of all development in the name and line of culture—ought to lie in the strengthening of character. Of what use are all material achievements if only a dismal emptiness is bound up within? Of what profit is it, says one, whether our railroad trains run sixty miles an hour, if men are fools when they enter, and fools still when they leave? Of what significance is the wonder of wireless telegraphy, if the electric flashes through the ether convey only the accounts of commercial frauds, the follies of the rich, the discontent of the poor, social intrigues, and political scandals? Why should we educate our youth if, in the end, they have learned only to lie more plausibly or forge more cleverly? Caliban’s caustic observation was that the only profit he had secured from being taught his master’s language was that he now knew how to curse. A cultivated scoundrel may do more harm with a stroke of his pen than a score of rude burglars can accomplish in twelve months. A superficial education, divorced from religion, may be handmade to villainy’s more effectual service.

Said Huxley once, “Clever men are as common as blackberries; the rare thing is to find a good man.” This chord was struck strongly by Kipling in his “Recessional:”

“Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart:
Lord, God of Hosts, be with us yet
Lest we forget, lest we forget!”

Well did Milton exhort those of his own people in these words: “Let not England forget her precedent in teaching nations how to live.” If the homely and commonplace virtues are allowed to die out in vanities and self-indulgences; if the qualities of self-respect and righteousness, so necessary to our national perpetuity, shall decay through neglect, no amount of mere material prosperity can ever make amends for the disaster.

The world owes a great debt of gratitude without question to Greece and its prophets of the intellect—those who have stood forth through all the generations since as the authorities in philosophy, physics, art, architecture, sculpture, oratory, and politics. Such names as Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pheidias, Praxiteles, Archimedes, Thucydides, Pericles will always shine as stars of the first magnitude in the intellectual heavens. But salvation was not of the Greeks, but “of the Jews.” When we turn to the pages of the Psalmist, the Prophets, and the Evangelists, we scarcely shall find a word about philosophy, geometry, music, painting, the science of politics, or the construction, constitution, movements, and mysteries of the physical universe. But Isaiah, Micah, Amos, the Gospel writers, and Saint Paul—and, infinitely above all, the Carpenter Prophet of Nazareth—have given the world the loftiest and most absolutely necessary rules and ideals of living. Cleverness is evermore inferior to goodness. Let a man have no matter what completeness of education, the ultimate question remains, “How is he going to use it?” And this query must be answered by something beyond the mental development itself. The Devil is accredited with having a first-class mind and a brilliant understanding. A man bearing all the university degrees, if not chastened and restrained by the spirit of a living religious faith, may prove more of a curse than of a blessing to his fellows. The mention of such personalities as Alexander VI, Macchiavelli, Napoleon, and Byron is enough to support the claim we are making. There has never been a great revival of religion which did not result in a corresponding turning away from frivolity and vice to a soulful seriousness and nobler form of life. The ages of faith have also been, as proved by the careers of John Knox, the Puritans, and John Wesley, the ages of national greatness.

Well did Tennyson pray, in lines oft quoted:

“Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before.

“But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock Thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear:
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.”

And again, speaking of his dead friend, Arthur Hallam, he expresses the longing of his own devout soul:

“I would the great world grew like thee,
Who grewest not alone in power
And knowledge, but by year and hour
In reverence and in charity.”

And once more, toward the close of that noblest poem of the nineteenth century, he thus invokes the spirit of Hallam:

“O living will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure.

“That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquered years
To One that with us works, and trust,

“With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flowed from, soul in soul.”
—_Western Christian Advocate._

THE CHURCH AS A FACTOR IN RACIAL RELATIONS

BY
REV. SIDNEY L. GULICK

The human race is entering upon a new era of development. Space has practically collapsed bringing into immediate relations races and civilizations that have come into being through milleniums of divergent evolution. The impact of Christendom on Asia has at last started into new activity those long torpid peoples comprising more than one-half of the human race. Asia is awaking, is learning: she is acquiring our modes of thought and life and organization.

These two facts, the collapse of space and the awakening of Asia are creating a new world-situation. To adapt herself to the conditions created for her by the West, the East has found herself forced to abandon her isolation and to reorganize the entire scheme of life and thought which she has been developing for not less than four thousand years.

But Asia’s awakening and acquisition of Western modes of political, industrial, commercial and intellectual life, and particularly her development of military power, and national ambitions, and her insistence on national rights, are creating a new world-situation for Western lands.

Twenty-six years of life in Japan have colored my brain with the Orient. It is widely assumed that the white race is, and is to remain dominant, the supreme factor in the world’s history; and that our primary problem is concerned with the establishment of such arrangements between the white nations as will produce peace here. We little realize, however, the mighty significance of the new factors that are coming into our lives because of the rise of other parts of the human race.

The white man little appreciates the Asiatic. He suspects, dislikes, scorns, despises him, and is not willing to treat him on the basis of equality, justice and courtesy. To this day even in this Christian land, we are not dealing justly with the alien, especially the alien from Asia. And this is creating a serious situation.

Now the Church has been an important factor in creating the new world-situation. Through its missionary activity, entirely devoid of desires for territorial aggression, the Church has sent into every nation men without a particle of racial ambition. They have become friends of individuals of other races; they have come to understand those lands and their peoples and these in turn have come to understand, trust, and love the missionaries. In these ways there have been imparted to Japan and China ideals, conceptions, and ambitions which are proving to be mighty forces in those lands. Japan would not be what she is to-day had it not been for those early missionaries who went to that land in the sixties and seventies. The few young men who were taught by them in Western ways became the leaders of Japan; they saw and helped their fellow-countrymen to see that Japan must learn what the West had to teach her. Japan humbled her proud head. In the last forty years she has employed more than five thousand white men to come to her land to teach, and no one can tell how many thousand of her young men have traveled and studied in foreign lands, and returned with treasures inestimable. In a single generation Japan has taken her place as one of the leading nations.

One thing I would like to impress upon peace workers, is this: Japan is tired of having peace lecturers come to tell her about the horrors of war and the importance of peace. What Japan asks is justice. If we do not give her justice she cares nothing for peace. Peace lecturers, as a rule, little realize that Japan is no longer a child. She is pretty well grown up, and is better acquainted as a whole with the political conditions of the world than any other nation. She has sent her young men into every nation and they have returned speaking the languages of all the civilized peoples of the world. They can read the newspapers of every land and know what is going on. The news of the world is better presented in the newspapers of Japan than it is in the majority of our papers in this country. Japan is no longer a child. She understands the world situation and realizes it.

But because Japan is Asiatic, we suspect and fear her; we even get hysterical about her. Once when the anti-alien legislation of California was the cause of international tension one of our Generals is reported to have asked for four hundred and fifty thousand troops with which to patrol the Pacific coast, fearing an attack from Japan. This reveals an extraordinary misunderstanding. Japan desires friendship with America and will do anything consistent with national dignity and honor to maintain friendship. During the last five years she has consistently carried out the so-called Gentlemen’s Agreement because of which there are some seven thousand less Japanese in America to-day than there were when the arrangement went into operation. California, however, ignoring that fact, went ahead with invidious race-discriminating legislation. Japan does not want any more preachers of peace. She wants preachers of justice.

For sixty years now we have had relations with Japan and they have been remarkably friendly. To-day we have China’s unqualified friendship. We returned a few years ago to China the Boxer indemnity; in the seventies, we returned the Shimonoseki indemnity to Japan. These splendid acts have been highly appreciated. But do you realize that we are losing Japan’s friendship and in turn will surely lose that of China, because we are not keeping our treaty pledges? Do you realize that we are continuously subjecting the Chinese in our land to indignities that deeply wound their feelings? We are confronting a serious situation, serious because we are so ignorant and so indifferent.

So much in regard to the problems. Turning now to the solution. Ought not the Church to be a main factor in solving the problems of the new era in race relations? It should teach us with new insistence that God is no respecter of races; all alike are His children and beloved by Him. It is so easy for a people to think of themselves as God’s pet child, even as the Jews thought of themselves as the elect race. We white people regard ourselves as inherently superior to all others. We are, however, profoundly ignorant of the Asiatic and therefore we scorn and despise him. We easily fancy that a gulf divides us.

There is indeed a difference between us, but it is not such a difference as is generally assumed, nor is it insuperable. My life in Japan has brought me into such relationship with Japanese that I am perfectly clear on this point. To talk about an insuperable obstacle, a profound gulf that separates the East from the West is the result of insufficient experience. One of the important things, therefore, which the Church can do and is doing through its thousands of foreign missionaries is to gain wide and real knowledge of the East as it has been and as it now is, and then to impart that knowledge to the nations of the West.

The second great thing which the Church can and should do is to insist that our laws shall be so framed and administered as to do justice to Asiatics in this land. Until we do that, can we claim that ours is a Christian land? As a matter of fact, we do not grant the Asiatic a square deal in this country nor give them an open door; yet we demand them for ourselves over there. We do not even give them the courtesy which we secure. The Asiatic is more sensitive to slight or insult than we are. We are thick-skinned. In their civilization courtesy is a highly important element. But we go on in our blunt ways wounding their feelings, and even disregarding their rights. Is it not time for our churches to insist that our laws shall be so modified, framed, and administered as to do them justice and to deal with them courteously?

The Church is facing a new testing time and a new time of opportunity with regard to the relation of the races. The first great testing time of the churches occurred immediately after Pentecost when Jewish Christians thought that Gentiles had to become Jews before they could be Christians and brothers. But the Holy Spirit led them to see that all men are brothers, without becoming Jews, and those early Christians learned even to eat with Samaritans and with Gentiles; they welcomed them into their brotherhood. _Now_ it is the white man who feels that he is the elect race and has special hold upon the grace of God; he looks down upon other races as inferior. But God is teaching us our error. The Asiatic is indeed our equal. I would just as soon sit at the feet of competent Japanese professors as I would at the feet of professors of German or American extraction. We are discovering that Asiatics are as brainy as we are; and that they produce men of splendid character. But it is a question to-day whether and how far our churches are willing to accept the fact that men of other races and colors and even with almond eyes, are our equals. This is a new testing time for the churches and also a time of rare opportunity.

POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF A WORLD COURT

BY
WILLIAM DUDLEY FOULKE

In considering the possibilities and limitations of a world tribunal an American naturally turns his eyes to the experience of his own country especially to the development of the Supreme Court of the United States. The history of the development of our National Constitution and judiciary out of the mere league organized by Articles of Confederation, foreshadows in its general features the course which mankind is likely to take in organizing some coming federation of the United States of Europe or of the world. For the balance-of-power statesmanship which has prevailed since the middle ages lead to a condition of very unstable equilibrium which can not and will not continue forever. The civilized world was a great empire once and it will be at some period hereafter either a great empire, with nationalities subjugated or extinguished or else a great federation with nationalities recognized for local and national purposes, but subject to one general control for international purposes. The gradual union of mankind in larger and larger units, first the family, then the clan, the tribe, the city, the nation and finally the empire or the great federated republic will have its final completion in a world empire or a world federation. That will be the only way in which war will ever become extinct and the history of our own confederation and our subsequent federal union is pointing out the method in which this world union can best be established.

Of course we realize that such a change cannot take place at once. Very few stones in this gigantic structure can be laid at one time. Many harvests will ripen and the snows of many winters will cover the earth before the majestic fabric of a world state shall lift its dome to heaven. But the foundation courses have already been laid in the Hague Conferences and the panel of judges; and the one thing most practicable to-day to further the building of this tremendous edifice is the establishment of a permanent World Court. By making this the next stage of development we pursue indeed, not the precise course adopted in the making of our Federal Constitution, but we follow the line of least resistance.

It is evident that the jurisdiction of the World Court at the beginning will be less extensive than that of our Supreme Court to-day. It ought perhaps to include at first only one thing, controversies between nations, and only such controversies as may properly be submitted to a court—only justiciable questions. But what are justiciable questions? They have been defined as questions of law or fact relating to the interpretation of a treaty or the obligations of international law. But this definition is most elastic. International jurisprudence is yet in a rudimentary condition and its principles, many of them, are yet undetermined. No one knows yet just how far they may be extended by the construction of a World Court. When Austria began war against Servia, was that a breach of international law? When Russia determined to come to the aid of a kindred people whom she had taken under her protection and then mobilized for the invasion of Austria, was that a breach of international law? Perhaps most jurists will say, no, these were political questions to be handled by a Council of Conciliation or some other body. Yet all this depends upon construction and upon the determination of what international law really requires. Is not the invasion of the territory of a friendly nation which has given the invader no direct provocation, a breach of international law? Who shall decide? If this question, too, be left to the proposed World Court, that body may decide that anything is justiciable and may assume jurisdiction over questions of vital national policy. Will the great nations of the world agree to that? Will they submit what they consider their most vital interests to any tribunal?

And now we come to the much disputed question whether nations should agree to refer questions affecting their honor and vital interests to an international tribunal. Here we are in this dilemma. If a treaty agreeing to submit disputes to a court, should exclude all questions of honor and vital interests then almost any question may be considered a question of honor or vital interest at the will of the nation so desiring and the treaty will mean very little. On the other hand, if questions of honor and vital interest are included in the things to be submitted, then if a real vital interest is affected, the probabilities are very strong that the decree of the court will not be acquiesced in by the losing party. Germany considered that her vital interests demanded a passage through Belgium into France so the treaty became a “scrap of paper.” America thinks that her vital interests require that no new aggressive military foreign power shall obtain a foot-hold close to our boundaries on our own continent. We feel that our national security requires this. Would we consent to submit this question to a World Court? International law would allow Denmark to sell St. Thomas to Germany or Colombia to sell a strip of land adjacent to Panama for military and naval purposes. International law would allow Mexico to sell Lower California with Magdalena Bay to Japan. A World Court would decide they had the right to do it. Suppose the sale were made and a German or Japanese navy with transports and an army came to take possession, would we submit this question to a World Court? Would we even delay our defense long enough to refer to a Council of Conciliation with the months or years which must elapse before decision during which time the foreign power would go on taking possession, fortifying and garrisoning a naval and military base right at our very doors? Such a position reminds me of the stanza once quoted in Parliament:

“I hear a lion in the lobby roar;
Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door
And keep him out, or shall we let him in
And see if we can get him out again?”

No nation will submit a really vital question involving its national life to a World Court and then keep the agreement if the decision is adverse.

Is it not then evident that the agreement of submission must itself provide exactly what vital questions shall be excluded? In other words, that the signatory powers (according to the suggestion made by Mr. Roosevelt) “shall by solemn covenant agree as to their respective rights which shall not be questioned; that they shall agree that all other questions arising between them shall be submitted to a court.”

This agreement would provide that the territory of the contracting powers should be inviolate and that it should be guaranteed absolutely its sovereign rights in certain other particulars including for instance the right to decide the terms on which immigrants should be admitted; to regulate its domestic affairs in its own way and such other questions as the contracting powers considered affected their vital interests or the vital interests of any of them. These specified questions ought not to be submitted to the court; they ought to be mutually guaranteed in advance and all matters not so specified should be subject to the jurisdiction of the international tribunal.

Here you have the jurisdiction of the court definitely laid down in the treaty creating it. Wider jurisdiction can afterward be conferred as circumstances may justify, it is to be hoped that other Hague Conferences may gradually provide a more and more extended code of international law which the court is to administer and that its jurisdiction may finally extend to all the other principal questions which are now submitted to our federal tribunals under our own constitution. But this more extensive jurisdiction would be granted (as in the case of our own Constitution) only after the federation becomes a more perfect union, and when there shall be established a sufficient sanction of its decrees.

And now we come to the most important and the most difficult branch of the subject. How can the decrees of an international court be enforced? By public opinion? By agreements of the signatory powers? Or by an international police-force which of course means an international army controlled by an international executive?

Some of us used to hope that international public opinion, while quite insufficient to-day to enforce the judgment of a World Court, might gradually grow to such strength and power that it could finally be counted on alone to give force to the decisions of this tribunal. The events of the present war have shattered to a great extent such hopes as these. After the invasions of Belgium and Luxembourg, the wrecking of Louvain, the attack on helpless Scarborough, the dropping of bombs from the air on undefended towns, the destruction of the _Lusitania_, the coercion of unoffending China, it is hard to say that public opinion will restrain a military power from any act whatever or will compel the performance of any duty to other nations or to mankind at large. If the world had advanced so little in the nineteen hundred years of Christianity, how long will it take in the future to induce all the great nations to do justice?

The next alternative is that the power creating this court shall agree beforehand to enforce its decrees by the joint use of their military forces against any nation which may refuse compliance. That is probably as far as the world can go to-day and yet how ineffective it may be is shown both by the past experience of the American Confederation and by the failure to observe the Hague convention and other existing treaties during the present war. Such an agreement will have the same defect as the Articles of Confederation. It can only act upon nations in their corporate capacity and not upon individuals, and there will be no central authority with either purse or sword by which to carry out its guarantees. It will be necessarily a transitory state. The treaties signed by the great powers did not protect Belgium. The Hague Convention to which every great nation was a signatory has been violated in many particulars. Our nation was a signatory to the Hague tribunal yet all these violations have not aroused us to a single act for the maintenance of the Hague Convention, nay, they did not bring out a single protest or remonstrance until our own interests or the persons or property of our citizens became involved. How far then can we trust other nations to protect each other against violations of their mutual agreements? As in the case of the single states in the American Confederation, some will do it and some will not.

Yet what better can we do to-day? If the nations joining the league would be willing now to establish an international executive council with power to enforce such agreements and to raise an international army for that purpose we would be taking a long step toward a really efficient union. But at this moment the composition of such an executive council would be beset by very great difficulties. Even if that question could be settled, how many nations to-day would be willing to surrender any part of their ultimate sovereignty to a federal union? Is it not evident that the world is no more ripe for such a union now than the thirteen colonies were ripe for our own federal constitution, while they were still carrying on the War of Independence?

But it was during that war that our first league of American states was formed—imperfect and inadequate—but a precursor of better things. It was at the outbreak of the present war that an alliance was made among a number of the great powers. It is at the conclusion of this war that we may hope for a league among many of the most powerful nations for the maintenance of peace;—a league, imperfect and rudimentary at the beginning but which may well develop, when its imperfections have been realized and the necessity of a “more perfect union,” becomes clear into a world wide confederacy, which shall have a full dominion over the nations that compose it as our federal union now has over the states of the American republic.

But even then the whole work will not be done, insurrections and rebellions, like our own civil war, may be required to consolidate that union more and more firmly before the time shall come when nations shall not take up arms against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

HOW LARGE IS A ROSE?

I said to a gardener old one day,
“How large is a rose; how large is a rose?”
He measured an inch and a half each way
And kindly smiled as a gardener may:
“Measured by inches I should say
That _that’s_ the size of a rose.”

I said to a bride one night in June,
“How large is a rose; how large is a rose?”
“By the memory sweet of an old love tune,
And the vows that were pledged by the light of the moon,
Measured by these, all passed too soon.
Ah, that’s the size of a rose.”

But still my question perseveres,
“Oh, sorrowing one, how large is a rose?”
And withered and dead as her hopes and fears
She showed me the roses of other years,
The blighted blossoms bathed in tears.
“Ah, that’s the size of a rose.”

I said at last, “Oh, heart my own,
How large is the Rose, Sweet Sharon’s Rose?”
“Measured from Calvary’s suffering moan
Where mortals weep o’er their sins, and groan,
Up to Immanuel’s conquering throne,
Lo! that’s the size of the Rose.”
—_James Albert Burchit._

THE BUSINESS MAN IN POLITICS

BY
JOHN HAYS HAMMOND

In our last Congress, out of ninety-six members of the Senate and four hundred and thirty-five members of the House of Representatives, only about seventy legislators were classified as business men. This means that the Congress of the United States cannot be regarded as a genuinely representative body. To make it such, we should have a much larger representation than we have of the business class in the broadest sense of the term,—that is, not only manufacturers, merchants, and bankers, but also farmers, engineers, leaders of labor organizations, scientific men, journalists, physicians, educators, and men of other vocations influential in the life of the Nation.

This conception of the proper make-up of our legislative bodies is a comparatively new and unfamiliar one, partly because it has been felt that legal training and practice in applying the laws in courts made men particularly fitted to be law-makers and partly because until recently decidedly few business men have attracted public attention by reason of their knowledge and skill in handling questions of government. The old idea of the statesman was that he ought to be detached from the active every-day interests of the community and thus be in a position to give his attention to general matters of public and national policy. The present generation, however, has been coming to realize that most of these matters are directly or indirectly related to the business of the citizens of the country and that the wise determination of them involves taking into account the principles and the necessary practices of business. Hence the subject of the place of the business man in politics is becoming one of compelling interest, not only because of patriotic considerations, but also on account of the enlightened self-interest which should serve as a guide in legislation for the benefit of the country as a whole, as well as of the individuals who are its citizens.

For his comparatively small representation in legislative halls the business man himself is largely to blame. There has been a lamentable lack of interest on the part of American business men as a class in our country’s political affairs. By many of them politics has been regarded as having merely an academic interest, so far as they were concerned; by others politics has been held to be an unclean vocation. In a way, however, these allegations about the character of politics have been only convenient excuses for failure to take a proper part in public affairs. Generally speaking, the plain, unvarnished reason for the failure of business men to discharge their political duties has been their unwillingness to make the necessary sacrifices of social pleasures, of money or of present business opportunities. Business men who allow such motives to dominate their actions are simply shirking their civic responsibilities, are essentially disloyal to the community from which they derive their support, and should be so stigmatized by their fellow-citizens.

Still less justifiable than the indifference to politics which has just been described is the habit which too many business men, especially those controlling large corporations, have permitted themselves to fall into, of dealing with political and legislative matters at second hand and by indirection. This habit, fortunately for the country, has of late been greatly diminishing because of the strong condemnation of it by enlightened public opinion; but it cannot be denied that for many years in our political history the owners and managers of important corporations, with some notable exceptions, regarded it as justifiable, while keeping out of politics themselves, to make generous contributions to campaign funds and thus to assist in electing legislators who could be counted upon to attend to matters of legislation affecting their interests. Apart from its moral objections, this practice necessarily developed a class of mere professional politicians without any qualifications whatsoever to deal with the great business problems of our cities, our States and the Nation itself. Every thinking American must admit that a highly beneficial result of the agitation of the question of the relation of government to business in the past few years has been to bring about a vast change in this order of things. Corporations are no longer able to dictate legislation for their selfish ends through a conscienceless and morally stultified class of political representatives. It is well that this rank undergrowth, which impeded all proper participation in politics on the part of self-respecting business men, has been to a great extent cleared away.

There is a growing realization on the part of the public that our business prosperity and our political soundness are mutually interdependent,—that we cannot have business prosperity without the aid of just, adequate and far-sighted government, and that we cannot have permanently satisfactory public policies without the aid of the experienced and enlightened business class. Especially is this truth being impressed upon the minds of citizens of the country as they reflect upon the conditions that will have to be met as a result of the European War. We have already had a chance to see how few men in American public life are able to cope with far-reaching international problems, while at the same time it is rapidly dawning upon us that our chief political and economic problems of the future will be of the world, and not of the “parish pump,” type. This is bringing home to our minds the interdependence of all our industries and business activities, and of all classes in the community, in whatever vocations they may be engaged. There can be but little doubt that as public thinking follows these lines more and more fully and resolutely there will be a tendency in our future legislation, which the demagogic politicians will be unable to withstand, to subordinate considerations of petty political advantage, and of partisan aims and ends, to the right solution of the great economic problems which are at last seen to be vital to the welfare of the Nation, at home and abroad.

The assistance which business men can give in the work of arriving at correct solutions of these great economic problems is apparent. It is also apparent that without this assistance Congress and the administrative departments of our Government cannot be expected to reach correct and adequate conclusions in regard to them. The truth is that our Government as a whole is at this very moment suffering severely in efficiency and economy from the lack of the continuous participation of able business men in the conduct of its affairs. The administration of our governmental departments, for instance, is confessedly obsolete and uneconomical, if judged by the best business standards. Thus, both an increase in our national revenues and a decrease in our national expenditures could undoubtedly be effected through the coöperation of expert business men in Congress with the heads of these departments in the introduction of the most approved business methods. In the management of the ordinary affairs of the country our Government had been well likened to a great corporation in which all the people of the country are stockholders. This conception has not yet become universal, but when it does—and it undoubtedly will—there will result a general demand for successful business men in the administration of the People’s Corporation.

This, however, will be only a part of the demand that will arise when it is more fully appreciated how impossible it is to arrive at sound public policies and practices with respect to any matter, domestic or foreign, affecting the country, without having due regard for the business principles which control the means by which almost all the material and ideal benefits of society are procured. The larger demand will be that the politicians cease to look upon politics as a field reserved for their own often purely selfish activities and that business men as a class no longer treat politics as having only a remote and academic interest for them and hence as deserving to be relegated to irresponsible theorists or to casually selected and mainly incompetent legislators.

A new conception of the qualifications of those who conduct our Government is beginning to take shape in this country. Time was when the prevalent popular notion was that the chief qualification required for a political career was to be an adept in the Machiavellian arts; and the currency of this notion has undoubtedly deterred many a conscientious man of tender susceptibilities from taking the part in politics for which he was well fitted by his business experience and in which he could have been of great benefit to the community. But this conception is rapidly passing, no doubt to the intense irritation of some of the surviving politicians of the old school, who are having it impressed upon them that indispensable prerequisites to real and abiding success in politics, as well as in business, are integrity of purpose, straight-forwardness in dealing with the public and an honest intent to serve, not their own selfish interests, but the permanent good of the community. The old-time equivocations, lack of candor and nefarious machinations of the resourceful party boss have now so little chance of success that it is clear, even to those who are reluctant to give them up, that they must now be consigned to the scrap-heap of discredited politics. And it is this very fact that removes the most disagreeable obstacles from the way of the able yet scrupulous business man who feels impelled to do his share towards making politics subserve the best interests of the country.

The consequences of the tendencies just described are already observable in our public life. While unfortunately it is still true that the average character and qualifications of our political leaders, legislators and officeholders are by no means of the high standard required by the great economic and political interests of the country, yet I do not like the muckrakers’ sweeping denunciations of our public men as a class. I have had some opportunity in recent years to observe these public men, and what I have seen of them has given me the opinion that the majority of them are of unimpeachable integrity and that not a few of them possess uncommon ability. Certainly the vast interests of the United States demand that those intrusted with the duties of government should have political wisdom and business capacity of the highest kind,—undoubtedly much higher than we have yet attained on the average; but nothing whatever is gained by dishonest or even by undeserved criticism of men in public station. Disingenuous and purely political abuse of our legislators and public officers serves but to belittle the critics, to diminish the legitimate influence of the press which prints and circulates their diatribes, and, worse still, to deter many desirable men from entering the public service. Nothing could be more harmful to the Nation.

All this but emphasizes the fact that the ideal we should steadily pursue is to fill our Government, both on the legislative and on the administrative side, with men of the broadest practical experience and with the highest conceptions of the disinterested service and the honorable fulfilment of their duties required of them for the public good. The community derives little advantage from the mere gratification of the personal political ambitions of its public men. Politics, rightly conceived, cannot be regarded as primarily intended to afford a field for those whose motives, even if not illegitimate, are characterized more by a desire for self-advancement than by a sense of obligation to handle the Nation’s affairs in the soundest and most efficient way. What is needed first of all, is that the American people should be able to say with absolute assurance that its Congress and its National administrative departments (not to mention its State and municipal governmental agencies) are composed of such men that the principles of sound, efficient, economical and honorable business can be counted upon to prevail in the handling of all matters, notwithstanding all the extravagant proposals of loose thinking or self-seeking politicians of the lower type.

The people must make up their minds that they will have the responsible positions in the Government, legislative or administrative, occupied by men who have demonstrated their ability and success as enlightened business men. Already in the selection of political leaders our voters are beginning to call for men about whose personal integrity there is no doubt—men above the influence of the selfish and unscrupulous corporations, on the one hand, or the dictation of the so-called labor vote, on the other; men who have the courage of their convictions and who can be relied upon to give their support to legislative measures which best serve the interest of the general public, irrespective of all other considerations. This is an enormous gain for the country. But much more is necessary. The entire Government and the politics that determines what it shall be must be infused with the spirit of sound knowledge and aggressive efficiency which characterizes American business of the best type. The place of our business men in politics is to bring this about.

PEACE BY COMPULSION
SOME PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES IN THE PATH OF THE OPERATION OF THE PROPOSED
LEAGUE OF PEACE—IT WOULD NECESSITATE A RADICAL CHANGE OF POLICY ON THE
PART OF THE UNITED STATES

BY
JAMES BROWN SCOTT
[DIRECTOR OF THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR UNIVERSAL PEACE]

In regard to the proposition to employ force to compel international peace, it seems to me that the use of force cannot be safely entrusted to any nation or group of nations; that the United States would not consent to grant such a right to a power or group of powers; and that, therefore, we should not ask that we ourselves be allowed to use force in certain cases.

One can easily think of cases in which we would not consent to arbitrate. For instance, if Denmark should sell St. Thomas to Germany, or if Mexico should make a cession of Magdalena Bay to Japan, we would undoubtedly insist that the cession in either case was void, as contravening our policy, and, if the cessionaire refused to cancel the cession, we would prevent the occupation of the territories in question by force. We would not submit the question to an international tribunal, because under international law Denmark and Mexico would have the right to make such cessions. We could not or would not submit the question to a Council of Conciliation, because its recommendation would be against a policy which the people of the United States insist upon. If the foreign country insisted upon the cession and took possession, as it would have the legal right to do, war might result. There are other illustrations. I merely mention two which have figured from time to time in the press.

It may be well, however, to give a further sample or two. Suppose that Russia and Japan should fall out over their rights in Manchuria, and Russia or Japan should use force against the other. Would the United States be willing to use its land and naval forces against either one or the other of these two great powers? Or suppose that the demands which Japan might feel justified in making upon China, either now or during the course of the war, or indeed after its termination, should be of a kind which China could not accept without sacrificing its independence, and Japan should thereupon use force, although China offered to submit the question to arbitration, would the United States, as a party to the League of Peace, use its land and naval forces against Japan? Or would the United States be willing to become a party to a League which might have pledged its good faith to do so?

And speaking of the proposed League of Peace, I notice that its partizans do not contemplate the use of force to compel the execution of a judgment. Force is to be used to get the parties into court or before the Council of Conciliation; that is to say, in case of a nation that refuses to submit its case to the court or to the council and invades the territory of the country with which it is in controversy, the members of the League bind themselves to unite their forces with the other party willing to arbitrate, and to use their forces thus combined against the nation going to war instead of arbitrating the dispute. If public opinion can be depended upon to execute the award, cannot public opinion be depended upon to force nations into court, if only the controversy be made public and public opinion be given a chance?

The suggestion of a League of Peace is very attractive in that it does not propose any particular kind of solution, but contents itself with the statement that the difference, whatever it is, shall be settled peaceably, leaving it to the parties in dispute to determine the form and nature of the adjustment. Some of the speakers at the Philadelphia gathering, in referring to the proposition of using force against a recalcitrant nation, admitted that the United States would need to change its policy in order to become a party to the League, but felt that the United States should be willing to do so. I gather the impression that such speakers had in mind the use of force by the United States against other countries, not the use of force by other parties to compel the United States to settle a dispute peaceably which our people might be unwilling to arbitrate or submit to a Council of conciliation. We might be willing for instance, to combine with other nations to use force against a weak power, but I doubt whether we would be willing to use force against a nation such as Germany over the Servian question, and I feel sure that we would be unwilling to allow foreign nations a right to use force against us.

THE MILITARIST

BY
JOHN EDWARD OSTER

A militarist is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous, irrational being. He is not a man. He is a savage either in heart or manners or both, and is not even a brute, for a brute kills only in self-defense, or for the want of food. He has the feelings, thoughts and inclinations creditable to the worst beast, but not to civilized man.

Without the slightest doubt, the lowest occupation that a man can have is to be a militarist, and it matters not if it is his vocation, avocation, or, whether he is merely an abettor, accessory or accomplice. When he becomes active he is a soldier and then he can no longer distinguish right from wrong, and as far as humanity is concerned, he ceases to think, and is not allowed to reason under any circumstances, and his only alternative is obedience to the commands of his superior, or he is shot with less compunction than a stray dog.

Uncompromising obedience is the first law of militarism, consequently, he obeys without hesitation when ordered to fire on his fellow citizens, on his nearest friends, on his fond children, on his aged parents, or even on his beloved wife. When he is ordered to fire down a crowded thoroughfare where poor non-combatants and emaciated victims of military rule are clamoring for bread, he instantly obeys and sees the wrinkles of old age filled with gore, and the gray hair of fathers and mothers stained with red blood, and streams of life blood gushing from the mangled breasts of helpless women, feeling neither pity nor compunction of conscience.