Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1915)
"yyv. 1 The Commoner VOL. 15, NO. 11 ;ie ?,"',7W 'WCffl w in j' ' Pa m fv Mom or ton, but oven if it' cost us ten billions that would not bo tho greatest objection to war. Thero aro two other objections that are more important. Tho second objection is based upon the pos liblo loss of life. How many men would it cost us to take part in this war? A hundred thou sand? They have already killed over two mil lions; ono hundred thousand would hardly bo enough for our quota in such a war. If wo go into this war we can not go in in a stingy way or as a miserly nation. If it is manly to go in, it will bo manly to play a man's part and bo prodigal in blood and money. Tho danger of war with Germany now seems to bo passed and tho country is relieved to have tho American position in tho submarine contro versy accepted. But whilo there was a possi bility of war while the question was acute some of our American papers wore ins'sting that wo ought to go to war with Germany at any cost. I do not believe that our pfcoplo would be willing to send one hundred thousand brave Americans to death becauso a little more than a hundred took ships that they ought not to have taken into danger zones about which they fully understood. It is not that our people did not have a right to take those ships. Under inter national law they did have a right to sail on those ships, but great international questions can not be sottled on naked legal rights. There aro duties as well as rights. Let me illustrate. Every young man, when ho becomes of age, has a legal right to leave his home and make a ca reer for himself. Ho is not compelled to con sider eithor tho wishes or the needs of his pa rents. But, fortunately, most of our young men put their duty to their parents above their legal rights and inquire about the welfare of tho old folks before they leave home. And so every American citizen has. duties as" well as rights, Do you say that it is the duty of this government to take its army. and follow an American citizen around the world and protect his rights? That is only one side of the propo sition. The obligations of citizenship are recip rocal. It is the duty of the citizen to consider his country's safety and the welfare of his fel lowmen, In time of war the .government, can take the son from his widowed mother and compel him to give his life to help this country out of war. If, in time of war, the government can compel its citizens to die in order to bring the war to an end, tho government can, in time of peace, say to its citizens that they shall not, by taking unnecessary risks, drag, .their country into war and compel this sacrifice of their coun trymen. , , In time of riot a mayor has authority to keep the people of his town off the streets until order is restored. Has not tho government of a na tion like ours as much authority as tho mayor of a city? When the world is in -riot our gov ernment has, I believe, a right to say, to its cit izens: You shall not embarrass the government in dealing with this question. You shall not R?dx 3lour nation's Perils. You must keep out of the danger zone until, your government re stores order and compels respect for the rights of American citizens." But suppose it cost us not ono hundred thousand men but a half mil lion or a million. That is not the greatest ob jection to tho war. Great as is tho first objection, based on tho possible cost in money, and greater still as is the second objection, based upon tho possible cost in blood, there is a still greater objection; viz that wo can not become a belligerent and at the samo time remain neutral. We stand, at tho head of the neutral nations; tho world looks to us to act as mediator when the time for mediation comes. If, for any rea son, no matter what that reason may be, we enter this war, wo must step down from' our high position and turn over to some other na tion an opportunity such as never came to any nation before and may never come again! Then, too, we are the next of kin to all the nations now at war; they are blood of our blood and bone of our bo.ne. Not a soldier boy falls on any battlefield over yonder but the wail of sorrow in his home finds an echo at some Amer ican fireside, and these nations have a right to expect that wo will remain the friend of all, and be in position to play the part of a friend when friend can aid. Some nation must lift the world out of tho lack night of war into the light of that day when an enduring peace can be built on love and brotherhood, and I crave that honor for this Ittatlon. More glorious than any page of history uii jqrb yet Deen written will bo the page that records our claim to the promise made to the peacemakers. This is the day for which the ages have been waiting. For nineteen hundred years tho gos- pel of the Princo of Peace has been making its majestic march around the world, and during these centuries tho philosophy of the Sermon on the Mount has become more and more the rule of daily life. It only remains to lift that code of morals from the level of tho individual and make it real in the law of nations, and ours is tho nation best prepared to set the example. We are less hampered by precedent than other na tions and therefore more free to act. I appre ciate the value of precedent what higher trib ute can I pay it than to say that it is as uni versal as the law of gravitation and as neces sary to stability? And yet the law of gravita tion controls only inanimate nature everything that lives is in constant combat with the law of gravitation. The tiniest insect that creeps upon the ground wins a victory over it every time it moves; even the slender blade of grass sings a song of triumph over this universal law as it lifts itself up toward the sun. So every step in human progress breaks the law of precedent. Precedent lives in the past it relies on mem ory; because a thing never was, precedent de clares that it can never be. Progress walks by faith and dares to try the things that ought to be. This, too, is the leading Christian nation. We give more money every year to carry the gospel to those who live under other flags than any other nation now living or that has lived. The two reasons combine to fix the eyes of the world upon us as the one. nation which Is at liberty to lead the way from the blood-stained methods of the nast out into the larger and better day. We must not disappoint the hopes which our ideals and achievements have excited. If I know the heart of the American people they are not willing that this supreme opportunity shall pass by unimproved. No, the metropolitan press is not the voice of the nation; you can no more measure the sentiment of the peace-loving mass es by the froth of the jingo press than you can measure the ocean's silent depths by the foam upon its waves. THE THREATENING BANOTTO; OF A MIL rTARir AUTOORAO (Continued from Page 8.) al clamor for our veteran army to invade and capture Canada. During the war, Confederate cruisers, built in English shipyards and armed In English arsenals, had driven American commerce from the seas and oceans of the world. Had a Napoleon or a Frederick or a Roosevelt been In command at the close of hostilities we would have been plunged into a war with England. Morley said, in his Life of Gladstone: "The treaty of Washington and the Geneva ar bitration stood out as the most notable victory in the nineteenth century of the noble art of preventive diplomacy, and the most signal exhibition-of self-command In two of the three great powers of the western wbrld." At Appomatox Grant stood on fame's topmost pinnacle; the foremost man of all the world, but in the treaty of Washington he was greater than at Appomatox. After Grant had served eight years as presi dent, he made a trip around the world. When In Paris, he was invited to visit the gilded tomb of Napoleon. He declined, saying he would visit the tomb of no general who had won his fame in wars of conquest. When Roosevelt visited Paris he called on the head of the French army to ac company him to the tomb of Napoleon. He stood there in the presence of that gilded mausoleum with uncovered head, paying the tribute of a bo gus American to the man who murdered a mil lion men In useless wars. FORCES THAT WORK FOR PEACE Edward A. Steiner, who filled the chair of An plied Christianity in Grinnell college Iowa' a author and student of political economy savS "The kinship of humanity can do more for See and good will than all the armies and naviet of the world" Cardinal Gibbons of Ballimore says. 'God grant that the day Is not far off when the Prince of Peace, God, will reign oveJthe cabinets of the nations, over the kings Sreti dents, and settle disputes not with taEt 'armies, but by the international boTrd 0f arb tr-f tion; not by tho sword, but by the nen Z pen Is mightier than the sword ' 01 tho TJ!,eBJeatest scholars and sociologists of th world today are men of neace Tf Q . I , waste, depression, and moral decay. No nation can improve its morals or grow in strength when MM nS "W by ye" This is tho stand taken by the sanest states men and tho ripest scholarship of the age ami Is the only position which will keep this country in the track of empire fixed by the great sDiritl who framed the constitution and sent the you nl republic on its career. B Tlio time to end the barbarism of war is tn scotch the reptile in the head when we have a chance We must not forget that for generations tho habits of fight are in our blood. Not a thou sand years ago our ancestors were raiding tha Christian monasteries of England, continuine their deadly marches with the bodies of new-bom infants carried on their spears and the entrails of the mothers strung around their necks as trophies. ' I quote an extract from the great Rabbi Charles Fleischer, in his reply to President El liot of Harvard, in which he makes the president look intellectually diminutive: "The Harvard sage errs in saying that there is no reason why the Jews should not make good fighters. There happens to be the best reason The Jew has got out of the habit of fighting. He has lost the primitive man's desire to kill, be cause he has been so long civilized. You can not brutalize him again. I am happy to feel that, in the main, that Elliot's appeal to the Jews must be in vain, "because, by long tradition, culminat ing in native instinct, your average Jew believes that Israel's mission is peace." In conclusion, I am not for peace at any price. I am for peace until an emergency arises, or when the 'nation is threatened by a foreign foe. When that occurs, I will offer my services to the country, and vote for as many men and as many millions as the President may ask. But I am not willing to waste the product of labor and more millipns of the tax money of the people for a propaganda of militarism, to fasten more para sites on the body politic, when there is no occa sion for it whatever. In 1908, when the republicans were in control of congress, Congressman Tawney of Minnesota, chairman of the committee on appropriations, said: "The government is spending for military ap-' propriations and for past wars, G8 per cent of the total revenues, exclusive of the postal revenue. For the same period, England spent 42 per cent, France 32 per cent, and Germany 42 per cent." So we were spending 26 per cent more on mil itarism than the German empire. LET US RETURN TO DEMOCRATIC GOVERN MENT If there was ever a time in the history of the country when this militarism which is now so rampant, should be scotched, that time is now. It should bo the effort of every patriotic man and woman to do everything possible to restore this Republic to the simplicity of a democratic gov ernment, of the people, for the people, and by the people. There is no morality, no ethics, no economy in steel cannon and murderous shrapnel. This . wicked military project to waste five hundred millions of the people's tax money reminds me of a sentiment of President James A. Garfield, given at a reunion of the Army of Cumberland, ten years after our great Civil war: "IdeaB are the great warriors of the world, and a wdr1 that has no ideas1 behind it is simply a brutality." In a speech made on the 'floor of congress March 26th, 1910, in reply to the jingo Hobson, I said: "Not a single dreadnaught, not another battle ship, is the universal voice of every peace-loving, war-hating patriot who loves law and order and justice. No battleship with its cruel messengers of death ever advanced any' good cause, any hu mane mission, on any sea or pn any shore around the world. , Peace is constructive, war is de structive. Peace is love, waY is hate. Peace is quiet and repose, war is hell and uproar. Our mission is to mako plain tho paths of peace, and not equip more dogs of war to rend them." In conclusion let me turn from Woodrow Wil son, sane and sober, and not the Woodrow Wil son of today, overwhelmed by the military cabal: I quote from President Wilson, one year ago: "We never have had and while we retain our present principles, wo never shall have, a large standing army. If asked are we ready to defend ourselves, we reply most assuredly, to the utmost, and we'hall never turn America into a military camp." I HAVE NOT CHANGED. P ,n