After the war, what?

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After tKe War, WHat ?

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After the War, What ?

A PLEA

FOR

A League of Peace

IRVING FISHER

THE CHURCH PEACE UNION
70 Fifth Avenue
NEW YORK

Note. — This essay on a League of Peace, by Professor Irving
Fisher of Yale University, is of especial significance not only because
of the uniqueness of its proposals, but because of its history. While it
is now being published at a time when many minds are converging on
a League of the Nations, it was prepared twenty-five years before the
present war and read to the Yale Political Science Club, May 17, 1890.
When the present war broke out Professor Fisher rewrote it and it
appeared in the New York Times of August 16, 1914. It was read by
Lord Bryce with great interest, and Professor Fisher is now engaged,
in conjunction with others — notably Dr. Hamilton Holt — in elaborating
some of the practical details in accordance with the suggestions of Lord
Bryce in the following letter. — The Editor.

Letter from Lord Bryce

3, Buckingham Gate, London, S. W.

November 25, 1914.

Dear Professor Fisher :

Thank you for your article entitled “After the War,
What?”, which I ought to have acknowledged sooner. I have
read it with very great interest and quite agree with the prin-
ciples upon which it proceeds. The real difficulty seems to be to
feel much hope that the states of Europe would take so bold
and novel a step as to entrust the requisite powers to an
international council, and I should be glad if you were to
find time to work out your idea in detail, indicating the pro-
cess, how the international council would be composed,
whether of delegates of the several governments, merely giving
the views of their governments, or whether of persons of
more independence, eminent by their character, experience
and reputation, who would be able to make up in moral
authority for what they might want in executive power. Our
fear is that if you left these things to the mere delegates of
the governments of the powers, the old system of intrigue-
forming combinations would recommence, and as soon as a
cause for war appeared, parties among the states would
declare themselves, and the general interest of checking war
would give way to the special interest of the parties involved.
It is, however, amply evident to thinking men, both in Europe

3

and in America, that something ought to be attempted to pre-
vent the recurrence of such frightful calamities as those
from which we are now suffering. If you would think
further over the matter and give us a more detailed scheme
we should be very grateful, for many among us in this country
are anxiously reflecting on the very problems you have set
forth so lucidly in your paper.

Yours very truly,

Professor Irving Fisher, (Signed) James Bryce.

Yale University.

4

After the War, What?

By Irving Fisher

Professor of Political Economy, Yale University

(Reprinted from the New York Times, Sunday, August 16, 1914, with
some additions and alterations.)

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew
From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder storm ;
Till the war drum throbb’d no longer, and the battleflags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

(From Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall.” First published in 1842.)

Without taking sides, this article aims to show :

(1) That the “fault” for this war lies little, if at all, with
any individual or nation, but with the system (or
lack of system) of governments in Europe.

(2) That with modern fast transportation nations close
to each other are forced to compete in armaments,
the competition being analogous to the so-called “cut-
throat” competition in business.

(3) That an essential in any scheme to prevent the
recurrence of such rivalry and the risk of a general
war which it entails, is some form, however rudi-
mentary, of international government, including an
arbitration court with international police power to
enforce its decrees.

(4) That without some such arrangement following
the present war — even if every other measure be
taken which tends to maintain peace — there will, in

5

all probability, be a periodical repetition of such a
European conflagration in the future owing to the
international racing in armaments which will inevita-
bly begin anew.

(5) That, though the obstacles in the way of effective
international control are prodigious, the present war
affords a golden opportunity to overcome these
obstacles.

Most people are greatly concerned as to where to place
the blame for the present war. Individuals are taking sides
according to the racial or national prejudices which they
have inherited or which are current in their environment.
Almost everyone takes for granted that someone is to blame.

But an unbiased study will find it difficult to assign
much blame to anybody. When we come to examine the acts
and decisions of the various nations in the three weeks pre-
ceding the war we are struck with the fact that each decided
as it did because there was scarcely any other choice left open.
Each warring nation, of course, blames its own enemies.
But it is almost as difficult to fix the responsibility for this
war as it is to fix, in a mob, the responsibility for a lynching,
and for the same reason. The anomaly of the situation is
that the nations, one after another, were forced to choose war
while preferring peace.

No, the fault does not lie in any large degree with
individual nations or persons. We shall be doing an historic
injustice in trying to make somebody the scapegoat. Besides,
we shall be missing the point.

The true philosophy of this war is not one of praise or
blame, but of social cause and effect. The great and useless
slaughter which we are now witnessing affords a study in
social pathology. The universal war fever which seemed so
suddenly to burst on Europe is but a symptom of a terrible
disease of the body politic, a disease which has been graduallv
gnawing at the vitals of Europe for more than half a century.
It is hard for us Americans, who are fortunate in never

6

having had this particular war disease, to understand its real
nature. Why should a quarrel over a little nation in the south
of Europe compel an innocent little nation a thousand miles
in the north to suffer invasion and devastation? The thing
would be comic, if it were not tragic. We look on with
amazement and ask: Has Europe gone mad? If not, what
could have induced so many millions of people to put all
Western civilization in jeopardy?

CONTACT LEADS TO CONFLICT

In the development of society, close intercourse always
requires regulation. The disease of Europe lies in the rapid
growth of close intercourse between its nations without
any corresponding growth in the required regulation. Our
diagnosis is “increased proximity without increased regula-
tion.” Close and frequent contact between nations must needs
give rise to disputes. This is illustrated by the fact that it is
on the border between nations where the contact is most close
and frequent that international hatred is most intense. The
same results would occur in any other place or time. Wherever
close and complicated international relations exist without any
effective international control, there will be a strong tendency
toward international disputes, great navies and standing armies,
and occasionally war. The malady is not militarism ; militar-
ism is merely the chief symptom. Nor is it autocracy nor
secret diplomacy nor selfish tariffs.

It may be difficult for us to admit the fact, but if our
forty-eight states, instead of having a federal government,
had each its own independent government and military, we
should find ourselves in the same situation as Europe. There
would inevitably be increasing standing armies, oppressive
taxation, and eventually war. Fortunately we have a political
union among the states befitting their proximity and com-
mercial connections. But the states of Europe have no
political union beyond unenforcible and, therefore, unreliable
treaties. They are now too close together to get along

7

without the restraints of enforcible international law. They
have every other sort of connection but political ; they have
international commerce and travel ; they interchange ideas.
The crying need is for effective regulation of this growing
volume of international intercourse.

The family of nations in Europe cannot live together in
peace unless they govern themselves. They lack government,
precisely as the gold miner in California in the 50’s lacked
government. Here were a number of selfish men suddenly
brought into close proximity without any government. The
consequence was that each had to carry firearms. Then
vigilance committees were improvised, and later a stable
government brought disarmament. In the beginning each
individual was an independent sovereign ; but he soon found
it profitable to surrender part of his independence to secure
protection. The nations need to protect themselves from
themselves. We might well write over the parti-colored map
of Europe : Wanted , an International Government. Only
such a government, or at any rate some form of international
bond, bids fair to cure the disease.

In physiology, health is described as an harmonious
adjustment of organs. If the heart is hypertrophied or any
organ of the body is too large or too small, disease exists.
Taking the commercial relations and problems between nations
alone, we find they have grown so fast that the political
arrangements necessary to take care of them do not keep
up with them. In the terms of Herbert Spencer, who was
fond of calling society an organism, the “regulative” function
of the European social organism is under-developed as com-
pared to the “sustaining” function.

RAPID TRANSPORTATION PARTLY RESPONSIBLE

This European disease, of which militarism is the con-
sequence and symptom, has become acute in modern times
chiefly because of the sudden growth of rapid transportation
and communication. A century ago the natural barriers of

8

mountains, rivers and distance between the countries of Europe
separated them at least as widely as the Atlantic Ocean now
separates us from Europe, if, in fact, not as widely as the
Pacific separates us from Japan and China. But the railroad,
steamship, telegraph, telephone and newspaper have nearly
effaced these pristine barriers. They have therefore been very
large factors in aggravating the war malady. They have, as it
were, produced an hypertrophy of commerce and other forms
of international contact without producing the regulative
machinery which should go with them.

This conclusion is somewhat opposed to common opinion.
It has usually been supposed that the development of inter-
national trade was the very circumstance which would save
Europe from war. Over a half century ago Cobden
prophesied that international trade would bring international
peace. Yet since then have occurred some of the greatest
and bloodiest wars of history. Cobden wrote : “Whilst the
governments are preparing for war, all the tendencies of the
age are in the opposite direction ; but that which most loudly
and constantly thunders in the ears of the emperors, kings
and parliaments the stern command, ‘You shall not break the
peace,’ is the multitude which in every country subsists upon
the products of labor applied to material brought from
abroad.” It is true that the growth of commerce increases the
need of peace, but it is not true that it increases the probability
of peace.

The economic usually grows faster than the political.
One reason is that the former grows gradually, the latter
by sudden leaps. That is, the growth of industry and com-
merce is continuous and quiet, while government changes are
sudden and explosive. It is the fear of losing a fraction of
“sovereignty” which keeps political structures unchanged
long beyond the time when change is the logic of the situation.
Political structures yield at last, but by breaking, not by bend-
ing, just as the hardened surface of a lava stream occasionally
breaks to conform to the accumulating pressures of the liquid

9

lava underneath. The result is that, in the absence of inter-
national government, the growth of international interests of
other kinds has actually increased the risk of war and the
need of great armies and navies. It has done this in three
ways :

(1) By increasing the opportunities for friction.

(2) By leading to commercial-colonial expansion and
the quarrels always attendant on that process.

(3) By increasing the speed of army mobilization, thus
making an hour now of equal strategic value to a
week of former times.

Thirty years ago Sir Henry Maine said in his Inter-
national Law. “I suppose that of the causes of war which
we know to exist in our day, there were never so many com-
bined as in Eastern Europe during the last ten years.” What
Cliffe Leslie once said is even truer to-day: “The chances
of collision with continental states are multiplied, and military
institutions and ideas seem to have arisen among us pari
passu with increased proximity with our military neighbors.”

Railroads are not only channels through which trade may
flow ; they are channels through which troops may flow as
well. Ships and automobiles can transport not only passengers
and freight but soldiers. We all agree in calling the revival
in Europe of military practices and ideas a retrograde process.
That this co-exists with an amazing progress in industry,
science and thought, is not only interesting as a coincidence ;
it is attributable to the very same cause — growing proximity.
Industrial progress has broken down the ramparts of nature,
but governments have replaced them with the fortress and
the cannon. We have sent the trading vessel steaming between
nations, but the dreadnought has followed in its wake. We
find thus the interesting paradox that while wars have in the
last generation grown less and less to be desired they have
become more and more frequent in number and more extensive
in scope.

IO

RACING IN ARMAMENTS

The armaments of Europe are a net loss, yet no nation
can afford to go without them. Each nation of to-day would
doubtless be safer from its neighbors if standing armies were
a half or a third their actual size; but were such the case any
one nation would immediately desire to increase its individual
strength. This action invites a similar increase of the other
nations and, at last, produces a loss and not a gain to all
concerned. As long as the nations are independent, each
nation individually acts relatively to other nations. So Eng-
land’s naval program is always made relative to the naval
strength of other countries, and the programs of other coun-
tries are made relative to that of England. So also Germany
has adjusted her military force to those of her neighbors, and
the latter have adjusted theirs relatively to Germany’s. The
argument in Congress for more battleships is always that
the United States must keep up with the rest, and it is a good
argument so long as we have no voice in reducing navies
abroad. The result is a constant tendency to expand. The
psychology of motive is for each nation to seek military
expansion even when it realizes that the net result is a loss
to all concerned, and that the best course, if all would follow
it, would be one of contraction. If any nation should hold
back (as many who have never understood the problem have
urged) the result would be to make it easier for the other
nations to surpass it in military strength.

The inevitable result is a constant race or competition.
But whatever advantage any nation gains is immediately
taken from it by the catching up of the others. This
military competition is closely analogous to cut-throat com-
petition in business. In a railroad rate war all the participants
lose. Yet no one railroad can afford to keep from rate cutting,
otherwise it would lose still more. There is only one way of
avoiding such cut-throat competition, whether of railroads
or of nations; namely, submission to a common regulation.

THE NEED OF AN INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT

Only by a general agreement can we secure a general
disarmament ; it is through some such international agree-
ment— in other words, some rudiment of international govern-
ment— that militarism and war can be made to disappear or
diminish. The burning question, therefore, is : Will such
an agreement follow the close of this war? Sooner or later
this great war will be followed by peace. But what sort
of peace? Will it be stable or unstable? Will the treaties
of peace include conditions, the fulfillment of which will
guarantee all concerned against the recurrence of such a
struggle, or will the new peace amount to nothing more than
another long armed truce, during which the warring nations
will recover their lost armaments, wealth and population, and
again be ready to fly at each other’s throats after the lapse of
a quarter or half a century? To us neutrals these are the
important questions, far more important than the question of
who will win and what changes in the territorial possessions
of the warring nations will ensue.

After the war is over the causes for international quarrels
will be no less, but rather more. They will be more for two
reasons. One is the continuance in the future of the present
steady growth of international relations of all kinds. Quarrels
may grow out of international trade in goods, especially where
exclusive trade rights in new territory are still available; or
out of international travel, especially of officials and royal
personages and of immigrants who are personae non gratae,
such as Orientals in occidental countries ; or out of inter-
national communication, especially where the public press
indulges in international criticism. Possible discord may
spring from tariffs, canal and other trade routes, sea fisheries,
colonization in Africa, exclusion laws, insults to the flag,
accidents to ships, and any other incidents of international
contact. The other reason for expecting more rather than
less reason for quarrels is that war begets war. This great
world quarrel will surely leave sores which cannot heal for

12

generations, deeper sores than those left, for instance, by the
Franco-Prussian War. Bismark is quoted as saying that he
deprecated war with France because such a war would lead
to at least five subsequent wars. It is time for all people to
realize the wisdom of this prophesy, of which the present war
is the first step in fulfillment. In order to have a stable peace
we must provide machinery to handle the growing volume of
questions and controversies as a routine matter, just as the
courts handle the numerous personal quarrels in any civilized
community.

Such machinery must involve at least two elements : A
Court of Justice to render decisions on international disputes,
and a Military or Police which shall enforce the decrees.
That is, there must be a judicial and an executive department
of an international government. Ultimately in the natural
course of events there would doubtless follow a legislative
branch as well. But the present urgent need is machinery
to keep the peace.

To secure this result we must substitute for the crude
idea of the balance of power the idea of the pooling of power.
The power pooled must exceed the power of any individual
nation. The new combined power must be adequate to hold
any recalcitrant state to its agreements and to insure that
it will abide by the decisions of the Court of Justice. It
should have command over both the naval strength and the
army strength of the component nations. Laws without power
to enforce them are mockeries. A league of peace without
the power to keep the peace would be a rope of sand. In fact,
what has recently happened in Europe has shown us that we
cannot depend on treaties without force back of them.

ADVANTAGES OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

With a true peace league each member-nation would have
a double restraint from attacking any other member. It
would be restrained by its own promise to submit its grievances
to arbitration, and, what is more essential, it would be

T3

restrained by the fact that to fight any other member would
mean to fight all other members. Such a pooling of military
strength would of itself tend to disarmament. For the
psychology of motive would then be the opposite of what it
now is. Each nation would then feel that, while it would
have to bear the burden of its own military force, it would
not be getting the exclusive benefit of it, but would instead
be contributing to the benefit of the others. Militarism would
be felt simply as a tax. Instead of racing to get as large
an army as the rest, the race would be to keep the quota
as small as the rest. An individual nation would feel itself
imposed upon if it maintained the largest force to be used
for the benefit of the other members of the league. The
military force of an individual nation would seem a burden
on the nation, with no benefit which could not be had without
it. The uselessness of large standing armies would be brought
home to each nation individually. If France and Germany
were both members of such a league, would France any
longer keep a large standing army? Not for defense against
Germany, since England, Russia, Italy, Belgium, the United
States, and other nations would have agreed through the
league to assume that defense for her. Not for offense,
because these same nations would then turn against her.

The original colonies of which the United States is now
composed viewed each other with the same distrust, jealousy
and hostility, as do now the sovereign states of Europe.
These colonies were ready to fight over extension of territory
or exclusive trade rights. When these colonies united into the
United States, such feeling gradually disappeared. The
desire for each state to be strong enough to fight its neighbor-
ing states was replaced by a reluctance to expend anything
whatever for military force. It is now with difficulty that
even a state militia can be maintained. Once in our history
did a group of states rebel against the rest, but to-day every
state has accepted its subordination to the Union. For world
peace we must follow the same course. If this war, the civil

14

war of Europe, should lead to cementing the concert of the
powers into a world federation, it may yet be worth all it
costs.

Certainly if all concerned could look at the proposition
coolly and calculate the two sides of the ledger they would
find the gain from a pooling of interests a hundred times the
loss. To maintain the present independent sovereignties costs
treasure even in times of peace, while in times of war it costs
not only treasure but lives and racial stamina. In spite of
the war marriages, modern war means the mowing down of
the flower of our best manhood, the cutting off from parent-
hood of the bravest, strongest, healthiest young men, and the
leaving to their less sturdy brothers (whose defects in stature,
lungs, heart, eyesight and other particulars excluded them
from the army) the continuance of the race. Even on the basis
of economic advantages alone the citizen of Europe ought to
find it enormously profitable to exchange the single right to
shoot his neighbor for the guarantee of his own security and
the cancellation of the major part of his taxation.

OBSTACLES

But it may be objected that we are not sufficiently rational
to weigh the question coolly and that it is idle to expect any
sovereign government to surrender one jot or tittle of its
sovereignty. Can we expect at the end of this war any con-
cessions except those forced on the conquered nations? It
is certainly obvious that, opposed to a program of any kind
of unification, will be the natural resistance to new ideas
and a strong tendency to cling to old precedents. The great
question is : Will or will not the rational desire for stable
peace outweigh the foolish desire to maintain “unimpaired”
the right to make war? Will those who control the policies
of the European nations be able to see the need for and to
bring about some form of central government among them?
That something will be done in the general direction of
guaranteeing peace can scarcely be doubted. The common

15

interest must play some part, however small. It always has.

Unless this something is constructive, unless it is some-
thing which cuts loose from the bondage to old precedents, the
present war will have been utterly in vain. The same causes
will continue to produce the same effects. The nations will
again vie with each other to possess the biggest armies and
navies. The people will again have to carry an increasing
burden of taxation and of military duty, and, recurring two or
three times a century, there will again come wars like the
present, to kill off the best and leave the worst in the popula-
tion of Europe. Perhaps those in power may have the wisdom,
courage and humanity to decide that this, the first of world
wars, must also be the last.

OUR GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY

After the present war we may expect a deeper and clearer
sentiment on these subjects than ever before. It will be more
than ever realized that war to-day is an anachronism; that
there is no advantage in war even to the victor; and that the
disadvantages are vastly greater than in bygone times. It is
often true in history that the more terrible a calamity, the
greater the stimulus to prevent its recurrence. On this prin-
ciple, the present war ought to be followed by the greatest
opportunity for lasting peace which Europe has ever had.
After Europe has drunk to the dregs this bitter cup of sorrows,
after all the suffering and humiliation to come, there will
scarcely be found a man, woman or child in Europe, whether
among the victorious or the vanquished nations, who will not
thirst for peace — for a peace which will endure. Then, we
may believe, will be the psychological moment for constructive
statesmanship of the highest order. It remains to be seen
whether statesmen are available who can rise to the occasion.
Whatever eventuates must be preceded by well considered
plans, and it would not be surprising, if the right men think
out the right plans, that the long cherished hopes of peace
advocates may at last be realized, and that this greatest of

16

wars may prove but the precipitant of the greatest advance
in constructive politics which the world has ever seen. No
one can yet tell what particular form a lasting peace, if brought
about at all, will assume. But it is, I believe, most likely to
be in the form I have mentioned, an international agreement
backed up by military force — a league of peace such as Mr.
Carnegie once proposed, provided with some form of inter-
national police. It may be that such an approach to a “Fed-
eration of the World” is still only a poet’s dream. But, it
cannot seem more remote to-day than did a general European
war a short time ago. Events move fast in these days.

A POSSIBLE PLAN

If sufficient agreement could be secured, the best plan
would seem to be to use some neutral or neutralized terri-
tory, whatever seemed most expedient — possibly The
Hague, possibly Belgium, possibly Alsace-Lorraine in case
of Germany’s defeat, or Poland in case of the defeat of
the allies — for setting up the first machinery of an inter-
national court and administration, the head offices for an
international army and navy (or for co-ordinating the
national armies and navies), under the joint control, like
the international postal union at Berne, of all nations willing
to participate. The territory might thus serve as a sort of
District of Columbia for a loose Union of Nations. On
this neutral ground in the heart of Europe could be kept a
small international police to enforce, if need be, the decrees
of the Court of Justice. The contracting nations would
agree to submit all future disputes to this court and to
sanction the use of the international police to enforce
the decrees of that court against any refractory member
of the league. It could also be provided that the entire
military force of the members of the league should be
subject to the call of the league when necessary. The
proposed league should be open to an enlargement of member-
ship as other nations wished to put themselves under its pro-
tection. The league would in essence be simply a great mutual

17

war insurance company, and any nation that joined would
do so because it would be both cheaper and more effectual
to provide against war by paying small insurance premiums
to a great league of peace than by maintaining a great army.
The league would be, in fact, a rudimentary super-govern-
ment. But its powers would be limited to the one function
of keeping the peace, unless by common consent the nations
chose to add to those powers a supervision over other inter-
national affairs. No nation would lose anything except the
right to fight other nations.

Such a league as I have proposed could not be expected to
act as an absolute preventative of war in Europe, any more
than the formation of our federal government was an absolute
preventative of war between the different states of the Union,
or than our municipal governments succeed in preventing all
riot and fighting among its citizens ; but it would greatly lessen
the chance of war by affording an alternative way out of
disputes.

If the treaty of peace, when it comes, cannot of itself
include a definite program for making the peace permanent,
it may at least be found feasible to agree to call a conference
at The Hague of the world’s best jurists for the purpose of
drafting the articles of such a lasting treaty for submission
subsequently to all governments. The logic of the situation
must have its influence. The solidarity of Europe must lead to
a greater community of action. Whether what is done is
adequate or inadequate, we have a right to expect something.
Political evolution must go on.

SOME PRECEDENTS

It was the natural solidarity of the German States which
overcame their desire to continue their individual independ-
ence and led, first to the Zollverein and then to the German
Empire. It was the natural solidarity of the Italian States
which led to a united Italy. It is to-day the natural solidarity
of the Scandinavian countries which is leading them to talk of

18

union. This is the first effect of the war in that direction
In the world as a whole there has been a growth of inter-
national action. As a consequence of increasing propinquity
and commerce there has grown up a network of treaties ;
there has come an international postal union ; there have been
international agreements as to weights and measures, and even
coinage ; there has been a growing tendency to arbitrate inter-
national quarrels. There have been international conferences
and treaties growing out of the peace movement, and the
establishment of the Peace Palace at The Hague. The peace
conferences and treaties as to the rights of neutrals have
further recognized the needs of commerce, even in war. What
little texture of so-called international law we now possess
is the outgrowth of maritime commerce. But the term “inter-
national law” is really a misnomer. To be real, a law implies
enforcement. At present we have no international law be-
cause we have no international force. Our so-called law is
a precursor, let us hope, of regulation by force. We have
had international treaties, and the next step should be inter-
national government. If some of the heads of the contend-
ing governments, and the heads of neutral powers, especially
the United States, can, as soon as the war is over, present a
practicable plan to keep the peace, the common people of
Europe will welcome it with glad acclaim, and any reluctant
sovereigns can scarcely avoid accepting it.

PRESENT TENDENCIES TOWARD PERMANENT PEACE

The effort in both the Taft and Wilson administrations
to secure treaties of arbitration are steps in the direction of
a peace league. Twenty-six of Mr. Bryan’s treaties have been
signed. Since this article was printed in the New York Times
last August the idea of a world league of peace has grown
with prodigious rapidity, not coming, it is evident, from any-
one source, but springing spontaneously into the consciousness
of many minds and winning approval as it has been passed
along from one to another. Mr. Roosevelt, like Mr. Carnegie,

19

had favored an international peace league and an international
police several years ago, and both have written on the subject
since the present war broke out. Lord Bryce, President
Emeritus Eliot, Gen. Nelson Miles, Mr. W. T. Stead, Sir
Max Waechlins, Mr. Wilbur F. Gordy, Mr. Norman Angell,
Congressman Frank O. Smith, Prof. G. B. Adams, Mr. Frank
Crane, and many others have conceived and expressed essen-
tially the same idea.

Mr. Roosevelt has said : “The futility of international
agreements in great crises has come from the fact that force
was not back of them. What is needed in international mat-
ters is to create a judge and then to put power back of the
judge. The policeman must be put back of the judge in
international law just as he is back of the judge in municipal
law. The effective power of civilization must be put back
of civilization’s collective purpose to secure reasonable justice
between nation and nation. We must labor for an inter-
national agreement among the great civilized nations which
shall put the full force of all of them back of any one of
them, and of any well-behaved weak nation which is wronged
by any other power.”

President Emeritus Eliot has expressed himself as follows :
“There can be no secure peace in Europe until a federation
of the European States is established, capable of making
public contracts intended to be kept and backed by an over-
whelming international force subject to the orders of an
international tribunal.”

Says Congressman F. O. Smith of Maryland in a speech
before the House of Representatives : “All the peace that ever
existed within any nation is compulsory ; it would not last
five minutes were it not for the presence of the executive
power with its well-filled store of powder and ball. It is incon-
ceivable how universal peace could exist without a similar
executive power strong enough to beat down all opposition and
compelled by self-interest to maintain peace.” Mr. Hamilton

20

Holt,* editor of The Independent, has, I believe, worked out
the idea of a Peace League in fuller and more practical detail
than any one else.

The most encouraging feature of the situation is that
whereas, when this article was first sketched out, twenty-five
years ago, the dream of a world government seemed as
Utopian as when Tennyson had his vision of it seventy years
ago, to-day the whole world is whispering of it as a possibility,
and it is being thought of not only in academic and literary
circles, but by those who have or have had an active part in
political affairs. Instead of ridiculing the idea, they are ask-
ing how it can be realized and are seeking to work out the
details. There are several separate movements working to
this end, which are going quietly forward on both sides of
the Atlantic. I may mention the English “Union of Demo-
cratic Control,” the South German Democrats, the International
Peace Bureau, with Senator La Fontaine of Belgium, Presi-
dent, the Dutch Anti-War Council, the World Peace Founda-
tion of Boston, the New York Peace Society, and Jane Ad-
dams’ Women’s Peace Party. It is certain that before long
there will be launched more specific proposals than any
hitherto published. There seems now to exist a golden
opportunity to enlist the sympathy and the judgment of mil-
lions of neutrals, and later of the belligerents themselves, on
the momentous question of how to protect from future de-
struction the treasures, physical and human, of civilization

* “The Way to Disarm : a Practical Proposal,” The Independent,
September 28, 1914.

21

The Church Peace Union

( Founded by Andrew Carnegie)

TRUSTEES

Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.D., LL.D., Baltimore, Md.

Rev. Arthur Judson Brown, D.D., LL.D., New York.

Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D., LL.D., Boston, Mass.
President W. H. P. Faunce, D.D., LL.D., Providence, R. I.
His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore, Md.
Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D., LL.D., New York
Rev. Frank O. Hall, D.D., New York.

Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., Kansas City, Mo.

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch, LL.D., Chicago, 111.

Hamilton Holt, LL.D., New York.

Professor William I. Hull, Ph.D., Swarthmore, Pa.

Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., LL.D., New York.

Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, LL.D., Chicago, 111.

Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D., Boston, Mass.

Rev. Frederick Lynch, D.D., New York.

Rev. Charles S. Macfarland, Ph.D., New York.

Marcus M. Marks, New York

A

Dean Shailer Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Chicago, 111.
Edwin D. Mead, M.A., Boston, Mass.

Rev. William Pierson Merrill, D.D., LL.D., New York.
John R. Mott, LL.D., New York
George A. Plimpton, LL.D., New York.

Rev. Julius B. Remensnyder, D.D., LL.D., New York.
Judge Henry Wade Rogers, LL.D., New York.

Robert E. Speer, D.D., New York.

Francis Lynde Stetson, New York.

James J. Walsh, M.D., New York.

Bishop Luther B. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., New York.