THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF SACRED 
 LITERATURE 
 
 War and Religion Pamphlets 
 No. 3 
 
 3a tlfp Olnliipn SJulaJinrli- 
 ablp brtutfptt Nattona? 
 
 By 
 
 • ERNEST DEWITT BURTON 
 
 For copies of this pamphlet for distribution at three cents 
 each, address the American Institute of Sacred 
 Literature, Hyde Park, Chicago, III. 
 
 Copyright 1918 By 
 The University of Chicago 
 
IS THE GOLDEN RULE WORK- 
 ABLE BETWEEN NATIONS? 
 
 I. What the Golden Rule Means 
 between Individuals 
 
 The Golden Rule between individuals 
 is not altogether as simple of under- 
 standing and easy of application as it is 
 sometimes thought to be. If two people 
 were living alone on an isolated island 
 without other inhabitants and without 
 outside communication, for each to do 
 to the other as he wished, or ought to 
 wish, that other to act toward him, for 
 each to love his neighbor as himself, 
 would be a task easily defined, however 
 difficult it might be actually to perform. 
 But the moment we emerge into the 
 actual world, to the moral difficulty of 
 really loving our neighbor as ourselves, 
 there is added the intellectual difficulty 
 of determining what such regard for the 
 interests of others equally with our own 
 really calls for in the complicated rela- 
 tions and circumstances of life. For in 
 the actual world, just as there is no 
 isolated individual who can define what 
 is right in terms of himself only, so there 
 
is no isolated pair who can settle their 
 conduct and relations to one another 
 without regard to the interests and wel- 
 fare of other people. Each of us is a 
 member of any number of pairs and 
 larger groups, and in our attempts to do 
 to another as we would that other should 
 do to us we can never ignore or forget 
 those many others to whom the Golden 
 Rule demands that we should do as we 
 would that they should do to us. 
 
 The application of the Golden Rule 
 is not like paying a debt. If I owe you 
 fifty dollars, that is a matter between 
 you and me. I owe it without reference 
 to anyone else. Even this statement has 
 its qualifications, as in the case of the 
 bankrupt, but broadly speaking it holds. 
 The very universality of the Golden 
 Rule, on the other hand, changes its 
 character, and demands that in applying 
 it to any one person I shall not forget 
 those others to whom also it applies. I 
 cannot decide what I ought to do for 
 other people’s children without consider- 
 ing the welfare of my own children. I 
 cannot decide what to do for the public 
 without remembering my family, and 
 
 3 
 
vice versa. I cannot determine my duty 
 to the poor neighbor on my left hand 
 without remembering the equally poor 
 family on my right hand. 
 
 And this makes it evident that the 
 so-called Golden Rule is not in actual 
 application a rule at all. It is a prin- 
 ciple of wide application, and in the 
 actual relations of life, because they are 
 so complex, difficult to apply. It means 
 that in determining my conduct I shall 
 count that I am — as in fact I am 
 whether I recognize it or not — a mem- 
 ber of the community, and that the 
 welfare of every other member of the 
 community is as valuable as my own, 
 and that I shall shape my conduct 
 accordingly. 
 
 Negatively, it means that I shall 
 abstain from conducting my own affairs 
 to my advantage regardless of the wel- 
 fare of others. It forbids me to engage 
 in a business which, however profitable 
 to me, is harmful to the community, or 
 to conduct a business, in itself legitimate, 
 in a way that makes it injurious to my 
 fellows. It forbids me to engage in any 
 practice or habit which, though pleasur- 
 
 4 
 
able to me, brings damage, unhappiness, 
 or ruin to another. 
 
 Positively, it means not only that I 
 shall be polite and courteous to others, 
 because I myself like to be treated with 
 courtesy, not only that I shall be a 
 gentleman alike to women and to men, 
 alike to superiors, equals, and inferiors, 
 but that I shall plan and order my whole 
 life in such way that it shall make the 
 largest contribution to the welfare of 
 the community. It demands that I 
 shall consider who are really members 
 of my community, how wide its extent 
 is, and shall take into account in my plan 
 of life all who are really fellow-members 
 with me of a community, sharers of a 
 common life. 
 
 It does not require that I shall assume 
 responsibility for the welfare of the world 
 — that is not only absurdly impossible 
 but, if it were possible, would deprive 
 others of a responsibility and of a joy 
 in it which belongs to them — but it does 
 require that I shall take my share of 
 that responsibility. 
 
 It does not demand that I shall dis- 
 regard my own welfare or happiness — 
 
 5 
 
I am to love my neighbor as myself — but 
 it means that I shall merge these in the 
 pool of the common welfare and find my 
 joy in the common joy. What king 
 worthy of the name could find happiness 
 in his own comfort and ease while his 
 people were wretched and starving ? 
 We easily recognize his duty to find his 
 happiness with, not separate from, his 
 people. The Golden Rule — or, as James 
 calls it, the Royal Law — bids each of us 
 be kingly in our attitude toward- all our 
 fellows. 
 
 The wider our relationships, the 
 broader our vision, the more complicated 
 does the problem become. Within the 
 walls of a home it is fairly easy to apply 
 the rule. Happy that family in which 
 the children under the influence of 
 parental precept and example acquire 
 almost unconsciously the habit of think- 
 ing as quickly of the other’s comfort as 
 of their own, and so prepare themselves 
 for the more diflScult applications of this 
 principle in a larger world. 
 
 In a farming community, when each 
 family has its farm and there is little 
 conscious relation to the outside world. 
 
 6 
 
ordinary conditions will call for little 
 more than a negative application of the 
 principle. No farmer will steal his 
 neighbor’s crop, nor allow his stock to 
 trample it down and destroy it. But if 
 a barn with its accumulated feed for the 
 winter is consumed by fire, or a farmer 
 falls ill and cannot plow his field or sow 
 his seed, there will be opportunity and 
 need for a positive application of the 
 principle — for a counting of a neighbor’s 
 welfare as dear as our own and foregoing 
 something of one’s own comfort for the 
 sake of his. 
 
 But the day is sure to come when the 
 farmer discovers that the group of 
 farmers is not the whole of the world, or 
 of his community. Not far away is 
 another farming community whose in- 
 terests are in part identical, in part in 
 competition with his own. There is a 
 market town with which he must trade, a 
 city to which his crop eventually goes, 
 a land across the sea which needs his 
 wheat or his beef, and whose need helps 
 to fix the price he receives for it. And 
 thus he discovers that in fact he is 
 a citizen of the world, his relations 
 
 7 
 
are international, his community not 
 local but state-wide, nation-wide, world- 
 wide. 
 
 And what is true of the farmer is true 
 of us all. We are citizens of the world, 
 and if we take into account actual rela- 
 tionships we must face the question 
 whether the Golden Rule is workable 
 between nations. 
 
 There is in fact no ground on which 
 we can urge its application between 
 individuals which will not also demand 
 that we consider how it would apply 
 between nations. The nations of the 
 world are interrelated, more and more 
 closely so. Their relations as nations 
 react most powerfully on the happiness 
 and welfare of individuals and communi- 
 ties. If these are valuable, it is impera- 
 tive that we consider how they will be 
 affected by applying to nations the 
 principle which experience has shown to 
 be most advantageous between indi- 
 viduals and smaller groups. 
 
 Let us consider then 
 
 8 
 
II. The Application of the Golden 
 Rnle between Nations 
 When at Peace 
 
 Manifestly, as between individuals, 
 this will demand: 
 
 Negatively, that a nation abstain 
 from any course of action which, however 
 much to its advantage, will work injustice 
 to a neighbor nation or inflict on it any 
 damage save only such damage as, being 
 incidental to some larger good, any 
 nation ought to be willing to suffer for 
 the common good. If my neighbor 
 owns a city lot next to mine, it may de- 
 prive me of some light which I now enjoy 
 if he builds upon it. Yet I could not 
 ask him to leave it unoccupied that I 
 might enjoy this unearned increment 
 of advantage, nor would the Golden 
 Rule demand that he should do so, since 
 to do so would be, in excess of justice, to 
 save me from a lesser loss at cost of a 
 larger one inflicted on himself. So the 
 extension of a nation’s commerce in 
 wholly legitimate ways may incidentally 
 diminish the profits of another nation. 
 Yet as the world is now organized such 
 
 9 
 
free competition could not be forbidden, 
 nor can it be regarded as contrary to the 
 Golden Rule, since it is the best method 
 which we have yet discovered of con- 
 tributing to the greatest good of the 
 greatest number. 
 
 But if this principle does not forbid 
 free competition, it manifestly does for- 
 bid a war of aggression, the denial of the 
 rights of small nations because they are 
 small, the exploitation of a backward 
 nation by a more advanced one for the 
 benefit of the latter regardless of the wel- 
 fare of the former, the invasion of a coun- 
 try by trades, like that in alcoholic 
 liquors and opium, which tend to destroy 
 its happiness and welfare. 
 
 But with a nation as with an indi- 
 vidual the Golden Rule is far more than 
 prohibitory and the positive applications 
 are at least as important as the negative. 
 If a boy in your community were sud- 
 denly left without father, mother, older 
 brother, or sister it would be a miserably 
 inadequate application of the Golden 
 Rule for the neighbors to abstain from 
 beating him, and leave him as best he 
 could to feed and clothe and educate 
 
 lO 
 
himself. The Golden Rule calls for 
 positive action. 
 
 And positively applied to nations the 
 principle demands that we organize and 
 conduct our national life, not with a view 
 to profiting as much as we can at the 
 expense of other nations, but to making 
 our largest possible contribution to the 
 world’s welfare. 
 
 This will demand a healthy life at 
 home. In a sense this is fundamental 
 to everything else. Our own people are 
 valuable. Loving one’s neighbor nation 
 as one’s self does not forbid but requires 
 that we shall consider the welfare of our 
 own people. How can a nation that is 
 indifferent to the welfare of its own 
 youth, its own laboring classes, its own 
 dependents, exert any strong and health- 
 ful influence on other nations? It will 
 neither set an example worth following — 
 and between nations as between indi- 
 viduals example is one of the most 
 effective influences — nor possess the men 
 and the resources with which to make 
 a direct contribution to the welfare 
 of other nations. The Golden Rule 
 between nations demands that each 
 
nation shall do its utmost to maintain 
 at home a pure, strong, healthful life, 
 all classes working not each for its own 
 interests but all for the interests of all. 
 Our liquor traffic, our organized vice, 
 our luxury, our social injustice, our 
 conflicts between classes, even our 
 personal vices and selfishness, are not 
 only defects of our own life, blots 
 upon our own civilization; they are 
 also violations of the Golden Rule be- 
 tween nations. 
 
 But we have not fulfilled the royal 
 law when we purify and develop our 
 own national life. The nation that lives 
 for itself, however high its ideals or 
 achievements for itself, lacks the essen- 
 tial characteristic of a Christian nation. 
 
 We must be ready to share our knowl- 
 edge with other nations, and indeed 
 make active efforts to transmit it to 
 them. This is at bottom the motive and 
 the justification of the missionary enter- 
 prise. We have, as an inheritance from 
 the past and an acquirement, a religion 
 and a morality which, however imper- 
 fectly we have embodied them in our 
 national life, are the best of our posses- 
 
sions. We have reason to know that 
 they would be good for other nations. 
 An essential element of them is the 
 altruistic spirit — the spirit of the Golden 
 Rule. We can but pass these on to 
 those who need them — not in a spirit of 
 conquest, not as something that we force 
 upon them, but as a precious posses- 
 sion which we share with them, at 
 cost to ourselves, indeed, but with a 
 reflex benefit that outweighs all possible 
 cost. 
 
 The principle that applies to the 
 Christian message, the Christian prin- 
 ciple, applies also to all our knowledge as 
 far as it can be of use to other peoples. 
 Because of this we establish schools in 
 which we teach not only the Bible and 
 theology but the physical sciences, 
 medicine, history, political economy, and 
 political science. For these too are in- 
 heritances and acquisitions which the 
 nations of the world need only less than 
 they need the Christian message itself, 
 and which we could not withhold with- 
 out infidelity to that message. 
 
 But as we carry to other nations 
 our knowledge — and by the way learn 
 
 13 
 
from them in return — it is incumbent 
 on us also, as need arises, to give them 
 our money. When San Francisco is 
 shaken by an earthquake and ravaged 
 with fire,' Boston and Chicago come in- 
 stantly to her rescue, as a generation 
 ago all the cities of the land came to the 
 rescue of Chicago and Boston. But 
 national frontiers are no longer im- 
 passable boundaries to our applications 
 of the Golden Rule. An earthquake 
 in Sicily, a terrible disaster in Halifax, 
 a famine in China call forth instant and 
 generous help. And few acts of a 
 nation are more effective in creating in- 
 ternational friendship than these speedy 
 responses to the cry of human need. In 
 a private letter received from Nova 
 Scotia soon after the Hahfax explosion 
 occur the following sentences: 
 
 I tell you, we shall never be able to say 
 enough about the wonderful help the States have 
 sent — the response was so spontaneous and 
 everything done even before it was asked for. 
 It brought tears to aU our eyes when they came 
 and told us a little of what had been done by 
 the United States on Friday night. You know 
 we have always been a trifle contemptuous of 
 the United States since the war on account of 
 their prolonged delay in entering the war. But 
 
 14 
 
never again! They can have anything I’ve got, 
 and I don’t think I feel any differently from 
 anyone else down here. 
 
 The following words from the Mon- 
 treal Star are in the same vein: 
 
 Almost before the smoke-pall over the city 
 of Halifax had blown away, the generous heart 
 of the people of the United States had found 
 practical answer to that black signal of distress. 
 Before the people of the stricken city had them- 
 selves realized the magnitude of the catastrophe, 
 relief train after relief train was tearing north- 
 ward loaded with everything that intelligent 
 sympathy could suggest for the relief of suffering 
 and manned by skilful, warm-hearted men and 
 women, eager as they were able, whose desire 
 was to be of service. Behind them Congress, 
 representing the whole United States, pledged 
 a munificent sum to aid the sufferers. The 
 explosion at Halifax was a national catastrophe 
 felt throughout Canada. The thanks of all 
 Canada, therefore, go out to those who, in this 
 hour of trial, were so quick and so magnificently 
 generous in their aid. “He gives twice who 
 gives quickly,” is an old saying, true as ever 
 today. Canada will not soon forget that in 
 time of great loss and great grief American 
 sympathy, American skill, and American money 
 were given, not only twice, but tenfold. 
 
 But the Golden Rule calls for more 
 than example, impartation of knowledge, 
 
 15 
 
and gifts of money. It demands a 
 friendly interest in the welfare of other 
 nations — a recognition of their indi- 
 viduality and their rights which will in 
 general allow them to develop their own 
 national life without constraint from us, 
 along the lines of their own national 
 genius and ability. This is one of the 
 most precious possessions alike of indi- 
 vidual and of nation. The orphan boy 
 needs care and friendship, but he has 
 the right to live his own life if he lives 
 it with due regard to the rights of others. 
 No parent even has the right to con- 
 strain his boy with a genius for art to 
 become a merchant or a manufacturer, 
 nor the natural farmer to become a 
 lawyer. But if a parent may not do this 
 with his son, how shall one nation do it 
 for another ? Bigness, force, confers no 
 right of international control. Every 
 nation has its own contribution to make 
 to the world’s welfare, and size is no 
 measure of the value of that contribu- 
 tion. Has Greece given less to the world 
 than Russia, Palestine than China ? In 
 his last days President William R. 
 Harper said, “I have never doubted that 
 
 i6 
 
God had given me a work to do in the 
 world which, if I did not do it, would go 
 undone.” How much more true it is 
 of nations ! The nation that lays violent 
 hands on the life and genius of another 
 nation, that because of its superior brute 
 force or larger armies says to that other 
 nation, “You shall not live your own 
 life, but shall accept my ideals and sub- 
 ordinate your genius to mine,” is making 
 unpardonable egotism the excuse for 
 national murder and international rob- 
 bery. The world’s highest interests are 
 served, not by the enforced standardizing 
 of national life, but by freedom of devel- 
 opment and mutual recognition of the 
 right of every nation to develop accord- 
 ing to its own genius and ability. 
 
 But the recognition of this right 
 leads naturally to recognizing its cor- 
 relative duty. For there may arise, 
 there have arisen, extreme cases of the 
 violation of this principle on the part 
 of a strong nation against a weak, calling 
 for intervention on the part of other 
 nations in the interest of the weak. For 
 the Golden Rule is not, as I have said, 
 wholly a negative thing. It sometimes 
 
 17 
 
demands interference in defense of the 
 oppressed. Some years ago a group of 
 university professors returning home 
 from an evening engagement heard 
 shouts of pain and distress issuing from a 
 cottage that they were passing. Hesi- 
 tating but a moment as to their duty, 
 they entered the house and found that 
 in a quarrel between a father and son, 
 one or both of them intoxicated, one 
 had stabbed the other dangerously. A 
 part of them remained to prevent further 
 injuries, while the- rest sought physician 
 and police. Ordinarily a man’s house 
 is his castle, which no one may enter 
 unbidden, but there are limitations to 
 the rule — the intervention of a superior 
 principle. Ordinarily if two neighbors 
 quarrel the rest do well to keep hands 
 off. But there are times when inter- 
 vention is demanded by the rule of 
 love. So it is with nations. There come 
 times when one nation must protest 
 against injustice done or threatened 
 against another, and must if need be 
 sustain its protest with its own army and 
 navy. I do not enter into the discus- 
 sion whether the manner of our doing 
 
 i8 
 
it was wholly justified, but I believe 
 that our intervention in the affairs of 
 Cuba in 1898 was right in principle. 
 And I do not hesitate to affirm that 
 England was wholly justified in coming 
 to the help of Belgium in 1914. I only 
 regret that it was not deemed practicable 
 for us to sustain Britain in that action 
 in words, at least, if not by force of 
 arms. 
 
 But this brings us to the difficult 
 question whether, if one nation may on 
 occasion become the friend and defender 
 of another, it may also at times become 
 its more or less permanent guardian, 
 guide, and protector. Is our course in 
 the Philippines justifiable? Has Eng- 
 land a right to b in India and Egypt ? 
 Is our recent recognition of Japan’s pre- 
 eminent interest in China right or wrong 
 in principle ? The question is too large 
 to be discussed adequately in these 
 pages. I will only venture to lay down 
 two principles. 
 
 One of these is that the right of 
 self-governmfent is not inalienable. In- 
 dividuals may lose it by crime or by 
 illness of body or brain. Families may 
 
 19 
 
lose it by incompetence, and the neigh- 
 bors or the state be obliged to step 
 in. Cities may lose it by riot and 
 murder. States may lose it by the in- 
 competence by which they become 
 dangerous to themselves and to other 
 nations. Palestine lost it in 63 b.c., and 
 there is more than one utterance of 
 Jesus to show that he clearly recognized 
 this fact and warned his nation against 
 the folly of attempting to cure internal 
 weakness by throwing off the external 
 power that sufficed in some measure to 
 compensate for that weakness. Korea 
 lost it, and though Japan’s method of 
 assuming guardianship may be open to 
 just criticism there is no doubt that it 
 was necessary for some external power 
 to do what the Koreans were no longer 
 able to do for themselves. 
 
 The second principle is that any 
 nation that assumes the office of guar- 
 dian to another is bound to do it in the 
 spirit of the Golden Rule, not for exploi- 
 tation and self-aggrandizement, but for 
 the good of the other nation and of 
 other nations at least as much as for 
 its own. It is bound scrupulously to 
 
 20 
 
regard the rights of the dependent nation 
 and is under solemn obligation to ad- 
 minister its guardianship with a view 
 to restoring the guarded nation to inde- 
 pendence or granting it partnership as 
 soon as a process of education can make 
 it fit for such a position. 
 
 I believe that in the main we have 
 followed these principles in Cuba and in 
 the Philippines. If by our recognition 
 of Japan’s responsibility in the Orient 
 we shall have acquired the right to ex- 
 ercise a friendly watchfulness over her 
 trusteeship, and if at the same time we 
 shall be so scrupulously just and friendly 
 to Japan as to retain her confidence and 
 friendship, it may well prove that we 
 have done for the Orient the best service 
 that at this time it is possible to render. 
 But it is manifest that the whole situa- 
 tion demands of us a measure of generos- 
 ity, justice, and righteousness to w'hich 
 not many nations of the past have risen 
 and which we have not ourselves always 
 attained. 
 
III. The Application of the Golden 
 Rule between Nations in 
 Time of War 
 
 But is it possible to apply the Golden 
 Rule in time of war, and in particular 
 to nations with whom we are at war? 
 Is not the very fact of war itself a 
 denial or suspension of the Golden Rule ? 
 Of course the party responsible for a war 
 of aggression violates the Golden Rule. 
 But is it possible for the defender nation 
 to take up arms, and taking up arms to 
 seek to conquer its aggressor, and yet 
 to carry on war in conformity with the 
 Golden Rule ? The answer will depend 
 largely on how one interprets the Golden 
 Rule, and in particular on whether one 
 takes into account all the interests in- 
 volved, or only those of the single nation 
 with which one is at war. It may indeed 
 be contended that in the long run it is 
 for the interest of an attacking nation 
 that its scheme of conquest fail. Just 
 as it is a good thing for a young bully to 
 find his match and get a good trouncing, 
 so it is a good thing for a buUying nation 
 to be defeated. In particular we may 
 contend that it is really in the interest 
 
 22 
 
of the German people that the German 
 armies shall be defeated, and the people 
 themselves released from the domination 
 of those false ideals which have been 
 industriously bred into them for forty 
 years and more. All this is true and 
 pertinent. It is true also that no nation 
 can when attacked forget the interests of 
 her own people and her own posterity. 
 The Golden Rule does not require us to 
 consider the interests of another nation 
 to the exclusion of our own — to love our 
 neighbor and not ourselves. It demands 
 that we shall take account of her interests 
 equally with our own — itself a very large 
 demand, which sets a standard rarely 
 attained. 
 
 But we shall never get an adequate 
 view of the situation with which the 
 world is now dealing so long as we think 
 simply in terms of two nations. It 
 would be folly and hypocrisy to contend 
 that simply as between ourselves and 
 Germany, and in itself considered, . it 
 would be a neighborly act for us to slay 
 her sons, and, if we could reach them, to 
 destroy her cities. Nor can any defense 
 of such acts on the ground of retaliation 
 
 23 
 
bring them under the Golden Rule. To 
 see the situation in its true light, we 
 must look at it as being, what in fact 
 it is, a world-problem. In itself con- 
 sidered, it is not a neighborly act to kill 
 the robber who attacks me and my 
 family. But I can never look at it as a 
 matter simply between myself and the 
 robber. I must remember my family 
 and the community also. So in this war 
 it was not a question between Germany 
 and England in 1914. England had 
 to remember Belgium and Erance. In 
 April, 1917, it was not a question be- 
 tween ourselves and Germany — impor- 
 tant as were the issues involved simply 
 from that point of view. Had it been a 
 matter between ourselves and Germany 
 only perhaps the Golden Rule would 
 have demanded a still further endur- 
 ance of wrong before we laid down the 
 pen to take up the sword. It is better 
 to suffer much and long before proceed- 
 ing to the extremity of repaying insult 
 with shells, and injury with cannon 
 shots. 
 
 But it was not our own situation 
 alone or even chiefly that confronted 
 
 24 
 
US and demanded action. It was the 
 world’s situation. It was not a matter 
 of retaliation for the murder of the 
 Lusitania’s victims, or the interference 
 with our commerce. It was inter- 
 national law, which, slowly accumulated 
 by centuries of effort, is the only basis of 
 civilized relationships of nations; it was 
 civilization itself that was in danger — 
 imminent and real danger. For the 
 sake of France, to whom we as a nation 
 owed so much; for the sake of England, 
 whose army and navy far more than 
 anything we had done had thus far kept 
 us out of war; for the sake of Europe 
 and Asia and Africa; for the sake of the 
 unborn generations of Americans, and 
 for all those who might in the future, as 
 they had in the past, find in this country 
 a refuge from tyranny — it was for all 
 these and in obedience to the Golden 
 Rule itself that we went to war. So 
 clear was the issue, so critical the situa- 
 tion, so much was at stake, that to have 
 delayed longer would have been inexcus- 
 able cowardice, an unpardonable viola- 
 tion of the Golden Rule, a selling of our 
 own souls for gold and ease. 
 
And having taken up arms the Golden 
 Rule demands that we lay them not 
 down till the ends for which we have 
 taken them up are achieved. What a 
 magnificent example Belgium has set 
 for us all! It has been well said that 
 Belgium has indeed been a messianic 
 nation, and the author of the phrase was 
 undoubtedly thinking of the suffering 
 Messiah when he used the word “mes- 
 sianic”— a nation which rather than 
 break her plighted word or betray her 
 allies has endured sufferings immeasur- 
 able with a heroism beyond all praise. 
 America with her vastly greater re- 
 sources, with her danger far less immi- 
 nent, is now called upon to face the 
 situation with equal courage, and equal 
 determination never to lay down her 
 arms till the righteous ends of the Allies 
 are achieved, cost what it may in money 
 and in men. We can afford to be 
 impoverished, we can afford even to 
 lay down our lives; we cannot afford 
 for the future of the world to sacrifice 
 our national soul. 
 
 But the Golden Rule demands a 
 great deal more than a willingness to 
 
 26 
 
fight when fighting is necessary. It 
 requires what at certain points in the 
 conflict may be more difficult than 
 fighting. It demands that we fight 
 without hatred and with a clear vision 
 of what we are fighting for. 
 
 It was a recent immigrant to this 
 country from the south of Europe who 
 entering the army as a drafted man wrote 
 back to his friends, “Hurrah, I am a 
 soldier of the United States army. We 
 shall fight the great battle for universal, 
 peace. We shall make the great federa- 
 tion of nations.” We ought all to have 
 a not less clear perception of what we 
 fight for. We are in the business of 
 making a new world — a world without 
 hatred, a world without war, and there- 
 fore without the causes of war. We 
 must not, while we fight, defeat the 
 cause for which we fight, by fighting 
 with hatred. Not even the German 
 must we hate. His works, his principles, 
 we abominate. But let us not forget 
 that it was only when we saw those 
 hateful principles which he is following 
 revealed in their full hatefulness in this 
 war that we knew how hateful they were. 
 
 27 
 
We were all tainted with them in some 
 measure. Only when Germany openly 
 avowed them and embodied them in 
 terrible action did we know how awful 
 they were and repudiate them. Then 
 let them not come back like the se'ven 
 demons worse than the first into a heart 
 swept and garnished with Pharisaic 
 scrupulousness. If we would really 
 practice the Golden Rule, and we must 
 if we would create the new world of 
 which we have caught the vision, we 
 must love not our allies only but our 
 enemies also. 
 
 And this means in turn that we shall 
 be ready for peace when the hour comes. 
 Not for a peace that means defeat of all 
 for which we have fought — not for a 
 peace that is but a respite till we are 
 forced to fight again. From such a 
 peace God save us! But we must not 
 forget that it is peace that we desire, 
 and as a nation we ought to lose no 
 opportunity to convince our enemies 
 that we desire, not vengeance but right- 
 eousness, not the victory of armies for 
 victory’s sake but of principles for the 
 world’s sake. Nor is this danger a 
 
 28 
 
fancied one. In the reaction against the 
 very real danger of a premature peace, 
 there lurks another danger not less 
 real. Both newspapers and public men 
 have sometimes spoken as if the war was 
 for war’s sake, and we must shut our 
 eyes and ears to all thoughts of peace. 
 War till we have achieved our end — yes. 
 But let us not forget that that end is 
 peace — a peace of the right kind. 
 
 Is the Golden Rule workable between 
 nations ? With confidence I affirm it is 
 both more needful and more workable 
 between nations than between indi- 
 viduals. More needful because the harm 
 done when nations do not follow it is 
 upon a far vaster scale than when indi- 
 viduals violate it. Its disregard by 
 individuals may have far-reaching con- 
 sequences. But when nations set it at 
 naught, the issues are certain to be far- 
 reaching and wide-sweeping, involving 
 not hundreds but thousands and millions 
 in the stream of devastation. Now that 
 the world has become so small, now that 
 nations touch elbows as once tribes and 
 individuals did, now that they call to 
 each other out of their windows across 
 
 29 
 
a narrow stream that electricity bridges 
 in an instant, and jostle one another in 
 the pubhc highways of the world, the 
 only salvation of the world from measure- 
 less disaster is the observance of the 
 Golden Rule between nations. And it is 
 more practicable between nations than 
 between individuals because nations 
 act — ought to act and usually do act — 
 with more deliberation, less under the 
 influence of sudden passion than indi- 
 viduals. Their relations are defined in 
 compacts which they have solemnly 
 bound themselves not to break, and not 
 hastily to annul. There is time for 
 sober second thought, time for the best 
 thought of the nation to be brought to 
 bear on the situation. There is no 
 excuse for haste. But we must train 
 ourselves to think and deliberate, and 
 especially must train ourselves and our 
 nation to recognize that the Golden 
 Rule is the supreme law of nations — 
 pre-eminently adapted to nations, its 
 obedience indispensable to their welfare 
 and the safety of the world. The 
 Golden Rule is — it is the only rule that 
 is — workable between nations. 
 
 30 
 
Nor is the application of the Golden 
 Rule between nations any longer the 
 empty vision and wild dream of imprac- 
 ticable idealists. The Great War by 
 making its necessity more evident has 
 brought it within the range of men’s 
 thoughts and within the realm of prac- 
 tical politics as never before. Germany’s 
 explicit and cold-blooded repudiation of 
 all altruistic considerations in inter- 
 national relationships on the one hand, 
 and, on the other, the equally explicit 
 affirmation of regard for the welfare of 
 other nations on the part of Great 
 Britain and the United States, and the 
 not less significant conduct of France 
 and Belgium, have exerted a deep and 
 wide influence on the minds of men. 
 Rarely in the history of the world, it 
 is safe to affirm, have practical state 
 papers put forth at a critical moment 
 in national affairs been written on the 
 high moral level of some of the recent 
 definitions of the aims of Great Britain, 
 or the Golden Rule as a principle of 
 statecraft and international policy been’ 
 so clearly and unequivocally set forth 
 as in the successive addresses in which 
 
 31 
 
President Wilson has defined the aims 
 of the United States. 
 
 It is an hour in which to lift up our 
 heads with pride in our country and 
 hope for the world. If from this awful 
 struggle it shall result that the nations 
 of the world, or even a large and influ- 
 ential group of them, shall come to 
 recognize that there cannot be one 
 morahty for the family and another for 
 the family of nations, not only that 
 nations must render justice to one 
 another, but that only as they cherish 
 in their hearts a spirit of kindness and 
 desire for one another’s welfare and 
 embody it in their conduct can they 
 themselves really prosper — if out of this 
 war shall come the writing of the Golden 
 Rule into the law of nations as its funda- 
 mental principle, then indeed will it 
 have been worth all that it has cost and 
 more. 
 
 It is for this that we as a nation ought 
 now to stand, prepared for any cost and 
 any sacrifice that it may be achieved. 
 The Golden Rule is workable between na- 
 tions. It will yet become the recognized 
 law of nations. 
 
 32