Peacemaker

“ What kind of nation we will be, what kind of world we will live in, whether we shape the future in the image of our hopes, is ours to determine by our actions and our choices.
The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. This honor now beckons America—the chance to help lead the world at last out of the valley of turmoil, and onto that high ground of peace that man has dreamed of since the dawn of civilization.
If we succeed, generations to come will say of us now living that we mastered our moment, that we helped make the world safe for mankind.
This is our summons to greatness. ”

“ She has always been so closely identified with the organizations devoted to the abolition of war that she is called the "Peacemaker." She was one of the delegates of the Universal Peace Union to the International Peace Congress and the Paris Exposition of 1889, and did some effective work in the peace cause. ”

“ The peacemakers who teach and practice this love cut at the root of all war. When every man loves his brothers more than himself there will be no more wars, neither great nor small, neither civil nor imperial, neither of words nor of blows, between man and man, between class and class, between people and people. The peacemakers will have conquered the earth and they will be called the true sons of God, and they will enter among the first into His Kingdom. ”

“ But to appreciate it you should have heard taps played and at a soldier’s funeral. P. C. ought to know the distinction between peacemakers and pacifists. I wonder he didn’t include St Michael in his catalogue of pacifists. We are peace-makers, we soldiers of the 69th, we are risking our lives to bring back peace to the simple, generous, gay, pious people of France, whom anyone (knowing them as I have come to know them in the last six months) must pity and admire and love. They are an invaded people—and invaded people always are right. ”

“ FOR THEY SHALL BE CALLED THE SONS OF GOD These peacemakers are not the meek of the second beatitude. The meek refrain from answering evil with evil; the peacemakers do more, they return good for evil, they bring peace where wars are flaring up. ”

“ The efforts which have been made to remove the causes of hostility which exist in modern society have undoubtedly had some effect, although the peacemakers may be much deceived about the extent of their work. ”

“ “‘Blessed are the peacemakers; theirs is the kingdom of heaven,’” said Betsy, vaguely recollecting she had heard some similar saying from someone. ”

“ How necessary that every land should have a ministry of peace, an official organism representing the interests of peace, under whose protection that portion of public opinion which is averse to war might make itself heard. How essential an independent, ethically elevated press, conscious of the duty growing out of its power, the duty to guide the people in the way of unity, of conciliation, of a just consideration of both sides of a quarrel—in short, in the way of peace, the only way worthy of civilization and culture. ”

“ They know the counsel of peace which I have always given. They will speak to you words of truth only.
Chiefs who wish to be friendly should talk to each other. They should know the thoughts of each other, and love peace. Peace will make the red and the white men happy. If we have war our men must perish in battle. They will not return to our feasts, nor will they again sit by the council-fire. Peace will save our warriors from death. They can then kill the buffalo, and their women and children have nothing to fear.
Your people can come to our trading-houses. ”

“ Why are there so many vice-presidents of peace societies who are supporters of the big navy policy—why so many advocates of peace who are enthusiastic preparers for war—why so many disciples of good will who believe in peace in the abstract but in battleships in the concrete? Above all, if the peace societies are really in earnest, why are they so slow in joining hands and hearts with the vast hosts of labor throughout the world—the unionists, Socialists, syndicalists, and all the rest, who constitute at this moment the one really serious menace to the supremacy of the war lords? ”

“ Here the opponents of the peace movement seem to be in the right. Surely, it is impossible to quietly look on while such things are happening; there is no opportunity for arbitration. What is there left but war? Is not that in some cases the only resource, the “ultima ratio?” Now, are ye convinced, ye dreamers, that conditions may at any time arise which will force upon men a resort to arms? Therefore there must be no cessation of armaments, no relaxation in the cultivation of a warlike spirit. Confess that you are beaten, that you have no answer. ”

“ But they believe we are swashbuckling imperialists, when in reality we are pacifists fighting for peace now and—for ever. The professional military mind is in many ways admirable. It is honest, direct, and cannot compromise. When it damns, it damns. But it is not elastic; it takes in slowly. Even now, after four years of war, you will not get 50 per cent. of Old Army men to give you a correct analysis of our psychology. ”

“ The land is filled with widows and orphans; and mourning, lamentation and woe, have spread through all its extent. Oh! for a return of peace! When will the calamity be past? If some envoy from European power would lift up his voice, and in the name of humanity protest against the wrongs which we suffer, what relief would it afford! And if our enemy, whether yielding to necessity, or a sense of justice, should authorize a proclamation of peace to go through the land, how would our hearts leap for joy! ”

“ What good has a general to expect from peace? Could not this civilian understand that a commander-in-chief is only a commander-in-chief in war-time, and that in peace-time he is nothing more than a professor with a collar of gold braid? ”

“ Let those who have been seduced away from the love of their country to follow after, and aid the destroyers of our peace, lay down their arms, return to their homes, bear true allegiance to the Federal Government, and they shall also enjoy like protection. The army of the Union wages no war of plunder, but comes to bring back the prosperity of peace. Let all peace-loving citizens, who have fled from their homes, return and resume again the pursuits of peace and industry. ”

“ This strife is not a strife between two hostile camps, but a war of tyranny against freedom, of barbarians against the collective might of a free nation. Therefore must the whole people arise with the army. If these millions sustain our army, we have gained freedom and victory for universal Europe, as well as for ourselves. Therefore, O strong, gigantic people, unite with the army, and rush to the conflict. ”

“ At first the demonstrations were all in favour of peace. Labourers in blue blouses were marching up in compact masses on the Place de la Concorde, carrying white flags and signs with the inscriptions "À bas la guerre" and "Vive la paix!" Public speakers delivered long orations on the horrors of war, and protested against the ambitious, fame-hunting tyrants who drove their innocent, peace-loving subjects into bloody combats to feed their own greed for glory and power. ”

“ This Republic can have no other armament as effective as the weapons of peace. Its security, its influence, its happiness and its glory will be the greater the less it thinks of war. Its moral authority will be far more potent than the heavy squadrons and the big guns of others. And this authority will, in its intercourse with foreign nations, be best maintained by that justice which is the duty of all ”

“ The real peace of the peoples ought to follow, complete, and amend the peace of the statesmen.... The enemy peoples should at the earliest possible date join the League, and in collaboration with the Allied peoples learn to practice the great lesson of this war, that not in separate ambitions or in selfish domination, but in common service for the great human causes, lies the true path of national progress. This joint collaboration is especially necessary to-day for the reconstruction of a ruined and broken world. ”

“ I come now to the means by which the War System can be overthrown. Here I shall unfold the tendencies and examples of nations, and the sacred efforts of individuals, constituting the Peace Movement, now ready to triumph,—with practical suggestions on our duties to this cause, and a concluding glance at the barbarism of Military Glory. In this review I cannot avoid details incident to a fruitfulness of topics; but I shall try to introduce nothing not bearing directly on the subject.
Civilization now writhes in travail and torment, and asks for liberation from oppressive sway. ”

“ I have resigned my claim to arrears of pay, that my argument may not be weakened. Then a peace establishment. Fancy leaving our frontiers to the mercy of state militia! I shall urge that the general government have exclusive power over the sword, to establish certain corps of infantry, artillery, cavalry, dragoons, and engineers, a general system of land fortifications, establishment of arsenals and magazines, erection of founderies and manufactories for arms, of ports and maritime fortifications—with many details with which I will not bore you. ”

“ It behooves, therefore, that our viceroys, governors, and commanders-in-chief throughout the whole empire unite forces and act together without distinction or particularizing of jurisdictions so as to present a combined front to the enemy, exhorting and encouraging their officers and soldiers in person to fight for the preservation of their homes and native soil from the encroaching footsteps of the foreign aggressor. Never should the word 'Peace' fall from the mouths of our high officials, nor should they even allow it to rest for a moment within their breasts. ”

“ On the day after the armistice—the very day when our war with just Germans was over, when the deeper, realer, more intimate, more desperate war Germany had precipitated upon all nations with themselves, begins, why should the men and women who had been working every afternoon for the men of this nation, in the Red Cross, talk about reducing to a peace basis? ”

“ It is the fashion for politicians (and I am sorry to find them supported by eminent statesmen) to preach the doctrine of armaments; they allege that in order to preserve peace it is necessary to be prepared for war, that a nation with a large army or navy commands respect, and that her word carries weight. This argument cuts both ways, for a nation occupying such a commanding position may be unreasonable and a terror to weaker nations. ”

“ Our standing armies carry war, so to speak, into the very bosom of peace. Now, a warlike spirit is only honourable in union with the fairest virtues which bloom out from peace, and military discipline, only when allied with the highest feeling of freedom ”

“ The kings of the earth have their eye upon this discontent; and try for self protection, what suavity and promise of reform may do, or else get up a war abroad in order to have peace at home. Yet their jealousy of one another, coupled with internal restlessness compels every European country to keep large standing armies—to maintain their power by a wall of cannon and a circle of steel. ”

“ No advocate of peace has ever been simple enough to imagine that war can be avoided when every condition leading to good understanding and peace has been neglected or trampled under foot.”
Another point steadily maintained by the advocates of peace and denied by their adversaries has come clearly to light in these latter days, namely, that wars are instigated and brought to their culmination by certain influential men without the slightest reference to the people, to parliaments or to the choicest spirits of the nations. ”

“ Nor is it enough to join the bourgeois pacifists, who proclaim peace among the nations, while helping to perpetuate the war among the classes, a war which in reality, is at the bottom of all other wars. ”

“ The ruling classes may have fought for power, for territory, for a little earth, but the common soldiers fought for peace. And if they are with us to-night, in the darkness over land and sea, they are speaking that word into our hearts now, as the message of hope that will lighten the burden of the troubled world. ”

“ As peace is assured, the traditional sensibilities of nations will disappear. Their frontiers will no longer frown with hostile cannon, nor will their people be nursed to hate each other. By ties of constant fellowship will they be interwoven together, no sudden trumpet waking to arms, no sharp summons disturbing the uniform repose. ”

“ We all long that the coming of universal peace shall not be far distant. Is it wise to rouse any people by a fresh effort of great magnitude to throw themselves into the work of the reorganization of the army and of self-identification with it? ”

“ In my army we are made one for the other, and we shall remain closely bound whether God gives us war or peace. It is the soldier and the army, not majorities and parliamentary decisions, that have forged the unity of the German Empire. ”

“ That war and the Chinese problem both show that the nations are being mechanically driven to the position which the advocates of peace have suggested as the only one that can be taken as a result of the exercise of free will and rationality, namely, coalition, surrender of secondary specific interests and contentions for the sake of a higher common interest, of culture and humanity, and the creation of a “world army.” ”

“ I was always of opinion, my lords, that peace is the most eligible state, and that the ease of security is to be preferred to the honour of victory. I always thought peace particularly necessary to a trading people; and as I have yet found no reason to alter my sentiments, and as auxiliaries cannot be of any use but in time of war, I shall endeavour to promote peace by joining in the motion. ”