Читать книгу Ways of War and Peace - Austrian Delia - Страница 2

As I advance in years I look upon life as a good deal of a paradox; at times it seems to be a mass of contradictions of love and hate, of friendship and enmity, of truths and falsehoods, of war and peace. In the same flash of time countries are throttling others; other nations are straining themselves not only to soften the hardships created by an international war, but to help feed, care for and dry the tears made by the havoc of slaughter.

A most striking instance of this statement happened a few days before the outbreak of the war. Through a mutual friend, while in Bavaria, I learned that Miss Anna Eckstein, an American woman, who has devoted her life to the world's peace movement was visiting her home in Coburg Saxe-Weimar. It was a short distance from where I was staying, and I asked Miss Eckstein if she would come to me. The answer to my invitation was that much as she would love to see me we should have to defer our meeting to some other time. She was starting to make a tour of the Rhine cities, where she was going to give important talks on the work that was being done to encourage the world's peace. This would take most of her time until the early fall, when she was going to a peace congress in Vienna. She said that I might help her by forming two local centers in Chicago for the signing of many petitions pledging ourselves for the peace idea platform. I had not much more than read this letter and put the petitions away for safekeeping when the word came that the great war was declared.

Time and again during the storm and stress of war this incident appeared as the greatest of paradoxes. Here was a young woman who has consecrated her life, her talents, energy and friendships for the purpose of making the idea of world peace more than a chimera. Her efforts have failed for the time being, because monarchs and statesmen, goaded on by a foolish idea for stronger empires and more possessions, had thrown their nations against each other, resulting in the most cruel and disastrous upheaval of modern times. Many of the world's nations are hurling their tremendous armies with their siege-guns, bombs, mines, air-crafts, submarines and navies at each other. Awful and tremendous are these gigantic masses of destruction. What they accomplish or fail to accomplish will be forgotten when the work of such women as Miss Anna Eckstein and Baroness von Suttner are inscribed in glory.

It was merely by chance I had the pleasure of meeting these two brilliant women at the time of the World's Peace Congress at The Hague. Miss Eckstein had come as a delegate from America bringing petitions of three million names, signed by American men and women, including many of the foremost professors, students, writers, artists, capitalists and workers in all lines of industry. Though born in Germany, she had come to America because she realized that our country believes in peace more than it does in war. For many years she worked entirely with the peace movement in Boston. But she soon saw the need of educating the young people to the ideals and principles of peace. She made a campaign of this country, talking from pulpits and platforms on what the peace idea and ideal would mean for society the world over.

This educational campaign was interrupted for a short time when Miss Eckstein went to take the American petitions to The Hague. She attended the round-table talks, afternoon teas and receptions, where time and again she showed that war, besides being futile was the most reckless extravagance of modern times. The cost of feeding and supporting a soldier would keep a child in school; the cost of a siege-gun would pay for the building of a school house, and the building of a battleship would give a country a new university. She showed them time and again that besides suffering, war meant the destruction of a nation's best manhood. It is the strong and energetic and the brilliant minds that are picked for soldiers. It is the weak and old men along with women and children that usually survive to suffer the hardships and the heartaches made possible by war. It was at one of these international receptions that I had the pleasure of hearing Miss Eckstein express some such ideas. She spoke of the work of The Hague Tribunal, and had such confidence in the sincerity of the governments and their representatives that she thought any question of vital importance might be settled there rather than that rulers should enchain civilization and throw nations to the dogs of war.

Later, through a foundation by Mr. Edwin Ginn, the publisher of Boston, Miss Eckstein went to Europe for the purpose of preaching the gospel of peace. She talked in schools, theatres and concert halls before large audiences composed of school teachers, and school children, government officials and working people. But her chief purpose was to educate the school children in the larger, more wholesome ideas of peace. Some of the most spacious and handsomest halls in Germany were put at her disposal, and some of the most influential German officials presided at her meetings. She was equally well received, and was welcomed with the same enthusiasm in France, Italy, England and the North countries. She hoped to carry this propaganda into Japan, India and Africa. At the same time she was working to carry a petition of thirty million names, signed in all parts of Europe and the United States, to The Hague. This stupendous work was almost finished when the war broke out.

It was at The Hague that I first heard Bertha von Suttner, a well-known Austrian writer and lecturer. She became world-famous as the author of "Lay Down Your Arms," which won for her the Nobel Peace Prize. Her theme at The Hague was "Combatting Dueling in Germany." She told of the way the sons of officers and of the aristocracy at an early age were instructed to look upon dueling as an important part of their education. The more cuts, the more glory, for it was splendid experience for the more terrible combat of war. A deep gash in a man's face made him better looking, for it showed that he had plenty of courage. She was gathering a strong petition signed by men and women of many nationalities against this wicked pastime. It was a few years later, in Chicago, that I heard Bertha von Suttner speak on the war in the Balkans. She explained that it was only a small spark in a greater conflagration. It was being patched up, not settled, and unless the United States used her persuasive and moral influence these issues would burst forth in an international conflagration. This prediction has become a reality, though Baroness von Suttner did not live to see the day.

For many years America has had a large National Peace Society. Though it originated in Boston its members were composed of men and women living in all parts of the United States. Besides promulgating a philosophy of peace, through congresses and pamphlets, its delegates have gone to all the important European congresses. This organization was instrumental in influencing the United States to intercede in the Russo-Japanese war; it was instrumental in making The Hague Tribunal a well-organized body. It inspired Carnegie to give to The Hague Congress a building as beautiful as the ideals and purposes of the Congress were noble and just.

Many of our greatest American statesmen and scholars have combatted peace measures and advocated stronger armies and navies. Other men of prominence in all parties have striven to keep our country in friendly relations with other powers, making treaties a worthy substitute for strong, military forces.

On the other hand there are those who say that the only way to safeguard our country is to have a navy and army in keeping with its size and dignity. Our present army and navy mark us as a second-rate power.

There are just as many thinking men and women who say that if a man carries a loaded revolver it is bound to go off some day. It may be justly used in self-defense, but it is more than likely to injure an innocent person. Mr. Bryan's recommendation of treaties backed up by a year of consideration when differences take place is considered a safer method.

These are all steps in the right direction, but they must be extended if this is to be the last war of any real importance that the world shall ever see. All action is based on thought, and much of our wrong acting of today is based on wrong thinking. There will always be different nationalities, just as there are various languages, religions, political parties and economic views. Only a fool can say that French is a better language than Italian or German. Only the narrow-minded will say that the Protestant religion is better than the Catholic or Jewish faiths. The same is true of nations. The French, the English, and the German all have their just place. The French lead the world in making certain articles better than all other countries. In certain other articles we must look for superiority to the Germans, while for others to England and the United States. The time has come when national jealousies must give place to internationalism. When the interests of all the countries must be greater than the interest of any one country. There is an energy and competition that is to be recognized as healthy and praiseworthy and necessary, and there is a hectic energy based on envy that is short-sighted. We are so interdependent these days that few things can happen in one corner of the world but before night it is heralded to the other end. A great war cannot be waged on one continent but many of its bad effects are felt upon the others.

It is foolish to believe that the time will come when nations can carry out their work and plans without having their differences. Nations always have had and shall continue to have differences. But these shall be settled as amicably as they are between individuals. Just as there are courts and judges to listen to individual grievances, so there must be an international court and judges to settle international disputes and nations, like individuals, shall be forced to abide by their decisions. For nations must be trained to understand that the interests of humanity are greater than the interests of any one people. Until they can accept this point of view, naturally they should be assisted by international courts and by an international army and navy to enforce the decisions of such a court. Work must be constructive, for there is not enough money and natural resources in the world that so much shall be squandered for any such extravagant pastime as war. There is a moral force and conscience in the world, no less than in heaven. The noble, unselfish work done by Bertha von Suttner and Anna Eckstein are evidences of this fact. The Hague Tribunal is also an expression of the same ideal. Internationalism is higher than nationalism, and must be the platform of civilization. But to make peace work and internationalism more than a byeword they must be backed by an international court with its lawyers and judges and its decisions protected by an international army and navy to enforce the decisions agreed upon by the different nations and their representatives.

There were few men in America who did more for the peace work of this country than Dr. Edward Everett Hale. As Edwin D. Mead says of him, "He stood for citizenship, he stood for education, he stood for international peace and friendship. We called him in the later years of his life the Nestor of our peace cause in America." He made his church a temple of that cause. He said there should be no modern church which did not have among its regular standing committees a committee on International Justice, and such a committee he founded in this church. Baroness von Suttner and Baron d'Estournelles de Constant both occupied his pulpit.

Dr. Hale worked extremely hard to organize a Boston committee on International Justice.

Dr. Hale and Anna Eckstein were the two fountains of inspiration for Edwin Ginn, of Boston. Life had taught him that real riches and power only have value as they work for social uplift. He was sure of this after he met Miss Eckstein and saw the great work and effort she was expending to promote ideas of peace in the schools of this country and abroad. She influenced him to set aside one million dollars; the income of the money was to be used for this purpose. He was so impressed by her work that he asked her to give all of her time to educating the teachers and children in Europe as well as in our country in the ideas of peace.

Dr. Hale was his other great inspiration in all the great peace ideas. His first address in behalf of the peace cause was made at Mohonk Lake, at one of the Mohonk Conferences in International Arbitration, and there his last address was made. His first address was made in 1901, although Mr. Ginn was present at the Mohonk Conference as a listener in 1897 and 1899. In 1901 he gave his first address, and he confessed that Dr. Hale had influenced him greatly in this work. In this talk he said that modern wars are due to mutual distrust on the part of the nations and great armaments. This distrust can only be removed by education and the right kind of co-operation. The great menace is the enormous armaments. The tremendous armies and monstrous navies have become far more a provocation and danger than a defense. He told the people at the Mohonk Conference: "We are confronted by the military class, the war power, with unlimited resources of wealth and men, and we can never overcome these obstacles except as we perfect a great organization to meet them. It will not do to leave this work to be done by a few. An adequate counteracting influence could not be exerted simply by men who could give to the cause only shreds and patches of their time. We must make this a well-organized crusade; there must be men devoted to the cause, as Sumner, Garrison and Phillips were devoted to the cause of anti-slavery: men who would give all their time to it. And the cause must have a financial backing such as it had never had before. I should like to see a fund of one million dollars established before we marshal our forces. We spend hundreds of millions a year for war; can we not afford to spend one million for peace?"

He soon afterward gave fifty thousand a year for this work, and a million bequeathed for the cause at his death. He welcomed Norman Angell's great work, called "The Great Illusion," which brought home to the business men of the world the futility of war.

He was also a friend and admirer of Samuel B. Capen, the head of one of the two chief Boston peace societies. Mr. Capen was president of the Massachusetts Peace Society, and also a trustee of the World Foundation. It was as a representative of the World Peace Foundation that Mr. Capen went on his journey around the world.

Edwin D. Mead is also one of the great pioneers in America's earnest effort that has worked incessantly for international peace. He was at one of the peace congresses in Europe when the war broke out. He has been one of the prime movers of the Boston Peace Society, and president of the organization. He has attended most of the important congresses in this country and in Europe. It was also through his efforts that a branch of the National Peace Movement was founded in Chicago.