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WORLD UNITY[edit]
INTERPRETING THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
JOHN HERMAN RANDALL. Editor HORACE HOLLEY, Managing Editor
CONTENTS[edit]
The Hebrew University — Frontispiece The Main Objective — Editorial Jerusalem: City of Peace — Norman Bentwich Orient and Occident: The Social Problem — Hans Kohn The Epoch of Aggressive Individualism — Paul Hinner The Novel of the War Years-VII — Evelyn Newman The Message of the World's Teachers — Hugh McCurdy Woodward This Praying World-Persia — John William Kitching The American Peace Movement — Russell M. Cooper Book Notes — H. H. Correspondence Round Table
WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE is published by WORLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORA
ON. 4 East 12th Street. New York City: MARY RUMSEY MOVIUS, president;
HORACE HOLLEY, tice-president: FLORENCE MORTON, treasurer: JOHN HERMAN
RANDALL, secretary. Published monthly, 25 cents a copy. $2.50 a year in the
United States and in all other countries (postage included). THE WORLD UNITY
PUBLISHING CORPORATION and its editors welcome correspondence on articles
related to the aims and purposes of the magazine. Printed in U. S. A. Contents
copyrighted 1932 by WORLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION.
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THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY, JERUSALEM[edit]
Entrance to Einstein Mathematics Building
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THE MAIN OBJECTIVE[edit]
EDITORIAL[edit]
Nour opinion there is no man in this country who is interpreting the deeper significance of the present world crisis with clearer vision and deeper insight than is Walter Lippmann who writes for the New York Herald Tribune. In a recent article entitled "The Way Forward" he says, "There is, in short, an economic war raging in the world, and during a war men have little confidence for enterprise. What each man aims at is security and liquidity for himself, which means simply that he will not buy or lend if he can avoid it, and prefers to indulge in some one of the many forms of hoarding.... The economic war is accentuated by the political tension arising out of the uncertainty as to what Europe will do about reparations, the United States about the war debts," and all of us about the tariff... "Finally, the tension is increased by the fact that in the three nations which occupy a central place in the situation today-in France, Germany and the United States... only the boldest and most resourceful leadership all along the line can open a way out of this destructive deadlock. On the main objective there is general agreement: there must be an expansion of credit based upon a restoration of confidence, which in its turn must rest upon an economic and political truce. To say that is easy. To achieve it is hard."
But what are the signs of any restoration of confidence that would justify an expansion of credit? The latest newspaper reports would seem to indicate that the negotiations between Japanese and Chinese at Shanghai are progressing in a hopeful manner, though the total situation in China is growing menacing once more, and is full of possibilities for further trouble. The German election this
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month returned von Hindenburg to the Presidency by 6,000,000 majority but whether the Hitler movement has been checked depends on what action is taken on reparations. There is the hope that the forthcoming French election may reveal a growing liberal policy in the new government. The Conference on reparations to be held at Lausanne in June may succeed in solving the reparation problem for Europe and thus force the United States to take some action on the revision of war debts. The Disarmament Conference reconvened after the Easter vacation on April 11th and is at last ready to get down to business. The reports would indicate a growing disposition to do something along the lines of real progress. Secretary Stimson's departure for Geneva has been received with widespread interest both here and abroad. It does not seem possible, despite statements from Washington, that Mr. Stimson will be able to ignore the opportunity to make some contribution to the solution of "these tremendous problems that are today afflicting the entire world."
All this gives hope that eventually the needed confidence may be restored, but as Mr. Lippmann says. "in order to achieve this end, bold and generous action must be taken simultaneously and in coordination on several fronts: by the bankers in the realm of credit, by business men in the realm of enterprise, by Congress in the realm of fiscal and foreign policy, by the State Department in the realm of political security and by the President as the field marshal of the whole campaign. The problem must be visualized as a whole. All the responsible agencies need to move together if their separate actions are to take cifect."
If ever there was a time when the peoples of the world need to realize their common loyalties and remember that beneath all their differences there is a common life to which our supreme allegiance must be given, it is today. It is not knowledge alone that is needed, but a realizing sense of the significance of present realities that confront us in the new world.
J.H.R.
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JERUSALEM: CITY OF PEACE[edit]
by NORMAN BENTWICH Weizmann Chair of the International Late of Peace in the ever i alem
WHEN Jerusalem first appears on the stage of history, it is not indeed a city of peace. By its geographical position it is cut off from the ways of commerce, and it has never been a centre of affairs. It was a hill-fortress. almost impregnable, so that it was not captured by the Children of Israel on their original occupation of Canaan.
We may recall that the Hebrew name Jerusalem is a dual form; and some scholars have interpreted that form as a reference to the two centres of habitation on the Eastern and Western hills, Mount Ophel and Mount Zion as they were distinguished at a later period. They have suggested that the one was occupied by the Jebusites, and the other by the Hebrews till the time of David.
Using a bolder interpretation. I. should say that the dual form represents two contrasted characters of the city which have adhered to it from the earliest history, the city of war and the city of peace, or to put it in another way, the national and the universal city. The prophets and the teachers of Israel envisaged Jerusalem as the Capital of humanity, God's mountain to which all peoples should come up. And today jerusalem in its essential idea belongs not to one or two peoples, but more than any other city in the world to all mankind. Nevertheless, from the beginning of historical record to our own day, it has been also a scene of conflict. Urusalim, that ccurs in the Tel el Amarna tablets which give us a picture of the Land of Canaan in the 14th Century B.C.E..when it was an Egyptian protectorate.--is threatened by he Habiri; and its chieftain writes desperately to his Egyptian overlord to send help. And. if it is correctly identified with the Salem whose priest Melchizedek
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came to bless Abraham after his victory over the League of Kings, Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible for the first time in connection with strife. Yet if it has been destroyed many times and borne many sieges, if it has been fought for by many nations and races, if it has been the cause as well as the object of wars, it has been for 3,000 years the symbol of peace, and its name was interpreted by the Jewish religious philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, to mean the threshold of Peace. Let us see how it acquired this character.
The God of Israel, like the deity of all the peoples of antiquity. was originally regarded as the Providence of one particular people. Israel. And he was attached to a particular country which was holy to Him and owned by Him. "The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is mine" (Lev. 25,23), it is said in the law of Moses. He is a Man of War. He goes out to battle with the armies of Israel against the armies and the gods of their enemies. But from the moment of the foundation of the Temple of Jerusalem, a higher and profounder conception is apparent which is unparalled in ancient history. David may erect the sanctuary because his hands were stained with blood, and Solomon designs it not only for the people of Israel but for all mankind. "So that all peoples of the earth know thy name to fear thee as doth thy people Israel". (I. Kings. 8. 43).
That conception was deepened and universalized by the Prophets of Israel who gave a message of peace and humanity in words that through the ages have been treasured as sublime vision, if they have not always inspired to action.
"And many peoples shall go and say: Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. And he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge between the nations, and shall decide between many peoples. And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah. Ch. 2, 3 and 4: and Micah 4, 2 and 3).
In another passage the prophet laid down the conditions of the
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better ages to come, in words equally pregnant. "When justice shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field. And the word of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever. And my people shall abide in a peaceful habitation; and in secure dwellings and in quiet resting-places." (Isaiah. 32, 17, 18).
Other peoples of antiquity had a vision of world peace, but they placed it in a dim past and did not conceive it as an aim of the living society. What is peculiar to the Jewish seer is that he makes peace the fruit of the achievement of righteousness on earth, and makes the pursuit of that righteousness the national goal of the Jewish people, both within and without their own land. It is not to be brought about by some sudden intervention of God but by the continuous progress of man. Religion, which had been national for the Jews as for other peoples, must be universal. When justice rules the affairs not only of Israel but of all states, then will be the true peace. Their universalized religion opened a vista of internationalism for the Jews. Judea should be a third with Egypt and Assyria, the two mighty contending empires to the South and North; and all three would be at peace. It has been said that the Old Testament, in distinction to the New, is the soldier's Bible because it deals constantly with war; but it is to be remembered that it is also, more than the other, the statesman's Bible because it is occupied with the relations of nations and not only with the salvation of the individual.
In the same epoch as Isaiah and Micah lived, great religious reformers of the Eastern races were preaching moral reform, and insisting on peace as the basis of national life; The Buddha in India, Confucius in China and a second Zoroaster in Persia. And in Greece philosophers like Pythagoras and Heraclitus were beginning to expound the mysteries of the universe. It is as though there were a revelation of ethical truth at one time to all humanity. Yet no other voice was so powerfully to move mankind as the voice of Jerusalem. The God of Israel becomes for Israel the universal God; and his people has no other function than to lead the nations towards truth and justice. Jewish missionaries preached that lesson through the Pagan world, and in the guise of Greek
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poetry and philosophy conveyed it to the Greeks and Romans. Yet while the people in the Diaspora carried this message to their neighbors, the jews in Palestine itself were engaged in strife, sieges and fighting. A teacher arose in the most troubled epoch who announced himself as the Messiah and heralded the age of universal peace and goodwill to all men. And he preached the principles "Love your enemies;" "Resist not evil;" and "He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword."
He had in his life few followers; and a generation later the Jewish nation was plunged into a terrific struggle for its existence. The might of Rome prevailed over the right of the Jews. The temple of humanity was razed and Jerusalem ceased to exist. Jews were forced to fight for what they regarded as still dearer than peace, their right to worship God in their own way. For that they sacrificed for a long age their city, their sanctuary and their mission. But if the legions could raze Jerusalem, they could not destroy Judaism.
The site of Jerusalem was occupied by a Roman garrison town -Aelia Capitolina-and its inhabitants were Pagans. The ideal Jerusalem was withdrawn to a city in heaven; but the Jews never lost their conviction that God would bring them back to the city on earth to fulfil their purpose. They made two further desperate attempts to restore Jerusalem, and failing, submitted. They knew that the peace which reigned in the Roman Empire for centuries, though it broke down the barriers between peoples, was not a true peace. It was imposed by force; and as one of the Roman historians wrote of his nation-They make a desolation and call it peace.
The tranquility was founded on the crushing of the national spirit It was based on law but not on a living law. The Jewish teaching of a higher morality and of peace was spread through these centuries to an ever growing mass of people by the Jews themselves, and by the followers of the creed which had sprung from Judaism and Jerusalem just before the national disaster. That creed finally prevailed over the empire, but as it prevailed it was contaminated and the Voice of Jerusalem became dim. Instead of humanizing the Empire Christianity became an imperial power. As Lord Bryce
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says "The Church professed to christianize the world, but in effect the world secularized the Church." The Emperor Constantine who made Christianity the imperial religion brought, it is said, the nails of the Cross from Jerusalem, and turned them into his war-helmet and the bit of his war-horse. And on the triumphal arch in the Roman Forum which proclaimed his victories he declared that he avenged the Republic by just arms. So were the pacifist principles of the Gospel modified to suit the needs of the State.
A story is told in a Christian chronicle that the three Magi who came to offer adoration to the Saviour at his birth brought with them to Palestine as a present a globe of Alexander the Great made of golden coins of all the conquered countries. When the Child cast his eyes upon the globe it turned immediately to dust. The homily is clear. The world government, to which the Roman Church aspired, was not in accord with the teaching of the founder of Christianity, and its achievement was purchased by a debasement of that teaching.
While the early Christians would not fight or resist evil with force, the Vice-Regent of God on earth who filled the See at Rome, first authorized and then urged Christians to fight for the Empire. For St. Augustine in the 5th century, Jerusalem was the vision of peace, and peace was still the final good, but men should fight in a just war. It was significant that the seat of Imperial Christianity was not Jerusalem but Rome, the city of might rather than the city of righteousness.
Jerusalem indeed regained her proper name in the Christian Empire, and part of her functions as a hearth of religion. But the Jewish people were still denied the right of living there; and they were eventually driven by a jealous religious tyranny out of Palestine. The city was to be again for a long period a centre of strife and violence between nation and nation, between creed and creed. Zoroastrian Persian, Byzantine Christian, and finally Saracen Muslim fought for her possession, each claiming to have the truth.
The new universal creed of the Muslims, which too had sprung in part from the teaching if not from the soil of Jerusalem,
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carried, like Judaism and Christianity, a message of humanity and brotherhood to peoples and regions which had hitherto been rent with faction and strife, and so enlarged in one direction the realm of peace. Dar El Salam. It brought too to an intolerant priest-ridden Orient a large measure of tolerance for the Peoples of the Book. But it combined with that outlook the desire for imposing by force of arms the victory of its tenets, and so led on to another epoch of wars fought in the name of religion. For a period after the Muslim conquest Jerusalem was a holy city of the three religions where Muslims, Christians and Jews could live side by side and worship God each according to their tradition. Later, however, the will to victory and the exclusiveness of the two religions which aimed at the conquest of the world asserted itself and the rival beliefs in a universal god induced universal war. The Christians crying "God wishes it fell on the Muslims crying "God is great."
Jerusalem itself became a principal source of strife; and the places connected with the life of the Prince of Peace were the immediate causes of the wars between Cross and Crescent. Each creed deemed the city holy, but vindicated its holiness by arms. There were again kings of Jerusalem as warlike as the kings of Israel and Judah. The struggle between East and West, between Muslim and Christian, distracted the world for 500 years. The Saracen invasions of Europe, the Crusades, the wars between Turkish Sultans and Byzantine emperors, between Spanish kings and Moorish caliphs, are aspects of that long struggle. The idea of the City of Jerusalem was a binding and peacemaking force in Europe in that it knit together Christendom; but it knit them for external and religious war. Yet, as a recent historian of the Crusade has shown, the Vision, though seldom seen steadily and perhaps never seen whole, was none the less a saving ideal.³
One of the earliest schemes of a League of Nations was written at the beginning of the 14th Century by a Frenchman, Dubois, round the theme of the recovery of the Holy Land. Nearly fifty years earlier St. Louis of France had died in the Desert of Tunis
³ Ernest Barker. The Crusades in the Legacy of Islam. 1931.
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leading the last of the Crusades-which in the 13th century were waged everywhere except in Palestine-and with his dying breath exclaiming "Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem." The original motive of the Crusades lived on to inspire the conception of a Christian commonwealth of peoples. Almost every plan for European unity or a league of nations, from the time of Dubois (1300) to the days of Kant (1800), had as its basis the need of common action against the infidel. The idea of the recovery of the Holy Land even inspired those bold navigators who set out from Europe, at the end of the 15th century, to find a sea passage to the Indies. Since the land routes were shut the Christians would navigate to the East, and take Islam and enter Jerusalem from the rear. So Columbus and his men wore the cross; and thought sincerely that they were embarking on a religious enterprise-for the sake of Jerusalem.
Reeling under the blows inflicted by the different upholders of universal truth, the actual city of Jerusalem was laid waste by hordes of invaders from t further East, and for another spell lay derelict and neglected. She was still even in that lowly position the symbol of a better age to come to mankind, so that an English poet could write "I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land." But her voice was not heard for a long interval in human councils.
In the 19th century the lesson of tolerance and religious freedom had at last been learned both in the East and West, and mankind was beginning, howbeit painfully, to heed the teaching of science. which confirmed the teaching of religion, that it formed ine family, and to realize that the different creeds were diverse forms of truth. One last war, nevertheless, was to break out in that century on account of religious passions at Jerusalem and of the Holy Places of Christianity. The Crimean War, of which the immediate cause was the embittered feeling between the Orthodox and the Roman branches of the Church, failed to settle the question the Holy Places; but led to the admission of Turkey into the
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Society of Nations and thus broke down the barriers which circumscribed the field of international law. Hitherto that law had been restricted to the powers of Christendom; now it was to embrace the states of Islam, and before the end of the century the states of the Far East. The idea of one law to govern all nations had begun to come to fruition; and the first important international association for the development of that law adopted as its motto the words "Justitia et pace"—following the maxim of Isaiah that the foundation of peace is justice.
It had come also to be recognized that the world society is composed of all men of good-will who are conscious of a common humanity, without discrimination of religion.
If, however, the rule of law was extended, the ideal of universal peace and of justice ruling the nations still eluded humanity to the end of the century. In its very last year, the Czar of Russia, the successor of that Czar who at its beginning had planned a holy ordering of the political affairs of Europe on the basis of Christian principles, summoned a conference of all States to discuss disarmament, and succeeded at least in inaugurating a system of arbitral tribunals to judge the differences of the peoples. Among the motives of his action was the book of a Polish Jew, Jean le Stock, called the Future of War, which is said to have had greater influence on the relations of nations than any book since Grotius wrote his "Law of War and Peace."
But the spirit of national acquisitiveness and international suspicion was still abroad, and it prompted a series of wars that culminated in the world tragedy of the war of 1914-1918. A feeble gleam of another outlook was vouchsafed from Jerusalem during one of these minor struggles. Soon after the outbreak of war in 1911 between Italy and Turkey over the question of Tripoli in Africa, a letter signed by all the religious heads of the communities in Jerusalem was published to the world in these terms: "Jerusalem, the metropolis of religions and the cradle of salvation, justice and right, so dear to all hearts, and so hospitable to all souls which seek refuge in her holiness, turns her eyes towards all the Powers, and raises her voice to humanity to claim international support against
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the arbitrary and unprecedented act of Italy."
Jerusalem again was becoming conscious of her destiny as a world-city. The letter had no practical effect; but it is interesting to note the comment upon it which appeared in one of the international law journals at the time. "Jerusalem seems to wish to usurp in the spiritual world the rôle which used to belong to the Pope and to Rome. That ancient religious metropolis has lost her independence; and the Semitic metropolis in spite of the antiquity of her history lacks still the moral authority to speak to the society of nations."
The voice of Jerusalem was heard indeed more powerfully in those anxious years which preceded the great conflagration, not from the inhabitants of the City, but from the growing chorus of Peace Societies, and associations of international friendship and cooperation which the new world order fostered and required for its existence. Men were groping to the 'recognition that the conquest over time and space by modern science should bring with it. for the peace and wellbeing of mankind, the recognition of a single moral law and a common humanity which was above race and nation. It was one of the minor but tragic ironies of those fateful days in 1914 that a conference of all the Christian churches, other than the Roman Catholic, assembled they day after the Declaration of War between Russia and Germany at Constance for the toundation of a World Alliance for promoting International Friendship through the Churches. The Congress held its sessions despite the outbreak of war, and passed a resolution declaring its fundamental principle. "Inasmuch as the work of conciliation and the promotion of amity is essentially a Christian task, it is expedient that the Churches in all lands should use their influence with all the peoples, parliaments and governments of the world to bring about good and friendly relations between the nations, so that along the path of peaceful civilization they may reach the universal goodwill, to which Christianity has taught mankind to aspire."
During the same month as this Conference met at Constance a Roman Catholic Conference was to have met at Liege in Belgium.
See Clanet. 1912: Journal de Droit International. p. 999.
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But that town was beleaguered and the Conference could not be held.
War, as the greatest of the Greek historians declared, is a forcible teacher; and the horrors of the war roused the religious conscience more effectively than at any moment since the Reformation broke the unity of Western Christendom, and drove it to make a sustained effort to realize what was implied in the brotherhood of mankind. The bitter experience of four years taught that a world-war meant a "moratorium of ethics." and a recurrence might mean the destruction of civilization itself. Statesmen and all persons of good intention pondered how the teachings of the prophets of Jerusalem could be implemented in the affairs of States, realizing that Wisdom comes from the great Simplicities. Man is today a citizen of the world and must recognize himself as such.
Jerusalem was delivered during the world war from Turkish rule or neglect and a new vista was opened for the country when the declaration was made by Great Britain, in the midst of the hostilities, that she proposed to facilitate the establishment of a National Home for the Jewish people in Palestine. provided nothing was done to prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities. The return of the Jews to their historic home seemed to presage the beginning of the fulfilment of the Prophet’s vision. That vista was fixed firmly on the political horizon when, at the Peace Conference, the Covenant of the League of Nations was made the pivot of a new international order, and the representatives of the nations undertook to maintain peace and seek a peaceful solution of any differences that might arise amongst them.
Jerusalem would have been sentimentally and ideally the fitting place of meeting for the Council and Assembly and the Court of the League. But though at the junction of Asia and Africa, it was not geographically near enough to the main centre of affairs: and Geneva and The Hague were preferred for this purpose. The late Sir Mark Sykes indeed suggested that Palestine should be the headquarters of an international police force which would ensure maintenance of the world’s peace. Such a use would hardly be in
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JERUSALEM: CITY OF PEACE[edit]
keeping with the history of the ideals of the country; but something more in accord with that character has been mooted in recent years.
Since the League has been in operation, the need has become increasingly obvious for a spiritual union by the side of and supplementing the political union, to deepen the movement for understanding and cooperation, the pursuit of justice and righteous dualing, between states and races. The League, it is said, is today a palace without a soul; and the soul may be nourished by a spiritual league. If such a union is realized, its proper habitation would be Jerusalem which the prophets conceived as a capital of the universal kingdom and which has been the principal source of spiritual influence on humanity.
It is abundantly clear that the essential condition of peace is not so much the perfection of the machinery of the League as the conscious will of the peoples. That will depends on the spiritual elements in our modern life. The root evil of the policies of the 1st century, which was the primary cause of wars, was a new form of idolatry as demoralizing as any of the old Paganisms. It was the blind worship of the state and the disregard of the universal God and the cause of humanity. Religion became nationality in the empires of antiquity; now nationalism has become religion. The Jewish people who are the supreme example of an international nation should be the standard-bearers of the cause of a higher and altruistic nationality which recognizes the supremacy of humanity. Forced for over a thousand years to devote themselves to the preservation of their race, their religion and their doctrine, they may at last resume the task which their Prophets gave to them of teaching un universal doctrine to mankind. The task is the more urgent because in our day, throughout the Orient, the idea of nationalism, dormant for centuries, has aroused in the peoples an intense fervour, and tends to be combined with another importation from the West, materialism of thought. In the past the Oriental religions have been a more effective infiuence for peace than the Western, but today the prophets of the East combine and almost supersede their religious message with an ardent nationalism. So in the Last as in the West it is imperative to organize the spiritual forces
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for peace.
The study of comparative religion, the general acceptance in East and West of the doctrine of evolution, and the growth of the historical sense, which is probably the greatest intellectual achievement of modern times, have together brought about a truer conception of the relation of the different religious creeds, and rid mankind of the curse of wars of religion. It is recognized that there is something true and divinely revealed about every world-religion or, as it was put by a teacher of the last generation who lived and taught in Palestine. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas: "The supreme gift of God to our age is the knowledge of the oneness of man and the essential unity of religions." Differences of religion may make impossible a world-state: but the principles of religion denote a world-union. It may seem ironical and unreal to say so in a place where points of difference between the Churches and denominations are constantly accentuated; yet it is true that in every religious commur.ion men are looking for points of unity and emphasizing the common intention that underlies the diverse creeds. In the Society of Churches as in the Society of States there is a centripetal movement. The idea of a union of religions is taking definite shape. It has promoted a scheme for a conference of the religions of the world against war. for which preliminary meetings attended by representatives of all the great creeds have been held. It has promoted too the idea of a League of Religions for which a Frendi social philosopher suggested Paris as the centre. Yet he is sufficiently conscious of the Hebraic paternity of his idea to associate with it a mission for Israel. The smallest in number of the principal religious bodies, a mere 15 millions against the hundreds of millions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus. Buddhists, etc. But it is the teaching of the Hebrew prophets which inspires the movement for peace in the Western nations; and the Jews who have taken the lead in the organization of social justice should take it likewise in a movement for spiritual cooperation in the cause of international justice.
A remarkable expression of the aspiration for spiritual union was put forward during the war by an English sociologist, which has a special interest for those who labor in Jerusalem. In a book
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Jerusalem: City of Peace[edit]
called by the picturesque title of "Janus and Vesta" it is proposed that the universities of the world shall be federated, and that at the head shall be a world university. The author knew of the proposed university at Jerusalem, and he conceived that here would be found the world institution which he sought. "Dreams," he says, "must precede drama;" and if his scheme is in some measure fantastic- at the present stage-it is based on a fundamental truth that the academies of true learning form one of the most important spiritual agencies of our time. Every seat of learning, it is said, is an organ of genuine internationalism. It strengthens the human spirit by knowledge springing from one source and tending to one universal good. If that general function of universities is realized, the special function of a university at Jerusalem in the cause of understanding between peoples and nations may be apprehended. And I may be excused if I dwell on it a little in connection with the subject of this Chair.
The circumstances of the foundation of this University seem to mark it from the beginning for a special destiny. Its site, commanding one of the sublimest views in the whole world, and overlooking on one side the most historic city and on the other Nature's wonders, is a daily inspiration. The acquisition of that site during the stress of the war when Palestine still lived under the Turkish rule, and the laying of the foundation-stones during the hostilities and with the sound of the guns, marked symbolically the determination of the Jewish people, on their return to the country, to foster the arts of peace, and to make Jerusalem again a centre of knowledge. The inauguration of the Hebrew University some seven years later, in the presence of representatives of learning from all parts of the world, indicated the recognition of that aim by the society of scholars, and held out the prospect that the new foundation should not be a sectional place of learning but a place where "the universal element of the human spirit should find self-expression" and be a link of Palestine with the world of science. We may then look to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as the most striking living expression of the ideal of Jerusalem as the City of Peace. In particular one of the most immediate purposes must
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be to establish fuller knowledge and understanding of the culture and literature of the Arabs among the Jews. In a broader aspect it may aspire to play the part of mediator between the East and the West. As at Cordova in the Middle Ages Jews and Arabs emulated each other in literature and philosophy, so may they emulate each other in the universities of the East. How admirable would it be if, in the universities of the Arab lands also, a Chair should be founded for the International Law of Peace.
Another and still larger synthetic function may be served by the revival of learning in Jerusalem, the harmonising of the two branches of spiritual teaching, the one derived from the universities, the other from the religions. Since the Renaissance there has been a disturbing division between religion and culture. One of the problems of our day is to establish the harmony between the scientific and the religious conceptions and, in political affairs, to combine with the scientific teaching of the unity of the human race. the religious and intuitional consciousness of a common humanity. Part of that task lies within the scope of this Chair; the whole may not lie outside the effort of the University when it reaches its full stature and cooperation with the universities of the world.
If then we lift up our eyes to the hills and seek the vision without which the people perish, we may be inspired with the hope that in our generation Jerusalem may begin to fulfil her destiny of guiding humanity to peace both as a centre of religion and as a centre of science and the humanities. And we may utter with a fresh conviction the words of our Jerusalem poet: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. Let there be peace within thy border and tranquillity in thy palaces."
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ORIENT AND OCCIDENT[edit]
by HANS KOHN Doctor Juris, Untersity of Prague
THE SOCIAL PROBLEM[edit]
Castes and Classes[edit]
THE transition in the Orient from the Middle Ages to modern times expressed itself in the social sphere through a dissolution of hitherto existing orders and a loosening of family and tribal ties—which have all been associated with the soil and agricultural occupation. As a result of the Orient’s being drawn into the commercial and economic network of capitalism, the feudal social order has been disrupted just as much by economic as by cultural influences. The middle class, with its stratum of intelligentsia (in which lawyers and journalists are conspicuous above all others), advanced to the level of the hitherto ruling classes—the feudal nobility and the intellectual world of literary classicists—and yet at the same time begin to feel themselves pushed and pressed by the incipient growth of a newly arising working class. The patriarchal order is beginning to crumble, and in many respects is already in ruins.
The social structure has changed in the course of a single decade. The former Italian ambassador to China, Count Sforza, describes the condition of the Chinese working class since the World War: "What a gulf between yesterday and today! Workers are no longer mutually related, or neighborly, or friendly; they are merely a fluctuating mass of individuals brought together in one place by hunger. In the present stage of Chinese industry there is no worker who would not have been a peasant in former times, and who has not dreamed, in optimistic moments, of going back to his native village."
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longing for home is sometimes stronger than hunger, and the worker takes up again his earlier mode of living, as a peasant. But he takes it up with experiences and feelings of hatred which he was formerly free of. Strikes in Shanghai transform themselves into something legendary; workers in small native industries do not want to be behind the times; and thus it happens that movements occur even in cities which are lost far in the interior of the country. The final result is that a quick and easy explanation is given: bolshevistic intrigues. One who is interested in finding out the truth of the matter must view this unrest first of all as the outcome of a period of transition, the result of a disturbance of the old state of equilibrium. Until now the Chinese language, so rich in other respects, did not even have the word to designate a collection of workers in a large factory of the modern type. The Peking government has only just coined this word in its proclamation of labor legislation, while the old word remains to designate the operation of small industries only.
The years immediately after the World War meant the beginning of social unrest not only in China but also in Japan. A whole series of important strikes followed one another in 1919 and 1920 in the copper mines of Ashio, in the iron works of Kamashishi and, above all, in the great industrial center of Osaka. Along with economic and social demands there was also the political demand for the granting of universal suffrage. During the winter of 1920, while I was in Japan, not a week passed without demonstrations, which, to be sure, bore the additional picturesque gloss of Japanese traditions. When the Japanese delegates to the international labor conference were ready to embark for America it became known that among the twenty-six members of the delegation there was only one representative of the working class who had not, however, been chosen by the workers, but had been appointed by the government. The working men were not pleased with this; and therefore, when the ship was ready to sail, they organized a procession to the harbor of several thousand workers carrying the colors, tablets and incense customary at funeral obsequies. During the march they began to sing funeral songs and insisted in this manner upon according the delegate, against his will.
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the rite of a premature burial, which he avoided by embarking on the high seas. The suffrage demonstrations of the Japanese working class that winter called to mind the Austrian demonstrations of 1907, except, of course, that they were typically Japanese in character. In Tokio a demonstration of some 50,000 persons, each holding in his hand a small Japanese flag and a paper lantern, accompanied by numerous brass bands, proceeded to the imperial palace. There, after a short address closing with the demand for universal suffrage.
a cheer was raised for the Emperor. The Kansai Union, at a similar suffrage demonstration on February 8, 1920, sang a song composed for the occasion by their leader, Kagawa. Its tone is characteristic:
<poem> "Hear ye the voice of the people, In shadow and sorrow lamenting? Money now is too powerful, Justice and mercy have vanished. There is no freedom for helots, Weeping, they stand in the shadow. Therefore our song rings for justice. Let us cry loudly for freedom Until we have rendered impossible Every enormous injustice, And peace in her turn is prevailing As wealth was prevailing before. Freedom is not found in money, Riches can never buy freedom. Shall money prevail over justice: Is money more precious than man?" </poem>
The political demands of the Japanese working class yielded harvest. At the beginning of the century the electoral franchise was based on very high property qualifications, and only two percent of the population were entitled to vote. In 1905 and 1919 the property qualifications were lowered, and the number of those entitled to vote rose to five and one-half percent in 1924. Up to that time the labor party was not represented at all in the Japanese parliament, and the labor movement from the end of 1920 was under the most rigorous police oppression. The election reform of
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May 5, 1925 has established universal and equal suffrage in Japan. This will eventually alter the social structure of Japanese politics, which was exclusively determined by family struggles among the old feudal nobility until the beginning of this century, and after that by the struggle of the middle class for power over feudalism.
The shift of social predomination to the middle class took place in other countries in a less evolutionary manner than in Japan. In Turkey, as in Egypt, the last decade meant the transfer of control to the middle class, which won its power in its struggle against the court and the feudal nobility and embraced nationalism as its faith, just as middle class movements towards the same end did in Europe. Classified according to their social position, the members of the supreme national assembly of Turkey in 1923 fell into the following groups: 93 former government officials, 49 former military officers, 50 professional men (lawyers and journalists). -6 representatives of the middle class and 18 clergymen. The Wafd party, which controls every freely elected Egyptian parliament. is chiefly composed of lawyers, being similar in this respect to most of the parties of the French middle-class republic. The parties which existed in Egypt during the last years of the first post-war decade represented distinct classes: the Unionists, the court: the Constitutional-Liberals, the liberal nobility and the highest layers of the upper middle class; and the Wafd party, the middle class and the great masses of fellahin who had not yet obtained any social representation of their own, and were related by blood to the aspiring middle class (the leaders of the middle class were, in fact. successful sons of fellah villagers). The political division of the two classes, the bourgeoisie and the working peasant, will make itself felt politically only after the country has gained full independence. In Arabic countries and in Persia the rise of the middle class is only just beginning, but the process is working itself out with great rapidity and is being expedited, most of all, through the education of a new generation in schools affected by western ideas This younger generation is opposed to leadership by the old feudal families and, on account of its origin, is allied to the lower ranks of the people. The possibilities offered by the present, constantly ex
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Orient and Occident[edit]
panding network of schools, and the Europeanization of administrative activity, facilitate the rise of fellah children into the middle class and encourage the exodus from village to city. Among the oriental peoples of the Soviet Union the process of social reorganization is working itself out with considerably greater rapidity. The official governmental report of the Federated Russian Socialist Soviet Republic, at the Fourteenth Soviet Congress in May, 1929, outlines the policy which the government is pursuing with regard to the autonomous provinces of the Republic inhabited by oriental peoples. This policy has three aims: the equalization of the economic and cultural levels of the central Russian divisions of the realm en the one hand, and its oriental border states on the other, through a lifting of the economic and cultural level of the latter; the removal of the influence upon the masses of all native feudal elements, through the development of class-consciousness among the masses; and their self-emancipation through organization-by local soviets, cooperative societies, etc.-of the struggle with the remnants of the patriarchal order which impede the economic and cultural progress of the population. The Soviet government has sought to destroy the power of the feudal lords and the clergy by means of political expedients and a reform in land tenure. In this respect the tendency of the Russian Revolution was to bring the industrial masses" into power, rather than the middle class (which, indeed, had hardly begun to manifest itself). But, with the exception of the provinces of the Soviet Union, the process of consolidation and accession to power of the middle class is taking place in the Orient today. The labor movement is only just coming to existence, as it was in Europe during the first half of the last century. The most progressive elements among the younger generation of the middle class are beginning, however, to incline towards socialistic theories even in the Orient. It is not a mere matter of chance that the president of the historical meeting of the national congress of Hindus at Lahore at the end of 1929-Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the young Hindu movement-acknowledged himself a socialist.
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I[edit]
THE PATH OF HISTORY[edit]
by PAUL HINNER
THE EPOCH OF AGGRESSIVE INDIVIDUALISM[edit]
HE progressive development of affairs in general made a change in the form of government from monarchy to re was timely and suitable as long as the horse on land and the sailing ship on the seas were the sole means for transportation and communication, and while colonization was still in its first stage, because the policies for the governing of the different countries had to be retained without alterations for long periods of time, as events in consequence of the slow means of transportation and communication matured only slowly. The monarchic form of government made this possible through the transmission of the political views from father to son. (Hohenstaufen). Republican Rome was no exception because there the head of the government had always the might, if not the right, to determine his successor
The acceleration of the development of human affairs through the ripening of colonies for independence, through the French Revolution and through the invention of the steam engine, made the Republican form of government a necessity, because the policies of the governments had to be changed more frequently than formerly in order to keep in harmony with the rapidly changing conditions
The Epoch of Aggressive Individualism suffered several times from serious disturbances. The conditions in the Christian Church before the Reformation were a disease which was caused through abuse by the clergy of privileged position and by the attempt to prevent the broadening of religious tolerance. Luther and his contemporaries were the means for correcting the evil, and the relig
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THE PATH OF HISTORY[edit]
ious wars of those times were the painful parallel events of the disease and its cure. A revival of the natural development of human affairs towards greater spiritual freedom for the individual and an increased spiritual activity were the final effects of the Reformation. The conditions which led to the French Revolution were likewise a disease in the body of the Epoch of Aggressive Individualism. The selfishness of the nobility and the ultra-conservative tendencies of the political organs in the European countries prevented the natural development of human affairs towards political equality. The Revolution removed all obstacles to the growth of the epoch in France and reanimated the political development. Through Nape icon this process was extended to the adjoining parts of the body. The reaction which set in after the downfall of Napoleon slowed again the political growth but became in the linking of cause and effect part of the impulse for the rapid development of the United States of America.
The steady growth of the materialistic desires in all stratas of ciety and the increase of the population of the European countries brought about a corresponding development of the means for the production of the desired and necessary goods. The profit from this process, which became available as new capital and the pressure of the surplus population made possible and necessary the colonization of oversea countries. Besides this the natural development of civilization expressed itself in the desire of the people for greater political freedom and better economic conditions. The Eited States of America were best fitted to satisfy these desires because they granted at that time the largest measure of political liberty and offered unlimited economic possibilities. Through these different causes many thousands of people were induced to leave er homes in Europe and to emigrate to the easily accessible content of North America. Through the settling and development of the United States the last step in the expansion of aggressive individualism was accomplished. It was made possible through a teady stream of man-power from Europe, augmented by a stream foreign capital and the re-investing of the created profits. These acts in connection with the abundant natural resources of the
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virgin country were the cause of the rapid rise to wealth and power. As if produced by magic, so rose in one century the mighty Republic which was destined to play the leading role in the termination of individualistic civilization. The fact that the United States represents the peak of individualism is revealed through many features in the life of the nation. The immigrants were mainly people with strong individualistic inclinations, the obtaining of the largest measure of liberty for the individual was the purpose of the fundamental law, the demonstration of the highest possible prowess of the individual is the object of all sports. The population possesses a fondness for the use of the superlative in its speech. In the education of youth the promotion of individuality is stressed at the expense of the development of other qualities. As a result of this cult of the individual and the lack of restraint on the activities of the "sovereign person" many features of life have been carried to extremes and tend to produce a climax in the development of human affairs. The negative values of life embodied in crime corruption and speculation consequently are likewise larger in America than elsewhere. Up to now the materialistic contributions of America to the progress of mankind have been most prominent. In the perfecting of chanical appliances for the utilization of energy and in the organization of human efforts for the production of material necessities and luxuries, the United States have surpassed all other countries, however, indications are not lacking that in the future America will contribute, even in a larger measure to the spiritual progress of mankind.
With the recovery of the individualistic civilization from the political reaction during the first half of the 19th century an acceleration of its physical growth set in, just as through the Reformation the spiritual growth had been re-animated. The countries of South America achieved independence and the European nation contended with each other in the completion of the colonization of the world. The inner development took the form of a leveling of political extremes and a striving for democracy. The nations of Central Europe at first took no part in the colonial expansion, because it was their historic mission to protect the western nations
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THE PATH OF HISTORY[edit]
against being disturbed by the slavic race. Germany and Austria were the rear guard of the individualistic civilization and provided the security from interference by the Slavs, which was necessary for the exploration and colonization of the Western Hemisphere.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the aggressive individualistic civilization as represented by Europe and America, had finished its growth and accomplished its purpose. It embraced now the population of the world with the exception of the African negroes, the Mongolian race and the Slavic people contained in the Russian Empire. Although the negroes of Africa were subjugated and exploited by the European nations, their backwardness prevented their complete assimilation by the individualistic civilization. Climatic conditions in central Africa apparently do not allow the human species to mature in cultural respects as rapidly as in the temperate zone. The black race must therefore be considered as still in infancy; it is raw material which nature has reserved for future use. The Mongolian race on the other hand was the body of an entirely independent epoch of civilization. As a consequence of geographic position and the inclination for voluntary isolation this civilization of the Orient came in contact with the aggressive individualism of the West only after the latter had lost the power to subdue and assimilate other races and China therefore retained its cultural independence. The broad masses of Russia had also remained exempt from a complete penetration by individualism. On their Western Border was the living wall of Germany and Austria, while in the South the Ottoman Empire, reinforced by natural obstacles, was a formidable barrier. Over the Russian people lay the blanket of Czarism, with an unprogressive bureaucracy and a nobility of foreign descent; their religion had no connection with the religion of Central and Western Europe, and was not touched by the Reformation. As a consequence of these conditions the cultural development was arrested and the Russian people remained dormant.
After the epoch of individualism had completed its growth the infirmities of age developed and in time affected the functions of all organs. The cosmology of the Bible did not correspond any
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more with the increased knowledge about the universe and the process of life and this discrepancy destroyed the faith of many believers.
The moral restrictions which religion placed on the activities of the individuals became burdensome and were disregarded. The people only prayed to God out of habit or fear, or with the hope of furthering their own selfish interests. They thought and acted as if for the development of human affairs, their will alone was decisive. Their actions were a negation of spiritual life although the outward form of religion was maintained.
It was evident that the spiritual force, which in the form of religion had provided the impulse for the development of the present civilization, had fulfilled its purpose and in doing this had exhausted its strength and vitality.
This spiritual decline of the individualistic civilization produced a mental attitude which found expression in the doctrine of historic materialism. According to this philosophy each individual always shapes his or her conduct so as to promote their own material wellbeing above all other considerations. Any society whose individual components are consciously or unconsciously guided by such principles must naturally resolve itself into its smallest parts. As long as all people were striving for common ideals, so long did their actions lie in the same direction and tended to unite them, but as soon as selfish desires and accumulation of material wealth dominated the efforts of the individuals, the cohesion between the human components of society was shattered and the dissolution of the prevailing civilization became the natural consequence.
In all nations the materialistic desires and the selfish efforts of the people developed into a morbid mania to get rich. Governmental institutions grew to abnormal dimensions and their maintenance absorbed ever increasing amounts of the energy of the population. The functions of the economic organs became irregular and overproduction, cessation of trade and unemployment disturbed repeatedly the circulation of the currency. Speculation, which ordinarily acts as a stimulant on economic activities, was carried to excess and became vicious and destructive. The spirit of the epoch, enfeebled by age, could not prevent or overcome these unhealthy developments and its entire being was penetrated by
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them. The general striving for wealth and material possessions became centralized in the policies of the governments of the different countries and led to a banding together of nations with mutual interests. As the differences between these groups of nations increased, they became hostile toward each other and expanded their military organs far beyond the original necessity. It was only a question of time when this unhealthy state of affairs would lead to a violent liquidation in the form of a war. In 1914 an insignificant event released the pent up forces and started the World War. During the first years of the conflict neither of the combatants could gain an advantage over its adversary, which would have sufficed for victory. The United States government declared its neutrality, but the financial and other aid rendered by private American business interests to the Allies made this neutrality illusory. After two years of this unusual status the country had become so heavily involved on the side of the Allies that it could not tolerate a German victory without inviting economic disaster. The war in the meantime had become a struggle of attrition and as in 1917 the morale of parts of the Allies showed signs of impending collapse, the United States came to their assistance by becoming an active combatant on their side. This changed the proportion of power between the warring factions overwhelmingly, in favor of the Entente and brought the war to an end in 1918, through causing the collapse of the Central Powers.
The fury of the struggle, the almost superhuman efforts and sacrifices made by both parties and the widespread exploitation for selfish purposes of the confusion and misery, had deepened national animosities, weakened the structure of civilization, disturbed the functioning of its organs and changed the nature of its life blood, the liquid capital to such an extent that the continuation of the individualistic civilization as an organic entity was made impossible. This dying of civilization was expressed in the complete impotence and perversion of religion. In a world with plenty for all the nations murdered each other out of selfish motives and praved to one and the same God to sanctify their deeds through the granting of victory. The year 1917, must therefore be counted as
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the last year of the Christian Era, because it contained the turning point in which the destructive forces definitely overcame the constructive forces and the influence of the prevailing religions sank to a level from which a recovery is impossible. Human selfishness and extreme love of material possessions were the cause of the war and the responsibility for it rests on all people and on all nations. including those that took no active part in it, because all of them contributed to the conditions that led to the conflict, or tolerated them without protest.
Since the World War selfishness and love of material possessions have increased to such an extent that they completely nullify the forces which united the people into a living cultural unit and as a consequence the civilization of Europe and America has ceased to function.
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THE NOVEL OF THE WAR YEARS[edit]
by EVELYN NEWMAN Professor of English, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida
VII[edit]
JUST such stark poetry of realism as Siegfried Sassoon’s has written upon the War in verse form, Erich Maria Remarque has expressed in his novel All Quiet on the Western Front. Brooding emotion, bitter revolt, and tender compassion are qualities of both writers. To such qualities, E. M. Remarque adds a relentless will to narrate the most brutal physical facts of wars His poetic gift enables him to tell these revolting truths with an ominous quietness. Herr Remarque was eighteen to Mr. Sassoon’s twenty-eight when he went to the War. He was in active fighting on the Western Front, where most of his friends were killed. Perhaps the fact that almost ten years clapsed before he set down in tinal form his terrific experiences accounts for their cumulative Strength and clarity. It is as though that whole "lost generation" for whom he is spokesman were contributing their own thought and emotions to the power of his recital.
His brief foreword strikes the note of grim sincerity which is ustained throughout: "This book is to be neither an accusation nor confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adenture to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have caped its shells, were destroyed by the War."
His whole class of twenty went to enlist. Many of them proudly shaved" for the first time before going to the barracks. Her Remarque through carefully developed argument and [Page 104]
incident explains the reason for the "lostness" of his generation. He accuses the schoolmasters, as does Clara Viebig, for much of the early enlistment of boys of seventeen and eighteen: "For us lads of eighteen the schoolmasters ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress to the future. We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. . . . But the first death we saw shattered this belief. The first bombardment showed us our mistake. . . . We loved our country as much as they: we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from the true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through."
The boy Paul is like Maxime Clerambault, Hugh Britling. Private Suhren, or Paul Raynal's Unknown Warrior. They were all. as young Suhren described it, "on the edge of the world, wrapped round with its surging roar" which for them was the savagery of bayonet thrusts and horror of shell explosions and hand grenades for months and even years. Their loneliness was supreme and irremediable for life. Such a philosophy applied especially to the eighteen and twenty-year old participants, whom E. M. Remarque differentiates clearly from older men, already linked to the home world by an ordered life in some trade or profession, by their stabilized affections in marriage and their centered interests in their civilian obligations and experiences. For the young men there were no such sustaining influences: "We had as yet taken no root. The War swept us away. For the others, the older men, it is but an interruption.... We know only that in some strange and melancholy way we have become a waste land.
"We were trained in the Army for ten weeks and in this time more profoundly influenced than by ten years at school. We learned that a bright button is weightier than four volumes of Schopenhauer."
He, too, refers bitterly to the Army system: "With our young awakened eyes we saw that the classical conception of the Fatherland held by our teachers resolved itself here into the renunciation
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THE NOVEL OF THE WAR YEARS[edit]
of personality-such as one would not ask of the meanest servant. ... We had fancied our task would be different, only to find we were to be trained for heroism as though we were circus ponies." In his description of a front line attack, the author tells with Ivrical beauty what a refuge is the earth to the soldier: "He buries his face and limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and gives him a new lease of ten seconds of life, receives him again and often for ever."
"We march up, moody or good-tempered soldiers, we reach the zone where the front begins and become on the instant human animals."
The advance is made in the moonlight. Guns and munition wagons are drawn by horses whose backs shine in the gleam. Katczinsky and Paul are together. A child recruit of sixteen beside them is physically ill from fear. Paul tries to reassure him. Then upon the night, above the roar of bombardment, comes a terrible cry of wounded horses: "It's unendurable. It is the moaning of the world, it is the martyred creation, wild with anguish, filled with terror and groaning." The little group share Müller's field-glasses and see the stretcher-bearers working with the wounded men, and the wounded horses galloping wildly in their pain, falling entangled by their own dragging entrails.
Up at the front again Paul goes on patrol duty, has a terrible attack of fear, for which he blames his leave, and is brought out of it by the sound of his friends' voices. In his effort to find his way back to them he is lost-confused by the flickering shadows of the windy night. While crouching in terror in a shell hole, a man's body falls upon him. Instinctively he stabs it. When he recovers himself, he sees a Frenchman lying in death agony. As the day comes on he hopes to escape from the horrible sight, but the machine guns keep up a steady fire. His dying enemy opens his eyes. Paul creeps beside him and tries to reassure him, brings him water from the bottom of the shell hole, bandages his wounds, does everything possible to make up for his instinctive animal thrust that
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brought death to this first man whom he had killed with his hands and whom he could see. Paul’s recorded thoughts concerning this Frenchman’s home, family and work are unforgettable. Not being able to stand the silence, he talks to his victim: “Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed....Forgive me, comrade....; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up--- take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now.”
Before venturing out that night, Paul pledges solemnly to the dead Frenchman: “If I come out of it, comrade, I will fight against this, that has struck us both down; from you, taken life-and from me? Life also. I promise you, comrade. It shall never happen again.”
The final horrors of the wholesale killing of ignorant young recruits scarcely over sixteen, flung into the breaking lines, of the lack of food, of the illness of the men, of the hopelessness of the young ones as the talk of peace spreads, are all summed up in the final statement of the lad of twenty: “Let the months and years come, they bring me nothing more, they can bring me nothing more. I am so alone and so without hope that I can corront them without fear.”
The closing paragraphs purport to be by one who tells of Paul’s death in October 1918, on a day when “all was quiet on the western front.” The book is a spiritual autobiography not only to: one young man, but for his generation. Its true lyrical close is with his salutation to summer of 1918: “Summer of 1918-Never was so much silently suffered as in the moment when we depart once again for the front line. Wild, tormenting rumors of an armistice and peace are in the air, they lay hold on our hearts and make the return to the front harder than ever.”
Summer of 1918-The most bioody and the most terrible This book, in a sense, reviews the content of all the others so far
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discussed: punishments of "fatigue duty" in barracks, the squalidness and savagery of trench life, with its rats and vermin, its ceaseless fear and consequent relapse into animalism of indulgence in all the physical appetites, the contrast between civilian life and thought and that of the men at the front, the general philosophy of the fighting soldier of the decent workman or labour type, the sufferings of the wounded, and the great and only comfort of friendshup stronger than death. And these bare facts of war Herr Remarque relates with an intensity of emotional fire that seems to make his pages glow and to burn scenes into the reader's memory-scenes such as the one of the wounded horses, or that of Paul with his dead French comrade, or the more quiet yet equally arresting one of the boy Paul trying to re-evoke his former delights in nis treasure books of youth alone in his room, or of his friendship with Kat-an apotheosis of friendship.
But if the book looks backward, it looks forward also. It suggests the philosophy of several post-war novels, notably those of Joseph Roth, and its lament for a lost generation makes it a suitable prelude for Arnold Zweig's memorial to all innocent victims of the war symbolized by Sergeant Grischa.
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THE COMMON MESSAGE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHERS[edit]
by HUGH MCCURDY WOODWARD Department of Philosophy of Education, Brigham Yung mitersity
TOLERANCE, THE KEY TO THE MESSAGE[edit]
(Continued)
THE Chinese philosophers are especially strong in their advocacy of tolerance. The following statements represent the teachings of Lao Tze: "He who has no faith in others shall find no faith in them. Among men, reject none; among things, reject nothing. This is called comprehensive intelligence. I am good to the good; I am also good to the bad, for virtue is goodness. With the faithful I am faithful, with the unfaithful I am also faithful, for virtue is faithfulness."
Confucius said: "The wise man does not esteem a person more highly because of what he says, neither does he undervalue what is said because of the person who says it. Respect the old, and be kind to the young. Be not forgetful of strangers and travellers."
At another time he said: "Men are partial where they feel effection and love; partial where they despise and dislike; partial where they stand in awe and reverence; partial where they feel sorrow and compassion; partial where they are arrogant and rude. Thus it is that there are few men in the world, who love and at the same time know the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate, and yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred."
His negative statement of the golden rule gives us an idea of how definitely he recognized that all men have faults and weaknesses and that he was quite tolerant of such. He taught that the superior man and the rulers should not oppress the poor, but rule in justice and equity.
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Mr. S. A. Kapadia, a very careful student of Zoroastrism says: "Tolerance is another great feature of the Parsi faith. Though taught to revere his own religion and despise and destroy idols and images. he is also impressed with the idea of observing great tolerance and discretion in passing judgments on the religious beliefs of thers. Zoroaster himself set the example of this excellent precept whilst praising the soul. The souls of the pure men in all religions praise I. Strict as the law of chastity is, a great spirit of tolerance is shown in the Avesta writing in reference to an unmarried woman who happens to fall a victim to the charms of an insidious man. True, it is a punishable sin, yet the Almighty, in His mercy, has taken due notice of such misfortune happening in a household."
In the Zoroastrian Bible we read the following: "Have the eligions of mankind no common ground? Broad indeed is the Carpet God has spread and many are the colors He has given it. Whatever road I take joins the highway that leads to Him."
The spirit of Buddhism relative to tolerance is manifest in a quotation from Buddhist literature. It reads: "The beloved of the gods honors all forms of religious faiths-there ought to be reverence for one's own faith and no reviling of that of others. Never tank just "Buddhism" or say that your own religion is the best. Never denounce the religion of others. Gautama himself always et an example of tolerance. He never denounced the Brahmen. He treated them with respect and taught others to do so."
A striking statement is quoted in "Buddhism, the Science of Late by A. L. Cleather: "Buddhism was never aggressive or comative. Its motto everywhere was persuasion or conciliation. Composure, tranquility, and absence of acrimony were stamped on all features... The very essence of Brahmanism was tolerance. Every form of opinion was admissible under a system which made every person and every object in existence manifestations of the ne being, Brahma. Nor was any one tempted to adopt the rôle of violent agitator when all were free to express any opinion they ked without any hindrance, provided they took care to abstain from any act of interference with caste privileges."
Probably the most beautiful statement of tolerance in all [Page 110]
literature is couched in the five meditations of Buddhism. "The fir meditation is the meditation of love in which you must so adjus your heart that you long for the weal and welfare of all beings including the happiness of your enemies. The second meditation is the meditation of pity, in which you think of all things in distress, vividly representing in your imagination their sorrows and anxieties so as to arouse a deep compassion for them in your soul The third meditation is the meditation of joy in which you think of the prosperity of others and rejoice with their rejoicings. The fourth meditation is the meditation on impurity in which you consider the evil consequences of corruption, the effects of sin and disease. How trivial often the pleasure of the moment and how fatal often is its consequences. The fifth meditation is the meditation on serenity in which you rise above love and hate, trann and oppression, wealth and want, and regard your own fate wit impartial calmness and perfect tranquility."
The reader will, no doubt, want to read these meditations many times. If all the religious statements of history except this one were done away with, and it were practiced daily by all peoples, it would be sufficient to make a paradise of this world. These meditations are the practical applications of the great summation of the law of Jesus, wherein he said: "And thou shalt love the Lor thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment, and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"
Buddha said on one occasion: "Never speak a disparaging word to anybody. All beings desire happiness; therefore to all extend your benevolence... He who is tender to all things that live is protected by heaven and loved by man." Again he said: "I preach simple truths. I have no esoteric doctrine. My way is open to all to the lowly as to the exalted. No high birth makes a true Brahman—not birth, not wealth, not learning, make a man worthy, but a pure heart, a good character, a noble aim in life. These alone make a man worthy." Another similar statement is a passage from the Buddhist Bible. It reads: "The root of religion is to reverence one own faith and never to revile the faith of others. My doctrine
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kes no distinction between high and low, rich and poor. It is the sky; it has room for all and like water it washes all alike."
Mr. Pratt in his book "The Pilgrimage of Buddhism" says: "nother outgrowth of the inwardness, gentleness, and lack of gressiveness, which are so basic in the Buddhist character is an usual degree of intellectual tolerance and liberality of thought. as tolerance for the opinions of others has an intellectual or poretical root as well. It is in part the natural result of the lack any absolutely authoritative book, church, or pope."
These master teachers of the Far East furnish a solid support broad, sympathetic, and tolerant philosophy of the Holy Naza-
In every walk of life, in every place, and in every experience ctance was one of his outstanding characteristics. We hear him tting an end to all bitterness and hate as he says: "But I say unto love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them it hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and per- ute you. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly ther will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their tres- sses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
In his associations with men he was wedded to no class. He med always to be lending himself to that place or person where was needed. An example of his free association with the needy ardless of their station is found in the following: "And it came pass that as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publi- and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, why th your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus and that he said unto them. They that be whole need not a physi- but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, will have mercy, and not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the teous, but the sinners to repentance."
In the same Christian scriptures we read the following words: "no respecter of persons but in every nation he that teeth and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him."
The master's keen penetrating vision which made it possible him to look upon all sin as a disease to be cured was coupled
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with a love that made him yearn for the souls of those who had gone astray. It was the sin that he condemned and not the sinner. This clear distinction which he made between the sin and the sinner is graphically portrayed in the account of the woman taken in adultery and recorded by St. John: "And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst they said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned; but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last, and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more."
The age of science has done much to control the impulse to act on small information. Wherever the scientific method of the last four hundred years has touched the minds of men it has made for tolerance. It has helped men to suspend judgment and made it easier to move from superstition and prejudice. It has made him more conservative in arriving at conclusions. It has caused him to investigate his authority. He has become courageous enough to ask many questions of those who would rush him into battle or hasty decisions. But great as has been this scientific advance, man learns slowly.
It would be difficult to marshal the people of Europe or those of America under a series of religious crusades, such as took place in the twelfth century. Probably no religious authority could accomplish the task. But the smoke of the World War has hardly
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THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHERS[edit]
died away, where millions were marshalled under the authority of political and economic lords, battling for economic supremacy. Of course these millions did not know why they fought. Intolerance backed by the ignorance of the masses were the weapons used by these blind leaders of the blind. Millions went into battle with the same enthusiasm that the earlier soldiers went into the crusades, only to be disillusioned later concerning the righteousness of the claims of their leaders.
Just as the pursual of the scientific method has made it impossible to murder and imprison the leaders of science, so will a continuation of that method into the fields of sociology, economics, political science, and ethics make it impossible for selfish greed to lead millions into such a catastrophy as the world witnessed between 1914 and 1917.
The world of today is desperately in need of sufficient tolerance to enable all parts to search out the good of every other part. How ridiculous would seem the local vanities, jealousies, and intolerance of all parts of the world, claiming to live by the will of the same universal God and by the same irrevocable laws of nature, to one who could pull himself away from his local bearings and project himself to a point where he could view all groups with an impartial eye. Individuals, peoples, nations, and great religious systems of all the world must do what has been done in this volume. They must pick out the good which they have in common. They must search more vigorously for the golden thread of truth and make less of their differences. Tolerance is the one attitude which will make it possible to discover the common good in all peoples, sciences, philosophies, and religions.
A statement from the Confucian Bible crystalizes the message of this chapter and represents the spirit of the entire volume. He says: "Religions are many and different, but reason is one. The broadminded see the truth in different religions; the narrowminded see only the differences."
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THIS PRAYING WORLD[edit]
by JOHN WILLIAM KITCHING Author of Aeru al and Iamorna, ste
Persia[edit]
"GRANT me. Thou maker of the plants and waters, Immortality, Mazda!" -Yasna XVIII: 4.
"This I ask Thee, O Ahura! tell me aright: who as a skillful artisan, hath made the lights and the darkness?" -Yasna XLIV:5.
"May my country grow and increase (68). Yašt. xiii.
These three prayers are from the Zoroastrian religion of ancient Persia. Zoroaster was the prophet of ancient Iran, a representative of the faith of the Magi and a great religious teacher of the East. The tenets of his creed are preserved in the Avesta in the Pahlavi literature and in later writings and they are still kept up by the small community of Ghebers in Persia and by the Parsis in India.
On the basis of the traditional chronology of the Parsis, as found in the Bundahishn, the probable dates of Zoroaster's birth and death may be reckoned as falling respectively about 660 B.C. and 58; B.C.
Tradition makes Azerbaijan the home of his father, Ponrushaspa and the ancient town of Rai, the Rhages of the Book of Tobit, near Teheran, the home of his mother Dughedha.
In his thirtieth year, he received a revelation of the faith and came forward as an opponent and reformer of the superstitious beliefs and heresies that existed in the old creed.
Seven visions of heaven, the divine being, and the archangels were revealed to Zoroaster in the following ten years. He then is said to have undergone the final test by a temptation from the evil spirit Ahriman.
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THIS PRAYING WORLD[edit]
The place where he made his first convert, his cousin, Maidhyoi-maonha, or Medyomah, after the conflict with the spirit of evil, is probably the district of the great forest of reeds near the S.W. shore of Lake Urumiah.
Zoroaster's first real success, however, was achieved when he converted King Vishtaspa which was accomplished in the prophet's 42nd year, in 618 B.C.
King Vishtaspa, is called "the Constantine of Zoroastrianism." His conversion took place after the prophet had given miraculous signs of his power. It was followed by a long series of wars against the unbelievers. During those battles Zoroaster was killed while serving at an altar with a group of priests at the age of seventy-seven. The substance of Zoroaster's doctrine is found in this sentence of Yasts xxx,—The two primal spirits who revealed themselves in vision as twins are the "Better" and the "Bad" in thought, word and action. And between these two the wise knew to choose aright, the foolish not so. This is the essence of Zoroaster's morals which developed later into a large cosmogonic system. By his right choice the man who obeys law helps in the final victory of the good spirit, the spirit of the wise lord ((Ahura Mazdáh), over the spirit of deceit and treachery (druj, Angra Mainyu). In this way he will realize in this world and hereafter the 'wished-for Kingdom' with perfect happiness and immortality. Mazdæan dualism approaches monotheism closely since Ormazd is to prevail ultimately. By his right choice, his good deeds, good words and good thoughts, man is fighting for the victory of Ormazd. Charity towards the poor and hospitality towards the stranger are preached as virtues. The duty of the tillage of the soil and of cattle-breeding is exalted to the rank of a primary virtue. The tenderest care surrounds the ox and the dog. Marriage is a duty and the deed are exposed on dakhmas or "Towers of Silence."
A. N. Williams Jackson translated for us Zoroaster's reverent prayer to Ormazd for Enlightenment which is as follows:
"This I ask Thee—tell it to me truly, Lord!
Who the Sire was, Father first of Holiness?
Who the pathway for the sun and stars ordained?"
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Who, through whom its moon doth wax and wane again?
This and much else do I long. O Lord, to know.
"This I ask Thee-tell it to me truly, Lord!
Who set firmly earth below, and kept the sky
Sure from falling? Who the streams and trees did make?
Who their swiftness to the winds and clouds hath yoked?
Who, O Mazda, was the Founder of Good Thought?
"This I ask Thee-tell it to me truly, Lord!
Who, benignant, made the darkness and the light?
Who, benignant, sleep and waking did create?
Who the morning, noon, and evening did decree
As reminders to the wise, of duty's call?"
Another form of prayer in Zoroastrianism is for the dying and the dead. These prayers, which are still made among the Parsis after the death of a beloved one are called 'äfringan' and 'srōsh darun' in the Avesta. Their aim is to secure for the dead eternal bliss and happiness in heaven and in the future world and they consist in sacerdotal ceremonies, celebrated on various occasions. but especially at the time when the dead are expected to visit the earth and in connection with the funeral festivals. At these ceremonies the priests invoke many gods and genii, especially the angel of death, Srōsh (Sroasha), the psychopompos of the Iranians, who carries the dead to heaven and protects them from demons. In this dangerous task Sroasha needs the assistance of the offerings and prayers of the survivors. In the Srōsh Yašt Hädhökat (Yašt, xi.) occurs this request for bliss for the departed,--
"(Give) unto that man brightness and glory,... give him the bright, all-happy, blissful abode of the holy ones!"
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THE AMERICAN PEACE MOVEMENT[edit]
CURRENT PLANS AND ACTIVITIES[edit]
by RUSSELL M. COOPER Graduate School, Columbia Unitersity
THE long and spectacular series of critical events which characterized international relations during the winter months has subsided with the advent of spring, but the issues that were raised still linger, clamoring for solution. Japan is no longer bombarding Shanghai, but she remains firmly entrenched in Manchuria. The Disarmament conference has settled down to its arduous task of discussion and compromise, hoping now to bring some order and achievement out of the confusion of some 339 proposals and variations so far submitted. The World Court Protocols still remain cuddled in the bosom of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Domestic and economic issues have elbowed Chinese and Geneva dispatches off the front pages of newspapers. However, the sense of inactivity and security thus engendered is purely an illusion. The days of violent destruction and fiery oratory may be past, but the long, arduous work of rebuilding a just and friendly world order remains ahead. That is the more important and difficult task. It requires endless patience, the clearest insight, and the aggressive support of every iover of peace throughout the world. To that end the peace organizations are now bending their efforts. The various societies are still sharply divided on the issue of whether international economic sanctions should be applied against Japan. Some think they would lead to war, others that they would be futile, still others that the idea, though laudable in theory, is nevertheless unfeasible in practice. On the other hand, many leaders
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contend that if Japan is to be prevented from further aggression, the restraint must come now before she becomes entrenched in her new position; and these folk urge that an international boycott provides an easy, effective, and peaceful method of coercion. Thus the debate rages, and probably only a trial can really settle the issue.
Among those who favor sanctions there is a further important question of whether they should be definitely established and become automatic in application, or whether they should be devised and agreed upon anew for each different situation. Following the lead of the "Committee on Economic Sanctions of the Twentieth Century Fund," headed by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, a majority of groups seems to favor the former position. Here again, however, there is little experience to guide, and difference of opinion is as inevitable as it is desirable.
The Arms Conference has resumed its deliberations after the long Easter recess. Its progress is naturally very slow, though many questions, especially those relating to procedure, are gradually being ironed out. Several of the major American peace organizations have recently issued a resolution calling for the total abolition of aggressive arms, such as tanks, bombing planes, and battleships. This idea of differentiating between aggressive and defensive weapons seems to elicit considerable interest at Geneva, for it is directly in line with the spirit of the League Covenant and the Briand-Kellogg Pact.
It is highly important that popular interest continue to support the American arms delegation, and to insist upon substantial reduction. Such interest, however, tends to lag during these weeks of wearisome, technical negotiation, so that the continual stimulation of the peace organizations becomes very important. As one method of thus maintaining public pressure, the League of Nations Association and the Carnegie Endowment are sending Mr. Douglas Booth on a speaking tour covering the entire nation. In addition, several societies are issuing regular bulletins to their members explaining the progress of the conference and methods by which local groups may continue to make their voice effective.
Plans are now under way for bringing powerful pressure upon
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THE AMERICAN PEACE MOVEMENT[edit]
the forthcoming political conventions to insert a sweeping peace plank in their party platforms. Mrs. Bockel of Washington, D.C., Chairman of the committee in charge, plans to assemble an automobile caravan from every state in the Union to join in a huge parade at Chicago, demonstrating the force of national peace sentiment.
The political conventions are by no means the only important meetings to be held during the summer. Both here and abroad there will be a series of institutes and conferences studying international problems, and training leaders for more effective efforts in their local areas.
From June 8 to 20 there will occur the third annual Haverford Institute of International Relations at Haverford College, Pennsylvania. Enrollment will be limited to 150 people, and restricted to persons who are, or expect to be, actively engaged in forwarding better international relations, without regard to denomination, nationality, or other factors. An impressive roster of internationally known professors and peace workers has been secured for leadership in the deliberations.
The American Friends Service Committee, which is cooperating in the Haverford Institute, is also sponsoring similar sessions Northwestern University, June 20 to July 2, and at Wellesley College June 23 to July 2. In each case, enroliment is limited, and costs carefully restricted to permit the attendance of the most promising present and potential leaders in the international field. Those desiring further information should write to the American Friends Service Committee, 20 South Twelfth Street, Philadelphia.
Hubert C. Herring, Executive Director of the Committee on Cultural Relations with Latin America, announces that he will conduct another Seminar in Mexico from July 3 to 23. This will be the seventh annual session of the seminar, which is designed to study Mexican life and culture, and which already has accomplished much in promoting a more friendly understanding betweeen the two peoples. Morning conferences, round tables, and field trips will comprise the program, led by a distinguished group including Charles W. Hackett, Judge Florence E. Allen, and Moises Saenz. Further information may be procured from Mr. Herring at 112
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The Third European Tour of the League of Nations Association will again be under the leadership of Miss Katherine Blackburn of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. The party leaves New York on July 9, will visit London, Paris, Chartres, Berlin, Prague, Munich, and Geneva, and plans to return by August 26. Conferences will be held with representatives of the various League of Nations Associations and of the League Secretariat. At Geneva a special feature will be attendance at the Institute of International Relations, August 14 to 19. A folder describing the tour may be secured from the National Office of the League of Nations Association.
The Ninth Session of the School of International Studies at Geneva, Switzerland, will be held under the direction of Professor Alfred Zimmern from July 25 to September 2. This has always been a popular school for American students who desire first-hand contact with the League of Nations and with the visiting European professors and students, and another large group from the United States is expected to go over this year. Full particulars may be secured at 218 Madison Avenue, New York City.
The students in America are making real progress in their fight against the R.O.T.C. At North Carolina State College, students who object to military training are now given the option of a course in "Human Relations," studying the fundamental human institutions of the home, the school, the church, government, and industry. At Penn State, five students have stood out against compulsory drill this year, and the Board of Trustees has at last acknowledged the dissatisfaction and is seeking for an alternative course.
In Seattle, Washington, a local woman's committee surprised the school board with the demand that there be no solicitation of pupils for C. M. T. C. camps through the schools. After stormy debate, the board finally decreed that army officers, dressed in civilian clothes, could address the students, but only after school hours, and only to those students who present written permission from their parents. A campaign is now being waged to have the
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THE AMERICAN PEACE MOVEMENT[edit]
question of compulsory drill at Washington State College and the University of Washington put on the ballot at the state elections next fall. Ministerial and civic groups, together with several prominent newspapers, are backing the project, and are confident that compulsory training will be abolished.
A further effort for enlightenment upon international questions in the schools was launched recently in a manifesto of a dozen prominent educators including Professors Charles A. Beard, Wilham C. Bagley, and James T. Shotwell. The statement deplored the prevelant inaccuracy of textbooks in dealing with the World War, and urged a straightforward presentation of the problems of war and peace in order that an enlightened public opinion may adequately grapple with the problems of the present day.
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BOOK NOTES[edit]
The Dawn-Breakers: Nabil's Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation. Translated from the Persian and edited by Shoghi Effendi. Baha'i Publishing Committee. New York. S7.50. Limited edition. $35.00. A generation ago the West became conscious, through studies and translations by Edward G. Browne, Baron Rosen and Comte de Gobineau, that a significant religious movement had arisen in Persia. It was described as a movement of regeneration and reform within the shell of Shiah Muhammadanism, whose leader, the Báb, and thousands of followers were tortured and slain. The evidence that religious faith had again been manifested among men was received with interest and respect, but the historical development has never been clearly traced. In this work a participant and eye-witness has recorded the history of the movement from its beginnings to the period of Bahá’u’lláh’s exile in Bagdad, when the "Bábí" era had come to an end and the movement threw off its Islamic complexion and became an independent religion under Bahá’u’lláh. One sees in true perspective the life and work of the Báb as the forerunner of Bahá’u’lláh, and not, as the first Western students conceived, as the founder of a religion which Bahá’u’lláh continued. Two reflections will occur to the American or European reader; first, that "The Dawn-Breakers" reveals the working of the same spirit of faith that established Christianity and other great religions, and second, that a movement born in the darkest land of the East has given religious sanction to a world outlook, and to a social morality, corresponding to the most recent views of Western statesmen and economists. The spiritual experience preceded the intellectual definition. A third reflection inevitably arising is that decadence, absence of self-sacrificing enthusiasm and conscious faith lamented in Europe
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BOOK NOTES[edit]
and America, has been paralleled by renaissance in the East. "The humanitarian and spiritual principles enunciated decades ago in the darkest East by Bahá’u’lláh and moulded by him," states the translator, "into a coherent scheme are one after another being taken by a world unconscious of their source as the marks of progressive civilization."
Founders of Great Religions, by Millar Burrows. Charles Senner's Sons. $2.00. Dr. Burrows has contributed valiantly to one of the profoundly important movements of the times—the understanding and appreciation of religions other than one's own. His book is one to read in connection with some work on comparative religion like Alfred W. Martin's "Seven Great Bibles," published serially in World Unity Magazine. The emphasis laid by Dr. Burrows is on the lives of the founders rather than on their teachings, and in sketching their lives he gives full significance to the value of the myths developed in every race. "Just as one does not really know his own language until he has some knowledge of other languages, so an acquaintance with other religions is necessary for a true understanding of our own." (The author's Introduction). The lives presented are: Lao-Tze, Confucius, Mahavira, Buddha, Zoroaster, Moses, Mohammed, Nanak, and Jesus. The key to human brotherhood and social cooperation, it has been said, lies in the acceptance of all the prophets. In Dr. Burrows the prophets of other races have found a scholarly and sympathetic biographer.
The League Committees and World Order, by H. R. G. Greaves. Oxford University Press. $5.00. "I have tried to sketch only the broad and representative outlines of its (The League's) work, because my aim has been simply to show the significance of its technical and advisory organisms," the author states in his Preface. The sub-title of this book is: "A Study of the Permanent Expert Committees of the League of Nations as an Instrument of International Government." Dr. Greaves (Political Science Department, London School of Economics and Political Science) has created a point of view on the League not sufficiently adopted even
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by those who accept it loyally, since, as the author indicates. The student of the League. runs a certain risk... of concentrating his attention too much on the more formal Council and Assembly." The work consists of an introductory chapter on the characteristics of technical international cooperation, and individual chapters on The Economic Committee, The Financial Committee, The Health Committee, The Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, The Communication and Transit Committee, The Governing Body of the International Labor Organization, Mandates, Disarmament, Social and Humanitarian Work, The Opium Committee, and the author's Conclusion. Here is the reference book for the student and responsible adult who feels that a League represented ir press as the battle-ground of European politics is by no means..e whole story of Woodrow Wilson's achievement at Geneva. What the nations have really done is to set up centers of inquiry and consultation representative of much of the world's conscience and mind, the result of which will be increasingly to discredit the old "political" method of government for domestic as well as international questions. The foundation al. cady laid is probably secure enough to survive even a possible dissolution of the present League. Americans who look with disfavor upon the League at this time cannot afford to overlook its most essential by-product, the return of trained intelligence to the task of civilization.
Report of the Round Tables and General Conferences at the Eleventh Session[edit]
Report of the Round Tables and General Conferences at the Eleventh Session, edited by Arthur Howland Buffinton. The Institute of Politics, Williams College. $2.00. The Institute of Politics conducted by Dr. Garfield at Williamstown has done pioneer service in raising public questions to the plane of intelligence and good will. Thanks to its large endowment, the Institute has been able to secure the attendance of leaders from Europe and Asia as well as the United States, Canada and Latin America. In New York City, at least, the press has broadcast the daily lectures to the larger public audience. In previous years the material presented at the Institute has been made available in mimeographed reproductions
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BOOK NOTES[edit]
of the stenographic reports. Now for the first time the Institute bus continuing life in printed form. Under Professor Buffinton's editorship we have access to the sessions held in 1931 devoted to the vital topic of World Economic Planning. Presumably free of political or class restrictions, the 1931 Institute enabled a number international authorities to expound their views and participate in the discussions which, from the social if not literary point of view, are such an important element in conferences of this type. When this time is looked back upon as the age when colleges struggled to re-acquire a creative contact with life, the Institute of Politics at Williams will receive due credit for its initiative in the movement.
Social Politics and Modern Democracies, by Charles W. Pipkin. Two volumes. The Macmillan Company. $7.50. "A large body o: political experience for the whole world," Dr. Pipkin states, "has been provided by England and France... At no time in democratic experiment have so many minds put their best thought upon the conditions of its (government's) success, and what this reveals of England and France today is of consummate importance." Few writers on the political science have been so fortunate as Dr. Pipkin in the emphasis thrown upon the value of their study by current events. This work appears just at the moment when the Labor Government in England is overthrown, and when the policies of the French Government are of vital concern to all nations. Since the nature of international policy is determined by the perpetual Struggle between liberalism and illiberalism on the domestic stage, the "England" and the "France" which have such weight in all world issues are rightly to be understood only in terms of their own social history. How, during the past century, have these two great governments taken care of their own people? What social programs have they successfully undertaken which might be adapted to American needs? What, in fine, does "democracy" really mean in the actual history of the two leading European nations? Dr. Pipkin has covered the wide field indicated in the following chapter headings: The Background of the English Social Movement,
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Social Politics at the Beginning of the Century in England, Social Legislation in England Affecting the Conditions of Work, Housing and Town Planning Acts. Development of a National Standard of Living. The National Insurance System. The Political and Industrial Alliance of the British Labor Movement, The British Labor Movement and Social Policy. A Survey of the Social Movement in France, Social Legislation in France, French Advisory and Consultative Institutions. Organizations of Labor in the State. Codification of Labor Law, French Legislation on Conditions of Work, Social Insurance in France, Political Aspects of the French Labor Movement. Revolutionary Syndicalism and the French Labor Movement, Chief Development of the French Labor Movement Since the War, The Industrial Labor Movement, A General Survey of the Period, Appendix.
The lack of policy in America at the present time calls for knowledge of the experience gained in other lands.
Can Europe Keep the Peace?[edit]
By Frank H. Simonds. Harper & Bro. $3.00.
Mr. Simonds, whose analysis of the progress of the European War made him one of the best known and most effective American journalists, has written his considered report on Europe as of October, 1931. To arrive at his conclusion, the author traces the rise and fall of the pre-war doctrine of "Balance of Power" and the consequences proceeding from its ill-fated successor, "Self-Determination."
Post-war Europe is the victim of the Versailles Treaty, in which Anglo-Saxon political experience fastened an impossible political conception upon a Europe in a different stage of evolution. Europe today, according to Mr. Simonds, is divided between those who must maintain the status quo, and those who must revise the Versailles Treaty. Peace efforts have failed because they have identified armament with malicious militarism instead of realizing it as the only possible defense of national policies based upon the reality of the struggle to survive. The war did not end with the armistice but continued in the realm of economics, as the traditional ideal of Democracy found itself enmeshed in economic nationalism, a condition far more dangerous than political nationalism. It is not a question of "keeping the peace" but of stopping
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the continuous, suicidal war. "Now, at the very edge of ultimate ruin, Europe—and perhaps the world as well—has reached a point where it must adjust its existence to inescapable truths or destroy itself by continuing ceaselessly but uselessly to fight against them." The book is one for adult Americans to study carefully at this time.
Modern Civilization on Trial, by C. Delisle Burns. The Macmillan Co. $2.50. A work not to be confused with the many books on internationalism which cover some one technical aspect of the question. Here is a first rate intelligence dealing with the fundamental issue of civilization itself. Detailed knowledge and technical information are present, but subordinate to the main thesis. Dr. Burns defines civilization as the contact of minds on a high level of experience, a definition properly emphasizing the human value more than the institutions and instruments society evolves as means to that end. The author has clear perception and spiritual qualities, as well as scientific training. Each chapter contributes valuable ideas to the total result—a profound attitude toward the problem of human association in the light of the present world Crisis. Among the topics discussed are: Modernity, A New Industrial Revolution, Modern Civilization and Primitive Peoples, The Americanization of Europe, Dictatorship, Modern Government, Modern War and Peace, Modern Production, Modern Education, Characteristics of Modernity.
H. H.
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CORRESPONDENCE[edit]
Opinions of Jonson's "Moral Aspects of Unemployment" Published in World Unity. March, 1932 PETER E. ALLIOT Summit, N.J.
Following up the very able article "Moral Aspects of Unemployment" by Mr. Ernst Jonson I submit the following views:
It is only in the last 25 years that Labor's place in the Social Order has begun to be recognized.
In this age, the creative thought of an individual elaborates a plan, the successful completion of which depends on the labor of a number of human units whose work is compensated at an arbitrary rate; the profits of the enterprise enriching the originator. So far, we are on traditional ground.
We now come to a new realization of interrelated human values. The workers depend on the enterprise for their purchasing power, and it becomes incumbent upon industry that business be so conducted as to insure continuous employment at wages that permit of a high standard of living, so that purchasing power being large, the use of the various products of all industries will be multiplied, commerce benefited, and money will circulate freely at a high rate of speed. Should business have to be operated on the basis of a minimum wage, then the workers might have an interest in the profits of the enterprise figured in due relation to the rights of stockholders and management.
Industry likewise becomes the agent of those it employs in their many relations with Cooperate Activities: Compensation and Accident Insurance, Old Age Insurance, Life Insurance. Reasonable as all of this appears, one manufacturer of staple goods, for instance, cannot make the necessary changes, but all of the plants in his particular line can cooperate to that end, and the commercial
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CORRESPONDENCE[edit]
organizations, chambers of commerce, etc., are the ready tools of cooperation.
The successful operation of business requires intelligent progressive banking facilities. Banks must be governed by an ethical conception of their duty to keep the channels of financial life circulating freely, for a reasonable compensation for services rendered, instead of following (in the case of some large banks) the tactics of the money shark and racketeer. In order to light the beacon that will at all times give the right orientation, I advocate:
An Economic Council composed of 25 men who have demonstrated their worth in the fields of agriculture, manufacture, commerce, finance, education, ethics, arts and science—
1. To organize Cooperation, industrial and financial. 2. To initiate, or give their backing to needed legislation, modification of Anti-Trust Laws, Banking Laws, etc. 3. To provide wide publicity, that the thought of the masses may be leavened. 4. To provide educational facilities that the Youth may be guided along progressive lines, and in turn take up the torch and become leaders of evolution.
WENTWORTH BYRON WINSLOW, C. S. New York City
With the substance of the article, save only the remedy, I am wholly in agreement. Mr. Jonson is too astute not to be correct in what he says in regard to facts, but when he comes to a theory—by which I mean something untried in the particular line which he advocates—even the most astute or clever person may err. In my opinion, not altogether humble either, he has only illustrated another Sisyphus who will roll up the stone of organization a few feet or more and then have it roll over us again.
Quoting him "How can anyone doubt that an organization like the War Industries Board could in a short time put everybody to work making things for the American people, if not for the world?" Isn't that just about what Russia is trying to do today? Reports are rather vague and indefinite, but they seem to be doing
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it. The purpose is so to do anyway. Maybe it will succeed. Russia has organized her whole people. They are producing the goods goods of all kinds. So far so good. But I predict a failure sooner or later if they let the present monetary system enter into it. Wasn't it Kipling who said "No one shall work for money and no one shall work for fame." I forget the rest of it, but it seems to me that there can never be stability under the present system, and certainly not universal happiness. The present chaotic conditions, the death of Mr. Eastman by his own hand, the kidnapping of Colonel Lindbergh's child, suicides, ruination, unemployment, unfair distribution of wealth, Tammany Hall, crooked officials, and such like are to me a terrible indictment on the present system. Taking it merely as a condition occurring once in so often, which nearly every writer says is the fact, surely that of itself is an indictment of such a system. Any system which once in so often breaks down and wrecks its proponents and opponents alike, surely must have something vitally wrong in it...
To my mind the way out of this is to change the system. Free trade throughout the world, an international exchange, cessation of taxation of any kind save only single tax or the tax on land values. governmental arrangement of work, and the distribution thereof. as indicated done by the War Industrial Board, or some other equal distribution of work such as was done in war time, each man or woman designated a certain piace and certain work, everything owned in common, as set forth by the great Master Jesus the Christ with the same treatment of cheaters as received Ananias and Sapphira, and then though God knows how this is to be brought about, we shall begin to get somewhere.
S. PARKES CADMAN, D. D. Brooklyn, N. Y.
I have read Mr. Jonson's article on "Moral Aspects of Unemployment," and thank him for writing it and you for calling my attention to it. I believe his reasonings on this perplexing problem have made a valuable contribution to its proper understanding, and also to its permanent solution.
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CORRESPONDENCE[edit]
WILLIAM FLOYD New York City
It is true that the displacement of men by machines is a recent cause of unemployment, but all experience shows that captains of industry will not voluntarily abandon labor-saving devices so long as profits result. The eventual depression that must follow the lack of buying power of the masses will not deter the profiteer from taking advantage of each new mechanical invention. The few who control industry cannot be expected to take any steps that will interfere with their immediate prosperity. They must be compelled by legislation to do what is best for all.
The violation of contract advocated by Mr. Jonson is a method of righting a wrong that will make matters worse. It is one thing for a government to grant a moratorium but quite another to expect judicial leniency in the execution of a contract." The sins of the financiers should not be visited upon innocent individual creditors.
The idea that the industrialist who has caused the trouble should be responsible is admirable, but it is futile to rely upon any spontaneous organization to compel the payment of higher wages. It is human nature to hire workers at the lowest figure at which skilful hands can be found. The law of supply and demand is stronger than any guild's decree. It has nullified the value of anti-trust laws; it will overcome any voluntary attempt to distribute wealth evenly. Until labor is removed from the operation of the law of supply and demand, it will continue to be exploited...
Mr. Jonson gives the impression that there has been no organization of industry. He overlooks the nation-wide concentration of ownership into a few trusts, and the fact that the greater the number of mergers the greater the number of men laid off. Voluntary organization will not accomplish the desired result.
Those who have studied the subject carefully have concluded that concentration is necessary but will only prove effective when natural resources are removed from the control of the very captains of industry who are expected by Mr. Jonson to organize voluntarily for the people's good.
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C. E. GRUNSKY, ENG. D.[edit]
San Francisco
It seems fundamental that society should provide work for every person who desires to work. In this machine age, as Mr. Jonson has so well brought out, the things that the country needs for comfort and general well-being and for recreation, can be produced by a few. Where then shall the rest find employment? The volume of business, it should be said in passing, does not depend upon the volume of money in the country, but rather upon the speed at which money or its equivalent is made to circulate.
Industry in the face of the inevitable reduction in the demand for its output when the prosperity wave breaks, can not keep up its stride. It must adjust itself to the market. It must spend less, not more. If the suggested program of organizing industry were carried out it would still leave the recurring problem of unemployment on our hands. Let it be supposed that such all-embracing organizations in each industry could be made effective. It would at once result in greater efficiency. But greater efficiency will carry with it a further reduction of employees. The ranks of the unemployed will be swelled not reduced when the hard times come. There are many who have contended that this country would be better off if our great industrial concerns had never materialized, claiming that thousands of small independent concerns would be better than the single establishment of colossal proportions. No universal agreement with the program indicated by Mr. Jonson can, therefore, be hoped for, even if the fundamental law of economics above indicated be brought into question.
As I see it, the periodic recurrence of hard times, of business depression and unemployment should be accepted, for the present at least, as inevitable and particular thought should be directed to the problem of mitigating distress and suffering in such periods. Being impossible, without overstocking of markets, to put the unemployed masses at work on the production of food, clothing, shelter, machinery, and the thousands of other things that the nation demands at present standards of living, there must, then, be occupation found in non-productive fields—if this term be permitted
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CORRESPONDENCE[edit]
In other words instead of decreasing public activities they should be increased. More should be done for the progress of civilization, more in the cultural field. That we are already spending one dollar out of every eight or ten for government purposes should not be alarming because this expenditure speeds up the flow of money. It is frequently stated that each dollar thus started, be it for any purpose whatsoever, even for the army or navy, so long as it is expended at home, will make from $30 to $50 worth of retail business in a year. If this be true this volume of business will certainly yield sufficient profit to spare the dollar over again in taxes in the course of a year.
But now we are in trouble. More government activity, participation at the expense of the taxpayer in the construction of monuments, of museums, of public works, and in the subsidizing of institutions for scientific research, for art and for opera costs money and implies materially higher taxes. Higher taxes would, of course, be all right if they could be equitably collected, if only those who are able were called upon to contribute to the cost of government. It seems fundamental that every one who in the course of a year receives a salary, a wage or a gift of money should contribute a portion thereof, either as it comes into his pocket or as it goes out, toward the cost of government.
But we are told that it would be unpopular to make the income tax universal or to introduce a general sales tax. This is no doubt true and will remain true so long as the masses are kept in ignorance of the fact that the ultimate consumer is now paying on account of taxes in every purchase which he makes far more than the government would take from him by a direct tax. In what he pays for butter and eggs, for bread, for clothing, for rent, for hardware, for books and musical instruments, and for the hundreds of other things that he buys for his comfort, his health and his recreation, there is concealed the tax which the dairyman pays on his land and his cattle, the tax which his grocer pays in his rent and for the privilege of doing business and on his stock, the tax which his bill for light carries, the taxes paid by the manufacturers of shoes and clothing, the taxes paid by the transportation companies and so on.
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Not only this but in many cases these taxes are not merely passed on to the ultimate consumer, but being part of the cost of doing business, profits are added and it is probably safe to say that due to the concealed sales tax the ultimate consumer actually pays more than twice as much as the government would call for by a system of direct taxation.
In view of the prospect for a continuance of the business depression, in view of the fact that there is a clamor from one end of the country to the other to cut down taxes and to reduce the cost of government by discharging employes. thus making a bad matter worse, is it not timely that attention should be focused upon tax reform? Is it not timely to give thought to the urgent need of increasing, not decreasing the number of people in service for the municipal, the country, the state, and the federal governments?
Private capital is timid. It moves but sluggishly when a depression is on, when prices are falling. At such times governments should do their utmost to speed up, not to slow up, the circulation of money....
No politician will venture to express such thoughts. It is. therefore, all the more desirable that free discussion of these matters in such journals as World Unity should be permitted and encouraged.
C. E. LEAVERS New York City
I wish I were in a better position to comment upon the article by Mr. Jonson. It seems to me that his principle in regard to moral aspects of unemployment does give recognition to the central philosophy of social group force rather than upon any organizational attempt. This is the same principle it seems to me, that we have learned through the recent developments in the League of Nations. It points a way that will less likely create waste and ill feeling than the methods of compulsion, organization, political pressure, etc.
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CORRESPONDENCE[edit]
ARTHUR POWELL DAVIS Oakland, Calif.
The most encouraging feature of the present depression, as compared with those which have been experienced in the past, is the more complete recognition, by educated people, of the existence and the importance of the problem, and the imperative necessity of finding the cure for the present, and the preventative for future recurrences of these paroxysms of industrial depressions.
The striking paradox of wide-spread want, deprivation and suffering on the one hand, with an abundance of all the good things that men need, far beyond the capacity of average markets, shows a man-made condition that calls loudly for remedy. If nature were at fault there would be a scarcity of food, clothing and other human necessities, but instead, we have an apparent surplus of all those things which are needed by the persons suffering therefor...
No wealth of any kind can be produced, except from land, which is strictly limited in quantity and can be neither produced nor destroyed. By permitting the exploitation of land values by private parties, we encourage the speculation in land that boosts its price beyond the economic limit and the price charged continues inflating this value until the bubble bursts and we have the collapse we now experience. The two essential elements of production, are labor and land, upon which the labor depends for its employment.
The presence and the necessities of man, create a demand for land upon which he may exert his efforts in the production of wealth needed for his sustenance. This demand creates a value which is known as ground rent and which because the supply is limited, tends to grow as men increase in number and thus increase the demand for land. The capitalized ground rent thus has a tendency to increase, and the hope of realizing the profits from this increase, leads to speculation and the holding of much land in our cities at speculative prices, in the hope of future increase. This is a matter of common knowledge and tends to increase the ground rent on all lands, both those in use and those held vacant...
The rental and selling value of land, including all natural
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operations, are not the result of individual effort upon that land. They are the result of the presence and the needs of the community as a whole. They, therefore, belong justly to the community and not to any individual. To allow individuals to collect ground rent and apply it to their private benefit, is to deprive the community of its natural product and its means of paying community expenses. To pay these, we have recourse to a multitude of tariffs, excises and taxes of innumerable kinds, all of which are paid out of the product of labor in addition to the payments demanded by the land owner. Most of these taxes have other objections, being inquisitorial and extremely harassing, besides being an intolerable burden upon industry. Most of such taxes are attached, with a profit, to the price of the articles produced and are thus passed on to the consumer. passing through many hands, with the necessary profit attached at each turnover, which produce burdens far beyond the revenues actually received by the community, and these become so onerous that they probably, on the average, now double the cost of everything we consume. This of course, reduces the purchasing power of wages by a similar amount and thus has a direct effect of limiting markets. No wonder the average laborer soon becomes unable to pay the cost of the things he needs and which he, and his fellows, with the aid of capital, have produced. Immediately and directly, we have the paradox of an apparent over production, existing alongside the wide-spread want of the things produced.
The obvious remedy, is that these enormous values, produced by the present growth and activity of the community as a whole, be taken for the public expenses for the community which produces them, and thus remove the incentive to hold land out of use. This will enable us to abolish practically all taxes as they now exist and literally and completely untax industry.
By making it unprofitable to hold land for speculation, it would open all natural opportunities for the application of labor and capital in production and completely remove the problem of unemployment. It would re-establish and place on a higher and juster plane, the rights of property, which are being undermined by our present system. The annual value of land produced by the
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Correspondence[edit]
community would go to the community which produces it, and the labor and capital would be secured in the possession and enjoyment of the wealth which they jointly produce.
HERBERT ELWELL Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Jonson's article, "Moral Aspects of Unemployment," offers a solution to the present crisis which, to anyone who has the safeguarding of culture at heart, must appear not only sound but extremely desireable, especially when we recall that the ancient craft guilds were instrumental in promoting and sustaining one of the most florishing periods of art history. After following the simple logic with which he develops his approach to the problem, it is difficult to be content with anything less than immediate action.
If it appears an almost superhuman task to bring about the organization of industry Mr. Jonson suggests, it is already a step in advance if individuals become articulate on the subject and see clearly the direction in which initiative may be most effectively exerted. Jonson has pointed the way and outlined the conditions.
The question might be raised, of course, whether a national movement in the direction he suggests would be sufficient. The fixing of prices, restriction of production, etc., might be accomplished at home, but what of foreign nations underselling our industries? Would it not undermine the whole scheme? Must it not be an international affair?
Would that the League of Nations might some day be strong enough to put the idea across and make it a world-wide principle.
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ROUND TABLE[edit]
The publication of Nicholas Murray Butler's Annual Report as Director of the Division of Intercourse and Education, Carnegie Endowment, has rightly been regarded by the press as a matter of important news. "The key to unlock the door of the possible," Dr. Butler states, "is in the hands of public opinion, and it is only by public opinion's quick use of this key that the steadily approaching calamities with their untold burden of woe are to be forestalled." With this remark we can place the statement made by Newton D. Baker in Washington last March: "Continuous adult education is the only answer that affords even the prospect of safety."
Under the growing conviction that conditions are headed in the direction of crisis, each reader of World Unity can help by passing his copy when read to some friend. Here, in the most convenient form, exists the means for that "continuous adult education" in public affairs which has not yet been properly organized on the scale humanity needs today.
Not since George H. E. Smith wrote "The Twilight of the American Peace Movement" in World Unity for August, has any article brought forth the response we have received from Ernst Jonson's "Moral Aspects of Unemployment" published two months ago. The Correspondence published in the present issue contains only brief excerpts from many letters on hand when the magazine went to press. Mr. Jonson is studying the points of view expressed by the writers, and promises another article on the subject at an early date.
We trust that readers will give due consideration to the statement made by Paul Hinner this month, that the year 1917 marked the end of the Christian era. Those who have followed his series on "The Path of History" carefully will appreciate the fact that Mr. Hinner is referring to one particular historical emphasis on truth, and not to the permanent values in Jesus' teaching.
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A correspondent quoted last month in this department raised a question which another correspondent now deals with: "My eight year old son looks up into my face after the family storm has allayed and asks me, Mother, why can't daddy make any money so we can keep our home? To me it is war already for I cannot make him understand.... These things do something to our young that is worse than what clean death does to a nation in a war.... The older groups can understand world conditions, but not the little child."
It is gratifying to record here the fact that Russell M. Cooper, whose articles on "The American Peace Movement" have been so interesting and helpful a feature of World Unity since November, will spend part of the coming year in Geneva under a Fellowship enabling him to study international affairs. Amy Woods, Vice-chairman, United States Section of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, who wrote on the "Cecil Disarmament Conference" in the February issue, has been appointed press representative for World Unity at the important conferences to be held in Europe throughout 1932.
It is a privilege to publish this month Norman Bentwich's article on the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. As the author emphasizes, there are many reasons why this center of learning may evolve international influence beyond the scope of older and larger universities located in strongly nationalistic states. Perhaps we are witnessing the rise of an influence similar to that possessed by European colleges in medieval times, when education was predominantly international within the circle of European culture.
Announcements of special interest are that within a few months World Unity will issue a special Far East number, containing important articles on China, India and Japan; and that details are being worked out for a symposium by scientists and engineers, under the editorship of T. Swann Harding, on the subject of "The Substance of World Cooperation."
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YOUR RIGHT TO NEWS OF WORLD AFFAIRS[edit]
In spite of the rise of newspaper syndicates and chains; in spite of radio and every other means of universal communication, the people in all civilized countries outside of a very few great cities—have little or no access to news of world affairs.
Sensational incidents—wars and revolutions, crime and the more obvious labor troubles—yes, these find their way into headlines of the smallest dailies and weeklies; but when matters come to the point of sensational incident they are already beyond control by the rational intelligence.
Every adult living in this age of social upheaval and transformation must either claim his right to news of world affairs, or be prepared to suffer as the helpless victim of uncontrollable events.
Knowledge of general trends, of underlying causes, of the forces making on the one hand for chaos and crisis, on the other hand for world order and peace—this knowledge is the supreme concern of conscious minds seeking to live above the level of earth-bound peasants swept by flood and famine, crushed by the burden of interminable conflict.
World Unity Magazine has become the recognized source of world news—not journalistic reports of physical events but impartial interpretations of the world movement in its moral and intellectual reality. It records the rise of a new spirit among men. It marks progress and accomplishment in the sphere of mind and heart.
Careful consideration of the contents of any issue of World Unity will convince you that here, at last, is an intimate contact with the constructive forces of this age. Those who read World Unity—whether they reside in city, town or village—have a mental domain shared by leaders of humanity.
A complimentary copy will be sent you on request.
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EDUCATION AND CHANGING SOCIETY[edit]
will be the general theme of the SIXTH WORLD CONFERENCE of the NEW EDUCATION FELLOWSHIP at NICE, FRANCE JULY 29TH AUGUST 12TH 1932
A pre-Conference Study-Tour of International Progressive Education, including forty days in England, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, en route to Nice, and a sojourn at the new school of international studies in the 16th Century Castle of Sicheneichen, near Meissen, Saxony, will be conducted by the Chicago Committee for the Nice Conference. (Total cost. $500). Educators and teachers interested in visiting Europe for observing education for the developing international mind are invited to communicate with
BRENT DOW ALLINSON, Secretary
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ILLINOIS
[Page 142]
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What is happening in contemporary thought? What are the great minds of our age saying about philosophy. psychology. art, religion, history? Today the thinking individual must be aware of the pulse and tempo of the world; he must be closely in touch with the leaders of thought and activity; he must be able to weigh the events of the present, relate them to the happenings of the past, and infer what the future may bring. In the pages of THE MODERN THINKER you will find such men as John Dewey, Norman Thomas, Oswald Spengler. Harry A. Overstreet, Havelock Ellis, Romain Rolland, Sigmund Freud. Bertrand Russell.
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