Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1920)
, """ 1 LLi&at' ggggMBEB, 1920 Thfe Cbmnioher jh II e It BROTHER JdR BRUTE? (A&8& delivered by, William - Jennings grtaWr Jorld Brotherhood Congress, Washington,' D. 0. October 13, 1920.) I appreciate the honor done me by the officers of this -congress, and still more the opportunity they-afford me, in allowing me to speak through this-organization tolhe people of the world on a subject, always of supreme importance and never inpre important than now. The nations arO' emerging from a war without a precedent or parallel In all the annals of time. Thirty millions of human beings have been sacrificed in this war;- 300 billions worth of property has been destroyed; public debts have increased from 40 billions to 259 billions more than 500 per cent; paper money issues have grown from" V billions to 5G while the gold reserve be hind the paper has dwindled from 70 per cent to 2'percent. Commerce, which ought to have bound ,the nations together, 'has been the pri mary caujie of this war; science, which should minister to man "welfare, has furnished to the cotfibatants effective instruments Of destruc tion; kahd religion, which should have prevented war, has .been its apologist I know of no great er indictment that can be brought against the Christian nations of the world than this, that, 1900 - years after the angels sang to the shep herdC at Bethlehem their song of "Peace on earth,-good will to men," the Christians have not the Psalmist and Solomon used the .word' brut ish in describing cortain kinds of men, and one of the minor prophets calls down wrath upon those who build a city with blood. Christ, it will bo remembered, donouncod the hypocritoa who devoured widow's houses and for a pretense made long prayers. And the distinction exists today. Were the scribes any worse than the profiteers of today wh,o steal from the provision basket and rob the wardrobe? Were they any worse than the busi ness men whoso policy of poisoning for profit made puro food laws necessary? AVero they worse than the employers who, but for the law, would coin the lives of little children into larg er dividends? Wore they worse than thoso who, until prohibition prevented, made money by in croasmjg the death rate among little children and by manufacturing paupers and criminals by the sale of intoxicants? Woro. they worse than the men who plunder tho wheat fields of the land by depressing prices just before harvest time. War gives opportunity for supreme sacrifice but it is neither desirable nor necessary. It arouses all the brute in man; lifo Is pitted against life, and a flood of passion drowns out all kindly feeling. War creates a profession that perfects itself in the art of slaughter and con verts the taking of human lives into a science. War creates standards of honor as false as that yet found a way of settling their international;, which supported duelling. War teaches tho re- disputes except by- killing each other on tho battlefield. The great-branches of. the Christian church have played leading parts in the war, with Mohammedanism, Bhuddism, and Shinto ism, also involved. JThe world is weary of war. If blood is neces sary for the remission of sins, enough has been spilled to atone for the wrong donO by 'ail who live upon the earth. If sorrow is ''necessary to, fVperitanco ahd reform, enough tears have been stfedto wash away all the crimes of the past, (This. last plague would seem tathave been suf ficient to release the world" from bondage , to qred if so, mankind is ready to turn over a new leaf and set about the task of finding a way o "prevent war. The work will be made easier by -the fact that equal suffrage brings woman's conscience to the aid of man's judgment and thus hastens the triumph of every righteous cause. "My subject, as announced, is-"World Brother hood and World Peace," but it is longer than necesgary. Why say "both "World Brotherhood" and "World Peace?" World Brotherhood .would bring-World Peace, and World Teace implies '"SVorld.-Brotherhood as a necessary condition pre cedent, In order to focus attention-on the real question Involved I shall take the liberty of giv ing to jny address a different- title, namely, -BROTHER or BRUTE? This is the choice that each human being is compelled to make a choice's distinct and fundamental as the choice between God and Baal, and a choice not unlike thatP . ' Annealings between man and man are basQd upon' one theory or the other they are either brotherly, .or brutal; there is no middle ground. One may ibe a vdry weak brother or a very feeble brute -but each person is, consciously or. uncon sciously, controlled by the sympathetic spirit of brotherhood or hunts for spoil with the savage hunger of the beast of prey. J am not making a new classification; I, am merely calling attention to a classification, that has come down from the beginning of history. Many years- ago I hejird a man from New Zealand tell how a cannibal in that country once supported his claim to a piece of land on the ground that the title passed to him when he ate the former owner. I accepted this story as a. bit of humor," but it simply describes an Motoric form of title. Even among the highly civUiwd nations governments conveyed to their subjects or pttisjeriB" land secured by conquest, tho lands being tahen from the conquered by the conquer ors; A tramp, so the story goes, being ordered pntht a nobleman's yard rationed the owner a Mtfe, The latter, .explained " the title to the land had come down to him in m tbroke line from father to son through a period .of 700 years, beginning with an ancestor who fought for it. iet's fight for it again," suggested the tramp. To show, how ancient is the distinction that I Em trffi to make clear. I remind you that both venge is a virtue and retaliation a patriotic duty. War leads to competitive cruelties, each side, trying to outdo the other In destructlveness. It one side drops deadly bombs on defenseless cities and skills innocent noncombatants the other side feels justified in repaying this barbar ity in, kind; if one side drowns women and chil dren at sea the other side feels justified in starv ing women and children on land. If ono jddo employs poisonous, gases, the other Bldo""an swers with liquid fire. War develops industries, that, depending upon carnage for, their continued existence, capital ize hationafMjeaiousies and fan race perjudicos into "flame. Those who are enriched by war propagate the most absurd theories what theory could bo more absurd than that studious ly spread throughout the world for a generation by the militarists and manufacturers of muni tions, namely, that preparedness perevents war? .Now that all these blood stained doctrines have been refuted by the most awful of wars, the world, groaning under the weight of burdens grevious to be borne, may bo willing to accept brotherhood as the only hope of peace, as well .as the only escape from bankruptcy. Without attempting to speak for anyone else, and without any desire to bind anyone else by my conclusions, I bog to submit a few of the. fundamental principles upon which such a broth-" erhood, must, in my judgment, rest. First, a-belief in God. .We -trace our kinship to each other through the common Father of us all. This belief in t3od must be a real, control ling belief. -A complacent acquiescence In tho statement that there is a God is not sufficient. We must be obedient to the commandment; Thou shalt love thy Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. It must be a whole-hearted, whole-souled, whalcrininded belief in a Creator, with every hu man life a part of His plan. Without this belief we cannot have that con sciousness of God's presence in the daily life "which Is necessary to enable man to withstand the temptations that come to him to imitate the brute. A sense of responsibility to God for every thought and word and deed is the most potent influence that acts upon the life; for ono man kept in the' straight and narrow way by fear of prison walls a multitude are Kept rigiueuuu A hollAf tice Without that belief one cannot unuersianu how' sin brings its own punishment. Among the beasts strength is accompanied by no sense of responsibility; only man understands and then only when he believes in God that he must re strain his .power and respect the rights of others. Only man understands and then only when he believes in God that the laws of the Almighty protect the innocent by bringing upon J& I tho dinner the affects of his own aln; Xo a Hon,. howe6r Broat, and no group of nalionf, howovftr atronpr oan do wrong with impunity. . Tho very doing of wrong works tht ruin of thos who are guUty no matter how powerJoss their victim? may be to protect or avenge thamselve. Most of tho crimen committed by nations arc duo to an attempt on tho part of tho hi authority to establish for nations a nyitom of morals totally different from that which In bind ing upon the individual. Nothing but a real belief in Clod and confidence in tho immutabil ity of His doeroos can stay the arm of strength in Individual or nation. Second, man must believe In God in order to understand that ho In mado in the Imago of hi Makera belief which loads him to look upward for guidance. I hope you will pardon mo if in this connection I give oxpraslon to a growing conviction, namely, that the doctrine, commonly known as tho Darwinian theory, that tracas man's ancestry back to tho- bculo in tho most, paralyzing influence with which civilization has had t(f contend during tho Inst century. When one boglns his family troo with the boaatH of tho Hold ancestor worship becomes a dangerous ro- ligion, not to. Hp oak of tho possibility of his bor rowing his othlcs from tho junglo, Nietzsche carried tho Darwinian theory to its ' logical conclusion, and died iu an Insane asylum aftor ho had promulgated a philosophy that con demned domocracy an tho refugo of tho weak ling, denounced Chriatlnnty as a system calcu lated to make degenerates out of mon, denied tlio exlstenco of God, overturned all standards of morality, eulogized war as both noceB&ary and desirable, praised hatred because It loads to. war, denied to sympathy and pity any rightful' plapo in a manly heart and endeavored to sub- stitute tho worship of tho Huperman for tho wor ship of Jehovah. Benjamin Kidd, In a recent book entitled "The Science of Power," calls attention to tho Darwfa ian theory as developed by Nietzsche and appHtMl by German militarists, and ho also points out' how that theory is reducing industry to the brwt basis in Europe by robbing it of all spiritual elements and by giving supremacy to the crutt doctrine that "tho individual efficient for him- ' self" is the basis of progress. Third, I present the moral code of Cartel as tho only philosophy that fits Into every human ' need and furnishes a solution of every problem that can vex a human heart or perplex society. If the world is to bo brought into harmonious co-operation, what better guldo can we have than the teachings of the Prince of Peace in th ' Sermon on the Mount? Fourth, Christ taught that service Is tho rneas uro of greatness. Man had been prone to moan? uro his ImportancO by his power -to compel tbj, service oi oinera; unnsi royurauu iu urwur uup turned the thought of tho world toward the do ing of good. This ono revolutionary doctrine will, when universally applied, remove tho chief cause of conflict between both individuals and-"' nations. When life is estimated by its outgo; rather than by Its income thorejwill be neither ar or rumors of war. X. Our nation, I submit, has now such an oppor tunity to serve tho world as no nation hag had and as this nation never had before. Tho Allies owe us nearly 10 billions of dollara and they can not pay It. If they did pay it they would have to collect it from their enemies, and they could 4 not collect this sum in addition to their own de mands without sewing tho seeds of a war moe bloody than the one out of which we havo comre.. Our nation can use this debt to buy world peace,, universal and perpetual.. It can afford to x;ancl , this dobt on condition that tho terms of the 'treaty are so modified as to bring tho nation? of Europe together In friendship wl co-opera tion. Then, universal disarmament will be pos sible; then the burden of militarism can b lifted from the backs of the toileru of tho world; fiion wa mav exnect the ushering in of that glad. nrophetic day when swords snau ne neaien mv f nvarrnmfi evil with good. Injury begcta m .,; whiii kindness conauers the spirit that, -jd leads to the doing of wrong. ci-rfti r.hrfst announced as the second corns mandment that each should love his neighbor a; himself. This does not mean mai r i, fnrfiffArflnt to his own welfare; it would proflll a neighbor little to be loved as we love ourj selves if we-feft no Interest in ourselves. Sell-! i .-p& li aVwj-A-to 4i(. uaitihAt . - jt ftj Urn IU ...,. m-mj,tl4&&mhl&6 tei4WA8