Various

“ Economic pressure touches the war chest of every country. Instead of fighting with bullets let us fight with the money and credit that must be behind bullets. And the world can fight in that way to protect the civilization that has been slowly and painfully built up through the centuries if it will use the force of commerce that stands ready to its hand. This force of commerce can be applied from within. Nations can declare an economic embargo against an offending nation. ”

“ Europe to-day is not an example of peace by preparedness, but of war through unequal preparedness. Only one nation was thoroughly prepared for war, and that nation, in the conflict thus far, has proved the victor on all the battle fronts. If the other great nations had been equally prepared, there would undoubtedly have been no war. Half measures never led to satisfactory results. France and England and Russia knew, or should have known, that Germany was better prepared for war than any nation in all history ever was before. ”

“ The talk of war with Germany or England, whichever may be the winner in the European conflict, after that awful contest is finished, is equally pernicious and damnable. There is no reason why we should go to war with either. The United States intends to observe all the obligations of neutrality and so to conduct herself as to win the respect and good will of all the combatants. It would require a supreme act of folly on our part to drive us into war with any European country. So long as we observe our moral obligations we are in no danger of attack. ”

“ Mexico is now in the throes of liberty-birth. She is painfully working out her destiny, just as we and other nations have done before her. She has a right to be let alone. There will be time enough for us to settle with her when she has settled with herself. There is honor for us in the waiting. In the interim, humanity, the universal law, demands that we do our diplomatic and charitable utmost to win the innocent sufferers in Mexico from torment. ”

“ Until then governments will undertake, by military power, to make, interpret, or enforce a law of nations to please themselves; and this seizure of civil functions on the part of armed force is war; it is an attempt to make might right; it is the law of the jungle; it is the abnegation of civilization; it is anarchy between nations.
Now that the world is coming to self-consciousness, it must accept the responsibility of its future, and take intelligent direction of it. The new tendency toward world integration is permanent because it is due to new conditions which are permanent. ”

“ In no sense of the word does it make war without so that it can keep order within. Its purpose therefore is to make war for it keeps order within so it can better make war without. It might almost say, in fact, it does say that if it did not make war it would have no right to exist. If it doesn’t make war better than another it has no right to exist. It makes war that it may grow, that it may develop, that it may progress, that it may enlarge itself. It ceases from war for the time being only that it may prepare to make war again. War is its health, its vocation. ”

“ There is no reason why the American farmers and rural dwellers cannot profit as largely by coöperation as the people of any part of Europe. The chief economic problem of any country is proper distribution of products and labor. With a proper distribution of labor there would not be the congestion that often makes the unemployment problem so serious in some districts, and there would not be the inequality of reward for industry that makes some too rich and the large masses too poor. The rural communities are the backbone of the nation’s prosperity. All the wealth comes primarily from the land. ”

“ We have got to limit not only the war state but the war man. We have got to realize that not only as individuals but as states, we are all members one of another. Nationalism is in its best sense, a virtue just as individualism is in its best sense a virtue. The individual should give to the world the best that is in him and so should the state, but no more can a state give it by making war than can a man by being an enemy of his fellows. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the accumulating horrors of the present war are turning the minds of the people of all countries, neutral as well as belligerent, toward peace as never before. As the war drags on and it becomes more and more evident that there is to be no crushing victory for either side, belligerent and neutral nations alike are casting about for methods, other than the absolute weakness of a vengeful or greedy rival, that should be sure decidedly to lessen, if not absolutely to prevent, the evils of war in the future. ”

“ One nation may declare war against another for revenge, for conquest, for subjugation, or for the purpose of restraining and crippling its trade. In short, international law as it exists to-day is nothing more than a system of ethics or public opinion. Public opinion often makes its influence felt in a nation, and may become enacted into enforceable laws. But there is no means of enforcing ethics as between nations, and any nation which feels itself strong enough to do so, may defy world opinion. ”

“ The argument that at the close of the present great war any of the belligerent nations will be too exhausted to attack us, will hardly hold water. The victor will have a great organized military establishment, with troops inured to war, and perhaps filled with the spirit of war. To such a power a rich, unarmed nation like ours might be an easy prey. At the conclusion of our civil war this country, although it had been for four years fighting an exhaustive war, was, from a military standpoint, stronger than it ever was before or ever has been since. ”

“ Belgium is the most accessible country on the Continent to the English: and it has been visited by numberless Americans since Longfellow’s day, but it is proverbially easy to overlook what lies under one’s nose. Those of us who have long been aware that Belgium is something more than a collection of old buildings and Old Masters, or a stopping place on the journey to Germany or Switzerland, can but welcome the new interest which is taken in her by the wider public on both sides of the Atlantic, for she is worthy of it. ”

“ A LESSON TO BE HEEDED The wonders that Germany has accomplished in this war, not only in the marching and fighting of her armies, but in civic and industrial organization sets the pace for the world, which all the nations will have to approximate in the immediate future, or fall hopelessly behind. After waging war for a year against five great nations and several small ones, in which the number of men engaged and the expenditure of war material has been unparalleled, Germany shows no signs of exhaustion. She has demonstrated that her people cannot be starved out. ”

“ For, the security of our land is in ourselves, not in our army. When the Spanish-American War burst upon us, we were, so far as militia goes, unprepared, but, in point of national spirit, we were practically a unit. Like magic, unity made soldiery appear. The call for volunteers was answered by many more than could be accommodated. If we are now as united as we were then, why are we fearfully clutching about for new defences? If we are not, let us earnestly endeavor to be. The condition of England is a darkly significant example to spur us on. ”

“ For so far as the war has proceeded Germany is actually the victor. If peace were declared now on the basis of the status quo, Germany would be in possession of foreign soil which would vastly increase her resources and her prestige, and would have an army in being and stores of ammunition surpassing that of all the other belligerents combined. If Germany would enter into a League of Peace with the other great powers to compel the peace of the world, there would be no doubt of the ability of such a league to keep any and all nations from war ”

“ The world is confronted with the horrible possibility that war will come to mean actually, as it always has in theory, the denial of all humanity, all justice, all fairness, all chivalry, all mercy, and become a struggle to the death not a bit less brutal than that of the wild beasts of the jungle. ”

“ The only possible way to avoid such national interdependence is to adjure modern civilization.
The differentiation and organization of a world industry, which necessitates an ever-increasing international dependence, has created this new world life. In earlier ages, when nations were economically independent, political independence was natural and inevitable. Of course there could be no world-consciousness when a common world life did not exist, and each sovereign nation was sufficient unto itself. ”

“ For a hundred years we have been at peace. For that century we have had a frontier between us and Canada four thousand miles long which is entirely undefended by forts or navies. We have had issue after issue between the two peoples that because of their nature might have led to war. But we have settled them by negotiation, or, when that has failed, by arbitration, until now it is not too much to say that the “habit” of arbitration between us is so fixed that a treaty to secure such a settlement in future issues would not make it more certain than it is. ”

“ We should have either to abandon our independence as a sovereign nation, or else place ourselves in the inconsistent attitude of approving the use of force to coerce other powers while refusing ourselves to be coerced; and by implication we would place ourselves in the rôle of a bully to the weaker nations and of subserviency to the strong powers—unless we want to obligate ourselves to join in a war against the strong powers regardless of our preparedness or ability to carry on such a conflict. ”

“ God only knows where we shall be, if we forge for ourselves the grim means to get there! And, if the war-god finds homage in the United States, the only remaining powerful luminary of Peace will have set. The world will be enveloped with affliction. ”

“ War states shall build this commerce but to destroy it as children knock down their toy houses. Philanthropists shall attempt to soften and heal the sore spots of society but to see the nations’ statesmen tear and rend the living flesh, leaving ulcers that cannot close for years.
The war state of course has satisfactory reasons for making war for growth and development. It must make war to spread its civilization and destroy other civilizations. There could be no concert or symphony of civilizations properly speaking. Civilizations serve their purposes only as they die and pass away. ”

“ In these turbulent days, when some excuse for war is encountered at almost every turn, the consciousness of unpreparedness is our greatest defense. Our weakness is our salvation. If we clothe ourselves with strength, there is little doubt that certain noisy newspapers which, despite the President’s express wishes, are even now doing their subtle best to stir up mischief, will goad us on to a proof of that strength. ”

“ When the World Court is established the name of the city of Cleveland will ever be associated with it. And the two names will spell peace—International, national, commercial, and industrial peace—the peace that passeth all understanding and the peace that a tired world is crying for with that soul-racking wail that comes only from the soul of a strong and helpless man. ”

“ Jew and Gentile, capitalist and laborer touched shoulders and joined hands in the common weal and the great cause at this World Congress for the World Court. The Rabbi pointed out in one breath that the arrow of the savage killed one man and the gun of civilization destroyed a whole city and all within! In the next the figures of a grave Senator pointed to the horror that in a few months of civilized warfare 1,000,000 more souls have been hurled into eternity than there is population in the Buckeye State. ”

“ While he is doing this and spreading misery, those whom he has left behind for a time or forever are also ennobled and inspired and those to whom he comes, whose villages are crushed by shot and shell and rendered a flaming sacrifice on the altar of war, are taught the power of godlike soldiers. The time will come, however, when we shall realize that man cannot serve not only God and Mammon but he cannot serve God and Mars. Who knows but we are simply awaiting the scientist who shall show the unerring and uninterrupted flood from the horrors of war to the criminal years of peace. ”

“ To my mind, all these spiritual forces have been working through the generations toward a time, toward this very time, when the world would be ready for a World Court. That Court is within our grasp. What is needed is to give it force and power through economic pressure that will compel its use and it will forthwith become a mighty bulwark of civilization, protecting the world from the waste and futility and the utter tragedy of war. ”