Pd '^^^ ;Pc.«^;_::^r ■x::/ 
 
 Gi3 
 11/ 
 
 OC-NRLF 
 
 *B 7^3 &HS 
 
GIFT 
 APR ^^*:?~I9I8 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 First A merican Confeieri ce 
 
 / for 
 
 Democracy and 1 erms of i eace 
 
 held at 
 
 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 
 
 NEW YUKK CITY 
 
 May 30th and 31st, 1917 
 
 Published by the Organizing Committee 
 
 People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace 
 
 Two West Thirteenth Street, New York City 
 
^^'^ 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 First American Conference 
 
 for 
 
 Democracy and Terms of Peace 
 
 held at 
 
 MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 May 30th and 31st, 1917 
 
 Published by the Organizing Committee 
 
 People's Council of America for Democracy and Peace 
 
 Two West Thirteenth Street, New York City 
 
\V7 
 
 • • • • -•• 
 
 • - • • ;• r • 
 
 • • • • * • • 
 
at 
 4 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 Two nearly concurrent events led to the First American Confer- 
 ence for Democracy and Terms of Peace— first, the definite entrance 
 of the United States into the world war, and, second, the Revolution 
 in Russia. 
 
 With war actually declared, the whole question of democracy and 
 peace presented a new face to the American people. Militarism was 
 no longer a theory, but a hideous condition. All the evils that had been 
 predicted were immediately transplanted bodily to our country : assaults 
 upon the letter and spirit of democracy, invasions of the sacred con- 
 stitutional rights of free speech, free press and freedom of assembly^ 
 conscription, excessive taxation and unbridled waste of public funds 
 and material resources. 
 
 A great wave of indignation swept over the land. 
 
 This sense of outrage was not confined to peace societies. It came 
 from all classes and from all parts of the country. Men and women 
 in all walks of life, who had felt secure, who had believed that the 
 repeated and urgent warnings of the anti-militarists were merely 
 products of overheated imaginations and therefore not to be heedea, 
 now realized the situation in all its seriousness. 
 
 There was need of a nation-wide organization that could bring all 
 these people together and render them articulate as a mighty force 
 demanding that American democracy, American ideals, American 
 peace, be preserved inviolate. It must be an organization in which 
 liberty-loving men and women could sink the petty differences that 
 might have divided them in the past, leaving them free to focus their 
 attention and their strength upon the great fundamental issues of the 
 crisis before them. 
 
 Such an organization was rendered doubly necessary by the Revo- 
 lution in Russia. Those who might have been plunged into the depths 
 of despair at the thought of America's following in the bloody foot- 
 steps of Europe were encouraged to the point of exaltation by the 
 splendid example of that country which has so long been known as 
 "darkest Russia.'' They wanted to make known to this free Russian 
 people that the feelings of those who dwell in America were not truly 
 expressed by the warlike and undemocratic action of the official govern- 
 ment that was elected to represent them. They wanted to show that 
 they stand solid behind the Russian democracy and are ready to work 
 determinedly with them until the autocracy of the entire world is 
 overthrown. 
 
 89834d 
 
The following Call to Action was issued to the people of the 
 United States, under date of May 7, 1917 : 
 
 (" It is now less than six weeks since the United States 
 
 ( entered the world war. In that short space of time the 
 grip of militarist hysteria has fastened itself upon the 
 country; conscription is being placed upon our statute 
 books ; the pernicious *'gag" bill is about to be for^ ed 
 through Congress ; standards to safeguard labor, carefully 
 built up through years, have been swept aside ; the right 
 of free speech has been assailed ; halls have been closed 
 against public discussion, meetings broken up, speakers 
 arrested — and now the danger of a permanent universal 
 military training law confronts us. 
 
 While all this military organization is going on in 
 
 America, rumors of peace come to us from Germany, 
 
 ^ Austria, Italy and Russia. Shall it be said that we, the 
 
 latest to enter the war, are less concerned about the early 
 
 establishment of a peace based on justice for all ? 
 
 We call on all American citizens to unite with us in 
 the First American Congress on Democracy and Terms of 
 Peace, at the Madison Square Theatre, on May 30 and 31, 
 ,. to discuss how best we can aid our government in bringing 
 to ourselves and the world a speedy, righteous and endur- 
 ing peace. 
 
 That those who fostered the movement had judged wisely was 
 quickly evident from the spontaneous and widespread response. The 
 time was short, the difficulties of disseminating the call were great and 
 ^equate funds were lacking. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, 
 that when the Conference met at the appointed hour there were mem- 
 bers present from forty-three of the forty-eight States of the Union. 
 These represented all shades of political, economic and religious- 
 thought. There were Jewish rabbis and Christian clergy, farmers,, 
 editors, college professors, laboring men and professional men ; Single 
 Taxers, Socialists, Democrats and Republicans ; the individualist repre- 
 senting only himself and the president of a great labor organization 
 representing 500,000 American workers. 
 
 ■t^ The deliberations were carried on through six long and busy ses- 
 sions and the accompanying meetings of the hard-worked cojnmittees. 
 The Conference ended with one of the largest mass meetmgs that ever 
 stormed the doors of Madison Square Garden. The gathermg was 
 marked throughout by a great harmony of ideals a great unity of 
 purpose a great stauhchness of spirit. The members had come_ to- 
 gether with a full sense of the gravity of the moment and a determma- 
 tion to let nothing turn them aside from the two great subjects at issue, 
 democracy and peace. They were men and women who had thought 
 long and deeply upon these vital questions. They had made up their 
 minds and were resolved henceforward to ally themselves boldly and 
 
unequivocally with those forces so gloriously exemplified by the new- 
 born Russian Republic. This is clearly reflected in the positive straight- 
 forward resolutions which the Conference adopted covering the main 
 topics under consideration. 
 
 In publishing this report of proceedings, the aim has been not to 
 give a cold verbatim record of the Conference, but rather to produce 
 a volume which would cover in compact form, and unified as much 
 as possible, the various outstanding phases of the subjects under dis- 
 cussion and which would therefore serve as a valuable book of refer- 
 ence for students, writers, speakers and others interested in helping 
 to organize the world for enduring peace and democracy. 
 
 In order to accomplish this purpose and bring the brochure within 
 reasonable limits, the editors have found it necessary to make many 
 abridgements of the formal discussions and to eliminate the infonnal 
 discussions altogether. Among the men and women who, in addition 
 to those whose addresses are reported herein, gave valuable assistance 
 in the formal and informal discussions, both from the floor and from 
 the platform, the following should be mentioned: Frank Stephens, 
 Arden, Del. ; Lewis A. Maverick, San Antonio, Tex. ; Marion B. 
 Cothren, Brooklyn; Mrs. Darwin J. Meserole^ Brooklyn; Jacob Pan- 
 ken, New York ; Ludwig Lore, New York ; Job Harriman, Califor- 
 nia, and others. 
 
RESOLUTIONS 
 
 ADOPTED BY THE 
 
 First American Conference on Democracy and Peace 
 New York City, May 30 and 31, 1917 
 
 PREAMBLE 
 
 United in our love for America, we are convinced that we can 
 best serve our country by urging upon our countrymen the adoption of 
 the following policies : 
 
 1. PEACE 
 
 The conference favors an early, general and democratic peace, to 
 be secured through negotiation in harmony with the principles outlined 
 by the President of the United States and by revolutionary Russia, and 
 accepted substantially by the progressive and democratic forces of 
 France, England, Italy, Germany, Austria and other countries, namely : 
 
 (a) No forcible annexation of territory. 
 
 (b) No punitive indemnities. 
 
 (c) Free development of all nationalities. 
 
 We favor international reorganization for the maintenance of 
 peace. As steps leading thereto, we suggest : The adjudication of dis- 
 putes among nations ; simultaneous disarmament ; freedom of the seas 
 and international waterways ; protection of small nations and other 
 similar measures. 
 
 We urge the government of the United States immediately to an- 
 nounce its war aims in definite and concrete terms upon the above 
 principles and to make efforts to induce the allied countries to make 
 similar declarations, thus informing our public for what concrete 
 objects they are called upon to fight, and thereby forcing a definite 
 expression of war aims on the part of the central powers. 
 
 We demand that this country shall make peace the moment its 
 announced aims shall have been achieved, and that it shall not carry 
 on war for the territorial and imperialistic ambitions of other countries. 
 Further, we demand that it shall make no agreement with other govern- 
 
ments limiting its freedom of action nor any agreement or understand- 
 ing looking toward an economic war after the war. 
 
 COMMITTEE.— Morris Hillquit, New York City, chairman; 
 Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Chicago, 111. ; Emily Greene Balch, Boston, Mass. ; 
 William I. Hull, Swarthmore, Pa. ; Randolph Bourne, New York 
 City; Anne Withington, Boston, Mass.; Alfred J. Boulton, New York 
 City; Leonora O'Reilly, Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Algernon Lee, New York 
 City ; Professor Lindley M. Keasbey, Texas. 
 
 2. AMERICAN UBERTIES 
 
 The first victims of war are the people's liberties. It was to reserve 
 these liberties that our forefathers framed the first amendment to the 
 constitution, forbidding Congress to abridge "the freedom of speech 
 or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to 
 petition the government for a redress of grievances." 
 
 We hereby protest to the President and Congress against the 
 abridgment of these rights, and call upon the American people to 
 defend them. We shall oppose w^ith all legal means at our disposal 
 the censorship of newspapers and of other printed matter or interfer- 
 ence with their distribution by the postal department. 
 
 We demand that private mail shall not be tampered with. The 
 invasion of homes or offices without search warrant and the seizure of 
 private letters and documents is clearly a violation of the constitution 
 of the United States. We protest against the suppression of any public 
 meetings of American citizens. To imprison citizens without warrant 
 or charge is a practical suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 
 
 We* also declare that all Americans are entitled to passports to 
 neutral countries. Legislation now pending in Congress, if passed, will 
 make this country more autocratic than Russia under the rule of the 
 czar. 
 
 Secret diplomacy must be abolished. We demand democratic con- 
 trol of our foreign policy. We call for a referendum on questions of 
 war and conscription. We insist on discussion in Congress, in the 
 press and in public meetings of the terms of all alliances, agreements 
 and treaties. It seems to be the intention of the government now to 
 forbid even the discussion of the terms of peace in the press and in 
 public meetings. 
 
 We pledge ourselves to work for the repeal of all laws for com- 
 pulsory military training and compulsory service and to oppose the 
 enactment of all such laws in the future. 
 
 Inasmuch as we believe conscription laws to be unconstitutional 
 (violating the 13th amendment of the constitution of the United States, 
 which provides that there shall be no involuntary servitude) we appeal 
 to the Congress of the United States so to amend the conscription act 
 before June 5 as to grant exemption to all conscientious objectors, 
 whether or not they be members of recognized religious denominations. 
 
Inasmuch as young men of conscriptable age are inquiring- 
 whether or not military registration on June 5th will subject them im- 
 mediately to military law and will compel them to work without the 
 protection of labor laws under any conditions which the military 
 executive may force upon them ; and inasmuch as the legal branch 
 of the War Department has thus far refused to answer questions con- 
 cerning the status of these men after registration. 
 
 This conference hereby appeals to the government for a full and 
 unmistakable pronouncement on this point. 
 
 COMMITTEE — Richard W. Hogue, chairman ; Lola Maverick 
 Lloyd, Winnetka, 111. ; Bernard J. Walton, Swarthmore, Pa. ; Prof. H. 
 W. L. Dana, New York City; Harry Weinberger, New York City; 
 Rev. Norman Thomas, New York City ; Victor Berger, Milwaukee ; 
 Donald Stephens, Delaware ; Alex. L. Trachtenberg, New York City. 
 
 3. INDUSTRIAL STANDARDS 
 
 The standard of living of American workers prior to the war was 
 low enough, as revealed by the report of the industrial relations com- 
 mission and other impartial investigators. 
 
 The long struggle that has been waged to reduce hours, to raise 
 wages, to abolish child labor, to protect the life, limbs and health of 
 the w^age earners, has created definite minimum labor standards. A 
 nation-wide assault on these standards is now in progress. Labor laws 
 are being susi)ended or repealed ; cheap alien labor is to be imported ; 
 women are replacing the men who leave for the front. We call upon 
 the working people to resist this assault by insisting that the labor laws 
 be preserved and enforced; by maintaining the rights gained through 
 the labor movements ; by opposing the importation of cheap alien labor 
 and prisoners of war, and by insisting that where women take the place 
 of men they receive men's wages. 
 
 To furnish the vast profits that American organized business is 
 exacting from the American people, the cost of living has been in- 
 creased until it is undermining American standards. We, therefore, 
 demand that Congress provide forthwith the machinery for the fixing 
 of maximum prices on the necessities of life and minimum wages which 
 will insure health, efficiency, comfort and education. 
 
 Taxation of the necessities of life invariably reduces standards of 
 living. We, therefore, demand that none of the revenue required for 
 the prosecution of the war shall come from the taxation of necessaries. 
 
 Industrial plutocracy makes for war^ndustrial democracy for 
 peace. This brings with it autocratic control of industry in the interest 
 of the ruling classes. The American people, joining hands with the 
 new democracy of Russia, must lay the basis for permanent world 
 peace by establishing industrial democracy. 
 
 COMMITTEE. — Scott Nearing, Toledo, Ohio, chairman; James 
 Bagley, New York City; Edward Cassidy, New York City; Henri 
 Bereche, New York City ; Owen R. Lovejoy, New York City ; Mrs. 
 Florence Kelley, New York City; A. Baroff, New York City; Miss 
 Amy Hicks, New York City. 
 
4. PERMANENT ORGANIZATION AND FUTURE 
 ACTIVITIES 
 
 Resolved, That the conference elect an executive committee of 
 eight members, with power to add to their number, and with the under- 
 standing that this organizing committee organize a permanent dele- 
 gated people's council from all sympathetic groups, to give immediate 
 and permanent effect to the resolutions of the First American Con- 
 ference for Democracy and Terms of Peace. 
 
 Resolved, That this committee recommend the appointment by the 
 chairman of this conference of a committee which shall go at once to 
 Washington to present the resolutions of the conference and ask the 
 President for the terms on which the administration would be willing 
 to make peace. 
 
 Resolved, That the permanent committee arrange for a similar 
 conference on democracy and terms of peace in Illinois immediately, 
 and for a similar conference in California as soon as practicable there- 
 after, as originally intended in connection with this conference. 
 
 Resolved, That the organizing committee on permanent organiza- 
 tion be instructed to create at once a commiteee on international co- 
 operation, representing all the democratic forces' in the United States 
 field, to work in co-operation with the democratic forces of other 
 countries, both during and after the war. 
 
 Resolved, That the organizing committee on permanent organiza- 
 tion be instructed to see to it that legal defense of all American liberties 
 in war time is effectively organized throughout the United States. 
 
 COMMiITTEE. — James Maurer, Harrisburg, Pa., chairman; 
 Frank Stephens, Arden, Del. ; Mary Ware Dennett, New York City ; 
 Crystal Eastman, Croton-on-Hudson, N. Y. ; Job Harriman, Los An- 
 geles, Cal. ; Rebecca Shelly, New York City ; Daniel Roy Freeman, 
 Grand Rapids, Mich. ; W^illard C. Wheeler, Boston, Mass. ; Rose 
 Schneidermann, New York City ; Arthur Fisher, Chicago, 111. ; Max 
 Pine, New York City ; Adolph Germer, Chicago, 111. ; Max Eastman, 
 New York City ; Edward Hartman, Boston, Mass. ; Harold Rotzel, 
 Worcester, Mass. ; Fola La Follete, New York City ; Harry Laidler, 
 New York City ; Louis P. Lochner, Chicago, 111. ; Joseph Schlossberg, 
 New York City ; Daniel Kiefer, Cincinnati, Ohio ; Charles W. Ervin, 
 New York City ; Elizabeth Freeman, New York City ; Margaret Lane, 
 New York City. 
 
 10 
 
Conference for Democracy and Terms of Peace 
 
 Garden Theatre, New York City 
 
 First Session 
 
 Wednesday, May 30, 10 A. M. 
 
 OPENING ADDRESS BY DR. J. L.' MAGNES, NEW YORK, 
 
 CHAIRMAN 
 
 We have come in the midst of war to aid the cause of peace. We 
 have come from all parts of our loved country to re-dedicate ourselves 
 to the cause of democracy and international brotherhood. We come 
 here because we love America and because we want America to 
 assume leadership in bringing about a speedy and universal and demo- 
 cratic peace such as will endure for a long time to come. 
 
 We have not come as obstructionists. We are aware of the gravity 
 of the situation confronting our government. We are eager to be of 
 aid. We do not pretend to advise as to the conduct of the war — we 
 have no talent for that. We do, however, think that we can be of aid 
 in advising our Government and the people of America as to the neces- 
 sity and the method of bringing about a speedy and universal and 
 democratic peace. 
 
 We assume that our Government is anxious to hear what the 
 citizens of this democracy have to say. The Secretary of the Navy 
 said on May 25 that ''the spirit of the administration is, that comment 
 and criticism are the very life of a democracy." In any event we 
 should have regarded it as our duty as citizens of the American Re- 
 public to exercise our constitutional rights of free speech, of peaceable 
 assemblage and of petition, and to express such views and to take such 
 action as in this emergency we think best for America. We agree very 
 seriously and literally with what our President said concerning the 
 ''privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of 
 obedience." 
 
 We urge upon the President and the Congress an immediate public 
 statement of our w^ar aims and our peace terms. Our young men are 
 about to be drafted into military service and our soldiers are about 
 to be sent across the seas. What, in concrete terms that every man 
 can understand, are they to fight for, and uport what terms will Amer- 
 ica be ready to end the war and make peace? We urge further that 
 when such concrete aims shall have been formulated, the President de- 
 ll 
 
clare as a standing peace offer to Germany, that whenever these speci- 
 fied aims shall have been achieved we are ready to end the war. 
 
 The President and Congress have said that we have gone to war 
 because of Germany's illegal and brutal submarine warfare. Will 
 we be ready to end the war and make peace if this ruthless submarine 
 warfare be ended ? This question should be answered clearly because 
 as to it there is confusion in the minds of the public. 
 
 The President has said also that we have gone to war because 
 "the world must be made safe for democracy." The American 
 people — devoted to this lofty aim — have the right to know just what 
 this means to the President. To make the entire world safe for democ- 
 racy may take a very, very long time. What particular part of the 
 world, then, do we refer to, and what degree of safety do we require, 
 and what degree of democracy will satisfy us? Does a world made 
 safe for democracy refer to Germany alone, or does it refer to Austro- 
 Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey as well, with whom we are not as yet 
 at war? Does it also refer to some of our Allies, Japan, for instance- 
 and to some of the possessions held or dominated by our Allies — Ire- 
 land, India, Morocco, Persia, for instance? If it refers to Germany 
 <^ alone, what are we after there? Is a military defeat of Germany 
 ', absolutely essential before we shall agree to peace, so that Germany 
 > and all men may know that Germany's militarism is not invincible? 
 I And what will we exact of Germany if she be defeated? The Presi- 
 ( dent has said: *'We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no 
 ( indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation." Do we then 
 { demand as a condition sine qua non of a world made safe for democ- 
 ( racy the dethronement of the Kaiser or the reform of the three-class 
 : Prussian electoral system, or a ministry responsible to the Reichstag 
 ^ instead of to the Kaiser? Or must Germany become a Republic, 
 ^ copied after our own? If we are to make Germany into a democracy, 
 ( are we to dictate forms of economic as well as of political life, and is 
 ■( the degree of democracy to be determined by our own standards or 
 ^ by those of the freer democracy of the new. Russia? The people of 
 this country, who are to bear the burden of this war, have a right to 
 know exactly what a world made safe for democracy means. They 
 have a right to know exactly what it is that we want of Germany, just 
 what we will be satisfied with, concretely and specifically what, if we 
 achieve it, we shall stop fighting for. And it may be that if our 
 Government says all of this clearly and unmistakably, the echo of it 
 will reverberate in Germany, and to use the President's words, we may 
 be "that much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which shall 
 end the present war." 
 
 The new Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs said last week: 
 "There are two great new facts in the war — the Russian revolution 
 and the entry of the great republic of the United States." One of the 
 things this Conference on Democracy and Peace Terms is aiming at is 
 to suggest ways and means whereby these two forces may co-operate 
 to bring about a speedy, general and democratic peace. 
 
 12 
 
The Russian Republic has announced its war aims and its peace 
 terms. And our own Conference is called together upon that very 
 basis : 
 
 No forcible annexations. 
 
 No punitive indemnities. 
 
 Free development of all nations and peoples and nationalities 
 
 Because of this eminently humane, just, clear-sighted policy, the 
 Russian Republic has been accused of all manner of unscrupulous 
 and blundering subservience to German influence. It does not, how- 
 ever, require much knowledge of the Russian situation to understand 
 the very simple and cogent reasons for the policy of the ne\y and 
 democratic Russia. Russia's revolutionary democracy is dominated 
 by men and women who are the creators and heirs of a rare revolu- 
 tionary tradition permeated with a deep love of humanity, liberty, 
 justice. Is it not natural that such revolutionaries should be eager for 
 an international peace, that they should not lust after the territory 
 of others, that they should banish all thoughts of inflicting reprisals 
 upon their enemies through punitive indemnities and contributions, 
 and that they should demand the right of all nations to determine their 
 own afifairs? But, from a narrower point of view as well, it is easy 
 to comprehend the reasons for the Russian peace terms. Russia 
 wants above all things to save the new democracy and the new repub- 
 lic. Any other peace terms would be a menace to the new Russia. 
 These peace terms offer a possible basis of a speedy, general, demo- 
 cratic peace, and in order to be saved from reaction within and the 
 enemy from without, Russia needs a world at peace and does not need 
 new territories or indemnities. Russia needs the opportunity now 
 to work out its overwhelming problems in peace. Or shall the sug- 
 gestion, insidiously made in America, be adopted by Russia that "the 
 best thing to do is to set up a dictatorship and to postpone all reforms 
 until after the war?" If Russia suffers a military reverse, then in- 
 deed, a military dictatorship with a snuffing out of the ardor of the 
 new democracy will inevitably result. If, on the other hand, Russia 
 cannot, for whatever reasons, achieve this speedy, general, democratic 
 I)eace, America must understand that the Russian armies will have 
 the spirit to continue the war on one condition — that their own ideal- 
 istic war aims be made the war aims of their Allies. 
 
 For every eventuality, therefore, it is vital for Russia to have 
 America's aid in imposing her own war aims upon all of the bel- 
 ligerents. Russia has asked for this aid. On May 4, when the new 
 formulation of war aims was forced upon the then Provisional Gov- 
 ernment of Russia by the Council of Soldiers' and Workmen's Dele- 
 gates, Prince Tzeretelli, now a member of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment, said: "Now that the question has been settled here, our 
 aims — war without annexations, appropriations or contributions — also 
 must be realized abroad. We must know the attitude of the democracy 
 of our Allies. If a similar movement takes place in the foreign democ- 
 racies, this will bring peace much nearer." 
 
 13 
 
This Conference on Democracy and Terms of Peace is meeting 
 to-day in an endeavor to bring about this movement in the democracy 
 of America. We aim to let the Russian democracy know the attitude 
 of the democracy of America. We beUeve in the Russian war aims 
 and peace terms, because we think they are just and because their 
 adoption by all the belligerents would ''bring peace much nearer." If 
 we understand the President aright, these are also the war aims and 
 peace terms outlined by him, and it is our hope that he will now con- 
 firm this in the clear, precise, specific words of which he is master. 
 We want the Russian Democracy to know that in America there are 
 vast numbers of American citizens who, even before the President 
 has spoken, share the Russian war aims, and that we are no less 
 eager than they to bring about a speedy, universal and democratic 
 peace. We want them to know that the American Democracy does 
 not intend to lag behind the Russian in the development of political 
 and economic internationalism, and in all the constructive arts of 
 peace. We want them to know that we would vie with them in work- 
 ing out new forms of freedom and of life. 
 
 In the course of this Conference, we shall tell more in detail 
 what we mean by "No forcible annexations, no punitive indemnites, 
 free development of all nations, peoples and nationalities." 
 
 I think it important, however, briefly to say at the very outset, 
 that, in general, the formulation "No forcible annexations" means, 
 the restoration of Belgium, Serbia, Roumania, and of all other ter- 
 ritories conquered by the one side or by the other. It means that all 
 territorial readjustments must be secured through negotiation, and 
 that in these negotiations the democratic method be applied, namely, 
 that no territory shall be transferred from one sovereignty to an- 
 other against the will of the people of that territory. 
 
 If the minority Socialists of France can demand this method 
 as to Alsace-Lorraine, if the Socialists of both Serbia and Bulgaria 
 can demand this method, as to the Balkans, surely the democratic 
 forces of America, which seeks no conquest or dominion, need not be 
 more loyal than the king, and should demand the application of this 
 formula and this method to all the perplexing territorial and frontier 
 adjustments which must no longer disturb the peace of the world. 
 
 The formulation "No punitive indemnities" means, that however 
 much one belligerent succeeds in crushing another, there shall be a 
 peace without victory, that is, that the victor shall not punish the 
 vanquished by expropriating territory or levying contributions as 
 Germany did with France in 1870. This does not mean that the world 
 shall be indifferent to the sufferings of ravished peoples or of devas- 
 tated districts. It is perfectly consistent with the thought, as expressed 
 by the Boston League for Democratic Control, of "an international 
 assumption of the expense of reconstructing devastated areas in Eu- 
 rope, a large proportion to be borne by the United States in return 
 for guarantees of future peace." 
 
 14 
 
The formula "The free development of all nations" means, that 
 every nation, people and nationality shall have the right to determine 
 the conditions under which it is to develop its ov^n life. It means that 
 great nations shall not subjugate small nations, that subject and op- 
 pressed peoples and nationalities shall have the right to life, liberty 
 and the pursuit of happiness. Lloyd-George said on Sunday that 
 "Lasting peace will come when all the peoples of Europe are free to 
 determine their own fate for themselves." The Russian formulation 
 which we make our own means this — but more than this. It means 
 guaranteeing the rights and liberties not only of the subject peoples 
 and nationalities of the Central Powers, but of the subject peoples 
 and nationalities of the Entente as well ; and not only those of Europe, 
 but also those of Asia and Africa and America and of the Seven Seas, 
 whatever be their religion or their color. For, it is only if the peoples 
 of the world are freed politically, economically, spiritually, that the 
 bases of a lasting peace can be laid. It is fatuous to suppose that any 
 League can enforce a peace based merely upon power, and not based 
 upon the free will of all the liberated democracies of all of Europe, of 
 all of Asia, of all of Africa, and of all the Americas. i 
 
 Russia is now attempting to persuade her Allies whole-heartedly 
 to agree to this formulation of war aims, and we believe it to be the 
 privilege and obligation of our Government to aid Russia in thus 
 "bringing peace much nearer." 
 
 The obligation upon our Government is doubly serious because 
 of the manner in which some of the belligerents have already reacted 
 to the Russian proposals. 
 
 Unfortunately, the English reaction to the Russian formula has 
 not thus far been encouraging. According to Lord Robert Cecil, the 
 English must hold the captured German colonies, and according to 
 Mr. Asquith, there has been no change in the Entente's war aims. 
 What we ask is: Is America in the war to help England get Ger- 
 many's colonies and to achieve the imperialistic ambitions of any 
 of the belligerents? Or will America make common cause with Rus- 
 sia on the basis of no forcible annexations, and thus assure a peace 
 without victory with the chance this gives for freedom and democ- 
 racy and civilization the world over? 
 
 The Government of France has reacted to the Russian proposals 
 by declaring through Premier Ribot that revanche must be satisfied 
 and the "lost provinces" be returned. Everyone must admire the 
 tenacity of France in its struggle to reconquer Alsace-Lorraine. But 
 have we gone to war to help France get back her "lost provinces" and 
 are we committed to the theory of restoring all provinces "lost" in 
 the past fifty years? And is it our theory that these injustices can be 
 cured by war? Rather than embark upon the complicated enterprise 
 of restoring lost provinces, should not the policy of our Government 
 look towards the support of the Russian policy of "No forcible an- 
 nexations" without quibble and equivocation? 
 
 15 
 
Another reason for our making common cause with Russia is 
 because Austria, in the semi-ofificial Fremdenblatt, has declared her 
 war aims to be identical with those of Russia. 
 
 And Germany ! There are those who' say that the Russian pro- 
 gramme for peace is a German programme for peace. On what au- 
 thority is this said? Would to Heaven that this were Germany's pro- 
 gramme for peace! Would to Heaven that Germany were ready to 
 renounce her desire for annexations and indemnities. Unfortunately, 
 this is not the German programme for peace. The German Reichs- 
 kanzler refused but a few days ago to declare this as the German 
 peace programme, despite the manifest advantages of doing so in 
 answer to Russia. But though this is, alas, not the German pro- 
 gramme for peace, it ought to be made so. And it can be made 
 so by America, not through war, but if America will back Russia in 
 Russia's declared war aims, and if America will persuade — as she has 
 the power to persuade — the English and the French to make these war 
 aims their war aims as well. For, consider well what was said in the 
 German Reichstag on May 15. This was said: *Tf France and Great 
 Britain renounce annexation and Germany insists thereon, there will 
 be a revolution in Germany." In other words, if America and Rus- 
 sia, as the new factors in the war, will exercise leadership, if America 
 will back Russia, if America will exert its vast power over England 
 and France and insist upon the adoption of the Russian programme, 
 no one can doubt that the German people will rise up in their might 
 and compel the German Government and the German Junkers and cap- 
 italists to renounce all their hopes of annexations and indemnities, 
 and peace will result. 
 
 To be sure, the mere suggestion of peace is regarded as traitorous 
 in many quarters. The word peace is become the most terrifying in 
 the language. But we are undaunted in our cry and in our passion 
 for peace, because we know^ how futile all wars are, this one among 
 them. 
 
 On April 24, but a short while after the Russian revolution had 
 broken out, A. F. Kerensky, now Russian Minister of the Army and 
 Marine, said : 'The Russian masses, whom I represent in the Pro- 
 visional Government, recently established, endorse President Wil- 
 son's war aims, provided the President was speaking not as a diplomat 
 but as the mouthpiece of the American people, when, in his peace 
 note, he proclaimed a desire for peace without victory, and a re- 
 establishment of European Governments along lines of racial develop- 
 ment, the world will find the Russian soldiers, Russian sailors and 
 Russian workmen lined up solidly behind him in his desire to free 
 the German people." 
 
 We turn to our President and we adjure him to speak as the 
 mouthpiece of the American people, to reaffirm his belief in a peace 
 without victory, and unequivocally to throw in the lot of the American 
 Democracy with that of Russia, and bring a speedy, universal, demo- 
 cratic peace to the world. 
 
 16 
 
In any event, we shall not cease lamenting the fact that the 
 President found it necessary to urge war in order to achieve his peace 
 aims. Alas, that America, the one haven of refuge for the oppressed 
 and the suffering of all the world, America that might have acted as 
 a harbinger of peace, bringing healing to the afflicted nations, is now 
 bloody with war. On January 22, 1917, our President was still pur- 
 suing the method of negotiation, of neutrality, of moral forces. Alas, 
 that the suspense could no longer be borne, that the moral and intel- 
 lectual strain grew too heavy, that patience was exhausted, and the 
 plunge was taken into the abyss of war and death and brute physical 
 force. But the fact that we are at war cannot make us abhor war the 
 less. The fact that we are at war makes us but the more determined 
 to loathe it, to teach our children to loathe it, to want to make America 
 and all the world loathe it. In the face of death, we stand ready to 
 exalt life. With destruction before us, we express our passionate de- 
 votion to the constructive processes of religion, literature, science, art. 
 With suppression threatening us, we speak up for liberty, for freedom, 
 for democracy. Not only have we a rooted and ineradicable repug- 
 nance to brute material force, but we are also thoroughly convinced of 
 the madness, the inadequacy, the impracticability of the war-method 
 to achieve the world peace so touchingly and fervently pictured by the 
 President on January 22, 1917. The war-method is the old, the long, 
 the slow method, the unsafe and hopeless way. In this present war, 
 it is doubtful if even a miltary victory — the only possible excuse for 
 war — can be achieved by either side. But victory or no victory, the 
 millions of lost lives and treasure cannot be recalled, the anguish of 
 millions of innocents cannot be assuaged, the heat of the war passions 
 in millions of the earth's children will not soon be cooled, the bitter- 
 ness and hatred of men and nations that should be brothers have 
 poisoned innumerable sources of life and light and joy, and the moral 
 and intellectual and religious hypocrisy of leading men will not soon 
 be foi^iven. No, the oppressed and driven and helpless peoples of 
 all belligerents — be they called autocracies or democracies — will not 
 forget this crime against them. The plain peoples of the world will 
 find it hard to forgive this riot of power in the hands of a few over- 
 lords, and the ])eoples of the world will surely avenge this betrayal 
 of life. Oh, that our voices, the voices of many peoples, might be 
 heard, and that America might justify the world's high hopes of her, 
 by commanding peace forthwith as easily now she might. The Presi- 
 dent's peace aims can now be achieved without the killing of more 
 millions. But the killing of more millions can never achieve these 
 peace aims. 
 
 Dr. Magnes, after announcing the various committees and asking 
 for suggestions for additional members, then opened the Symposmm 
 on the European Sitnation. 
 
 17 
 
Algernon Lee, Educational Secretary Rand School, New York: 
 Forces Making for Democracy and Peace in Europe. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: Complying with the re- 
 quest of the Committee that I very briefly summarize the forces in 
 Europe now working for peace and demoracy, I find it necessary to 
 give what may seem to some of you a disproportionate attention to the 
 International Socialist Bureau and the Socialist parties in the various 
 countries of Europe. The reason for this lies in the fact that the 
 Socialist movement is the only international organi-zed body committed 
 to the cause of peace and democracy, which is, at the same time, in 
 direct contact with great masses of the people in all of the various 
 countries. It will be borne in mind that to speak of the Socialist move- 
 ment on the continent of Europe is for all practical purposes to speak 
 also of the movement of organized labor, and that this is, to a very 
 great extent, true also of Great Britain. Besides the Socialist and 
 Labor International, there are certainly in many countries — probably 
 in all of them — numerous and influential non-Socialist elements earn- 
 estly working in the same direction, so far as concerns the effort for 
 a general democratic and lasting peace. If time permitted, for in- 
 stance, much could be said of the invaluable service that has been and 
 is being rendered in Great Britain by the Union of Democratic Control 
 and other organizations of a like nature, including among their active 
 members such men in and out of Parliament as Brailesford, Morel, 
 Bertrand Russell, Trevelyan and others. They work to establish popu- 
 lar education concerning the causes of war, the effects of war and the 
 economic and political conditions necessary to secure peace, consistent 
 w^ith liberty and with progress. 
 
 It has not been practicable for similar elements in France and 
 Germany to assert themselves with the same vigor as in Great Britain, 
 but there also it is clear that the non-Socialist pacifists of ante-bellum 
 days have by no means all of them abandoned their ideas, although 
 in most cases they give first place to what they regard as the necessity 
 for national defense. This does not prevent them from consciously 
 aiming at a peace organized on very different lines from those con- 
 templated by the nationalistic and imperialistic elements in their re- 
 spective countries. If they have not yet come into action as a peace- 
 making force they may reasonably be expected to do so as soon as the 
 mass movement gets well under way. . Finally, one ought to mention 
 the peace societies of various types which have their headquarters in 
 the three neutral centers of Europe. Switzerland, Holland and the 
 Scandinavian countries which have done very much to combat the 
 growth of national hatreds and to offset the effect upon the popular 
 mind in the belligerent countries of the pernicious misinformation 
 which is so industriously disseminated in each of those countries by 
 the Government and by the jingo press. 
 
 The importance of the Socialist and Labor International then 
 lies not only in its own strength, but also in the fact that, for the rea- 
 ls 
 
sons I have already stated, it is able to act as a rallying center for all 
 or nearly all the other genuinely democratic peace advocates. 
 
 The Socialist movement of Europe, through its international and 
 all its national organizations, made every effort to prevent the war. 
 It failed for the very simple reason that it was not yet strong enough. 
 The war came and for the time the Socialist movement was, though 
 not completely disrupted, yet almost paralyzed. In nearly all of the 
 countries some of its leaders and a portion of its rank and file were 
 swept off their feet by the unreasoning epidemic passion, which war 
 always tends to. Much more important, however, was the fact that 
 to some extent, in all of the belligerent countries — to a very great 
 extent, especially in Germany and France, once hostilities have 
 begun the question presented itself as one of protecting the father- 
 land against actual or threatened invasion and possibly subjugation 
 and dismemberment. Rightly or wrongly, in so far as this was the 
 case in the various countries, most of the Socialists in common 
 with the mass of population rallied to the national defence. Then, as 
 months dragged on without any decisive result coming into sight, the 
 International Socialist Bureau removed at the beginning of the war 
 from invaded Belgium to neutral Holland, with Dutch Socialists added 
 to its executive committee, but with its loyal secretary, Camille Huys- 
 mans (no less devoted to internationalism for being also a genuinely 
 patriotic Belgian) still at its head, resumed its activity within a few 
 months after the outbreak of the war. It has maintained direct re- 
 lations with the Socialist parties of all the belligerent and neutral coun- 
 tries, and it has steadfastly and consistently labored to effect as soon 
 as possible, not only a mutual understanding, but active and harmo- 
 nious co-operation of all these parties in a simultaneous effort to bring 
 the war to an end — not through diplomatic intrigue, but by the asser- 
 tion of the popular will for peace — not through complete military tri- 
 umph of either group of nations and the humiliation of the other, an 
 event which, if conceived, would almost inevitably mean the strength- 
 ening of militarism and the perpetuation of the war danger, but 
 through a negotiated peace on bases which it found already indicated 
 to it in their main outlines in the declarations of the International 
 Socialist Congresses held at Copenhagen in 1910, and at Basil in 
 1912, which correspond to the real interests of the masses of the people 
 everywhere, and which have found acceptance among ever larger num- 
 bers of non-Socialist pacifists and Democrats as the war went on. 
 
 The main points of this program were as follows : No punitive 
 indemnities. This does not exclude economic or political rehabilita- 
 tion of the ravaged countries or districts in so far as rehabilitation 
 may be possible. No forcible annexations — that is, no transfer of ter- 
 ritory against the will or regardless of the desires of its inhabitants. 
 General recognition of the rights of peoples to dispose of themselves. 
 No economic war after the war of steel and blood — that is, no alli- 
 ance of nations to thwart the industrial and commercial development 
 of other nations. On the contrary, an international agreement for 
 the freedom of the seas, straits and other paths of navigation and the 
 
 19 
 
most rapid possible extension of the policy of free trade in the colo- 
 nies as well as in the home land. Suppression of secret diplomacy, 
 parliamentary control of foreign relations, and, as a beginning in 
 this, participation of parliamentary representatives as well as diplomats 
 in the general Peace Conference. Democratization of the governments 
 — a demand which applies with a special force naturally to the states 
 of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe ; this change to be ef- 
 fected not by foreign bayonets, but by the will of the respective peo- 
 ples as has lately so happily been the case in Russia. General accept- 
 ance of the principle of mediation and the eventual arbitration of fu- 
 ture disputes between nations. And finally simultaneous and pro- 
 gressive reduction of miltary and naval armaments, leading to complete 
 disarmament. 
 
 The task of the bureau has not been an altogether easy one. All 
 of the Socialist parties were from the start willing to accept the 
 program in principle, except perhaps for some reservations on the 
 first two points — those concerning annexations and indemnities. 
 But the majorities, especially in France, Germany, and Austria- 
 Hungary, were all influenced by a fear that readiness to participate 
 in a general peace movement, in a vigorous internal opposition to 
 the war policies of their respective governments, would be construed 
 abroad as a sign of national weakness — nay, would even actually 
 impair the national defense. It has taken time and bitter experi- 
 ence to diminish, and even now not altogether to remove this fear. 
 The Conference of the Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish 
 Socialist parties at Copenhagen in January, 1915, of the British, 
 Belgian, French and Swiss, at London in the following months, of 
 the German, Austrian, and Hungarian at Vienna in April, 1915, and 
 of the Dutch, Danish, Swedish and the American and the Argentine 
 Socialist parties, with the concurrence of the Norwegian, Swiss, 
 Spanish and Roumanian at the Hague in July and August, 1916 — 
 these, together with some minor gatherings of Socialists from dif- 
 ferent nations, all contributed something toward clearing the way 
 for an agreement. But much more was done by the quiet and 
 patient work of the International Secretary and the members of the 
 Executive Committee of t'he Bureau and by the action of the 
 niinorities within the various national divisions of the movement 
 in their respective countries, greatly aided, especially in Great 
 Britain and in the neutral countries by those non-socialists, paci- 
 fists and democratic forces, to which I have already more than once 
 referred. 
 
 I am confident that there is to-day the best of reason to hope 
 that all this tireless and devoted effort is now about to bear fruit, 
 bringing the most frightful war in all 'history to such an ending as 
 no war has led to in the past, and by methods which were never 
 before within the bounds of possibility. Three conditions outside 
 of the efforts just mentioned have worked toward the realization 
 of that hope. In the first place the war drags on month after month 
 w^ith so little change in the relative fighting strength of the parties. 
 
with such slow approach to decisive exhaustion of either side, that 
 even now, after the entrance of the United States into the conflict, 
 statesmen and military men talk of a fourth and a fifth and even 
 a sixth year of war before victory can be won. The misery of the 
 soldiers in the field and of the men, women and children at home — 
 not on one side but on both — grows in an accelerating ratio. Hunger 
 has long been felt, world-wide famine seems not far off, and with 
 intolerable misery come a passionate longing for peace, growing 
 doubt whether any conceivable fruits of victory can be worth the 
 costs, and especially growing indignation against rulers Who refuse 
 even to consider the possibility of a negotiated peace and who seem 
 to contemplate an indefinite prolongation of the war with complete 
 unconcern for the horrors which they personally do not have to 
 bear. 
 
 In the second place, the war began without hate, so far as the 
 masses were concerned. In each of the countries among the lower 
 middle classes, as well as among the peasants and the wage workers, 
 there was a widespread recognition that the people of the enemy 
 country were not to blame and that all the governments were to 
 blame, though, perhaps, not all in equal measure. The war and 
 its atrocities brought hate, which for a time obscured fhis just view 
 of the facts, but the wave of hatred is again subsiding, has very 
 largely subsided, in spite of the desperate efforts of certain sections 
 of the press in all the countries to keep it up. By simple familiarity, 
 the popular mind is getting adjusted to the war, not in the sense of 
 becoming reconciled to it, but in the sense of becoming able to 
 regard it objectively, to think about it in a logical manner, to ask 
 with increasing eagerness and insistence what it is all about, Whether 
 it need go on, whether the- aims of the various governments are 
 indeed identical with the needs and desires of the various people, 
 and to demand of the government a definite and concrete statement 
 of war aims and acceptable peace terms, so that the people may 
 be in a position to judge for themselves. 
 
 And in the third place, the overthrow of the Russian autocracy 
 has changed the whole political situation and transformed the 
 background of the war. The spectacle of a people casting off the 
 government that had so long oppressed them and threatened others 
 has given an immense stimulus to the latent revolutionary spirit 
 throughout Europe, and awakened among the masses a conscious- 
 ness of their power. The action of the Russian working class revo- 
 lutionists in forcing or instructing their new provisional govern- 
 ment to set the example of stating its peace terms in an unmistak- 
 able manner, definitely and conclusively, repudiating all aggressive 
 and imperialistic purposes, taking the initiative in an international 
 popular movement for a speedy, general, and lasting negotiated 
 peace — all this not only strengthens the democratic peace movement 
 in the Allied countries and in the United States, but what is more 
 important, it takes away from the German and Austro-Hungarian 
 movements one of their strongest pretexts — if not the very strong- 
 
 21 
 
est — for adfiering to the diirchhalten policy and puts the responsi- 
 bility upon the masses in the central countries of Europe, by giving 
 them the increased opportunity for bringing presure to bear upon 
 their rulers. 
 
 It would take more time than can be spared to give any kind of 
 full picture of What we know about the conditions in the various 
 countries, with regard to the movement for a democratic peace. 
 There are only a few typical facts that I desire to remind you of at 
 this moment. The German Social Democracy, its members in the 
 Reichstag, voted unaniously, so far as .they were present — and most 
 of them were present in the Reichstag at the beginning of 191^^1 — for 
 the war credits, although registering a protest against the con- 
 duct of the government, which had led to the war. It was not until 
 December that two of the Social Democratic members broke the 
 unanimity by voting against the credits. In the following spring, 
 about twenty out of 110 members voted ''No" on the credits, and 
 about another twenty or a little more than twenty, abstained from 
 voting — 2i somewhat less emphatic method of demonstration against 
 the war policy of the government. From this time on, the Social 
 Democratic members of the Reichstag, more or less clearly divided 
 into a majority and a minority, t'he minority for now more than two 
 years, numbering fully two-fifths of the Socialist representatives in 
 the Reichstag and growing since that time bit by bit. 
 
 It is impossible to speak with any authority — I suppose impos- 
 sible even for anyone in Germany to speak with complete authority 
 as to how many among the party members and among the adherence 
 of the party are represented respectively by the majority and the 
 minority, yet it is clear that in the largest and strongest districts, 
 the so-called minority — the anti-governmental faction — is the actual 
 majority among the rank and file of the party, and it is also clear 
 that in many districts whose representatives belong to the majority 
 which has co-operated with the government, the rank and file has 
 expressed itself in a directly opposite sense, and has given the world 
 to understand that those representatives do not any longer reflect 
 the sentiments of their constituents. It seems clear that if the 
 so-called ''minority" do not already represent an actual majority of 
 the party they must at least come very near doing so and that their 
 strength is growing day by day. 
 
 Within the last few months the difference between the majority 
 and the extreme minority came to the point of t'he formation of a 
 separate organization within the party, and finally of the formation 
 of a separate and independent Social Democratic party, comprising 
 about one-fifth of the full Social Democratic movement. This 
 schism simply indicates the increasing vigor of the popular opposi- 
 tion to the undemocratic and militaristic attitude which the gov- 
 ernment still maintains. We, of course, do not always know just 
 how much to believe of dispatches that perhaps first have to pass 
 the German censorship and then have to pass the Allied censorship 
 
 22 
 
of the Associated Press before getting published, but with all allow- 
 ance and with careful reading between the lines, it is certain that 
 throughout Germany and Austria-Hungary, within the last two 
 weeks, and particularly at the May Day time, there were very ex- 
 tensive popular demonstrations in the form of strikes, not merely 
 economic strikes for wages or for some other material demand, but 
 strikes having a distinctly political significance, and that were dis- 
 tinctly demonstrations unfavorable to the policy of the government 
 and in favor of the movement for a democratic peace. 
 
 It is certain that considering the very difficult conditions which 
 prevailed with a government vastly more efficient than was the old 
 Russian autocracy, and therefore the more difficult to defy, these 
 demonstrations were very remarkable indeed. Our chairman has 
 already referred to the fact that within the last month the German 
 government was assured in the Reichstag that if it failed to meet 
 a genuine proposal for democratic peace revolution in Germany 
 would be the consequence. That declaration is all the more impres- 
 sive because it came from the mouth of a man who is, by no means, 
 a leader of forlorn hopes — from the mouth of one of the most con- 
 servative of the party — one who cannot be supposed to speak in 
 such a tone unless he speaks with authority, and w'ith a pretty 
 definite mandate from his constituents. At the same time amidst 
 the howls and jeers, of course, of the reactionaries, the definite 
 cry for a German republic was raised by George Ledebour on behalf 
 of the Social Democrats, and there are indications that the reason 
 that it caused such indignation among the conservatives was that 
 it 'has actually appealed to the hearts of very large numbers among 
 the people. 
 
 In the dispatches the other day there was a report of a lecture 
 by a University professor. The German University professor has 
 not within any time during the last sixty years been expected to be a 
 radical, popular leader, and so when Herr Professor Dr. Von Wer- 
 nicke declared publicly that the Prussian people are tired of being 
 ruled by the Junkertum he thought there was a large number of 
 Germans who already heartily agreed before the declaration would 
 be made. It is also pretty clear from the recent attitude of the 
 Frankfurter Zeitung and of the Tageblatt that not only among the 
 working class, but among the very large middle class elements, 
 there was a determined opposition to the annexation, militaristic 
 policies of the Junkertum, and of certain of the great capitalistic 
 interests, and a decided tendency tov^ard the acceptance of any 
 means by which could be brought about a negotiated peace upon 
 the lines generally indicated in the movement that we have just been 
 considering. 
 
 Of the events in Austria-Hungary it is not so easy to speak 
 because our information is extremely inadequate. 
 
 In France, within the Socialist movement, already as much as 
 ten months ago, a minority of about two-fifths of the party, in 
 
 23 
 
repeated votes in the meetings of the Party Council, while declaring 
 for the continuance of the National Defense, so long as the war 
 went on, insistently voted for the rehabilitation of the International 
 — for the calling of a general International Conference, and for an 
 active effort to unite the parities of the various countries in bring- 
 ing about a general peace. The decision of the French Socialists 
 to send delegates to the Stockholm Conference is a great turning 
 point, because it has been the refusal (a refusal which could not 
 altogether be condemned, in view of the presence of German 
 troops upon French soil) of the majority of the French Socialist 
 Party to participate in such a Conference that has chiefly stood in 
 the way of the iholding of such a Conference for fully a year past. 
 
 As for England, the British Socialist party has, by an over- 
 whelming majority, since the beginning, stood up vigorously against 
 the war policy of the Government, and there has been a small seces- 
 sion from it on that account. The very much larger Independent 
 Labor Party has by an overwhelming majority supported this posi- 
 tion, and with the support of five of its seven members of Parlia- 
 ment, and with the very able service of its Board, the Independent 
 Labor Party has been the center of the persistent and quite wonder- 
 ful movement that has been carried on in England for the earliest 
 possible negotiated and democratic peace. It was said in one of 
 the great newspapers in this city, about ten months ago, by an 
 Englishman — a rather eminent Englishman — that there were not 
 more than one thousand pacifists in all England. I happen to know, 
 having just been in England — within a month before that time — in 
 the summer of 1916 — the Union for Democratic Control and similar 
 organizations, had succeeded in getting more than one hundred 
 thousand signers within a few weeks to a so-called "Stop the 
 War Petition" — a petition calling upon the Government to enter 
 into negotiations for /peace, and a number of these signatures, I 
 understand, within a few more weeks, rose to at least two hundred 
 thousand. The signing of such a petition, under the circumstances 
 there existing, was to invite blacklist, insult and ostracism in very 
 many quarters. 
 
 At the January Conference of labor — of that large Federation 
 which includes the Independent Labor Party, the British Socialist 
 Party and many trade unions, in January of this year (that is, before 
 the Russian revolution and the events that it brought about), there 
 was a vote of one-fourth or rather more in favor of a rather far- 
 reaching resolutiou urging immediate negotiations for peace. In 
 view of the situation of the Labor Party, a vote of 25 per cent, in its 
 convention was a very remarkable demonstration. 
 
 Morris Hillquit (paper read by Algernon Lee). 
 
 Since the outbreak of the war numerous efforts have been made 
 to bring about a general International Conference of Socialists for 
 the purpose of working out a peace programme acceptable to all parties 
 
 24 
 
to the conflict, and particularly to the Socialists of all countries, bel- 
 ligerent and neutral alike. These efforts in all cases emanated from 
 neutral countries, but later, also, from the Italian Socialist Party and 
 a section of the English Socialist Movement (the Independent Labor 
 Party). 
 
 As far as the Socialist Party of the United States is concerned it 
 called for such a conference as early as September 24, 1914, and re- 
 newed the suggestion on several subsequent occasions. As a result 
 of these movements some conferences of neutrals and some separate 
 conferences of the Socialists in the allied countries and in the central 
 powers were held, but all moves for a general conference failed, be- 
 cause it seemed almost impossible to find common ground between 
 the Socialists in the contending countries. 
 
 The President's address to the Senate, the broad and forceful 
 formulation of his peace programme and the manner in which it was 
 promulgated seemed to pave the way for such a conference. The 
 programme was formally endorsed by the Socialists of France and 
 Italy and also by those of Austria and was favorably received by the 
 Socialists of all other countries, neutral and belligerent. 
 
 When the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party 
 of this country met a few days after the date of the President's 
 address to the Senate, it was felt that at a time when the Chief Execu- 
 tive of this Republic thought it appropriate to address the govern- 
 ments of the world on the subject of peace, the American Socialists 
 could do no less than to initiate a similar movement among the Social- 
 ists of the world. The Executive Committee therefore cabled the 
 following message to the International Socialist Bureau : 
 
 "Convinced that the time is ripe for a revival of the Socialist 
 International on the basis of a concerted working class movement for 
 an immediate, just and lasting peace, the Socialist party of the 
 United States requests that an International Congress be called June 
 3, 1917, at The Hague. Unless by March 1 the Bureau takes steps 
 to call such Congress, our party will consider itself justified in taking 
 direct initiative." 
 
 Similar messages were sent by cable to every Socialist Party, neu- 
 tral or belligerent, affiliated with the International Socialist Bureau. 
 
 This movement of the American Socialists was immediately sup- 
 ported by the Socialists of Holland, and the Executive Committee of 
 the International Socialist Bureau announced that it w'ould take steps 
 to call such a conference at the earliest opportunity. Such opportu- 
 nity presented itself with the overthrow of Russian autocracy, and 
 the calling of the Stockholm Conference is the result. 
 
 The charge that the Stockholm Conference was engineered by 
 the German Government or even by the German Socialists has not 
 the slightest foundation in fact. The Socialists of Germany were in- 
 vited to take part in the conference just as were the Socialists of 
 other countries. The arrangements for the conference are in the hands 
 
 25 
 
of the International Socialist Bureau, which consists of representa- 
 tives of the Socialist Parties of all countries, and the practical work 
 is being done by the Executive Committee of the Bureau consisting of 
 the members from Belgium and Holland. These are Emile Vander- 
 velde, Camille Huysmans, Edouard Anseele, P. J. Troelstra and Henri 
 V^an Kal, and since the conference is to take place in Stockholm 
 the Committee is assisted by the Socialist Party of Sweden under the 
 leadership of Hjalmar Branting. Anyone who knows these men and 
 their stand in this war would know how utterly ridiculous it is to 
 charge them with promoting a pro-German enterprise. 
 
 The notion that a pro-German element would dominate the Stock- 
 holm conference is absurd for another reason. At the proposed con- 
 ference, as at. all meetings of International Socialist gatherings, the 
 vote is by nationalities, each nation having a number of votes propor- 
 tionate to the importance of the country and the strength of its Social- 
 ist and Labor Movement. Upon the established basis the voting 
 strength of the different national groups at the Stockholm confer- 
 ence will be as follows: 
 
 CENTRAL POWERS 
 
 Germany 20 
 
 Austria 20 
 
 Hungary 6 
 
 Bulgaria 4 
 
 50^ 
 
 In this connection it must be remembered that the twenty votes 
 allotted to Germany would have to be divided between the majority 
 and minority wings of the party and that the 20 votes allowed to 
 Austria include Bohemia. 
 
 ALLIED COUNTRIES. 
 
 Belgium 12 
 
 France 20 
 
 England 20 
 
 Italy 15 
 
 Roumania 4 
 
 Russia 20 
 
 Servia 4 
 
 United States 20 
 
 Finland 8 
 
 123 
 NEUTRAL COUNTRIES. 
 
 Denmark 10 
 
 Holland 8 
 
 Norway 6 
 
 Sweden 8 
 
 Switzerland 10 
 
 Spain 6 
 
 is" 
 
 26 
 
Poland (Russian, Austrian and German) has together ten votes. 
 These figures show at a glance how impossible it would be for 
 Germany to dominate an International Socialist Conference. 
 
 Algernon Lee: 
 
 I may add that in view of the news which has been coming to us 
 day by day from Petrograd, 1 am sure that we all realize the equal 
 absurdity of the suggestion which has been made in certain quarters 
 that there was a deep and dark conspiracy to lure the representatives 
 of the Russian Social Democracy to Stockholm and to trick them, 
 and to deceive them, and that it was necessary for the United States 
 to take steps to prevent their so being lured and deceived, and to give 
 good advice to the inexperienced democracy of Russia. I believe we 
 are inclined to take off our hats to the democracy of Russia, which 
 is the result of fifty years fighting for the victory which it has now 
 won, and which we are all to share. 
 
 Alexander Trachtenberg, a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War, 
 and a participant in the Russian Revolution of 1905 : The 
 Rtissian Situation. 
 
 I have but a few minutes to touch on so vast a subject as the 
 recent overturning in Russia. In the beginning we were told that the 
 Russian Revolution was made possible by the Liberalists of Russia, 
 who simply were afraid the Russian Czar and his bureaucracy might 
 make a separate peace with Germany. After the revolution was an 
 accomplished fact, we were told that the revolution was made by 
 Germany so as to get the Russian revolutionary proletariat to make a 
 separate peace with Germany. I cannot understand this logic. 
 
 The fact of the matter is that the revolution was effected by the 
 Russian workers and soldiers and that they were not even assisted 
 by the Russian Liberalists, for the simple reason that the Russian 
 Liberalists are not interested in what the Russian revolutionists are 
 trying to accomplish at this particular time. To be sure, they were 
 anxious to secure more freedom for Russia, for an independent 
 development of Russian capitalism, but they were rather afraid of 
 the Russian proletariat, which would take control of the affairs — 
 which might renounce the continuance of war and especially of the 
 desire of the bourgeoisie of Russia for Constantinople, for instance — 
 that is why you have read recently of the fact that the government had 
 such leaders as Miliukoft* and Gutchkoff. 
 
 The Russian Revolution is really an anti-war revolution. The 
 active revolution began as soon as w^ar was declared, because at the 
 same time that was war declared in Russia, you found thousands of 
 Russian workers parading the streets of Petrograd and Moscow and 
 other inlustrial centers, demanding the ending of the war — anti-war 
 demonstrations were held throughout Russia, anti-war literature was 
 distributed in Russia, and in the Duma itself the few Socialist 
 Deputies, knowing they were always under the watch of the govern- 
 ment, steadfastly stood against the war, and when the budget came 
 
 27 
 
up for consideration they left the Duma as a protest, and did not 
 vote the war credits. In fact, later, five Socialist Deputies were sent 
 to Siberia for anti-war propaganda. The Russian Revolution was 
 born in this anti-war movement of the Russian workers and the mass 
 of the people, and that is why it is very much apropos that a confer- 
 ence of this sort should take its inspiration from the achievements of 
 the Russian Revolution. 
 
 We were not able to understand until now, when the Russian 
 papers are reaching us, what was going on in the early days of the 
 revolution. The papers are now reporting that the demonstrations 
 which followed the general strike proclaimed in Petrograd were made 
 by masses of people marching through the streets with large banners 
 on which was written, ''We want liberty," "We want peace." It was 
 simply a revolt of the masses of the people against the continuation 
 of this war. 
 
 We are told now that we ought to favor an army — we ought to 
 favor militarism because the revolution would not have been possible 
 but for the help of the arm}^ Now, as a matter of fact, as one who 
 has served in the army in war, I can say that this is not an argument 
 in favor of militarism, but the best possible argument against mili- 
 tarism and against an army, because the present army, which has 
 revolted, and which united with the working class, was not an estab- 
 lished standing army. The established standing army was killed off 
 during the first two and a half years of the war. The present armies 
 represent workers drawn from the reserves — people who have partici- 
 pated in the Revolution of 1905, who served in the Russian- Japanese 
 War, and were therefore opposed to the government — those drawn 
 from the classes of people opposed to the government — people op- 
 posed to militarism. They could not have got this army two years 
 ago or a year ago. They were fresh from the masses of the popula- 
 tion, rather than trained professional soldiers. And so it is absolutely 
 untrue that militarism has helped this revolution now. It is just the 
 contrary. 
 
 Another thing to be cleared up is the question of a separate peace. 
 Now, there is no such intention, except for a very small minority in 
 Russia — a group of extreme Socialists, or as they call themselves, 
 Anarchists. As a matter of fact, the entire Socialist movement is for 
 a general peace — for a universal peace — for two reasons. First of 
 all, because the entire Russian Socialist democracy which is now in' 
 control of the affairs in Russia is completely international. The whole 
 Russian working class is imbued with internationalism. It has been 
 taught so from the very beginning. On the other hand, as the Chair- 
 man has indicated, they also want to free themselves, in order to solve 
 their own internal problems, because there are thousands of officials 
 of the old regime, priests and others, scattered throughout the coun- 
 try, and they may be easily working for a counter-revolution. The 
 Russian provincial government is anxious for peace, both from the 
 international point of view, and from a purely internal point of view, 
 
not because they want to help Germany or any particular group. 
 Just yesterday I met a few Russian sailors, now in this country. 
 I asked them what was the first effect this revolution had on the 
 masses of the people. They said, "The first thing, it made it possible 
 for us to ask the government, *What are we fighting for ?' " 
 
 And that is exactly what the Russian people are asking just now, 
 and it finds expression in the government. As a fugitive myself — one 
 who has found a haven here in America as a political refugee — I wish 
 to invite to free Russia, all those who are working for peace, and find 
 themselves uncomfortable here. 
 
 Dr. J. L. Magnes: 
 
 I cannot resist taking some of our valuable time by saying that 
 I understand that a society has actually been projected in Russia — 
 somewhat copying the name of a society that has done very good work 
 here for a number of years before the Russian Revolution. Some of 
 us have been connected with it — ^The American Friends of Russian 
 Freedom. I understand that they have projected a society in Russia 
 known as the Russian Friends of American Freedom. 
 
 Louis P. Lochner: The Scandinavian Countries. 
 
 The inspiring impression that I took home with me from over 
 half a year's stay in Scandinavia was that of how intensely the peoples 
 there are working on the problems of democracy and peace. We 
 think of them as monarchies, and often assume that therefore there is 
 very little democracy among them. As a matter of fact, they are very 
 democratic, possibly even more so than America. There is also an 
 impression, hard to eradicate, that Sweden, for instance, is a pro- 
 German country. That seems to be an impression over here that is 
 hard to eradicate. It is true that the military caste in Sweden is 
 pro-German and its army is patterned upon the German model, but 
 the heart of the people is pro-peace. They want to keep out of this 
 war at all cost. 
 
 On May 18th of last year, when, as I happen to know, the British 
 minister at Stockholm had packed up his papers, preparatory to leaving 
 the country, because it seemed that twenty-four hours later the im- 
 perialistic class might declare war on the side of Germany, throughout 
 the length and breadth of that country immense protest meetings 
 sprang up. The crisfs was averted. It was not only the Social Demo- 
 cratic party, though that is a tremendously strong factor in Sweden — 
 it was the whole fabric of society, with the exception of a very small 
 class at the top. I attended a number of the meetings.^ Everywhere 
 the people were insistent that the government must not go into the war. 
 
 The peace movement there is far more a movement of the people, 
 a movement of the rank and file, than it has been over here. Perhaps 
 that is true because up to the time that this war came upon us, or 
 
 29 
 
shortly before then, the peace movement was largely owned by the 
 Carnegie Peace Trust. They have no such thing in Sweden. It is 
 there, truly, a movement of the people. 
 
 Another thing to consider is that the Parliaments of Sweden, 
 Norway and Denmark were constantly working upon the problem of 
 how to maintain their neutrality. It was a curious thin^ for me to 
 find my friends asking me, Why is not the American Congress doing 
 anything toward keeping in touch with the rest of us, to see whether 
 the parliaments, the people's representatives, if the government or 
 administration should happen to fail, cannot do something to avoid the 
 further spread of the world cataclysm. I answered that it was perhaps 
 specifically the business of the American group of the Inter-Parlia- 
 mentary IJnion. 
 
 This Inter-Parliamentary Union is made up of members of Parlia- 
 ment of all countries who believe in the cause of arbitration, of inter- 
 national organization, etc. During the war the groups of the inter- 
 Parliamentary Union of the three Scandinavian countries, as well as 
 of Switzerland and of Holland, have made it their special business to 
 try from time to time to bring pressure to bear upon their govern- 
 ments, in the direction of renewing their peace efforts, but from every 
 side came the answer, "We cannot do anything, so long as the Ameri- 
 can group does not answer." When I returned here I tried to find 
 out why it was that the American group was not doing anything, and 
 I found, as one explanation, perhaps, that the secretary of that group 
 is at the same time one of the secretaries of the Carnegie Peace 
 Foundation. I was told over here that the State Department and others 
 thought it was a very delicate matter for the members of Congress to 
 meddle in any way with the international situation, etc. But I said, 
 "Here are these members of the Scandinavian Parliaments, who do 
 not seem to think that it is beyond the pale of their business to try to 
 help along the cause of internationalism, and I pointed especially to 
 the case of Switzerland, which has repeatedly asked that the other 
 neutral groups of the Inter-Parliamentary Union should get together. 
 I was given the answer that what may be good for Switzerland is not 
 good for America. 
 
 In the Scandinavian countries the people have been working in- 
 tensely on the problem of international organization after the war. 
 As an evidence of this, when President Wilson made his peace effort 
 in December, I believe that there the thing was far more thoroughly 
 gone into than on our side of the water. After people had analyzed 
 the proposals that the President made, then the Parliamentary Union 
 group, the peace people, the Socialists, all brought pressure to bear 
 upon their governments, so that the three Scandinavian governments 
 jointly endorsed Mr. Wilson's movement for peace, and were fol- 
 lowed in so doing by Switzerland, and finally by Holland at the last 
 moment, because of its very delicate position. I feel that if we are 
 engaged in the promotion of the cause of democracy and peace, one 
 
 30 
 
of the best things that we possibly can do would be to send forth 
 from the American movement, that I hope will develop out of this, 
 a delegation that will stay in touch with Europe at some spot in Scan- 
 dinavia where there is real democracy, where they can breathe the 
 free air and be in touch constantly with those many international 
 currents, with which they can come in contact there, so that we may, 
 on this side of the water, be better informed than we are now, as to 
 the progress that democracy is making throughout Europe. 
 
 31 
 
Second Session 
 
 Wednesday, 3.30 P. M. 
 
 Chairman, Florence Kelley. 
 
 Morris Hillquit, International Secretary of the Socialist Party for 
 the United States, reporting for the Committee on Peace. 
 Terms of Peace. 
 
 Madam Chairman, Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 Our government, through the Committee on Public Information, 
 which is a euphemistic name for the Censorship Bureau, has just 
 issued a suggestion to the press that the discussion of peace in these 
 troubled times would generally not be favored by the government, 
 because peace conferences may be inspired by the enemy governments. 
 After the war is over and peace has been established you free-born 
 and American citizens may talk and think peace to your heart's de- 
 light. You may then even join a peace society — one of those that are 
 so very active in times of peace and so very passive and silent in 
 times of war. Now, we proceeded upon the theory that, notwith- 
 standing the wise suggestion of the Committee of Public Information, 
 it is the patriotic duty and the humanitarian duty of every citizen of 
 this country at this time — in time of war — to think and talk peace, 
 and to hold the ideal of peace — for, after all, even the administration, 
 even the ultra-militarists of this country, will not contend that we are 
 in war now just for the pleasure of fighting. Presumably, we are 
 fighting for an object, and presumably, when this object has been 
 attained, there will be no more cause for fight. There will be peace, 
 and we say that if by our activities, if by holding the ideal of ultimate 
 and speedy world peace before the people of this country and the 
 people of the world at all times, wx should do no more than to shorten 
 the duration of this war by a month, a week, or a day, our activities 
 will be fully justified. 
 
 In the thousand days, or thereabouts, that this war has been 
 raging, about six million human beings have been killed — an average 
 of six thousand a day. Every day of the war costs over one hundred 
 million dollars to the belligerents, every day of the war sees boundless, 
 unspeakable suflfering all over the world. Is it not then a purpose 
 worthy of our best efforts to save some of these thousands or hun- 
 dred thousands of human lives, to save some shred, some particle of 
 modern civilization from this war. Now, we say besides that the 
 peace we are striving for is not to be a mere temporary truce. Just 
 because this was has been so extensive and so deadly, just because it 
 has been the most terrible war known to history, it must be 
 
 32 
 
made the last of all wars, and the terms of peace which we are called 
 upon to. work for, to talk over, are terms of such a peace as will be a 
 lasting, perpetual, eternal peace among the nations. 
 
 In other words, we are not primarily interested in the immediate 
 patching up of political differences between the nations. Whether or 
 not the boundary line is moved upon the map to some extent — 
 whether or not a certain indemnity has been paid by one nation to 
 another — whether or not the feeling of resentment or revenge has 
 been gratified, will not fundamentally alter the fate of the nations for 
 centuries to come, but whether or not this war shall end with the 
 world-wide arrangement which will prevent all future wars and will 
 at last advance human beings to the state of real civilized men and 
 women — that is fundamental — that will count for all ages to come. 
 
 And so then we set this first, that at the end of this war, as a 
 basis of all peace treaties, there must be a definite international ar- 
 rangement to secure and maintain peace forever. 
 
 We know perfectly well that this is a dream that has been 
 dreamed by many and many an advanced mind in past decades, gen- 
 erations and centuries, but what we see is that only now — only on 
 account of this war — an actual, realistic, compelling basis for such an 
 organization has been created. No nation after this war can attempt 
 to continue a separate, sequestered existence in hostility or antagonism 
 with other nations. This war — no matter what its immediate cause — 
 is essentially a war for international trade and markets. It is not the 
 act of the maniac who killed the Austrian Archduke which precipi- 
 tated the world into this terrible catastrophe. It is the fact that the 
 world has been at war, if not under arms, long before that outbreak. 
 It is the contradiction between the international character of our trade, 
 our commerce, our relations, on the one hand, and the artificial, nar- 
 row, national boundarfes, on the other, that has brought about this 
 war. 
 
 Our commerce, our trade, our intercourse, to-day, has long out- 
 grown national boundaries. Every great business enterprise is con- 
 ducted with international scope. We are producing for a world 
 market to-day — we are trading in a world market. Economically and 
 commercially, it is one — one organization — and the way in which, 
 particularly in Europe, people have tried to parcel out this world into 
 rigid nations or countries with rigid boundary lines, separated from 
 each other by various and conflicting treaties and customs, duties and 
 other artificial restrictions, that caused the jealousies and frictions and 
 eventually the war with which we are confronted to-day. 
 
 So we say that after this war the self-interest of every great 
 nation will lie in the direction of establishing an international organ- 
 ization between the nations. There is nothing Utopian about it. All 
 the nations of Europe will be compelled to follow the example of the 
 United States. Have separate nations ? Yes. Separate governments ? 
 Yes. Our states have them. But freedom of commerce, freedom of 
 intercourse on equal terms to all people and all these nations just as 
 
 33 
 
well as we have them in all the states. Such an international federa- 
 tion, whatever may be its exact form, will have to be based upon an 
 international constitution in the shape of a collective treaty between 
 the nations, just as our country, as a whole, is based upon a national 
 constitution. It will have to be a constitution guaranteeing to the 
 various nations their prime necessaries of existence, the freedom of 
 the seas, the freedom of trade and commerce, the freedom of water- 
 ways, the security of each individual nation or nationality, and it will 
 have to do that by a concrete organization which must include some 
 instrumentality — a court or a board for the adjudication of all inter- 
 national disputes. 
 
 If ever proof was required of the absolute futility, as well as the 
 criminality of settling international disputes by the force of arms, this 
 unfortunate war has furnished that proof. 
 
 The world will learn after this war that the only way to adjust 
 rationally and clearly international disputes is by an appeal to reason 
 — by an appeal to justice — not by an appeal to brute force. 
 
 And when we speak of an international Court of Justice, we do 
 not have in view anything* like the League for the Enforcement of 
 Peace, based on armed military strength. By no means! There are 
 other and more efficient methods of maintaining peace without physical 
 force. You know, each one of you, of a number of organizations, 
 voluntarily created by individuals, which have the power to force 
 compliance with the laws and rules, without resort to force. Every 
 trade union man here knows that if he is fined, he will pay his fine. 
 Why? Because he will fear suspension or expulsion from his organ- 
 ization, and membership in his organization is vital to him in his 
 every-day life. So, likewise, in an organization of modern nations, 
 with their intimate economic inter-dependence, the mere suggestion 
 or threat of an expulsion from the international community of nations 
 will be more effective than any army could possibly be. 
 
 Imagine for a moment a modern nation, particularly in Europe, 
 being threatened with expulsion, say from the Postal Union, from 
 telegraph communication, from commerce, from interchange of com- 
 modities, from access to certain courts, from access to certain sources 
 of raw material. How long could such a nation exist if left entirely 
 alone with all ties between other nations cut ? Not twenty-four hours» 
 
 We do not propose an international police. We do not propose 
 an international army. We do not believe we can successfully combat 
 militarism by an extended system of militarism. On the contrary, we 
 urge in our program the abolition, as fast as possible, immediately, if 
 possible, of all armies and all navies, and all engines of destruction* 
 And when we advocate disarmament — complete disarmament, if pos- 
 sible to-day — we are not indulging in Utopian dreams. At no time 
 in the world's history have conditions been so favorable to disarma- 
 ment, so compelling in the direction of disarmament, as they will be 
 after the war. 
 
 34 
 
There will be two good reasons why the governments of Europe 
 will be eager to adopt such a plan, for in the first place, to maintain 
 L-n army, men are required. In the second place, to maintain an army 
 money is required. The governments of Europe at the conclusion of 
 this war will have neither men nor money to maintain an army. But 
 after the war is over the forces of manhood will essentially, 
 vitally, be required for the ordinary pursuits of peace and industry. ^ 
 Where will there be the hundreds and thousands of men to be main- ' 
 tained in idleness, in standing armies, particularly in view of the fact 
 that if standing armies are to be maintained after this war it must be 
 done upon a basis so colossal as to exhaust every available industrial 
 force in each country. 
 
 ' Again, bear this in mind, to-day the national debt of the leading 
 countries at war in Europe is in the neighborhood of thirty billion 
 dollars. Can you realize what that means ? An annual interest charge 
 of about one billion and a half dollars — six billion marks — seven and 
 a half billion francs — in interest charges alone, annually, not taking 
 into account any payment on principal. The governments of Europe, 
 when the war is over, will have to rebuild their countries. They will 
 require vast sums of money for purposes of peaceful reconstruction 
 — more money than they required before the war. Where will these 
 governments raise enough money to pay interest on these tremendous 
 war debts, which are growing still from day to day, to pay part of 
 the principal of those tremendous war debts, to defray all the legiti- 
 mate expense of administration, and still raise the tremendous sums 
 of money additionally required for the maintainence of standing 
 armies or large navies? I maintain that even if the governments, or j 
 rather the peoples of the various governments, repudiate the tremen- ( 
 dous war debts, as they should, even then I say there will be no 
 resources left in the various nations to maintain standing armies. The 
 demand for disarmament to-day is a highly practical demand. 
 
 And there is another reason why we are nearer the realization of 
 this world dream now than ever before. Armies always have been the 
 weapon of tyrannies. Armies always have meant not only menace to ( 
 peace between nations, but they have meant menace to liberties at 
 home for every nation. And the peoples of Europe are awakening to 
 this fact. The peoples are determined to take the administration of 
 their own affairs into their own hands, and to guard their liberties / 
 against tyranny. There will never again, after this war, be a large ^ 
 standing, crushing army in Russia, because the Russian people will no 
 longer want to crush their people at home or abroad. And the example 
 of Russia will soon be followed by the peoples in the other countries. 
 After the war the world will be governed by true democrats, by the 
 people in each country, and that will of necessity mean the end of all 
 militarism, of all wars. 
 
 iNow, when we have established the general principles upon which 
 a lasting peace is to be built, the settlement of the immediate disputes 
 between nations is no longer of momentous importance. It is only in 
 the light of these general terms of peace that we can comprehend the 
 
 35 
 
specific terms of peace advanced now by the liberal and radical ele- 
 ments all over the v^orld, and most tersely expressed by revolutionary 
 Russia : no . forcible annexation — no punitive damages — free national 
 development of all peoples. 
 
 No forcible annexation — ^no robbery of territory — no robbery of 
 nations — no enslavement of nations. Is that really such a traitorous, 
 unpatriotic demand to be made upon the powers of Europe, upon the 
 powers in the war at this time.. No indemnities — no payment of tre- 
 mendous sums of money of one country to the other? Can we make 
 any other demand at this time ? Let me prophecy here that when we 
 say no punitive indemnities, this does not exclude opportunity for 
 compensation for economic losses to countries willfully invaded and 
 violated, such as Belgium, compensation either by those primarily 
 responsible for it — I mean Germany — or perhaps, as it has been re- 
 peatedly and I think cogently suggested, by all nations at war. Aside 
 from these exceptions which do not disturb the general principle, can 
 we possibly advance any other general terms of peace than one that 
 excludes indemnities? How can indemnities be raised and paid now? 
 Every one of the countries at war is impoverished. Its people are 
 starving in most cases. Even without payment of heavy indem.nities, 
 it may take a generation before they will rebuild their lands, before 
 they will be able to resume a normal condition of human existence. 
 Is it physically possible to expect those peoples, right or wrong — and 
 they are all of them in a way wrong — to raise billions and billions 
 more to pay as a penalty to other countries ? Where will it come from ? 
 We speak of indemnities -usually in a way as if it meant that Kaiser 
 Wilhelm II would take out his private Check book and write out a 
 check to the other countries, and we would say to him, "Serves you 
 right.*' Indemnities do not come from the governments. Indemnities 
 will not come from those primarily responsible for this war. Indemni- 
 ties, if they are levied, will come by heavy taxation upon the necessities 
 of the life of the people. Indemnities will mean more starvation, more 
 suffering for all nations of the people, and indemnities and annexation 
 of territory will mean grudges — ^will mean resentment — will mean the 
 germs of subsequent wars. No indemnities — no annexation — implies 
 practically peace without victory — implies practically a peace which 
 will show conclusively to the peoples of all the world, and for all time 
 to come, the absolute futility of this war and of all wars. 
 
 We are told that to endorse to-day this program first advanced 
 by the Russian revolution is working into the hands of Germany. It 
 is making for a pro-German peace. Well, it was not so long ago that 
 the Chief Magistrate of this country made the following statement, 
 which I should like you to read and reread and repeat, day after day, 
 to all with whom you discuss terms of peace or war. He said, "they 
 (the terms of peace proposed by him) implied first of all that it must 
 be a peace without victory. It is not pleasant to say this," said the 
 President. "I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpreta- 
 tion upon it, and that it may be understood with no other interpreta- 
 
 36 
 
tion was my thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face 
 them without soft concealments. Victory would mean peace forced 
 upon the loser — a victorious term imposed upon the vanquished. It 
 would be accepted under humiliation — under duress — at an intolerable 
 sacrifice, and would leave a sting — a resentment — a bitter memory, 
 upon which all peace would rest not permanently, but only as upon 
 quicksand. Only peace between equals can last. Only peace, the very 
 principle of which is equality and the common participation in a 
 common benefit." 
 
 Now, then, I am asking you — I am asking the people of the 
 United States — whether anything has changed in the situation of the 
 world since these wise words were spoken? Has our entrance into 
 the war changed this general, universal, human principle, so eloquently 
 laid down by the President of this country? Has it not become all the 
 more imperative? Has it not become all the more vital, because the 
 scene of conflict has been extended to embrace another powerful coun- 
 try, and to hold out the prospect of another indefinite prolongation of 
 this war? From the point of view of lasting, of durable peace, we can 
 paraphrase the statement of the President of the United States, and 
 say. We are faced by two alternatives : Peace without a victory, but 
 a lasting, durable peace, or Victory without Peace, without a durable 
 peace at any rate. 
 
 Finally, in our program, we call upon our administration to state 
 definitely and concretely its terms of peace. We call upon our admin- 
 istration to induce our allies to state their terms of peace. We say 
 if this is done, if the world knows what we are fighting for, the central 
 powers will be forced to state their terms of peace. Not only that, 
 but they will be forced to accept our terms of peace, if they are based 
 upon justice, upon equity, upon the principles of democracy and last- 
 ing peace, because in the fong run the central powers do not mean the 
 Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, because in the long run the central 
 powers consist of masses of people, thinking, feeling, suflfering, long- 
 ing for peace, and for perpetual peace, just as we do here. And when 
 these people discover that we are holding out to them and to the world 
 terms of peace which imply no humiliation and no punishment, but 
 which imply a guarantee of permanent peace, if the Hohenzollerns 
 and Hapsburgs stand in the way of accepting such terms, the people 
 of Germany, of Russia, of Austria, will see to it, as the people of 
 Russia have seen to it to-day, that their government is destroyed and 
 democracy enthroned. 
 
 The Executive Secretary read the following resolution presented 
 by Mr. Shiplacoff for incorporation in the platform of the First 
 American Conference for Democracy and Terms of Peace: 
 
 RESOLUTIONS ON SMALL SUPPRESSED NATIONS 
 
 Whereas, within the dominion of the belligerent countries, there 
 is a number of suppressed smaller nations, which, though bearing the 
 burden of the war in common with the rest, are still subject to in- 
 
 37 
 
equities imposed upon them by the dominant nations of their respective 
 countries, and 
 
 Whereas, some of these nations are deprived of their civic and 
 political rights; be it therefore 
 
 Resolved, that the First American Conference for Democracy 
 AND Terms of Peace expresses itself in opposition to this state of af- 
 fairs as unjust and undemocratic. 
 
 In anticipation of a treaty of peace among the warring nations, 
 this Conference urges the government of the United States to use its 
 good offices in behalf of these submerged nationalities, and to demand 
 for them the enjoyment of equal civic and political rights with the rest 
 of the people of their respective countries ; also, wherever practicable, 
 the right of local independence and full opportunity for cultural de- 
 velopment. 
 
 Professor Wm. I. Hull, Professor of International Relations, 
 Swarthmore College, Pa. : Entangling Alliances. 
 
 Madam Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 George Washington, whose name and memory are revered also 
 in New York City had some very serious and wise words to say to 
 the American people, as to the danger and the wrong of entering into 
 entangling alliances. As a student to some extent of European history, 
 George Washington knew of the many foolish, wicked, will-of-the- 
 wisp chases which had been engaged in under the banner of entangling 
 alliances — alliances of Great Britain with Prussia, and then the alliance 
 of Great Britain with France, the alliance of France with Prussia 
 against Austria, the alliance of France with Austria against Prussia. 
 It is a perfect kaleidoscope of history when we attempt to follow those 
 efforts to achieve international objects, by means of entangling 
 alliances. 
 
 But the entangling alliances which George Washington could have 
 known of are utterly insignificant in comparison with the entangling 
 alliances possible in this twentieth century. With the increasing com- 
 plexity of civilized life, with the increasing complexity especially of 
 economic life, there are invisible entangling alliances, which have 
 stretched out their arms like some mighty octopus and gripped every 
 nation within them. Such entangling alliances are illustrated by the 
 armament trusts, for example, which find their foothold and their 
 strength in every. great nation, and whose purpose in life it is to in- 
 crease the demand and supply the demand for increasing armaments. 
 The entangling alliances which have led the promoters in every great 
 country to exploit the resources of backward peoples, which have 
 built up these huge colonial imperialistic empires — these things are the 
 chestnuts which the nations of this twentieth century are asked to pull 
 out of the fire for each other. 
 
 I very much wish that the wisdom of a Washington could give 
 expression to the danger, the folly, the wickedness of entering into 
 
 38 
 
entangling alliances in this twentieth century, and the student of the 
 years immediately preceding this present war is impressed very forci- 
 bly by the fact that the war was foreshadowed and made imperative 
 by the building up of mighty entangling alliances. The triple alliance 
 on the one hand, the Entente Cordiale on the other — these are the 
 mighty opposing forces lined up against each other, armed to the 
 teeth, which have made this war inevitable and unparalleled in fright- 
 fulness in all history. Is it possible that the United States of America 
 is going to consider for a moment entering into any such partial en- 
 tangling, unholy alliances as are represented across the ocean? 
 
 Another reason why we should keep out of entangling alliances 
 is that the world is on a new pathway which differs from excessive 
 nationalism on the one hand, and partial inimical alliances on the other. 
 For the first time in human history the nations of the world joined 
 hands at The Hague in 1899 and 1907 and together unanimously they 
 took one step in advance — a short and feebk step thus far, but the 
 fact that they have taken it and taken it together has made of this 
 twentieth century a new era in human history. This awful war has 
 threatened that new era. I believe that in spite of it, beyond it, the 
 great task of international organization will proceed upon its course. 
 
 As Mr. Hillquit has suggested, this internationalism of our time 
 must be more than a political and judicial understanding and plan of 
 operation. It must include also an economic and an intellectual under- 
 standing and I would add to his words my conviction that there must 
 be built up a great international public opinion, that the peoples of the 
 world must not only know and appreciate each other, as we are learn- 
 ing here in America to understand and appreciate each other, but they 
 must enlighten and organize a common, international public opinion, 
 which shall reach around the world and support upon its pillars the 
 international organization and the economic co-operation which we 
 hope for in the future. 
 
 I have great faith, even in these days, when military power has 
 cast its protean shadow across every land, in the other forces of our 
 twentieth century civilization and among those other forces is the 
 invincible power of an enlightened and organized public opinion. That 
 is the greatest power in our own republic. Have you ever stopped to 
 consider that upon that single support alone stands the Supreme Court 
 of the United States — at least in its relations to the forty-eight States 
 of the Union. As far as individuals are concerned, it has at its dis- 
 posal a police power, and ultimately a military power, but that is not 
 the case as far as the sovereign states of this union are concerned. 
 In its relations with them it can look and does look only to the power 
 of public opinion, and yet that apparently helpless court, which rests 
 solely upon the despised power of public opinion, has successfully 
 adjudicated more than seventy disputes between the states of this 
 union; 243 international disputes have been settled by arbitration 
 tribunals, and in not one single instance has the award of these tri- 
 bunals been disputed. The permanent court of arbitration established 
 in The Hague in 1899 has settled fifteen disputes between the nations, 
 
 39 
 
and yet these tribunals, like the Supreme Court, rest solely upon the 
 power of public opinion. Do not let us despair. There are great 
 twentieth century forces, superior in every respect to the forces of the 
 army and the navy, and it is to these powers that we give our allegiance. 
 
 In closing, I should like to call to your attention for a moment a 
 plan in which I am personally very much interested — a plan which it 
 seems to me should be adopted immediately and put into practice 
 during this present war. For some weeks before the war began it was 
 my task to endeavor to impress upon the Congress and the President 
 the plan of an International Commission of Inquiry and Conciliation, 
 which would thrash out, frankly and fully, the differences which ex- 
 isted between the United States and Germany, and also the differences 
 which existed between the United States and Great Britain. I had 
 proceeded far in its promotion, when I discovered that these differ- 
 ences were not the real causes of the war. If these misunderstandings 
 alone had been the causes of this war, they could, and I believe they 
 would, have been settled by an International Commission of Inquiry 
 and Conciliation, but we had other aims in view and the plan was not 
 adopted. Now we are in the war. It is prophesied on every hand 
 that this war, unlike all other wars, is to be a war of daylight and not 
 of darkness. Can we help to prevent it from becoming a war of 
 darkness? Can we urge upon our government and through it upon 
 the government of the other powers which are fighting — ^the central 
 powers- — the appointment of an International Commission, which shall 
 follow up the victorious armies and bring to bear upon the operations 
 of those armies the pitiless light of publicity? You remember those 
 unspeakable atrocities which were committed at the time of the march 
 of the Allied armies to Peking. You remember the unspeakable atroci- 
 ties which were committed in the first and second Balkan wars. We 
 appointed Commissions of Inquiry after those atrocities had been com- 
 mitted and they have reported upon the frightful deeds which were 
 committed by the so-called civilized armies of western Europe. In 
 the Peking expedition our own country was represented, though we 
 hope not in the atrocities. Is it not possible that before such atrocities 
 are committed, an International Commission should follow in the wake 
 of the advancing armies? 
 
 I believe that such an International Commission could fulfill an- 
 other very useful purpose. We are supposed to be in this war for 
 international reasons, and not for the extension of national ambitions. 
 We hope that some of those knotty outstanding problems of European 
 politics, like the disposition of Constantinople and the Dardanelles, 
 for example, will be solved in an international way, and that no one 
 of the great powers shall be permitted to add an indefinite amount of 
 the earth's territory and population to its already overgrown dimen- 
 sions. Would it not facilitate the internationalization of those lands, 
 if at the end of the war they shall be controlled by an "International 
 Commission, instead of by a victorious army of any one nation? May 
 I appeal to this conference, then, to challenge, to test the idealism 
 which our own country and the others have professed in their conduct 
 
 40 
 
of this war, or rather to help our country and the others to reaHze the 
 high ideals which they profess in this particular, amongst others in 
 the name of justice, and of our poor common humanity, upon whom 
 the weights of this awful war are bearing in such frightful ways. 
 
 LiNDLEY M. Keasbey, Professor of Political Science, University of 
 Texas : Democratization of Diplomacy. 
 
 The question of the Democratization of Diplomacy is to my mind 
 the great question of the day, but the democratization of diplomacy 
 will not come until we have democratized our state. There is no 
 confusion, it seems to me. at the present time greater than the con- 
 fusion in all our minds between the state and the government. We 
 are quite satisfied in America with a democratic government, not 
 realizing that a democratic government can be run by a plutocratic 
 state. My friends, our government is nothing more nor less than the 
 political machine — it is the engine that you should look to, the engine 
 which generates political power. In all ages of the world there are 
 three productive powers — labor, land, and capital. Now, in the Golden 
 Age, the age of the philosophers' natural state, the most important 
 productive power was labor. Why? Because the land was free. 
 Nobody attached any importance to the land. Why not capital? 
 Because capital was not in existence. Therefore, people attached the 
 greatest importance to labor. Therefore, strong men and wise men 
 ruled over the world in those early days. It was a day when man was 
 the measure of all things, and you notice that the state at that time 
 was comparatively a democracy or an aristocracy of talent, and the 
 diplomacy corresponded. Ambassadors of those days were ambassa- 
 dor? 'of strong men, or ambassadors of wise men. 
 
 Then there came the time when the surface of the earth was 
 appropriated by these very strong men, the warriors, and by these 
 very wise men, the priests, until the land became appropriated, and 
 therefore rose in value. Through all the feudal ages, land was the 
 paramount productive power — not man, but land, was then the measure 
 of all things, and it was from land that sovereign political power was 
 derived, and sovereign political powers of the world then or the feudal 
 governments went into war for land, the paramount productive power. 
 
 But in the course of the feudal days, men came to differentiate 
 dift'erent occupations, to introduce markets and money into the world. 
 At that time the commercial era succeeded the proprietary period and 
 a new productive power came into the world, capital — commercial 
 power, which on the one side of the market, as you know, is selling 
 power, and on the other side of the market is purchasing power, sell- 
 ing power embodied in goods and services, purchasing power em- 
 bodied in coin and credit instruments. In the early days selling power 
 was paramount, the merchants and the manufacturers and the farmers 
 of our commercial era have made purchasing power the paramount 
 power, and you have the rule of the money men. Now, if you have 
 
 41 
 
your selling power and your purchasing power equitably divided 
 among the citizens, then you have a democracy. 
 
 But suppose the great trusts combine and monopolize selling 
 power, to the extent that selling power is the sovereign power of this 
 country. Suppose the purchasing power has become paramount — 
 even superior to selling power. Suppose at the present time this pur- 
 chasing power is all thrown into the hands of a great money trust — 
 then they, too, exercise sovereign political power, and that is exactly 
 what they are doing everywhere in the world. In other words, capital 
 has become the paramount productive power — selling power and pur- 
 chasing power — therefore it exercises sovereignity and it controls both 
 these powers, and we have gone far away from our individual democ- 
 racy toward our modern plutocracy. 
 
 How can we avoid all this? As simply as can be. All we have 
 to do is to advance out of the commercial era into the social state. Now, 
 in the social state, my friends, sovereign power will not proceed from 
 any one of these three productive powers. It will not proceed from 
 labor, land, or capital. Whence then will it proceed? It will proceed 
 from the common center around which labor, land and capital are 
 co-operatively combined and we are well on our way in this journey. 
 The social state is to be introduced first through the organization of 
 labor — the negative organization of labor, industrially and agricul- 
 turally, to resist the exactions of capital, and oppose the restriction of 
 land. This negative organization of labor is leading already in Europe 
 and to some extent in our country toward the positive organization of 
 labor. By this I mean two co-operative steps along agricultural and 
 industrial lines. This agricultural and industrial co-operation will lead 
 us from the organization of labor toward the progressive socialization 
 of capital, and eventually lead toward the final liberation of land. 
 
 Now suppose labor is organized, capital is socialized, and the land 
 is liberated. Whence then would the sovereign power proceed ? From 
 the common center around which labor, land and capital are co-opera- 
 tively combined. That is the vision of the future that I see. At the 
 present time, on the battlefields of Europe, you have exploitative 
 capitalism proceeding along the lines of conquest and war, like colonial 
 expansion. You have productive capitalism, proceeding along the lines 
 of commerce and peaceful colonial expansion, and you have the great 
 force of revolutionary social democracy, working toward this co-opera- 
 tive ideal, which I have tried to present to you as solving this peace 
 problem. Then we shall have to organize the social democratic forces 
 and come to reasonable terms with productive capitalism and exploita- 
 tive capitalism. It is no use standing and blackguarding things of the 
 past. Take exploitative capitalism as it is to-day, and the great revolu- 
 tionary, social, democratic movement as it is to-day, and proceed along 
 the same reasonable line wherever we can come to terms of peace, 
 which shall be, as we hope, a durable peace. 
 
 42 
 
Victor L. Berger, former Congressman, Milwaukee: The War and 
 High Finance. 
 
 This war to me, ladies and gentlemen, is the Morganic marriage — 
 an illegal marriage betw^een Lombard Street, London, and Wall Street, 
 New York. The issues are illegitimate war babies down in Wall 
 Street, and every time you mention peace, one of these war babies is 
 ready to die. This is not a popular war — in the Middle West. No 
 matter what the papers tell you, it is exceedingly unpopular. The 
 South is at least very lukewarm. The Far West wants no war. The 
 war seems to be popular only around Wall Street, New York. 
 
 The trouble with our country is this — that we have now a rubber 
 stamp Congress. We have a Congress that has abdicated. The muni- 
 tion workers were bright enough to get behind the Democratic party. 
 They always owned the Republican party and now they have both of 
 them. We have a Congress that is so absolutely under the thumb of 
 the administration, that this Congress is ready to send Elihu Root to 
 Russia to teach Russia democracy. The only party that really voices 
 opposition to it — opposition is always necessary in every democracy — 
 the only party that voices opposition everywhere — is the Socialist 
 party. 
 
 We are going to abolish the militarism of Germany by sending 
 over two million men to show them what is what. We are going to 
 shoot democracy into Germany, until we have no democracy left at 
 home. 
 
 Why is the war, and how long is it to last ? Is it to last until we 
 have a German republic? And what kind of a republic? A Morganic 
 republic? A democracy with a Morgan stamp on, or a social democ- 
 racy? You know, ladies and gentlemen, that the only democracy 
 possible in Europe to-day is a social democracy, that Mr. Morgan 
 and Mr. Schwab and Mr. John D. Rockefeller and all of the editors 
 of the New York and Milwaukee and Chicago papers would like a 
 social democracy a great deal less than they like the Kaiser. In case 
 they should have a social democracy to-morrow, you would find that 
 the New York Times would have editorials about sending an army 
 over there to keep law and order. 
 
 I have seen it suggested in New York papers and in Chicago papers 
 that it might be a good thing to have a dictatorship in Russia — that 
 it might be a good thing to put in Grand Duke Nicholas as the con- 
 stitutional Czar of Russia. That is how we are going to fight for 
 democracy. 
 
 We ought to know what our government intends to do. We must 
 know it. We are paying the price in blood and in money. So far we 
 have given away three billion dollars with astonishing rapidity. 
 
 Just imagine what you could do with three billion dollars. With 
 three billion dollars you could support three million families this 
 winter in great style. You could, for three billion dollars, establish 
 about three hundred thousand schools in this country. For three 
 billion dollars you could build the finest roads all over the country. 
 You could duplicate the entire railroad system for three billion dollars. 
 
 43 
 
You could pension every man and woman in this country older than 
 45 with a good deal less than three billion dollars. Yet if you suggest 
 any of these things, then you are a traitor. You are at least not 
 practical. But to give away three billion dollars for war purposes, 
 that is very practical. 
 
 We ought to know to what end we are to stay in this war. If we 
 do not get any answer we are likely to have food riots in New York, 
 Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, San Francisco, etc., and we will 
 stay in this war until our American people follow in the footsteps of 
 the Russian people and establish a Social Democracy. 
 
 Emily G. Balch, of Massachusetts : Terms of Peace. 
 
 Is not the lesson of this war that the problem is all one — that the 
 economic and social problem at home is part of the war problem, and 
 the war problem is a part of the economic and social problem that 
 faces us in our domestic affairs ? The only difference is that the rela- 
 tions between nations are even one stage more backward than those 
 within the nation. But we have economic competition, as lawless in 
 one place as the other. 
 
 There is no negative solution to such a state of affairs. The 
 statement, "No annexation," *'No indemnity," is negative in form but 
 positive in content. The internationalism which we must build up is 
 the internationalism of effective co-operation between friendly nations. 
 It is no solution to have countries sit about a Hague table, just kept 
 from flying at one another's throats by obligatory arbitration, and 
 nothing more than that. It is not peace when people simply do not 
 murder one another on sight, while their whole relation is one of 
 hostile competition. It is peace only if there is friendly co-operation. 
 
 So, with regard to indemnities, we have seen in 1870 how cruel, 
 how senseless and ineffective, is a military indemnity levied with the 
 purpose of weakening and crushing a hostile nation. The same thing 
 was seen in Germany in the Napoleonic wars. The war ravaged 
 countries are the concern of all the world. No human mind can fully 
 conceive their misery. The only conceivable solution which is toler- 
 able is that all the countries should see to it that there is friendly, 
 scientific rehabilitation of all the war ravaged countries. 
 
 You cannot run the world on the principle of every man for him- 
 self and of every nation for itself. Things only cohere by cohesion. 
 People only co-operate by working together. They only live side by 
 side in happiness by having a common aim and pursuing it in common. 
 Such a state of things may seem remote and ideal. It is not remote 
 in essence. It is ideal, but only as all right relations are ideal. And 
 it is only as it is the firm and deliberate and intelligent aim of the 
 plain people of every democratic country in the world, that it can be 
 realized. 
 
 44 
 
Third Session 
 
 Wednesday, May 30, 8.30 P. M. 
 
 Chairman, James H. Maurer, President of the Pennsylvania State 
 
 Federation of Labor. 
 
 James H. Maurer: Labor Legislation and the War. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Men and Women : " i 
 
 The subject for discussion and action to-night is that of the 
 position of labor and capital during the war, and labor laws, or the 
 protection of them. I believe it is pretty well understood by all of 
 you that war had scarcely been declared or diplomatic relations be- 
 tween this country and Germany broken before there was a demand 
 for the suspension of labor laws. New York State, I understand, has 
 suspended a good many of them. In my own State — Pennsylvania — 
 the interests have been very busy trying to convince us that we should 
 suspend our labor laws. It so happens that I am also a member of 
 the Pennsylvania Assembly. In Pennsylvania they introduced a bill 
 to repeal the Child Labor Laws of our State, or suspend them during 
 the period of the war, another bill to suspend the Women's Labor 
 Laws during the period of the war, then a blanket bill to suspend all 
 the Labor Laws during the period of the war, and another bill to 
 suspend the full crew law during the period of the war. 
 
 The blanket bill to suspend all Labor Laws says upon request of the 
 Committee of National Defense, the Governor shall by proclama- 
 tion suspend the labor laws of the State. That is the shape in which 
 the bill came to us. 
 
 The bill further provides that the Governor may, if he feels so 
 disposed, have the Labor Commission — the Industrial Commission of 
 our State — investigate and find out whether it is necessary to suspend 
 a labor law — not the labor laws as a whole, but a labor law afifecting 
 a given industry, and then on two different days the public in the 
 locality where the labor law may be suspended is to be notified through 
 the newspapers that there will be a public hearing on this thing, and 
 then there will be a public hearing and we can appear and protest, and 
 the other side can favor, and then the commission is to report to the 
 Governor and recommend, if it sees fit, the suspension of the labor law 
 affecting that particular industry, in that particular county, and the 
 Governor if he favors the recommendation of that committee is then 
 to notify the chief in the Department of Labor and Industry, who shall 
 notify the firm concerned that the labor law stands suspended in their 
 particular concern for a certain period, but at no time can the period 
 be longer than the duration of the war. That will only afifect one 
 
 45 
 
employer, or one concern. If it affects a hosiery mill, it will affect 
 only that one — ^not the one across the street, or down the street, or in 
 the same county. If others want the labor law repealed, they have to 
 go through that same trouble again, and we hope by the time they get 
 over the State the war will be over. That is as well as we can amend 
 it to be inoperative. However, we will oppose that bill just the same 
 and take no chances. The Full Crew Repeal was introduced in the 
 Senate and was passed last Thursday. The argument to have a Full 
 Crew Law suspended was on account of the war. Everything they do 
 nowadays is on account of the war. I had a bill up to have one of 
 our cities of the third class go into the farming business. They de- 
 feated my bill on account of the war. 
 
 Another man had a bill up to allow foxes to run loose, to give 
 them the protection of the law in certain months. The man who 
 sponsored that bill enlisted and went to the front up at Fort Niagara 
 to train to be a soldier, and when his bill came up, the speaker gave 
 up his position, went down on the floor, and took the floor in defense 
 of the Fox Bill, and what do you think he said. He said, "Gentle- 
 men, I want you to remember that the sponsor of this meritorious 
 legislation" (mind you, a bill allowing the foxes to eat up our chickens 
 these hard times) "is up at the front fighting the battles of this coun- 
 try, and it behooves us, therefore, to pass this bill in honor of the man 
 at the front." But as to the Full Crew Bill, the representatives of the 
 railroads and the Chambers of Commerce of all the cities and of the 
 State, representing the interests favorable to the suspension of the Full 
 Crew Law, were there. One speaker said, "This law, if it is sus- 
 pended, will give us two thousand more men," and he said, "We need 
 them in France to build railroads there. Suspend the law and give us 
 these two thousand men, and we will take them to France, and there 
 we will construct the railroads that were torn up." 
 
 Now, you know railroad men do not build railroads ; they run them 
 when they are built. Now, another man said, "We are not going to 
 lay these two thousand men off if you pass the Suspension Bill, but 
 we are going to put them on other trains, and we will run more trains. 
 We cannot handle the traffic now, because we cannot get men. The 
 men are going to the front to follow the colors. We have the railroads 
 and we have not got the men. It is a patriotic duty, gentlemen, to 
 suspend this law, so that we can run our railroads." Now, strange 
 that they want these men to run these railroads, because they cannot 
 run enough trains with the men they have got. We asked the gentle- 
 man why they didn't take the parlor cars and take the seats out and 
 make day coaches out of them, and carry so many more passengers. 
 We asked why they did not take the President's car and make him 
 ride with the common passengers and prove his patriotism. If ever 
 there is a time when it is more important that trains should be properly 
 manned it is during war time. They are using cars now that were 
 discarded and worn out years ago. There are many wrecks, yet on 
 the ground of patriotism they wish to take away the men. 
 
 46 
 
Friends, I did not intend to make a speech. I want to pave the 
 way while the chairman of the committee is getting ready. I wish to 
 say this : England has tried the plan of discarding the labor laws — 
 they worked the men and women and children from eighty-four to 
 eighty-eight hours a week and seven days a week — and they found in 
 time that month after month the output was getting less. They investi- 
 gated and found that the trouble was fatigue among the workers. They 
 went back to the old one day rest out of seven and cut the hours down 
 to no more than sixty, with the result that the output increased with 
 the shorter week from 8 to 20 per cent, over the long work week. 
 
 Many employers of this country see a chance to make more profit 
 on account of the war. In my city a big department store man said to 
 an acquaintance of mine who asked when she was going to get her 
 vacation this year : "There will be no vacation now, my child, because 
 we are at war." Then he said, "They are going to pass a law to 
 suspend all labor laws, and when that passes we will have no little 
 state official poking his nose in our business any more. Then we are 
 going to keep our stores open every night of the week." She said, 
 "Will we get more money for this?" He said, "No, our taxes will be 
 increased on account of the war, and you, who work for us, must put 
 in extra labor to make up the taxes that we pay." 
 
 Dr. Scott Nearing, Toledo, Ohio, Chairman of Committee on Indus- 
 trial Standards: 
 
 The report of the Committee on Economic Standards covers four 
 points on which I will speak briefly. First on the maintenance of labor 
 standards, second on the question of the cost of living, third on the 
 problem of taxation, fourth on the question of industrial democracy. 
 The statement regarding labor standards is as follows : The long strug- 
 gle that has been waged to reduce hours, to raise wages, to abolish 
 child labor, to protect the life, limbs and health of the wage earners 
 has created definite minimum labor standards. A nation-wide assault 
 on these standards is now in progress. The labor laws are being sus- 
 pended or repealed. Cheap alien labor is to be imported. Women are 
 replacing the men who leave for the front. We call upon the working 
 people to resist this assault by insisting that the labor laws be preserved 
 and enforced, by maintaining the rights gained through the labor 
 movement — by opposing the importation of cheap alien labor and 
 prisoners of war, to be employed in American industries, and by in- 
 sisting that where women take the place of men, they receive men's 
 wages. 
 
 In the first place, there is the point that Mr. Maurer spoke about, 
 the wiping ofif the books of labor standards that we have worked a 
 long time to secure. That was one of the things we want to oppose. 
 If a labor standard is good in times of peace it is doubly good in 
 times of war. 
 
 In the second place, we foresaw the danger, which is not by any 
 means a fancied one, that because of the war, contractors would tell 
 
 47 
 
workers "This and this is so; now, if you don't do so and so, we will 
 report the matter to the Commissary Department or to somebody else." 
 A number of cases were brought to our attention where that has al- 
 ready happened. Now, if certain hours and certain wages and certain 
 working conditions which the workers have secured through years of 
 struggle are to be sacrificed at the first blush, simply because there is a 
 war on, it would only be necessary when the workers had secured 
 enough standards for the other group to have a little war, and they 
 could alter the labor standards and start the workers all over again 
 on another generation of struggle. So we suggest the extreme im- 
 portance, not only of maintaining labor laws, but of having the labor 
 organizations hold the ground they have gained. We have not heard 
 any suggestion that the interest rate be cut. We have not heard sug- 
 gestion that rents be reduced. We have not heard any suggestion to 
 slice into dividends, except through a surplus profit tax, which will 
 take one little iota of the total increased war profits. They are not 
 talking of cutting into the standards of capital. They are going up. 
 It is the standards for labor that are going down. W^hen they begin 
 to talk about reducing the interest rate and reducing rents and in 
 other ways curtailing the returns to capital, then it will be time to 
 talk about starving and otherwise hampering the workers, but until* 
 there is some real talk of cutting capital returns, it is idle and foolish 
 and quite undemocratic to talk about cutting labor Returns. And so 
 we urge the labor organizations — the labor movement — to stand by 
 the ground that it has gained. This is not a time for labor to retrench. 
 
 In the third place, there is danger — we do not know how great — 
 that Chinese coolies, Mexican peons and military prisoners may be 
 imported to work cheap. As a matter of fact, in my town in Toledo 
 at the present time they are bringing in negroes from the South in 
 large numbers to work cheap. I understand that they have done the 
 same thing in St. Louis and other cities. Now, we cannot prevent 
 the shifting of labor in the United States, but we felt that it was ex-. 
 tremely important that at this crisis we should not have alien labor — • 
 coolie labor, Mexican peon labor, military prisoner labor — brought in to 
 reduce wage standards. It is not American! It is not democratic, 
 and this, you must remember, is a war for democracy. 
 
 Then in the fourth place the women are being called upon to take 
 the men's jobs. Our committee had no objection to this, but we 
 noticed in the first place that the women were not asked to take the 
 nice jobs — the bank presidents are not asking women in to take their 
 jobs. The corporation officials — the leaders of industry — are not ask- 
 ing women in to take their jobs, but women are asked to take the 
 cheap jobs, and having been asked to take the cheap jobs, they are 
 asked to take them at a lower price than the cheap men who preceded 
 them on the job. We insist that wherever the women take the job 
 that was held by the men they get the same wages as the men were 
 receiving. Those are the four points that we desire to make with 
 regard to the maintenance of labor standards. 
 
 48 
 
Our second point deals with the question of the cost of living. 
 We want it to be particularly understood that American business is 
 exacting this from the American people. The cost of living has been 
 increased until it is undermining existing standards. We therefore 
 demand that Congress provide forthwith the machinery for the fixing 
 of maximum prices on the necessaries of life and minimum wages, 
 which will insure health, efficiency, comfort and education. All of the 
 figures which have come to hand show that the American business 
 world has reaped unprecedented harvest out of the world crisis, that 
 the 1916 net profits show a level never before met in American busi- 
 ness. In other words the war has increased their exploiting or 
 monetary power and they are going the thing to the limit. 
 
 What we say is that as the American business interests are spend- 
 ing their energy to gouge the American people, that it is up to Con- 
 gress, if Congress represents the American people, in the first place 
 to fix maximum prices and in the second place to state minimum 
 wages. 
 
 In the third place we say taxation of the necessaries of life in- 
 evitably reduces the standard of living. We therefore demand that 
 none of the revenue required for the prosecution of the war shall 
 come from the taxation of necessaries. 
 
 In the fourth place we made the following statement : ''Industrial 
 plutocracy makes for war. Industrial democracy for peace. This war 
 brings with it autocratic, political control of industry in the interests 
 of the ruling classes. The American people, joining hands with the 
 new democracy of Russia, must lay the basis for permanent world 
 peace by establishing industrial democracy." This last plank is an 
 extremely important one. The others are matters of immediate detail, 
 immediate interest. This is a matter of ultimate solution. Now, you 
 know and I know that the only place in the world to-day where they 
 are even talking industrial democracy in serious language is in Russia. 
 I believe one of the New York papers the other day suggested that 
 the Government had wisely taken some of the labor members into its 
 Councils. Now the facts are that the Soldiers' and Workingmen's 
 delegates have forced into the Russian situation something that neither 
 the United States nor England, nor France, nor Germany, nor Aus- 
 tria., nor Japan, nor any other of the belligerent governments wanted 
 there. They forced in this proposition of industrial democracy and 
 that is the reason we said, "Joining hands with the new democracy of 
 Russia," because as we looked around the world we did not see any- 
 thing else approaching industrial democracy and, by the way, we 
 do not see anything approaching industrial democracy in the United 
 States either — don't misunderstand us on that head. The American 
 people have got to do this thing. This present war is a war by the 
 intelligent, educated, enlightened part of the community, against the 
 wishes and the judgment of the ignorant part of the community. 
 
 I was talking the other day to a friend and he said, ^'Ignorance 
 is the cause of the war." He was a college graduate and he had that 
 
 49 
 
peculiar type of intellectual snobbery engrained in his nature that one 
 gets in the ordinary American college. He had just previously re- 
 lieved himself of the statement that the working people were ignorant 
 and that that was their principal trouble. Then I asked him to review 
 the history of the United States for the past two years and give an 
 honest answer as to whether the agitation for war had come from the 
 working group or whether it had come from the enlightened people 
 who have had the advantage of high school and college training. Well, 
 he was rather in a hole as you can readily see. 
 
 The fact is that our school system is a propaganda organization 
 for the maintenance of the present order. It is not impartial. It is not 
 honest. It is not truth-seeking. It is order-maintaining. What is the 
 primary thing in the schools? It is discipline. They do not say "Do 
 what is right/' they say "Do what you are told," "Mind ! obey l" Un- 
 intelligent, unthinking, unquestioning obedience — that is the big major 
 premise of American education. You will find it from the college 
 right through to the kindergarten. 
 
 What I feel is that we must have a backfire on that educational 
 system that will give us enough intelligence among the only group in 
 the community who really know anything — the wage earning group — 
 enough intelligence so that they will dQ what the intelligent wage- 
 earning group in Russia has just done — put it up to the other people 
 who say they know things, and who really do not — put it up to them 
 that we must have industrial democracy if we are to prevent future 
 wars. When I say that the working people know things I mean they 
 have the knowledge of the world. We know how to exploit, they 
 how to produce. We exploit them of a part of their product and 
 then we tell ourselves that we are the intelligent, enlightened and bene- 
 ficial part of the community. That is a little part of the pantomime 
 of the whole silly modern game that we have been pulling off in the 
 last fifty or one hundred years. 
 
 Our idea was that out of this world crisis — out of the multitude 
 of things that we have been learning in the last few months must come 
 industrial democracy, for the sake of the world, for the sake of the 
 international world, the whole world, not our little particular part, for 
 the sake of the people of the world, for the sake of the civilization of 
 the world, for the sake of putting in the scrap pile this direct action, 
 that they have been pulling off in Europe during the last two and a 
 half years and substituting something resembling law and order again 
 on the face of civilization. We cannot get an ordered, coherent so- 
 ciety until the members of that society demand it, and we want that 
 demand to take the form of industrial democracy, because the thing 
 that is conveyed by that phrase carries more than any other thing that 
 we include for the amelioration of the economic part of our lives, both 
 for peace and human well-being. 
 
 Mrs. Florence Kelley : Labor Standards in War Time. 
 
 I think it is a safe thing for each of the speakers to-night to 
 remind ourselves one after the other that this is a war for democracy 
 
 50 
 
and for liberty. We have had a strange exhibit at Albany this year. 
 I don't hesitate to speak of the state laws of New York, because New 
 York is the greatest of all industrial states in this union and because 
 it is the unhappy practice of many other states to treat us not as we 
 ougjht to be treated, as a horrible warning, but alas, as an example. 
 The exhibit, the singular exhibit, that we have had has been a glowing, 
 burning zeal on the part of the officials — not only those elected to the 
 Senate and the Assembly, but on the part of the administrative officials, 
 both those who represent the wage earning class and those that repre- 
 sent the exploiters, to break down the labor standards which have been 
 slowly built up by the labor and .the pain of over thirty years. At the 
 beginning of the Legislature, before the war, bills were introduced 
 both by the Industrial Commission, whose chairman is Mr. John 
 Mitchel and whose vice-chairman is Mr. James Lynch of the printing 
 trade, with a majority of three capitalists, and also by Mr. Elon Brown, 
 representing the cannery region, to break down the whole code. 
 
 It was pointed out that these bills would relax the labor laws in 
 regard to every industry in the state except, perhaps, as Commissioner 
 Lynch said, the single exception might be the moving picture shows, 
 because perhaps they could hardly be regarded as a part of the muni- 
 tions industry. When it was pointed out that if they had a patriotic 
 intent they came under a different clause of the law and would have 
 a good claim to be exempted. I have myself been scanning the horizon 
 ever since these bills have been introduced, and the only industry I 
 have been able to find that might be exempted was the manufacture 
 of artificial flowers, but the bills were so carefully and ingeniously 
 drawn, with a provision that all safeguards might be relaxed for all 
 industries, where failure to do so might inconvenience the public, and 
 the artificial flower manufacturers are a part of the public, and if 
 their profits were interfered with, that would inconvenience them, 
 and so they also would come under these laws. Now the things which 
 for several months past has filled the minds of the women who have 
 care about the labor laws is the question : Why do the men of New 
 York elect such officials ? We have got a reprieve. But how long are 
 we to spend our days in going to Albany to keep the searchlight turned 
 upon the officials whom the men of New York send there — after the 
 same men have year after year acted in ways which make it inevi- 
 table that this year they should act thus. What is the use of electing 
 people for whom democracy is the emptiest vote catcher and then 
 expressing surprise that they act exactly as they always acted before. 
 Now, if we care for democracy, democracy begins at home. For the 
 New York men democracy begins in New York, and it has two mani- 
 festations — ^first the election of people who have shown themselves 
 democratic and second the willingness to share the vote with all the 
 people concerned. 
 
 There is one other aspect of this. A bill is pending and I think 
 it has many cousins in many other states. It also is before the Gov- 
 ernor providing for the exemption of young children — girls and boys 
 from twelve years up — from school attendance from the firs't of April 
 
 51 
 
to the first of November, not only for this year, but throughout the 
 war, to enable these young children to go and raise grain or food of 
 some kind. Of course, children twelve years old are not very useful 
 now in the kind of agriculture that is carried on in this country, but 
 they are going after these schools as soon as Governor Whitman signs 
 these bills. They do this, of course, presumably to raise useful food. 
 The most useful food nowadays is the grain food. The day that we 
 had our hearing protesting against these bills was followed by another 
 day, on which I. found on my desk a circular from the Distilleries Se- 
 curities Company explaining that they had last year paid in taxes to 
 the Federal Government $146,000,000 for distilled beverages at $1.10 
 a gallon and offering to pay $2.20 a gallon this year for the privilege 
 of distilling a larger amount of beverages. 
 
 I have not been engaged in a prohibition campaign, but I wish 
 to call your attention to the disparity between our turning little 
 boys and girls twelve years old, out of the school for (five school 
 months : April, May, June, September and October, to increase the 
 food supply and our letting the Distilleries Securities Corporation 
 have enough of that grain to distill for beverages, to call for a tax 
 of 146 million dollars at $1.10 a gallon. It seems to me, that we need 
 in this country restoration of our sense of proportion. If the inter- 
 national famine is sudh that the starving have to be saved by the 
 twelve-year-old girls going into the field, and the twelve-year-old 
 boys — all of them losing five months of their school year — why does 
 Congress pass over the proposals to do something about that 146 
 million dollar tax supply of alcohol for beverages. I think that it is 
 a matter of the most serious consideration for people such as make 
 up this audience, that the onslaug'ht upon the schools is exactly as 
 pernicious as the onslaught upon the labor laws, and I believe that 
 the underlying cause is exactly the same hypocrisy. 
 
 A year ago last March, a young girl, connected with the settle- 
 ment where I live, t'he house in Henry Street — was giving a dancing 
 lesson to some children in a Children's Aid School close by. The 
 lesson was interrupted by the entrance of three agile policemen, 
 armed not w^ith clubs, but with tape measures. They went down on 
 their knees and clumsily measured the floor of the schoolroom in 
 which the dancing lesson w^as going on, and when fhe astonished 
 young dancing teacher inquired why they were doing this, they 
 said that Mayor Mitchel had instructed Commissioner Woods to 
 learn the floor area of every school in the city, so that Mayor Mitchel 
 might know exactly w'hat resources the Mayor had at his disposal 
 for hospital care of the wounded and for barrack use. 
 
 And I wish to call to your attention the fact that the State Com- 
 missioner of Education the Honorable John Finley, after accepting 
 the responsibility of making the rules and regulations which are to 
 have the force of law, for the guidance of the children who are free 
 to leave school and go and engage in agriculture, has departed. The 
 shepherd has left his sheep. He has gone to France to see what use 
 France has made of her school buildings during fhe War. When 
 
 52 
 
Commissioner Finley returns to this country, interested citizens 
 may well read his report and may well insist upon knowing what 
 confidential report he files at Washington, and with the Mayor, as 
 to possible other uses than educational uses of our schools. 
 
 OwEX R. LovEjOY, Secretary of the National Child Labor Committee: 
 Child Labor and the War. 
 
 I congratulate myself on being permitted to have so popular a 
 place, on this program, because at least this one topic, Which has 
 been assigned to me, is one on which all the people ought to be able 
 to agree. There is no question here between the position of the 
 ultra-militarist and the extreme pacifist. Child labor, as everyone 
 of average intelligence knows, not only robs the child of his educa- 
 tional opportunities and of the joys of childhood, but it seriously 
 and definitely interferes with the storing up of those physical and 
 other qualities that are needed to produce reliable and self-support- 
 ing citizenship. 
 
 The militarists must be extremely anxious that every boy, 
 especially, shall maintain all his physical strength, in order to be 
 able to meet the military tests in the years to come, and since so 
 many places have been found recently for women to serve in various 
 agencies that are working to promote military activity, they must 
 also be no less interested in safeguarding the education and health 
 of girls. The non-militarist, on the other hand, is equally interested 
 in trying to preserve the health and strength of the children of 
 the present day for the higher and larger patriotic and civic services 
 of the future. Yet happy as this unanimity of opinion is on the sur- 
 face and in the abstract, when we come to analyze it in the concrete, 
 we find that our optimism is not quite so well founded because one 
 of the first things that happened when war broke out in Europe was 
 the breakdown of the educational standards, the suspension of Child 
 Labor Laws, the shooting into fragments of the Juvenile Court, 
 and the setting aside of practically all the agencies and activities 
 that have been built up in the past hundred years, to safeguard the 
 interests and welfare of children. Reports that have come to us 
 from practically all the warring countries during the past two years 
 --fragmentary reports of course, most of them, sifting through the 
 hands of the censor — are in the same direction. 
 
 I am very glad to add that after a little more than two years of 
 warring in Europe, I believe all of the belligerent countries have 
 discovered that they made a grievous blunder at the outset, that 
 when they launched their ship of state out on the seas of war, they 
 ought not to have thrown overboard all of its precious cargoes. 
 They oug'ht to have preserved the educational laws and regulations 
 — their Child Labor Laws — and made them stronger. They ought 
 to have extended their Juvenile Courts to look over the children — 
 to safeguard them in this time. With the policeman of? his beat, 
 the father at the front, and the mother working in ammunition fac- 
 
 53 
 
tories, the little child was left to his own devices. If you have children, 
 you know what these devices are. 
 
 So England has reported that in one year there was an increase, 
 ranging in different cities from 25, 32 and 37 per cent, in juvenile 
 delinquency. We had a report recently from Germany. It was 
 stated that in the city of Berlin, there was an increase of 50 per cent, 
 in juvenile delinquency the first year of the war, as compared with 
 the preceding year, and in the past year, an average of seventeen 
 German cities showed an increase of 55 per cent, in juvenile delin- 
 quency. Even a little German boy will break the law if there is not 
 someone around watching him, and reminding him that that won't 
 please the Kaiser if he does it. 
 
 The other day our photographer went to a little tenement room 
 up here on upper Second Avenue — a little room in w'hich eight 
 people lived. One inside room is their home. There he found a 
 mother, sitting at the table with a little three-months'-old baby in 
 her arms, and around the same table there were four children, ages 
 ten, nine, seven and five, and they Were all busily engaged in helping 
 save this country from Germany. And what was their special task? 
 It must have been a very highly prized task. It must have been of 
 special value to our country, or we would not so highly reward 
 them. They were being paid, if they worked hard all day, and far 
 into the night — the combination of mother and four children were 
 being paid — the splendid wage of two dollars a week, and their job 
 was to make these little flags for us to wear in the lapel of our coat, 
 and fasten them on cards, so that we may show that we are patriots, 
 because we wear the stars and stripes. Talk about insulting the 
 flag ! Good heavens, friends^ — if that is not desecration ! For that 
 job the poor family was being paid three cents a gross. The system 
 was Taylorized, so that they could do it fast, you see. 
 
 Now I say we hope that the farmers are going to save us from 
 the fate that the canners of this city Would try to visit upon us. 
 The National Child Labor Committee recently sent out to the country 
 after all the city people around the various parts of the country 
 had decided the poor farmer was the one man who needed help 
 this summer — we sent out a questionnaire to the Grains Officials 
 and other farmers' offi:cials in every state of the union, and we began 
 to get replies from them. We asked them, ''Do you want children 
 this summer to help you with your farming problems? If so, at 
 what age do you want the — ^boys — girls? What wages will you 
 pay? Will the work be steady or intermittent? At what season of 
 the summer can you use them best?" We tried to make the 
 questionnaire as colorless as we could so that we would not preju- 
 dice them. When the replies came back, we found that we did not 
 need to color them — they were all given with the finest kind of color. 
 Seventy-five per cent, of those farmers came back with a flat "Don't 
 send any of the children to us. We have troubles enough already." 
 And the other 25 per cent, made replies so much like the other 75 per 
 cent, that we could not see much difference. 
 
 54 . 
 
A few of them in the berry picking section and in the onion 
 fields, where the weeding and thinning of onions goes on in the 
 summer, did say that they could take sixteen-year-old boys and 
 eighteen-year-old girls to do some of the lighter work in the summer 
 months, but the children they did not want at any price. 
 
 I will not take any more time except to urge you friends that 
 in the interests of the very highest kind of patriotism, whether we 
 are glad that this country is in a state of war, or whether any of 
 us regret it — we all want our nation to perform the 'highest, most 
 noble kind of service, whether in peace or war, and in the present 
 crisis that is upon us, in the interest of patriotism, in the higher 
 interest of a broader humanity, let us insist that not a single 
 standard that relates to the protection of the boys and girls of our 
 country shall be abated for a single minute, because the boys and 
 girls who need protection now, are the very ones w'ho will be 
 needed either in peace or war in ten years from now. 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Freeman : Finances of the Conference. 
 
 I think of a story that I heard once of a little boy who had swal- 
 lowed a quarter, and all the members of the family suggested various 
 sorts of things to be done to get the quarter back, and finally one 
 of the members of the family, who was an old maid, and not sup- 
 posed to know the least thing about children, said: "Suppose you 
 send around the corner for the Methodist Minister. If anyone can 
 get money out of you, he can." I have tried to put this job oflf on 
 everyone that I know in this audience, and nobody will take it. The 
 job is to ask this group of people here, who have come to the First 
 American Conference for Democracy and Terms of Peace, to help 
 to pay for it, because without money we cannot hire halls. They 
 talk about the high cost of living — it does not begin with the 
 high cost of hiring halls. I don't know what Madison Square 
 Garden feeds on, but it is more expensive now than a month ago — 
 and this theatre has cost money — and the printing, and the post- 
 age, and one thousand and other things have cost money. We are 
 going to be called upon by this Government of ours to give up every- 
 thing we possibly can during war times. 
 
 Now we want out of the Conference (and so do you, because it 
 is yours) something great and fine to grow up. This is our child 
 — your child — that must go, not only all over the United States, 
 but all over the world. When you realize that less than one month 
 ago this baby was not born'. — when you realize that in that short 
 space of time, fhere has come in answer to the call to help to foster 
 it and bring it into being — names of people in forty-two states in this 
 union, it shows very clearly that the people want it. When you find 
 men in the Colorado mines sending ten cents worth of stamps to 
 help it along, it showsi that it is something growing, or answering 
 to something growing in the hearts of the common people of this 
 country. We have with us to-day a man w'ho has come from 
 Australia to be here at this Conference. This afternoon We had a 
 Chinaman on this platform, who had come to take part in this 
 
 55 
 
Conference. And while we call it the First American Conference, at 
 its incipiency we make it international. Now what are you going 
 to do to carry it on? We have done our part. We have brought 
 you the speakers. We have brought you together. We have done 
 all we know how, and it is up to everyone here to do something, 
 not only to bear the expense of this initial Conference, but to put 
 into the treasury money that will help to carry this message all over 
 this and every other country. It means that everyone representing 
 an organization — everyone representing a state, must pledge some- 
 thing to-night, in honor of that state, or that organization, and I 
 am going to ask someone here to-night, who feels the greatness of 
 this movement, who has the vision to see that here is something 
 big in the future for us all, to rise up where you are — don't be 
 afraid of yourself — and tell us how much you are going to pledge 
 to give towards this new organization. I would like somebody to 
 start oft* wnth five thousand dollars. 
 
 Stephen Bircher, of the Brotherhood of Metal Workers: Labor in 
 War Time. 
 
 Representing an organization that has been fighting for the 
 cause of labor, and has not as yet given up the idea of doing all 
 that it can to maintain the standards attained during many years 
 of hard struggle, I would like to ask all of you who have in any 
 way anything to do with working men, women and children — to, 
 at all times, bear in mind that the burden of this war lies upon our 
 shoulders doubly — the burden lies upon our shoulders more heavily 
 than upon anyone else. Workers 'have been fighting a long and 
 bitter struggle, even while peace was in existence. In this and 
 every other war we have been compelled to fight the battles of 
 labor against capital — on top of this we now have another war — that 
 betw^een the United States and the central powers of Europe. It 
 is for that reason that we have got, at this time, not only to prepare, 
 but to decide, once and for all, that we will do all there is in our 
 power, through organized eflfort, to resist the abrogation, or the 
 suspension of labor laws, for which we have been fighting for so 
 many years. I am very sorry that the committee of which I have 
 been a member, was not in a position to lay dow^n a definite program 
 for everyone to folloAv. Within our hearts those of us who have 
 been fighting the battles of labor still, have there the one determina- 
 tion that We are going to fight with all our might, not only to retain 
 that which we have got, but to get more of the things that we 
 need to support ourselves and our families. We will not take a 
 back step for anyone. We will carry on the battles of labor as far 
 as the laws are concerned, peacefully. We as w^orkers are in the 
 great majority in this country. We have a right to be heard upon 
 the conditions under which we will labor. If there are laws that 
 are detrimental to our welfare, we will make our views heard. We 
 will make our power felt in the Legislative bodies of our country. 
 We will demand that all laws that have been enacted up to the 
 
 56 
 
present shall be carried on further, and that new ones shall be 
 enacted, that shall protect us, while we are fighting the battles of 
 this nation. I hope that everyone of you will do all you can to 
 bring this message to the great body of unorganized workers — 
 unorganized I say, because the organized worker can take care 
 of himself at all times, but the unorganized worker — he is so un- 
 fortunate as to have no backing of any kind. He needs that advice, 
 so spread the word broadcast: organize, and through organized 
 effort retain what you have got, and gain more of the things which 
 are necessary for a decent living. 
 
 Edward J. Cassidy of the Central Federated Union, New York: 
 "Labor and Peace." 
 
 It might be of interest to you to know how the Central Federated 
 Union of this city stands in regard to the movement that we are asso- 
 ciated with to-night. On last Friday night at the regular meeting of 
 the Central Federated Union, a communication from this organiza- 
 tion was read, in which the central body was asked to endorse this 
 movement. The proposition to endorse this movement and to help 
 in the accomplishment of its purposes was carried by the Central Fed- 
 erated Union by a unanimous vote and three delegates were elected 
 by the Central Federated Union to this conference. It is a strange 
 thing that even among the trade unionists you will find a certain Rip 
 Van Winkle element who seem to regard this movement and those 
 akin to it as having somewhat the aspect or suspicion of being un- 
 patriotic. There exists in my union a small percentage of the mem- 
 bership who seem to regard me personally as being one whose loyalty 
 to the democracy of the country is tainted. However, I am very glad 
 to say to you, my friends, that amongst the trade unionists that type 
 is a minority element. Every time, either after the war has been de- 
 clared or prior to the declaration of the war, that we tested the mem- 
 bership of the trade union movement on this question we find they are 
 faced toward the progress of democracy. 
 
 The New York State Federation of Labor, or rather the Execu- 
 tive Board, consisting, I think, of about one dozen men, did the most 
 astounding thing I have ever heard in all my twenty-eight years of 
 activity in the labor movement when, in order to convince the state 
 goverment and the general public that organized labor In this state 
 was patriotic, they voluntarily said to the Governor: "As proof of our 
 patriotism we agree, as a contribution, to our country In this crisis, 
 to the abrogation of the labor law." The next meeting of the dele- 
 gates of the Central Federated Union went against that proposition. 
 We regarded it not as loyalty, but as treason to the labor movement, 
 and so did the Central Labor Unions throughout the state, until the 
 State Federation of Labor had to right about face, and we compelled 
 them last week in Albany at the hearing on the labor laws, to stand 
 by at the command of the rank and file and fight against these laws 
 being enacted. 
 
 57 
 
The Central Federated Union has passed a resolution of abso- 
 lutely undivided loyalty to the country in this crisis. The typographi- 
 cal union, of which I am a member, and the Central Federated Union 
 have done the same. But when we do these things, as an organized 
 labor movement, we do not mean that we are not going to keep our 
 eyes alert and our senses alert to see the anti-democratic elements 
 in this country that would seize this opportunity in the national crisis 
 to steal away from us our democratic priviliges that we have gained 
 through these years of struggle in the past. I claim, my friends, it is 
 the highest type of democracy and loyalty and true patriotism for us 
 people of the labor union and you people in syrnpathy with the labor 
 movement and progress, to keep your eyes alert and to point the 
 finger and the searchlight of exposure on the elements of this coun- 
 try that you and I know from past experience would destroy the labor 
 movement, destroy all our social and labor legislation and destroy our 
 democracy if w^e permitted them to do it. 
 
 Our newspaper press are very much perplexed and well-meaning 
 individuals are very much perplexed at the lack of response to the call 
 of the United States Government for men to step forth into the ranks 
 of the army and the navy. Why is it that while we see hundreds of 
 thousands of flags flying in the wind and while we find our news- 
 papers, issue after issue, belching forth patriotic announcement, that 
 the people and the young men are not responding. If the United 
 States Government wished to double and triple and double up a 
 dozen times the number of men who will enlist in the army without 
 the necessity of a draft or conscription, let the United States Govern- 
 ment come forth and reach its powerful governmental arm to the 
 speculators in the people's food. Let them go to work and fix a maxi- 
 mum amount for the staple articles of livelihood. Let them take over 
 the railroad system of this country during the period of the war at 
 least. Let them further assure us that we do not go through the same 
 experience in previous wars, when the sons of the poor were con- 
 scripted for the trenches, and ways were found to keep the sons of 
 the rich away from the cannon and the poisoned gas and the bayonet. 
 If we are going to have the draft, as we are going to have it, let 
 us see to it that the rich will be conscripted as well as the poor and that 
 no loophole shall be permitted for them to crawl through. Let us 
 also see to it, above everything else, that our public school system is 
 not going to be crippled, under the pretext of the war. Let us see to 
 it that that is not seized as a pretext to put the gag on the labor press, 
 so that the labor press and the forward and progressive press is not 
 closed. Let the government do these things — do its part — and there 
 would be a more patriotic response from all the elements in the com- 
 munity, including the labor movement. 
 
 Abraham I. Shiplacoff, Member New York State Legislature: 
 Labor Laws in War. 
 
 I had an occasion to be in Canada a short while ago, where we 
 had a strike of tailors in the city of Montreal, asking for better con- 
 
 58 
 
ditions, and they tried to play the patriotic game on our tailors out 
 there, and we have made them understand that we can go them one 
 better when it domes to patriotism. They have gone so far as to 
 distribute a few dozen miHtary guns in every one of the great many 
 shops in the city, and then threaten that if we continued striking they 
 would bring the soldiers down there to take care of things, and we 
 told them to go right ahead and put them on the machines, and put 
 them to work if they could. The result was that we had simply called 
 their bluff, and we would have them understand that so far as the 
 conditions of labor are concerned, if we cannot be protected by the 
 labor laws and Democrats and Republicans, under whatever name they 
 happen to come in the Legislative bodies, we will take the matter into 
 our own hands and we will not let all the work that has dost the lives 
 and sacrifices of scores of years, on the part of the working class to 
 accomplish, be broken down by anyone. 
 
 The soldiers were not even called, because they know that while 
 the soldiers may parade up and down, alongside of the factory, they 
 cannot do the work that is necessary to manufacture suits and coats 
 and things of that kind. The result was that we won the strike, just 
 as we expected. 
 
 This is my second year in the New York State Legislature, and I 
 can differentiate between the spirit of the Legislature of this year and 
 last year. This year the people were there, representing the New 
 York Central, the Erie Railroad, the State Manufacturers' Associa- 
 tion, the big Real Estate Men's Association — the people who repre- 
 sent Wall Street and the people who represent all the other vested 
 interests. We know them pretty well — We point our fingers at them 
 every time we get up to speak — We have time and again pointed to the 
 gentlemen representing different interests there. They do not refute 
 it, but feel complimented. 
 
 They have come there this year with an extraordinary holiday 
 spirit. They felt that this is their season and their harvest. The rep- 
 resentatives in the Legislature this year — the so-called representatives 
 of the people who are in reality the representatives of the vested in- 
 terests, have this year been working overtime. 
 
 They saw the grand opportunity they had to break down the laws 
 that the working classes succeeded in getting in its favor, after all 
 these past years, and they have done it successfully because labor has 
 been pretty much asleep. Let us hope that this terrible price — ^that 
 the people in this country and the world over are paying — will at 
 least teach us this lesson, that in the future we should know that we 
 have got to have those representatives in the legislative bodies, who 
 have not merely good will, but who have the definite wishes of the 
 great masses of the people at heart. 
 
 Leonora O'Reilly, National Women's Trade Union League: Safe- 
 guarding Labor in War. 
 
 As the last speaker I want to say to you that we must get the full 
 substance of what Robert Owen meant when he said that a person 
 
 59 
 
whose intelligence or conscience teaches him one thing and his inter- 
 ests another is immorally situated. 
 
 What is true of a person is true of a people. What have we been 
 doing while this whole world was bleeding itself to death — murdering 
 itself ? Our consciences, if we had any consciences at all, were teach- 
 ing us one thing, but our interests were teaching us another, and we 
 were taking — every one of us — what we could so long as we were out 
 of the bloody business. Now, we have got into it and we cannot get 
 out of it. Until we get out, mark you, this war is a war to make 
 democracy possible. I wonder whether it was a wise man or a fool 
 who said that thing — to make democracy possible. We have played 
 with the term democracy — we have played with the labor movement 
 in this country — we have played with the whole thing. 
 
 We have talked democracy, and what did the people of these 
 United States have to say about whether they would or would not go 
 into this thing, in order that Wall Street might make more profits. Well 
 now, we have had nothing to say about it, and we are in it — at least 
 we are drilling boys and girls — at least, the laboring people are learning 
 that what was said of Germany might now be said of this country. 
 
 The German working class — the German people — were almost 
 ready for a movement such as they had in Russia, and so the Kaiser 
 thought it was time to destroy radical thought. That may or may not 
 be true, but just in proportion as we have any sense of democracy in 
 these United States, the gentlemen who have gotten us into this war 
 will now get their first lesson in real democracy. Now the people 
 of the South will speak as they have never spoken before. Now the peo- 
 ple of the West wdll speak as they have never spoken before. Now we 
 will see what our people of the East are really thinking about, and now 
 our labor movement — our splendid labor movement — splendid at the 
 heart, as Brother Cassidy said, splendid at the heart, will bring up 
 its sham leaders, and w& w^ill know just how much intelligence we 
 have among us. 
 
 But one thing is certain — the whole community will have to stand 
 by the labor movement. Not only the labor movement — not only 
 these Trade Unionists — not only these Socialists — not only these agi- 
 tators, but the w^hole people together will begin to sense how funda- 
 mental are the teachings of that much abused labor movement which 
 teaches that every child that is born should be taught that labor creates 
 all wealth, and that all wealth belongs to those who create it. Is not 
 that simple? The men of '48 tried to teach that to the world. The 
 world was not yet ready. 
 
 We of these United States can be no pro-ally, pro-Germany, pro- 
 anything but pro-humane, and by our pro-humaneness w^e w^ll win. 
 Just in proportion as we understand that these whole United States 
 belong to the people of the United States we will make the right sort 
 of peace when peace is made. Just one more thought. Women, this 
 is your hour, for never in the history of all the wars of the world have 
 wiomen held such a place, by right of their intelligence, as they are 
 going to hold in this one. Before this war came to us a group of 
 
 60 
 
women from all countries, warring and neutral, got together to see 
 if they could talk or plan some kind of peace, that the w^rld would 
 be willing to listen to. It was not willing to do anything more than 
 let us talk. But, I think, our talk is partly the cause of what is being 
 done here to-night. 
 
 Mary Ware Dennett : The Taxation of Wealth in War Time. 
 
 It is not at all the function of this conference to discuss War 
 Revenues measures. This is not our war. We did not want it. We 
 wish not a single penny could be appropriated for it. But this war 
 was wished upon us. It is here and unfortunately an enormous appro- 
 priation has already been made. The loans have partly been made 
 to the Allies. We have already contracts made for an enormous pre- 
 paredness programme that began over a year ago. Our question is, in 
 paying the money already voted by our representatives, are we going 
 to be bright enough to start something in war times as a system of 
 taxation that will be worth keeping in peace times? 
 
 Fortunately, we have one man in Congress who is doing so. Robert 
 Grosser of Ohio has introduced what the people in this country will 
 presently come to recognize as the beginning of the only democratic 
 plan for taxation that the United States has ever had. Robert Grosser 
 is living in comparative obscurity now, but by and by he will have the 
 halo that is due him. Our present system of taxation stands almost 
 fully for the plutocratic system. Our taxes are now paid by the 
 ultimate consumer, upon whom all manner of taxes but one can be 
 shifted. 
 
 Robert Grosser's bill is a land value taxation bill, introduced and 
 referred to the Ways and Means Committee, inferentially, as a war 
 revenue measure. His measure provides in the only way he can 
 at present make a land value taxation measure applicable — provides 
 over $2,000,000,000, distributed among the states, according to the 
 population. That is made necessary by the provisions of the United 
 States Constitution. 
 
 The public makes land values. Therefore, the public should take 
 land values. What the public makes the public should take for its own 
 purposes. We could, if we took the annual rental of that land value, 
 have a Federal income of five billion, and that would be without taxing 
 the consumer — the individual consumer — one single bit. A land value 
 tax cannot be shifted, and it strikes clear into the middle of plu- 
 tocracy. The tendency of it is to wipe out absolutely the parasitic 
 class. There is no plan of taxation thus far introduced in Congress 
 which has that tendency. It does this thing, besides that. It gets clean 
 in under the high cost of living. There is enough unused land in the 
 great wheat states of Montana, the two Dakotas and Minnesota to 
 provide wheat for an empire. The land is held out of use for specu- 
 lative purposes. We could tax it into use, that is the advantage of the 
 land value tax, and the by-product to us is that it increases our food 
 and lowers the cost of our food. The same thing, of course, is true 
 
 61 
 
with our coal, and it also raises wages. We have all the advantages — if 
 we had done that a long time ago w/e should not be in a position now 
 where our hearts are wrung to the extent that they are wrung by the 
 hunger of the Allies. The word comes over to us that we must feed 
 those European nations. Look at what England has done itself. We 
 have the budgets — statistics from England, from 14 to 17, 
 that is, March of this year, and in the budget we find that certain 
 of their taxes have enormously increased. The customs, for instance, 
 have been nearly doubled. The income tax has been about trebled. The 
 excise tax has been increased 600 times and all of them has more or 
 less come out of the people — all of those taxes can be transferred to 
 the ultimate consumer. But during that time England, in its budget 
 system, has not so much as touched the land values. They stand right 
 there, at approximately the same figure, in taxes as they were at the 
 beginning of the war. If England had released its own land for 
 agricultural purposes England would not be as hungry as it is now. 
 All you have to do to whip up your support and enthusiasms for the 
 Grosser valuation bill, as it is put into the Congress, is to just investigate 
 a little bit, as to who is opposed to that type of bill, why plutocracy is 
 fairly tolerant — of course, only fairly tolerant — of certain kinds of 
 income taxes — they can be moved on to you and me — ^but plutocracy 
 absolutely has an exceedingly intelligent and very bitter opposition to 
 the land value tax. Plutocracy knows mighty well what the land value 
 tax will do, if the rest of us do not know it, and if you want a short 
 cut to conversion to the vaue of a land value tax look at the enemies 
 of it. You iwill find ample opportunity there. One of these great 
 copper companies that is now posing as a patriotic body of people 
 by offering the United States copper at half the current market rates is 
 not telling of course what has leaked out, that that figure is a good 
 deal over what the copper rate had been for the past decade, and 
 therefore leaves them with a handsome profit, so that they can afford to 
 pay an income tax. But do you suppose those same copper interests 
 would be at all hospitable to the land value tax, that would force 
 them, as well as the coal barons and all the other land owners, out 
 through the productive parts of our country that are rich in natural 
 resources, do you suppose that they would be hospitable at all to a 
 land value tax that would force them to use the land they are holding 
 out of use? Not a bit. They would sing an absolutely different tune. 
 It is of enormous value to start now, as a war revenue measure, but 
 it is even more important to hold this over and keep it forever and 
 ever in the United States as the beginning of a real democratic system 
 of taxation. 
 
 63 
 
Fourth Session 
 
 Thursday, May 31, 10 A. M. 
 
 American Liberties in War Time: 
 
 Daniel Kiefer, Cincinnati, Chairman. 
 
 Preliminary statement by Dr. J. L. Magnes, Chairman of the 
 Conference : I would like to call the attention of this meeting to the 
 following despatch in all of this morning's newspapers : 
 
 "The Department of Justice to-day communicated instructions by 
 telegraph or long distance telephone to its officers and agents in com- 
 munities wherever meetings are likely to be held at which agitation 
 against registration as prescribed in the new army bill might be indulged 
 in. The United States attorneys and marshals were directed to be 
 present or represented at the meetings and to have stenographic re- 
 ports made of the addresses delivered. These reports will be gone 
 over carefully and arrests will be made later in all instances in which 
 the utterances of the speakers are calculated to disturb registration or 
 to influence individuals into attempting to evade the provisions of the 
 law. The United States attorneys and marshals were also directed 
 to ask close co-operation with the local police authorities in each com- 
 munity. From the reports being made daily by the agents throughout 
 the country the officials of the department are convinced that such 
 threats to resist registration as are being made are the result of local 
 and sporadic influences and are not inspired by any organized efifort 
 of serious consequence." 
 
 I don't know if this meeting is regarded as one of those coming 
 within the provisions of this telegram. If this meeting is so regarded 
 and if the agents and officers of the Department of Justice are here to 
 take stenographic reports of the addresses delivered I would have 
 much pleasure in inviting them to occupy seats with us on the platform, 
 where they will be afforded full facilities for such stenographic reports 
 as they may have to make. 
 
 The custom in Prussia at every meeting where political subjects 
 are discussed is just that — that representatives of the Department of 
 Justice occupy seats on the platform and take down stenographically 
 everything that is said. Inasmuch as we are very rapidly becoming 
 Prussianized here there is all the more reason why we should extend 
 this courteous invitation to the representatives of the Department 
 should they be here on the assumption that this meeting is one, to 
 quote the message again, "at which agitation against registration as 
 prescribed in the new army bill, might be indulged in." 
 
 63 
 
I should like to say that this is not such a meeting, and in order 
 to make very clear that this is not such a meeting I shall read a state- 
 ment prepared by the organizers of this Conference. I should like to 
 hand the statement to the representatives of the Department and the 
 press. (Dr. Magnes then read the following statement) : 
 
 DECLARATION OF THE ORGANIZERS OF THE CONFER- 
 ENCE ON TERMS OF PEACE AND DEMOCRACY 
 
 It is the inflexible purpose of the organizers of the First Ameri- 
 can Conference on Democracy and Terms of Peace to keep its dis- 
 cussions and its resolutions strictly within the law. Any resolution in 
 any way advising any action contrary to law will be declared out of 
 order. 
 
 We regard as perfectly within the law and we favor all discussion 
 as to the wisdom or unwisdom of existing laws, all discussion as 
 to their constitutionality and methods of testing their constitutionality, 
 all discussion as to their repeal by Congress and all suggestions for the 
 liberal interpretation of existing laws. 
 
 Mr. Daniel Kiefer : Conscription and Democracy. 
 
 The conscription act is both immoral and unconstitutional. It vio- 
 lates the prohibition of involuntary servitude. Not even the hair- 
 splitting plea can be urged that the thirteenth amendment does not 
 forbid national defense. Sending conscripts to Europe is not national 
 defense, but mixing in the quarrels of outside nations. And if, as is 
 suggested, conscripts can be compelled to work as farm hands, fac- 
 tory hands or in other civil occupations, the thirteenth amendment is 
 not worth the paper it is written upon. So the first duty of a citizen 
 who has been drafted is to appeal to the court for protection of his 
 constitutional rights. 
 
 I cannot say that I have much confidence in the courts. I have 
 had too many occasions to take note of decisions which seem to me 
 indefensible. I have had occasion to discuss with my lawyer friends 
 some of these decisions and I find that when a court has declared 
 some popularly demanded law unconstitutional their defense is that 
 the constitution is intended to protect minorities against oppression 
 by the majority, and it is the court's duty to so declare. Very well, 
 let us accept this view, and ask the courts either to make good this 
 claim by declaring the conscription act unconstitutional, as it obviously 
 is, or by a different course, impliedly admit, that they are merely 
 tools of private interests, nullifying laws in the name of the constitu- 
 tion, when these interests so desire, and upholding laws, regardless of 
 the constitution, when that is what is wanted. 
 
 But the conscription act is immoral as well as unconstitutional. 
 The conscript must take an oath to obey, without question, com- 
 mands of a superior officer. The oath says "lawful" commands, but 
 no one has ever heard of a soldier who insisted on getting a legal 
 opinion of his officer's command or a court decision thereon before 
 
 64 
 
carrying it out. And every one has a pretty accurate idea of what 
 would happen to a soldier who would object to a command that he 
 felt sure was unlawful. So the conscript must be ready to commit 
 any wrong ordered. Why is a good citizen not justified in taking 
 advantage of any opportunity to avoid danger o fsuch a situation? 
 
 The question is not of a citizen's duty to defend the country, if 
 attacked without provocation. Such a situation does not confront us. 
 We are at war, not because we are attacked, but because certain per- 
 sons with authority wish to have us at war, regardless of necessity and 
 regardless of the popular wishes. Otherwise there would have been 
 a referendum on a declaration of war and a referendum on conscrip- 
 tion. Peace can be li^d at any time, without sacrifice of principle, and 
 with more honor than the most successful war can bring. But we 
 do not even know what we are fighting for. It is not for restitution 
 of property destroyed on the seas or to avenge slaughtered citizens. 
 That would not justify more destruction and more slaughtering. No 
 such reasons have been advanced anyway. But if we are at war for 
 that reason what is it that Germany must do to atone for these crimes? 
 How can she agree to do it, if she has not been told? 
 
 We have been told that it is a war for democracy. Well, any 
 people that are determined to have democracy can have it without war. 
 When Russia definitely decided to send the Czar packing, she did not 
 need to wait for a victory over Germany to do so. She simply sent 
 him away. We can get democracy in the United States, too, when- 
 ever we get as ready for it as Russia is. 
 
 If the object is to force democracy on Germany, regardless of 
 the wishes of the German people, it must fail. Democracy is not to 
 be obtained by abdication of the Hohenzollern dynasty, under pressure 
 from outside of Germany. Until the German people' want democracy 
 it will be impossible to give it to them. They may be compelled to 
 accept the form, but the spirit will be lacking as completely as in the 
 United States army under conscription. And it will be undemocratic 
 anyway to force democracy on those who do not want it. 
 
 But we should be told definitely what it is we want Germany 
 to do in return for which we will make peace. By "we" I mean the 
 United States. We need not woriy about what Great Britain wants, 
 France wants or any other belligerent wants. Unless the American 
 people have been lied to, we did not enter the war on their account. 
 
 We should not only be told what is wanted, but if a majority 
 of the American people do not care to hold out for the terms sug- 
 gested, they should have the power to insist on peace on other terms, 
 if they see fit. Democracy should begin at home; and the first fight 
 that democracy must win is the fight against conscription and against 
 war without consent of the people. 
 
 We are told by the President's proclamation that it is to be "in 
 no sense a conscription of the unwilling." Mark the words "in no 
 sense." That leaves no room for quibbling about it later. If the Pres- 
 ident speaks the truth then not a single objector to military service, 
 conscientious or otherwise, will be compelled against his will to 
 
 65 
 
bear arms. Who believes that conscription will be carried out in 
 any such way? I fear that the drafting process will not long be 
 in operation before Mr. Wilson will be explaining that in more senses 
 than one it is conscription of the unwilling. 
 
 We are in a war which we are told is to save democracy for 
 the world. We begin it by destroying democracy. This is shown not 
 only by the bulldozing of Congress into declaration of war and pass- 
 ing a conscription law without a popular referendum, but by the as- 
 sumption of autocratic powers everywhere. Even now the adminis- 
 tration is again demanding that the press be gagged. Everywhere pub- 
 lic speakers are arrested for exercising their constitutional rights and 
 the courts are either too prejudiced or too timid to declare the ille- 
 gality of such proceedings, order the victims released, and make 
 clear the guilt of officials who have used their authority in this 
 way. 
 
 Our State Department has taken upon itself to dictate with whom 
 private American citizens traveling in foreign land may speak. It 
 has refused passports to the delegates to the Stockholm Conference. 
 Why? Not in the interest of democracy, that is certain. These dele- 
 gates were devoted to democracy long before Secretary Lansing knew 
 there was such a thing. They have sacrificed more for the cause of 
 democracy than any man connected with the administration has yet 
 shown himself capable of even considering. And they are ready to do 
 much more. The conference they wish to attend is one of thorough 
 democrats and the interests of democracy is their first consideration. 
 It is only fear, lest they may do something to show that democracy 
 can be saved by peace, much better than by war, that caused them 
 to be stopped. 
 
 "And to our shame be it noted : The German autocracy has issued 
 passports to Stockholm to her Socialist delegates, knowing that they 
 are going to confer with delegates from so-called enemy countries. It 
 seems to recognize to that extent anyway — by acts, if not by words, 
 that its fight is not with the people. But we are so sure that we have 
 no quarrel with the German people that we forbid American citizens 
 under a strained construction of a resurrected eighteenth century 
 statute to speak with representatives of the German people. 
 
 Rev. Richard W. Hogue, Director Open Forum, Baltimore, Md. : The 
 War and the Spirit of America. 
 
 We are at war with our Government in the announced motive 
 and purpose of the country's call to arms. We are sincere and con- 
 scientious objectors to the adoption of the method set before us, not 
 only because of history's evidence of its futility, but because of its 
 injury to liberty, its damage to democracy and its substitution of auto- 
 cratic compulsion for their inalienable freedom of conscience which 
 is the very foundation of the republic. There is abundant proof of the 
 truth of this last staternent. The proof reaches from the action of the 
 trustees of Toledo University in opening its doors for the egress of 
 
 66 
 
Scott Nearing to the action of Columbia in closing its doors to the 
 message of Count Tolstoi. 
 
 There are one or two brief illustrations that I bring to you from 
 Baltimore. We had a peace meeting in Baltimore before there had 
 been any declaration of war, except on the part of the press. The 
 peace meeting, as you have read from the papers, was broken up. Dr. 
 Jordan was not permitted to speak. The youngsters, representing the 
 aristocratic and mercenary interests, sent into the meeting by the so- 
 called privileged class of older men, who did not have the courage to 
 follow them, were, after the meeting, injured by the police, strange 
 to say. The matter was made public. The police were indicted for 
 unnecessary cruelty. The young men were indicted for inciting a riot 
 — afterwards changed to disorderly conduct. The investigation be- 
 gan. I give you this just as an illustration of what is happening else- 
 where in the interpretation of the effect of the war upon the spirit 
 of democracy. 
 
 Fortunately in this investigation there was an unusual element, 
 namely, the necessity of self-defence on the part of the investigating 
 parties, the police department. It was proven by sworn confession, 
 by affidavit and undenied fact, that the breaking up of the meeting 
 was the result of a conspiracy formed very largely in the ammunition 
 plants. We have the confession of men working in those plants. This 
 led to the failure of the backers of the disturbers of public meetings 
 to prosecute the police, and the matter is at a standstill. Marshall Cot- 
 ter, the head of our police force, furnishes an illustration that is 
 interesting and perhaps profitable. He said in the press, or was 
 reported in the press to have said, and did not deny it, that no wonder 
 the meeting was broken up, because of the unpatriotic utterances of the 
 speaker, Mr. Benjamin Marsh, who actually claimed that the oppo- 
 nents to peace w€re largely among the ammunition makers. 
 
 After investigating for the purpose of defending his own police, 
 he came home one day and put his hand on my shoulder and said: 
 "We have got them and the strange thing about it is, Mr. Hogue, that 
 we have found absolute proof of the statement of your men that the 
 ammunition makers and bankers are behind this whole thing." T was 
 either too stunned, too kind hearted or too politic to remind him of 
 the inconsistency of his conclusion. 
 
 Following that meeting, there was another incident. A Socialist, 
 an employee of the post office, was arrested for the alleged knocking 
 over of a reading desk (as reported in the papers). It happened 
 to be a tiny music stand, that would not have hurt even a pacifist 
 if it had hit him. Without due course of trial, though under civil 
 service, without permission to summon a witness, he was discharged 
 from his position. There were those of us who would have taken it up 
 but for the fact that the man himself did not wish to be reinstated. 
 He preferred freedom to a job. Part of that freedom he is exercising 
 by being on the floor of this convention to-day. 
 
 The open forum was implicated by the newspapers and by the 
 parties Who destroyed the peace meeting in the affair. Anonymous 
 
 67 
 
letters were written to the manager of the theatre, which we had 
 engaged for the entire year, and the result has been another illustra- 
 tion of the spirit of the war upon freedom of assemblage, in that 
 the theatre has been closed to us — even to the Open Forum. We bided 
 our time, and permitted the psychological effect of evident injustice 
 to win its way in the community, which it has done, and on last Sunday 
 we opened the Open Forum in a hall formerly endowed and owned 
 by Johns Hopkins University, and the man who introduced our speaker 
 was a professor of this school, although the country all over reported 
 that the professors of this university were among those that disturbed 
 the peace meeting. Next Sunday we have the concluding session, the 
 speaker being Congressman Jeannette Rankin, on "Democracy and 
 Government." 
 
 I want to quote to you a letter that I just received, which I believe 
 to be more widespread in its application than we perhaps realize to-day. 
 A Harvard student — typical, clean cut, high minded and thoroughly 
 loyal in his Americanism — enlisted in the officers' reserve corps and is 
 in training. He happens to be closely related to me, and so this letter 
 came, at the conclusion of which were these singularly significant sen- 
 tences: "Sherman is wrong. War is not hell. It is worse than hell." 
 And then he proceeded very briefly to give the impression that came 
 to his soul, I think one might say, as he handled the deadly and 
 devilish implements by which men now kill other men. He wound up 
 by saying, "You and your wife are fortunate that this is a case in 
 which the wife and the husband are together on pacifism. You and 
 your wife are dead right through and through in your stand for peace, 
 but at this crisis of the world's history, we have got to overthrow 
 autocracy." Of course, you know, he had to add that. 
 
 The repression of liberty of speech is the foundation of injustice 
 and the origin of anachy. And the presence of the ideal and the 
 influence of the forces of love is the only enduring power by which 
 you or I or humanity can stand the test of this hour of crisis, or of 
 any other in the days to come. 
 
 Gij:.BERT E. Roe, President, Free Speech League of America, New 
 York. Free Speech, Free Press and the Right of Assemblage. 
 
 The provision of the constitution guaranteeing the rights of free 
 speech, free press and freedom of assemblage is still in force. It has 
 not been repealed yet, the censorship bill of the country notwithstand- 
 ing. And I want to tell you that under those provisions of the con- 
 stitution, you have got a right to discuss every act of your Government 
 and every act of the officials of your Government. I don't care whether 
 it is a declaration of war, or a treaty of peace — ^I don't care whether 
 it is a tariff act, or a draft act. So long as that provision of the 
 constitution stands, we people of this country have got a right to 
 discuss those subjects. 
 
 We have got a right to commend or condemn the acts of our 
 representative with regard to those subjects. . And we have got a 
 
 68 
 
right, if the acts of our representatives do not suit us, to remove 
 them and put others in their places. I have here the present 
 censorship bill. There are two provisions of the censorship 
 bill equally obnoxious to free speech and the free press. One comes 
 under the heading of the mails, the other comes under the heading of 
 espionage. The papers have said very little about the use of the mails 
 as it is forbidden to certain classes of matter under this bill, but in 
 this country to-day if you can shut out of the mails matter w^hich 
 some post office official inferior, stupid, and bigoted may declare to 
 be seditious, anarchistic, or treasonable, why you can control what 
 the people shall read in this country more effectually than any press 
 censorship, and that is what one of the provisions of this bill attempted 
 to do. 
 
 Now, the other provision, and the provision which the newspapers 
 are very much alive to is the provision that provides that when the 
 United States is at war the publishing wilfully of information with 
 respect to the movement, numbers, description or disposition of any 
 of the armed forces of the United States and military operation is 
 against the law, and that the President may, from time to time, by 
 proclamation declare the character of such above described informa- 
 tion, which is, or may be, unlawful. 
 
 Before they had the revolution in China, there was a provision of 
 the Chinese Penal Code which for definiteness and informing a man 
 whether he has committed a crime or not, I would recommend be 
 substituted for this provision of the Espionage Bill. Here is the way 
 it read: "Whoever is guilty of improper conduct, and of such as is 
 contrary to the spirit of the law, though not a breach of any specific 
 part of it, shall be punished by at least forty blows, and when the 
 impropriety is of a^serious nature, with eighty blows." 
 
 Now that was the Penal Code of China before they abolished the 
 empire over there, and it is a good deal more satisfactory as a designa- 
 tion of what constitutes a crime, than the Espionage Bill which the 
 administration is demanding of the Congress that it should pass, 
 because the Espionage Bill just leaves it up to the President to say 
 what information relating to the army, its movements, its equipment, 
 anything about it, shall be regarded as a crime to give out to the people. 
 
 You know it is awfully hard to be much of a pacifist and discuss 
 this thing. But fortunately the newsppaers are taking pretty good 
 care of this feature of the Censorship Bill. The newspapers are going 
 to see to it that they discuss pretty thoroughly the manner in which 
 the war is conducted. I notice in the press dispatches that the Press 
 Censorship Bureau, which they have organized down in Washington, 
 put out a document the other day, and in it they said that the Depart- 
 ment of State disapproved of — now I am quoting from the pamphlet, 
 "Discussion of difference of opinion between the Allies, and difficulties 
 with neutral countries.'* That is one thing that they disapprove of 
 discussing. Also "that it disapproved speculation as to possible peace." 
 Another thing, also, "That it disapproves anything likely to prove 
 offensive to any of the Allies or the neutrals." 
 
 69 
 
Now after you have expurgated your conversation in accordance 
 with the directions of the Press Censorship Bureau you may be per- 
 fectly safe, but you will be mighty uninteresting. Now notice that they 
 say here what they don't want you to discuss — they are just putting 
 this out as a feeler. If you will stand for it, you will get the law 
 after a little. 
 
 Coming down on the train this morning, I clipped this out of the 
 New York Times, and the New York Times says that this is a com- 
 munication from the Workmen's and Soldier's Delegation in Petrograd 
 to Great Britain. Here is what the Times said they said to the English 
 "What about the historic injustices committed by yourselves? And 
 your violent oppression of Ireland, India, Egypt, and innumerable 
 peoples inhabiting all the continents of the world? If you are so 
 anxious for justice, that you are prepared, in its name to send millions 
 of people to the grave, then, gentlemen, begin with yourselves." If 
 that is sedition, prosecute the New York Times. I hope if this Con- 
 ference does nothing else, it will go on record as declaring that every 
 newspaper and every citizen in this country has an inalienable right to 
 discuss the war, and every feature of it, that they have a right to dis- 
 cuss its beginning, and they have a right to discuss its ending. They 
 have a right to discuss the causes that led up to it, and they have a 
 right to discuss the policies that should terminate it. More than all 
 this, they have a right and it is the most solemn duty of the voters 
 at the first opportunity to elect to office only those representatives who 
 are obeying the will of the majority of the people of the country. 
 
 Now, just a word in conclusion. I believe that the great body 
 of American citizenship are going to be fair. They are going to be 
 honest — they are going to be patriotic, and they are going to put first 
 and foremost the interests of this country. I believe that is going to 
 be done. There may be extremists on both sides. That is always true, 
 but the great body of slow-moving, hard-headed, common-sense Ameri- 
 can people lie between, and after all they are going to determine what 
 is going to be done. Remember that what may seem so very plain to 
 you is not so very plain to someone who has not thought along your 
 lines, but do not be "bluffed" on this subject of Free Speech. Remember 
 that the first amendment of the constitution stands. I would say it 
 with greater emphasis if I were a member of the forces of the present 
 Administration, for I want to say if any administration in this country 
 wants to seek trouble it will find it along the line of denying the 
 constitutional rights of Free Speech and of Free Press. I have no 
 patience with the claim that Democrats cannot fight a war. Oh, 
 Democrats can fight a war all right, but Democrats want to select 
 the- war they are going to fight. That means simply that we want to 
 talk about it. We want to think it over. We want to make up our 
 minds what is the right thing to do, and then we are going to do the 
 right thing, and we are not going to Mexico or California, or anywhere 
 else, to escape obligations. 
 
 70 
 
Rev. Norman M. Thomas, of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, New 
 York City : Conscription and the Conscientious Objection. 
 
 May I begin by making it plain that the problem of Conscription 
 is by no means exclusively the problem of the Conscientious Objector. 
 1 need not take time to remind you that nearly every militaristic paper 
 is working hard and continually for the enactment of universal military 
 training and service. We have got to fight that thing, and fight it hard 
 and continually. There are certain arguments continually advanced 
 in favor of it. They are either astonishingly unreflective or else dis- 
 honest. For instance, we. are told that an army of a proletariat is in 
 itself a democratic army, as opposed to a hired army. Now I need 
 hardly say that some of us, call us what you will, are out to rid the 
 world of the curse of militarism and therefore we are not shut up to 
 these alternatives. But there is another thing. It is astonishing to 
 say that because you take the sons of the people and train them to 
 fight, therefore you have a democratic army. What becomes of the 
 officers? What becomes of the machine guns? Do the people keep 
 possession of them? You take our young men at the most impression- 
 able age — you subject them to a well-thought-out system of military 
 training. You know that Major-General O'Ryan told us once and for 
 all what the purpose of military training is. It is to do what we call, 
 when we are dealing with animals — ''breaking the will" to habits of 
 automatic and unquestioning obedience, and these are not habits which 
 make a great democracy. They are not the habits by which the un- 
 numbered social problems of the world are to be solved. Moreover, 
 you cannot discipline men's minds in this way without inspiring thern 
 with an intense nationalism and glorifying war. Therefore, we are 
 told that to preserve peace in the world, and democracy, we must 
 adopt that system which has bulwarked autocracy and made it possible 
 to precipitate this terrible conflict. 
 
 As for the selective draft that we now have, it is a condition and 
 not a theory which confronts us. In it is involved the beginning of 
 a theory of government which is not democratic or true to American 
 traditions. The public should know exactly what we have got in order 
 that they may begin a systematic agitation for its repeal. However 
 improbable that repeal is in time of war, there is an educational value 
 in making the public see facts, and see them plainly, stripped of a 
 great deal of the embellishment which has been put upon them. In 
 the first place, men are affected who are not the stock of which martyrs 
 are made. They are not conscientious objectors. Yet these have possi- 
 bilities of useful service. Now they are told that they must be regi- 
 mented to fight, not for their homes, but thousands of miles away in a 
 war which maybe they'd ought to understand, but which they do not 
 understand, on the order of a Government which has not appealed 
 to the people, either on the issue of the war, or upon Conscription itself. 
 I can understand how Robert Brooke went out to battle with a sort 
 of exaltation. He saw a great issue, which made war a holy crusade, 
 and lifted up his soul above the horrible demoralization of the battle- 
 field. No such partial redemption comes to the poor conscript who 
 
 71 
 
is suddenly taken from his home and friends, and told he must fight. 
 What will be the effect upon future citizens of America of subjecting 
 them to that sort of thing? We ought to ask tlie American public, 
 which after all is the last court of resort, to think on these things. 
 
 Now we come to the problem of the conscientious objector. It 
 seems to me that conscientious objectofs may be classified in two ways : 
 first, those who object to this war, either on sentimental or rational 
 grounds, and those that object to all wars on social or religious grounds. 
 I have talked personally to young Americans of German birth, to whom 
 this issue is a tragedy of the deepest sort. They are loyal Americans. 
 They have not one thought of treason. Some of them would do al- 
 ternative service for their country, but the thought of being conscripted 
 to fight against those who are their kith and kin is too bitter for their 
 souls. Is that an emotion to be crushed? Would not that impulse 
 be, in the minds of a wise government, a very basis for building up 
 more wholesome international relations in the future. Why must 
 we becloud issues? These men, I repeat, are not pro-Germans, but 
 they are men whose hearts are being broken, by service that may be 
 forced upon them. 
 
 The conscientious objector to all wars may be classified in various 
 ways by the description of his objection. (1) There are certain 
 religious sects who because their scriptures say, "Thou shalt not kill*' 
 will not kill, but will accept non-combatant service — even the making of 
 munitions. (2) There are those who will accept alternative service; 
 such as relief work, the raising of food, etc. They would argue that 
 in time of war, if a man does any useful work at all, he is giving his 
 strength to the support of tlie Government. (3) There is a third class 
 who say that any compulsory change of occupation in time of war is 
 essentially a war service and that the logic of that position demands 
 that the person, no matter how much he may love his country, has 
 to show that love by putting conscience and convictions first, and 
 tlierefore he will not, at whatever cost to himself, accept compulsion. 
 This third position is clearly heroic and perhaps most clearly logical. 
 
 It is sometimes said that the conscientious objector is an anti-social 
 creature. He wants to save his own soul. It is not fair to say that the 
 conscientious objector is primarily a "passivist," that is, a man who 
 does nothing at all, but lets the world wag its own way. A conscien- 
 tious objector of the real stamp is the man who believes that there is 
 a. better way than by killing; that there are economic and spiritual 
 methods which would solve the problems of the world a thousand times 
 more efficiently than by' war. The conscientious objector of that stamp 
 does not for one moment countenance the ravaging of Belgium or the 
 sinking of the Lusitania. He is a man who abhors that sort of thing 
 so much that he is convinced that violence does not cure violence — 
 that hate is not conquered by hate — that you cannot conquer Prussian 
 militarism by Prussianizing the free nations of the world. He is one 
 of those prophets who are trying to work out the redemption of man- 
 kind. It is at least a surprising thing that outside of the church I have 
 never met any man who did not believe that Jesus, of Nazareth, would 
 
 72 
 
have been a conscientious objector. It is only inside the church that 
 people have doubts. And I know of nothing more appalling to all 
 lovers of liberty and of the free human spirit than to say that Jesus 
 of Nazareth, or men of His spirit — brave, free souls, would have to 
 be regimented to go out to kill or else be called cowards and slackers 
 and scum of the earth. What has come over the American people 
 that that sort of thing should be done? Hope for the world springs out 
 of the idealism of the man who sees the star and follows that star, 
 rather than the will-o'-the-wisp of advantage. You may not agree 
 with that man's conscience. I am not pleading for your agreement, 
 1 am pleading with you to consider who is to save the world if we are 
 to crush our idealists, our dreamers ; to think of that hideous evil 
 which is done when the Government takes the man who was made to 
 be the leader of mankind in science, in art and thought, and conscripts 
 him for the purpose of being cannon fodder or for the purpose of 
 destroying his fellow men, which is far worse to this man's conscience. 
 Therefore I beg you to remember that the conscientious objector is 
 not anti-social, that in him is hope for the world, and this, despite 
 such eloquent champions as an ex-President of the United States and 
 others of the opposite view. 
 
 But my plea is not primarily for the conscientious objector; if he 
 be of the stock of which martyrs are made he will prove once more 
 that martyrs advance causes, even more than brave soldiers. But I 
 plead for our country — for the America that we have loved — for the 
 tradition which has made some of us through all our days think of 
 America as the home of the exiled for conscience's sake. Never mind 
 what particular kind of conscience drove our fathers here. The best 
 blood of America was furnished by men who left home and friends and 
 country to follow their dream, and from the Pilgrim faithers until the 
 last immigrant for conscience's sake, America has stood forth for the 
 tradition of freedom of conscience — without which there is no religion, 
 and without which there is no democracy. What have we to offer to 
 the world, if that tradition be taken away from us? What conceivable 
 service ranks with the service that the republic of the West has ren- 
 dered to mankind? I am speaking not merely in the name of tradition, 
 1 am speaking in the name of democracy herself. Autocracy may exist 
 by armed coercion of individual will. Democracy cannot so exist, and 
 to stifle the liberty of conscience of the man who is trying to think, 
 is for democracy to inflict perhaps a slow, but nevertheless a mortal 
 wound upon herself. There is one weapon, and one weapon alone, 
 known to a democracy to convert the foolish man, and that is the 
 weapon of reason — of the power of ideas, and that weapon you deny. 
 
 My position religously, my every convicton makes me, if you 
 will, an extreme foe of war — I will not say a non-resistant, because 
 I believe there are forms of existence of the highest type, but I am 
 opposed absolutely to organized violence; therefore I would see with 
 sorrow any violent resistance to this law, because I believe it is the 
 wrong method. I cannot make that too plain, and yet I know 
 mankind well enough to feel reasonably certain that the Govern- 
 
 73 
 
ment cannot suddenly turn from old established institutions in 
 America without ineeting with violence, and for that reason I 
 plead that Amerca consider these things. And I plead for a deeper 
 reason. To \Vhat purpose is the investment of life by thousands 
 of men who have gone to fight for ideals? If, after all, we get 
 the Prussian state? And what is the difference between a Prus- 
 sian state and a democratic state — that one has an hereditary Kaiser 
 and the other an elected President? We are not in the kinder- 
 garten. It is more fundamental. It is this: The Prussian state 
 is above the moral law and individuals exist for the state. The 
 dem'ocratic state must be guided by the moral law, and it exists 
 for the well-being of great companes of individuals. Now, democ- 
 racy demand's imutual accomodation. It does not demand the sur- 
 rendering of that very thing which, if a man be religious at all, 
 he be'lieves to prove him the son of God. To substitute the Prus- 
 sian ideal for the American ideal in a war to make the world safe for 
 democracy is a cause for anguish on the part of those who love America. 
 What is there then that we can do for this thing? I have already said 
 that we can educate the public looking to the repeal of conscription. 
 We can give legal, material, moral aid to thfe conscientious ob- 
 jector. We can seek for such liberal exemption power as denies 
 as little as possb'le of American liberties. The law exempts the 
 Quakers. Conscience is not corporate ; it is individual. Let us 
 demand that this principle be recognized in the administration of 
 the law even while we urge its amendment in accordance Avitb 
 justice. 
 
 We must continually appeal to the might of ideals even in the 
 midst of war, and yet, if we want to serve liberty in the w^orld, there 
 is, in my judgment, one fundamental call, and that is to work for 
 universal deimocratic peace. Even without conscription the war 
 psychology inevitably exerts coercions over men's minds of a terrible 
 sort. For example, there is no conscription law compelling one to 
 buy Liberty Bonds, and yet, if the Evening Telegram is correct, a 
 certain gentleman in Chicago gave advice to his salesmen in this 
 wise: ''If a man does not buy your bond knock him down." This 
 is liberty as it someti'mes exists in war times. And the war psy- 
 chology can be cured in the end only by peace in the right terms, 
 democratic and universal. Therefore, there is no more fundamental 
 service we can render than to make men think and act along lines 
 that lead to peace. And now my time is up, save for one quotation. 
 There is one sign of help, a s-ign of help dear to me, for I am a 
 minister of the church, and I love the church, in spite of her 
 failures. The thing that I want to read is the declaration of the 
 Federal Council of Churches of Christ of America. "When the state 
 compels men to military service it raises the ancient religious question 
 of freedom of conscience. Churches which have furnished martyrs for 
 this principle are under particular obligation to see that the conscien- 
 tious objector is allowed such non-combatant service as does not violate 
 his conscience. We, therefore, request the administrative committee to 
 
 74 
 
carefully consider what practical steps can be taken to secure this end." 
 This is something from the church. It shows that there is an uneasy 
 conscience in America even now. Let us appeal like men to that con- 
 science. Let us appeal for that which is holy, which alone will make the 
 world safe for democracy, and that is the right of the human conscience 
 to be formed freely without compulsory military training, and to 
 be exercised freely, guided by the principle of loA^e for one's kind. 
 
 Harry Weinberger, Counsel American Legal Defensie League, 
 New York : The First Casualties in War. 
 
 You will always have as much liberty as you have the courage 
 to take. I don't believe that we should Avait until the end of the 
 Wiar to demand and take our liberties in this country. I don't 
 believe that any country has the right to. force into the army or to 
 compel any individual to do any work against his conscience. I 
 believe that the highest law of this country, the Constitution of the 
 United States, guarantees every man that right. In the darkest 
 hours of the Revolution Thomas Paine wrote, **These are the times 
 that try men's souls." And we can say the same. History sihows 
 that the first casualties of war are free speech and free press and all 
 the liberties of the people — that is, if the people are supine enough 
 to allow it. 
 
 The tyrannies of majorities are as bad as tyrannies of kings 
 and force is never a remedy. Are you going to wait for peace to 
 maintain your rights or are you going to maintain them here and 
 now. The greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong, 
 because when governments or majorities think you are right they 
 don't interfere, but as soon as they think you are wrong then 
 comes ostracism, then comes the police with their jails and torture 
 and their fines, taking away w'hatever rights and liberty you have, 
 if you are willing to allow them to be taken away. 
 
 Every right we have to-day, every liberty that we have to-d'ay, 
 was paid for by the blood, the liberty, the happiness of some indi- 
 vidual in the past that had the courage to stand up in the face 
 of tyranny. I am pro- American. I believ^e in liberty as guaranteed 
 in the Constitution. But must I stand silent? Must I stand weak, 
 because this democracy wants to overthrow autocracy? Must I 
 remain silent while we become an autocracy to overthrow autoc- 
 racy? Or shall we say to the world : "If we fight, we fight as free 
 men — not as slaves!" 
 
 One of the cases that the American Legal Defense has defended 
 in this city was that of a man w'ho gave out peace pamphlets to 
 people who believed in war, but I have not heard of a single editor 
 who preached war in the time of peace being sent to jail. I have 
 not heard of a single editor now who sells a war newspaper to a 
 Quaker or a Pacifist being sent to jail. And if Christ came back 
 to New York to-day and got out in a pamphlet form his sermon 
 
on the mount or Moses got out the ten commandments in a pam- 
 phlet form, they would both be sent to the workhouse for six 
 months. And then they tell lis to wait till after the Avar. 
 
 I would repeat the words of Wend'ell Phillips : *'If there is 
 anything w'hich cannot bear discussion let it crack." ''What gov- 
 ernment," says Oliver Cromwell, ''except a despotic government 
 fears paper shot?" 
 
 76 
 
Fifth Session 
 
 Thursday, May 31, 3 P. M. 
 
 Job Harriman, Los Angeles, Chairman. 
 
 FoLA La Follette, New York, read the report of the Committee 
 on Permanent Organization and Future Activity. 
 
 Rebecca Shelly, New York : ''Suggestions for a People's Coitncll of 
 America." 
 
 Congress, as now constituted, does not represent the will of the 
 American people. We believe the vast majority of our fellow citizens 
 want to express and make effective the people's will on the question of 
 peace or war, democracy or militarism. 
 
 The big question is, *'How shall we go about it." It is impracti- 
 cable and, we fear, futile to start another society or league to work 
 along the old lines. 
 
 We propose, therefore, that this Conference commit itself .to the 
 immediate organization of a People's Council, modeled after the 
 Council of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, which is the sov- 
 ereign power in Russia to-day. 
 
 The People's Council should be made up of delegates duly elected 
 by any organization or section of an organization which has a thou- 
 sand bona fide members and subscribers to the fundamental aims of the 
 People's Council — real democracy at home, and an early general peace 
 based on the terms already announced by the Russian Government. 
 
 Upon this broad basis of organization the Council should include 
 representatives from political, social, religious, humanitarian, educa- 
 tional and geographical groups, and from the live peace organizations. 
 But the majority of delegates should come from the progressive trade 
 union locals, the single taxers, the vigorous Socialist locals, the 
 Granges, the Farmers' Co-operative Union and other agricultural or- 
 ganizations. The Council should represent ideas, territorial sections 
 and voting power. Most of all, it should represent the productive 
 working classes, which, if welded together for common action in a 
 common cause, will make their voice effective in the councils of the 
 nation. At the outset the basis of representation in the Council might 
 be one delegate for every thousand constituents. Each organization or 
 group would pay the expenses of its own delegates. 
 
 The first session of the People's Council might begin in the Mid- 
 dle West on August 1, with the immediate object "To consider ways 
 and means of re-establishing representative government in America 
 
and to work for an early and lasting peace." While Congress is in 
 session, and especially in times of crisis, the Council should sit in 
 Washington as the authoritative spokesman for the American people. 
 
 The first act of the Council might be to draft a bill or resolution 
 stating concretely the terms upon which our government should make 
 peace — such a bill or resolution then to be presented to Congress with 
 the organized backing of the constituents of the Council. 
 
 It should demand the repeal of the conscription laws. It should 
 defend free speech. It should protect our fundamental American lib- 
 erties. It should be on the alert to safeguard labor standards and the 
 rights of working women and children. It should turn the searchlight 
 on the doings of Congress through a news bulletin. 
 
 The Council should act also as a medium through which the 
 democratic leaders and groups of Europe could speak to the people 
 of America. Most important at this time, it should interpret the signi- 
 ficance of the peace Conference in Stockholm. If our government per- 
 sists in refusing passports to the delegates to this Conference, the Peo- 
 ple's Council might invite representatives from the Stockholm Confer- 
 ence to lay its findings before the American people through the me- 
 dium of the Council. 
 
 Briefly, the most essential function of the Council would be to 
 preserve and extend democracy at home and to work in co-operation 
 with the people of all the world for a speedy general peace, with no 
 forcible annexations, no punitive indemnities and free development for 
 all nations. 
 
 (The remainder of the Fifth Session was devoted to the informal 
 discussion of the Committee report and Miss Shelly's plan. As the 
 greater part of the discussion pertained to questions of registry under 
 the Conscription Act, June 5, 1917, and therefore without perma- 
 nent value, it has been omitted from this record. 
 
 The Resolutions as adopted may be found in the early pages of 
 this brochure. Miss Shelly's plan was recommended to the favor- 
 able consideration of the executive committee as provided for in the 
 resolutions on Permanent Organization and Future Activities.) 
 
 78 
 
Sixth Session 
 
 Thursday Evening, May 31, 1917 
 
 MASS MEETING AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 
 Dr. J. L. Magnes, New York, Chairman. 
 
 Dr. Magnes : 
 
 We haA^e come 'here to-night as law-abiding and peaceable 
 citizens to dedicate ourselves again to the cause of peace. In our 
 exaltation of peace and our abhorrence of war it is n'ecessary for 
 us in these trying times to comfort ourselves as honest men and 
 women and at the same time show our allegiance to that America 
 which in the years that have passed we were taught to love for her 
 advocacy of liberty and democracy. 
 
 In order that there may be no possible misinterpretation put 
 upon our purposes or our words, we have the pleasure perhaps 
 for the first time in an A(mericaii public gathering of welcoming 
 in our midst three representatives of the United States Department 
 of Justice. These fellow citizen's of ours are here in response to 
 a mandate of the Attorney General of this country, who has given 
 instructions appearing in the public prints this morning that the 
 officers and agents of the Department in communities wherever 
 meetings are held or likely to be held at which agitation against 
 registration as prescribed in the new army bill might be indulged 
 in s'hould be present iii order to have stenographi<: reports made of 
 the addresses delivered. 
 
 I believe that) the sessions of our Conference over two days 
 must furnish abundant proof that it is not in the purpose of the 
 organizers of or the delegates to this conference that such activi- 
 ties or such addresses should be entered upon. Any resolution in any 
 way advising any action contrary to law will be declared out of order. 
 Resolutions that were this afternoon presented in connection with 
 this conscription questicxn were referred back by the conference 
 to the executive committee, because there was some shadow of 
 a doubt as to whether or not the fionmulation of the committee might 
 be interpreted as coming strictly wfithin the law. 
 
 We promised the delegates to the conference that at the end 
 of its sessions the executive committee, together with such respon- 
 sible advisors as it could summon, would consider as new resolu- 
 tions, and as a consequence of these deliberations the following reso- 
 lutions are announced as the resolutions of our conference in place 
 of, and as substtutes for, thej draft resolutions, handed in! by the 
 comm.ittee, and appearing in the press this afternoon as our reso- 
 
liitions before we had adopted them. The resolutions which are 
 our utterance on this questiooi are as follows : These resolutions 
 we believe and we are infonmed on what we think good authority 
 are strictly within the law. Otherwise we should not be presentng 
 them here this night. 
 
 "Inasmuch as we believe conscription laws to be unconstitutional, 
 violating the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United 
 States, we appeal to the Congress of the -United States so to amend 
 the conscription act before June 5 as to grant exemption to all con- 
 scientious objectors whether or not they be members of recognized 
 religious organizations. 
 
 ''Inasmuch as young men of conscriptable age are inquiring 
 whether or not military registration on June 5 will subject them imme- 
 diately to military law and will compel them to work without the pro- 
 tection of labor laws, under any conditions which the military executive 
 may force upon them, 
 
 ''And inasmuch as the legal branch of the Department of War has 
 up to the present time refused to give definite information on this 
 subject, 
 
 "Be it resolved that this conference hereby appeals to the gov- 
 ernment for a full and unmistakable pronouncement on this point." 
 
 The conference has decided to elect an organizing execu- 
 tive committee of seven persons, with power to add to their number, in 
 order to organize a permanent delegated People's Council from all 
 sympathetic groups, to give immediate and permanent effect to the 
 resolutions of the conference. It has been decided to call this new 
 organization a People's Council — in the first place, because we believe 
 most sincerely that we speak for the Ainerican people and in the second 
 place we have given it the name Council, because that name is now a 
 new and glorious word in the vocabulary of all free and liberty loving 
 men the world over — ^because the word Council is the word that has 
 been given to their Council by the free Russian people. 
 
 James Maurer, President of the Pennsylvania A. F. of L. : 
 
 I assure you that this is about the largest crowd I ever spoke to, 
 I shall give you my views as a workingman, representing nearly 500,000 
 workingmen and women. In 1912 the slogan in Mr. Wilson's cam- 
 paign was that if they succeeded they were going to reduce the cost 
 of living. And they succeeded. Last year the slogan was, He kept 
 us out of war. Now, we have the highest cost of living that we ever 
 had since I knew anything of this world, and we are at war besides. 
 
 When the European war broke out President Wilson issued a 
 proclamation advising the people of this country to be neutral, and I 
 believe that all of us of the common people tried to be neutral. I know 
 I did. We soon discovered, however, that the certain munition interests 
 and banking interests were not neutral. They were taking sides by 
 
 80 
 
supplying munitions of war — the food speculators supplying the food 
 and the money lenders the money, not to all the belligerents, but to one 
 part of them. They did it so openly. There was no objection on the 
 part of the government. Then they boasted ''that they are going to 
 make all the money they could while the making was good," and they 
 made it. The money was si>ent with the interests in this country, until 
 the money was all used up. Then credits were asked for and credits 
 were extended and they commenced buying on credit and the credits 
 piled up so high that those who extended credits were fearful lest 
 the side which they were financing should lose and they should lose their 
 money. Then a campaign of preparedness began. We were told that 
 unless we prepared there would be war. Therefore, to escape war, 
 we must prepare for war. We agitated against the programme, but 
 they were insistent that we were not preparing for war, but we were 
 preparing against war. They insisted that unless we were prepared 
 the Japanese would come in here and annihilate us. Another time it 
 was the Allies. They were at that time rather stubborn about our 
 mails. Then later on the Germans would do it, and therefore we must 
 prepare against invasion. All of you will agree that that was the 
 programme. No one admitted that we are preparing for war, only to 
 prevent war. The newspapers were lined up. The moving pictures 
 were lined up and then the big parades started simultaneously all over 
 this nation — preparedness parades — and that is when the unorganized 
 workers got their first taste of conscription . The unorganized were con- 
 scripted by their bosses and told to go out and parade. 
 
 The next move was to Washington, to convince Congress that 
 they needed preparations large enough to protect against an invading 
 enemy. Congress complied with the request against the protest of 
 thousands — millions of people, and they prepared. We said a year 
 ago, ''As sure as you prepare you will go to war just as the rest did 
 who were prepared," and sure enough you did. 
 
 Now, friends, we are at war. It was said to-day to me I was too 
 old and what need 1 care. I have a son and a son-in-law, and be- 
 sides I have the working class, the millions, who are just as dear to 
 me as even I am to myself. They are going to conscript the workers 
 for war, but there has never been a word said yet about conscripting 
 the wealth !of the rich for war. I say if it is right to enter the poor 
 man's home or the widow's home to take the widow's only son and say, 
 "We take him and use him because we need him" — if that is right and 
 the government says it is, then I want someone to explain to me why 
 it would not be just as right for the same government to go to the rich 
 and say, "Here, we want your money, we are at war, and we are 
 going to take it. 
 
 We who stand for peace, we who stand for justice, are condemned 
 and branded as cowards, as shrimps, as weaklings, as spineless. Well, 
 I am here to tell you to-night my long experience in the struggles for 
 the uplift of the working class. I learned to know men. I learned 
 to know that the man who talks the loudest about fighting can usually 
 be found under the table when something starts. We are asking now — 
 
 81 
 
this Convention that was here for two days — what Congress demands. 
 We want to know what we are going to fight about. 
 
 We want to know what the peace terms will be. Surely we have 
 a right to know (that. They tell us, the only reason I have heard yet, 
 that we went to war to democratize Europe. If we are going to do 
 that, let us make it the world while we are at it, and while we are 
 democratizing Europe, Asia and Africa let us not overlook the fact 
 that we ought to stick right here on the job in the United States too. 
 
 The request caime to our Governor of Pennsylvania from this 
 Committee of National Defense in Wasihington, asking him to appeal 
 to us in the Legislature to suspend our labor laws in Pennsylvania. 
 We are to make that sacrifice, and already they are thinking of 
 i^unning stores day and night, in anticipation that we are going to 
 suspend the laws, and I promise you to-night that there is dis- 
 appointment awaiting the people who think we are going to suspend 
 the laws in Pennsylvania. England tried it. When the war broke 
 out in England they threw all labor laws aside. 
 
 Dr. Magnes (referring to a slight disturbance created by several sol- 
 diers in uniform) : 
 
 I want to make an appeal to those who are with us not to let 
 themselves be disturbed by a mere handful of our dear soldier boys. 
 If they, wearing the insignia of the United States, to whose laws we 
 owe obedience, choose to create a disturbance at a peaceable meeting, 
 I ask those of you who are with us not to reply. That will help our 
 cause. 
 
 The next speaker is one whom it is rather difficult to introduce. 
 It is difficult to introduce him because, although we are happy to have 
 him with us, we should much rather have seen him now on his way 
 to the Socialist Conference. I should like to say that in this evening's 
 papers we read that English Socialists will be at the Stockholm Con- 
 ference. Yesterday we read that French Socialists will be there. 
 We have known all along that Russian Socialists would be there. In 
 all likelihood Italian, Serbian and other Socialists of our x\llies will 
 be there. Only the representatives of free America will be absent. 
 
 Morris Hillquit: 
 
 I am thankful to you from the bottom of my heart for your 
 cordial reception. I am touched by the evidence of your fellowship — 
 your aftections. I am proud of it, but I want to say to you that your 
 affection for me is as nothing compared with the tender regard which 
 the government of this country is lately showing to me. Some time 
 ago I made up my mind to go away for a little while on important 
 business at Stockholm and I said to the Secretary of State, to the 
 Administration of the United States, "Gentlemen, I have been having 
 a perfectly lovely time, but now, really, I must go for a little while." 
 And they said, "No, no, Mr. Hillquit, why, what is your hurry ? Please 
 stay with us a little longer.'* And their hospitality became so urgent 
 and so insistent that I could not resist it, believe me. 
 
 82 
 
And when I came here to-night to keep my appointment with 
 you I passed through a cortege of poUce officers — ^hundreds of them — 
 anxiously looking out for the protection of my precious safety and 
 person, and finally, when I come here, I find the government has 
 deputed three of its most intelligent representatives to perpetuate every 
 one of my precious words for the archives of the United States, and 
 I shall be very glad to make a record for them, to give them pretty 
 good literature, that one will be able to read without being ashamed in 
 the years to come. 
 
 I am going to say first of all for the record and for you that we 
 are here to-night by the thousands and many thousands, as many this 
 immense hall will hold, in order to join our voice in one reverberating 
 cry for peace — peace for the people of the United States, peace for 
 all nations, peace for the world and humanity at large. For the 
 peopk of the United States and the people of other nations do not 
 want war. No normal person wants war and debt and suffering. We 
 all want peace and life and joy. Some of our stupid metropolitan 
 newspapers want war and are to make their readers believe that war 
 is a thing of joy and happiness. Outside of them, every sane person 
 knows the contrary. Even the most bellicose of militarists admit that 
 war is an evil — the greatest, the darkest evil that ever visited mankind. 
 
 The difference between them and us is that they say it is a neces- 
 sary evil, and we say it is most unnecessary — most wanton — the most 
 wanton of all evils — an evil deliberately brought about by the cupidity 
 of the classes and by the stupidity of the masses. The people of the 
 United States do not have to be told at this time what war is and 
 implies. Even to the most obtuse, the meaning of war must by this 
 time have become perfectly clear. 
 
 For three years the nations of Europe have been in convulsions 
 of death and destruction. Milhons of men have been slain by the 
 mad hands of their fellow men — millions have been maimed and crip- 
 pled for life. Countries have been devastated. Civilizations have been 
 destroyed. Death, suffering, agony, anguish has befallen the unfor- 
 tunate nations of Europe. A heavy, black cloud of suffering and de- 
 spair is oppressing their lives and their existence. That is what war 
 is bound to do to every nation which decided deliberately to join in 
 this mad carnival of demented nations now engaged in war. 
 
 We know what war means. We have seen war and we are here 
 to-night to ask ourselves — to ask the world: Are we to wait until 
 this country has undergone all the sufferings, all the privations, all the 
 anguish of the nations of Europe, before we shall be allowed to cry out 
 for peace and sanity or are we now and here to organize an intelli- 
 genlt, a wise, a courageous movement of the people to put an end to 
 war and all of its sufferings and to bring about peace? 
 
 We have a right to ask that question. Within a few days ten 
 millions of our young men will present themselves for military regis- 
 tration. Five hundred thousand of them will be pressed into the 
 service alt once. Five hundred thousand more perhaps will be drafted 
 within a short time. They will be (taken away from their fathers and 
 
 83 
 
mothers, from their homes or schools — from their accustomed pursuits 
 and modes of life. They will be herded together for months in train- 
 ing camps and drilled, drilled, drilled in the deadly art of modern war- 
 fare and then eventually, perhaps, sent to that terrible place from which 
 there is rarely any return — that dread place somewhere in France, 
 where they may fill the gaps in the trenches caused by the voracious 
 guns of the enemy. 
 
 Our sons, our brothers, ourselves — we have a right to demand — 
 what is -this people called upon to make these sacrifices for? For 
 what ends, for wiiat aims are we fighting? Are we to fight in self- 
 defense or are we to shed our blood to gratify the feeling of vengeance 
 or the lust of conquest of foreign nations? We want to know. We 
 are entitled to know. 
 
 In one of his many memorable speeches President Wilson has 
 said. We are to fight to make the world safe for democracy." We 
 wish we could share that optimism, ''make the world safe for democ- 
 racy," by crushing our own democracy at home or establish democ- 
 racy in a foreign, hostile country by an armed force. Oh no, democ- 
 racy does not come from without. It must come from within. Democ- 
 racy cannot be established by gunfire, but by the fires of reason. 
 
 Then, another slogan has recently been launched by some of 
 our newspaper men and statesmen. We are told we must take the 
 place of Russia in this war. What a slogan pregnant with deep and 
 sinister meaning, "We must take the place of Russia." The Rus- 
 sian people, after three years of war, forced by the Czar, have tired 
 of slaughtering each other, have tired of this ghastly game of killing, 
 and they have said, "No, neither shall be shed the blood of others to 
 satisfy any lust of conquest. We demand peace for the world." They 
 have left a vacancy in the military camp. We are now training millions 
 of our citizens to take their place ; in this bloody dance we are to take 
 the place of Russia. 
 
 The Russian people have risen in their might — shaken off the yoke 
 of despotism, of oppression, of arbitrary persecution, of press censor- 
 ship, of curtailed personal liberties. We — we are introducing now press 
 censorship and persecution and militarism and rigid supervision over all 
 of our actions. We are taking the place of Russia. Russia has de- 
 throned her Czar. Russia has established democracy, a reign of free- 
 dom, a reign of reason. We are cultivating despoti^sm, passion and 
 unreason in our own country. 
 
 We are taking the place of Russia and we say to the people of our 
 country: Now, rather than to take the place of the old, discredited 
 Russia, of the Czar, let us make common cause with the modern 
 Russia, the Russia of the people, the Russia of freedom. Let us de- 
 mand immediate peace. And don't think that your protest will be 
 in vain. Don't think that you will have no influence upon the coming 
 of the day of peace. Thousands like you in every city of this coun- 
 try — thousands like you in every city of France, England, Germany, 
 Austria, Russia — ^the people — the whole people — the people in its 
 
 84 
 
might — the people alone will establish an eternal, a general, a glorious 
 peace, and nobody else. The kings and the czars, crowned and un- 
 crowned, have precipitated this war, have destroyed civilization, have 
 thrown us into the abyss. It remains for the people themselves to save 
 civilization, to save mankind. Long live democracy ! Long live peace 
 forever ! 
 
 Dr. Magnes made an appeal for money and a collection was taken 
 up amounting to $1,086. The slips prepared for pledges and mem- 
 bership signatures had been confiscated by the authorities. 
 
 Max Eastman, Editor The Masses, New York : 
 
 When you have to make a speech in these days it is very hard 
 to decide what it is safe to say. When anybody tries to stop the 
 war he gets arrested for disturbing the peace. When anybody ques- 
 tions whether we are fighting a war for liberty he gets knocked on 
 the head and deprived of his own liberty in order to prove to him that 
 we are. But there is one thing that I Want to say, and that I believe I 
 have a right to say, even in a Prussianized America, and that is that if 
 our government intends to try to conscript its citizens and ship them 
 over to Europe to fight it will be a wise policy for our government to 
 give an itemized statement of the purposes for which they will be 
 fighting. 
 
 Some people want to repeal or amend any conscription law, 
 because they object to being marched in a chain gang, even when they 
 can see where they are going. But I believe that hundreds of thou- 
 sands of people will want to repeal this conscription law, because they 
 object to being marched in a chain gang, blindfolded. The people 
 of this country expressed their opposition to our joining the war of 
 the Allies last November when they returned Woodrow Wilson to the 
 White House as a peace President. But in spite of that expression 
 of the will of the people war has been declared and the government, ac- 
 knowledging that it was not able to raise a volunteer army of 500,000 
 free citizens, adopted the principle of a conscriptive draft. What they 
 are planning to do with this conscription act is to gather the free 
 citizens of this republic into small squares and ship them over a 
 bloody sea to Europe to be slaughtered in a war that is raging be- 
 tween other governments than their own, and up to the present moment 
 they have not even had enough respect for the intelligence of those 
 citizens, even to tell them the purposes for which they are being 
 marched into the pen. I believe that I am within my rights as a sov- 
 ereign citizen when I condemn, without qualification, this policy of 
 our government. I want to be informed in plain language what are 
 the terms of peace. 
 
 Dr. Scott Nearing, Toledo, Ohio : 
 
 The last time that I had an opportunity to speak on this platform 
 I urged those of you here then present to regard this war merely as 
 an incident — merely as one link in a long chain of sequential events, 
 
 85 
 
and during the five minutes that I have to-night I want to repeat and 
 perhaps amplify a Httle bit what I said at that time. During the past 
 forty years the pkitocratic oligarchy that dominates the life of America 
 has secured possession of the natural resources, the franchises, the 
 transportation agencies, the credit machinery and the various other 
 social tools of production. They have likewise at their beck and 
 call the daily press, the pulpit, the college rostrum, the school system 
 and the various other channels through which public opinion is formed, 
 and during the past forty years the plutocracy has been fastening the 
 grip of its power on the American people. 
 
 One of the great avenues of plutocratic activity has been the 
 investment of billions of dollars in Mexico, Central America, the 
 West Indies and South America. Those huge investments must be 
 protected agains.t the aggressions of other capitalists from Belgium, 
 France, Germany, England, Russia and the other foreign surplus in- 
 vesting nations. Hence, there arose the demand for a great Ameri- 
 can army and a great American navy to back up what we please to 
 call the economic Monroe Doctrine, which I take to mean that no 
 foreign nation has the right to pick the pockets of the South American 
 people. We reserved that right exclusively for ourselves. 
 
 The great navy and army were necessary. You cannot maintain 
 a great navy and a great army in a democracy without universal mili- 
 tary service, and therefore universal military service was necessary. 
 You cannot get universal military service across in a democracy with- 
 out a war and therefore a war was necessary. Very few people in 
 the United States wanted war, excluding the capitalist interests. They 
 wanted their foreign investments protected. They needed a military 
 establishment to protect them. They required conscription to back 
 their military establishment and the only possible way to get con- 
 scription was through war with Mexico — with Japan — with England — 
 with Germany — with anybody that would yield the desired results. 
 Now we have the war — our participation in the world's struggle. 
 The American people did not want the war. The American business 
 interests did want the war and they spent three years telling us that 
 through their subsidized, owned, kept press and at the end of that three 
 years they got their war. Our line of attack is not against the war. 
 Our line of attack is not against the present Administration. Our line 
 of attack must be fundamentally against the system of plutocratic oli- 
 garchy that dominates the United States and makes war necessary 
 as a consequence. 
 
 Dr. Magnes: 
 
 We had expected to have as the next speaker Job Harriman of 
 Los Angeles. Unfortunately Mr. Harriman made such a good speech 
 at the Conference to-day that he got too hoarse to be able to speak 
 to-night, and he therefore begs to be excused. 
 
 The next speaker will be an old, yet ever-young champion of 
 
democracy — one 'of the few clergymen who have kept the faith, the 
 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. 
 
 Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Abraham Lincoln Centre, Chicago : 
 
 Not that I haite crowns less, but because I hate war more. I am 
 opposed to this war, not because it has Germany for an enemy, but 
 I am opposed to all wars as an inheritance of barbaric and brutal 
 ancestry, as something to be outgrown and left behind. I am in 
 favor of a peace without victory, because victory would bring an un- 
 speakable calamity upon the victors. Alas ; for this twentieth century 
 of Christian era that establishes its power by the triumph of the 
 sw^ord, for history proves that the conquest of the conqueror has 
 always been brief — the reign of the administrations established by 
 power have passed, while the power of the advocates of love and peace 
 endure through the centuries. You find the conquest of the man 
 of the sword in the past only with the spade digging in the sands of 
 oblivion while the triumphs of love endure forever. I come here to 
 stand up with you to be counted. I come here to be found on the 
 firing line for peace. I have a right to speak on this matter. I wear 
 a button, the Grand Army Button, that tells you that I followed the flag 
 for three years where it was not comfortable. I was where Grant 
 and Sherman and Logan were. I followed them through Collins, to 
 Vicksburg, Vicksburg to Missionary Ridge, Missionary Ridge to 
 Atlanta and Atlanta back to Nashville, and I come here to tell you that 
 the war from the inside justifies the verdict of history that it is the 
 wrong, wrong way, even of doing the right thing. 
 
 Seymour Stedman, Chicago : 
 
 Liberty cannot live without the freedom of speech and of the press. 
 Five score and ten years ago the colonies upon the Atlantic coast per- 
 mitted the organization of the American Republic, only upon condition 
 that there should be written into the life of a new republic their first 
 article of the Bill of Rights which guaranteed the right and the 
 freedom to speak. We have remained to this day to find the Chan- 
 cellors of the United States and its Prime Ministers challenging that 
 right, proposing to take away the right of the press to educate the 
 public, the right of freedom of speech, and even it is suggested to take 
 away the privilege of asking its offijcials upon what terms they will 
 be inclined to make peace. Before election you are sovereign citizens 
 and are supreme officers of your servants. Now they are sovereigns 
 and you become their servants. Let us make one thing emphatic, that 
 as liberty rises in Russia it shall not perish here. 
 
 87 
 

 The Co>Operatlve Press 
 
 15 Spruce Street, N. Y, 
 
 ¥ 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 13^p |' '60P■ 
 
 IRFeb-65'^ 
 
 fiv 
 
 ^N STACKS 
 
 IN STACKS 
 
 ^^5 4 m s 
 
 MAR 30 1960 
 
 ^gC'D Ln 
 
 ^^^1Q'65 - 9PM 
 
 ^gC'D 
 
 tfr 
 
 May 
 
 ^^Mo 
 
 «fii»'e4Bt 
 
 IN STACKS 
 
 OCT 2 5 1964 
 
 RECD LU 
 
 fEB4 '65-lPNI 
 
 LD 21A-50wi-4,'59 
 (A1724sl0)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of Californij 
 
 Berkeley 
 
898340 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
■, ■--■^■t/\*m?50S'.lM