John Spencer Bassett

“ So well was the lesson taught that a long series of encounters with the solid wall of Russian autocracy was necessary before the pupil ceased to try to do something to ameliorate the condition of his people. Historians have called Alexander a dreamer, but what is a man to do who is born a tsar and has the misfortune to believe in the doctrines for which we honor Lincoln and Jefferson? I am willing to call him impractical, but I cannot withhold sympathy from a man who tried, as he, to strike blows in behalf of the forms of government which makes my own country a home of liberty. ”

“ One would hardly expect that a beaten state would straightway form an alliance with the power that had humiliated her; yet such a relation was established between Germany and Austria, and it has lasted to this day. Where Germany has loved Austria has loved, where Germany has hated Austria has hated, and the ambition of one has been supported by the other. Bismarck’s policy had this state of friendship in view and he gave Austria generous terms of peace in 1866, when she was at his feet. ”

“ The career of Napoleon, which has long commanded the greatest interest, not to say enthusiasm, of students of history, aroused grave fears in the minds of most of the thoughtful men of his day who did not live in France. His design to conquer all his neighbors was most evident, and his apparent ability to carry it into execution caused him to be regarded as the embodiment of greed and insatiable ambition. Not since the days of Louis XIV had Europe felt such thrills of danger and horror. ”

“ ARGUMENTS FOR A FEDERATION OF STATES
The arguments against attempting to establish an enduring peace are undoubtedly formidable, but they do not leave the idealist entirely vanquished. On his side fight humanity and reason, and it is his function to stand by humanity and reason. He has long ago formed the habit of attacking obstacles. In this case the objections he meets are all rooted in the opinions of men, and he loves to change opinions, or, if he does not change them, to hammer away at them as long as life lasts. ”

“ Economic competition by individuals has ugly sides, but it is not dangerous in the sense in which national competition is dangerous. When two merchants undersell until one breaks down the business of the other, the victim passes out of sight in the business world, and the current of trade soon goes on as before. When two corporations, however great, engage in a business “war” and one is crushed or absorbed by its competitor, the ripple that was made is soon obliterated, and the victor serves the human wants with which it has to do without serious damage to humanity. ”

“ If the seer could foresee the war and its horrors, may he not also have spoken truly when he foretold that after Armageddon wars would be no more; for God would wipe away the desire for them from the hearts of men?
To this question I answer: If a man is left in the world when this conflict is ended who glories in deliberate war, he is too bad to live in civilized society. Certain it is that the vast majority of men and women are already convinced that the desire for war, henceforth and forever, is wiped out of their hearts. ”

“ The war has been gruesome beyond the imagination of man. No other recorded experience has told us of so much killing, and of so many different ways of killing. Men have been slain with swords, cannon, great howitzers, rifles, machine guns, tanks, liquid fire, electrified wires,5 and finally with the germs of disease deliberately planted. Nothing that science could invent for destroying human life has been omitted, except, possibly, dum-dum bullets; and in view of the use of much more cruel means we may well ask, “Why not dum-dums also?” ”

“ The careless enthusiasm with which a great many people hailed the outbreak of war in 1914 swept the peace advocates into the background and was the occasion of some sarcasm at their expense. But as the struggle grew in grimness and horrors the advocates of peace on principle returned to their old position in public esteem, and have steadily gained on it. It seems undeniable that the war has done more to convince the world of the madness of war than many decades of agitation could do. ”

“ The mind of Europe is more nearly a unit today than a century ago, and commerce, travel, and international sympathy bind nations together as never before. Moreover all these unifying forces are growing rapidly. When the feeling engendered by the war subsides, and it always does subside after a war, the nations will be more conscious of one another and less willing to challenge one another than before they engaged in the present appalling struggle. In these things there is a hope that the federation of Europe for the preservation of peace would be more possible than in the times of Metternich. ”

“ As the greatest of the anti-German allies we shall have the largest burden to bear in proportion to the time in which we are to fight. That we should guarantee to Great Britain and our other allies the full existence of their rights is but fair. It is equally reasonable that we shall demand that the future does not inure to the special advantage of any one of the group; but in fixing upon the terms under which it shall be arranged the main end in view should be the good of all the nations in the world. ”

“ In short, it is a practical question that our idealist puts to us. Here is a world that has gone mad, shall it not turn to reason again? The old system has broken down, shall we try to make it work again? To do so will lead us to just the disaster that now overwhelms us. Shall we not try a plan which will not cost us in money half what the old system of preparation cost, and which if it fails cannot be more of a failure than the old system has proved? ”

“ No one knows as yet just who owns the bonds in the several nations. From Germany we hear that they are widely held. It is the policy of the government of any nation to distribute a heavy debt as widely as possible; and we have in recent history instances of great patriotism in assuming debts of this kind. Now it is fair to say that the more widely the debt is distributed, the greater its likelihood of permanency. The larger the number of poor people who own it, the harder it will be to lessen the burden of the nation. ”

“ Although it may seem to be fundamentally fixed in the minds of business men and laborers that a war for annexation is in their interests, if reason shows that they are mistaken, there should be a way of bringing reason to their minds, even as it has come to ours.
Another obstacle to enduring peace is a false sense of patriotism. If a man extols his own virtues we say he is a boaster: if he extols the good qualities of his town, state, or nation, we say he is a patriot. ”

“ The easiest and most likely thing is to adjust ourselves as quickly and quietly as possible to the peace that is given to us, take up the old problems of living as nearly as we can where we left them in 1914—or in 1917, when the war began for the United States—and trust to our good stars to guide us to a happy haven. But if there is one thing this war has shown, it is that trusting to stars is not a safe protection against war. The only thing sensible people ought to count on in these days is the judgment of their capable and efficient minds. ”

“ It is hard to carry a country through a great political revolution while the very life of the country is threatened.
After war comes a time of questioning. The German people will have reason to ask themselves what has been done to them. The burdens of taxes, the loss of commerce, the wrecks of human life through maiming, and the great gaps in population through death, all these things can but come to the minds of the people. ”

“ In two ways the union can be prevented. One is to inflict such a defeat on the central allies that they will not dare run the risk of another war through endeavoring to combine. Possibly such a defeat could be inflicted by fighting long and winning great victories. It would have to be a greater victory than was won by Prussia over France in 1871; for after that victory France, fired with hatred for all that was German, was so much feared by her conquerors that it became a chief object of their diplomacy to keep her isolated by drawing possible allies over to the German interest. ”

“ For if Germany had carried France off her feet and placed her in a position to offer no further menace during the next ten years, and if she had dealt a similar blow to Russia, what power could have checked her in the future decade? By glancing at the situation in Europe today we may see how an intrenched Germany defies the united and unwhipped world. ”

“ But a league would in all probability be flouted by the states as often as their interests seemed to them to make it advisable. Reverting to the analogy of our own formative period in national government, a league would be like our articles of confederation, weak and insufficient because they did not authorize the central government to coërce a recalcitrant state. As a step toward a more desirable end the articles of federation were worth while: as a similar step a league of nations might be better than nothing, but it would not lead to the end to which the world is looking. ”

“ One result of the present war is to relegate these ideals into the junk-heap of institutions, unless we can be assured that peace is a certainty. Under a system of competition between states we cannot afford to be less ready for war than any other great nation. We must have a large navy and a great army ready to meet the blows of any power that feels that it has reason to interfere with our peaceful development. We must become a militaristic republic, a thing which seems against nature. ”

“ If they are lost at the end of this war it will be by a smaller discrepancy. Some time they will be secured, not because men have dreamed of them; but because, in such a case at least, dreams are but “suppressed desires.”
The writer of a book can do no more than raise his voice to the people who do things. To that large class who make things happen he can only give impulse and hope. His cry goes to those who govern, to those who direct the press, and to all citizens who feel responsibility for the formation of good public opinion. ”

“ Probably it is not too much to say that the only form of united action that can be relied on is a federation with enough cohesive force to guard against secession, repress any constituent state that defies the united will, make laws that concern the purposes for which the federation is formed, exercise the right of interpreting those laws by a system of federal courts, and maintain an executive that can make itself obeyed. ”

“ But the ignorant bureaucrats and arbitrary rulers were in power, men who in their own lives never knew the burdens of war, and to whom national egotism appeared a high virtue; and they thought only of gaining territory for their states. They placed such things above the high opportunity to reform the political structure of Europe. They turned to the future with the old principles still dominant, hoping that by a system of concert among the great states they could stave off war for an indefinitely long period. ”

“ If the debts of one war are repudiated those of another may also be repudiated. It behooves the capitalists, therefore, to support a policy which will make armed conflict impossible. While bonds benefit the banker when issued up to a certain point, they can in some conditions become his most serious difficulty. So many perils await the capitalist from a renewal of struggles like the present, that it is not too much to count upon him as a supporter of peace until the financial situation in Europe shall become better than it will be for many a day. ”

“ Granting this, the advocate of peace can assert that Germany must eventually give up autocracy. As the only great nations that hold to this relic of a departed age Germany and Austria-Hungary are becoming anachronisms. They are set against the spirit of the twentieth century. If they tide over the crisis that now confronts them they will encounter more furious storms at a later time, and eventually autocracy must be broken down. ”

“ Times come when a man is not justified in preserving his life. So to nations come crises in which they are not permitted by the rules of morality to save themselves by what appear to be the only means left. In the present war Germany asserted that she was justified by this principle in adopting the ruthless war of the submarine, since it was the only thing that would save her from destruction. It is better for a state to go to destruction, just as it is better for a man to go to his death, with clean hands than to live foully. ”

“ How shall we punish them for what they have done to make the world miserable? My answer to that is: Let God punish them. For us it is not a question of giving the Germans their deserts but a question of coming out of this cataclysm with a clear gain for the cause of human happiness. ”