A \ Vy\ \ 
 
 The Church 
 
 and 
 
 International Peace 
 
 A Series of Papers by the Trustees of 
 THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 
 
 V 
 
 The Way to Disarm: 
 
 A Practical Proposal 
 
 by 
 
 Hamilton Holt 
 
 THE CHURCH PEACE UNION 
 70 Fifth Avenue 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
The Church and International Peace 
 
 A uniform series of papers by the Trustees of The 
 Church Peace Union, treating the problems of war and 
 peace from the point of view of religion, and especially 
 emphasizing the message the Church should have for the 
 world in this time of war. 
 
 ALREADY PUBLISHED 
 
 1. The Cause of the War, by Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D. 
 
 2. The Midnight Cry, by Rt. Rev. David H. Greer, D.D. 
 
 3. The Scourge of Militarism, by Rev. Peter Ainslie, D.D. 
 
 4. Europe’s War, America’s Warning, by Rev. Charles S. Mac- 
 
 farland, Ph.D. 
 
 5. The Way to Disarm, by Hamilton Holt. 
 
 IN PREPARATION 
 
 1. The Breakdown of Civilization, by Rev. William Pierson Mer¬ 
 
 rill, D.D. 
 
 2. After the War—^What? by Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. 
 
 3. Our Grounds of Hope, by Rt. Rev. William Lawrence, D.D. 
 
 4. The United Church and the Terms of Peace, by Rev. Frederick 
 
 Lynch, D.D. 
 
 5. The Church’s Mission as to War and Peace, by Rev. Junius B. 
 
 Remensnyder, D.D. 
 
 6. Adequate Armaments, by Prof. William I. Hull. 
 
The Way to Disarm: A Practical Proposal 
 
 By Hamilton Holt 
 Editor of The Independent 
 
 In his famous essay, Perpetual Peace, published in 1795, 
 Emmanuel Kiant, perhaps the greatest intellect the world has 
 ever produced, declared that we never can have universal 
 peace until the world is politically organized and it will never 
 be possible to organize the world politically until the people, 
 not the kings, rule. And he added that the peoples of the 
 earth must cultivate and attain the spirit of hospitality and 
 good will towards all races and nations. 
 
 If this be the true philosophy of peace, then when the 
 Great War is over, and the stricken sobered peoples set about 
 to rear a new civilization on the ashes of the old, they cannot 
 hope to abolish war unless they are prepared to extend de¬ 
 mocracy everywhere, to banish hatred from their hearts, and 
 to organize the international realm on a basis of law rather 
 than force. 
 
 The questions of the extension of democracy and the 
 cultivation of benevolence are domestic ones. They can 
 hardly be brought about by joint action of the nations. World 
 organization and disarmament, however, can be provided for 
 in the terms of peace or by international agreement there¬ 
 after. As the United States seems destined to play an im¬ 
 portant part in the great reconstruction at the end of the 
 war, this is perhaps the most important question now before 
 American statesmanship. 
 
 L.\W OR WAR 
 
 The only two powers that ever have governed or ever 
 
 3 
 
can govern human beings are reason and force—law and war. 
 If we do not have the one we must have the other. 
 
 The peace movement is the process of substituting law 
 for war. Peace follows justice, justice follows law, law fol¬ 
 lows political organization. The world has already achieved 
 peace, through justice, law and political organization in ham¬ 
 lets, towns, cities, states and even in the forty-six sovereign 
 civilized nations of the world. But in that international realm 
 
 I 
 
 over and above each nation, in which each nation is equally 
 sovereign, the only final way for a nation to secure its rights 
 is by the use of force. Force, therefore—or war as it is 
 called when exerted by a nation against another nation—is 
 at present the only final method of settling international difler- 
 ences. In other words, the nations are in that state of civili¬ 
 zation to-day where, without a qualm, they claim the right to 
 settle their disputes in a manner which they would actually 
 put their own subjects to death for imitating. The peace 
 problem, then, is nothing but the problem of finding ways and 
 means of doing between the nations what has already been 
 done within the nations. International law follows private 
 law. The “United Nations” follow the United States. 
 
 At present international law has reached the same state 
 of development that private law reached in the tenth century. 
 Professor T. J. Lawrence (in his essay The Evolution of 
 Peace) distinguishes four stages in the evolution of private 
 law: 
 
 1. Kinship is the sole bond; revenge and retaliation are 
 unchecked, there being no authority whatever. 
 
 2. Organization is found an advantage and tribes under 
 a chief subdue undisciplined hordes. The right of private 
 vengeance within the tribe is regulated but not forbidden. 
 
 3. Courts of justice exist side by side with a limited right 
 of vengeance. 
 
 4. Private war is abolished, all disputes being settled by 
 the courts. 
 
 It is evident that in international relations we are enter¬ 
 ing into the third stage, because the nations have already 
 
 4 
 
created an international tribunal which exists side by side 
 with the right of self-redress or war. 
 
 LIKE THE AMERICAN CONFEDERATION 
 
 Furthermore, a careful study of the formation of the 
 thirteen American colonies from separate states into our pres¬ 
 ent compact Union discloses the fact that the nations to-day 
 are in the same stage of development that the American 
 colonies were about the time of their first confederation. As 
 the United States came into existence by the establishment 
 of the Articles of Confederation and the Continental Congress, 
 so the “United Nations” came into existence by the estab¬ 
 lishment of The Hague Court and the recurring Hague Con¬ 
 ferences; The Hague Court being the promise of the Supreme 
 Court of the world and The Hague Conferences being the 
 prophecy of the parliament of man. We may look with con¬ 
 fidence, therefore, to a future in which the world will have an 
 established court with jurisdiction over all questions, self- 
 governing conferences with power to legislate on all affairs of 
 common concern, and an executive power of some form to 
 carry on the decrees of both. To deny this is to ignore all 
 the analogies of private law and the whole trend of the 
 world’s political history since the Declaration of Independ¬ 
 ence. As Secretary of State Knox said not long ago: 
 
 “We have reached a point when it is evident that the future 
 holds in store a time when war shall cease, when the nations 
 of the world shall realize a federation as real and vital as 
 that now subsisting between the component parts of a single 
 state.” 
 
 It would be difficult to recall a more far-visioned state¬ 
 ment than this emanating from the chancellery of a great state. 
 It means nothing less than that the age-long dreams of the 
 poets, the prophets and the philosophers have at last entered 
 the realms of practical statesmanship. 
 
 But now the Great War has come upon us. “When the 
 storm is spent and the desolation is complete; when the flower 
 of the manhood of Europe has past into eternal night; when 
 
 5 
 
famine and pestilence have taken their tithe of childhood and 
 age/’ will then the exhausted and beggared that live on be 
 able to undertake the task of establishing that World Govern¬ 
 ment which the historian Freeman has called “the most 
 finished and the most artificial production of political in¬ 
 genuity” ? 
 
 THE HAGUE OR THE LEAGUE OF PEACE 
 
 If it can be done at all it can only be done in one of 
 two ways. 
 
 First. By building on the foundations already laid at 
 The Hague, the Federation of the World. 
 
 Second. By establishing a great Confederation or League 
 of Peace, composed of those few nations who through political 
 evolution or the suffering of war have at last seen the light 
 and are ready here and now to disarm. 
 
 It is obvious that the time is scarcely ripe for voluntary 
 and universal disarmament by joint agreemient. There are too 
 many medieval-minded nations still in existence. The Federa¬ 
 tion of the World miust still be a dream for many years to 
 come. 
 
 The immediate establishment of a League of Peace, how¬ 
 ever, would in fact constitute a first step toward world federa¬ 
 tion and does not offer insuperable difficulties. The idea of 
 a League of Peace is not novel. All federal governments and 
 confederations of governments, both ancient and modern, are 
 essentially leagues of peace, even though they may have func¬ 
 tions to perform which often lead directly to w^ar. 
 
 The ancient Achaian League of Greece, the Confederation 
 of Swiss Cantons, the United Provinces of The Netherlands, 
 the United States of America, and the Commonwealth of Aus¬ 
 tralia are the most nearly perfect systems of federated gov¬ 
 ernments known to history. Less significant, but none the 
 less interesting to students of government, are the Latin 
 League of thirty cities, the Hanseatic League, the Holy Alli¬ 
 ance, and in modern times, the German Confederation. Even 
 the recent Concert of Europe was a more or less inchoate 
 
 (1 
 
League of Peace. The ancient leagues, as well as the modern 
 confederations, have generally been unions of offense and de¬ 
 fense. They stood ready, if they did not actually propose, 
 to use their common forces to compel outside states to obey 
 their will. Thus they were as frequently leagues of oppression 
 as leagues of peace. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF FORCE 
 
 The problem of the League of Peace is therefore the 
 problem of the use of force. Force internationally expressed 
 is measured in armaments. The chief discussion which has 
 been waged for the past decade between the pacifists and 
 militarists has been over the question of armaments. The 
 militarists claim that armaments insure national safety. The 
 pacifists declare they inevitably lead to war. Both disputants 
 insist that the present war furnishes irrefutable proof of their 
 contentions. 
 
 As is usual in cases of this kind the shield has two sides. 
 The confusion has arisen from a failure to recognize the 
 threefold function of force: 
 
 1. Force used for the maintenance of order—police force. 
 
 2. Force used for attack—aggression. 
 
 3. Force used to neutralize aggression—defense. 
 
 Police force is almost wholly good. 
 
 Offense is almost wholly bad. 
 
 Defense is a necessary evil, and exists simply to neutralize 
 force employed for aggression. 
 
 The problem of the peace movement is how to abolish the 
 use of force for aggression, and yet to maintain it for police 
 purposes. Force for defense will of course automatically 
 cease when force for aggression is abolished. 
 
 The chief problem then of a League of Peace is this: 
 Shall the members of the League “not only keep the peace 
 themselves, but prevent by force if necessary its being broken 
 by others,” as ex-President Roosevelt suggested in his Nobef 
 Peace Address delivered at Christiania, May 5, 1910? Or 
 
 7 
 
shall its force be exercised only within its membership and 
 thus be on the side of law and order and never on the side 
 of arbitrary will or tyranny? Or shall it never be used at all? 
 Whichever one of these conceptions finally prevails the Great 
 War has conclusively demonstrated that as long as War Lords 
 exist defensive force must be maintained. Hence the League 
 must be prepared to use force against any nations which will 
 not forswear force. Nevertheless a formula must be devised 
 for disarmament. For unless it is a law of nature that war 
 is to consume all the fruits of progress disarmament some how 
 and some way must take place. How then can the mainte¬ 
 nance of a force for defense and police power be reconciled 
 with the theory of disarmament? 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE LEAGUE 
 
 In this way: Let the League of Peace be formed on the 
 following five principles: 
 
 First. The nations of the League shall mutually agree 
 to respect and guarantee the territory and sovereignty of each 
 other. 
 
 Second. All questions that cannot be settled by di¬ 
 plomacy shall be arbitrated. 
 
 Third. The nations of the League shall provide a periodi¬ 
 cal assembly to make all rules to become law unless vetoed 
 by a nation within a stated period. 
 
 Fourth. The nations shall disarm to the point where the 
 combined forces of the League shall be a certain per cent 
 higher than those of the most heavily armed nation or alli¬ 
 ance outside of the League- Detailed rules for this pro rata 
 disarmament shall be formulated by the Assembly. 
 
 Fifth. Any member of the League shall have the right to 
 withdraw on due notice, or may be expelled by the unani¬ 
 mous vote of the others. 
 
 The advantages that a nation would gain in becoming a 
 member of such a league are manifest. The risk of war 
 would be eliminated within the League. Obviously the only 
 .things that are vital to a nation are its land and its independ- 
 
 8 
 
ence. Since each nation in the League will have pledged itself 
 to respect and guarantee the territory and the sovereignty of 
 every other, a refusal to do so will logically lead to compulsion 
 by the other members of the League or expulsion from the 
 League. Thus every vital question will be automatically re¬ 
 served from both war and arbitration while good faith lasts. 
 All other questions are of secondary importance and can 
 readily be arbitrated. 
 
 By the establishment of a periodical assembly a method 
 would be devised whereby the members of the League could 
 develop their common intercourse and interests as far and as 
 fast as they could unanimously agree upon ways and means. 
 As any law could be vetoed by a single nation, no nation could 
 have any fear that it would be coerced against its will by a 
 majority vote of the other nations. By such an assembly the 
 League might in time agree to reduce tariffs and postal rates 
 and in a thousand other ways promote commerce and comity 
 among its members. 
 
 As a final safeguard against coercion by the other mem¬ 
 bers of the League, each member will have the right of seces¬ 
 sion on due notice. This would prevent civil war within the 
 League. The right of expulsion by the majority will prevent 
 one nation by its veto j>ower indefinitely blocking all progress 
 of the League. 
 
 THE SCRAP OF PAPER 
 
 But it will be said that all these agreements will have no 
 binding effect in a crisis. A covenant is a mere “scrap of 
 paper” whose provisions will be violated by the first nation 
 which fancies it is its interest to do so. In order to show that 
 their faith is backed up by deeds, however, the nations on enter¬ 
 ing the League agree to disarm to a little above the danger 
 point. This is the real proof of their conversion to the peace 
 idea. 
 
 It will be noticed that no attempt is made to define how 
 the force of the League shall be exerted- This is left for the 
 decision of the Assembly of the League. The suggestion that 
 
 9 
 
'‘the nation shall disarm to the point where the combined 
 forces of the League shall be a certain per cent higher than 
 those of the most heavily armed nation or alliance outside 
 the League,” implies that the forces of the League shall 
 be used for the neutralization of the aggressive force of 
 nations outside the League—that is, for defense. But shall 
 not the force of the League be also used as police power, 
 that is, aggressively to maintain international law and order? 
 A League with power to exert its will without any constitu¬ 
 tional limitations might easily become a League of Oppression. 
 It would have the right to be judge and sheriff in its own 
 cause, a violation of the first principles of justice. 
 
 It would not be over-sanguine to expect that the As¬ 
 sembly of the League would vote that the armaments of the 
 League should be brought into regular and concerted action 
 for compelling obedience to the judicial decisions of the Court 
 of the League both among members of the League and those 
 outside who have agreed to this method of settling their dis¬ 
 putes. It may even be anticipated that the force of the League 
 will be used to assist one of the members of the League in 
 a controversy with a nation outside the League that has 
 not previously agreed to resort to arbitration and that refuses 
 so to agree upon request. Such an agreement would tend 
 ^to enthrone law and suppress arbitrary action. Entering a 
 League with such a policy would not subject the United States 
 to the necessity of waging war thru the erroneous action of 
 its allies in an “entangling alliance,” but only to extend the 
 reign of law. This is the fundamental purpose of our Govern¬ 
 ment and perhaps the United States is now ready to go thus 
 far. 
 
 Thus the nations which join the League will enjoy all the 
 economic and political advantages which come from mutual 
 co-operation and the extension of international friendship and 
 at the same time will be protected by an adequate force against 
 the aggressive force of the greatest nation or alliance outside 
 the League. The League therefore reconciles the demand of 
 the pacifists for the limitation of armaments and eventual dis- 
 
 lO 
 
armament and the demand of the militarists for the protection 
 that armament affords. Above all the establishment of such 
 a league will give the liberal parties in the nations outside the 
 League an issue on which they can attack their governments 
 so as sooner or later to force them to apply to the League 
 for membership. As each one enters there will be another 
 pro rata reduction of the military forces of the League down 
 to the armfament of the next most powerful nation or alliance 
 outside it; until finally the whole world is federated in a 
 brotherhood of universal peace and armies and navies are re¬ 
 duced to an international police force. 
 
 This is the plan for a League of Peace. Is the hour about 
 to strike when it can be realized? If only the United States, 
 France and England would lead in its formation, Belgium, 
 Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Argentina, 
 Brazil, Chile and others might perhaps join. Even if Russia 
 and Germany and Japan and Italy stayed out, the League 
 would still be powerful and large enough to begin with every 
 auspicious hope of success. 
 
 THE DESTINY OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 It would seem to be the manifest destinv of the United 
 States to lead in the establishment of such a league. The 
 United States is the world in miniature. The United States 
 is the greatest league of peace known to history. The United 
 States is a demonstration to the world that all the races and 
 peoples of the earth can live in peace under one form of gov¬ 
 ernment, and its chief value to civilization is a demonstration 
 of what this form of government is. 
 
 Prior to the formation “of a more perfect union" our 
 original thirteen states were united in a confederacy strikingly 
 similar to that now proposed on an international scale- They 
 were obliged by the articles of this confederacy to respect 
 each other’s territory and sovereignty, to arbitrate all ques¬ 
 tions among themselves, to assist each other against any 
 foreign foe, not to engage in war unless called upon by the 
 confederation to do so or actually invaded by a foreign foe, 
 
and not to maintain armed forces in excess of the strength 
 fixed for each state by all the states in congress assembled. 
 
 It is notable that security against aggression from states 
 inside or outside the American Union accompanied the agree¬ 
 ment to limit armaments. Thus danger of war and size of 
 armaments were decreased contemporaneously. 
 
 It is also notable that from the birth of the Republic to 
 this hour every President of the United States has advocated 
 peace through justice. From the first great Virginian to the 
 last great Virginian, all have abhorred what Thomas Jefferson 
 called “the greatest scourge of mankind.” 
 
 When the Great War is over and the United States is 
 called upon to lead the nations in reconstructing a new order 
 of civilization, why might not Woodrow Wilson do on a world 
 scale something similar to what George Washington did on a 
 continental scale? 
 
 Stranger things than this have happened in history. Let 
 us add to the Declaration of Independence a Declaration of 
 Interdependence. 
 
A FEW COMMENTS ON MR. HOLT’S PROPOSAL 
 
 John Bassett Moore 
 
 Formerly Councillor of the Department of State 
 
 The utmost space that could be allotted to a mere com¬ 
 ment on your editorial, “The Way to Disarm: A Practical 
 Proposal,” would not suffice for the expression of a full and 
 reasoned opinion upon that very interesting and able paper. 
 The tendency and general objective are altogether commend¬ 
 able; the principle is sound. It is possible, however, that some 
 of the passages in your argument may be interpreted more 
 broadly than perhaps was intended. 
 
 You remark: 
 
 “Peace follows justice, justice follows law, law follows 
 political organization .... The world has already achieved 
 peace thru justice, law and political organization in hamlets, 
 towns, cities, states and even in the forty-six sovereign civilized 
 
 nations of the world.The peace problem, then, is nothing 
 
 but the problem of finding ways and means of doing between 
 the nations what has already been done within the nations.” 
 
 If this means that political organization and the regular 
 administration of justice have, by creating legal peace within 
 the state, diminished the use of violence and tended to pre¬ 
 vent war, we all must concur; but, if we are asked to go far¬ 
 ther, and to assume that the imposition upon nations of a 
 central authority or their entrance into a league will, besides 
 creating legal peace, efficaciously assure the maintenance of 
 actual peace, we ought, before answering, to reckon with cer¬ 
 tain obvious facts. Altho municipal law furnishes within the 
 state the most ample safeguards of organization, conditions 
 not of legal but of actual warfare, such as the killing of men, 
 the destruction of property and the prostration of legal ad¬ 
 ministration, now and then disturb our hamlets, towns, cities 
 and states. In reality, when we come to consider war and 
 
 13 
 
peace, we are brought face to face with the sober fact that the 
 tendency of large masses of men (as lately illustrated, shall 
 we say, in the progressive community of Colorado and the 
 ancient community of Ulster?) to oppose the law, whether 
 because they believe it to be unjust, because they reject its 
 official interpretation, or because they wish to eflfect some 
 quick or radical change, is a human element of fundamental 
 importance, which has caused civil wars to occur during the 
 past century with remarkable frequency. Of these perhaps 
 the most serious is that which befell our own “League of 
 Peace”—a conflict generally believed to have been accelerated 
 by a judicial decision and unquestionably precipitated at a 
 moment when we had substantially neither army nor navy. 
 Only last year we recognized with many congratulatory phrases 
 the Republic of China, in whose origin and maintenance, just 
 as in the case of many other revolutions, military force has 
 been an appreciable factor. The same tendency or impulse of 
 large masses of men to gain their ends by force likewise pro¬ 
 duces international wars. 
 
 No doubt one of the best assurances against the indul¬ 
 gence of this propensity is a regulated governmental control, 
 and for this reason I applaud your advocacy of a practical 
 step toward international federation for the attainment of 
 that end, without intending, however, to countenance the sup¬ 
 position that we may slumber upon any contrivance, parlia¬ 
 mentary, judicial or otherwise, municipal or international, 
 as an all-sufficient safeguard against outbreaks of violence- 
 In a small volume which I published two years ago I exprest 
 my profound conviction, which reflection and subsequent 
 events have served only to confirm, that questions of war and 
 of peace must continue chiefly to depend “upon the cultivation 
 of the spirit and habit of justice, of self-control, of reciprocal 
 recognition of rights and of forbearence,” and that “outside 
 the state, just as within the state, peace will be permanently 
 preserved only by carrying into our dealings one with another 
 the sentiment of fraternity and the spirit of conciliation.” 
 
 New York City. 
 
 14 
 
David Starr Jordan 
 
 Chancellor of Leland Stanford Jr. University 
 
 I have read with great interest and sympathy Mr. Holt’s 
 proposition of a League of Peace against war and against ar¬ 
 mament. No one can tell what the future will bring, but it is 
 not impossible that some such scheme will come within the 
 range of practicable politics. 
 
 The people of the civilized world have been roughly 
 divided into two classes, the Imperialists and the Democrats— 
 those who believe that force is the foundation of government, 
 and those who belive that the government should be a form 
 of co-operation of the people concerned. Both classes are 
 represented in every civilized nation, with a large residuum of 
 a third class, those who take what comes and ask no questions, 
 becoming thereby the allies or the tools of the first of these 
 groups. 
 
 In the movement of history, the second class has grown 
 steadily at the expense of the third, for popular education 
 means democracy. The voice of the people is potent in the 
 nations of western Europe, and it is supprest only for a time 
 in the others. 
 
 In the imperial nations the man is, in theory, the chattel 
 of the state. The existence and the righteousness of privilege 
 is taken as a matter of course, for authority which does not 
 spring from the people must arise thru privilege. If govern¬ 
 ment rests on force as the expression of imperial will, this 
 force must be measured in terms of armies. If armies are the 
 foundations of government, they must be inherently righteous 
 and their activities a necessary function of the state. The 
 only function of an army is war. Hence a state founded on 
 imperial will must be at war, active or passive, all the time. 
 
 Passive war is the threat of active war. By such threat, 
 the will of the imperial state is enforced on all other states, 
 which thru weakness, prudence or fear, may fail to assert 
 themselves. And as the essential features of the imperial 
 state is the absence of the checks and limitations, the con- 
 
dition of war may be reached suddenly, almost automatically, 
 if unexpected resistance should arise. 
 
 The philosophy of the imperial state has been in recent 
 years brilliantly expounded by the historian, von Treitschke, 
 and by his many recent echoes and dilutions. The resultant 
 action finds recently cold-blooded exposition in General Von 
 Bemhardi, and in hundreds of his colleagues in the prop¬ 
 aganda of Pan-Germanism. The events of the last two 
 months, from the attempted seizure of Servia to the desecra¬ 
 tion of Rheims, are all part of a program pre-arranged on the 
 theory of the right of imperial overlordship, and of the ex¬ 
 pansion of Germanic culture thru the force of German military 
 efficiency- 
 
 In the democratic nation, the government exists for the 
 needs of the people concerned. The people possess the govern¬ 
 ment and whatever machiner}", temporary or permanent, the 
 government may find necessary for its own continuation of 
 security. A democracy cannot consistently make war, either 
 active or passive Avar, except in self-defense, against the 
 menace of uncontrolled neighbors. It cannot exult in war 
 for war’s sake, nor can it cringe before a special military 
 caste, privileged above other citizens. 
 
 It is conceivable that, out of the havoc of the present 
 war, there may arise conditions favorable for the establish¬ 
 ment of a League of Peace. This hopeful possibility has been 
 admirably stated by Mr. Holt. It is the duty of every friend 
 of democracy to work for all movements which favor per¬ 
 manent peace. 
 
 There are many side currents in the present war, for no 
 War was ever free—even at its inception—from selfish in¬ 
 fluences. But in its essence it has become a revolt against the 
 rule of force, a rebellion against all divine right of kings or of 
 armies, of all devices designed to uphold privilege against 
 freedom and of personal will over law. 
 
 It was once said that our “Union could not endure half 
 slave, half free.’’ In like fashion, Europe could not exist 
 half democracy, half autocracy; the divine rights of kings and 
 
 i6 
 
of armies, alongside of the diviner “right of man, the million 
 trained to be free.” 
 
 It is natural for the people who do not want war, neither 
 active war nor passive war, to combine against those who do. 
 Their formal union for peace may mark the beginning of the 
 federation of Europe, for the benefit of Europe’s own people. 
 In such a federation Germany should be an honored member 
 whenever the time shall come for the German people to take 
 charge of the administration of Germany. 
 
 Stanford University 
 
 Theodore Marburg 
 
 Formerly United States Minister to Belgium 
 
 The world will be especially ripe for Mr. Holt’s sugges¬ 
 tion of a League of Peace after the present disastrous war. 
 Unfortunately it seems that each generation must learn anew 
 its lesson of war. After the present struggle so many lands 
 will have had that bitter experience that we may naturally 
 look for a long era of peace such as followed the protracted 
 and widespread Napoleonic wars. But it is while the picture 
 of this cataclysm is still throbbing in the minds of men that 
 action should be had on the subject of setting up institutions 
 which promise to make wars more difficult. Mr. Holt has 
 aptly pointed out that “Peace follows justice, justice follows 
 law and law follows political organization.” It is therefore 
 organization of various kinds for which the world should strive 
 when this awful contest is stilled. His suggestion of a group 
 of nations organized for peace might prove fruitful if the 
 group in question should represent a combined power sufficient 
 to overawe the lawlessly inclined. 
 
 When, after blocking in various ways the movement for the 
 better organization of the society of nations, Germany dis¬ 
 dainfully brushed aside Mr. Churchill’s proposal for a “naval 
 holiday,” a suggestion which brought forth a resolution of 
 hearty approval from the Congress of the LInited States and 
 with which other powers sympathized, some of us began to 
 
 17 
 
feel that perhaps the only way to stop militarism and the ar¬ 
 mament craze was for the rest of the world to combine against 
 Germany and if necessary overthrow the system by over¬ 
 throwing the bureaucracy and the military class of Germany. 
 It is this task of putting down the law-breaker which England 
 and her allies have now set themselves. 
 
 England saved Belgium in 1870 by notifying both France 
 and Germany that she would take up arms against the country 
 that violated Belgium’s neutrality. When, in response to Eng¬ 
 land’s inquiry at the beginning of the present struggle, France 
 declared her intention to respect that neutrality and Germany 
 declined to do so, England declared war on Germany. Where 
 would English honor be and where the chivalry of the world 
 if Germany had been suffered to trample Belgium to death 
 without a protest? 
 
 If we could secure a promise now from the allies. Great 
 Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Belgium and Servia, to join 
 a League of Peace, formed somewhat on the lines indicated by 
 Mr. Holt, as a condition precedent to our doing what we ought 
 to do anyway, namely, vent our righteous indignation at the 
 way in which Germany has outraged Belgium and has trampled 
 under foot the law of nations and the moral law alike, we 
 should be accomplishing the double object of helping to crush 
 militarism and of setting up an institution which might bring 
 about a marked decline of war. 
 
 Are we not again at a turning point in history? and will 
 it not be for good or accentuated evil accordingly as the 
 right-minded nations see their duty? 
 
 Baltimore^ Maryland 
 
 Richard Olney 
 Formerly Secretary of State 
 
 The disarmament required of the members of the sug¬ 
 gested League of Peace must, I think, be a condition of the 
 League’s becoming operative at all. The parties to it will be 
 nations armed and equipped for war against all enemies. Their 
 
 i8 
 
good faith as Leaguers should be evidenced by their simulta¬ 
 neous disarming as required by the provisions of the League. 
 They can do so by disposing of all excessive armament, either 
 to the League itself or in some other proper and effective 
 method. They v^ill do so, of course, only if first satisfied that 
 their action will not imperil national safety. 
 
 By what process will they reach a conclusion on that 
 point? They will no doubt give due effect to logic and theo¬ 
 retical reasoning. But the governing influence, I think, will 
 be the practical results shown by the operation of that inter¬ 
 national League of Peace which in its nature and scope comes 
 nearest to the proposed League. That League is found in the 
 Constitution of the United States, a League universally deemed 
 to be the best devised and the most important and successful of 
 all similar leagues. It has been in operation for a century and a 
 quarter. What is its record as a preventive of war? It did 
 not prevent the war of secession, the longest and bloodiest 
 of civil wars- On the other hand, but for the Constitution 
 the history of this country since 1789 would probably have 
 been a continuous chronicle of incessant wars. 
 
 But a Constitution, or international League of Peace, 
 which, during 125 years has caused the parties to it to be at 
 peace with one another with a single exception, has a right, 
 even tho that exception be a momentous one, to be deemed 
 a most powerful conservator of international peace. On the 
 whole, therefore, the merit of your proposal is affirmed by the 
 experience of the people of the United States under their 
 national Constitution—not as being a certain preventive of war 
 but as clearly tending in that direction. As compared with 
 the League of Peace established by our national Constitution, 
 a League embracing all the great powers of the world presents 
 enormous difficulties. But enormous difficulties are not neces¬ 
 sarily insuperable, and it is an additional merit of your pro¬ 
 posal that, leaving the realm of mere aspirations and dreams, 
 it presents something definite and tangible as a goal which 
 tlie peace-lovers of all countries may unite in seeking to reach. 
 
 Boston, Massachusetts 
 
 ig 
 
James Grover McDonald 
 Assistant Professor of European History 
 
 May I express to you my complete agreement with your 
 recent article, “The Way to Disarm”? The world should 
 be made to see that the four steps in the evolution of private 
 law, which have been so well pointed out by Professor Law¬ 
 rence, have in a rudimentary manner been exactly paralleled 
 in the development of international law. With this parallel 
 in mind, public opinion will understand that international 
 peace is not a hopeless ideal, but rather the natural result of a 
 long development. With this understanding as a basis, paci¬ 
 fists should, following your lead, boldly advocate the creation 
 of governmental machinery which will make possible the en¬ 
 forcement of peace among nations. Too much has been said 
 and written about the horrors of war, too little has been done 
 toward the working out of definite and tangible international 
 institutions. Your suggestion for a League of Peace is an ad¬ 
 mirable example of the kind of constructive and positive sug¬ 
 gestion which is so badly needed. 
 
 Indiana University. 
 
 Park Benjamin 
 
 Author of '‘The History of the U. S. Naval Acadenty^^ 
 
 Mr. Holt’s thesis seems to be that the time has gone by 
 when any individual member of the family of nations should 
 wield a military power equal to the aggregate military powers 
 of at least any two other members, and that such preponder¬ 
 ating power should hereafter be lodged in all the members 
 unitedly or in a collection of as many of them as can be got 
 to unite. In other words—to use current Wall Street slang— 
 he wants to “syndicate the proposition.” This is certainly con¬ 
 structive and should be the approved plan until somebody can 
 suggest something better. From a military viewpoint, the 
 syndicate scheme would be the most economical of all, since 
 it would save the multiplication of enormously expensive ex- 
 
periments, repeated over and over again by individual nations, 
 and concentrate all into a series of crucial tests worked out 
 to the end. Things like the present battleship, which are not 
 true evolutionary products and which continue only by a sort 
 of inertia, would very speedily be improved out of existence; 
 and it would not be necessary, as now, to wait for a war to 
 find out what is an effective weapon and what is not- 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Caspar C. Goodrich 
 
 Rear Admiral United States Navy, Retired 
 
 Some years ago, in The Nineteenth Century and After, 
 I advocated in International Police, since back of all court 
 judgments must be the strong arm of the state, something now 
 lacking at The Hague. Your League of Peace offers a possible 
 solution of the problem of how to raise and maintain such an 
 International Police. I think you will find, in this case, that 
 “Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute.” Let three, say, of the 
 greater powers become charter members and other powers, 
 great and small, will hasten to join. Can you secure those 
 jthree? There is the crux of the matter. I hope you can, for 
 if you do, the trick will be turned. 
 
 Pornfret, Conn. 
 
 George A. Plimpton 
 President of Ginn & Company 
 
 The League of Peace seems to me an excellent suggestion. 
 We must follow the trend of evolution. The fact that peace 
 has been secured within individual countries warrants the be¬ 
 lief that the next step will be peace between these countries, 
 and the methods that have brought this internal peace must 
 be adopted to obtain international peace. I do not think you 
 exaggerate the importance of the part which the United States 
 will play in the final solution of the problem. Our efforts will 
 surely be disinterested. 
 
 N^w York City, 
 
 21 
 
William I. Hull 
 
 Author of "The Tzvo Hague Conferences' 
 
 Mr. Holt’s article renders two signal services to the dis¬ 
 cussion of the great problem of international peace. First— 
 it emphasizes the fact of fundamental importance that it is 
 primarily a political problem, namely, the organization of a 
 world federation and the substitution of law for force. Second 
 —it emphasizes the competitive increase of armaments as 
 one of the prime causes of the present war, and proposes a 
 concrete method of reducing national armaments to a mini¬ 
 mum. 
 
 As to practical carrying out of the plan suggested by him, 
 T would urge that the League shall be agreed upon by all of 
 the nations of the third Hague Conference and shall go into 
 effect when ratified by three-fourths of the governments re¬ 
 presented at that conference. This amendment would be in line 
 with the precedent set in the adoption of the United States 
 Constitution, and would have the great advantage of being 
 based upon the twentieth century principle of a world-wide 
 agreement and not upon the principle of partial alliances which 
 has caused so much trouble in the past and which is the other 
 prime cause (together with the competitive increase in arma¬ 
 ments) of the present war. 
 
 Swarthmore, Penn. 
 
 Samuel Bowles 
 
 Editor of the Springfield Republican 
 
 I have read with interest, sympathy and approval your 
 plan for an international League of Peace. 
 
 Springfield, Mass. 
 
 William H. Short 
 
 Secretary of the Nezv York Peace Society 
 
 I believe that your article will attract widespread and 
 favorable attention. In those far off times before the begin- 
 
ning of the Great War in August, 191^1—far ofif as measured 
 by the movement of thought on international affairs—we were 
 told by those best acquainted with the governing classes of 
 Europe, that such things as your article contains must not be 
 said. We were assured that the nations of Europe were con¬ 
 trolled by governing castes which did not want to hand over 
 any of their perogatives to an international government. We 
 were asked to draw a veil over the eyes of our seers and to 
 curb the enthusiasm of our orators. We were assured that 
 the unwillingness of Europe to have a meeting of the third 
 Hague Peace Conference take place was due to the fact that 
 they had been offended and had taken fright at the rash sug¬ 
 gestions which had come to them from America looking toward 
 the establishment of a world federation for peace. The dip¬ 
 lomats were, no doubt, right at that time. A new situation, 
 however, now exists, or will exist before the end of this awful 
 war, in which projects hitherto impossible of accomplishment 
 may prove to be within the realm of practical politics. We 
 are, therefore, permitted to hope that at no distant day the 
 nations may be ready to adopt the simple, practical and alto¬ 
 gether desirable plan you propose for guaranteeing the posses¬ 
 sions and the right of the justice-loving nations by means of a 
 non-burdensome, non-militaristic, international police. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 John L. Harris 
 
 President of the Board of Education 
 
 The able and timely editorial, “The Way to Disarm,” has 
 given new vigor to the peace movement and has again aroused 
 to action many discouraged peace advocates. 
 
 Kelso, Wash. 
 
 Topeka State Journal 
 
 The proposal made by Mr. Holt is a distinctive and 
 definite one, where generalities have been the order before, 
 and one that merits the careful consideration of the peace pro¬ 
 tagonists. He has done a valuable service in its presentation. 
 
 23 
 
New York Evening Post 
 
 That the world should go on, after the appalling ex¬ 
 periences which it is now undergoing, upon the old basis of 
 mere blind competition in preparedness for general destruc¬ 
 tion, is a prospect to which no thinking mind can reconcile 
 itself. When the bloodshed and devastation come to an end, 
 the best thought in every nation must be centered upon the 
 possibilities of remedy. And it is not improbable that it will 
 be along some such lines as those indicated by Mr. Holt that 
 the remedy will be sought. 
 
 Christian Science Monitor 
 
 No doubt, like the federation of the colonies that shaped 
 the first compact under which the United States began 
 national existence, the looseness of such a league would in time 
 force action that would insure a more closely knit world- 
 state pledged to peace. The point to be noted now is that, as 
 a result of the present war, statesmen and publicists in all 
 countries begin to talk about the end of militarism and about 
 making a peace for peace’s sake, and on a basis that will 
 make another great martial conflict impossible. An alliance 
 to conserve world stability, commercial prosperity and na¬ 
 tional fraternity comes to be talked of as the successor of 
 recent triple alliances and ententes. Mr. Holt is using his 
 liberty as a thinker to get his plan before the public; and for 
 his enterprise and zeal deserves praise. 
 
 St. Joseph Nezvs 
 
 In the Independent, Hamilton Holt has a suggestion for 
 establishing permanent peace after the present European war 
 shall have been ended. 
 
 One is reminded of Tennyson’s dream in Locksley Hall of 
 
 The parliament of man, 
 
 The federation of the world. 
 
 However, it is of dreams that all progress comes and who 
 can say that the “League of Peace” may not come to pass 
 
 24 
 
some day. That it may, and soon, is the prayer of all 
 Americans. 
 
 Pittsburgh Post 
 
 In The Independent, Hamilton Holt has a suggestion for 
 Holt has an article entitled, ‘‘How to Disarm.” It is worth 
 serious attention now, and the time may arrive, after this war’s 
 grand settlement day, when the nations will be eager to accept 
 in principle the ideas he advances. 
 
 Kansas City Star 
 
 Doubtless Mr. Holt’s suggestion will be dismissed as “im¬ 
 practical” by many European statesmen—perhaps by most of 
 them. But is there anything less “practical” than the work of 
 the “practical” statesmen which has resulted in the catastrophe 
 of the present war? 
 
 Syracuse Herald 
 
 If Mr. Holt’s imaginary League of Peace had existed 
 three months ago, and had embraced in its membership all 
 the European powers, or the powers outside of the Triple 
 Alliance, the war would have been an impossibility. 
 
 Wilmington Every Evening 
 
 Mr. Hamilton Holt, the able editor of The Independent, 
 offers to the public a proposition of disarmament, as a pre¬ 
 lude to abandonment of wars between nations 
 
 Why not? It is evident from the bloody experiences that 
 Europe has undergone during the past few years and is still 
 groaning under, that modern war is a great slaughter, a tre¬ 
 mendous destruction of property. It is admitted, also, that 
 nations may, if they will, get along without resort to the ar¬ 
 bitrament of cruel war. 
 
 Milwaukee Journal 
 
 When Mr. Holt or any other man proposes a plan for 
 insuring world peace, he takes it out of the realm of visions 
 
 25 
 
for the future and puts it up to us now as our responsibility. 
 And history shows us that once such a question is really raised 
 it does not down until it is settled and settled rightly. 
 
 Army and Navy Journal 
 
 Proceeding from certain false premises Mr. Holt naturally 
 reaches mistaken conclusions and his scheme seems to us to 
 go to the very limit of impracticability. 
 
 26 
 
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. L 
 His Eminence, James Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore, Md. 
 Rt. Rev. David PL 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, Ill. 
 
 Hamilton Holt, 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, Ill. 
 
 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 
 
 Dean Shailer Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Chicago, Ill. 
 
 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.