LIBRARY
OF THE
University of California.
GIFT OF
CL.C-, (l^ <,..
Class
THE FEDERATION
OF THE WORLD
BY
BENJAMIN F. TRUEBLOOD, LL. D.
g35i2EEagmi
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY BENJAMIN F. TRUEBLOOD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
THIRD EDITION
TO
THE FRIENDS OF PEACE
IN
AMERICA AND EUROPE
184995
Pax quoerenda pace
PREFACE TO THE THIRD
EDITION
]N publishing this third edition,
now eight years after the ap-
pearance of the first, I have not
deemed it wise to make any material
changes in what was then written. The
nature of the argument, as an interpre-
tation of the jorces and movements then
clearly seeming to me to be rapidly work-
ing out the federation and peace of the
world, is such that it could not well be
made more forcible by recasting it into
another form. The recent extraordinary
progress of the nations, in spite of the
persistence of the rivalry of armaments,
toward the ideal attainment then forecast
is made all the more striking by present-
ing it, as is done in the last two chapters,
alongside the prediction at that time writ-
ten down. The ten chapters have there-
vi Preface to the Third Edition
fore been left standing substantially as
they were, with only a few corrections and
minor changes made necessary by the lapse
of time. The foot-notes have been slightly
modified in places, to enable the reader the
better to contrast the state of international
affairs eight years ago with that at the pre-
sent time. The eleventh chapter, though
never before published, was written soon
after the Hague Conference of 1899, during
which it was my privilege to be at The
Hague, and was an attempt to interpret
the work of that remarkable gathering and
its bearing upon the future relations of the
nations. In the twelfth chapter I have
attempted to set forth the chief features of
the progress of the federative movement
since the close of that Conference and the
\ establishment and opening of the perma-
y \ nent International Court of Abitration. I
have included in this exposition a brief
account of the work and results of the
Second Hague Conference, which has just
closed its labors.
Boston, December, 1907.
PREFACE
HE substance of what is found on
the following pages was originally
given in two lectures delivered be-
fore the faculty and students of the Mead-
ville Theological School, Meadville, Penn-
sylvania, in the spring of 1897, on the Adin
Ballou foundation. The lectures have since
been carefully revised and considerably ex-
panded, and are now given to the public for
the first time. The surpassing interest of
the subject discussed is my only justification
in venturing to bring my thought before a
larger number of hearers than was reached
when the lectures were given. The conclu-
sions reached are the result of many years
of careful study of the international move-
ments of modern society and their causes,
and they cannot be fairly judged except
from the point of view of these movements.
viii ■ Preface
The treatment is original, so far as a great
thought, occupying many minds and mouths
at the same time, can be treated in an ori-
ginal way by any one person, whose think-
ing owes so much to that of others. The
argument is not intended to be exhaustive,
but only suggestive and directive, and it is
hoped that it is presented in such a way as
to furnish encouragement and inspiration to
duty.
The reader will kindly bear in mind that
the subject treated is not primarily that
of peace and war. These receive a large
amount of attention, but only as they are
related to the general subject, the federation
of the world. The aim of the discussion is
to show that the nature of man and of soci-
fy ety is such as to indicate that a general fed-
V eration of the race ought to exist, that war
ought to be abolished, that the whole of
/^y humanity must move together in harmoni-
ous cooperation if it ever fulfills its destiny ;
to point out the reasons why this federation
has been so long delayed ; to indicate the
Preface ix
influences which have been at work liberat-
ing and restoring the federative elements ;
and to show from actual historic movements
and recent social and international achieve-
ments that the social and political unity of
the world is a consummation rationally to
be expected in the not remote future.
B. F. T.
Boston, February, 1899.
uy
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction /
I. The Solidarity of Humanity ... 7
II. Solidarity Unrealised 21
III. The Causes of the Disunity . . . 2j
IV. The Development of the War System . . 40
V. The Influence of Christianity in restoring the
Federative Principle .... 56
VI. War Ethically Wrong ... 68
VII. War Anti-Federative .... £0
VIII. The New World Society . . . -9/
IX. The Growing Triumph of Arbitration . 102
X. The United States of the World . . . //S
XI. 7*j&* F*>s/ Hague Peace Conference . . 150
XII. Tfo /fagtt* Cowr/ and Recent Progress to-
ward World-Unity .... 188
Appendix 2/5
Bibliography 219
^*£^U FO R ^]b^>^
THE FEDERATION OF THE
WORLD
INTRODUCTION
|AS Tennyson's dream of M the par-
liament of man, the federation of
the world," * nothing but a poetic
fancy, or was it a rational prophecy of
an actual condition to be realized in some
future, near or far? Is a federation of
the world possible ? Is it desirable ? Is it
necessary as an expression of the true na-
ture of the human race, and of its purpose
on the earth ? If so, what are the signs of
its coming ? By what means is it to be
realized, and in what form ? How are the
obstacles to its realization to be gotten out
of the way ?
1 Tennyson, Locksley Hall.
2 The Federation of the World
The movements of our time, embracing
as they do the whole earth in their com-
pass, are raising these questions in many-
minds. No more momentous questions,
none more startling, none more inspiring,
have ever been raised. They involve the
widest, the deepest, the most enduring in-
terests of individuals and of nations, singly
and combined, in the ages to come. In
them are involved also many smaller
weighty questions, the solution of which
has puzzled, and continues to puzzle, men's
brains, — questions of commerce, of finance,
of labor and capital, etc., — the solution of
which will come about naturally and easily
when the larger problems have been dis-
posed of.
The following pages are an attempt to
discover what light is thrown upon these
questions by the nature of man, the consti-
tution of society, the past and present rela-
tions of the nations to one another, and the
progress of the federative principle during
the century now closing. By way of intro-
The Federation of the World 3
duction to the discussion, I may say at the
outset that my own mind has reached the
clear and settled conviction that a federa-
tion of the world is not only possible and
jjasy-of attainment, but that it is desirable
in the extreme as a fundamental social
necessity. A great international state, 1 co-
extensive with the surface of the globe,
with some sort of government directing the
general interests of the race and compati-
ble with local self-government, is the neces-
sary and inevitable outgrowth of the nature
of man and of society, under the action
of the divinely ordained social processes,
and that regeneration and reconstruction of
humanity which Christianity is bringing
about.
1 Kant, Perpetual Peace ', Second Section, 2, near the
end. Kant was the first to give us the idea of a great
international state. He does not seem, however, to
have believed such a state possible. He pleads for a
voluntary federation of states as the only realizable
means for putting an end to international violence. Of
the nature of this federation he gives no clear concep-
tion.
4 The Federation of the World
The question of the peace of the world,
universal and perpetual, is now one of the
uppermost in all thoughtful minds. Even
those who do not believe that such a state
of human society is desirable or realizable
are compelled to struggle with the idea. 1
Universal peace, which seemed a little while
ago the dream of disordered brains, has
suddenly transformed itself into the waking
vision of the soberest and clearest of intel-
lects. This world-peace, the signs of whose
coming are now many and" unmistakable,
will not be established between men and
nations as so many separate units or groups,
standing apart with different and unshared
interests, agreeing to let each other alone
and to respect each other s rights at a dis-
1 Von Moltke was accustomed to say : " Permanent
peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful dream, and
war is a law of God's order in the world, by which the
noblest virtues of man, courage and self-denial, loyalty
and self-sacrifice, even to the point of death, are devel-
oped. Without war the world would deteriorate into
materialism." — Von Moltke as a Correspondent^ trans*
lated by Mary Herms.
The Federation of the World 5
tance. Such a peace, even if it were pos-
sible, would be at best only a negative one,
having little vitality and little power for
good. Universal peace will come rather-/'
through federation and cooperation. Thefj/f
nature of man remaining as it is, it can
come in no other way. The war-drum will
continue to throb and battle-flags to beat
the wind, armies to be equipped and navies
to be built, until men and nations not only
consider themselves " members one of an-
other," but until they in some large way
tre^t each other so. All progress in peace
and toward final peace which has been
already made has been made primarily ^y
along this positive line. Abstinence from
smiting with the fist or with the sword is
in large measure the expression in a nega-
tive way of a change in men's dispositions
toward each other, which results in positive
mutual beneficence. In this changed dis-
position the fist spontaneously opens and
the sword falls from the hand. When the
day of universal peace arrives, it will not
6 The Federation of the World
find all hatred and disposition to do evil
.gone, but it will find men and nations so
' strongly united in the bonds of kindly fel-
lowship and mutual service as to render
the disintegrating forces of ill-will practi-
cally powerless, — powerless, at any rate,
to do mischief on a large scale.
The Solidarity of Humanity
FEDERATION finds its fundamen-
tal reason and its primal necessity
in the constitution of humanity.
The human race is one race. God " made
of one every nation of men to dwell on all
the face of the earth." The oneness of ori-
gin and descent of the various peoples of
the globe is now established with practical
certainty on purely scientific grounds. 1
In constitution also is the race one race.
The human body, of black or white, of red
or yellow, is the same in structure, in pur-
pose and in needs, the world over. The
human mind is everywhere built on the
same pattern. The highest man and the
lowest man can learn each other's language
and commune with each other intellectu-
1 Darwin, Descent of Man, Part I., chap. vii.
8 The Federation of the World
ally. Human feelings in all individuals and
in all races are the same feelings, however
they may vary in degree or manner of
expression. Pleasure and pain, joy and
grief, hope and fear, love and hate, are the
same affections wherever experienced. The
power of moral determination, though vary-
ing widely in its range of activity, is opera-
tive in all men, and the capacity for the
same moral ideals is likewise everywhere
found. This constitutional unity of the
race is practically meaningless on any other
theory than that of cooperation and mutual
service in working out the destiny of each
and all.
The oneness and solidarity of humanity
are more strikingly apparent from another
point of view. Men need each other ; they
cannot live without each other. Husband
and wife, parent and child, brother and sis-
ter, live through and for one another. Be-
yond the family circle, neighbor needs
neighbor, one family another family, one
community another community. The fam-
The Federation of the World 9
ily that eats all its own wheat and corn,
its own pork and beans, that weaves its
own cloth out of home-grown fibres, that
makes its own clothing, tans its own leather,
makes its own boots and shoes, shoes its
own horses ; that sells nothing and buys
nothing from others, that has no minister
or teacher outside of its own members,
may become a keen and shrewd, nay, even
a good little society within its own narrow
limits. Such a family, if it were possible,
would, however, lead a meagre and precari-
ous existence, and always remain a narrow
and stunted society. Its members could
not rise high in the scale of that intelli-
gence, largeness of spirit, self-control, and
altruistic thoughtfulness which constitute
men truly human. So strongly is the need
of the companionship and help of others felt,
for spiritual as well as for commercial rea-
sons, that families have rarely been willing
to live in this isolated way, except under the
stress of great necessity, as in pioneer life.
Not only in the great migrations of history,
io The Federation of the World
but in all sorts of colonial settlements, men
have gone together in companies larger or
smaller. So great is the enjoyment as well
as the practical necessity of association,
that most families would rather live near
one another and fight than at a distance
and be at peace.
Social dependence and the necessity of
mutual helpfulness, as fundamental facts
of human nature, grow much more marked
as the race becomes more numerous and
society more complex. A farmer whose
family has given up or never learned shoe-
making, horseshoeing, weaving, spinning,
and the like, because it is more profit-
able and agreeable to follow agriculture
as a specialty, becomes poverty - stricken
and helpless the moment he finds himself
unable to deal with the stock-buyers, grain-
merchants and grocers. He may com-
plain of the village or city as much as he
likes, of its dainty-fingered inhabitants and
of all the lines of trade which centre there,
but you will see him heading that way
The Federation of the World 1 1
every week just the same. The city folk,
too, may look with something like contempt
on the " long whiskers/' the " horny hands "
and the workaday clothes of the country
people, but they are always delighted to see
them come in with their loads of grain,
their buckets of butter and their fluttering
coops of ducks and chickens.
Any great city like New York or Lon-
don, in the advanced state of social devel-
opment which such a city implies, is always
within a week of starvation x if suddenly cut
off from the rest of the world. Every clime
and every industry contributes daily to the
supply of its needs. It raises not a bushel
of wheat, not a load of corn. It fats no
beeves or swine. It produces not a ton of
coal, not a board of lumber. The wool and
cotton which it uses are grown far away
1 Edward Atkinson, speech at the American Confer-
ence on International Arbitration, held at Washington,
D. C, April 22 and 23, 1896, says that the world is
always within a year or less of starvation. See Report,
p. 47.
12 The Federation of the World
from its borders. When the carts cease to
come in from the suburban gardens, the
trains of freight to thunder into its sta-
tions, or the boats of merchandise to drop
anchor in its harbor, it becomes at once as
helpless as a child, and begins to cry out
for the breast of the great world-mother.
A strike on a modern street-car line de-
ranges the plans of every home in a city ;
a strike on a great railway system throws
every corner of the land into confusion;
This interlacing and interdependence of
individuals, of families, of communities and
of classes, in every relation of life, might be
traced out, with interest and profit, ad libi-
tum. But the lesson is as clear from the
cases given as it could be made by any
multiplication of the number. The curious
thing about this fact is that men in their
normal condition create, spontaneously and
intentionally, by the very necessities of
their nature, the conditions which, while
making them indefinitely stronger and more
prosperous when united with their fellow-
The Federation of the World 13
men, render them more and more helpless
when left to themselves.
The dependence of nations on one an-
other is exactly the same in kind, though
at first sight not so apparent. The fact
that some of them occupy large sections of
the earth's surface, and have such a wide
range of interdependent activities within
their borders, has led some people to the
hasty conclusion that they are exceptions
to the great law of human interdependence.
Only in them, however, does this law have
its final, its highest and most efficient ful-
fillment. Our time is rapidly discovering
this to be true, and this discovery is to
prove the greatest lever for lifting the world
that has ever been dreamed of. Great deeds
of unsurpassed beneficence will be wrought
when the whole race shall put forth its in-
tellectual, moral and social powers in the
freest and fullest combination and harmony.
This is a prophecy which is even now writ-
ing itself legibly on society without the
intervention of a man's hand.
14 The Federation of the World
As has often been stated by economists,
some nations are so situated in respect of
the physical conditions of the earth that
they would lead a half -starved existence if
compelled to live without intercourse with
others. The whole of Great Britain, with
her present dense population, would soon
grow almost as poor as the poorest sections
of Ireland if it were not for her large inter-
course with other lands. At the present
time this intercourse furnishes the basis, of
nearly all the occupations by which her citi-
zens live and prosper. Many of the wars
of former times had their root-cause, in con-
siderable measure, in this international, in-
ter-racial or inter-tribal need. People were
too selfish and narrow to satisfy this need
in a normal and friendly way, and hence
were driven by their necessities to try to
satisfy it in the barbarous and destructive
way of war. Much of the friction still exist-
ing between the nations results from the
pressure of this imperious necessity of inter-
national traffic against the selfish and short-
The Federation of the World 15
sighted nationalism which erects barriers of
one kind and another to shut off one sec-
tion of the earth from natural and healthy
intercourse with other sections. The pres-
sure will continue until it has conquered
and destroyed the spirit of national exclu-
siveness ; for however illiberal any people
may itself be, no people is willing to be
shut out from participating in the advan-
tages which others possess over it. It feels
that it has a natural right to a share in
whatever blessings any portion of the earth
offers, and all nations will insist on this
right until they obtain it — and, what is
more, till they become large-hearted and
sensible enough to give it.
In matters pertaining to mi nd an d^char^
|i£ter_also, nations are the complements one
of another. France and Germany are not
more unlike in soil and climate than they
are in the physical and psychical character-
istics of their people. This statement is
not intended to cover up the fact that these
two great peoples, as any other two peoples,
l6 The Federation of the World
have more similarities than differences. But
the differences between them are so marked
that they greatly need each other, in order
that they may both do the most for their
own material and spiritual development
and for the civilization of the world. The
estrangement between them, because of the
evil influences of the utterly inhuman sys-
tem of militarism, is wholly unnatural. They
ought to be, normally, the greatest friends
in Europe. If the money which they spend
and the effort which they put forth in try-
ing to outwit and humiliate each other
were employed by them in doing each other
mutual services, they would be the two cen-
\r\ tral pillars of European civilization. As it
is, their service to humanity is very much
neutralized by their intense mutual anti-
pathy. They are the peril of the whole
Old World, the peril of all the acquisitions
of civilization. A similar charge may be
brought against a number of other nations
in their own spheres. The stupendous ini-
quity and the far-working mischievousness
The Federation of the World 17
of national self-sufficiency are coming to be
clearly recognized by an increasing number
of people in all countries, to whom the truth
has impressively come that nations cannot,
any more than individuals, live unto them-
selves.
All well-read persons are familiar with the
thought, often expressed by a certain class of
our citizens, that the United States, because
of the greatness of her territory, the variety
of her soil and climate, the vigor and intelli-
gence of her people, could and should live
unto herself ; that she should produce every-
thing which she consumes, and in general
get on without the rest of the world. A
great variety of excessively righteous and
patriotic motives are given in support of
this position. This view has just enough
superficial reasons in its favor to carry away
people of narrow vision and little thought.
It is the kind of intellectual pabulum which
the hurrah-patriots deal out, highly sea-
soned, in unstinted quantities to their senti-
mental followers. But this theory consist-
1 8 The Federation of the World
ently carried out, as the chauvinists, its
originators, never do carry it out, would
require us to keep at home the billion
and a half of dollars* worth of products
' which we annually sell to the rest of the
world, call home all our diplomatic and con-
sular representatives abroad, shut out all
foreign comers, cease to travel among other
peoples, take all our ships off the ocean,
write all the books and papers which we
read, create our own science, our own art,
our own everything. The theory needs
I only to be stated clearly, to receive imme-
/1 diate and utter condemnation. What these
selfish, narrow-minded people really mean
is that we should get all we can out of
other peoples, and give little or nothing
in return, — a position repugnant to every
principle of justice and honor, of economic
development and prosperity.
It is unquestionably true that the United
States could live alone, and live better
than any other section of the world could
so live. But we could not live thus as we
The Federation of the World ig
ought to live, — the large, rich, human, use-
ful life that we have been in a measure
living, and that we are destined more and
more to live, if we keep clear of the sin of
hating, irritating, and fighting other peo-
ples. The United States is not the whole
world. There are numberless treasures
which we do not possess. There are things
which we can never grow, or grow only
with great waste of energy. There are
markets which we cannot duplicate at
home, and whole argosies of products ^
which we must sell abroad or let perish in
field or storehouse. There are phenomena
of earth and sea and sky which no citizen
of this country has seen, or can see, with-
out crossing the seas. In brains as well
as in climate God has not given us every-
thing. There are thoughts which we can-
not think, originally. There are books
which we never could have written, dis- !
coveries of science which we could not
have made, conceptions of high art entirely
beyond our intellectual range. We draw
^f THE
I VERSITY]
^
20 The Federation of the World
our life from everywhere. We owe our
v/very existence to the Old World. Europe
is the mother of us all. Our history all
begins on the other side of the sea. Our
life is fed thence in a thousand ways. The
Old World and the New are, commercially,
intellectually, morally and socially, as much
parts of each other as the two halves of
^ the planet. The same is true of all parts
of the race in reference to one another, as
might be illustrated indefinitely. If there
is any earthly fact perfectly clear to all
sane minds, it is that the human race,
physically, intellectually, morally, socially,
economically, is one race ; that it has one
great joint habitation, one broad varied field
for the exercise and unfolding of its capa-
cities ; that its interests are one, that it has
a common destiny.
Note. There has been marked improvement in the
attitude of France and Germany toward each other since
\this book was first published in 1899. What is said,
therefore, on page 16 is no longer a just statement in
1 regard to them. Witness the Algeciras Conference, the
events connected with the Courrieres disaster, etc.
II
Solidarity Unrealised
HIS solidarity of humanity, founded
in the constitutional unity of the
race, and in that divergence in
characteristics which renders all peoples
necessary to one another for the highest
individual, national and racial development,
has as yet been poorly realized. Between
many parts of the world there have ap-
peared but the vaguest traces of it. Be-
tween great nations, calling themselves
civilized and Christian, there is still an
appalling lack of it. They have accepted
as much of it as the irresistible tide of
progress has compelled them to accept.
Along a few lines voluntary efforts have
been made to realize solidarity in its world-
wide aspects, but these have been weak-
ened and much hidden from view by the
22 The Federation of the World
continuance of the old struggle for indi-
vidual and national mastery, with its blind
disregard for the rights of others and their
power of return services.
The sin of the world has been that the
race of man, instead of being a loving, co-
operating, united race, as it was destined
to be, and as it some day will be, has been
a hating, fighting, distracted, broken one.
The law of life in general has been every
man for himself and against every other
man as much as necessary for selfish ends.
Of the exceptions to this law and of the
movements of another law, "struggle for
^the life of others," * something will be said
later. Even in the family, where from the
beginning of history the sense of depend-
ence, of regard for others, of solidarity, has
been most strongly felt, the law of hate
and strife has held sway. If the world's
history could be fully written, no chapter
would be more distressingly interesting
than that on family quarrels. It would
1 Henry Drummond, The Ascent of Man> chap. vii.
The Federation of the World 23
be copious enough to satisfy the curiosity
of the most confirmed gossip-monger. It
would be well for the world if its other
quarrels had been attended by as much
feeling of shame, and they had been as
carefully concealed as its family quarrels.
When the first families began to branch
off and to develop into tribes, the feeling
of oneness and solidarity, which, in spite of
strife and contention, had been preserved
to a considerable degree by the immediate
necessities and affections of the family,
began rapidly to disappear. Appetite, pas-
sion, greed, the desire for mastery, prevailed
over the sense of kinship, right and duty.
Within the various tribes, beginning from
each particular family, the same process
went on, resulting in internal strife and
division. A little way down the diverging
lines of descent the sense of kinship and
fellowship often, in appearance at least,
disappeared entirely. Forests, rivers and
mountains, once passed, made intercommu-
nication difficult; means of preserving an-
24 The Federation of the World
cestral records were few ; language changed
rapidly; and as the clans and tribes wan-
dered on they often became entirely un-
known one to another, and to those left
behind. In this way, when by any chance
peoples in their wanderings met, or fell in
with other peoples of more fixed habita-
tion, they came to seem to one another of
an entirely different race and origin, or, if
kinship was suspected, the sense of it was
overpowered by the selfish instincts and
determinations.
Neighboring tribes sometimes preserved
some feeling of oneness and mutual inter-
est, especially where their dispositions and
physical surroundings kept them for long
periods in the same region until they de-
veloped into a people more or less homo-
geneous, or where they found themselves
compelled to unite in common defense
against aggressors. But neighboring tribes
more often fell into strife and engaged in
petit wars of conquest and revenge. Feuds
grew up which lasted generation after gen-
J
The Federation of the World 25
eration. Strong tribes became aggressors
and enslaved weaker ones. The leaders of
the conquering tribes became warrior kings,
whose selfish ambition for wide - reaching
conquests often knew no bounds. Through
them grew up little and great monarchies,
with their bloody exploits, their slaveries
and their tyrannies.
It is impossible to trace this wreckage of
brotherhood, this failure to realize solidar-
ity, as it worked its way down in history as
families became tribes, tribes peoples, and
peoples nations. When we reach that point
where historic records become clear and
trustworthy, we find men, tribes, peoples,
nations, everywhere hating, fighting, plun-
dering, enslaving and destroying one an-
other. Not literally at every moment has
this been true, or in every region. The
work of destruction has often ceased from
sheer exhaustion on one or both sides, until
strength has been recovered for new on-
slaughts'. It must not be forgotten that
family connections and affections have al-
26 The Federation of the World
ways tended to restore within certain limits
the sense of brotherhood and oneness. So,
too, right and duty, love and beneficence,
have sometimes asserted their power even
between alien peoples. Nevertheless, the
one feature of history, standing out above
all others, has been the hating, quarreling
and mutual destruction practiced by men
of all ages and of all climes. This kind of
history is still making itself. Within the
borders of nations there has been a great
change. Here civil order and peace for
the most part prevail. Private war, duel-
ing and personal fighting have almost dis-
appeared. By the action of the collective
will of the social body law has taken the
place of violence. But between the nations
distrust and force still have it very much
their own way. To what extent a better
spirit is prevailing, and may be expected
further to prevail, in international affairs,
and by what means the change is to be
brought about, will be examined later.
Ill
The Causes of the Disunity
JHAT has been the cause, or causes,
of this hideous historic phenome-
non? There have been several
causes. Lack of moral development is the
general cause assigned by the evolu tionary ^J
philosophy. If this means lack of moral
capacity, that men did not and could not
know any better, it doubtless played some
part in the. earli£r~ages, and in specific cases
all the way down. But it is difficult, on\
any intelligent reading of authentic history, \
to give this cause the foremost place, or I
even any considerable place, in the produc- 1
tion of the animosities and wars which
have prevailed. It is impossible to believe
that the wars of the nineteenth, or of any
other recent century, have been waged by
28 The Federation of the World
peoples or rulers who had no moral con-
ception of the iniquity of which they were
guilty and no power to abstain from it. It
taxes to the utmost one's power of belief
to hold this view of the great contests
recorded in ancient history. Had Rome
and Greece no conscience and no power of
self-control ? Were Babylonia, Persia, the
Egyptian dynasties and Carthage merely
acting as irresponsible children, in their
wars of conquest and of revenge ? What-
ever may be true of prehistoric or of early
historic men, the time went by many cen-
\turies ago when wars were nothing more
jthan the expression of the struggling forces
3f beings who had no moral light to guide
them. The simple fact that they judged
id condemned one another for injustice,
:>r deeds of the same sort as were done by
(themselves, is all the proof of this position
ttiat it is necessary to bring.
Turning this evolutionary reason another
way, the animalism in man is assigned as
the cause of the phenomenon. Certainly,
The Federation of the World 2g
exhibitions of greed and passion, and brutal
deeds superficially resembling those of sav-
age beasts, have abounded beyond number-
ing in all human history. But whoever
takes the trouble to think the matter
through knows that no species of animal
has ever been known whose members have
quarreled and fought among themselves
intentionally, intelligently, systematically,
and generation after generation, after the
manner of men. The animalism in man,
which has furnished in a way the basis for
his tyrannies, robberies, animosities • and
destructive violence, has had connected
with it something of which the animal
knows nothing, — something which, if used
as it might have been used, would have
made the records of the past very different
from what they have been. The bloody
history of the world has been human his-
tory, not animal history. It has therefore
been in large part, and always in some part,
wicked and criminal history. It is a cheap " y
and unworthy method of accounting for the
$0 The Federation of the World
bloody abominations of our race to assign as
their principal cause an irresponsible and
uncontrollable animalism. On such a the-
(pry there can be no moral criticism of his-
/ tory. It is not strange, however, that such
va theory is adopted. All of us at times
blush to be connected with a species of
being the conduct of whose members has
so often been, and still is so often, diamet-
rically opposite to all that might have been
expected of them. But nothing is gained
for the truth when we wipe out the respon-
sibility of our progenitors, and of many of
our contemporaries, by coolly passing them
through our psychological matrix and trans-
forming them into apes and tigers. To do
this is no credit either to ourselves or to
the wild beasts. Whatever the poets may
say, men have never been, in historic times
W'at least, apes and tigers, except as they
have made themselves such.
Another reason, akin to the foregoing,
which has been assigned for the phenome-
non in question, is heredity. But this has
The Federation of the World 31
not been the primal cause. Men began to^
fight frefore_,heredity had had time to work (
in any wide way. They have continued to
fight, in the most atrocious ways, in those
countries where base inheritances are sup-
posed to have been largely mastered by
intellectual and moral training. Men have
gone to battlefields direct from Christian
churches and Christian homes, with gen-
erations of Christian blood in their veins,
and have voluntarily joined in committing
deeds about the details of which every sol-
dier with a conscience is always silent.
Heredity, by its transmission of bad in- 1 (ti$
stincts and dispositions, has played a seri- •
ous part in the maintenance of strife and
violence in the earth. But if it were the
chief cause, all our efforts for the banish-
ment of hatred and war would be perfectly
hopeless. Heredity, because it is a con-
trollable factor, is to play just as prominent
a part in the creation and maintenance of
universal and perpetual peace, when men
decide to have it so.
)2 The Federation of the World
Ignorance also has done much to keep
alive the spirit and practice of war. Not
ignorance in general ; for the most intelli-
^gent nations have done most of the hard,
destructive fighting ; so much so that one
is inclined at times grimly to think that the
chief evidence of civilization in men is the
highly developed disposition and capacity
to cut each other's throats scientifically
and gracefully, or to blow each other into
fragments in the speediest and most whole-
sale way. The ignorance meant is that
which nations show in respect to one an-
other. % Some of this, — much of it perhaps,
— among the earlier and ruder peoples,
whose opportunities of intercommunication
were few, was unavoidable and therefore
pardonable. But in later times the woeful
ignorance which peoples have exhibited in
reference to almost everything pertaining to
other peoples, except their faults and follies,
[has been quite as much the effect as the
Vcause of their mutual hatreds. /This igno-
rance, largely voluntary and therefore crim-
The Federation of the World 33
inal, has been and still is one of the chief
bulwarks of the war system. Hiding behind
it, the citizens of one nation conjure up
every imaginable ill intent on the part of
those of another. Out of the consequent
suspicion and fear grow armies and navies
and war budgets. This criminal interna-
tional ignorance is one of the worst foes
with which the friends of humanity have to
deal, for at its heart is found the real cause
of the disunity of humanity.
Another of the potent influences which
have cooperated to produce this monstrous
phenomenon of history is false education.
Fathers have taught their sons to hate
those whom they have hated, to keep the
fires of vengeance burning on the family
hearthstone until offenders against their
rights were overtaken and slain or beaten
down and enslaved. Aggression and con-
quest have been taught as a duty. Mo-
thers have sung their children to sleep with
ballads of enmity and strife, and enter-
tained them during their waking hours with
34 The Federation of the World
stories of battles and with toy implements
of war, until the imaginations of the little
ones were filled with pictures of blood and
cruelty, and their young spirits charged
with the frenzied desire to rush forth to
fight and to slay. From their earliest
years the children of the past, in home and
school, have been fed on hostility and war.
In this way the larger human affections
have been greatly stifled and the voice of
conscience often nearly silenced. When
the children have grown older they have,
in spite of the protests of their moral na-
ture, voluntarily repeated the error and
passed it on. The leaders and guides of
peoples have been deeply guilty of this sin.
Statesmen and public orators, priests and
ministers of religion, historians and poets,
have inculcated a love of country which
meant little else than hatred andcontferhpt
for other peoples, and eagerness to injure
and destroy them on the slightest provoca-
tion.
Much is said nowadays about the evil
The Federation of the World 35
influence of the detailed descriptions of
battles found in school-books of history.
This influence is bad enough, certainly,
especially when these descriptions are
coupled, as they so often are, with the idea,
openly asserted or implied, that war is the
noblest and most glorious of all callings,
that there is no heroism, no manliness, like
that of the soldier. But this war teaching
of the school-books does not begin to equal
in mischievousness the false conceptions of
patriotism, 1 the exaggerated notions of the
greatness and goodness of one's own coun-
try, the disregard and contempt for other
lands, which are inculcated not only in the
schools, but practically in all the circles of
society. The unity of humanity, to any
1 Tolstoy ( War and Peace, and other writings) holds
that patriotism is the cause of most of the existing inter-
national evils,"and that these evils cannot be destroyed
without the ajiolition of patriotism. If he had used
the adjectiveV^falseJ in connection with patriotism, his J^/i
position would have been essentially true. A patriotism"
consistent with Christianity and the notion and practice 1 {/
of universal brotherhood is certainly possible.
A</
$6 The Federation of the World
great extent, cannot be attained until these
false notions of patriotism cease to be held
and taught, and the true relation of coun-
try to the rest of the world is properly-
understood and inculcated.
Back of all, running through all, and giv-
ing potency to all these causes which have
cooperated in different ways to make the
world a veritable field of strife and blood,
has been the voluntary selfishness of men
and of peoples. War, with its multiplied
horrors, has not been primarily the outcome
of blind forces helplessly contending with
one another, but the result of self-directed
purposes of beings who turned the light
within them into darkness. Evidences
abound in history for the truth of this posi-
tion. There has always been moral per-
ception and moral strength enough in every
people with a fairly well developed civil
and political organization to have kept it,
if it had "minded its light," at least from
the sin of aggressive wars, wars for simple
vengeance and wars for glory. And these
The Federation of the World 37
wars constitute the bulk of the war history
of the past. Of the moral responsibility
of the unorganized, wandering peoples of
early historic or prehistoric times it is more
difficult to speak. Evidences are coming
to light through recent ethnological inves-
tigations that even these peoples were not
the mere fighting animals that they have
been supposed to be. The most primitive
peoples now existing, like the Eskimos,
have, some of them, no warlike customs. 1
The guilt of rulers and of peoples for
their wars has not of course been equally
distributed, for the moral capacity has not
been everywhere the same. In many cases
single individuals, or a few leading spirits,
with commanding powers of influence, have
been the guilty cause of a people's or a na-
tion's tyrannies and aggressions, the people
following them blindly and slavishly. In
truth, this has been the rule in all ages and
among nearly all peoples. The bloody
annals of the world are, for the most part,
1 Encyclopedia Britannica, article " Eskimo/'
)8 The Federation of the World
. /records of movements at whose centres
have been powerful and unscrupulous indi-
viduals, or small grxmp&jiLmen. You have
only to cast over in your mmcT^the war
history of any nation, as of France, Italy,
Austria, Russia, Spain, or even of Great
Britain, to realize how much of it has been,
not the history of the people, of their life
and purposes and struggles, but the history
of those military tyrants, ambitious princes
and headstrong statesmen who have either
enslaved the people and forced them to do
their will, or blinded them with false hopes
of gain or glory, and so deceived them into
their iniquitous service. The people have
without doubt often shared the guilt of
their leaders, but it is only in recent gen-
erations, since the establishment of popular
government, that they have had to bear
the chief burden of guilt in the case of any
particular war. War has been the business
of sovereigns and their minions, not of peo-
ples. Just in proportion as peoples have
become their own rulers, has war begun to
disappear.
The Federation of the World 39
At bottom, then, to follow out the
thought, war has always been a sin of some-
body, and not simply a misfortune, not a
mere freak of animalism, not a necessary
phenomenon of society at a certain stage
of development. Whatever other elements
may have cooperated in producing it, —
ignorance, heredity, false education, — the
whole bloody history has been fundamen- V
tally a history of sin and wrong. Without
the element of iniquitous choice, all the
other causes would have operated much
less powerfully, or would not have operated
at all.
IV
The Development of the War System
f|UT of this evil root has come the
war system of the nations, which
in its elaboration of armaments on
land and sea has recently grown to such
enormous proportions that it now consti-
tutes the chief burden upon human society,
the chief obstacle to its material and spirit-
£al progress. In these great and ever-
lcreasing armaments is found the largest
nd completest expression of the disunity
jpf humanity. This system must have brief
notice before we pass to the consideration
of those efforts and influences which are
working out the federation of the world
and the ultimate abolition of war.
In the far past two boys or men came for
some reason to hate each other, and fought
The Federation of the World 41
with their fists and feet ; or one man in
hunger, greed or envy rose up against an-
other, smote and robbed him, the latter
defending himself or afterwards retaliating.
Something like that, among children or
among men, was the beginning. 1 The whole
war system was there in embryo, in those
two hating, raving, pounding pieces of hu-
manity. Clubs and stones were soon ap-
propriated, in order to add to the offensive
and defensive might of the fist. These
made fighting more complex and more
dangerous. The two men multiplied into
families and clans, which envied, hated
and pillaged each other ; which fought, and
fought again. The primitive aggressive-
ness and animosity grew intenser through
acquired dispositions. As the race multi-
plied, the spirit of contention and strife
1 The story of Cain and Abel, as given in Genesis,
whatever interpretation may be put upon it, clearly in-
dicates that in the minds of the early historic men fight-
ing had a moral and not merely an animal origin. Cain,
in the record, is under the condemnation of the con-
science of his time.
42 The Federation of the World
deepened and widened. The stone and the
club were supplemented by the sling, the
spear, the battle-axe, the bow and arrow, and
the sword. Men learned to fight in groups,
at first as chance or instinct or interest im-
pelled them. Then, to increase their effi-
ciency, they began to fight under leaders
and with some sort of organization and train-
ing. War at last became an art on sea and
land. More brains and skill went into it,
and at the same time more hate and death
and woe. War became also a profession.
To relieve the rest of the people, that the
nation might be always ready for offense
or defense, soldiers were trained and kept,
whose business it was to fight. Thus grew
up standing armies. War became a pas-
time. When there was no war at home,
soldiers let themselves out, or were let out
by their sovereigns, to fight for pay or to
relieve the monotony of idleness.
As the system developed, watchwords
and battle-cries were invented, in order to
increase the unity and to strengthen the
The Federation of the World 4)
courage of the combatants. Standards were
devised and carried aloft as rallying-points,
or symbols of leaders, clan, or country. In
order to relieve fighting of its hideousness
and to draw attention away from its agonies
and groans, uniforms were put on and made
resplendent, and martial music was brought
into service on the parade ground and on
the battlefield. Systems of tactics were
thought out — everything, in fact, which
intellect, sharpened and perverted by lust
and hatred could do, was done, that men
might be induced to go out with spirit and
daring, with fury and recklessness, with
skill and endurance, to beat down and de-
stroy such of their fellow-men as might
chance to be called their enemies. Victories
were celebrated with noisy rejoicings, with
sacrifices to the deities, with Te Deums to
the God of mercy and love, whom men had
turned into a being of hate and favoritism
like themselves. Men of daring and bold
deeds of blood were honored in song and
story, were crowned and lionized beyond all
44 The Federation of the World
others. Thus war became in men's eyes
the most glorious of callings, the pathway
to honor and fame, and they blinded them-
selves to its horrors and its crimes. Pride
and vanity united with lust, greed and
revenge, to clothe the bloody monster in
the trappings of heaven. God became the
god of armies, a regular blood-wading Mars,
appealed to by all combatants to give his
favor to their side. The battlefield grew in
honor as the chief school of the so-called
manly virtues. Women became possessed
of the spirit of war, and nursed their boys
at the breast of aggression and revenge, of
pride and pomp and glory, and took only
soldiers, if they could get them, as husbands
for their daughters.
As the war system 1 developed and made
all peoples its slaves, every discovery of
science, every invention adding to human
*" Charles Sumner, The True Grandeur of Nations
and The War* System of the Commonwealth of Nations,
Rev. Reuen Thomas, D. D., The War System, its His-
tory -, Tendency and Character in the Light of Civiliza-
tion and Religion.
The Federation of the World 45
power, was immediately turned into an
instrument of conquest, of revenge, of de-
struction and death. Sovereigns and peo-
ples, in this emulation of brute force as
the instrument of passion, greed and vio-
lence, failing to find sufficient mercenary
or voluntary force to outdo their neigh-
bors, resorted to forced levies and con-
scriptions, and, to meet the ever-growing
demands for money, adopted the ruinous
and irrational expedient of war loans, and
took to mortgaging the future. Business
of every kind, home life, civic interests,
education, religion even, had to fall down
helpless at the feet of the war-god. Differ-
ences, small and great, between sovereigns
were submitted to the blind and senseless
arbitrament of the sword. Might became
right, and justice between peoples wandered
outcast and homeless. Honor and patriot-
ism — the former merely a euphemism for
excessive and irritable self-esteem personal
and national, the latter a blind worship of
self under the impersonal guise of country
■ — became the criteria of duty.
46 The Federation of the World
In all these ways the barbarous war sys-
tem has. grown and grown until it stands
to-day, in appalling magnitude, fortified
to heaven in the very heart of civilization.
There is no tyranny l of our time like that
which it exercises ; no blinding of con-
science and paralysis of will greater than
that which it produces. Year after year
the armies grow and the fleets expand.
Year after year the war debts rise and the
screw of taxation is turned mercilessly down
another thread. Science is incessantly tor-
tured in the hope of wringing from her some
new death-dealing instrument, which will
give one nation advantage over others. It
is a race of death, spurred on by fear and
envy, in which every nation seems deter-
mined to outstrip others even at the expense
of plunging headlong into the bottomless
pit of exhaustion and ruin. Over four
millions of soldiers under arms ; seventeen
1 Gladstone said, in a letter to a committee of the
Friends in Lancashire, April 16, 1889: "Militarism is
the most conspicuous tyrant of the age."
\.
U hi i V E RS i
. J
c
The Federation of the World 47
or eighteen millions more trained in the last
tactics of death ; a conscriptive system hold-
ing all Europe in the grasp of its enslaving
hand, turning every able-bodied man into a
fighting machine, and effacing, for a portion
of every citizen's life, the last vestige of lib-
erty of conscience ; young men by millions
taken from home, from education, from
business, and passed through the harden-
ing, demoralizing influences of camp and
barracks, thus polluting at its very sources
the life of the next generation ; a thousand
war vessels prowling about the seas ; one
third of the annual revenues spent on pre-
parations for war, and another third on wars 1
already fought ; national debts grown to
frightful proportions (thirty thousand mil-
lions of dollars in the aggregate), and still
growing ; new implements of death — maga-
zine guns, rapid-fire guns, dynamite guns —
daily turned out, new warships launched,
new fortifications erected and manned ; the
nations in perpetual jealousy, hatred and
fear, bound hand and foot by suspicion, un-
c/
48 The Federation of the World
able to unite in the simplest deeds of right
/and justice, — such is the amazing phenom-
/ enon presented by so-called Christendom
\ to-day I 1 Talk of federation, under these
circumstances, would seem, at first thought,
to be fitting only for an asylum for the hope-
lessly insane.
The wax system has so far resisted every
effort to check its growth. In fact, no di-
rect effort to check it has ever been made
x ^ until recently, and almost none by the gov-
ernments themselves. On the contrary,
they have zealously and systematically pro-
moted it, and the people have remained so
blinded by its terrible magnificence, and so
bewildered by its antiquity and supposed
necessity, that they have weakly and fawn-
ingly thrown themselves under its Jugger-
naut wheels and allowed themselves to be
crushed by millions. Of late years, the
1 The annual editions of the Statesman's Year-Book,
Hazell's Annual and Mulhall's Dictionary of Statistics
may be consulted for the figures of the growth of mili-
tarism in recent years.
The Federation of the World 49
heads of the governments, at Christmas
time, have indulged in pious effusions about
peace, but at the same time they have care-
fully filled their powder magazines a little
fuller, recommended the construction of
new battleships, and added new regiments
to their armies. The war system is steadily J
spreading its baleful influences throughout
the world. 1 The nations of the Orient, just--'
emerging from their former errors and su-
perstitions, are, under the influence of the
Western nations, turning their thought and
their revenues to the creation of armies
and fleets rather than to the development
of the arts of civil life. This is particu-
larly true of Japan, the progressive nation^
of the East, which, since the close of her \
war with China, has surprised and fright- 1
ened the Western nations by the magnitude /
and rapidity of her naval extension. Our
own country, abandoning its historic policy,
1 In his recently published book, The Wonderful
Centuryt chap, xix., Alfred Russel Wallace character-
izes militarism as " the curse of civilization."
jo The Federation of the World
is now in the full tide of naval construc-
tion, in time of peace, and is beginning, only
half consciously as yet, but none the less
really, to vie with the nations of Europe
for naval supremacy.
There are people enough who think
that this emulous expansion of militarism
is all wrong; private citizens and public
men enough who deplore the existence of
"bloated armaments " and the crushing
burden of war taxes ; friends of peace
enough in all countries who condemn as
iniquitous the whole system in general;
governments enough which upbraid all
other governments for going forward a
single step in the mad race toward what
all see will be irretrievable ruin. But here
the protest, for the most part, stops. All
is wrong in general, but everybody in par-
ticular is right — in his own eyes. There
is scarcely a man to say that his country
ought at once to withdraw from the wicked
rivalry. There are probably not a hundred
\S influential men in the United States who
The Federation of the World 51
will declare unequivocally that our own x
country ought not to build another war-
ship; that to continue the building up ov
our navy is both perilous and unworthy
of our national character. There are few
public men at Washington, so far as I
know, who will dare to say this, or even
venture to think it In the House of Com-
mons in 1896, where three years before
a unanimous vote in favor of arbitration
had been given, 1 the friends of military
retrenchment were able to muster barely
thirty votes against an increase in the
naval budget, and their effort found little
apparent sympathy in the nation at large.
On the European continent, except possi-
bly in Italy, any public man in one of the
great powers would be instantly and almost
universally declared a traitor, who dared to
hint that his country should stop trying to
1 The Cremer resolution, favoring a treaty of arbitra-
tion with the United States, was passed by the House
of Commons, without a division, on the 16th of June,
1893-
52 The Federation of the World
keep pace with other countries in military
extension and begin single-handed the work
of disarmament. The plea of necessity —
the sinner's favorite plea — is everywhere
made : Others do so ; therefore we must do
so until they do otherwise. So the bar-
barous system continues its tyrannous hold
upon the nations. The cup of its iniquity
is not yet full, it seems.
How is this gigantic, growing evil to be
arrested and gotten out of the way ? Fed-
eration and peace cannot make much visi-
ble progress while the governments, with
the consent and encouragement of the peo-
ple, make it their chief business to cultivate
the arts of estrangement and war. The
largest and most serious question which
can be asked to-day is, How much farther
is the militarism of the civilized world to
go ? Is the United States so to fall under
its dominion as to build up a great fleet of
five hundred war vessels, make all its sea-
board cities like mediaeval castles, and mili-
tarize its people by a system of forced
The Federation of the World 53
instruction in the tactics of war ? Are
China and Japan to climb to the war-l^vel
— perhaps it would be more true to say
descend to the war-level — of England,
France, Germany and Russia ? Are the
nations of South and of Central America,
and those just beginning to bud on the
Dark Continent, to follow in the same path,
until the "armed camp" of Europe be-
comes, fifty years hence, the armed camp
of the world ?
There is no end to the questions to
which the dreadful situation gives rise. Is
all this militarism to continue developing
until the nations become so virtuous as all
at once to join in simultaneous and com-
plete or gradual disarmament ? Or until
the tension becomes so great as to result
in a frightful cataclysm which will over-
whelm the world? Or until the financial
burden grows so heavy as to force the gov-
ernments to stop from sheer exhaustion, or
the people to rise up in revolt against the
crushing slavery and demand a new order
54 The Federation of the World
of administration ? Is disarmament, com-
mencing, nobody knows how, as the result
of the gradual prevalence of pacific methods
of settling international disputes, to come
about by a process of gradual decay ? Or
is some_nation, under the inspiration of
great Christian ideas, aroused by some
grand God -sent man or men, or pushed
forward by a deep spirit of right moving
in its masses, to take the initiative, begin
disarmament alone, throwing itself for pro-
tection on God and the manhood of the
world, and thus on the high ground of love
and duty lead the nations to "beat their
swords into ploughshares and their spears
into pruning-hooks " ?
All these are serious questions. No
thoughtful mind can face the dreadful re-
ality of the growing tyranny of militarism,
as it now exists, without asking some or all
of them. Which of them, how many of
them, shall be answered in the affirmative ?
Perhaps we shall be better able, so far as
able at all, to choose among them and find
The Federation of the World 55
answers which shall have at least a working
value, after we have examined the origin
and growth of the international peace move-
ment, — a movement which has already be-
come so strong as to put the jvar syst em/
consi derably on the defensi ve, which betoJ
kens its ultimate if not speedy overthrow
and the final enthronement in the world of
universal and permanent cooperation and
peace.
Note. The situation in respect to the growth of ar-
maments has remained to the present time (1907) much
as it was when this chapter was first published, eight
years ago. Naval development particularly has gone on
with even accelerated speed. The naval expenses of
both the United States and Great Britain have more
than doubled in that time. Germany, France, and Japan
have been only a little behind. But there has ^ recently
appeared, among public men in several countries, a re-
markable change of attitude on the subject of armaments,
the nature and extent of which will be set forth in the
final chapter of this book.
9
The Influence of Christianity in restoring the
Federative Principle
j|HE whole movement for the aboli-
tion of war, for the establishment
of peaceful relations between men,
and for the ultimate federation of all the
interests of human society, began with the
\y appearance of Christianity. The movement
has, of course, a natural basis in the con-
stitution of humanity, as heretofore stated.
There are many natural forces at work in
it, and these are becoming more powerful
every year ; but their activity and efficiency
are due, for the most part, to the quicken-
ing and liberating influence which Chris-
tianity has had upon them. Prior to the
advent of Christ the elements of division
and disintegration, heretofore described,
rendered the natural peace forces nearly
The Federation of the World 57
powerless, and outside of the circle of his
influence they still hold practically undis-
puted mastery. Whatever gains were made
at particular times and places in the way
of concord were soon lost in the general
chaos of greed, hate, violence and disorder.
The influence of Christianity in setting
free the peace forces of human nature
and human society, and starting them into
activity, has been slow and not very uni-
form ; but it has been incessant and sure,
and some of the first ripe fruit of it is just
now being gathered.
This influence has been exerted through
a Person, a Book and a Society. The
Founder of Christianity was a perfect peac
maker. He was not directly an anti-war
prince. He said and did little directly
about the practice of war as it existed
everywhere about him. He seems to have
ignored it. His work was positive and con-
structive. He was the Prince of Peace,
unarmed and incapable of bearing the arms
of worldly warfare. All the forces which
58 The Federation of the World
make for peace were always active in him ;
those which produce war found no place in
his being. His speech and conduct reveal
no traces of them. The sword which he
came to send * was the sword of truth and
love, which was to be drawn against all the
institutions of selfish hate, in the family, in
the state and in the world. The strife that
he set going was that in which men con-
quer by patient loyalty to truth and by
cheerfully allowing themselves to be killed
for its sake ; not that in which men draw
the steel blade of violence to spill each
other's blood.
Jesus Christ loved men. That was his
life, his supreme motive, his only passion.
He went about doing them good, in spirit
and in body. There was nothing he would
not do to help men ; but he never did harm
to any one. He lifted not a finger of vio-
lence in self-defense or in defense of others.
It is impossible to conceive of him as hav-
mg armed himself against his fellow-men
1 Matthew x. 34. Compare Luke xii. 49 ff.
The Federation of the World 59
for any purpose whatever, or to have smit-
ten one in the interests of another. If he
used Wee at all, it stopped short of being
hurtful. 1 Fearless, faithful to truth, un-
masking unreality, but tender, patient, for-
giving, harmless, loving and helpful even
1 Dr. Lyman Abbott, in Christianity and Social Pro-
blems, chap, ix., adduces Christ's example in the purifica-
tion of the temple, and in the garden when the soldiers
of the guard fell backward to the ground, as a proof
that Jesus approved of the deadly use of force in the
defense of others. At least, that appears to be his con-
clusion, though he does not say it in so many words.
It is difficult to see how the power which Jesus exercised
on those two occasions is to be classed as physical force,
as we use the term. It was certainly not the whip of
small (straw) cords which induced any one to leave
the temple. If an argument for the use of force in a
punitive way is to be based on these incidents, then
Christ's restraint in its employment on both occasions
would certainly go to show that he meant that its use
should always stop short of being deadly or really harm-
ful. If " love may use force," as Dr. Abbott contends,
it must use it in such a way as to manifest itself as
" love " towards both the parties with whom it is deal-
ing, and not towards one alone. The whip of small
cords, according to recent translations, was used only to
drive out the animals.
60 The Federation of the World
unto death, he gave himself in total sacri-
fice, seeking nothing in return, that he
might create in men a spirit like his own,
and thus unite them to God, and to one
another in a kingdom of love and mutual
beneficence. This great loving, peace-mak-
ing Person, through the record left of him,
has been speaking and acting in all the
generations since, as no other person has
done, as all other persons combined have
not done. Thought and speech for nineteen
centuries have been unable to get away
from him ; they are less able to get away
from him to-day than ever before. His
character and example, wherever known,
have appealed powerfully to men's spirits
and tended to create, and actually created
in greater or less degree, lives and disposi-
tions like his own. Who can estimate the
cumulative power of such a personality on
individuals, on society, on institutions ?
As with the Person, so with the Book.
The New Testament 1 is the Book of
1 The New Testament, not the Bible as a whole, is
The Federation of the World 61
Peace. It says little about war as an insti-
tution. But the spirit of selfishness, envy,
hate, retaliation and vengeance, out of
which war springs, is everywhere repro-
bated on its pages. It exalts love to the
supremest place among the virtues. It
makes goodwill the heart of righteousness.
Its great thesis is the Fatherhood and love
of God manifested in a practical way in
Jesus Christ. Love to God and love to
man, self-sacrifice for others, forgiveness of
injuries, non-resistance of evil with evil,
overcoming evil with good, brotherly fel-
lowship and peace, are the foremost of its
practical teachings. On these it always in-
sists ; the opposites of these it always con-
demns. The New Testament is to-day, un-
important particulars aside, the same book
as when in collected form it was first read
to the churches in the second and third
the final standard as to Christian teaching on this sub-
ject. Those who appeal to the Old Testament to sup-
port war abandon Christian grounds. See Matthew v.
38 ff.
62 The Federation of the World
centuries. It has been the same in every
period of Christian history. Men have
turned its God and Saviour into curious
likenesses of themselves, misinterpreted its
doctrines, made strange travesties of its
practical teachings, or omitted entirely the
most essential of them. But in spite of
these perversions and misinterptetations,
its pages of love, goodwill and peace, ever
the same, read and re-read century after
century, have spoken in their natural sim-
plicity direct to multitudes of hearts. It
has been better than the best of its inter-
preters, and good in spite of the worst. It
has thus gradually turned men's ideas into
new lines, and given the world an increas-
ingly clear conception of the true law of
individual and social life, of the true rela-
tions of the societies of men, as well as of
individuals, one to another.
These great principles of goodwill, mu-
tual service and peace, taught by Christ,
transmitted in the New Testament, and
operating, now strongly, now feebly, in
The Federation of the World 6)
the society which he formed, have gradu-
ally permeated the life of peoples and
nations, and transformed their habits of
thought, their morals, customs, laws and
political institutions. 1 The GhristiaaJiQci-
ety, speaking of it in the large, though
often far from ideal, and frequently in parts
of it Christian in almost nothing but name,
has been instrumental in working out the
conditions of universal and lasting federa-
tion and peace chiefly through the new and
profounder idea, and the better example, of
kinship which it has presented. The kin-
ship lying at the basis of Christian civiliza-
tion, as its creative principle, is not the
kinship of the family , under earthly parent-
hood, but the kinship of man, in the Father-
hood of God. 2 The kinship of the family,
unless regenerated and directed by some-
thing beyond itself, tends naturally to ex-
clusiveness, clannishness and social divi-
sion. At best, the range of its cultivation of
1 Charles Loring Brace, Gesta Christi.
2 Benjamin Kidd, Social Evolution, chap. vii.
64 The Federation of the World
the social affections is narrow. The kin-
ship of man in the Fatherhood of God,
when truly realized, tends naturally to uni-
versal fellowship, to social union, and thus
to liberty and equal rights. It recognizes
/"""ho distinction of highborn and lowborn. It
declares every man the brother of evefry
other man. It ignores all lines of descent
and all boundaries of nationality. It drives
out hate and strips off the weapons with
which selfishness had armed itself. It puts
on a whole armor of goodwill and loving
service.
This great Christian principle of the
\Zaivine kinship of men has gone with, or
rather carried, th^jChristi an Socie ty into
all the world, across all national boundaries,
over all the barriers created by caste. It
has worked slowly and irregularly, it is
true, and against great obstacles from within
the Society and from without, but its influ-
ence on the whole has been enormous. It
has caused multitudes of men in every age
since the time of Christ to live together in
The Federation of the World 65
mutual helpfulness and peace, and often to
settle their disputes, if any arose, by refer-
ring them to the impartial judgment of
their friends. 1 It has created a new sense
of human worth and human dignity. It
has undermined tyranny and slavery, not
wholly yet, but in a very marked degree.
It has developed democracy in government.
It has set free the impulses to travel and
to trade, and thus created the world-wide
commercial interchanges of our day, — a sys-
tem as absolutely dependent on brotherly
cooperation and trust, for its normal growth
and development, as religion itself. It has
changed the whole notion of nationality
from its former meaning of an enforced
union under kingly authority, and has re-
built it, or is fast rebuilding it, upon the
principles of mutual interest and the con-
sent of the governed. It has led gradu- V
ally to the general substitution of law for 1 ^/
violence in the adjustment of personal \
misunderstandings within national limits.
1 Gesta Christi, chaps, viii., xii., xiii., xiv., xxvii. /
66 The Federation of the World
It has created a system of international
law, and is slowly improving it. Liberty,
equality, fraternity, whose names the
French revolutionists wrote with such ter-
rible emphasis on the facades of all the
public buildings of Paris, are great concep-
tions, — Christian, human. But fraternity
is first, not last. Brotherhood is the ground
u^principle of all our Christian civilization.
Without the sense of brotherhood love
would be impossible, and without this, ex-
pressing itself in manifold practical forms,
the whole structure of our modern social
organism, weak enough as it is, would col-
lapse into the ancient discord, and war,
which is the outward expression of selfish-
ess and hate, would be eternal.
It is needless to say that this principle
of the divine kinship of men, set forth and
exemplified by Christ, taught with such di-
rectness and force in the New Testament,
and operative with growing power, through
the Christian Society, in the reconstruction
of all human institutions, is t he root fro™
The Federation of the World 6y
wjiich Jias JU^ungL the-jnodern peace, move-—
merits-— the movement for the abolition oK
war, and for the federation and friendly )
cooperation of all the nations of the earth./
VI
War Ethically Wrong
HE movement for the abolition of
war, as a distinctive phase of
humane reform, has two main
grounds. One of these is the conception
that war per se is always ethically wrong ;
the other, that it is anti-federative, or anti-
social, and therefore opposed to all the
great interests of human society. Accord-
ing to the first of these conceptions, war is
condemned because it violates not only the
great law of love set forth by the Founder
of Christianity, but as well every principle
of the moral law; because it settles no
question on the basis of right ; because it
is a system having no element of humanity
in it ; because it originates in and is sup-
ported by selfishness, hate and revenge ;
because its deeds are always wicked and
The Federation of the World 69
inhuman ; because it calls out all the baser
passions, is prolific of vice and crime and
produces general social demoralization.
From this point of view, war is held always
to be unlawful as a means either of pro-
moting good or of defense against evil, a
wicked and inhuman instrument, which no
group of enlightened human beings can
ever innocently use against another. This
view does not maintain that no good result
tias ever come from any war ; it does main-
tain that a good end does not justify the
use of an essentially evil means, even
though the desired end may be reached
thereby, but that the result should be
brought about by a different means. The
view likewise does not maintain that war
has never been relatively right for some
peoples in some ages of the world ; it does
maintain that, in the nature of things, from
the constitution of men and their relations
to God and to one another, it is funda-
mentally and everlastingly wrong, and that
those who have come to a knowledge of its
fo The Federation of the World
intrinsic character can never have anything
to do with it, and are under the supremest
obligation not only to abstain from all war
themselves, but to do all in their power to
bring others to see it in the same light 2nd
, treat it in the same way. 1
s^ Historically, the peace movement, in its
modern organized form, originated in this
I conception. The conception is as old as
Christianity, and operated in the general
work of Christianization long before any
distinctive peace movement was thought
of. No sooner had Christian men looked
at the system of war from the standpoint
of the character, example and teachings of
Jesus and of the whole spirit of the gospel,
1 For an exposition of this view, consult the Essays on
Morality ', by Jonathan Dymond ; the Manual of Peace,
by Thomas C. Upham ; The Early Christians and War,
by Thomas Clarkson ; Observations on the Distinguish-
ing Views and Practices of the Friends (chap, xii.), by
J. J. Gurney ; the Speeches and Addresses of John
Bright; Defensive War, by Henry Richard. Consult
also the writings of Count Leo Tolstoy, who is the
most distinguished living advocate of the principle of
the entire unlawfulness of war.
The Federation of the World 7/
than the utter incompatibility of the two at
once dawned on them. This was the con-
ception and practice of the early Christians,
as a whole, for more than a hundred years. 1
It was the conception of many of the lead-
ing exponents of Christianity during the
second and third centuries, before the great
apostasy set heavily in. Later, it was the
conception of Wyclif, 2 the first light of the
Reformation and of a restored primitive
Christianity. It was the conception, in the
seventeenth century, of George Fox 3 and
William Penn, in whom and in the society
formed by whom the Reformation found
for a brief period its fullest ideal expres-
sion.
When the peace movement entered upon
its organized existence in the early part of
last century, as a definite effort to do away
with war, this conception lay at the bottom
1 J. Bevan Braithwaite, The Early Christians and
War, in London Peace Congress Report.
2 Robert Vaughan, Life of Wyclif vol. ii. chap. vii.
8 Journal, in various passages.
J2 The Federation of the World
of the undertaking. 1 The early peace
societies organized in this country from
1815 to 1828 were founded, every one of
them, by men whose minds and consciences
had gone to the bottom of the iniquity of
war and discarded it in every shape. 2 The
London Peace Society, founded in 18 16,
had the same basis. For fifty years the
chief supporters of the propaganda were,
not wholly but mostly, " peace-at-any-price "
men, as they have been contemptuously
but falsely called. William Allen, Thomas
Clarkson, Jonathan Dymond, Joseph John
Gurney, Richard Cobden, Joseph Sturge,
John Bright, Henry Richard, and their
faithful co-workers in Parliament and out
of it; Noah Worcester, whose "Solemn
Review " aroused the churches of two na-
tions ; William Ladd, the matchless Apostle
1 David L. Dodge, The Mediator's Kingdom not of
This World. Noah Worcester, Solemn Review.
2 For an account of the organization of the first peace
societies, see papers by Dr. W. Evans Darby, W. C.
Braithwaite, Esq., and Benjamin F. Trueblood, in the
Report of the Chicago Peace Congress of 1893.
The Federation of the World 73
of Peace and first general organizer of the
work, 1 whose treatise on " A Congress and
Court of Nations," sixty years ago, left little
to be said on the subject ; Adin Ballou, 2
the distinguished founder of this lecture-
ship, for many years president of the New
England Non-Resistant Society; Thomas
C. Upham, 3 William Lloyd Garrison, 4 John
G. Whittier, 5 Elihu Burritt, 6 — all these
were men who believed war to be essen-
tially sinful and never justifiable, a vast
system of iniquity to be dug up by the
roots and cast out of human society. These
were the great prophets to whom the word
of the Lord came in the wilderness, whose
inspired utterances aroused the sleeping
conscience of the world. Others, of course,
1 See Memoir of William Ladd, the Apostle of Peace,
by John Hemmenway.
2 Consult the Autobiography of Adin Ballou, edited
by William S. Heywood.
8 The Manual of Peace.
* Consult the Life of Garrison, by his Sons.
6 See various poems on Peace and Disarmament.
6 Life and Labors of Elihu Burritt.
J4 The Federation of the World
who did not take this radical view, for
example, Dr. Charming, 1 Charles Sumner, 2
Judge William Jay, 3 Dr. Peabody, 4 became
hearty supporters of the cause and did it
service of a very high order. But they did
not originate it. The men who brought
the movement forth, who organized the
first societies, and afterwards the first in-
ternational congresses, 5 who furnished the
means, who cherished the cause through
vituperation and ridicule into the respect
which it has at last won, were peace-at-any-
price men, or rather, as they should always
be called, peace-on-principle men. The
movement would not have started when it
did, and not even yet possibly, but for the
undimmed consciences, the courage and
1 For Channing's views, see essays on War, in his
collected works.
2 The True Grandeur of Nations.
8 Review of the War with Mexico.
4 Address before the American Peace Society.
6 See Report of the Peace Congresses of Brussels,
Paris, Frankfort, London and Edinburgh, 1848-1853,
published in one volume, by the London Peace Society.
The Federation of the World 75
self-sacrificing devotion, of these princes of
peace.
Not much is heard nowadays of this class
of peace men, except in the way of apology
or derogation. I have recently heard it
asserted at an important peace conference
that the genus is about extinct ; that the \
position has been found to be untenable J
and has been abandoned. Many of those^
who are seeking earnestly to promote the
principle and practice of arbitration are'i
careful to say that they are not peace-at-/
any-price men. They even go out of their
way to say a good word for war under
certain exigencies. Their consciences are!
nearer to the radical peace view than they I
are willing to admit, but they feel bound!
to keep up a sort of consistency with their
past, with the fighting idea of " patriotism "
and of "honor," and with an old historic
notion about war, from which they are not
quite strong enough and brave enough to
break away.
My firm and mature conviction, formed
76 The Federation of the World
•■ on religious, moral and historic grounds, is
that this conception of the entire unlawful-
ness of war, which has been held by so
many Christian leaders in the past and
which created the peace movement, is in
no remote future inevitably to become uni-
versal among good men.. Its adherents are
not decreasing. They are more numerous
throughout Christendom to-day than ever
before. Witness the hundred thousand
Stundists in Russia, many of whom sympa-
thize strongly with the opinions of Count
Tolstoy; the twenty thousand Doukho-
bortsi 1 in the Russian Caucasus ; the thirty
thousand Nazarenes in southern Hungary ;
the Friends, Mennonites and Moravians,
who still, in many parts of the world,
maintain their ancient profession; the in-
creasing number of individuals in all the
1 The Doukhobortsi, for their refusal to bear arms,
have recently been subjected to persecutions worthy
of the most barbarous times. Christian Martyrdom in
Russia, recently published by the Brotherhood Publish-
ing Co., Paternoster Square, London, contains an ao
count of their persecutions and exile.
The Federation of the World 77
denominations who will no longer make
any apology for war ; the many individuals
in continental Europe who refuse to do
military service of any kind. 1
It is true, war is not attacked on this
ground so exclusively as formerly. The
crusade against it has become so wide-
spread and powerful, and is pushed for-
ward on so many strong grounds, — rational, y\
humanitarian, social, economic, — that if/
seems unnecessary to put this fundamental
ethical view forward so constantly as f or- ■ V ^
merly. Most of those who hold it, and are
ready to defend it on all proper occasions,
are only too glad to join with other true
1 Van der Ver, of Holland, whose recent heroic re-
fusal to do military service Tolstoy has preserved for all
time, is only one of an increasing body of young men
in Europe whose example would be much more con- /
tagious than it is if their conduct were not so carefully
kept by the authorities from the knowledge of the pub-
lic. One of the leading lawyers of Brussels, a Belgian
senator, told the writer in 1894 that what is needed
more than anything else in Europe to-day, to break
down the tyranny of militarism, is a large body of men
who will refuse to do military service of any kind.
j8 The Federation of the World
friends of the cause, on common grounds,
and to cooperate with them intfie practical
effort now being made to establish perma-
nent peaceful methods of settling all dis-
putes. War will be abolished on these com-
mon grounds rather than on the perfect
ethical one, except so far as that mingles
with the others and gives them vitality and
persistence, as it does and always will do ;
just as the radical, immediate emancipation
principle was always the backbone of the
anti-slavery movement. But when the hor-
rible system of human butchery shall have
been abolished, then all good men will be
"peace-at-any-price" men, just as all good
men are now anti-slavery men ; and they
will wonder then that any man of con-
science could ever have been anything else.
As Victor Hugo prophesied at the open-
ing of the peace congress at Paris, in 1849,
people will then look upon a cannon in a
museum as we now look upon an instru-
ment of torture, with amazement that such
a thing could ever have been. The "peace-
The Federation of the World 79
at-any-price" men will then have their com-
plete vindication at the bar of a thoroughly
christianized and enlightened public con-
science. The principle out of which their
opposition to war springs is the seed-prin-
ciple of the whole federative movement of
human society, and no one can understand
the spirit and history of this movement
who does not take into account the place
which these men have held in it. Some of
the radical advocates of peace hold that no
effective opposition to war can be made by
those who do not hold and practice this
principle. In this, it seems to me, they
are mistaken, as the discussion will pre-
sently show.
VII
War Anti-Federative
HE other leading ground on which
the crusade against war is carried
on is that it is anti - federative.
War is now seen by all sensible men to be
a huge load on the constructive forces of
society, an immeasurable obstacle to the
free play of the federative elements in hu-
man nature. It reduces national prosperity
to a minimum, not only by wasting men,
labor, money, material, intellectual activity,
sentiment and moral force at home, but
likewise by keeping peoples apart and pre-
venting the profitable interaction of those
federative forces, and the mutual use of
those special resources of different lands,
on which the moral development and com-
mon weal of the world so much depend.
Under the long action of Christianity and
The Federation of the World 8r
of the natural forces which Christianity has
brought more and more into healthful ac-
tivity, the federative tendencies have be-
come powerfully operative in our modern
society, especially between individuals and
contiguous communities, but also between
nations. Witness the broad range of re-
ligious and philanthropic work, the reforma-
tory movements, the commercial and indus-
trial enterprises, in a word, the multitude of
humane as well as profit-seeking enterprises
of our day, which pay little regard to na-
tional boundaries. For this reason, war is
coming to be held intolerable, and the
spirit out of which it springs irrational and
utterly stupid. It not only wastes and
destroys the accumulations of the past ; it
checks and obstructs, and often almost en-
tirely paralyzes all federative, constructive
work, without which families and commu-
nities are so helpless in these days, from
almost every point of view. The peace
movement has therefore drawn into it, or
rather had forced into it, large numbers of
82 The Federation of the World
men who are not yet ready to grant that
war as an instrument is always morally
/"unlawful. The great concern now is to get
\ rid of it in the speediest way, not to prove
I it in every case morally wrong. By most
thoughtful men, except a few whose brains
are still strangely streaked with protoplasm,
— men who prate about the glory of war,
its inculcation of the manly virtues, its ne-
cessity to prevent civilization from decay-
ing, — it is considered in all ordinary cases
sufficiently immoral and always dreadful
enough to enlist their heartiest sympathy
and cooperation in every feasible effort to
banish it from the world.
Some of our radical peace men hayej yon-_
dered at the sudden influx of men of this
description — statesmen, jurists, scholars,
literary men, bankers, stock exchangers,
capitalists, workingmen, socialists, etc. —
into the ranks of the peace forces. They
have hastily inferred that the movement is
getting on to lower ground. But this is
only apparently so. The ground, though
The Federation of the World 83
broader, is really the same, — the incompat-
ibility, that is, of war with the federative
nature of men, and therefore with all the
great interests of mankind. If war wrought
no damage to the moral and material wel-
fare of the . race, no opposition to it would
ever have been made. The protest of the
early peace men against war, as essentially
and always immoral, grew really out of the
positive conception that men and nations
are so constituted that they ought to love
one another; that this is the law of their
being; that mutual service and cooperation
are obligatory, because the different social
units and groups are naturally members
one of another, and cannot reach their pro-
per development, comfort and happiness in
any other way.
The protest would have been true, possi-
bly, if there existed no federative nature irk-^^
men. Aggression and revenge, fighting and
mutual destruction, would be wrong if indi-
viduals and nations had absolutely no power
of mutual service. But the protest would
84 The Federation of the World
never have been made, or even thought of,
or, if made, would have seemed shadowy
and irrelevant, but for the positive demand
in the constitution of humanity for good-
will, cooperation and solidarity. Made from
the standpoint of these principles, which
were urged with great force by the early
opponents of war, 1 the protest gradually
recommended itself as essentially sound,
and has had a powerful influence in awak-
ening the already stirring conscience of the
civilized world, not only to the cruelty and
inhumanity of war, but also to its absurdity
and entire needlessness. On the ground
of these federative principles and the de-
structive effect of war and war preparations
upon the solidarity of human interests, many
have joined the peace movement who have
not been able to follow the " peace-at-any-
price " men to the logical conclusion of the
principles. This is the explanation of the
sudden development which the movement
Wgainst war has recently shown throughout
1 Noah Worcester, The Friend of Peace, 181 5-1827.
The Federation of the World 85
the civilized world. The movement is not
getting on to lower ground. It is on the
same ground, essentially, and is gradually
drawing into it all those in whom the Chris-
tian progress of the world has created a
sincere and often large love for human
good, for practical human brotherhood.
The movement is therefore immensely
stronger, because of the number of its ad-
herents, and the power which it thereby
possesses to secure practical results in legis-
lation, than it was when it had no friends
except the radical ones, who spent their
time largely in depicting the horrors and
revolting cruelties of the battlefield, and in
collating and expounding texts of the New
Testament to prove their one thesis, that
war, defensive as well as offensive, is always
unlawful. The federative tendencies and
beliefs of the larger number of men of
what are sometimes called half-and-half
principles, who have in recent years given
their support to peaceful methods of set-
tling disputes, have made possible the ex-
\>
rv
y
86 The Federation of the World
cellent results which have been attained
'both in the field of international arbitra-
tion and in that of industrial arbitration.
All of the statesmen 1 who have done so
much the past century in securing the ad-
justment of international disputes by peace-
ful methods have been men who would not
have hesitated, under given circumstances,
to go to war. How much more might have
been done, if these men had all been radi-
cal peace men, it is useless to try to con-
jecture. But one thing is certain : without
their cordial belief in arbitration and the
spirit out of which it springs, nothing at all
would yet have been accomplished in a prac-
tical way.
I am not arguing that these men are
nearer right than the radical peace men,
but only that the movement has become
immensely stronger since so many of them
1 J a y> Jefferson, Pinkney, Webster, Grant, Gladstone,
Sumner, Fish, Schenck, Earl Grey, Sir S. H. North-
cote, Sir E. Thornton, Rose, Count Sclopis, Staempfli,
Blaine, Pauncefote, Gresham, Olney, Foster, and others.
The Federation of the World 87
have interested themselves in it, and that
the ground of their support is, as far as it
goes, true peace ground. The old thesis I
believe to be profoundly right. Its constant
maintenance was absolutely necessary in
its time. Men's minds were so stupefied
by false ideas about the glory and the ne-
cessity of war that only the most intense
radicalism and realism of treatment could
arouse them. Only radical men would have
ventured into the halls of legislation, in the
early days, with memorials to urge the
claims of peaceful methods in composing
international troubles. The maintenance of
the thesis is still necessary as an essential
part, nay, rather, the very centre and core,
of the peace movement. There are times
when radical peace men are the only peace
men left, all others being carried away by
the spirit of war. In Russia, where this
thesis is maintained with so much vigor and
freshness by Tolstoy, supported by multi-
tudes of peasants throughout the empire,
the peace propaganda cannot yet take on
88 The Federation of the World
any other form. The great count is toler-
ated only because it is known by the state
authorities that he will not take up arms,
and that he counsels others not to take up
arms, against the government. Thus he
and his followers are doing for Russia what
men of no other principles could do. It is
felt by a number of the friends of peace in
Europe that the yoke of European mil-
itarism can never be broken until there
arise in the midst of it a body of men who
will refuse, for conscience' sake, to do mili-
tary service in any form.
But, after all, the real strength of the
peace movement does not lie in the pro-
test against war and its desolations, cruel-
ties and horrors. It lies in the protest for
concord, and its utilities and glories. The
former is only a part of the latter. Men
can never be brought to see the wickedness
of violence until they see the true nature of
peace on its positive side, the moral gran-
deur of love, the individual and social worth
of cordial fellowship, the immense economic
The Federation of the World 89
and happiness value of wide-reaching indus-
trial and commercial cooperation, the in-
calculable benefits, the dignity and honor-
ableness of international trust and concord.
Men who do not see these will, as a rule, S
never see anything wrong in war. When
they see these, you will not need to portray
to them the moral hideousness of war.
For war and war preparations are nothing
but the outward manifestation of the spirit
of exclusiveness, hate, greed and aggres-
sion on the part of nations. When this
spirit goes out of men, war and war prepa-
rations go out of them. So long as this
spirit remains, it is idle to talk of disarma-
ment. You can do something, especially
among thinking Christian men, to create
a new feeling about war by holding it up
to the shafts of a pitiless moral analysis,
but you can do much more among the
masses of men, to whom fine ethical con-
ceptions do not so much appeal, by show-
ing that war is the deadly enemy of all
those economic and social interchanges on
go The Federation of the World
which the prosperity, the happiness and
the moral welfare of peoples of all lands
now so largely depend. This is the ground
on which much of the most effective peace
work is now being done. Still more can be
done by setting in movement, or by aiding
in developing, all sorts of healthy interna-
tional cooperation.
/
VIII
The New World Society
J|HE main ground of hope at the
present time for the speedy aboli-
tion of war is, not some theoretical
guess as to what the federative forces ought
to do or may do, but their actually existing |
results in the social, economic and political
structure of the world, constituting a world
society of very marked development. This
world society may be traced in many direc-
tions. Christian missions, in an organized
and permanent form unknown till the past
century, now have their growing centres of
religious and educational activity in every
quarter of the globe, 1 and Christ's doctrine
of the brotherhood of men in the Father-
1 F. Max Miiller, Lecture on Missions. Theodore
Christlieb, Protestant Foreign Missions. James S. Den-
nis, Christian Missions and Social Progress.
g2 The Federation of the World
hood of God was never set forth with so
much simplicity, directness, freedom from
prejudice, and practical efficiency as in the
present generation.
Following these missions and in part cre-
ated by them, commerce has grown and
spread until it has become world-wide. It
has woven its network of intercourse, and
planted the homes of its merchants and car-
riers on the shores of all the continents and
of the important islands of the sea, and
pushed itself into the heart of the'most un-
known inlands. It has discovered new re-
sources, opened up new occupations, taught
workingmen to go from one end of the earth
to the other. It has created a great credit
system, which is fast uniting all the large
cities of the world and many smaller ones
together in a community of interest.
Labor has not only its national, but also
its international associations, which are
bringing the millions of laboring people in
many lands into ever closer union and sym-
pathy, and the working classes have already
s
The Federation of the World 93
learned that they have a higher mission than
to be the mere tools of capital or of selfish
and greedy monarchs. There is no federa-
tive force more powerful than that of labor,
and it is binding society together at the
very bottom.
International travel, not for religious and
commercial purposes only, but also for in-
tellectual, scientific and social purposes,
has been rendered swift and easy by the
inventions which have led to the formation
of the great steamship lines and the trans-
continental railways. The volume of travel
merely for sight-seeing and pleasure, for
rest and recuperation, has become so im-
mense that for three months in each year
it seems as if the whole civilized world were
in migration. 1 .
This internationalization of religion, of /\*r^
business, of society, of science, etc., by ac-
1 During the recent war with Spain many of the ,
steamship lines between the United States and Europe
found their business cut down nearly fifty per cent.
What this means in checking the natural flow of money
throughout the world is easily imagined.
~
g4 The Federation of the World
quainting peoples with one another, is re-
moving many prejudices, and teaching men
the numerous ways in which those remotest
from one another may contribute to one
another's prosperity and happiness. The
telegraph, the cable and the associated
press have put all parts of this complex
world structure into almost instant contact
with one another, so that a disturbance in
one part is at once felt everywhere else.
This immense network of interests, all an-
tagonistic to war, is constantly being woven
thicker and firmer ; the result of it will be,
in the near future, that the world society,
purely in self-defense, will banish war from
its midst, as a necessary condition of the
permanence of the federation and union of
interests in which each unit finds its life
and well-being. Formerly, when the nations
traded little with each other, when their
citizens sojourned little abroad, when inter-
national communication was slow and dif-
ficult, 1 when property was in the hands of
1 It was several days before the knowledge of the
The Federation of the World 95
a few lords, and the people were menials
and knew little of the real comforts and
blessings of life, two nations might fight
and desolate each other, for a series of years
even, and the rest of the nations feel it little
or care little about it, except from the mili-
tary standpoint of the rulers, who were glad
oftener than not, because of the opportunity
for exploits which the wars of neighboring
states opened to them. In our time, a war
between two nations is, in its effects at
least, a war everywhere. Every nation* s
industry and commerce are crippled ; every
nation's credit disturbed; every nation's
citizens imperiled ; every nation's happi-
ness and comfort interfered with.
In this complex state of international so-
ciety, and because of the awful destructive-
ness of modern implements of warfare, it is
inev itable th at there should soon be some
concert of the nations to reduce war, when
it occurs, to the briefest possible period, to
battle of Waterloo, in 1815, got across the Channel and
reached London.
g6 The Federation of the World
the narrowest limits, and ultimately to pre-
vent it entirely. This concert is likely to
be for a time in part a c once rt offeree,
exerting itself in the neutralization 1 of small
countries, in the protection of commerce on
the high seas, and in preventing any nation
from breaking the peace. But the concert
of force, which from its very nature can be
participated in by only a few great powers,
contains in it so many elements of danger,
and is, from the very selfishness out of
which it springs, so liable to break down at
the critical moment, as it did in the case of
the recent Armenian massacres, that the
conscience of the world will not be satisfied
very long with such an arrangement. The
world society must have something of a
\^ higher order, a moral concert founded in
mutual beneficence and trust. The concert
of force, while it grows, and so long as it
lasts, is likely, too, to be limited to those
nations where militarism has come up from
1 T. K. Arnoldson, Pax Mundi, chapter on "Neu-
trality."
The Federation of the World gy
the past, and will probably never be entered
into by a nation of the truly modern spirit
like the United States. At least, it is to
be hoped that it will not. The concert
which is to end war, which is even now
working itself out on a grand scale in the
movements of the world society, is to be one
of unarmed, trustful cooperation, — a force
more powerful to hold in check the demon
of violence than all the combined steel-clad
ships that ever furrowed the ocean. 1
The antagonism to war, produced by the
various causes just mentioned, is greatly {y^
intensified by the enlarging sympathy be-
tween peoples created by the growth of 1
popular government the past century. Even '
in Europe, where as yet there are only two
republics, constitutional government has
1 An example of the kind of concert here meant is
found in the Universal Postal Union. This union,
which originated no longer ago than in 1874, at its con-
gress at Washington in 1896 admitted into its member-
ship the last of the organized nations of the world, and
became literally universal, — the first universal, interna-
tional union ever formed
g8 The Federation of the World
made such progress that most of the sov-
ereigns are no longer rulers except in name.
Democracy as naturally creates sympathy
and the spirit of cooperation between peo-
ples as absolutism in government is the
deadly foe of international friendship. \ It
may take a republic like France a good
while to throw off the effects of the abso-
lutism of the past. The full influence of
democracy in creating international sym-
pathy ought not to be expected to be seen
in a single generation or even in a single
century, after so many centuries of abso-
lutism have stamped their effects on the
character of all peoples. In the United
States, where absolutism has been unknown
since the founding of the nation, sympathy
with other peoples (this does not mean with
other governments) is very large and steadily
growing. In France the spirit of the peo-
ple is moving steadily into sympathy with
the people of other constitutional countries,
as the republic becomes more sure to main-
tain a permanent existence. The peoples
The Federation of the World 99
of the South and Central American repub-
lics have even more sympathy one with an-
other across the borders than the citizens
of any one of these republics have with
their own fellow-citizens, civil wars beingj
more common among them than interna-'
tional wars. Though democracies now and I
then break out into war with great passion,
against other peoples, or rather against the
governments of other peoples, this must
not be taken as invalidating the position
that popular government is naturally con-
ducive to international friendship. These
fits of international violence are not charge-
able to democratic principles, nor do they
indicate that governments of the people
have no tendency to prevent international
ill feeling and strife. They only prove that
even the best political institutions cannot
suddenly remove in to to deep-seated preju-
dices, perverted habits of thought and long-
felt dislikes and animosities. That popular
governments naturally tend to create oppo-
sition to war is sufficiently clear from the
y
wo The Federation of the World
fact that in those countries where the peo-
ple have most to do with political affairs,
there opposition to war is strongest and
most pronounced. 1 The notion of popular
government is a constituent element in the
new world society whose antagonism to war
iS growing to be so marked. It will be seen
later that the idea of the people governing
themselves has even a wider bearing than
that which appears in international sym-
pathy; that it is working out a veritable
world government which is some day to
embrace in its jurisdiction all the nations
of the earth, or humanity as a whole.
/ In this connection one other thought de-
serves mention. It seems to me that the
sense of a common manhood, of a common
brotherhood, revealed through citizenship
which possesses the franchise, or seeking
to reveal itself through such citizenship, is
more the cause of the present widespread
opposition to war among organizations of
1 Andrew Carnegie, Triumphant Democracy> chap.
The Federation of the World 101
laboring men than the mere desire not to j
have regular employment and steady living/
wages interfered with, powerful as this lat-l
ter is as a motive. At any rate, the oppo-
sition to war on the part of democracies and
constitutional governments and the antag-
onism of the labor interests to militarism
move steadily and powerfully together. 1
1 For a careful discussion of the labor opposition to
war, see the speeches of Professor John B. Clark of
Columbia University, in the Mohonk Arbitration Con-
ference Reports for 1896-97-98.
Since 1899, when this book first appeared, the labor
organizations have taken a still stronger stand against
militarism and war. The forty labor members of the
recently elected British Parliament have taken the lead in
that body in urging Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's gov-
ernment to take steps toward a reduction of armaments
and securing at the second Hague Conference interna-
tional agreement to this end. The American Federation
of Labor at its annual meeting, in 1906, adopted a series
of strong resolutions in support of world-organization
and peace. The same is true of the labor unions in
other countries.
IX
The Growing Triumph of Arbitration
O one can understand the recent
sudden development of interest in
arbitration, not only in the United
States and Great Britain, but also in many
of the continental European countries, with-
out taking into account this complex, eco-
nomically sensitive and growingly humane
and Christian condition of our modern
world society. Arbitration has an inter-
esting history of a hundred years, during
which it has been successfully applied in
over two hundred important cases of diffi-
culty. 1 But it is not primarily its past
1 International Arbitrations •, John Bassett Moore.
The Arbitrations of the United States , same author. In-
ternational Arbitration at the Opening of the Twentieth
Century, B. F. Trueblood. International Tribunals,
W. E. Darby.
The Federation of the World 103
success which has created the recent en-
larged interest in it. In fact, the new in-
terest in it has set many intelligent people
to work to hunt up its history, of which
they previously knew practically nothing.
What has created the fresh interest is the
absolute moral and material necessity of
arbitration both as a means of avoiding the
widespread ruin which war now produces,
and as an expression of the increased con-
scientiousness, reasonableness and forbear-
ance of men in regard to their differences \
and their growing disposition to cooperate, j
wherever possible, for mutual benefit. It *
is the resistless logic of modern huma)i£__^ a
progress which has brought arbitration into y
such esteem. This method of composing
disputes is not merely a product, but an
integral part of the great federative move-
ment of our day, some of whose leading
features have been mentioned. Every part
of this movement has had essentially the
same causes, and every part has had a stim-
ulating and supporting effect upon every
other part.
104 The Federation of the World
The treaty of arbitration between the
United States and Great Britain, signed at
Washington on the nth of January, 1897,
the first treaty of the kind ever signed be-
tween two nations, was scarcely more an
expression of the great change in public
sentiment as to peace and war than it was of
the radically new spirit then beginning to
actuate diplomacy. But for this new spirit
in diplomacy, which dates particularly from
the time of the Geneva Red Cross Con-
vention of 1864, 1 this treaty would have
been an impossibility. It is difficult to say
whether diplomacy had done more for the
promotion of public opinion in connection
with this treaty or the latter for the de-
velopment of the former. Anglo-American
diplomacy has been for a hundred years
more than abreast of Anglo-American pub-
lic sentiment on the subject of arbitration,
and the signing of this treaty in 1897
developed public sentiment on both sides
of the water in a most remarkable degree.
1 Encyclopedia Britannica^ " Geneva Convention."
The Federation of the World 105
The peace societies themselves, which
have in recent years multiplied with such
rapidity, 1 right in the midst of European
bayonets even, and are devoting their atten-
tion largely to the promotion of arbitration
as a permanent method of settling inter-
national controversies, are the creation of
the same forces which brought arbitration
into existence. Twenty years before the
first peace society was organized, the Jay
treaty between Great Britain and this coun-
try had provided for the settlement of three
disputed questions by mixed commissions,
— a form of tribunal which afterward devel-
oped into the temporary arbitration court,
which has done so much in recent years
to preserve and promote the peace of the
civilized world. In 18 14, still a year before
the organization of any peace societies, the
treaty of Ghent provided for the settlement
1 There are now nearly five hundred peace associa-
tions, including branch societies, in European countries.
Most of these have been organized since the ParisJ?eaca
Congress of 1889.
106 The Federation of the World
of three further disputes by mixed com-
missions. This fact does not in any way
^lessen the merit of the peace associations.
Though they did not create the arbitration
movement, and are only one of the many
agencies which are developing it, yet they
\ were its first prophets, giving the necessity
[of it the first clear and positive utterance.
They have been its stanchest and steadi-
est friends. Up to a decade ago not a
single resolution favoring arbitration had
ever been introduced or voted on in any
parliament that was not there directly by
their agency.
Among the peace society agencies must
be included the International Peace Con-
v ...
gress, a permanent organization since 1889,
meeting annually in the different large
cities of the world ; the Interparliamentary
Peace Union, 1 a distinguished association
1 The Interparliamentary Peace Union was organized
at the time of the Paris Exposition in 1889, partly by
the same men who originated the International Peace
Congress. The union now has over two thousand
members.
The Federation of the World wy
of members of parliaments, having over two
thousand on its roll ; the International Peace /
Bureau at Berne ; * and certain special con-
ferences, like that now held annually at
Lake Mohonk, N. Y., and the national con-
ferences on arbitration held at Washington
in 1896 and 1904.
But though very powerful and efficient,
and increasingly so as the number of the
associations increases from year to year,
the peace society agency has been only one
of the large group of agencies — religious,
juridic, political, diplomatic, social, commer-
cial, financial — which have, severally and
jointly, pushed arbitration to the front as
the only rational method of removing con-
troversies after direct negotiation has failed.
The merits and practicability of arbitra-
tion need no longer be pleaded. It has
already won its case at the bar of inter-
national public opinion. Beginning in a
tentative way with the United States and
1 The Peace Bureau was established by vote of the -O
Peace Congress at Rome in 1891.
108 The Federation of the World
Great Britain a hundred years ago, it has
been applied with increasing frequency, in
recent years particularly, to disputes of
nearly every conceivable kind. The cases
which it has disposed of have ranged all
the way from those involving damages
claims of a few thousands of dollars to those
more serious controversies, touching terri-
torial limits and transgression against na-
tional rights, which have cut deeply the
national pride and sense of honor, and given
rise to hot and long-continued diplomatic
debate. Wherever it has been employed
it has succeeded. There is not a real ex-
ception to be noted. The cases which it
has settled have stayed settled. Not even
the ghost of such a case has ever arisen to
disturb anybody's tranquillity. It has been
tried by nearly all nations, great and small,
in the Old World and the New, the United
States and Great Britain leading, the former
with more than sixty cases and the latter
with about the same number. 1
1 Benjamin F. Trueblood, "The United States,
The Federation of the World log
Arbitration has not yet wholly succeeded
in preventing wars, and may not for some
time yet, but its record, in the* hundred
years since it first came into use, is a most
remarkable one, and some day, when the
history of human progress begins to be
really written, this record will constitute a
very instructive chapter. The advantages
of this method of treating disputes are so
great and so apparent to all thoughtful peo-
ple that, having already been so success-
fully tried in such a variety of cases, it is
sure speedily to become more and more
general. Arbitration gives time for passion
to cool. It affords opportunity to hunt up
all the facts in a given case, an ignorance
or one-sided knowledge of which is often
the chief cause of irritation. It costs a
mere pittance compared with war. It car-
ries questions of right and justice to the
forum of reason, where only they can be
determined according to their merits. True
Great Britain and International Arbitration," in the /
New England Magazine, March, 1896.
/ jo The Federation of the World
honor is always vindicated before its tribu-
nals. It leaves no bitter ranklings behind,
no broken families, no devasted lands, no
^international feuds. It appeals to the better
instincts of peoples. It removes preju-
dices and misjudgments. It creates sym-
x^pathy and fellowship. Arbitration is not
simply a cool and heartless method of dis-
posing of difficulties ; in its deeper signifi-
cance it is a method of cooperation in pro-
moting the true interests of the nations in
their relations to one another. It not only
peacefully composes their differences ; it
trains them as well in moral judgment and
moral self-control. It makes their diplo-
macy more intelligent, more . patient, more
altruistic, and thus makes serious disputes
much less likely to arise. A great arbitra-
tion like that of the Alabama dispute or
W the Bering Sea seal question settles a
(whole group of international principles, and
\a thus permanently advances international
law. The Bering Sea case is a conspicuous
example of the tendency of arbitration to
The Federation of the World m
produce peaceful cooperation for the re-
moval of troubles which not even an ar-
bitral court may be able to reach. For
these reasons arbitration, through the spirit
out of which it springs and which it greatly
develops and strengthens, will gradually
remove the necessity of employing it at
all, and will thus prove a powerful instru-
ment in promoting the federation of the
world.
The great question now in connection
with this mode of settling differences is
to make it permanent, to build it into a
judicial system universally recognized and
accepted by all the civilized nations. 1 To-
1 See the Memorial of the New York State Bar Asso-
ciation, Mohonk Arbitration Conference Report for i8g6,
Appendix B, and the speeches given in the Report.
See, also, International Tribunals, by Dr. W. Evans
Darby. Lord Chief Justice Russell, in his address at
Saratoga before the American Bar Association in 1896,
gives the grounds why, in his judgment, temporary tri-
bunals are preferable to a permanent one. An excel-
lent reply to his argument will be found in the speech
of Mr. Walter S. Logan at the Mohonk Arbitration
Conference in June, 1898.
ii2 The Federation of the World
ward the accomplishment of this all the
agencies of peace are turning. A hundred
years is long enough to have successfully
experimented. A hundred important cases,
with many minor ones, settled in this way,
and settled, every one of them, effectually
and finally, are proof enough that the
method is perfectly suited to the need, and
capable of practically universal application.
Permanent treaties of arbitration, providing
for the setting up of a permanent tribunal,
are the great desideratum of our complex,
sensitive civilization. All disputes between
the civilized nations ought forever here-
after, by their own sovereign and united de-
termination, to be taken out of the realm of
passion, caprice and violence, and brought
within the domain of reason and law, as
disputes between individuals have been.
The reasons for the former are even more
weighty than for the latter, and nothing
but a false and silly sentimentalism stands
in the way. The administrators of govern-
ments have much less ground for friction
The Federation of the World 1 13
between them than do individuals in the
private walks of life. The populations of
the nations have still less ground for en-
mity toward one another. International
hostilities are the most needless and wicked
of all hostilities. One can account for the
rashness and even levity with which they
are entered into, only on the ground of an
almost total absence of thoughtfulness in
regard to the real nature of international
strife, both on the part of the government
leaders and of the mass of citizens. The
procedure of the heads of governments, in
case of disputes, ought to be so prescribed
as to leave them no opportunity for caprice
or ambitious self-assertion, or for carrying
away the unthinking masses into senseless
war flurries by insidious appeals to passion
and 'national pride. If this were done, if
arbitration were established, under treaty
obligations, as a permanent principle of
international law, instead of being difficult
to carry out in practice, as many suppose,
it would, in my judgment, be found to be
/ 14 The Federation of the World
incomparably easy, — much easier than the
administration of the common law among
individuals, where there is constant, friction
from close contact.
Just here lies the true significance of
the Anglo-American treaty drawn in 1897. 1
This treaty was not needed to prevent the
wo nations from going to war. They are
not likely ever to do that again, treaty or
no treaty. They have fought but once,
they have arbitrated many times, since
they became separate nations over one hun-
dred years ago. This treaty was a declara-
tion to the world that they had found
arbitration not only just and honorable, but
asy and pleasant, and that they believed
it safe To take the last obstacle out of its
way and make it as easy as a fixed law of
nature. Whatever obstacles the treaty
1
1 This treaty was signed by Richard Olney and Sir
Julian Pauncefote On the nth of January, 1897. It
failed of ratification in the Senate, when the final vote
was taken, on the 5th of May. Since October, 1903, 47
/treaties of obligatory arbitration have been concluded,
more about which will be said in the last chapter.
The Federation of the World 1 15
encountered in the Senate, and however
tentative and imperfect the method which
it prescribed may be supposed to be, what
the great body of Americans and English-
men think of arbitration, which the treaty
proposed to set up as a rule of law between
them, is that it is the right mode of settling
all their differences, and at the same time
a perfectly simple and easy one. "When it
is once settled and in force, no one with
Anglo-Saxon blood in his veins will be any
more willing to part with it than with the
railroad, the steamship, or the ^telegraph ;
and it will, in all probability, stop the clam-
orous mouth of war forever wherever the
English tongue is spoken. The example
will be contagious, and in a generation or
two, if one may judge from the rapidity
with which the arbitration movement is
gaining strength in Europe, the entire civ-
ilized world will have set up for itself a
permanent system of peaceful judicial set-
tlement for disputes of every kind aris-
ing between the different nations. If the
n6 The Federation of the World
Olney-Pauncefote treaty should fail of rati-
fication in the Senate, 1 the effect will be
merely to retard slightly or possibly to
deflect from its most natural course the
movement, but not in any way to seriously
weaken or permanently check it. The
forces whose working led to the negoti-
ating of this treaty are so many and so
strong that the final triumph of arbitration
is as sure as the continuance of civilization.
We may not be able to say just when or
where, or in what manner, its great final
triumph will begin, but of the certainty of
that triumph in no remote future there can
no longer be any reasonable doubt. When
a permanent system of arbitration is once
in operation among the civilized nations,
there will be little difficulty in extending
it to the still uncivilized quarters of the
globe."
i So I wrote in 1897, ten years ago, when
{this treaty was under consideration in the
Senate. It failed of approval by only four
votes, a two thirds majority being required
V|
The Federation of the World uy
for ratification. Since that time the Hague
Conference has been held, the International
Court of Arbitration established, and forty-
seven treaties of obligatory arbitration con-
cluded between nations, two and two. To
none of these is the United States a party a
the eleven treaties signed by the late John
Hay, Secretary of State, having failed to
go into force because of a disagreement
between the President and the Senate as I
to their respective prerogatives as parts
of the treaty-making power. The arbitra-
tion movement has, however, developed and
strengthened itself, in a general way, be-
yond the expectations of the most sanguine
ten years ago, as will appear from the
details given in the final chapter of this
edition.
X
The United States of the World
FTER arbitration, what? Hosea
Biglow's advice, " Don't never
prophesy onless you know," is
most excellent, but it is not very easy to
follow. Every man of love and goodwill
has something of the prophetic gift in him,
and must make his forecast of the outcome
of the processes in whose final victory he
believes.
Arbitration jsfnot^he highest attainment
of which humanity is capable and which it
is destined to reach. Arbitration is, as
Goldwin Smith says, 1 at least in one aspect
of it, "a litigious, not a friendly process,
and is apt to leave heartburnings in the
1 See article on "The Arbitration Treaty" in The
Independent y March 25, 1897.
The Federation of the World up
nation against which the award is given."
Though all that I have said of the advan-
tages of arbitration is true, yet the arbitra-
tion stage is one of very imperfect coop-
eration, where there is still friction, undue
self-assertion, distrust and more or lesj^
estrangement. Beyond it is a stage where / un-
love and trust shall everywhere prevail, and
all the nations' good shall be each nation's
rule. We have even now a prophecy of
this better stage which is to be reached inJ
the relations of nations to one another.
There are already multitudes of people in
our civilized society who live, in their rela-
tions to one another, on a plane entirely
beyond that of arbitration. They have no-
thing to arbitrate or to carry to the courts
of law, because they either have no differ-
ences, or settle such as they have by the
exercise of their own wits tempered with
a little patience and mutual forbearance.
All their ordinary dealings with one an-
other — commercial, social, religious — are
in a most real sense cooperative. This
120 The Federation of the World
\j plass of persons is increasing continually,
and they are paying less and less attention
to national boundaries. The inevitable out-
come of this sort of living among men in
the same nation, and between men of dif-
ferent nations, will be the breaking down
of international friction, the gradual dis-
appearance of differences between nations,
and the final evolution- of international
society to a state in which even arbitra-
tion will be practically unknown.
In the movement toward T:his higher
state, two momentous results will follow
quickly the adoption by the civilized world
of a general permanent system of arbitra-
tion, namely, the reduction of armaments
and a larger and more generous interna-
tional cooperation. It is not easy to an-
swer the questions raised in a former part
of this discussion as to how the " bloated
/ armaments " of the civilized world are to
/be gotten rid of. But arbitration is cer-
] v tainly to be the chief mediating agency in
preparing the way for their removal. It
The Federation of the World 121
has already done much in pointing the way.
While a system of arbitration is being
worked out, by the slow process of historic
growth, by negotiation and treaty stipula-
tions, these armaments are sure to grow* 7
further both in extent and in burdensome-
ness, bringing for a brief time practically
the whole world under their heartless tyr- ,
anny. At least, everything at the present ^
time points that way ; though one cannot
say what unforeseen event may come about
of such a nature as suddenly to change the
course which things seem likely to take.
In spite of my optimism and much against
my wish, the conviction has grown upon me ,
that our own country, as well as others, is !
for_a season Jo fall more and more under the j x ^\i J ^
curse of militarism, as it fell once, contrary
to all the principles of its Constitution, under
the black and blighting curse of slavery.
The people are still only half awake to the
insidiousness of the war spirit. The law XiM Kj
of animosity and distrust has its charms
for many of them. The blare and blaze of
122 The Federation of the World
the great military establishments of the
Old World furnishes powerful enticements
to the spirit of a young and mighty people
which has not yet had experience of the
ruinous and degrading influences of military
tyranny. Many in high places believe, or
pretend to believe, that a nation cannot be
great without fighting, without sacrificing
thousands of its sons on the battlefield,
without exhibiting an irritable and haughty
spirit toward some supposed enemy, and
venting its wrath in deeds of blood. This
evil seed in the nation is sure to bring forth
its deadly harvest unless the people can be
awakened speedily from their slumber. 1
But when arbitration has at last come
into general and permanent use throughout
the civilized world, as there is every reason
to believe that it will after a generation or
1 Since the above was written, the war with Spain
has been fought, and the disposition of the nation to
enter upon a policy of military and naval expansion is
much stronger than it was before.
^y C~ In the ten years since 1897 the government's naval
\ expenses have increased three hundred per cent.
The Federation of the World 123
two, then these great military establish-
ments with all their abominations will come
to an end. The end of them may come
suddenly, as the result of a jjreatjyaT, or a
series of great wars, the disastrous results
of which will be so deeply and universally .
felt that the nations will never again permit
militarism to take root and grow. The end '
is morfij^ely^ to come by a process of
neglect and natural decay, when arbitration,
universally adopted, shall have made the
uselessness of such war preparations, as
well as their wickedness and folly, manifest,
It is more likely still to come through simul-
taneous and gradual disarmament, entered
upon by voluntary agreement, and possibly
in connection with the adoption of some
general system of arbitration. 1
1 Since the above was written, in 1897, little practical
progress has been made in the solution of the problem
of disarmament. The Hague Conference in 1899, the
purpose of which was expressly the consideration of this
subject, went only so far as to pass a resolution declar-
ing " that a limitation of the military charges which now
weigh upon the world is greatly to be desired in the
124 Tb* Federation of the World
After this great consummation, the fed-
erative forces, freed from the immense re-
straint which militarism has put upon them
and supported by the vast energies and
resources now consumed on destructive
agencies, will work out the unity of human-
ity in less time than the most hopeful of us
dare to imagine. This unity will ultimately,
in the very nature of the case, be not only
kv moral, social and economic, but political as
well. The nature of man, the common in-
terests of peoples, the great currents of
Christian and humane influence, the social,
industrial and political movements of our
time, the new modes of travel and inter-
communication, the development of inter-
interests of the material and moral welfare of humanity."
The British naval expenditures have doubled and those
of the United States have trebled in ten years. The past
two years, however, public opinion has become increas-
ingly insistent that the governments shall find a way of
escape from the incubus of the great military and naval
establishments. The British government and House of
Commons have responded to this public demand, as will
be explained in the last chapter, in a way which insures
the early serious study of the subject.
P r.
The Federation of the World 125
national law, the increasing international
cooperation through diplomacy, conferences,
commissions and arbitral boards, all fore-
shadow a complete political unity of the
world, a great international world state, built
up somewhat on the pattern of our union
of States, with supreme legislative, judicial
and executive functions touching those in-
terests which the nations have in common.
The reasons for such an over-state, consti-
tuted of all the nations, are precisely the
same as for a federal union of local govern-
ments extending over a wide territory, like
our own republic.
These reasons will readily occur to any
thoughtful mind. The unification of law^j ,
and its administration is among the first. J
Many consider the setting up of the Su-
preme Court to have been the chief triumph
in the Constitution of the United States.
The world needs a supreme tribunal to take
international law out of the chaotic and re-
proachful state in which it now is and bring
it up to something like the level of muni-
126 The Federation of the World
cipal law in the civilized nations. To this
end it would seem that a parliament or legis-
lative corps of some kind would be neces-
sary also, and likewise a common executive.
Not less important a reason for a world
state is the removal of friction and the
danger of war by the creation of a feeling
s/ii unity in a common organization. One
can easily imagine what the history of the
United States would have been if they had.
become simply States without any conimon
governmental tie. If the union of local
governments in a national organization has
done so much to remove friction and causes
of war in the United States, in Great Brit-
ain, in France, in Italy, in Germany, what
might not be expected in this regard from
a union including them all ?
A third reason for an international gov-
ernment is the ease and inexpensiveness
with which, under such an arrangement, the
common interests of the nations could be
treated and adjusted. If the United States
and Canada, for instance, in addition to their
The Federation of the World 127
independent local governments, were each
connected with a wider government, charged
with the duty of looking after the interests
common to the two governments, — the
seal question, the fisheries question, the
border immigration question, — the mu-
tual trade relations between the Canadian
people and our own would long since have
disappeared from the forum of discussion.
At present many subjects of international
concern — subjects of real importance —
get little or no attention ; and if they are
taken up, they are often treated in such a
narrow, selfish way by the governments in-
terested that frequently for years they are
more and more confused by diplomatic sub-
tlety, until passion becomes hot, and the
nations are compelled, in order to get out
of the muddle, either to fight or to resort
at last to a little common sense. It is just
here that is found the strongest reason for
an over-state. These neglected interests,
gathering everywhere on the borders of
states as now organized, and interfering
128 The Federation of the World
with the normal development of the world
society which is so rapidly creating itself,
will as inevitably compel the establishment
of a general world government as did the
neglected mutual interests of the thirteen
American colonies force the setting up of
the United States general government, or
those of the German states the German
Empire.
Along what lines the movement toward
this general world government will take
place it is not easy to forecast, except in a
general way. Two or three courses are
open, any one or all of which may be fol-
lowed. The United States of America
may in time become really such. The very
name seems to be prophetic. Canada,
Mexico and Central America may some
day, of their own accord, ask to be admit-
ted into a federal union with the United
States. In time a great South American
republic of republics may be formed,
through some movement or groups of move-
ments akin to that already taking place
The Federation of the World 129
among the Central American states 1 and
the British Australian colonies. Then may
follow a federation of the two American con-
tinents. The United States of Europe, so
long dreamed of and written of by European
reformers, 2 seems to-day but the shadow of
a name; but whoever remembers the his-
tory of the consolidation of France, or Italy,
or Germany, or the still more remarkable
history of the consolidation of the Swiss
cantons composed of peoples of different
races, speaking different languages, into a
coherent national federation, will not say
that a United States of Europe is an im-
possibility. On the contrary, the whole
course of the modern history of nation-
building foreshadows a European federa-
1 This movement among the Central American states
has never come to anything permanent. It is to be
hoped that the present (1907) movement for settled
peace among them may prove effective.
2 The late Charles Lemonnier of Paris, president for
many years of the International League of Peace and
Liberty, was one of the chief promoters of the idea of a
United States of Europe.
ijo The Federation of the World
tion. The continent of Asia may some
day have a like transformation ; and that of
Africa, too, renewed at last by a Christian
civilization ; and that of Australia before
either of them, if one may judge from the
federative tendencies already showing them-
selves between the colonies there.
If this should prove to be the way in
which the world state is to work itself out,
the islands of the sea will group themselves
in with the continental federations where
they naturally belong. At last these con-
tinental federations will flow together into
a great world federation, the final political
destiny of humanity, where all the larger
hopes of love and fellowship, of peace and
happy prosperity lie.
I do not pretend to assert that the actual
order of movement will be as here outlined,
but only that this is a possible, perhaps a
probable order in which the federation of
the world will come, at least in part. This
forecast is in harmony with actual historic
processes now working, and having for gen-
The Federation of the World 131
erations worked, at several points in civi-
lized society.
Another course is possible. A great ra-
cial federation, as of the Anglo-Saxon peo-
ple, may come first, with its centres of
agglomeration in all parts of the world,
which will gather to itself by an irresistible
moral gravitation all other peoples. Racial
federation^is_already playing its part very
powerfully in the processes of civilization.
Several races, it is true, are exhibiting, in
greater or less degree, kindred phenomena.
But racial distinctions are in many respects n
beginning to break down, because of the /
intermingling of peoples in all quarters of j
the globe. What may be styled the unij
versal human characteristics, those belong-
ing to the one race of man lying at the
basis of all sub-races, are destined thus
more and more to come to the front as
against those which have marked off one
portion of mankind from another. That
race, whichever it may prove to be, which
develops these general human characteris-
132 The Federation of the World
tics most fully and most rapidly, and throws
off most completely all that is adventitious
and unessential, will, in the nature of the
1^ case, prove to be the nucleus or furnish the
nuclei about which civilization in all parts
of the world will crystallize. Men will not
care at last by what racial name they are
called, or what language they speak, pro-
vided their highest interests of every kind
/are served. They will feel it more noble
[ to be men and to speak the one universal
I language of men than to be Englishmen or
\Germans or Frenchmen, and to speak any
pf these great tongues. Whatever race
shall prove itself fittest to lead in this fed-
erative process, whether the Anglo-Saxon,
as now seems possible, or some other, will
\ itself be modified, purified and strength-
ened for its work as the final world race
I by what it receives from the races which it
draws to itself, and even from those which
through weakness shall finally be eliminated.
The objections which may be brought,
from the point of view of climate, against
The Federation of the World 133
the possibility of a world race, with more uni-
formity of characteristics than is found in
the races as they now exist, are not so seri-
ous as might at first glance be supposed.
The ease and rapidity with which men now
travel, the expansion of ocean traffic, — one
might almost say of ocean habitation, — and
the growing habit, on the part of multi-
tudes of families, of living a part of the
time in one quarter of the globe and a part
in another, make it at least not inconceiv-
able that the time may come when there
shall be much less difference in vigor and
enterprise between the inhabitants of the
tropics and of the temperate zones than
there is to-day. Climate itself is probably
in this indirect way to be one of the con-
quests of the coming humanity. Men will
come more and more to be inhabitants
of all the climates, shifting their abodes
quickly from place to place, living on the
seas, as an increasing number now do, and
thus getting the best out of all parts of the
world, while escaping with increasing cer-
VI
to
134 The Federation of the World
tainty the weakening influences of any par-
ticular part. It is doubtless true, as Mr.
Kidd argues, 1 that for a long time to come
the tropics will have to be developed and
in some manner and measure controlled by
the people inhabiting the temperate regions.
But it is difficult to believe that the rich
tropical regions are always to be vassal,
that their inhabitants are to remain per-
manently incapable of self -development and
self-control. The new world race which is
in process of building, by transformation,
absorption and elimination, will make the
matter of the inhabitancy and self-develop-
ment and control of the tropics very dif-
ferent from what it is to-day.
It is scarcely necessary to state that this
process of racial expansion, absorption and
federation will, if it goes to the extent
• which now seems probable, result ultimately
[ in the selection or creation of a single lan-
guage for universal use. Even now the
1 See his recently published book, The Control of the
Tropics.
The Federation of the World 1 35
growing intercourse of different peoples is
forcing upon attention the necessity of a
universal language, and various schemes for
the creation or selection of a language for
universal use have been devised. But a
universal language cannot be artificially
created ; it presupposes and requires a uni-
versal people.
The process of racial federation here out-
lined seems to me likely to play even a
more important part in the development of
the world state than that of simple geo-
graphical federation, though both are quite
certain to work together.
It is not unlikely that the process of fed-
eration, whether it go on in one or both of
the ways above indicated, will for some
time to come not be entirely unattended
by the incidents of war. One could wish
that it might be otherwise. The federative /
forces and processes are in their nature /
pacific and opposed to the methods of war.
They will ultimately make war impossible.
But in the present confused movements of
136 The Federation of the World
society, in the actual relations of nations,
small and great, weak and strong, to one
another, there is so much of ambition and
animosity, so much of ignorance and short-
sightedness, intermingled with the opera-
tions of the elements of good, that progress
toward social and political unity is sure to
be attended with more or less clashing and
discord. But whatever compacting and
unifying of peoples and sections of the
earth is seemingly brought about by the
agency of war is really not due to it at
all, but to the federative elements in men
and society which work out their ends in
some measure in spite of war and in the
very midst of the disasters which it pro-
duces. If these federative forces were not
present war would always be disintegrating,
or if it produced unity at all, it would be
he unity of death and of slavery, whose
evil effects would have to be repaired be-
fore any real social progress could be made.
No one ought, therefore, to be blinded as
to the real nature of war because of its
The Federation of the World 137
seemingly beneficent agency in working
out, in certain cases, the desired unity of
peoples and sections of the earth.
An international state presupposes in-
ternational citizenship. At first thought)
such a thing might seem impracticable]
But if one can be a citizen of Pennsylvania
and of the United States at the same timeA
and enjoy the privileges and feel the sacred
obligations of both, why might he not just
as easily be a citizen of a world state and
of some particular nation simultaneously?
The elements of an international citizen-
ship already exist. People of different na-
tions not only travel everywhere, but stop
and live, own property and do business, pay
taxes and submit to authority, among all
other peoples. They retain the rights of
citizens at home, and expect and receive
most of the rights of citizenship among
other peoples. Considerable numbers of
these, though not expatriating themselves,
never return to the country of their formal
citizenship. The principle is now recog-
/ $8 The Federation of the World
nized practically everywhere that a man
has the right to live anywhere he wishes
on the surface of the planet, to keep his
local, citizenship where he wants it, and
at the same time to enjoy all the rights,
privileges and immunities of local citizen-
ship where he resides, except governmental
rights in constitutional countries. All this
development of international rights and
privileges in our day points to a time not
very far in the future when men shall liter-
ally be citizens of the world, and a world
government suitable to the needs of world
citizenship shall be set up for them.
Along with this international citizenship,
the beginnings of an international or world
government already exist, — legislative, ex-
Secutive, judicial, — in a decidedly chaotic
state, it is true, but with signs of coming or-
der. During the past century over one hun-
dred international congresses met to deter-
mine certain questions of common interest,
as the Congress of Vienna at the close of
the Napoleonic campaigns, the Congress of
The Federation of the World i$g
Paris after the Crimean war, the Congress
of Berlin at the close of the Russo-Turkish
conflict, and the Congress of Brussels to
regulate certain interests in Africa. The
Brussels Congress was a great development
in humanity over that of Vienna, and even
over the two intervening ones. Why should
not such a congress, as Professor John
Fiske has recently suggested, 1 meet fre-
quently in the future, ultimately become a
congress of all nations, and finally meet at
stated times — say once in five or seven
years — and in a fixed place or places ?
There is nothing irrational or impossible
in the supposition, and the trend of affairs
is certainly in that direction.
The idea of a congress of nations was a
favorite one with the early advocates of
peace, and was thoroughly elaborated by
them. 2 Along with it went the idea of a
high court of nations. Such a court is
1 See Mr. Fiske's article on " The Arbitration Treaty "
in The Atlantic Monthly for February, 1897.
2 Essay on a Congress of Nations, by William Ladd.
140 The Federation of the World
-
already partly evolved out of the arbitra-
tion tribunals and temporary international
commissions which have been constituted
for the settlement of various questions
raised in the course of modern international
intercourse. The high court of nations will
become a fixed world-institution before a
congress of nations comes to meet regu-
larly. The judiciary is becoming more and
I more influential in our time, and is already,
as is known, leading the way in the creation
\ / \ of the great international organization of
which I am speaking. The various con-
gresses and conferences which are now
annually held to promote the cause of uni-
versal peace have laid particular emphasis
upon the idea of a permanent international
tribunal of arbitration to take the place of
the temporary tribunals constituted for the
adjustment of differences as they arise.
The action of the nations at the first
Hague Conference, of which more will
be said in subsequent chapters, has al-
ready put the court of nations in advance of
The Federation of the World 141
the congress of nations, though the latter is
now urged with increasing emphasis as the
necessary counterpart of the former.
Among the beginnings of an interna-
tional government may also be mentioned
the generally recognized principles of inter- v^
national law, 1 the treaties of commerce now
so numerous and important, the postal and
telegraph unions in which many nations
participate, and the modern diplomatic and
consular service which binds all nations
together in real political bonds. It is an
actual fact of present international politics
that every nation — every civilized nation
at any rate — assists in governing, and is
in turn partially governed by, every other
nation, either directly through resident di-
plomacy, or indirectly through the power of
collective public opinion expressing itself in
1 See J. K. Bluntschli's Die Bedeutung und die Fort-
schritte des modemen Volkerrechts. See, also, the recent
work of Professor T. J. Lawrence, The Principles of In-
ternational Law. All the recent works on international""")
law give more or less attention to the subject of peace /
and the means of maintaining it. ^*
142 The Federation of the World
the rules of international law or in various
forms of concerted international activity for
what is supposed to be the common good.
There is much that is crude and selfish,
and not a little that is inhuman and cruel,
in this incipient international government
as we now see it evolving; but there is
also something that is in the truest sense
humane and Christian, and this latter is
clearly increasing with the passing of each
a decade. The public opinion of the world
society, as it is now capable of expressing
\ itself with such swiftness and concentra-
tion, is sure to force the cruel and the
unjust more and more into the background
and to establish the good and the helpful.
At first thought, the management of a
world government might seem to be at-
tended with insuperable difficulties, because
of the extent of territory over which its
administration would extend and the great
variety of national character and institu-
tions with which it might supposedly have
to deal. But really, with our present means
The Federation of the World 14}
of rapid travel and practically instantaneous
communication by telegraph and cable, the
management of such a government from a
single centre would be much easier than it
was fifty years ago to govern Ohio from
Washington, or the north of England from
London. Its administration would also be
comparatively easy because its jurisdiction
would be limited to a few great subjects
of universal character, all purely national
affairs being managed as now by the re-
spective nations in the exercise of their
local sovereignty. It is no more difficult to
administer the government of the United
States than it is that of the State of Penn-
sylvania or of Ohio, and less so than it is
that of a great complex, compact munici-
pality like the city of New York or Chi-
cago. The farther removed government is
from the entanglements and friction of con-
flicting local interests and the more it deals
only with matters of wide general interest,
the easier its administration becomes. For
these reasons it does not seem irrational
144 Tbe Federation of the World
to suppose that a world government might
prove in practice the easiest of all govern-
ments to administer, at least from the point
of view of these objections.
As to the enforcement of the legal en-
actments of the world government, little
difficulty might be expected. An interna-
tional police is certainly not impossible, if
it should ever be needed to enforce the
decrees of a congress of nations. Such a
state as we are supposing will not, how-
ever, be established until arbitration gener-
ally prevails and war is practically a thing
"' of the past. Law will then need few, if
any, sanctions, and force will play a very
small part in its execution. The sense of
yU / honor and loyalty to right will prove amply
sufficient to secure obedience. ' The chief
functions of the government of the world
state will be legislative and judicial, and its
executive duties will be largely those of
simple direction and guidance rather than
of compulsion.
With the setting up of this world state,
The Federation of the World 145
whose establishment is demanded by the
as yet unfulfilled destiny of the race and
clearly indicated by the progress of society,
the peace of the world, so far as that
means the cessation of war, will be forever
sealed. International chaos and anarchy,
as they now so deplorably exist, will have
passed away. Many of the vexatious ques-
tions with which national governments now
have to deal, arising as they do from inter-
national complications, will disappear. Na-
tional governments, like our present state
governments, will then make it their busi-
ness to care for and promote the national
interests — the real interests of the people
— and not to meddle with the affairs of
other peoples, which is now considered in
some countries the chief mark of states-
manship. The general effect of all this
in the further promotion of industrial and
social prosperity and peace, of education
and religion, will be magical. The whole
of human society will feel at all points a
thrill of new life and hope. Reason, con
h^
146 The Federation of the World
science and law will be enthroned. Love
and goodwill will then be considered strong
and worthy motives, as is none too fre-
quently the case now.
Such an organization will not mean the
stagnation or the end of civilization. On
the contrary, it is the presupposition of a
civilization which shall be truly human and
Christian, and hence vigorous and strong.
The thought, the energy, the material
wealth, now consumed in destructive rivalry
will be turned into beneficent cooperative
enterprises, and the earth will for the first
time in its history really begin to " blossom
\ like the garden of the Lord." Above all,
the spirits of men, delivered from the bond-
age of hate and fear, from which but few
anywhere under present conditions wholly
escape, will be free to enter into each
other's thoughts, purposes and attainments,
in a spontaneous, natural way, which will
make of the whole race a wise, strong,
prosperous and happy brotherhood, such
as we have so far seen in but small por-
The Federation of the World 147
tions of it. The end of the reign of inter-
national hate, — the beginning of the reign
of universal brotherhood, — who can mea-
sure either its spiritual or its material sig-
nificance ?
I do not delude myself into supposing
that such a state of states as that here in-
dicated can be artificially created, as the
French philosophers would have constructed
off-hand their social compact. 1 States grow
before they are made. Their formal con-
stitution, if they are to be anything more
than temporary structures, is the last act
in a drama extending over long periods. So
will it be with the federation of the world
in an international state. What leads me
to believe that such a federation is com-
paratively near is that the forces and pro-
cesses which are evolving it have been long
working, and that in recent years the pro^
ducts of their working — swift, uniform and
well-nigh universal — have become so man-
1 Du conirat social^ ou principes du droit politique^ by
J. J. Rousseau.
148 The Federation of the World
/if est and so numerous that the significance
\ of it all cannot be mistaken. When the
wheat is knee-high in the field one is justi-
fied in believing that the harvest time will
come soon, unless the course of nature goes
awry. The great idea of a world federation
in some form has gotten clearly into men's
minds. It is too powerful, too attractive
and inspiring, to be resisted. It appeals,
both on the material and the spiritual side,
to the deepest needs and to the loftiest
hopes of the race. All obstacles to its
realization will be broken down, if not to-
morrow, then afterwards. How soon, will
depend largely on the purpose, the intel-
ligence, the heart, which those already pos-
sessed of the great idea shall put into the
work of reconstructing and reorganizing
humanity on a world basis. War, with its
desolations and incredible follies, may still
sweep over portions of the earth while the
demons of distrust and violence are being
least out. But its days are nearly numbered.
'Its glory is fast turning to shame. It is
The Federation of the World 149
everywhere on the defensive. The great
federative movement, which has been gath-
ering strength for nearly twice a thousand
years of Christian progress, — nay, in whose
pulses is beating the growing life of all the
human ages, — will peacefully occupy the
places of ruins left of war, and will build at
last a temple and city of concord for the
whole earth, within whose holy gates the
noise of battle shall never be heard.
Tennyson's dream will then be more than
realized ; there will be no longer any battle-
flags to furl.
XI
The First Hague Peace Conference
HE International Peace Conference
called by the Czar of Russia, and
looked forward to with so much
interest and solicitude when the first edition
of this book was published, met at The
Hague on the 18th of May, 1899, and con-
tinued in session till the 29th of July.
Twenty-four independent nations and two
semi-independent ones were represented in
the Conference. All the European nations,
twenty in number, two from North America
and four from Asia, sent delegates. Only
those which had diplomatic representatives
at St. Petersburg had been invited. These
did not include the states of South and
Central America.
The twenty-six nations represented, with
The Federation of the World 151
their dependencies in Asia, Africa, Aus-
tralia, North and South America and the
oceans, contain over twelve hundred mil-
lions of people, or more than four fifths of
the population of the globe. Territorially,
not much less than five sixths of the earth's
surface was represented. The whole of
Europe, the whole of North America, prac-
tically the whole of Asia, the Australian
continent, most of Africa and of the islands
of the sea participated, by direct or indirect
representation, in this unique gathering.
Only South and Central America and a fewS
small sections of territory elsewhere had ( /
no share in it. It was, therefore, both inj
point of populations and of territory repre-
sented, much more nearly a world-confer-
ence than ever before gathered in human
history.
Looked at from the point of view of
language, the gathering was no less re-
markable. No such array of tongues ever
came together before since the differen-
tiation of human speech began. Though
I
752 The Federation of the World
French was the official language of the de-
liberations, the delegates spoke, as their
native tongues, no less than twenty different
languages. One might have heard at The
Hague English, French, German, Spanish,
Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Jap-
anese, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish,
Greek, Turkish, Roumanian, Bulgarian, Ser-
vian, Hungarian, Polish, Persian, Siamese
and possibly Arabic. These languages are
the vehicles of the science, the art, the lit-
erature, the commercial transactions, the
political wisdom, the religious life and
thought of the entire modern world. Those
not in this list, with one or two exceptions,
stand for almost nothing in the permanent
growing life of the world.
From another kindred point of view the
character of the Conference was no less
significant. The men of which it was com-
posed were among the most eminent public
men of the time. More than thirty of them
were actual ambassadors or ministers pleni-
potentiary of their governments to foreign
The Federation of the World 15;
courts, the men who constitute the most
powerful political tie binding the nations
together into the incipient international
government to which reference has been
made in a previous chapter. The cities at
which these embassies and ministries were
located include all the great capitals of the
civilized world, — those which dictate the
policies and control the political and eco-
nomic destinies of men under every sky, —
Washington, London, Paris, St. Petersburg,
Berlin, Rome, Vienna ; and a number of the
important smaller capitals, as The Hague,
Brussels, Copenhagen, Berne, etc. Among
the delegates were eminent educators from
both hemispheres, distinguished students
and expounders of international law, capable
and experienced jurists, eminent cabinet
officers, senators and representatives, mili-
tary and naval experts of the first rank.
This body of public men might doubtless
have been duplicated in ability, experience
and fitness, but it could not probably have
been surpassed by an equal number from
f)
154 The Federation of the World
among living statesmen and publicists.
Many of these men, particularly the leaders
in the Conference, were of an exceptionally
high moral order and eminently progressive
in their ideas, representing political human-
ity, not as it is only, but as it ought to be
and gives promise of being. Practical men
though they were, a fine idealism lay at the
heart of all their efforts and saved them
from the dreary rounds of a merely formal
finessing diplomacy. There were dusty
conservatives among them, but they were
few and not very active.
All that is highest, best and most pro-
mising, therefore, in modern civilization was
representatively present in this great inter-
national gathering. Some of the inferior
elements of the time, survivals of the past,
dead weights on the upward movement of
the world, were, to be sure, present; but
they counted for little in the active counsels
of the Conference and in its decisions.
What was done, was done in spite of them,
at least without their aid. But this element
The Federation of the World 155
was so small that it is hardly fair to men-
tion it at all. The outlook of the Confer-
j
ence was toward the future, and all that
was done, insignificant as some have skep-
tically thought it to be, was done in the
spirit of the coming time, of the brother- I uP(
hood, unity and cooperation of humanity.
From the foregoing points of view it is no
exaggeration to say that the Hague assem-
bly was the beginning of " the parliament
of man*" the first in what we are justified
in believing will be a series of world-councils,
through which humanity as a whole will
deliberate and decide, in the spirit of genu-
ine fraternity and unrestrained sympathy,
upon the questions of universal and perma-
nent interest to its well-being. How far
the Conference went in laying the founda- y
tions for "the federation of the world," in
the sense in which this has previously been
spoken of, will be seen further on.
After what has been said in previous
chapters, it is needless to dwell here more
than briefly on the causes which led to the
1 56 The Federation of the World
Hague meeting, though a clear view of their
nature is necessary for a proper understand-
ing of the relation of the Conference to the
future federation of the world. One must
get beyond the Czar's Rescript to find them.
This now famous document — which has
been ranked with Magna Charta, the De-
claration of Independence, and Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation, but which in
my judgment holds a unique place beyond
these and every other political paper prior
to its publication — had its origin in the
same sources as the Conference, of whose
work it was only the preliminary stage.
The Rescript was not an accident ; it was
not the product of a capricious emperor's
whim, nor of a nation's long-headed, schem-
ing ambition. Behind it were the accumu-
lated forces of centuries of Christian pro-
gress. Its origin in Russia and in the royal
family is not surprising to those acquainted
with the hereditary peace sentiments of the
family since the days of Alexander I, and
with the fact that the causes which made
The Federation of the World 757
such a conference inevitable had long been
working in Russia, some of them more
powerfully there than elsewhere, perhaps.
The Czar was only the mouth-piece — a
willing and highly praiseworthy mouth-
piece, of course — of longings, purposes
and movements of which he himself was
rather the product than the creator. The
need of Russia in this regard — a need
voiced in the utterances of Tolstoy and in
the great work of Mr. Bloch, " The Future
of War M — was the need of the whole civ-
ilized world. The honor of the Czar in
connection with the matter was that in him
and his nation, in spite of appearances to
the contrary, the movement of civilized
peoples towards relief from the curse of
militarism and towards fuller friendship,
larger sympathy, and completer and more
harmonious cooperation found the line of
least resistance. So great was the pressure
throughout the civilized world towards the
end which the Czar proclaimed as worthy
of the best efforts of the nations combined,
1 58 The Federation of the World
that when the Conference met his work was
practically done. The whole matter passed
at once beyond his control. While acknow-
ledging with profound respect the honor
due to the Russian emperor for his exalted
service, the Conference proceeded to do the
work which the world needed done, so far
as it could be accomplished at that time,
as if he had not been in existence. Called
to provide especially for putting a check
upon the ceaseless growth of armaments
and war-budgets, it proceeded, not to do
this at all directly, but to lay, in its provi-
sion for a permanent court of arbitration,
the political foundations of ultimate univer-
sal and permanent peace, without which the
best possible plan of disarmament, or even
of reduction of armaments, would not have
had the least chance of success.
These causes, which were operating pow-
erfully in all Christian lands, which moved
the Czar, which called the Conference into
existence and rallied to its support a pow-
erful public sentiment in many countries,
The Federation of the World i$g
which determined its spirit and controlled
its deliberations, have been sufficiently elu-
cidated in foregoing chapters. A mere re-
hearsal of the most prominent of them is all
that is necessary here. The development
of the Christian spirit throughout civilized
lands, the movement of missions into all
parts of the world, bearing the principles of
the Fatherhood of God and the divine kin-
ship of men, the development of the humane
spirit, the advancement of education, general
intelligence and ethical conceptions and sen-
timents constitute one group of these causes.
Another set is found in the growth and ex-
pansion of commerce, whose marvelous cos-
mopolitanism has united all the nations of
the earth in bonds on whose maintenance
depend not only many of the higher refine-
ments, but the very life itself of multitudes ;
the national and international movements
for the improvement of industrial condi-
tions ; and the extended and intricate mon-
etary and credit systems of the business
world. We find still another group in
160 The Federation of the World
modern methods of travel and intercommu-
nication, by which all parts of the world, all
the doings and happenings of men, all the
characteristics, customs and institutions of
peoples are brought into constant, immedi-
ate, in many cases almost instant, contact
with one another. The transformation of
political ideas and institutions, the progress
of the sense of justice and human rights, of
democratic government and the consequent
enlarged sympathy between nationalities,
furnish a fourth group. A fifth set of
causes reveal themselves in the interna-
tional congresses political, religious, com-
mercial, scientific, historical, philological,
philanthropic, etc., which constitute such a
marked feature of the modern world. A
sixth group is seen in the system of modern
"''diplomacy, with its ministries crossing and
intercrossing between the capitals of all
sovereign states. A last group — not to
pursue the enumeration further — is found
in the various organizations and lines of ef-
fort for the direct promotion of the cause of
The Federation of the World 161
international arbitration and peace. This
includes the work of the peace societies
and congresses, of the Interparliamentary
Union, of the International Law Association
and of many individuals and associations,
put forth to promote larger international
friendliness, the settlement of disputes by
temporary tribunals, the establishment of
treaties of arbitration and a permanent tri-
bunal. If one remembers all these groups
of causes, acting singly and combined, and
observes their swift and tremendous ac-
complishments, and then sets before his
eyes the monstrous obstacle with which
they have to contend, hanging like a para-
lyzing nightmare over the heart of the
world, — -the all-devouring militarism of the
day corrupting, consuming, threatening with
final moral, physical and political ruin the
whole race, — one finds little difficulty in
understanding the gathering of such a
world-assembly as that which met at The
Hague on the 18th of May, 1899.
Turning to the work of the Conference,
1 62 The Federation of the World
its spirit and its results, the strongest rea-
sons are found for magnifying its impor-
tance as a historic turniiig-poiiit in the uni-
* ( fixation of the world.
When the Conference met there was gen-
eral skepticism among its members as to
any useful results likely to come from its
deliberations. Worse than this, there was
a certain amount of levity on the part of
some delegates, as if the whole thing were
ar diplomatic joke. But all this was super-
^ficial and lasted but a day or two. When
the delegates came together, looked into
each other's faces, saw what manner of men
they were, began to think seriously of the
nature of the mission which had brought
them together, and learned from each other,
through the multitudinous messages and
memorials which poured in upon them, how
large a public interest in the Conference
was felt in all civilized lands, the levity and
skepticism vanished. Under the lead of
a few eminent men, — Hon. Andrew D.
White, Sir Julian Pauncefote, Mr. de Staal,
The Federation of the World 163
Mr. L6on Bourgeois, and Mr. Auguste
Beernaert, — men whose names will some
day outrank those of any of the great his-
toric leaders of military campaigns, the task
which had called them together began to
reveal its immense significance and was
taken seriously in hand.
In order to study critically the three
important subjects indicated in the Czar's
second circular, — the laws of war, reduc-
tion of armaments, and the pacific settle-
ment of international disputes, the Confer-
ence was divided into three sections, in
each of which every nation participating
was represented. No more faithful and
conscientious work was ever done by any
body of men than was done in these sec-
tions and their sub-committees during the
two months of critical study which they
gave to the subjects before them. There^
was no diplomatic finessing over green
tables, no disposition to evade the real
issues by a show of fine words and mean-
ingless formulas, no dodging of difficulties,
164 The Federation of the World
no effort to turn the Conference to other
ends than those for which it had assembled,
no admission to consideration of worthy ob-
jects with which it was not competent to
deal.
Not only was the Conference remarkable
for the practical, straightforward and con-
scientious way in which it did its work, but
the spirit of harmony and cooperation which
animated it was as fine as it was unexpected.
It would have been a credit to any national
assembly. There had been talk, on the eve
of the gathering, of cliques and rings and
political combinations, to take advantage of
the occasion for the accomplishment of cer-
tain national schemes. But none appeared.
The Conference moved as one body, ani-
mated with one spirit, from beginning to
end. The incident of the German opposi-
tion to any measure of obligatory arbitra-
tion was no real exception. The objection
/was made in an open and straightforward
way. The Conference met it in a consider-
ate and conciliatory spirit, and the result
The Federation of the World 165
was that, though the German delegation
had up to that time stood silent and aloof,
they afterwards fell into line and worked in
sympathy and harmony with the rest of the
body. There was no concealment of thought
among the delegates, no assumption of su-
periority by one over another, no lobbying
for position and precedence, no browbeat-
ing, no effort of the delegates of the great
nations to override those of the small. You
would not have suspected that Ambassador
De Staal, the distinguished president of the
Conference, was from a great power and
Mr. Beernaert of Belgium from one of the
smallest. National chauvinism, suspicion
and soreness were entirely absent. Paunce J
fote of England fraternized in the most in-
timate and sincere way with Bourgeois of
France. During all the earnest and long-
continued discussions, opinions were con-
siderately heard and mutually respected.
The one purpose which ruled the delibera-
tions was to find out how much could be
done, with th^ support of all the delegates,
166 The Federation of the World
towards the accomplishment of the objects
for which the Conference had been called.
The friendly relations between the dele-
gates grew stronger and stronger till the
very end.
It may be said that the occasion de-
manded just such a spirit as this. That is
true. But occasions often get disappointed.
Men in the best national assemblies some-
times so far forget the peaceful self-com-
posure demanded of them as to indulge
in throwing congressional reports and law
books at each other's heads. It is one
of the most remarkable things about the
Hague gathering that, notwithstanding the
jealousies and friction between several of
the powers represented, the spirit appropri-
ate to the occasion did not once break down
but grew in strength steadily till the close.
How shall we interpret this extraordinary
occurrence, where exactly the opposite had
been expected and prophesied ? We are
justified in believing, it seems to me, that
this lofty spirit was imperatively imposed
The Federation of the World 167
upon the Conference. It was a necessary-
public expression of the larger feeling of
unity and cooperation now so extensively
prevailing among the nations of the world,
in spite of the animosities and feuds in-
herited from the past. Are we wrong in
setting it down as a prophecy of the spirit ,
which shall one day prevail in all interna-
tional councils met to deliberate upon the
large common interests of the peoples of the
world, — a spirit which shall at last break
down all international prejudices, remove
the sting from all international differences
and thus make war forevermore impossi-
ble?
Passing to the practical results obtained
at The Hague, the foremost of them may be
set down as the Conference itself, the fact
that such a meeting was held and did some
notable work in a harmonious, cooperative
spirit. It was a unique gathering. No such
meeting had ever before been attempted in
the annals of man, — an official meeting of
statesmen from many lands, for the pure
1 68 The Federation of the World
purposes of peace. Men derided the Czar
as a foolish dreamer, and said that it could
not be done, that it was foredoomed to fail-
ure. These powers, with their ambitions,
their historic dislikes, their mutual distrust,
their great armies massed against one an-
other, could not possibly send together a
lot of men who would not quarrel and break
up in confusion, and make the world more
distracted than before. But the thing
which the skeptics said could not be done
was done, with most marked success. It
has thus been proved that, in spite of their
dislike and fear of one another, the nations
can come together in the spirit of men and
brothers and discuss and decide upon great
and delicate questions of common concern.
The most difficult of all international deeds
has been done. What the nations have
found easy to do they are certain to do
again, and out of the Hague Conference is
sure to come, as many of the delegates
believed, a series of similar conferences
constituting an entirely new era in the
The Federation of the World i6g
management of international affairs. This
is an attainment of the first magnitude. If
the Conference had done nothing beyond
this, it would have abundantly justified it-
self and done much toward the ultimate
unification of the world.
Of the three measures agreed upon by
the Conference the least important, at first
sight, would seem to be that which gives a
new and improved statement of the laws
and customs of war. It has been often /
said, with perfect truth, not only by the
advocates of peace but by the foremost
military men themselves, that war is es-
sentially cruel and infernal and that it can-
not be civilized and humanized. Two
things, however, may be said in behalf of
what is called humanizing war. First, it
is the result of international cooperation.
Now, international cooperation for the re-
striction, in any measure, of a recognized
evil is a very valuable thing. It brings the
whole body of international thought and
public opinion to bear upon the evil, and
lyo The Federation of the World
under the searchlight of this united opinion
the evil is sure to pass more and more into
disfavor. It is in this way that much of
the opposition to war itself as an inhuman
and irrational method of settling disputes
has grown up. It is a most instructive his-
torical fact that the whole body of modern
international law grew out of the great work
of Hugo Grotius on the law of war and
of peace (Be Jure Belli ac Pads), a work
written, not to oppose war in itself, but its
side excesses, its unnecessary cruelties and
the rashness and morbid eagerness with
which it was entered into by the princes of
his time. When Grotius wrote his book,
war was a game of which there were no
rules. There were no limits to the excesses
of soldiers off the field of battle, and none
to the extent to which any conflict might
-"spread. To-day wars do not often spread
beyond the parties to the dispute. The
nations form a cordon around them and
keep the bloody business within the ropes.
Prisoners are no longer, save in excep-
The Federation of the World 171
tional cases, mercilessly abused and killed.
Non-combatants are respected, and many
shocking evils, once of e very-day occur-
rence, are almost unknown. International
cooperation in restricting war and cutting
off many of its attendant cruelties and suf-
ferings has created an international con-
science in regard to these things, without
the pressure of which we should have had,
with modern perfection of instruments of
death, a series of great conflicts attended
with every variety of horror, which would
have left the civilized lands a "howling
wilderness." The Hague Convention, fur-
ther enlarging and more clearly defining
the restrictions now imposed upon com-
batants, may be expected to carry this hu-
mane movement still farther, bearing with
it an ever-increasing dread of and moral
revulsion from the battlefield itself, whose
cruel, ghastly, loathsome nature can never
be changed until it ceases to be.
The other value of what is called human-
izing war is that this process carries the
iy2 The Federation of the World
sentiments and practice of kindness and
mercy nearer to the heart of the evil. It
is out of the prevalence of these senti-
ments in the hearts and practices of men
that the abolition of war must ultimately
come, if it ever comes. Whatever, there-
fore, enlarges the practical sphere of social
kindness and tenderness, even though it be
on the borders of the conscience-deadening
battlefield, will cause society in general to
look with increasing horror and intolerance
on the slaughter and fury of battle, in
which is found not a single element of
humanity and mercy.
The Convention providing for the exten-
sion of the work of the Red Cross societies
to maritime warfare needs little comment.
All that has been said of the. Convention
in regard to the laws of war is applicable
with much greater force to this; for the
work of the Red Cross is one of pure
mercy. Besides, a maritime Red Cross
is the logical completion of that provided
for in the Geneva Convention of 1864 in
The Federation of the World 173
connection with land warfare. Before the
Hague Conference, Red Cross work had
already been done in connection with some
naval battles under the general provisions
of the Geneva Convention. Though the
Conference did not break new ground in
this direction, it did a very great service by
providing for the official extension of this
humane institution from the land surface of
the globe to the three times greater water
surface, on which probably most of the
battles of the future will be fought.
On the subject of reduction of arma-
ments, the chief object for which the Con-
ference was called, nothing directly was '
done. The matter did not even come to
serious discussion. Many of the members,
and some entire delegations, felt deeply
that something ought to be done for the
relief of Europe. But when the subject
was brought forward by Mr. De Staal, on
behalf of Russia, Germany immediately
opposed. The sentiment in favor of action
was so weak in other prominent delegations,
IJ4 The Federation of the World
and the general feeling so strong that pub-
lic sentiment in the nations would not sup-
port any effective measure, that the subject
was dropped. But by the manner in which
it was dropped the Conference went a long
way in preparing the ground for future
action. A resolution was introduced by
the first delegate from France, Mr. Bour-
geois, and unanimously adopted, declaring
it to be the judgment of the Conference
" that the limitation of the military charges
resting upon the world is greatly to be de-
sired, for the increase of the material and
moral well-being of humanity." This reso-
lution was a corporate condemnation of the
present system of "bloated armaments/'
whose private condemnation had already
become deep and widespread among the
peoples. When a great public evil is thus
publicly condemned by a representative
body of men acting officially, the evil is
doomed, however far off may be the day
>, v when it shall be put on the scaffold.
Besides their doubt about the support of
The Federation of the World 175
the governments and public opinion at
home, many members of the Conference
felt that any scheme of reduction of arma-
ments would be sure to fail unless there
were first in successful operation a well-
devised system of settling international
controversies by peaceful means. For this
reason, as well as for its own sake, they set
themselves so earnestly to prepare a scheme
for a permanent international court of ar-
bitration. In addition to laying the corner-
stone of future disarmament in the drafting
of this great scheme, the Conference also
did something more in the same direction.
It declared itself in favor of the prohibi-
tion of the dropping of projectiles and ex-
plosives from balloons, of the employment
of projectiles designed to emit asphyxiat-
ing gases, and of the use of explosive or
expansive bullets ; only the United States /
and Great Britain failing to record their j
votes in favor of the last two prohibitions.
The Conference did, therefore, much to-
ward preparing the way for disarmament,
ij6 The Federation of the World
the necessity of which is felt more and
more powerfully each year in Europe.
Much the most important of the three
conventions drawn up by the Conference
was that providing for the pacific settle-
ment of international controversies by
means of commissions of inquiry, media-
tion and a permanent court of arbitration.
Around this centred the interest of the
Conference. The delegates felt that pub-
lic sentiment was ripe for action in this
direction. Numerous messages came to
them from all quarters of the civilized
world. They had before them the suc-
cessful issue of more than a hundred im-
portant arbitrations. The development of
international relations and international
law had prepared the way for action. Four
of the great powers represented — the
United States, Great Britain, Russia, and
Italy — brought with them well-digested
plans for a general arbitration convention.
There was no way of escape from the duty
pressed home to the Conference from all
The Federation of the World lyy
sides. No attempt was made to escape it,
unless possibly the action of the German
delegation in the early part of the Confer-
ence may be called such. The subject was
taken up with an interest and zeal which
surprised even the most ardent advocates
of peace. There was no contest in getting
it forward. Not a speech was made in
opposition. There was no fear of going
beyond what the governments and peoples
at home would support. For two months,
day after day, the subject was wrestled
with by the ablest men of the Conference
— experienced diplomats, experts in inter-
national law, jurists of large legal experi-
ence. The result was a document which
must always hereafter be considered as thef
Magna Charta of the <6ew internationalism ^ \
of peace, the reign of love and law, which
is to take the place of the spirit of hate
and the method of " blood and iron."
It has been charged that the members of
the Conference, finding that nothing could
be done in the way of disarmament,' and
/ 78 The Federation of the World
feeling that they must not totally disap-
point those at home who were expecting
so much of them, in sheer desperation fell
upon the subject of arbitration. No greater
freak of fancy than this was ever recorded.
/ Arbitration came to the front at The Hague
v_because it belonged there. After a century
of the most unqualified success in the ad-
justment of many and perplexing disputes
it came to the Conference to have the
crown of the world's public approbation of-
ficially set upon its head. And the setting
of this crown in the form of a permanent
court of arbitration was as serious and
devout a political proceeding as any page
of history can show.
A brief examination of the principal fea-
tures of this great scheme will give us a
right conception of the influence which it
is likely to have in diminishing resort to
war and in promoting larger international
trust and fellowship.
The first part of the convention provides
for mediation. The powers entering into
The Federation of the World iyg
the treaty agree that in case of grave dif-
ference of opinion they will, before appeal-
ing to arms, have recourse, as far as cir-
cumstances permit, to the good offices or
mediation of one or more powers. The
form recommended is that each of the dis-
puting states shall choose one power, and
the two powers so chosen shall have charge
for thirty days, unless some other time is
specially agreed upon, of the matter in
dispute, with a view to amicable arrange-
ment. Provision is also made that powers
not interested in the dispute may offer their
good offices, even during the course of hos-
tilities, and that the exercise of this right
shall never be considered by either of the
disputants as an unfriendly act.
The theory of this scheme of mediation
is that time for cool deliberation is of the
utmost importance in the case of serious
differences, and that disinterested powers
are much more likely to find a way of
honorable compromise than those directly
concerned. Mediation at the request of
L^
1 80 The Federation of the World
contending states is already a well-known
practice in international relations. This
scheme greatly extends its scope. It makes
mediation possible before the outbreak of
hostilities, and also on the initiative of
neutral states. It puts every nation enter-
ing into the convention under the friendly
eye and consideration of all the other
nations. Its adoption is a solemn public
declaration by the nations jointly that they
are a family, and that every dispute between
two of them is in some measure the concern
of every other member of the family. The
recommendations of the mediating powers
e to have no compulsory force, but it is
not likely that disputing states asking for
mediation or consenting to it would ever
reject the friendly counsel given. The
sense of honor would be sufficient to secure
their assent, just as it has secured the
acceptance of the judgments rendered by
courts of arbitration for more than a hun-
dred years. To what extent the nations
will resort to mediation under this conven-
The Federation of the World 181
tion only time can determine. The lessons
of history, the sense of obligation imposed
by the adoption of the convention, and the
increasing complexity of international rela-
tions make it fairly certain that the scheme
will not long remain unused.
The second part of the convention pro-
vides for joint commissions of inquiry, in
less serious cases, where disputes arise from
divergence of opinion as to matters of fact.
These commissions are to make an impar-
tial and conscientious examination of the
facts in the case, and report the result of
their investigations to the governments in-
terested. Here their work ends. The value
of such preliminary investigation, before an
attempt is made to arrive at agreement, can-
not be overestimated. Misunderstanding as
to facts often creates irritation and bitter-
ness for which there is no ground whatever,
and many wars have resulted from just
such an irrational state. of affairs. Once
take time fq£ coolyand deliberate inquiry,
and clear up all questions of fact, as these
1 82 The Federation of the World
commissions would be expected to do, and
more than half the supposed causes, not of
war only but also of senseless contention
and railing, would be swept entirely away.
The remainder of the convention deals
with the subject of arbitral justice and the
permanent international court of arbitration.
Here the Conference did its real work, —
the work which will give it its high place
of honor in coming time, the work which
opens a new era in the history of humanity.
The convention provides that each of the
nations entering into the agreement shall
appoint, as members of the court for a term
of six years subject to.reelection, not more
than four persons of recognized competency
in dealing with questions of international
law and of the highest moral reputation.
From this body of men, always in existence,
always studying and developing international
law, always having before them the class of
questions about which differences between
nations arise, shall be chosen a certain
number to act as arbitrators whenever two
The Federation of the World 183
governments wish to refer a controversy to
the court. Except in case of special agree-
ment the number to be chosen is five, two
by each of the powers and an umpire by
these. A bureau of the court is established
at the Netherlands capital, which is to serve
as the office of record, and as the interme-
diary of all communications relating to the
sittings of the court. The convention also
provides for a permanent Council of Admin-
istration, to be composed of the diplomatic
representatives of the signatory powers ac-
credited to The Hague, and presided over
by the Netherlands Minister of Foreign
Affairs. This Council is to organize and
direct the bureau, to have the decision of
all administrative questions relating to the
working of the court, and to make a report
yearly to the governments of the work of
the court and of the expenses.
The use of the court by the signatory ^^
powers is to be entirely voluntary. Obli-A
gatory arbitration could not be reached by \ ~"
the Conference. But though resort to the
184 The Federation of the World
court is voluntary, it isv. morally certain
that nations which have of their own ac-
cord set up a tribunal of such high char-
acter, in which will be found the foremost
international jurists of the world, will from
the very beginning, in all ordinary cases,
make use of it, instead of creating tempo-
rary tribunals or running the risk of war.
As time goes on more and more important
and delicate cases will be carried before its
bar, and there is every reason to hope that
confidence in its ability and fairness will
ultimately become so great that its juris-
diction in international controversies will
become universal. The very existence of
the court will tend to lessen differences and
will make their settlement by diplomacy,
when they arise, much more certain.
This great scheme lifts arbitration, which
has already had a century of unbroken suc-
cess in an experimental way, to a position
of organized permanency in the realm of in-
ternational method. It extends potentially,
and in time we may hope will extend actu-
The Federation of the World 185
ally, the principles of reason and law to the |
whole realm of international affairs, where
heretofore has reigned so largely a chaos of
unreason and of violence. Through its pro-
vision for an international bureau and a per-
manent Council of Administration at The
Hague it virtually creates a capital of the
world. The position of minister to the
court of the Netherlands, involving mem-
bership in this Council, will hereafter be
considered of the highest order, and states-
men of the first rank will be chosen for it.
The Conference therefore did something
of much more value in its ultimate effects
upon the world than the creation of a per-
manent system for the adjustment of con-
troversies, or even than the extension of
law and reason to the whole realm of inter-
national affairs. It created a permanent
peace centre, through the Council which it
set up, and put the idea of peace in the
forefront as the supreme directing principle
in international relations. The men who
are sent to The Hague as ministers plenipo-
1 86 The Federation of the World
tentiary from the powers will through their
connection with the permanent court have
this idea always before them. From them
its influence must inevitably spread through
the whole sphere of diplomacy. Their an-
nual reports to their governments at home
will keep the subject fresh before the minds
of the peoples of the several countries. Men
will become accustomed to looking to this
centre of peaceful judicature during periods
of contention and passion, and the ultimate
effect in international life will be the same
as that which courts of law have produced
in the interior life of the separate nations,
— a state of general and durable peace,
where resort to war is now practically un-
known.
It is impossible except in these general
terms to trace the many and far-reaching
effects of this Convention for the Pacific
Settlement of International Controversies.
But through it one thing has become per-
fectly clear, namely, that the federation of
the world is no longer simply an ideal or a
The Federation of the World i8y .
rational deduction from processes of devel-
opment everywhere going on. The Hague
Conference resulting in this convention has
made it already in part a fact l .
1 The best book in English on the Conference and its
work is that by Frederick W. Holls, secretary of the
United States delegation, entitled The Peace Conference
at The Hague.
XII
The Hague Court and Recent Progress
toward World-Unity
HE setting up of the Hague Court,
the beginning of a permanent and
regular judicial order among the
nations, may justly be styled one of the
greatest events of history. This took place
something less than two years after the close
of the Conference. By April, 1901, some
sixteen of the signatory powers had ratified
the convention providing for the permanent
International Court of Arbitration, and ap-
pointed their members of the tribunal.
The Administrative Council, composed of
the ministers accredited to the Netherlands
government, organized at The Hague, es-
tablished the Bureau of the Court, as pro-
vided for in the convention, and the tribunal
was declared by the Netherlands Minister
The Federation of the World i8g
of Foreign Affairs to be duly constituted
and ready for business. Since that time
all of the signatory powers, except Turkey
and Montenegro, have ratified the conven-
tion and appointed members of the court.
Norway, also, since her separation from
Sweden, has named representatives in the
tribunal.
Contrary to the expectations of many, the
court was put into operation within a year
of the time when it was declared established,
whereas the United States Supreme Court
had to wait more than two years for its
first case. The governments of the United
States and of Mexico set the tribunal in
operation in 1902 by the reference to it of
the Pious Fund controversy. Since that
time the Japanese House -Tax case, the
Venezuela Preferential -Payment case and
the controversy between Great Britain and
France as to their respective treaty rights
in Muscat have been referred to the court
and adjudicated. In these settlements
most of the important powers of the world
A
igo The Federation of the World
have appeared before the court as litigants,
and thus the tribunal has been securely es-
tablished in the confidence of the nations.
The awards in these four cases were loyally
accepted by the governments against which
they were rendered. This was true even
in the Venezuela case, where the award was
severely criticised by many as seemingly
putting a premium on violence. 1
In another way, also, the International
Court has been strengthened in its prestige,
and its permanence rendered more sure.
Reference of disputes to it, under the Hague
convention, is voluntary only. Nothing
further than this could be accomplished in
1899, though a large number of govern-
ments were ready to go further. The sig-
natory powers assumed njrtreaty_Qbligations
to bring their controversies before the tri-
bunal, however strong their moral obliga-
1 As this chapter is going to press the United States
and Great Britain have reached an agreement to refer
to the Hague Court the whole Newfoundland fisheries
question.
The Federation of the World igi
tion, imposed by the creation of it, to use
it for the ends for which it had been es-
tablished. Almost immediately, therefore,
after its establishment a movement was
begun to secure treaties of obligatory arbi-
tration between the nations, stipulating re-
ference to the court of the disputes which
might arise between them. This move-
ment was really only the resumption, in a
modified form, of that which had been going
on for many years, and which had resulted
in the unratified Anglo-American treaty of
1897, and the similar one of the same year
between Italy and the Argentine Republic.
The setting up, in the meantime, of the
permanent Court of Arbitration had pre-
pared the way for the conclusion of such
treaties and made the work of securing them
much easier than it had been prior to 1899.
To this new appeal of the friends of peace,
supported by the great business organiza-
tions of the different countries, the govern-
ments responded with unexpected alacrity
and cordiality. Between December, 1899,
x/
V
ig2 The Federation of the World
I and the close of 1902 no less than fifteen
I treaties of obligatory arbitration were con-
cluded; namely, those between the Ameri-
can republics, including the Pan-American
conventions and the conventions concluded
between Spain and nine Latin-American
States, and the treaty between Mexico and
Persia. These fifteen treaties did not, how-
ever, pledge reference of disputes to the
Hague tribunal, as the South American
states were not parties to the convention
under which the court was set up. Great
Britain and France, who had been perilously
near to war over the Fashoda affair, and
whose business men, led by Dr. Thomas
Barclay, an ex-president of the British
Chamber of Commerce in Paris, had cre-
ated a powerful crusade among the cham-
bers of commerce and boards of trade
against the war excitement, took the lead
in this movement so far as the Hague Court
was concerned. On the fifteenth of Octo-
ber, 1903, a treaty of obligatory arbitration
was concluded to run for five years and
The Federation of the World ig$
to cover all disputes of a judicial nature
and those arising in the interpretation of
treaties. Following this initiative, other
treaties of the same type were quickly-
signed, and by October, 1907, no less than
forty-seven had been concluded, not to men-
tion the eleven signed by the late Secretary
Hay, which failed to go into effect because
of the disagreement between President
Roosevelt and the Senate as to their re-
spective prerogatives as parts of the treaty-
making power. Two of these treaties, the-"
Danish-Netherlands and the Danish-Italian,^
are without limitations. They refer all dis-
putes for all time to the Hague Court.
One of the most recent of these treaties, ^
that between Denmark and Portugal, is to
run for ten years, but is otherwise unlimited.
All of the nations of Western Europe have
become parties to some of these treaties
pledging reference of disputes to the Hague
Court. One regrets to have to record that
France and Germany, between whom the
ancient prejudice and animosity are clearly
194 The Federation of the World
beginning to break down, have not yet
reached a stage of friendly confidence where
a treaty of arbitration can be concluded
between them. But, with this exception,
the nations of Western Europe have bound
themselves together in a real bond of peace,
though of a temporary and limited charac-
ter.
It is not easy to appreciate the full force
of this series of conventions in its bearings
upon the future relations of the nations.
It reveals a new spirit, a new order of con-
duct among the governments. This new
disposition has already borne fruit in the
remarkable diplomatic agreement between
Great Britain and France for the settlement
by arbitration or otherwise of all their out-
standing differences, some of them very
old and stubborn. It has manifested itself
quite as impressively in the manner in
which the North Sea affair between Great
Britain and Russia was settled by an inter-
national commission of inquiry, as provided
by the Hague convention ; and even more
The Federation of the World 195
impressively still, if possible, in the pacific
settlement of the Moroccan controversy
between France and Germany (who had so
long stood apart in irreconcilable opposi-
tion) by the conference at Algeciras, in
which representatives of fourteen powers
took part.
The fact that no fresh controversies have
been settled by the Hague tribunal the
past two years, a fact that has occasioned
unfavorable comment, has its explanation in
this same direction. The new spirit that is
pervading international life not only leads
to pacific adjustment of controversies when
they arise, but it also operates to prevent
them. It makes diplomacy active in allay-
ing differences that might become serious.
In this way the number of misunderstand-
ings and disputes between the nations is
already unmistakably decreasing, and in
place of the former exclusiveness, recrimi-
nation and provocation of quarrels, a habit
of genuine respect, appreciation and sympa-
thetic association is rapidly forming. This
YS
J
/
J
ig6 The Federation of the World
has manifested itself among heads of gov-
ernments themselves and among statesmen,
not only in political ways, but also by inter-
national visits of a social order such as have
been unknown till recent years. That the
Hague Court, therefore, should pass a year
or two without being called upon to adjudi-
cate any international dispute ought not to
create any surprise. It is, on the contrary,
the most convincing proof that the arbitra-
tion movement, as a special phase of the
international peace movement, is nearing
its completion, and that the new spirit
which has accompanied and actuated its
development, is rapidly producing among
the nations that mutual respect and friendly
cooperation which will make arbitration
less and less necessary and possibly keep
the Hague Court itself much of the time
out of business. This would certainly not
be an undesirable state of affairs. Arbi-
tration of disputes is a most excellent thing,
but so to live as to have no disputes to ar-
bitrate and no differences which cannot be
\
The Federation of the World igy
easily adjusted by direct friendly conference
is a " more excellent way."
But more significant still than any of the
facts set forth above is the extraordinary
development of general public sentiment in
nearly all countries in favor of the speedy
completion of the system of pacific settle-
ment of disputes and of a closer unity and
fuller cooperation of the nations in the
treatment and disposition of the problems
which concern their common interests.
Since the Hague Conference of 1899 tne
proposition has been put forward in a prac-
tical way for the creation of a permanent
periodic conference or parliament of nations.
The unanimous action of the Massachu-
setts legislature in 1903 in this direction
has found large support in both the United
States and Europe among men of various /
callings. It has received the approval of
all the leading organizations that are word-
ing for international peace, — namely, the
International Peace Congress, the Interpar-
liamentary Union, the Mohonk Arbitration
, ig8 The Federation of the World
Conference, the National Peace congresses,
and of many important business, social, reli-
gious and philanthropic bodies. It has com-
mended itself to the judgment of men of
affairs, as well as to idealists, as an entirely
practicable scheme and absolutely neces-
sary at the present time for the strengthen-
ing and further advancement of civilization.
The many important intergovernmental
congresses and conferences held since the
Vienna Congress of 1815, 1 for the discus-
sion and settlement of problems of great
moment and urgency, have been aptly
pointed to as furnishing the unanswerable
argument for a regular international insti-
tution, in which these problems continu-
ally arising in the intercourse of nations
may have thorough and adequate treat-
ment.
The same intelligent sentiment which is
1 In an able article in the American Journal of Inter-
national Law for July 1907, Judge Baldwin, Chief Jus-
tice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, has pointed
out that there have been more than one hundred and
twenty of these conferences since 1826.
The Federation of the World igg
calling for this great step, the creation of
a world-assembly, is also demanding, even
more insistently, that the nations shall go
beyond what was done at The Hague in
1899 and enter into a general arbitration
convention under the terms of which they
shall solemnly bind themselves to refer to
the Hague Court for settlement disputes
which cannot be adjusted by diplomacy.
It may be said without exaggeration that
the voice of the civilized world is almost
unanimous at the present time in favor of
this important measure, which is necessary
as the logical completion of the Hague
Convention of 1 899.
Another feature of the more recent de-
velopment of the tendency towards inter-
national federation and cooperation for the
promotion of the general welfare of human-
ity is the demand for the permanent neu-
tralization of the private commerce of the
world. Nothing in our time is more note-
worthy than the vast expansion of inter-
national trade. In less than one hundred
2oo The Federation of the World
years it has grown from a volume valued
at $1,500,000,000 to an amount valued at
the colossal sum of $20,000,000,000. The
largest portion of this increase has been
within the past generation. At the same
time the conviction is deepening that this
commerce, on which so much of the common
people's welfare and happiness depends,
should be kept free from the disturbing
and ruinous influences of war, the very-
rumor of which in our complex social con-
ditions works such widespread havoc. The
demand is put forward both by men of
affairs and by broad-minded philanthro-
pists that the so-called " rights of bellige-
rents " shall be so limited that when two
governments engage in hostilities the rights
of private citizens throughout the world to
carry on the ordinary vocations unmolested
shall not be interfered with in any serious
way. The United States government has
long held that all unoffending private pro-
perty at sea should be exempt from capture
in time of war. The Massachusetts State
The Federation of the World 201
Board of Trade has recently gone so far as
to urge that the great trade routes of the
ocean themselves should to this end be per-
manently neutralized. This growing con-"'
sideration and respect for the rights and
liberties of the masses of the people, for
the promotion of which rather than for
their own sake governments are now gen-
erally conceived to have their raison d'etre >
is the surest proof that war is to be ultfc"
mately eliminated from human society and
that the parts of the world are more and /
more to live and think and move together
as they have not done in the past. Even/
the unfortunate wars which have occurred
since the Hague Conference of 1899 —
w r ars whose roots went far back into the
past and cannot with any fairness be turned
into a reproach of the Hague institutions —
have served to reveal in a most impressive
way the growing spirit of oneness among
different parts of the globe, and the increas-
ing determination of the peoples of the dif-
ferent nations that the great and disastrous
202 The Federation of the World
disturbances to the general social and eco-
nomic order caused by war shall not be al-
lowed to repeat themselves hereafter. Not
only was the Boer War strongly condemned
at the time by the general opinion of inter-
national society, as well as by a powerful
section of the British people, but the reac-
tion against it in Great Britain followed with
a swiftness and irresistible power, which
has probably never before been known in
connection with any such conflict. In the
case of the war between Japan and Russia
the same feeling of disappointment and
grief as accompanied the South African
tragedy, was also experienced, though in a
somewhat more concealed way on account
of the peculiar character of the conflict.
The end of this gigantic struggle brought
such a feeling of relief to the conscience
and heart of the world as has never before
-v'Deen witnessed. This increasing sensitive-
ness of the public conscience of the world
to the horrors and irrationality of war is
perhaps the best guarantee that some ade-
The Federation of the World 203
quate method will speedily be found by
which justice and honor may be truly satis-
fied and humanity spared the great burdens,
both moral and material, which war now
imposes.
The movement toward international fed-
eration has, on the whole, advanced more
rapidly in the Western Hemisphere than in
the Eastern. This is due, undoubtedly, to
the fuller recognition of democratic princi-
ples and their wider incorporation in politi-
cal institutions on this side of the globe.
Since the Hague Conference of 1899 the
Second and Third International American ^
conferences have been held, that of Mex-
ico City in 1 90 1 and that of Rio Janeiro in ^
1906. The first Pan-American Conference ^
was called ten years before the first Hague
Conference, so much futher advanced was
sentiment in this hemisphere than in the
Eastern. The results of these American
conferences have been many and varied,
but by far the most important of them has
been the establishment of what is essentially
204 Tb e Federation of the World
(^~a permanent international union of the
^American republics. This union, though
only in its incipience is of vastly greater
moment than the arbitration conventions or
the commercial, educational and sanitary
arrangements to which these states have
given their assent, valuable as these are.
It will, without doubt, in time practically
destroy the distrust which has existed
among them toward the United States, and
the friction and unrest which has character-
ized the relations of some of them to each
other. The strength of this Pan-American
union will be greatly increased through the
operation of the International Bureau of the
American Republics, as reorganized by the
Rio Conference of 1906. This Bureau is
to have permanent quarters in Washington,
for which, through the contributions of the
different republics and Andrew Carnegie's
^ generous gift of three quarters of a million
dollars, a worthy building is soon to be
erected.
The Federation of the World 205
The circumstances attending the calling
and holding of the Second Hague Confer- *
ence, which closed its sessions on October
1 8th, 1907, have emphasized in a most ex-
traordinary way the strength of the various
lines of influence which are working out the
federative union of the world. This Confer-
ence was initiated by President Roosevelt
at the urgent suggestion of the Interpar-
liamentary Union at the time of its con-
ference at St. Louis in 1904. Back of this
initiative was a great body of international
public sentiment, as there had not been to
the same degree behind that of the Czar in
1899. This public sentiment, which in the
interests of international justice and peace
demanded a new conference, indeed a series
of periodic conferences of the nations, and
had been expressing itself in the years fol-
lowing 1899 with increasing volume and in-
tensity, found its best and most effective
instrument of expression in this great, well-
organized union of statesmen, a body truly
representative of the people in the various
V
206 The Federation of the World
countries to whose parliaments they be-
longed. The Second Conference at The
Hague, therefore, met at the behest, not of
a crowned head, or chief of state, but of the
international democracy of our time. This
popular character of the calling of the Sec-
ond Hague Conference differentiated it
strongly from the Conference of 1899, and
is proof of a very great advance in a few
years in the development of those forces
which are leading the nations to wider and
more sympathetic relations to each other
and upon which their federation, when it
comes, must depend for its solidity and per-
manence.
In the Second Hague Conference, fur-
thermore, practically all the states of the
world came together for the first time in a
general conference for deliberation upon
their mutual interests. The republics of
South and Central America for the first
time as a body met with the nations of Eu-
rope on a basis of political equality. This
they had not been permitted to do in 1899.
</
The Federation of the World 207
They were not considered by the older Eu-
ropean powers competent to meet with
them in council concerning the great world
problems which up to that time Europe had
always considered it her prerogative to de-
termine. This gathering of all the nations
of the world in a common assembly is the
most significant fact connected with the
Second Hague Conference. This meeting,
to which South America sent some of the
ablest men who were present, has put an
end to the old order of things in which the
two hemispheres moved apart and had
practically no bond of political union and
cooperation. The world is henceforth, both
morally and materially, to proceed on its r^AjW
way as a single, united world. In claim-
ing and insisting upon their political equal-
ity with the European nations the South
American countries made at The Hague a
notable contribution to the cause of justice
and peace. For the first time in history the
small states had the opportunity unitedly
to meet the pretensions of the great powers
208 The Federation of the World
to dictate, without the advice and consent
of the small powers, the general interna-
tional policies of the world. There is rea-
son to believe that the Second Hague
Conference has inaugurated an entirely-
new era in this regard, and that hereafter
we shall see much less of the aggression
and gross injustice of the strong powers
towards the small and weak ones than in
the past.
In the way of formal accomplishments
the Second Hague Conference fell much
short of what the advanced thought of
the world expected of it, and even short
of what a majority of the governments
themselves were ready and, in a number
of cases, even anxious to do. But what
was accomplished in the thirteen conven-
tions that were adopted was nevertheless
all in the direction not simply of the re-
striction of war, but of wider international
cooperation and control. The conventions
dealing with war both on land and sea
and those dealing with the rights and
The Federation of the World 209
duties of neutrals were all of a character
to make it much more difficult than here-
tofore for any two nations to begin or to
wage a war according to the dictates of their
own passions and selfish ambitions. The
whole body of the nations acting as a unit
has laid its restraining hand upon war as
has never before been done. This is an
attainment of no mean significance. The
establishment of an international prize court
to supplant the ex parte national prize courts,
which have hitherto dealt with captures at
sea in times of war, is a long step toward
wider joint international action. More con-
spicuously so is the treaty under whose
stipulations contractual debts cannot here-
after be collected from a nation by force
until the justice of the claims has been sub-
mitted to impartial arbitration. The world
note is also heard in the conventions cover-
ing the laying of submarine mines, the bom-
bardment of unfortified coast towns, the
treatment of captured crews, and the invio-
lability of fishing fleets and of the postal
21 o The Federation of the World
service. And it is the world note in all of
these agreements, and not the mere formal
thing that was done, that enables us to de-
termine the true significance of the Con-
ference.
But the real interpretation of the Con-
ference is to be sought outside of these
formal conventions. The great questions
with which it dealt and in which were con-
spicuously manifested its high intellectual
character and its lofty moral tone were the
problems of the limitation of armaments,
the creation of a permanent international
tribunal of justice, the formulation of a gen-
eral treaty of obligatory arbtration, and the
establishment of a regular congress or
parliament of the world. Any one who has
followed the reports of the deliberations,
and especially of the discussions which pre-
ceded the Conference, knows that these
were the real subjects for the consideration
of which it was called, the real subjects,
too, on which it expended its best thought
and energy, rather than those which were
The Federation of the World 211
formally on the program. It was these in
which the peoples of the different nations
were supremely interested, and it is no ex-
aggeration to say that all these problems,
though formal conclusions were not reached,
were carried far forward toward their ulti-
mate solutions. The principle of periodic
Hague conferences was unanimously ap-
proved and the date of the third meeting
practically fixed. That means the inaugu-
ration of the greatest possible institution
in the direction of the definite federation
and political organization of the world.
The principle of a permanent international
court of justice was likewise practically
unanimously approved. This assures the
world in a few years of a great tribunal
which will not only serve the ends of
justice among the nations, but also make
universal peace more certain than it has
ever yet appeared. The principle of obli-
gatory arbitration of disputes was also for-
mally incorporated in the convention in
regard to the collection of contractual
212 The Federation of the World
debts, and a very large and powerful ma-
jority of the delegations also voted their
approval of the principle in general, and
desired its incorporation in a general
treaty covering a considerable range of
classes of controversies. It is not diffi-
cult to foresee, therefore, that we are
within easy reach of a general convention
of obligatory arbitration among the nations,
covering practically all controversies ex-
cept those which involve the national
independence. In the meantime, the ar-
ticle that was, at the suggestion of the
United States delegation, added to the
convention of 1899, providing that one of
two disputing states may apply directly to
the Bureau of the Hague Court and ask
for arbitration, will do much to increase
the influence of the Court as it now exists,
and to ensure the arbitration of disputes
even between powers whose relations may
have become embittered. This open ap-
peal through the Hague Court to the public
bpinion of the world could hardly fail to
The Federation of the World 213
induce an unwilling nation to yield and
allow the controversy to go before the
great tribunal which the nations have estab-
lished, and to which all the governments
of the world are now parties.
Much more significance is to be attached
to the resolution adopted in regard to the
present rivalry of armaments than many
suppose. The resolution voted is the sol-
emn and unanimous voice of the govern-
ments of the world through their represen-
tatives at the Hague Conference that the
present system of armaments has reached
a development at which it ought to stop.
This voice of the Conference will go out
through all the world, and the governments,
if they have a true sense of respect for the
men whom they sent to the Second Hague
Conference, will not allow the subject long
to remain dormant, but will take it up and
will have it seriously and thoroughly studied
with the intention of reaching at the Third
Hague Conference, or earlier, some practi-
*«. cal solution of this, the most urgent and
214 The Federation of the World
burning question of international concern
at the present time.
What the full results of the Second
Hague Conference will be it is as yet im-
possible to forecast. It will require years for
the full fruition. But any one who consid-
ers its meaning and its work in the light of
its historic antecedents and the great move-
ments which for centuries have been lead-
ing up to it, and its bearings upon the future
relations and policies of the nations, cannot
but believe that the federation of the world,
which has so long been dreamed of and
prophesied, is no longer a mere prophecy
and a dream, but has already in very deed
begun to exist. From the foundations now
so well laid, both in general public opinion
and in an as yet imperfect but real world in-
stitution which the Hague conferences have
brought into being, one can easily picture
to one's self the superstructure of the mag-
nificent world temple of peace, which is to
be thereon erected.
APPENDIX.
The Char's Rescript calling for a Conference
on Reduction of Armaments.
Issued at St. Petersburg by Count Muravieff on
the 24.TH of August, 1898.
The maintenance of general peace and a possi-
ble reduction of the excessive armaments which
weigh upon all nations present themselves, in the
existing condition of the whole world, as the ideal
towards which the endeavors of all governments
should be directed.
The humanitarian and magnanimous spirit of
His Majesty the Emperor, my august Master, is
wholly convinced of this view.
In the conviction that this lofty aim is in con-
formity with the most essential interests and the
legitimate wishes of all the Powers, the Imperial
Government thinks the present moment would be
very favorable for an inquiry, by means of inter
national discussion, as to the most effective means
21 6 Appendix
of insuring to all the peoples the benefits of a real
and durable peace, and, above all, of putting a limit
to the progressive development of the present
armaments.
In the course of the last twenty years, the long-
ings for general appeasement have been particu-
larly marked in the consciousness of the civilized
nations. The preservation of peace has been put
forward as the object of international policy. It is
in its name that the great states have concluded
among themselves powerful alliances. It is the
better to guarantee peace that they have developed
their military forces in proportions hitherto un-
known, and still continue to increase them without
shrinking from any sacrifice.
But all these efforts have not yet been able to
bring about the beneficent results of the pacifica-
tion desired.
The financial burdens, constantly increasing,
strike at public prosperity at its very source.
The intellectual and physical forces of the nations,
and their labor and capital are, for the most part,
diverted from their natural application and unpro-
ductively consumed. Hundreds of millions are
employed in procuring terrible engines of destruc-
tion, which, though to-day regarded as the supreme
attainment of science, are sure to-morrow to lose
all value because of some new invention in this
Appendix 217
field. National culture, economic progress and
the production of wealth are paralyzed or checked
in development.
So, too, in proportion as the armaments of each
power increase do they less and less fulfill the
object which the governments have had in view.
Economic crises, due in great part to the system
of armament a outrance, and the continual danger
which lies in this accumulation of war material,
are transforming the armed peace of our days into
a crushing burden which the peoples have more
and more difficulty in bearing. It seems evident
that if this state of things continues it will inevi-
tably lead to the very cataclysm which it is desired
to avert, the horrors of which, even in anticipation,
cause every thinking man to tremble.
To put an end to these incessant armaments, and
to seek the means of warding off the calamities
which threaten the whole world, is the supreme
duty resting to-day upon all states.
Filled with this idea, His Majesty the Emperor
has been pleased to command me to propose to all
the governments which have accredited Representa-
tives at the Imperial Court, the meeting of a con-
ference which shall take into consideration this
grave problem.
This conference will be, by the help of God, a
happy presage for the century now about to open.
2i 8 Appendix
It will unite, and thus greatly strengthen, the efforts
of all those states which sincerely seek to make the
great conception of Universal Peace triumph over
the elements of trouble and discord. It will at the
same time cement them together by a joint conse-
cration of the principles of equity and right on
which rest the security of states and the welfare of
peoples.
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The following is intended to be only a good working
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growth of the movement for the abolition of war and
for the federation of the world into contact with the lit-
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abundant. It would be impossible to give in any rea-
sonable space the names of the innumerable pamphlets
which have appeared, and of the articles published in
various periodicals, American and foreign, during the
last fifteen years. Many of those omitted are quite as
valuable as those here given. The list includes most of
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RECENT BOOKS.
Jane Addams. Newer Ideals of Peace. New York :
The Macmillan Company, 1907.
Raymond L. Bridgman. World-Organization. Bos-
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Ernest H. Crosby. Tolstoy and his Message. Gar-
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