World Unity/Volume 6/Issue 1/Text

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WORLD UNITY

A Monthly Magazine for those who seek the world outlook

JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, Editor HoracE HOuvey, Managing Editor

CONTENTS

APRIL, 1930 va; Light of Nations Frontispiece ow Long Can Disarmament be Postponed? Editorial ellowship and Class Struggle A. J. Muste ationalism During the World War Herbert Adams Gthbons Roerich Museum Frances R. Grant onomic Imperialism John Herman Randall zechoslovakia—Internationally Minded State J. S. Roucek The League of Nations and the World Court Dexter Perkins ‘Humanism and the Quest of the Ages John Herman Randall, Jr. Round Table Editorial The World Unity Foundation Editorial

Word Unity MaAGAzINE is published by WorLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORA- TION, 4 East 12th Street, New York City: Mary Rumsey Movius, president; HorACE HOLLEY, vice-president; FLORENCE MorRTON, treasurer; JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, secretary. Published monthly, 35 cents a copy, $3.50 a year in the United States and in all other countries (postage included). THe Wori_p UNity PUBLISHING CORPORATION and its editors welcome correspondence on articles telated to the aims and purposes of the magazine. Printed in U. S. A. Contents copyrighted 1930 by WorLD UNity PUBLISHING CORPORATION. �[Page 4]

eneva ; Light of Nations

From ‘‘Cloudlands of France," illustrated by Thornton Oakley. Used by permission of Century Company. �[Page 5]WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Vor. VI APRIL, 1930 No. 1

EDITORIAL

CaN HOW LONG CAN DISARMAMENT BE POSTPONED?

REAT as the menace of armament is to the cause of inter- national peace, its maintenance on the basis of national sovereignty under present conditions creates a far greater menace to civilization by justifying the motives for

class strife. As long as the state claims the right to settle its prob- lems by war, so long does it sanction and make inevitable the use of violence in the settlement of problems arising among groups of its own citizens. Side by side with our political states have developed economic ‘‘states’’ which claim the same quality of loyalty, the same degree of obedience and the same privileges of sovereignty and survival. The reality of France and Germany is no more actual than the reality of capitalism and communism.

The problem of disarmament, then, must be considered con- stantly under two aspects: its effects upon the international situ- ation represented by the political governments, and its effects upon the general social situation represented by the mutually exclusive economic groups. Those who still believe that the effects of economic conflict can involve no violence comparable to inter- national war, overlook completely the connection between eco- nomic factors and the catastrophes which have involved hundreds of millions of human beings in Russia and China alone since 1918.

Humanity, in fact, now stands face to face with the question, how long can disarmament.be postponed?

How long, in other words, can the leading states retain the war principle without producing a divided citizenry incapable of mutual political action, imbued with the theory and practice of violence, and psychologically prepared to perceive social life only in terms of increasing crisis and eventual clash? �[Page 6]6 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Even granting the fact that no responsible nation contem- plates any formal declaration of war like those which initiated the European conflict, the maintenance of the present condition of armaments must eventually increase class struggle and social anarchy to the point of explosion. Armies and navies may prevent other armies and navies from attacking a country, but they no less effectively promote the invasion of ideas, and supply the moral justification of economic strife.

This active process has so far assumed three different political forms: the outright capture of the political state, as in Russia and Italy; the crippling of representative government, as in France and the United States; and rebellion against alien government, as in India. Nowhere in the world is society static, content to wait indefinitely for national states to evolve international concord and cooperation—everywhere society has become dynamic, pro- ducing vital issues which no single government can possibly solve.

If the sole corollary to armament were political disagreement and the danger of international warfare arising therefrom, the London Conference could be judged by a far different standard than that which actually applies. One of the consequences of armament is unemployment—the nemesis of anti-social industry. - and this single consequence indicates the reality of the question, how long can disarmament be postponed?

Despite this background of social implication, no practical person believes that national states can abandon the use of force by mere covenant or convention. Force as such is not the issue— the issue is whether force should be employed by national states to sanction disorder, or by an international body to underwrite world order and peace. An internationalized armament restores to armies and navies the social usefulness and moral righteousness of force already resident in that civic police power intended to prevent community violence and crime. Behind the question, how long can disarmament be postponed? stands the final problem: how long can competitive societies survive the results of their own betrayal of mankind? �[Page 7]FELLOWSHIP AND CLASS STRUGGLE

by A. J. Muste Chairman of Faculty, Brookwood Labor College

HE Fellowship of Reconciliation envisages as the goal of

history the Kingdom of God, an order of society in which

there shall be no master and no slave, no exploiter and

no exploited; where each human being shall be regarded as an end in himself; where each shall contribute according to his ability; and each shall share according to his need; an order of society based on cooperation, not on competition and strife; where fellowship shall be a reality and not a lovely dream ora pious wish.

The Fellowship believes that we cannot divorce the end from the means, cannot divide the human mind into compartments, in one of which we keep an ideal of brotherhood some day to be realized, and in another of which are methods of hate, ill will and bitterness by which this fair ideal is to be achieved. He who has glimpsed the vision of fellowship and brotherhood must, we feel, seek to live in a spirit of fellowship and brotherhood now.

We live, however, in a world which is one of strife, contend- ing groups and conflicting interests. We speak sometimes of the worldwide human brotherhood, but such a brotherhood is still an ideal and not a reality. Our problem is, then, how in such a world of conflicting interests to live the life of goodwill, particu- larly how we may do it in view of the conflict between economic classes, capital and labor, which characterizes the modern world. The Epistle of the Romans is addressed in a memorable phrase: ‘To all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints."’ How the beloved of God are to be saints in Rome and not in Heaven or Utopia is the problem.

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At the outset it must be clear that in the world as it is now, the Fellowship member must be a revolutionist. We live in a social and industrial order which emphasizes the acquisitive rather than the creative side of human nature; which arouses the spirit of competition rather than that of cooperation; which offers its highest rewards to the speculator rather than to the laborer; which by methods of high-pressure salesmanship and other de- vices constantly encourages the piling-up of material goods rather than an inward culture; an order of industry and society which was established by violence, as for example, in the English, French and the American revolutions, and which to this day is maintained and extended by violence. It is an order of society which brings with it inevitably such evils as unemployment, child labor, the sweat shop, imperialism and war. Against such an order he who holds the Christian ideal cannot but be a revolu- tionist. He must desire a radical transformation to a cooperative commonwealth.

A number of things follow from this fundamental proposi- tion. If under this system you belong to those who are privileged, who live in whole or in part upon unearned income, who exercise power over others, you have to repent of the corporate guilt involved in the oppression, robbing and degradation of your fel- lows. In practice this means that you must abandon your privi- leged position, must get out of the exploiting group, must identify yourself with those who hunger and thirst, and ‘‘weep now.” That is the first and essential step in the atonement you must make, the at-one-ment, the reconciliation you must achieve. You must join in the sacrament of eating bread and drinking wine with the unprivileged and oppressed. As we have said, we cannot wait to live the life of love, to be at one with our fellows, until the Kingdom of Love has been established.

What concretely does this identification with the oppressed mean? It is impossible here to go into great detail. Besides, no one can answer for another what he is to do in a thousanu and one concrete situations. We may, however, suggest three lines for consideration. For one thing, this identification with the op- �[Page 9]FELLOWSHIP AND CLASS STRUGGLE 9

pressed is a psychological matter. It means that we must expe- rience a change of mind (metanoia), of focus, attitude and approach. You who have enjoyed wealth and privilege and been happy about it, must become uncomfortable about it. You who have felt at one, at home with the cultured, the well-to-do, the respect- able, despite all their shortcomings and vices, must become at one and at home with the uncultured, the poor, the oppressed, the unrespectable, despite all their shortcomings and vices. And while there is always the subtle danger of deceiving ourselves, in the main it is possible for us to search our hearts and see whether at bottom we are with the forces which maintain the status quo, or whether we are with those which are working for a new day in which ‘‘the hungry shall be satisfied with good things and the rich sent away empty.”’

In the second place, this identification with the oppressed may well involve personal renunciation of a certain amount of luxury and comfort. Asceticism has its dangers. Certainly, per- sonal habits cannot be regulated by law, nor can any individual sit in judgment over another in matters of this kind. Nevertheless, there are limits to the indulgence, the comfort, the laughter which we may allow ourselves in a world where millions go hungry, and where rebel saints are persecuted and jailed. We do well to remember also that it is possible, though difficult, to pray on an empty stomach but impossible to pray on an overloaded stomach.

In the third place, and this is of the utmost importance, identification with the unprivileged means practical activity for the cause of labor, for the establishment of social justice. When we are speaking of what is, and not of what ought to be, we face the fact that violence and oppression inevitably beget violence. !f, therefore, we genuinely abhor violence, our chief concern must be to do away with the conditions which inevitably create violence. There are numerous ways in which those who are not tnemselves manual laborers may cooperate to that end. There 1s still child labor in this country. In most states there is utterly inadequate legislation for safety and sanitation in mills, mines �[Page 10]Io WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

and factories. The compensation paid to those who suffer in in- dustrial accidents is still utterly inadequate, and it is well for us to remember that the number of American soldiers who died in the great war is no greater than the number of those who perish in every similar period from injuries received in industry. Hours of labor for women and children are still inordinately long. Night work is permitted in many occupations and for many individuals where it constitutes a menace to society. We can all work for legislation to remove such evils, and be of assistance in securing adequate enforcement of such legislation.

There is more violence in this country in connection with an ordinary strike of a few hundred workers than occurred in the general strike in Great Britain a few years ago, which involved several million workers and tied up the essential industries of that country. Why is this? Is it because the America is naturally a more violent and bloodthirsty being than his Bri. sh fellow- worker? Not at all. We suffer in this country from two evils which constantly provoke to violence in industrial disputes. The one is the evil of injunctions, the usurpation of law-making powers by our judges. When, as happens practically every day, injunctions are issued forbidding all the peaceful and legal activities of unions in persuading workers to organize or to remain away from work in a plant where the employes are striking against bad conditions; when by such extra-legal means protection is withdrawn from workers seeking to conserve human values, while the fullest pro- tection is extended to the property of the employer, workers have no recourse save to sullen submission or to violence.

In the second place, ours is the only important industrial country which supports the evil of private detective agencies, sending thugs and spies into areas of actual or potential industrial conflict. The ostensible task of the labor spy is to report to the employer about the activities of his employes. Theoretically, this may be justified, though obviously it betrays an attitude of dis- trust on the part of the employer which is only too likely to create distrust among the workers. In the nature of the case, however, the labor spy is not likely to confine himself merely to �[Page 11]FELLOWSHIP AND CLASS STRUGGLE II

reporting what he finds workers saying and doing. If he reports that these workers are for the most part ordinary sensible human beings, and are not about any subversive or revolutionary busi- ness, then it will presently appear, of course, that there is not much use for his activity, and he will be discharged. If this were to happen in many instances, the agency which employs him would naturally lose a great amount of business. Therefore, both the agency and the individual spy are under constant temptation to invent stories which seem to justify their existence. There is abundant proof that this is constantly being done.

The process, however, does not end here. If a labor spy con- stantly makes up stories for which there is no foundation, that also will presently come to light, and once again the business of the spy and of the agency which employs him is likely to suffer. Consequently, the spy will provoke violence in order to justify his existence. I have seen this done repeatedly in my own expe- rience in labor organization work. In the great Lawrence textile strike of 1919 I heard a man urge the strikers to seize the machine guns which had been brought into Lawrence and turn them upon the police. Within two weeks I was in the city hall of Lawrence confronting this individual and the police department of the city, with conclusive evidence that he had actually been employed by the police themselves. Another individual engaged in similar activities was proved to have been in the employ of the largest textile company involved in that strike.

If we honestly desire to minimize violence in industrial dis- putes in this country, we can take a tremendous step in this di- rection by seeing to it that there is federal and state legislation to put an end to the judicial abuse of injunctions, and to put an end to the operations of private detective agencies in industrial disputes.

We might go on and suggest other ways in which without any participation in violence one may advance the cause of labor and social justice, and so bring nearer the realization of brother- hood, as, for example, support of the movement for labor educa- tion. The member of the Fellowship, however, will hardly be �[Page 12]Iz WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

satisfied with activities of this kind, which involve no personal risk and may be carried on in the midst of the utmost comfort and respectability,—activities, furthermore, which involve an intellectual rather than an emotional and spiritual identification with the cause of labor. He will wish to engage in the feeding of strikers and their families. When workers are thrown into jail for exercising their civil liberties, he will wish to mount the rostrum to assert those liberties in order that he may have an Opportunity to visit his brothers in prison. When workers are being clubbed on the picket line, he will wish to take his place on that picket line in order that by the application of the police- man's club he may be made at one with his brothers struggling in defense of their rights. He will wish, in other words, to be ‘“tagged,’’ to be known as one cf those queer people who are always on the ‘‘wrong”’ side.

It needs to be emphasized that our allegiance to the forces which are standing against the status quo, our identification with the unprivileged, must be thorough-going and uncompromising. I fear that we sometimes get confused by the use of such expres- sions as that ‘‘there is good in everybocdy"’; that there is ‘‘right on both sides’’; that ‘‘we ought to have a balanced mind’’; and that ‘‘if we only understood each other’’ everything would be all right. I do not wish to underestimate the importance of the truth that is sometimes expressed by these phrases, but I think that sometimes they serve rather to conceal muddled thinking and sentimentality.

Sometimes, as the columnist put it, people are opposed to each other not because they misunderstand each other, but be- cause they understand each other only too well. We can't be for the right and for the wrong at the same time. If a man comes with a balanced mind to view the existing organization of society and industry, he will be against it. It is the unbalanced mind which results from our personal comfort under the status quo, from being drugged with propaganda, from being unable to break away from habit and custom, which prevents us from seeing that. Of course, there is a vast amount of good in the world under the existing �[Page 13]FELLOWSHIP AND CLASS STRUGGLE 13

system. Fortunately, the need for mutual aid and the urge for fellowship is so strong that these things are found even under an order which appeals more exclusively to the economic or acquisitive motive than probably any other in all history. But these things exist not because of capitalism, but in spite of it. In itself, this regime of capitalism, militarism and imperialism is anti-Christ. Precisely, if we look at it with a balanced mind, we shall see that just as under chattel slavery there was often much happiness and beautiful personal relations between certain slave- holders and their slaves, but that essentially the slave system begot pride, contempt, laziness and lust for power in the owners, and ignorance, fear and superstition and hate in the slaves, and eventually brought war and misery upon all, so capitalism despite all the good that exists under it, and the kindly personal relation- ships that obtain here and there, is in its essence uneconomic, unjust, inhumane and unChristian.

Similarly, the assertion frequently made that there is always right on both sides in an industrial conflict needs to be analyzed with some care. If by rights are meant prerogatives which can be enforced by the power of the state or by public opinion, it is quite true that there are rights on both sides, most of them on the side of capital. It follows that it is expedient for all the inter- ests involved in any particular industrial conflict to take these things into consideration. If one is speaking, however, of rights in some :ore absolute sense—rights from the standpoint of Chris- tian morality—the case may be different. Is there such a thing as a right to murder? To steal? To gamble? To own another human being? Nevertheless, all these things are involved in the capitalist system of industry,—the murder, for example, of little children, of miners in mines inadequately equipped with safety devices, in violation of law. What of those who are responsible for such things, who condone them, who are beneficiaries of them?

Recall the parable of Dives and Lazarus, and that in that parable Jesus does not accord to Dives, the rich man, so much as the right to a drop of cold water from the tip of Lazarus's finger as he suffers the torments of Hell, does not accord him so much �[Page 14]a nn ee

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as the right to ask that Lazarus be sent to warn his brothers lest they come into the same torment.

If this seems shocking, it is said precisely because we need to be shocked into thinking anew and very earnestly on these things. The Fellowship has no reason for existence unless there is clear- ness in our thinking and downrightness in our action. We cannot afford to be like the man of whom it was said that he mounted his horse and rode off in all directions.

Having taken steps to identify ourselves with the unprivi- leged, with the forces making for a new social order, we have also the task of preaching repentance to our fellow-sinners, seek- ing to persuade them to be reconciled with the great mass of their brothers and sisters.

The question is bound to arise whether this means that we must preach to individual capitalists that they must renounce their business and their unearned income. It may well be that more individuals ought to follow this course than some of us suppose. Very few church members would doubt that a boot- legger ought to give up his business if he professes religion. It may be questioned whether there are not other businesses re- garded as more respectable by the world which are not really on any higher moral plane. We must not forget either that Jesus advised at least one rich young man to sell all that he had and give it to the poor.

Fundamentally, however, the problem is a social one and is not likely to be solved by action however unselfish and dramatic on the part of this or that individual. It would mean a great deal, however, for example, if employers generally were to cease offer- ing constant resistance to every attempt on the part of their workers at self-organization. Violent revolution comes at last be- cause the legitimate peaceful efforts on the part of men to organize in order to advance their rights and to improve their status are met by opposition. Encourage such efforts, and labor organiza- tion will certainly become more powerful, but it will also become more responsible, and having no occasion for violence, will eschew it. �[Page 15]FELLOWSHIP AND CLASS STRUGGLE 15

The same point can be put in a somewhat different way. Necessary and fundamental social changes occur not only because there is pressure from beneath, but because opposition from above is weakened and eventually broken down. Now, no social system will yield to pressure so long as those who enjoy power and privilege under it are thoroughly confident of the rightness of their position. Feudalism in France was broken down even- tually because in their subconscious, if not in their conscious minds, the circles of the Court, the higher nobility and the higher clergy knew that their position was morally untenable. Thus, when we subject the ideals and the practices of capitalism to the light of Christian ethics and idealism and thus undermine the moral foundations of capitalism, the morale of the privileged and respectable, we are making an important contribution toward the establishment of a new social order.

All of this would seem to mean that it is our task to diminish and to break down the class-consciousness of the privileged and ruling group. That is true, for class-consciousness in these groups is that in their psychology which enables them to exploit and to oppress without suffering the pangs of conscience. Thus, to take a very simple illustration, every effort toward the abolition of child labor in this country has had to be carried on in the face of the most determined and bitter opposition from the employers of child labor. Most of these employers unquestionably were kind and indulgent fathers toward their own children. Very few of them, as individuals, would willingly have injured or neglected a little child. When it came to a question, however, of the aboli- tion of child labor in their factories, they opposed it, because it was to the interest of their class to do so, and because the propa- ganda agencies of their class drew up all sorts of defenses around their minds and consciences—rationalizations which identified the abolition of child labor with Communism or Socialism or interference with states’ rights, and thus there was developed in them a class-consciousness which bound them to the service of their class, and in doing so enabled them to commit crimes which, as individuals, they would have shunned. Unquestionably, it is �[Page 16]16 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the duty of the Fellowship constantly to diminish, and ultimately to break down such class-consciousness.

Having indicated that it is our task to break down the class- consciousness of the privileged and ruling groups, I now venture the paradoxical suggestion that it is our task to develop class- consciousness among the workers. Class-consciousness among the workers is that in their psychology which makes them cease thinking of themselves as individuals, and seeking advancement as individuals; which attaches them to the most inclusive fellow- ship possible, namely, the fellowship of all those who contribute by hand or brain to the common tasks of mankind; which gives them the sense of the oneness of labor throughout the world, re- gardless of distinctions of nationality, race, creed or color, and a sense of the mission of labor, not merely to improve the material conditions of any number of individuals, but to bring in a new world in which life for all shall be as beautiful and dazzling and rich as the colors on the Autumn foliage outside my window as I write.

It is sometimes taken for granted that the worker who is not class-conscious occupies some broader and more inclusive viewpoint. In an overwhelming majority of instances, the facts do not bear out such an assumption. Workers who have not achieved the consciousness of the solidarity of labor will be found in one of three groups. Some of them are simply ignorant of what has happened in the world. They accept the status quo uncomplain- ingly. There may be, and often is, something noble about their industry and their faithfulness to their tasks. Because they are ignorant, however, they help to perpetuate the status quo with all its evils of child labor, unemployment, industrial accident and war. Still others sullenly submit as long as possible to what they regard as inevitable. There is nothing noble about this sullen acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force. There is as vast a difference between such submission of the masses and the glad acceptance of pain by the saint, as there is between the sodden poverty of the urban or rural slum and the voluntary poverty of St. Francis ‘‘that walks with God upon the �[Page 17]FELLOWSHIP AND CLASS STRUGGLE 17

Umbrian hills."’ No one who has ever inwardly experienced the spiritual exaltation and the intense brotherhood created by a strike on the one hand, and the sullen submission of hopeless poverty or the dull contentment and ‘‘respectability’’ of those who ate too fat and lazy to struggle for freedom on the other hand, will hesitate for a moment to choose the former, even though it involve a measure of violence. Still other workers who are devoid of class-consciousness are merely capitalist-minded. They have succumbed to the prevailing psychology and are out “to get theirs.’’

As with individuals, so with groups. The American Feder- ation of Labor, for example, does not have for the most part a class-conscious philosophy. This does not mean that it occupies a broader standpoint, but rather that it is organized on the nar- row basis of craft, and is primarily concerned with immediate material gains such as higher wages, shorter hours and improved conditions of work. On nearly every important issue in which the Fellowship is deeply interested, the A. F. of L. tends to take the unidealistic attitude. Many of its unions discriminate against negroes. It becomes increasingly nationalistic rather than inter- national in its spirit. President Green makes a ceremonial visit to West Point, and accepts the chairmanship of a Citizens’ Com- mittee to raise emergency funds for Citizens’ Military Training Camps, at the same time that the A. F. of L. fails to provide relief for starving strikers in Southern cotton mills, and counsels these workers against laying down their tools rather than submit any longer to intolerable degradation,: because it is not assured that relief can be provided. This is the result of the absence of class- consciousness in the A. F. of L. It is much less class-conscious than the British labor movement, for example, but obviously this does not mean that it is more idealistic than the latter. It seems natural, for example, for church men such as Bishop Gore and Archbishop Temple to be prominent members of the Labor Party in Great Britain. It is difficult to conceive of them as defi- nitely and prominently identified with the A. F. of L.

(Io be concluded) �[Page 18]NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM

by Hersert ApAMs GIBBONS Historian

Nationalism During the World War (1914-1918) and the Peace Conference (1919)

ATIONALISM was a unifying force in Germany and Italy

and a disruptive force in Turkey and Austria-Hungary.

It made bad blood between France and Germany, be-

cause of Alsace-Lorraine; between Austria-Hungary and

Italy, because of Trieste and the Trentino; between Russia and

Austria-Hungary, because of the Serbian propaganda in the Dual

Monarchy; and among the Christian Balkan states, because of

rival claims to Macedonia. Japan, like Germany and Italy, became

a great modern power by cultivating nationalism and imitating

the Occidental methods of international intercourse. Fired by

the example of Japanese success, nationalist movements sprang

up all over Asia and in parts of Africa. But the Powers who

controlled African and Asiatic countries, including Japan and the

United States, were uncompromisingly bitter foes of nationalism,

when it showed itself in the countries that they were running and exploiting.

Rejoicing in the greatness of one’s country is not unwhole- some, although comparing ourselves with others to their dis- advantage has its dangers. It is not this superficial and unimportant phase of national self-expression that we are interested in here. We call attention to it only in order to get what is behind it. Our nationalism is different from that of small states and of politically suppressed or submerged peoples. The citizen of the small independ- ent state is constantly aware of his handicap in international 18 �[Page 19]NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 19

contacts. The nationalist who is under alien rule is aiming to get rid of the foreigner and have a chance to run his own affairs. But citizens of the Great Powers look at nationalism in another light. Their citizenship involves obligations—sometimes irksome, like compulsory military service—and costs a lot in taxes. But it pays to belong to a powerful country. It pays! The good dividends of nationalism are one of the principal causes and one of the lessons of the World War.

Why a large army? Why a large navy? Why colonies? Cer- tainly the expense of maintaining armies and navies needs to be justified. To win a colony or protectorate requires a lot of money and not a few human lives. Is the conquest made for the benefit of the natives? One might almost think so to hear some people talk. No, the good dividends of nationalism are special trading privileges guaranteed by treaties, security for property in any part of the world or on the high seas, and protection for one’s life. We spoke of Chinese having been massacred by mobs in the United States and Australia. China had no army and navy to send over here to put a stop to the murder of her citizens and the looting and burning of their property. But our battleships and resources in war equipment make it possible for us to stir things up in China if the Chinese kill Americans. A Haitian might make an investment in the United States and lose his money. But if an American is in danger of losing even the interest on his investment in Haiti, we are in a position to take over the whole island to protect him. It pays to be the subject of a Great Power.

This 1s the key to the whole situation in the development of national spirit. Fear and profit are the motive forces behind the building and maintenance of a great fleet.

Now we come to the crux of the international situation before the World War. Public opinion sustained the statesmen of the different powers in the diplomatic efforts to gain for their icllow-citizens exclusive privileges here and there all over the world, and, from the very nature of the word exclusive, to shut the door in the face of other powers. When France and Russia were trying in Africa and Asia to checkmate British expansion, �[Page 20]20 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Great Britain was willing to join forces with Germany to do France and Russia in. Lord Salisbury tried to form an entent with Germany before Britain looked elsewhere. But naval and trade rivalry was just beginning. Anyway, Germany had no colonies to speak of, and there were no bargaining points upon which to build up an understanding.

The British formed an entente with the French in 1904 by mutual compromises of the many points of conflict they had throughout the world. The British gave the French a free hand in Morocco in return for France giving them a free hand in Egypt. Up to 1904 Great Britain had been working with Germany against France in Morocco, while France was instigating and supporting the Egyptian nationalist movement. Three years later, Great Britain and Russia formed an entente, Persia being the victim. Without mentioning the fact to the Persian Government until after the treaty was signed, they made three zones out of the country, the northern one of which was to be under Russian influence and the southern one under British influence. A neutral zone, into which both agreed not to go, separated the erstwhile foes. ,

Germany claimed that she had been unfairly excluded from Morocco, and accepted the situation only when France gave her compensation in Central Africa. The Moroccan crises of 1905 and 1911 were provoked by Germany's effort to prevent France from getting control of Morocco, and freezing her out commercially. This made more bad blood between the: two countries even than the old question of Alsace-Lorraine.

It is probably that in 1914 Germany believed she could use her army, which was greatly superior on land to that of any other nation, so quickly and effectively that she would not have to face the military and economic resources of a coalition that could afford to wait, while she could not. It did not work out that way because her army, large as it was, was not large enough, and because she did not have nearly enough submarines. The lesson of the war was, therefore, that a nation in the twentieth century must have a very large fleet, the skeleton organization of an enor- �[Page 21]NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 21

mous army, and all the latest wrinkles in every field of attack and defense. This is clear from what has happened during the last ten years. Germany has been eliminated as a naval factor, and, tempo- rarily at least, as a military factor. But the nations that were banded together against her, and the new countries created by the war, are steadily increasing the amount and the effectiveness of their armaments on land and sea.

Why? Well, the history of the century so far, and especially of the World War period, proves that every nation should be regarded as a potential enemy of every other nation, because the nations are all still seeking exclusive privileges for their citizens. The citizens, believing that nationalism pays, support govern- mental policies tending to exclusive privileges at home and abroad, and vote the money to increase navies and armies. Force, and force alone, decided the issue of the war and the terms of peace. Those who possessed the force, and who used it to their own ends, must keep it and increase it, or they will lose what they gained by being the victors.

After the war, the creation of new states and new irredentist problems by the treaties was only one of four results of the Paris Conference that is of interest to the student of nationalism. The other three, which we shall discuss before coming to the treaty provisions, are: (1) the claim of the five ‘Principal Allied and Associated Powers’’ to decide upon treaty terms without consult- ing or getting the consent of the other states at the Conference, thus setting up a dictatorship as at Berlin in 1878 and Vienna in (S15; (2) the participation, with their own delegations, of the British self-governing dominions and India; and (3) the refusal to listen to Persia, Egypt, Ireland, and other submerged nations, who came to Paris for a fulfillment of the announced war aims of the victors.

Russia fell by the wayside during the war. When she made a separate peace with Germany, her allies considered her as an cnemy and sent armies into Russia and Siberia in the effort to overthrow her revolutionary government. This left the other (wo original members of the Entente, Great Britain and France; �[Page 22]22 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the recruit of 1915, Italy; and Japan and the United States. Japan's participation in the war had been limited, and her only interest in the treaties lay in Far Eastern questions and matters of general international order. The United States also had limited interests as she had been a limited participant. Her delegation, too, was the only one from a Great Power that was not clothed with au- thority to decide on the terms of peace.

Why President Wilson ever went to Paris is as much of a mystery as what he did after he got there. He died without ex- plaining: and if he left papers that told the whole story, they have not been published. At any rate, he was there, and it is no mysterv why British, French, and Italian received him on a footing of equality in the deliberations. They did not realize his lack of ‘‘full powers’’ to commit the United States. He was Commander-in-Chief of an army of two million men in France, whose presence was essential to dictate a peace to Germany; and he could endorse any check his British, Italian, and French col- leagues wanted to draw on the United States Treasury.

When the Conference was organized, it contained many nations. The belligerency of Portugal, the Latin American states, China, Siam, and Liberia had not been of much importance. But other allies, notably Belgium and Serbia, had suffered from the war and had contributed to the victory, in proportion to their resources, more than any other country save France. Greece and Rumania, too, had suffered greatly from invasion, and from expenditures beyond their ability to make. Then there were the new states, whose existence and belligerency the Great Powers had recognized just as the war was closing. The Peace Conference was to be their birth, and it certainly was a vital event for them. Serbia, Greece, and Rumania expected to be greatly enlarged by the realization of their national aspirations.

But from the very first day of the Peace Conference it was made clear to one and all that they were there only in an advisory capacity. They could present memoranda; they could appear before the Council of Ten: and when it was all over they could sign the treaties and become members of the League of Nations that was �[Page 23]NATIQNALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 23

to be created. But the treaty terms were to be decided upon by the five big Powers, whose word would be final on every point. Unique in history was the dictatorship of four men at Paris. They imposed the treaties on the small states who were their fellow victors just as truly as upon the vanquished. As the United States and Japan had no special things to ask for (except Japan's Shan- tung stipulation), three men sat with their tongues in their cheeks, humored Wilson until they had fooled him, and those three men were able to draw a new map of Europe that would suit the foreign policies of Great Britain, France and Italy. The only lengthy dis- cussions among the ‘‘Big Four’’ were to calm down Wilson and to find compromises for their own conflicting interests.

The Covenant of the League of Nations also revealed the Great Power mentality, which had prevailed at Vienna in 1815, Paris in 1856, and Berlin in 1878. The League of Nations was to be an international organization for world peace. Neutral nations were to be members, and the names of those asked to join were sct forth. But all the power of the League was to be vested in a Council of nine members, five of them the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, and the other four elected from all the rest of the countries of the world. No representation was provided tor the defeated enemies. This was nothing more or less than a revival of the Metternich conception and the Holy Alliance. The aim was to get the whole world to underwrite peace treaties to the advantage of certain powers who happened to be victorious in a war. The voting majority on the board of the underwriting organization was to remain in the hands of the Powers that dic- tated the treaties in Paris in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen!

Here was an international conception—treaties making a new world, League of Nations, World Court, the triumph of inter- national law, the machinery for international cooperation— vitiated from the moment of its birth by the intense nationalistic tecling of the statesmen and people of the Great Powers. Against this the nationalism of the smaller and weaker nations arose in protest during the Conference. They all joined the League, be- �[Page 24]24 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

cause it was their hope; but not an Assembly has met since its creation that has not listened to bitter protests of delegates against the high-handed attitude of the Council.

The war and Peace Conference, we see, thus caused an intensi- fication of nationalism. The citizens of the victorious Powers believed they could make the war pay, and they did everything in their power to impress upon the citizens of the vanquished powers that losing the war was going to maintain them perma- nently in the position of outcasts and militate against them economically as well as socially throughout the world. The idea was: because our arms have triumphed on the field of battle, being a Britisher, a Frenchman, an Italian, an American, or a Japanese means special advantages and privileges in the post- bellum world: security and prosperity. But if you are a German, God have mercy on your soul after 1919!

The second point of interest to the student of nationalism was the presence at the Peace Conference of delegations from Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and India. These delegates signed their names to the treaty, along with the British delewatio: “he League of Nations Covenant provided for mem- bersltip of the British Dominions and India as if they were indepefiueit countries. Not only were they to have separate votes in the Assembly and on commissions, but they were eligible to membership on the Council. Since the World War the Irish Free State has become a member of the League. Even as it was, it looked to Americans as if there were six British votes to one for every other country. The first reaction in the United States against the League was due more to this than to any other single cause.

The third point in our enumeration was the refusal of ‘‘The Principal Allied and Associated Powers’’ to listen to the delega- tions of submerged nations, who came to Paris in the hope that the victors would carry out their announced war aims. Had not President Wilson, taking his cue from the speeches of Entente statesmen, proclaimed the doctrine of self-determination? Of course, it would have been impossible for the Paris Conference �[Page 25]NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 25

to right every wrong, and to build an ideal world. Self-determi- nation is reduced to an absurdity at times. One cannot draw frontiers with strict regard to ethnic principles; one cannot make small groups independent, when they are surrounded by larger ethnic groups. In cases like the Southern States in the American Civil War, the question of how far the doctrine of self-determi- nation can be applied becomes a serious one. Where there are not ethnic differences, political disenfranchisement, economic dis- crimination or exploitation, should dissatisfied members of a flourishing political organism be allowed to disrupt it?

Let us now pass on from the problems of nationalism which were only indirectly within the competence of the Conference to those that had to be tackled, and for which a solution had to he found. Perhaps it was expecting too much of human nature to criticize statesmen in the flush of victory, with very difficult and delicate problems confronting them, because they did not pause to consider irrelevant national questions. Unfortunately, however, the same inconsistency and insincerity were evident in the decisions affecting the nationalistic aspirations of peoples involved in the war that had just terminated.

From 1914 to 1918 much can be forgiven the Entente Powers. They were struggling for their existence. They were making super- human efforts, they were consenting to stupendous sacrifices, in order to meet and get the better of a menace that was very real. Germany had shown by her treatment of the Polish question and by the terms of the Treaties of Brest-Litovsk with Russia and Bucharest with Rumania in 1918, how cold-blooded and selfish a Great Power can be when it thinks it can have its own way. With the tables turned, it was certainly not for the Germans to squeal! Their attitude toward the rights of small nations, from the moment they invaded Belgium, had proven their unfitness to be entrusted with the stewardship of fixing the destinies of other peoples. Undoubtedly, had they won the war, they would have imposed on us the same kind of a peace that we imposed on them. But is that not a poor justification for the Paris Peace settlement? Drawing yourself down to the level of the man you �[Page 26]26 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

have been condemning infers admiration for and approval of his methods—and a tacit acceptance of his ideals.

The Paris deliberations resulted in five treaties, named for the places where they were signed. These treaties were dictated, not negotiated. They were accepted by the defeated peoples be- cause of the hunger blockade which had been maintained throughout the deliberations. The Treaty of Versailles dealt with Germany; the Treaty of Saint-Germain with Austria; the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary; the Treaty of Neuilly with Bulgaria; the Treaty of Sevres with Turkey. The Turkish treaty was not signed until 1920, because the victorious powers were unable to agree among themselves until after they had had a continuation conference at San Remo. Each of the five treaties, in its general clauses, was made as nearly like the others as possible. They all contained the Covenant of the League of Nations; and they all provided for indemnities to the victors of an indefinite amount, with the stipulation that full sovereignty would not be restored until the treaty terms were fulfilled. The vanquished were compelled to accept permanent restrictions in armaments, and Germany was specifically forced to agree that she was solely responsible for the war.

But our concern here is only with the treaties as they affect nationalism and retard or advance internationalism. Some of the most foolish provisions, such as bringing war criminals to trial, were abandoned as impracticable within a few years, and other provisions, such as limitation of commercial aviation and in- ability to negotiate commercial treaties on the basis of reciprocity, were for limited periods, which have now expired. The punitive clauses, such as acknowledgment of war guilt, reparations, military occupation of enemy territory, abandonment of mission- ary enterprises, interference with industrial life and overseas commerce, interest us only insofar as they have tended to retard the growth of an international spirit. The influence upon the development of nationalism comes mostly from the territorial clauses.

(To be Concluded) �[Page 27]THE WORLD WE LIVE IN

Men live less and less in geographical and more and more in spiritual communities. The involuntary clements of existence tend to be limited to the regional area, the voluntary elements find increasing opportunity of self-expression through association of likeminded people selected out of the entire ropulation by identity of interests and ideals. In this department, World Unity Magazine will publish each month a brief description of some important modern movement, voluntary in character and humanitarian in aim, believing that knowledge of these activities is not only essential to the world vutlook, but also offers the true remedy for the sense of isolation and loneliness which has followed the breakdown of the traditional local neighborhood.

THE ROERICH MUSEUM

by

Frances R. Grant Vice-President

F THERE is one great hope in the present inchoate moment of our history, it is that the forces of unification have also multiplied. Many trails have been blazed in the past decade towards peace—a peace not alone of words, but one resting

upon a new understanding of world communion. ,

In its efforts towards that much-desired consummation, the Roerich Museum has chosen the way of Beauty. Nicholas Roerich some years ago in his Paths of Blessing wrote: ‘‘Beneath the sign of beauty and action we are united.’’ And it is this standard which the Roerich Museum has raised above the field of its necessarily many-faceted work.

A brief outline of how the Roerich Museum developed would not be amiss this year, when the opening of the new twenty-four story Roerich Museum Building has announced its work suddenly and even startlingly to many who were unaware of its presence in more modest quarters.

In 1921, shortly after his arrival in America at the invitation ot the Chicago Art Institute, Nicholas Roerich—whose thirty vears of artistic activity abroad had impressed his name perma-

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nently upon world art and culture—founded in New York the Master Institute of United Arts dedicated to the uniting of the teaching of all arts. It was founded simply in one room in West 54th Street without the usual flair of trumpets. And I recall when Professor Roerich was asked whether it were not somewhat incongruous that such a great idea could start in so unobtrusive a way, he answered, ‘All we need is a room no larger than the cell of Fra Angelico. And if the cause that we advocate be true, and the spirit we bring to it sincere, it will grow.”

The essential beauty of this unity of arts, this new creative synthesis, gathered around Roerich helpers of the ideal. The following year, new demands of service for Beauty presented themselves, and the second institution—Corona Mundi, Inter- national Art Center—was founded by Roerich.... ‘To bring art to the people where it belongs.’’ To this end, in addition to establishing a center for exhibitions of the creative labor of all nations, Corona Mundi has cooperated with museums, public libraries, schools and even prisons in spreading the benefices of beauty.

It was not until after his departure in 1923 on his Roerich Central Asiatic Expedition, that the Roerich Museum was founded in honor of Roerich as artist and apostle of peace.

At its opening, the collection of paintings in the Museum numbered 315, comprising widely different periods of Roerich’s art. Among these were included about 150 paintings which had been exhibited throughout American museums in the itinerary exhibition arranged by the Chicago Art Institute. The Museum was housed in a spacious old private dwelling at 310 Riverside Drive.

In opening the Museum as a free public museum, the Trustees dedicated it as a gift to America, with the profound conviction ‘that the inspired message of Roerich would bring new beauty to this country and that his caii for a new brotherhood ainong men would add glory to the present and future America.”

In the six years of its activity the Roerich Museum has become a true center of art for tens of thousands from every social! �[Page 29]THE ROERICH MUSEUM 29

stratum and tradition. To the original paintings it has added the superb paintings of Asia completed by Roerich on the Roerich Expedition in Asia, and forming a veritable Saga of the East. At present, its collections number over 1000o—about a third of those completed by Roerich’s inexhaustible creative fervor.

Opportunities for cultural service which have presented themselves in an ever-increasing measure have been brought into life through its affiliated institutions. These, in addition to the two previously mentioned, now include also the Roerich Museum Press, which through the printed word is dedicating itself to spread ‘‘the heroic deed and word of the centuries."’ The New ra Library was inaugurated this season, and plans the publica- tion of works, not only on art, but on science, biography, history and all other forms of cultural attainment. The fourth branch of the work of the Roerich Museum is Urusvati, Himalayan Research Institute, founded in 1928 in the Kulu Valley, the Himalayas, which aims to conduct original scientific research in various fields of human knowledge, thus advancing our cultura] outposts on all fronts.

That the possibilities of international unification through heauty are coming to the Museum is already felt in the fact that Branches of the Society of Friends of Roerich Museum—each of them links in a chain of world understanding through art—have been formed in France, Jugoslavia, the Argentine, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, and Sweden.

A plan for an International Peace Pact which would protect all treasures of art and science through an International Flag has been outlined by the Roerich Museum for presentation through America to all foreign Governments. In view of the present international conferences for Peace the plan has been projected as another step in promoting greater international unity. The plan ts analagous in art to that of the Red Cross.

The purpose of the project is to prevent the repetition of the atrocities of the last war on cathedrals, museums, libraries and other lasting memorials of the creation of the past.

It is the plan of the project to create a Flag which will be �[Page 30]30 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

respected as International and Neutral Territory, this to be raised above museums, cathedrals, libraries, universities and any other cultural centers. This would then be regarded as protected territory by all nations. That this plan is feasible has been already tested through the Red Cross. In this way one of the greatest scourges of war, the destruction of the milestones of civilization, would be eliminated and the treasures of culture would be saved to posterity.

The plan, projected by the Roerich Museum, was drawn up according to the codes of International Law by Dr. George Chklaver, Doctor of International Laws and of Political and Economical Sciences, Paris University, Lecturer in the Institute of International High Studies, Paris, Member of the Standing Committee of the Association of International Studies, in con- sultation with Professor Albert Geouffre de la Pradelle, member of the Hague Peace Court, Vice-President of the Institute of Inter- national Law, of Paris, and member of the Faculty of Law, the Sorbonne. Both are Honorary Advisors of the Roerich Museum.

Through the foreign branches of the Society of Friends of the Roerich Museum, it has been ascertained that the plan has aroused great sympathy and enthusiasm in foreign art and political circles and it is believed the project will meet with unquestionable support.

The new twenty-four story building of the Roerich Museum, opened in October 1929, has been dedicated as a monumental center of artistic and cultural activities, with the hope that it may become a great hearth for all efforts towards the unification of peoples. In addition to the multiform opportunities for cultural work, the Roerich Museum Building has brought into reality the belief of Roerich—long since expounded—that art and life must be interwoven and that art, to be CEREREN, must become a daily ritual and necessity.

Thus, facing the future and with the faith in a new era of sweeter human accord, the Roerich Museum has sought to bring vitally into life the words of Roerich:

‘The sign of Beauty and Action will open all gates." �[Page 31]A WORLD COMMUNITY

The Supreme Task of the Twentieth Century

by Joun Herman RANDALL

ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM

CONOMIC imperialism, as practised during the last three quarters of a century, is the particular form that modern nationalism has taken in its relation to other peoples. It is nationalism in its efforts to expand beyond its own

boundaries. Of ancient imperialism, of the empires of Alexander, of Cyrus, of Caesar, we have all heard much, and of Napoleon's spectacular exploits every school boy has read. But in this coun- try, at least, the average citizen is but just beginning to realize the significance of present-day imperialism—its motives, its technique, and its inevitable consequences. Though the general public little realizes the fact, economic imperialism is the most impressive achievement and the most iaomentous world-problem of our age. More than half of the world’s land surface and more than a billion human beings are included in the colonies and “backward countries’’ dominated by a few imperialist nations. very man, woman and child in Great Britain has ten colonial subjects—black, brown and yellow. For every acre in France there are twenty in the French colonies and protectorates. Italy 1s One-sixth as large as her colonies; Portugal, one-twenty-third; Belgium, one-eightieth. The nations of Europe are dwarfs besides their colonial possessions.

Prior to 1914 the facts of economic imperialism were known to comparatively few. The foreign offices of the Great Powers knew and fully understood what they meant by imperialism; and that 1s why they were continually clamoring for the increase of

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armaments, for the carrying out of their imperialistic designs demanded a large army and navy. A few students of modern history and world politics knew and understood whither the nations were tending but if they attempted to raise their voices in warning, as did Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, J. A. Hobson and others, there were few who gave them any heed. The mass of people in all lands did not know or understand; even the con- scripted soldiers who were sent to do the bidding of the imperial- istic powers did not grasp the significance of the real cause for which they fought and laid down their lives. They had been taught that it was glorious to die for their country, but they seldom dreamed that they were giving their lives in order tha. their country might exploit economically, or amen peeeenys some weaker and defenseless peorlc.

The most striking and rapid development of economic im- perialism belongs to the years between 1874 and 1914. In this modern sense, England began her imperialistic expansion under Disraeli; 1874-80; France, under Jules Ferry, 1879-85; Germany, under Bismarck, 1884; Italy, under Crispi, 1886; Japan, under her Prime Minister, 1895; the United States, under McKinley, 1898. According to figures given by Professor Hayes of Columbia University, the relative gains of the different imperialistic powers, both in territory and population between 1874 and 1914 are as follows:

Square Miles Population

CRASS 6k RR EK RDO 4,037,000 = 119,000,000 PON wee ck wee EK EEE HRS 2,900,000 36,000,000 (Exclusive of Sahara Desert)... 2... . 1,500,000 OS a en 1,100,000 18,700,000 US ck ec eR RREMR REG REO 1,100,000 13,200,000 BUN ow cc kee REM RGAE Se BS 910,000 1) 000,000 a eee ee ee ee ee 590,000 1,360,000 United States... ........0..2.20084 289,000 17,000,000 POON gee ees ia eee ee we 114,000 19,000,000

By 1914, all the Great European Powers had secured large slices of Africa. In China, Italy only had failed to gain something for herself. In the matter of railway construction, which was one of the most important forms of economic imperialism because �[Page 33]ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM 33

it involved political as well as economic interests, one sees the English building the Cape-to-Cairo railway, the Russians, the Trans-Siberian, and the Germans the Bagdad Railway. The first of these came into conflict with German, Belgian and French ambitions; the second was partly responsible for the Russo- Japanese War; the third caused endless suspicions and frictions between Germany and the Triple Entente. Imperialism is the root and raison d'étre of world politics today. If from this viewpoint one reviews the more recent history of international relations, all the alliances, ententes, crises and wars reveal a new meaning. Almost without exception, they were but surface manifestations of the swift deep current of imperialism.

Contrary to a quite general impression, the War did not put an end to economic imperialism when it resulted in dividing up the German colonies. The climax has not yet been reached, and the solution of the problems involved is still uncertain. Never was imperialist rivalry so keen as since 1918. We are now entering upon a period of intensified international economic competition, in which the problem of imperialism is becoming all the more acute because most of the backward areas available for colonies have already been appropriated. There are no longer vast un- claimed reaches of Africa to sate the appetites of rising powers. Moreover, tariff barriers are being raised in hitherto open colonies; governments are taking a more vital interest, and sometimes othcially participating in the international scramble for oil, rubber, railway and mining concessions; the tide of immigrant “surplus population’’ from Europe and Asia is being turned back upon itself by American restrictions, to seek elsewhere new outlets; backward peoples are fast becoming educated to the point of providing a really important, and rapidly increasing, market for manufactures; and with the steady expansion of industrialism, raw materials are becoming more and more the stakes of diplomacy.

Before proceeding to the problems economic imperialism Presents to a twentieth century that is setting its face more or less vaguely toward a world unity, it is necessary to consider briefly the chief motives that have led to this unprecedented expansion �[Page 34]34 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

of the Great Powers during the last seventy-five years. In its mcdern form, imperialism represents a historical process, an as such, it is futile to debate the right and wrong of the process Historically, imperialism has proceeded from certain definite causes, and in its development it has resulted today in certain grave and menacing problems that must be frankly faced. It is clear that imperialism as it has been practised has been a dis- integrating and disunifying force in the life of the world; it has aroused suspicion, created distrust, intensified rivalries and jeal- ousies, bred bitterness and hatred, and led directly to war. But we must understand the causes that led to this sudden and rapid imperialistic development, and the motives that lay behind its manifold activities, if we are to analyze the problems involved.

Strictly speaking, modern imperialism dates from the time of the Industrial Revolution. Out of two new factors—the machine in industry, and the new means of transportation—there arose inevitably, as has already been pointed out, three new and im- perative demands: (1) the demand for new markets, (2) the de- mand for raw materials, and (3) the demand for new fields for investments. Let us consider these new demands in turn.

(1) New Markets. As machine production became possible on a large scale through the multiplication of factories and the development of factory towns, it was only a short time before manufacturers realized that they could produce commodities of various kinds much more rapidly than their home country could absorb them. With the constant invention of new forms of machinery and the further perfecting of old forms, it becaine evident that the field of machine production was practically limitless. And as new factories steadily multiplied there came to be a constantly increasing surplus of production which the home markets could not take care of. This inevitably forced the manu- facturer to seek new markets outside his own country.

(2) Raw Materials. In like manner the demand for raw materials to keep these new factories going was tremendously increased. Coal and iron were the two indispensable means of production on any large scale. But besides these, with the variety �[Page 35]ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM 35

of commodities constantly multiplying, there were any number of raw materials, many of which could be found only in tropical regions, that must be secured, and in ever larger quantities, if the new demands for machine-manufactured articles were to be met. Thus the increased production necessitated not only the discovery of new markets, but the hunting out and eventual securing of raw materials on steadily increasing scale.

(3) Investments. This unprecedented increase of production together with the opening up of new markets for the manu- tactured goods, also placed inevitably a large surplus of capital in the hands of those who were in a position to profit from the new industry. And as time went on and there came to be combi- nations, small at first but steadily growing larger, until the modern gigantic Trust came into being, this surplus capital in the hands of the comparatively few piled up into amounts hitherto been undreamed of. Like the surplus production, this surplus capital hegan to seek new fields for investment, and especially, fields where the returns on the investment might be much larger than any that could be secured at home.

Along with these economic causes, growing directly out of the rise and rapid expansion of industrialism, it has also been customary to ascribe the development of modern imperialism to other causes, such as moral, sentimental, and military. The con- ception of the moral nature and duty of imperialism grows out of the idea that the rule of Asiatics, Africans and the inhabitants of the islands of the seas, together with the acquisition of their territory by the Western powers, is morally justifiable and neces- sary. This doctrine has been summed up in a single phrase, ‘‘the white man’s burden’’ of which Rudyard Kipling was the great exponent. According to this philosophy the white is regarded as superior to all other races in heart and brain, above all, in his political and social institutions, his morality and religion; he is in fact one more of God's ‘‘chosen peoples.’’ And if these ‘‘in- ‘erior’’ races obstinately refuse to acknowledge their inferiority and are unwilling to be coerced into accepting the proffered bless- ings, then they must, unfortunately, be conquered and slain until �[Page 36]36 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

they do accept, however unwillingly, the law of God which i; always identified with the will of the conquerers.

While these moral arguments have found full expression in the imperialistic writings of the immediate past, it is no exag- geration to say that moral ideas have never been the motive power in any imperialistic adventure of the nineteenth century, and there are few intelligent people who would dare to adduce them as such today. No Western state ever conquered or acquired con- trol over any territory or people in order to confer upon that people the blessings of Western civilization. When territory has been acquired the arguments for the adventure, before the acqui- sition, have always been either (1) to punish someone for not being civilized (military punitive expeditions) (2) to protect someone already conquered from the bad example of uncivilized and unconquered neighbors (military punitive expeditions), (3) to avenge an insult to the flag (sentimental prestige), (4) to further the economic interests of the imperialistic state.

Sentiment and sentimentality have always played some part in imperialism. The passion for adventure in some romantic soldier or colonial governor has often furnished a convenient excuse and Starting point for a policy of expansion. In France, Britain, Germany, and Italy the speeches of responsible, and irresponsible statesmen, and the writings of historians and publicists reveal a wide and firmly held belief that the acquisition and retention of imperial possessions outside of Europe reflect great glory on the European state. According to this philosophy, the prestige of a State is very seriously affected by whether it has, or has not, conquered savages somewhere on this planet. And by a natural psychology, the glory of a European nation is not only increased by the acquisition of territory outside of Europe, but it appears to be also diminished by the mere fact of such acquisition by some other nation. We have the statement of a Premier of France that the seizure of Cyprus by England was a blow at the prestige of France, and that the glory of France could only recover its bright- ness through the French seizure of some other territory in Tonkin or Tunis, or preferably in both. �[Page 37]ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM 37

It is clear, however, that as causes in the complex phenomena of modern imperialism, sentimental beliefs hold the same declin- ing position 1s moral. The idea that empire is glory and enhances a nation’s prestige is used as an argument, not for acquiring em- pire, but for retaining it when acquired. There is always a party in all imperialistic countries that is opposed to such acquisitions, and when these anti-imperialists wake up some day to find that another territory has been acquired, all they can do is to demand evacuation or abandonment. It is at this moment that the imperi- alists find the sentimental and moral arguments most useful. If the empire is glorious as such, there is an obvious relation between imperialism and patriotism, and it becomes unpatriotic to say a word against imperialism or to urge the abandonment of any imperial acquisition. Thus patriotism and morality combine, not to cause imperialism, but to suppress discussion of, or opposition to, empire.

Military or gesevic needs as causes of European expansion are frequently misunderstood. In certain limited areas like the Mediterranean, strategic reasons have had some effect on the creation of imperialistic policy in states like France and Italy. The acquisition of Algeria, Tunis and Morocco by France, and of Tripoli by Italy, has been defended on the grounds of military necessity. The argument here has been: ‘‘Unless we seize this territory, some other country may seize it and use it as the base of military operations against us.’’ But this applies to a very limited stretch of territory facing the coasts of France and Italy. No imperialist has ever pretended that the acquisition of empire on the East or West coasts of Africa, or in Asia, was necessary tor the military or naval safety of the mother country.

But as soon as a new acquisition is made, the whole position changes. The imperial state now must afford military protection not only to its home territory, but to its colonial possessions as well. It becomes at once possible to argue that more territory must be acquired in order to secure the military protection of territory already acquired, and so a hinterland is annexed. For this reason England holds Egypt, not because Egypt protects �[Page 38]38 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

England strategically, but because if she did not hold Egypt her hold on India would be weakened. Military reasons are, therefore, not to any great extent a cause of imperialism, but they are a reason for making an empire large, and a large empire still larger.

Though these three kinds of causes—moral, sentimental, strategic—all affect men's ideas and ideals of empire to some extent, they are hardly fundamental. They wou!d not of them- selves, either collectively or singly, have been sufficient to set in motion the mighty forces of modern | aperialism which have led to the subjection of Asia, Africa and the islands of the sea. At every step in the modern imperialistic expansion of Europe and America, the impulse of economic causes is clearly apparent. The absolute necessity of obtaining raw materials with which to run the factories, and new markets where the surplus production might be sold, and the opportunities for investing the surplus capital where it would bring the largest returns, were the direct results of the new expanding industrial civilization. It is only when we turn to economic beliefs, desires and causes that we find ourselves approaching the real roots of economic imperialism.

With machine production and the insistent demand for new markets and fresh supplies of raw materials, the commerce with other countries outside of Europe increased by leaps and bounds, and as one state after another became industrialized, the rivalry in securing these economic ends steadily increased until it has reached the acute stage. Agents and salesmen of every class and description were sent into the farthest sections of every country on the globe with instructions to develop old markets and create new ones. The islands of the sea, hitherto entirely unnoticed, were now visited and ransacked with a view to selling the native goods, or of exchanging commodities with them for their raw materials. The trading vessel was to be found in every port, and the trail of the trader could be traced in the most out-of-the-way places.

The thing to note is that this commerce which the last century has made possible between Western nations and all other parts of the world, is in itself, apart from other phases of imperial- �[Page 39]ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM 39

ism, a good thing; always excepting the trade in rum, opium, firearms and other things of like nature, which have served only to enrich the pockets of men at home at the cost of debasing physically and morally these more ‘‘backward’’ peoples. The fair interchange of goods, providing they are not harmful in themselves, is always a good thing for all concerned. These other rcoples need our products and we need their raw materials. And where commerce and trade is honestly carried on, it is to the advantage of both parties concerned. If England and France and all the other imperialistic powers were to with'vaw from their colonies and possessions and dependencies, commerce and trade would have to go on between these countries just the same, so closely is the world knit together today. The commercial phase of modern imperialism, taken by itself, is here and here to stay.

The problem of imperialism in its most serious aspects has to do with its political phases.

Inasmuch as the political ievpertaliom of Great Britain for te last fifty years is clearly condemned as a business policy, in that at enormous expense it has procured a small, bad, unsafe increase of markets, and has jeopardized the entire wealth of the nation in rousing the strong resentment of other nations, we may vell ask, why is the British government induced to embark upon such an unsound business policy? The only possible answer is that the business interests of the nation as a whole are subordi- nated to those of certain sectional interests that usurp control of the national resources and use them for their private gain. This 's the commonest disease of all forms of government. The famous words of Sir Thomas Moore are as true now as when he wrote them: “‘Everywhere do I perceive a certain conspiracy of rich rien seeking their own advantage under the name and pretext of the commonwealth."’

This brings us very close to the economic tap-root of imperial- ism, for what is true of British imperialism is likewise true of every other national imperialisn.. It has always been bad business tor the nation as a whole, but it has been good business for certain classes and certain trades within the nation. The vast expenditures

V- �[Page 40]40 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

upon armaments, the costly wars, the grave risks and embarrass. ments of foreign policy, the stoppage of political and social reforms within an imperialistic nation, while fraught with incalculable injury to the nation itself, have served well the present business interests of certain industries and professions

A careful analysis, like that of Mr. Hobson, proves clearly that aggressive imperialism as practised by modern nations is utterly unsound and irrational from the viewpoint of the nation as a whole. A complete socialized state which kept good books and presented regular balance-sheets of expenditures and assets would soon discard imperialism in the sense of political domi- nation; an intelligent democracy which gave due proportionate weight to all economic interests alike would also do the same. ‘But a state in which certain well organized business interests ate able to outweigh the weak, diffused interest of the community, is bound to pursue a policy which accords with the pressure of the former interests.’ From the viewpoint of these business interests, imperialism is far more rational than at first appears.

We must also bear in mind that the general method pursued in the expansion of political imperialism during the last century has been the exploitation of weaker peoples by stronger. Some- times it has taken the form of the actual annexation of territory, often, in the establishment of a protectorate, or again, in the marking off of spheres of influence, or more recently, in what is known as economic penetration. The new historian who tells the story of the development of imperialism since 1850 gives little space to praising the policy of ‘benevolent assimilation’’ as practised by the Great Powers; but running through the whole story occur again and again the ugly words, “‘hypocrisy, chi- canery, falsehood, deceit, double-dealing, sophistry, etc.’’ It is not strange that the seeds of bitterness and hatred sown by these methods of exploitation are today bearing their tragic harvest, when we remember the organized ill-treatment, the atrocities, the cruel injustices, the utter absence of any humane spirit, that have all too often accompanied these imperialistic conquests— invasion of another's territory, bombardments of coast ports, �[Page 41]ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM 41

excesses Of punitive measures, seizure of land, forced labor, or labor under oppressive conditions, humiliation of native govern- ments, subversion of local authority, political domination and economic exploitation in every form—all the concomitants of power exercised without check. It is useless to pass moral judg- ment. From the horrors of the earliest Portuguese settlements in India which appalled St. Francis Xavier to the imprisonment of editors in Haiti, it has always been the same. The conquest of weaker peoples by stronger inevitably involves such atrocities. But, as Leonard Woolf has said, it was not the atrocities that made the system but the system that made the atrocities.

I cannot better sum up the fundamental causes of economic imperialism than to quote once again the sober yet startling statement of Mr. Hobson: ‘‘In view of the part which the non- economic factors of patriotism, adventure, military enterprise, political ambition and philanthropy play in imperial expansion, it may appear that to impute to financiers so much power is to take a too-narrowly economic view of history. It is true that the motor-power of imperialism is not chiefly financial; finance is rather the governor of the imperial engine, directing the energy and determining its work. Finance manipulates the patriotic torces which politicians, soldiers, philanthropists and traders generate; the enthusiasm for expansion which issues from these sources, though strong and genuine, is irregular and blind; the financial interest has those qualities of concentration and clear- sighted calculation which are needed to set imperialism to work. An ambitious statesman, a frontier soldier, an over-zealous mis- sionary, a pushing trader, may suggest or even initiate a step of imperial expansion, but the final determination rests with the tinancial power. The direct influence exercised by great financial houses in ‘high politics’ is supported by the contro) which they exercise Over public opinion through the Press, which in every civilized country, is becoming more and more their obedient instrument.”’

The foregoing brief and imperfect survey of modern imperial- ism may serve to prove that while it is indeed the most impressive �[Page 42]42 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

achievement of the nineteenth century, it has led directly to the most momentous world-problem of the twentieth. The one thing that stands out clearly is that imperialism as it has been practiced —as a system of ruthless exploitation—has had its day. The coming to self-consciousness of the hitherto ‘backward peoples’ of the earth, the rapid spread of nationalism to all parts of the globe, resulting gradually in the development of strong, unified governments in one people after another, the building up o: trained armies, the adoption of Western science, and scientilic methods, together with the fact that there remain no unappropri- ated territories on the planet—these facts are forcing upon the nations a change in the methods of nineteenth century imperial- ism. With the wide dissemination since the war of the facts about economic imperialism, it is to be doubted whether public opinion in any country would tolerate longer the exploiting methods of the past. There are still many who voice approval of imperialism in terms of Mid-Victorian opinions, apparently unmindful that those opinions are forever swept away by the new world into which we have come. The twentieth century could not, if it would, follow the imperial practices of the nineteenth; perhaps we may even say, it would not, if it could, because of the new ideal that is at last emerging of a world community.

a �[Page 43]CZECHOSLOVAKIA—AN INTERNATIONALLY MINDED STATE

by J. S. Roucex

Centenary, Junicr College, Hackettstown, New Jersey

LEVEN years of Czechoslovak foreign policy present several curious phenomena not usually found in the field of poli- tics. First of all there is the remarkable fact that the field is still dominated by two personages of remarkable influ-

ence, Dr. Eduard Benes and President Thomas Garigue Masaryk, who not only formed the state by their efforts during the World War, but have continued to direct the policies of the state up to the present time. In other states the war personalities, among whom were Lloyd George, Orlando, Wilson, Clemenceau are gone. But Benes and Masaryk still hold the reins of the state power notwithstanding a number of attacks on them from time to time trom the ranks of home politicians. Their prestige and influence 's probably felt more outside their own state than at home. Benes’ “lame is outstanding in the circles of the League of Nations, and Masaryk’s reputation is the culmination of his international prestige established before the World War.

Czechoslovakia had fulfilled the ideal of Plato and placed at the head of the state, scholars and philosophers. But while the ical Republic of Plato was essentially an aristocracy founded on the institution of slavery, class inequalities, and the inadequate cstimation of the importance of material work, the Republic of Masaryk and Benes is a democracy, where equality before the law and in the law is united to the political rights and liberties of the entire body of citizens.

Foreign policy carries the stamp of influence of both these statesmen. When analyzing the fundamental basis of their policy,

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One must come to the conclusion that it has been worked on concrete philosophical and real convictions. It is not the policy of opportunism such as practised by Llovd George, for example. One gets the impression when talking to both statesmen that their viewpoints are the results of philosophical deliberations and followed to their consistent and logical conclusion.

Benes was really made by the revolution. Unknown before the war, he grew out of it, one of the ablest diplomats of the day. From a family of a farmer with many children, he knew the daily struggle for a mere subsistence; from this came his life and energy, admired by those who come in contact with him. Also, from this starting point probably comes his optimism, which always ac- companies an individual's strong desire to achieve success.

Nature endowed him with a small figure, but sport and con- sistent exercise developed his body, and made him sound. Benes’ ability to make speedy decisions, and his geniality can be traced to his bodily health.

Other influences affected his character. His long years of residence abroad, Germany, France and England, gave him the impress of cosmopolitanism, which is reflected in his ideas of international cooperation. Furthermore, his education in France created his pro-French sympathies and his leaning toward the West-European orientation in general. We must not forget that the Czechoslovak pro-Russian sympathies have been quite strong before the war and that the pan-Slav idea was considered as the only solution of the Czechoslovak future for a time.

When Benes returned to Prague, before the war, he became a professor of political economy in the Czechoslovak Commerical Academy and a lecturer at the University. Masaryk had a marked influence on him, though their personal relations did not become intimate until 1915. When Benes crossed the Austrian border on September 1, 1915, he was hardly unknown, politically. His pfeparation was marvelous, when one considers the years of study he spent abroad and at home. From his original studies of philosophy in Paris, he switched to the study of politics and the social sciences. Diplomatic education was not his field. �[Page 45]CZECHOSLOVAKIA——-AN INTERNATIONALLY MINDED STATE 45

Not knowing the routine of the old diplomacy, Benes had to create his own working methods. He injected scientific knowl- edge of his profession i into the methods of diplomatic negotiations. He made a science of it. The use of such methods brought the greatest success to Benes. The diplomatic work, 4: ways bringing new subjects with it, brings also the danger of dwelling on the mere surface of the problems. Hence mere provisional solutions are so current in diplomacy. On the other hand, the scientific construction penetrates the matters with a logical analysis of the tacts and then makes its conclusions.

Of course, such methods have their dangers too. During the revolution the burden of his diplomatic dealings lay on his own shoulders. Iv is not surprising that he did not become accustomed’ to rely on co-workers and made his own decisions. This habit remained in him even after the formation of Czechoslovak Foreign Otfice. His enemies often criticize him for this technique.

The post-war Czechoslovak foreign policy, as worked out hy Benes and Masaryk, shows several fundamental lines, which have been consistently followed.

First of all, the revolution of the Czechoslovaks, which had created the State, allied itself with the Western Allies. Her inter- national position as well as her existence came directly from the Peace Treaties provisions.

From this precept three lines of policy have been developed. First of all, Czechoslovakia became the staunch defender of the Peace Treaties and showed her action in a number of defensive alliances not only with France, but also with other successors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who are also bent on defending the new settlement. The result was the political alliance known as the Little Entente, formed by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslovakia and Rumania. Its main objective was, of course, the maintenance of the new frontiers and the new order in Central Europe as established by the Peace Treaties against subversive effort espe- cially on the part of Hungary. On more than one occasion it proved its effectiveness in this connection, especially in regard to the return of the Hapsburgs to the Hungarian throne. Two attempts, �[Page 46]46 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

in April and October 1921, were frustrated by the strong measures of the Little Entente. The reason is evident when we realize that it was the Hapsburgs who were the grave-diggers of the original Bohemian kingdom and also identified Hapsburg dynastic doc- trine with the doctrine of territorial integrity. By his coronation oath the King of Hungary is pledged to uphold this integrity hy every ineans, and not only not to alienate any possessions of Hungary, ‘‘under whatsoever right or title, but even to augment and extend them."’

Czechoslovakia had to show her Western Allies after 1918 that she was not an artificial formation incapable of life. This positive policy realized, in the participation in international politics and contributions towards the organization of the new order in Europe, Benes’ work in the pacification and consoli- dation of the new domestic social conditions, especially in the economic field, effectively supported Czechoslovakia's foreign policy.

Thus the aim of Benes, immediately after the end of the War, was to enter, on a new basis, into friendly relations with the neighboring states. This applies, curiously enough, also to the Little Entente, which gradually showed that it has not only negative functions, but also a positive policy. The break-down of the Austrian Hungarian Empire brought with it also the dis- arrangement of the economic order of Central Europe, which was firm for centuries. In certain classes it became the fashion to break the staff over the Succession States by speaking of the Balkanization of Central Europe. This could only mean a protest against the substitution of a number of small or medium states for a large and powerful Empire. The Little Entente tried to function as a successor to the Empire in the economic sphere, as documented by various treaties concluded among the members themselves and between them and their other neighbors. At the last conference of the Little Entente in Bucharest, emphasis was laid on the necessity of extending and intensifying economic co- Operation; and it would now seem that a special effort is to be put forth in this connection. From such cooperation Hungary �[Page 47]CZECHOSLOVAKIA-—-AN INTERNATIONALLY MINDED STATE 47

would not be excluded; it seems, however, that Hungary herself refuses tO COme to an agreement of such a nature, because any economic cooperation would necessarily affect political tendencies of Hungary in the direction of the revision of the Peace Treaties.

In the third place, Czechoslovakia’s foreign policy consist- ently supported the efforts of the League of Nations. She was not only aware of the importance of participation in international collective action, but also endeavored to make her influence felt in them. Her collaboration with the League is an obvious element in her foreign activity. This collaboration has manifested itself by intensive work in all the committees and institutions of the League, and particularly by the initiative and activity of Benes, who for several years was a member of the Council of the League. It is especially true in regard to the Geneva Protocol and to the Disarmament and Security Committees of the League. This work has been done with the conviction that by working to the full extent of Czechoslovak’s power for the preservation of European peace and security, the country was also creating the strongest guaranty for her own existence and development. Benes’ and Masaryk’s conviction always has been that if Czechoslovak policy is to be correct and successful, it must be guided not only by the consideration of her own self-preservation, but must also be led by world considerations.

These principles were followed in practice. Though the Czechoslovak World War revolution was directed partly against Austrian and German policies, hes post-war policy did not be- come an obstacle to newly established friendly relations. The Czechoslovak-Austrian arbitration treaty of March, 1926, was supplemented by the Czechoslovak participation in the Austrian rehabilitation. The ‘‘Anschluss,’’ question has been shelved, so tar, very successfully though it is plain that its realization would ‘e absolutely opposed by Benes or any of his successors.

In spite of the fact that Czechoslovakia was in the opposing camp to Germany at the Peace Conference, there has been no lasting disagreement between the two countries. The Locarno agreements solved the relation; participation in relations between �[Page 48]48 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the two neighboring countries acquired a political character. At the same time it is a significant fact that the treaty was concluded in connection with the adjustment of the attitude of Germany towards France. Germany, on the same occasion, took cognizance of the Franco-Czechoslovak Guaranty Treaty. Participation at the Locarno negotiations brought Czechoslovakia among the participants in the Kellogg Pact, through which the United States demonstrated its desire to take part in the solution of the peace problem.

Curiously enough, the relations with Poland did not become amicable until a treaty of arbitration was signed in the spring of 1925. The initial difficulties were due to differences in regard to the territorial distributions. Poland's participation in the Little Entente was also very negligible due to her interest in Russian and German potential dangers.

Hungary was, so far, the danger spot of Central Europe. Her consistent and absolute refusal to acknowledge the status quo, as established by the Peace Treaties, meant constant unrest and fear of aggression. The Rothermere campaign, for a revision of the Treaty of Trianon, generated further romantic hopes of a restoration of Greater Hungary.

Rumanian and Czechoslovak common interest in the dis- integration of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy remained after the war. Both countries were threatened by the danger of a restoration of the Hapsburgs. The same applied to the Yugoslav Kingdom. The feeling of genuine friendship between the two Slav countries produced splendid results during and after the war.

The grouping of international forces after the war had also its influence on the relations of Czechoslovakia with the Western Powers. The friendliness of England became a matter of indiffer- ence. France's foreign policy, conditioned by her own security against Germany, crystallized in the political treaty of friendship on January 1, 1924, which merged into the Locarno agreements. italy gave considerable support to the Czechoslovak revolu- tionary movement during the war, but later relations were less prominent because of a tendency, on the part of Italy, to prevent �[Page 49]CZECHOSLOVAKIA——-AN INTERNATIONALLY MINDED STATE 49

the formation ~-ntral Europe of a close grouping of states which woulc res le the old Monarchy. The latest friendly gestures of Mu:soii ‘or the benefit of Hungary can create nothing hut a spirit Gi appreension in the members of the Little Entente.

Due tc the Czechoslovak Western orientation, Russia is an unsolved proviem for that country. The Genoa conference brought a commercial treaty on June 5, 1922, which was not particularly profitable in an economic sphere. No juridical recognition has heen accorded to Russia, though the question disturbs consider- ably internal politics of Czechoslovakia.

The withdrawal of the United States from European affairs bad its reaction on its relations with Czechoslovakia. Lively economic relations had some influence on the indifferent, though trendly, political relations, which resulted in the participation in the Kellogg Pact.

If we take peace and international cooperation as the standard of international politics, then the foreign policy of Czecho- slovakia was successful in its efforts in that direction under the icadership of Benes and Masaryk. There are, of course, complaints coining from some parts of Europe because of the nationalistic policy of the leaders. But we must also consider the fact that the primary purpose of any foreign policy is to present the national interest of its country. We had the benefit of international con- siderations which conditioned this policy, thanks to Benes and Masaryk.

- �[Page 50]THE QUEST OF WORLD PEACE

by

DexTER PERKINS Department of History and Government, University of Rochester

The League of Nations and the World Court

N THE preceding articles we have dealt with the norma! machinery of the League of Nations, and seen how usefu! this machinery has been to the establishment of better inter- national relations, and the promotion of international peace

There is, however, an agency connected with the League, ani yet hardly a part of it in any exact sense, which has so far been excluded from the discussion. I refer to the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague, which bids fair to play a larger and larger réle in the adjudication of international ques- tions.

In the United States the rdle of this Court has been the subject of much nationalistic misrepresentation. It has been charged that the Court is merely a subservient tool of the League, and that it utterly lacks the dignity and impartiality of a true international tribunal. The prejudices which attached to Amer- ican participation in the League itself have often been transferred to the Court as American support of this ageacy has become a matter of political discussion.

One needs only to examine the facts with due care to see how groundless is the charge of subserviency to any other agency. The judges are nominated, not by the governments of the various states, but by the national groups selected under The Hague convention of 1907. The nominators themselves, under that con- vention, must be persons “‘of known competency in questions of international law, of the highest moral reputation, and disposed 5° �[Page 51]THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE WORLD COURT 51

to accept the duties of arbitrators.’’ Before making their nomina- rons, they are advised to ‘‘consult their own national courts of ustice, their legal faculties and schools of law, and their national academies and national sections of international academies de- voted to the study of law.’’ From the very beginning, then, the process of election is intended to exclude the choice of professional {iplomats or politicians, and to encourage the choice of eminent lawyers who can be trusted to decide the matters submitted to chem on truly judicial grounds. The nominations having been made, the election of the judges who compose the Court is en- crusted to the Council and Assembly of the League. There must he an absolute majority to elect. No single nation, and no small group of nations, however powerful, can dominate the choice. The chances of an unfit nomination being approved by these two electoral bodies is small indeed. Indeed, any candid person who reads the list of judges who actually compose the Court will see that its representation is without exception based on legal competence and the judicial attitude of mind. Moreover, in the cases which come before them, the judges, by the statute of the Court itself, are required to apply international conven- tions, international custom as evidence of a general practice ac- cepted as law, the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations, Judicial decisions and the teachings of the most highly qualified publicists of the various nations, not as binding, but as subsidiary means for the determination of rules of law. The method of the Court's procedure, therefore, must be fundamentally judicial. No one has yet arisen who can point out where, in the cases actually submitted to it, the Court has deviated from the judicial point of view. On the contrary, its decisions have com- manded an almost universal respect, and its jurisdiction, as we shall see, has been more and more widely accepted.

It ought, after all, to be obvious that the mere fact of the election of the judges through the League machinery no more makes these persons the tools of the League itself than the nomination of the justices of the Supreme Court by the President of the United States and their confirmation by the Senate makes �[Page 52]§2 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

that Court a mere subservient organ of the Executive or of the Upper House of Congress. As a matter of fact, had the existing method of election not been resorted to, there might not have been any Court at all. For years it had been agreed that some such institution was desirable, but no way had been found to reconcile the claims of the small and the large states. The large states desired a special position in the election of judges; the smal! states desired a position of equality. The constitution of the League offered a way out of the difficulty. For in the Council, as has been seen, the great powers represent, if not an actual ma- jority, at any rate a nearly dominant group. In the Assembly, on the other hand, the small states predominate. Thus the views of both groups are represented, and as a majority in each body is required for election, these views must be reconciled. There is in this nothing to suggest League domination of the Court, but merely a happy expedient by which a difficult practical question has been effectively solved.

The opponents of the Court, however, have frequently called attention to another aspect of its constitution. The rules of the Court permit either the Council or the Assembly of the League to refer to it for an advisory opinion upon questions of a legal nature. Such an opinion does not have the force of a genuine judicial decision; it is not, in other words, legally binding. It will, of course, have very great weight in actual practice, and would, in most cases, no doubt, be followed by the League authorities. But it is difficult to see in what respect this pro- cedure subordinates the Court to the League. On the contrary, it rather tends to subordinate the League to the Court, and to put the action of the former body upon a more secure legal basis. There is a possibility, of course, that an advisory opinion, once given, will be flouted, and that the prestige of the tribunal itself will suffer; but nothing of the kind has so far happened, nor is it as a matter of fact very likely to happen. It is much more prob- able that opinions will be asked for only when there is a readi- ness, ascertained in advance, to accept the point of view which the Court lays down. �[Page 53]THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE WORLD COURT 53

In the main, then, the question of the relationship between the Court and the League reduces itself to this. The League machinery provides a convenient means of electing the judges of the Court, and the Court machinery provides a convenient means of securing legal advice to the League. Beyond this, the connection between them is nil.

The Court, however, must be regarded as a necessary, indeed, an indispensable supplement to the Geneva institution. The methods by which the League itself settles controversies arising hetween its members is, as we have seen, that of peaceable adjust- ment and compromise; in other words, what is technically called conciliation; there is a clear need of another and a truly judicial method, and this need the Court supplies. Indeed, the Covenant itself authorizes member states involved in a dispute to refer the guestion either to judicial settlement, or to conciliation; and without The Hague tribunal the practical carrying out of this provision would be impossible.

It is necessary, however, to understand both the value and the limitations of the judicial process. In the present state of international law, there are many questions which cannot prop- erly be said to be covered by its maxims; and, indeed, there always will be questions which disputant nations will not wish to sub- mit to judicial settlement. For, be it clearly understood, in the event that cases are regularly submitted to The Hague Court, there is a binding legal obligation to accept the award; and there are bound to be international controversies in which the Jisputants will not wish to obligate themselves to accept a rigid legal solution, but will wish to follow a more flexible procedure. The application of legal methods to all international disputes would seem to be as impossible as the application of similar methods, say, to disputes between capital and labor. There is neither a sufficiently developed law nor a sufficiently developed legal conscience to make such application possible.

On the other hand, the use of judicial methods will undoubt- cdly widen. The Statute creating the World Court contains what is known as the “‘optional clause.’ Nations may or may not �[Page 54]54 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

subscribe to this clause. If they do so, they bind themselves as against all other signatories, to submit to The Hague body dis. putes concerning (a) the interpretation of a treaty, (b) any question of international] law, (c) the existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute the breach of an international obligation, and (d) the nature or extent of the reparation to le made for the breach of such an obligation. These categories, it is clear, especially the first, would bring many, many questions within the purview. of judicial settlement, and the widening acceptance of this clause, by the great states of Europe (a con- tingency already foreseeable), will mark an immense advanc: toward the settlement of international disputes on a judicial basis. The World Court, it may be confidently predicted, has a future of wider usefulness, and, in all probability, of increasing prestige.

I shal! not deal here in detail with the question of American adhesion to the World Court protocol. That question, indeed, has not substantially changed its form since my article in August, 1929, World Unity. The way has been cleared for this country to do what the other great nations of the world have already done; and it is much to be hoped that the people of the United States will put their moral authority behind this hopeful in- stitution of peace. The action which they are asked to take mercly binds them to participate in the election of judges, and to pay part of the expenses of the Court; it does not even obligate them to submit any given dispute to its decision. They will still retain complete discretion in this regard. It would seem as if they could hardly fail to take this little step along the pathway of inter- national concord.

We �[Page 55]HUMANISM AND THE QUEST OF THE AGES

by

Joun Herman RANDALL, JR. Department of Philosophy, Columbia University

N THE midst of the flood of well-intentioned, earnest, and es- sentially ephemeral books on religion called forth by present- day shifting culcural currents, certain volumes stand out as worthy of more than a single hasty reading. Some achieve

significance because of their realistic analysis of the present re- ligious situation in America, and their passionately sincere attempt to meet it with a living faith. Such are the writings, for example, of Reinhold Niebuhr. Others win distinction because they have succeeded in cutting through the mass of intellectual compromise and futile ‘‘reconciliation’’ of science and religion to the essential philosophical issues raised by recent scientific in- vestigation, with its novel concepts and methods. Such are the writings of Roy Wood Sellars and Henry N. Wieman. Still others are outstanding because they lift the reader out of modern prob- lems, out of the problems of the whole Western religious tradi- tion, and enable him to behold the current religious readjustinent trom a point of view that includes the entire religious life of mankind in its scope. Such a world perspective is afforded in The Ques of the Ages, by A. Eustace Haydon.’

Mr. Haydon is Professor of Comparative Religion in the University of Chicago, where his stimulating lectures have won iim a genuine reputation. This first work designed to reach a wider audience is based on a careful acquaintance with recent scholarship in the anthropological, sociological, and historical study of the world’s religions. It is written from a point of view that is frankly ‘‘humanistic,’’ and it shares both the values and

' A. Eustace Haydon, The Quest of the Ages. Harper and Brothers. xiii, 243 pages. $2.50 55 �[Page 56]56 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the limitations of that attitude. Yet it is not a scholarly work in the usual sense: the reader will learn little of the details of the life and practices of the great religions. Neither is it a polemical work, seeking to establish by philosophical argument the au- thor's view of religion. Though it is announced as ‘‘a modest effort to formulate a philosophy of religion out of the materials of the natural, social, and religious sciences,’’ the philosophically- minded reader will have to bring his philosophy with him. Mr. Haydon writes not for specialists, but for the ordinary educated man, in a style that is clear and colorful, if rather self-consciously ‘literary.’ What does distinguish his volume is that from it can be gained, better than from any other the reviewer knows, a vivid impression of the religious life, not as a modern, not as a Christian, not even as a Western, but as an essentially Auman enterprise. There is in it little of the accustomed provincialism that is the curse of most of even the best religious writing; Mr. Haydon has attained a world viewpoint, and he is extraordinarily successful in conveying it to his readers.

The keynote of the book is a quotation from Goethe, applied by Max Miiller to religion: ‘‘He who knows only one, knows none.’’ Mr. Haydon is strictly accurate in summarizing his inter- pretation: ‘‘The long adventure of the religions now stands out in clear perspective. There is no longer any reason for mistaking a temporal and transient episode for the controlling theme of the story.’’ By putting them in their wider human setting, he shows clearly how much that has been regarded as fundamental in Christianity, and in Protestantism in particular, has been just such a temporal and transient episode. The otherworldliness and dualism of some of the great religions; the narrowly limited universe, in both space and time, of Christianity; the idea of a personal God, shared chiefly by the Semitic faiths; the very con- cern with belief and doctrine, with theology and cosmology and metaphysics, %f the Christian tradition: all these emphases ap- pear as minor currents within the great stream of the religious quest.

This great stream Mr. Haydon sees as ‘‘the manifold ways �[Page 57]HUMANISM AND THE QUEST OF THE AGES $7

in which human life has sought to mold a cosmic process to the service of man’s growing ideal. Religion is a shared quest of the eood life.’ Yet he does not make the mistake of disregarding the many differences, gross and subtle, between religions. ‘‘There is no such thing as religion in general, or in essence, or in the abstract; there are only people seeking the goods of life in ways dictated by chance, experience, and environment.'’ Nor are there any distinctively religious values, to be sought as the core of all the varied religions. ‘It appears that there are no peculiarly rvligious values. Politics, industry, science, education, morality, art, may be specialized patterns of behavior aiming at satisfac- tions which may be, to some degree, differentiated. Religion includes them all in a synthesis of the ideal of the good life, challenges all subsidiary techniques to loyalty, and judges them in the light of their service to the group ideal.”’

And yet, there has been a common goal, a goal toward which our modern world civilization of science and technology is lead- ing all religious quests. ‘‘Spiritual values are the tried, trans- formed, and.tested fruitage of long centuries of experience in social living. They are beacons, lit by human aspiration, to lead the way to a better and more beautiful life for man. All the re- ligions of mankind have recognized the controlling authority of these social values and ideals. To a remarkable degree thcy are common to all people who have advanced to the stage of culture. In the modern world, spiritual values, the ideal of happy human relationships, tend to converge for all “1ces of men. Many und manifold have been the forms of religion. The religious quest has been one. That quest for the values of the noblest ideal of living our own age takes up again—the achievement of a good life in a good world.”’

For such a point of view, the chief problem of interpretation is furnished by those forms of religion—notably Hindu faiths and Christianity—which seem to have abandoned such an at- tempt and sought their ideal in another world, thus obscuring the earthly and human significance of religion as a shared quest tor the values of the good life. Many religions, like Judaism and �[Page 58]58 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the Chinese faiths, were never thus forced to confess failure; and Mr. Haydon insists upon this fact. All otherworldliness, he ex- plains, has been due to the lack of tools, the inadequacy of man’s power of mastery over the world. Out of this helplessness came religions of escape, of flight from this life, of compensatory ideals. Yet even here such religions did offer a human ideal, a social way of living; and the great prophets and seers tock their places close to the earth as champions of the cause of the lowly, strug- gling, suffering, neglected multitude. All that is now changed, however; we no longer lack material mastery and scientific knowledge. Our greatest religious problem today is the failure of our religious quest to harness the new technique of science to the winning of shared values in a common life. ‘‘Our problem is to summon sufficient intelligence and good will to develop a social order in which the creative energies of men will find their glory in the achievement of spiritual values, of an ever more richly satisfying life for the race. This is to take up the time- hallowed task of man, the religious quest of the ages."

Mr. Haydon consequently undertakes a survey of the many religious cosmologies, the many conceptions of human nature, and the many gods of old, to show both their essential irrelevance to scientific interests, and their fundamental subordination, in the actual functioning of the religious life, to its vital aim of a search for a social ideal. He takes it for granted that the intelligent today will turn to science for their ideas of the world and of man, and he tries to make clear that this is a religious gain rather than a loss. ‘“Too much time has been wasted in the effort to make appear logical pre-scientific ideas that were created in the fires of living, born of desire, and never were logical. It would be futile for modern leaders of the religious adventure to seek an adequate understanding of the nature of man in the religious ideas of the past, or in the philosophies that have rationalized them." All these theologies and religious philosophies have had one end: ‘All ate ways of reading the nature of the universe in terms of human hopes. All are brave efforts of man to believe that he belongs, and that his life has some central significance in the �[Page 59]HUMANISM AND THE QUEST OF THE AGES 59

relentless drift of time. It remained for modern science to reveal the integral at-homeness of man in his world."’

Mr. Haydon’s one polemic, therefore, is his powerful and cogent argument against all metaphysical or ‘‘scientific’’ rein- terpretation of the traditional concept of God. ‘‘Early man had gods before he had ideas of gods.’ The gods, or the one great God of Christianity, were used in the religious life; they were not logical answers to intellectual problems. They were a part of the practical and ceremonial technique through which human values were won. “‘The most significant change in the gods came when they were confronted with the theologian and the philos- opher. Then their friendly and companionable forms vanished in abstractions. The gods of old were perfectly normal factors in the historical orientation of religions, as normal as a springtime ritual, a rain-charm, or the cult of the dead. Practically, the gods were real. But thinkers came who understood the world better and had a more adequate appreciation of the cosmic forces which influence the life of man. At that momentous point, in all re- ligions, there came a cleavage between the god of the intellectuals and the god of the religion of the people. The thick meaning of the gods in the social history of a people is what moderns often torget when they would unify the theologies of all the world by an identity of abstract words. The values of the social ideal dictate the meaning; the patterns of the social life dictate the form of the god idea. Robbed of its relationship to the life situation of a specific age and culture, an idea of god is a mere abstraction. Gods are meaningful only when they have vital rooting in the thought and action of folk in quest of life satisfactions in the changing world. An abstract, philosophic idea of god might conceivably embrace all the gods of the great religions in a single formula and remain unaffected by the ages, but the goud-ideas that function are specific and related to the problems of people in time.

‘But the gods were saved, because the abstract ideas were not taken seriously in practice even by philosophers. There came a time in all cultures when thinkers could no longer accept the �[Page 60]60 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

naive folk-belief in the gods. Yet they, like the people, were ac- customed to the cosmic support and consolation the gods alone could give. The problem was solved by evaporating the real gods in metaphysical ultimates respectable for thought, and then treating these abstract concepts as though they held the values of the vanished gods. The elements most desired were uncoh- sciously smuggled into the idea after being logically excluded. Thus the philosopher was able to respond to his Ultimate as though it had qualities which denied its timeless indifference and absolute perfection. The gods were both kept and surrendered. It is a method ancient and honorable, and a psychological situ- ation easy to understand.

“When gods become ineffable and unknowable, it is a sign that the really functioning gods are no longer possible for thought. But a god who was really unknowable would be equally impos- sible for religion. To save a god-idea in a net of philosophic words and at the same time wash out all the wogth of the idea is no great service to man. Hume called it L real atheism.’ The necessity of abandoning the old, real gods of the people which thinkers in the older religions have felt for millennia must end in a frank surrender of the idea of god in all its historic meaning, if the only concept which emerges is one that has no religious value, or acquires value only as the religious meanings are sur- reptitiously smuggled into it. Such attitudes are typical and are a further illustration of the fact that the religious quest is more fundamental than the gods. Real irreligion lies in the intellectual- izing of the gods into meaninglessness while pretending to keep them, or in the dogmatic defense of decadent and dying gods.

‘An adjustment is sometimes made by saying that God exists as a great unknown and that all the changing ideas of all the religions of mankind are imperfect glimpses of his ineffable meaning. This form of agnosticism is merely a refinement of primitive thinking. An appreciation of the functional and prac- tical nature of the god-ideas makes it unnecessary. An under- standing of the actual cosmic support for the values of man’s religious quest makes it superfluous. During the last twenty-five �[Page 61]HUMANISM AND THE QUEST OF THE AGES 61

centuries men have challenged or championed the gods. Under- standing of them is a modern attainment."’

Briefly and clearly Mr. Haydon sketches in the successive stages by which religious liberals have robbed the idea of god of all religious value, and forcefully displays the futility of their desperate defenses. The contemporary vogue of mysticism as an apologetic he convincingly disposes of with the words, ‘‘The experience has genuine religious value, but brings back no report from the unseen.’’ Instead of expending so much mental energy in elaborating the intricate mazes of dualistic metaphysics in order to make rational the ideas of men of the primitive dawn, he secs Clearly that today men must pierce through to the core of religious value enshrined in the idea of god. ‘“‘Instead of asking, ‘Does God exist?’ meaning one of the well-known gods of yester- day, instead of rationalizing and denaturing the vital concepts of an earlier generation, the question is asked direct, ‘What sup- port does the universe give to our moral ideals?’ If a thousand definitions of God were assembled from all religions and from all the centuries, one thought would thread them all—man's trust that the universe in its deepest meaning is on the side of human ideals.’’ In terms of present-day naturalistic philosophies, present- Jay interpretations of the implications of science, the answer is clear and reassuring. ‘‘The elements of support and security, of hope and promise, which come to man from his cosmic and social environment are real and effective. They may some day be the means for the realization of his long-deferred dream.’’ Mr. Haydon is at his best in displaying the religious values of contemporary naturalistic philosophies, so different from the religious nega- tions of the philosophies based on the speculative and outworn dogmas of Nineteenth century science.

The religious ideal which Mr. Haydon offers is generous and humane. “‘We can no longer put trust in miraculous transforma- tions of character, either of the individual or of society. We have outgrown the willingness to accept salvation either as divine decree or as the donation of divine grace. Still more important, we would feel a sense of disloyalty in being saved alone. The �[Page 62]62. WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

consciousness of social solidarity has made us able to enter sym- pathetically into the life of our fellows, even at times across all racial bounds. The modern ideal of ‘the good life must be social and inclusive in an entirely this-worldly sense. It is encouraging, therefore, and of deep significance to religion, that a common refrain runs through the writings of modern thinkers. The notes of the melody are freedom, democratic opportunity, cooperating individualism, meliorism, internationalism. The march of re- ligions moves toward the Great Society in which all individuals will have a fair chance for the joy of living, and personal satis- factions will blend with social responsibility and creative power.

The method must be a reliance upon science and technology. There can be only one authority in religion: ‘‘An intelligent and trustworthy method of directing the quest of the ages by a prac- tical program to the attainment of selected goals. For such a task we have now an instrument—the method of science. Scientific method is simply a deliberate and objective way of thinking. It is the same in all fields. The task of religion is not something separate from the task of the sciences. Ethics, art, politics, eco- nomics, natural and social science, education and philosophy, are special strands of the same thread through the serviceableness of which alone the religious pattern of life can be woven. The hope of realization lies in the method of science applied to specific problems, in specific situations, by men alive to what religion means. The task is practical. The good life for the many waits upon the good society, and the program of religion, to be effec- tive, and not simply another dream, must be a way of organizing the flexible social structure which will produce the individuals capable of giving it intelligent direction and, by their coopera- tive creation, make available the values of the good life. Scientific knowledge and the products of science, machines and technology, might then be used, not merely for the multiplication of material things, and the aggrandizement of the physical scaffolding of life, but as aids to the release of the spiritual potentialities of men.”’

And Mr. Haydon rises in a pan of praise to the religious unity of the entire world. ‘‘In contrast with the local groupings �[Page 63]HUMANISM AND THE QUEST OF THE AGES 63

of past religions, it is necessary today to think in terms of humanity and the world. A world mind, served b¥ the best special- ized intelligence to meet problems, a world conscience, a provi- dence, a purposive good will, integrated in concrete social organizations to serve mankind, are the next steps in social, religious evolution. In some such way, the meaning which has filled the idea of god might be made an actual, tangible reality for earth dwellers. Compensatory elements vanish. Responsibility rests upon man. The planet that has achieved personality and in- telligence in man may win through him, for so long as its life endures, the supremacy of spiritual values over the mechanistic trappings of civilization. In that quest of a new era, men would transcend the historic distinctions of Buddhist and Muslim, Christian and Confucian, and become cooperating members of a common humanity.”

Such a program of realistic social idealism, broad as all mankind, can well claim universal assent. Yet in reducing religion to social idealism and nothing more, Mr. Haydon is making plain the limitations of his own religious and philosophic insight, and the limitations of the movement today known as ‘‘human- ism'’ in religion, of which he is so able a leader. We are hardly surprised to find him saying, ‘‘No religion of the past has ever had sufficient knowledge of human nature, or of social control, to build a satisfying home for man. For the first time in the history of man there is available in the method of science an instrument capable of realizing the age-old dream. Modern religion, there- tore, faces the task of subjecting all material resources to the en- nobling and beautifying of living, of reorienting the social order toward the spiritual ideal, of releasing from bondage the inarticu- late millions by an art of human life. The Western world is not in need of ideals. It is the practical technique for actualizing them in modern civilization that is lacking, here and in the Orient.”’

“The Western world is not in need of ideals.’’ 1 submit that this is an extraordinary statement to come from a professedly modern religious leader. If one thing is clear, it is that the inherited ideals of Western civilization have proved inadequate, and that they �[Page 64]64 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

demand thoroughgoing reconstruction to meet the spiritual needs of a scientific and technological social experience. No amount of talk about specific problems and trusting scientific intelligence can blink this fact. Such extraordinary complacency even in his chosen field of social endeavor must convict Mr. Haydon’s humanism of philosophic, religious, and spiritual blindness. No one can quarrel with the positive content he gives religion. Religion must do these things. But to see in religion merely the shared quest for a good life composed of material and social values, is to shut one’s eyes to the core of the message of every prophet and religious seer. It is to complete that reduction of religion which has been the curse of religious liberalism. It is to deny that more than material and social values, that more than the earnest striving even for the good of others, that eternal vision that constitutes truly spiritual insight into human life.

Such humanism is content to dismiss all otherwordliness as ‘“the anaesthesia of compensatory future consolations."’ It has no use for spiritual detachment or inwardness. It pins its faith in external achievement, and it has no transcendent ideal in the be- holding of which man can find spiritual peace. It has no strength to sustain in times of failure and frustration, and it has no genuine guidance even for times of prosperity. It may be that the insight of the prophet and the seer has been false wisdom. It may be that pragmatic social reform is enough for human life. Humanism is

ertainly the logical goal of present-day liberal religion; only sentimental attachment to traditional phrases and the shadow of traditional feelings holds most men back from complete agree- ment with its final reduction. But, for God's sake, let us be frank about it: let us not identify it with religion. This may be our quest; it is not the quest of the ages.

Liberal religion, while retaining the echo of past forms, has largely abandoned the substance of religious faith. Humanism is frank enough to abandon the forms as well; it is not frank enough to acknowledge the common abandonment of sub- stance. Yet its heart is sounder than its head; for amidst al] its concern with the clearly seen things that are temporal, it retains �[Page 65]HUMANISM AND THE QUEST OF THE AGES 65

a dim, faith in the unseen things that are eternal. Its difficulties and limitations are not due so much to a faltering faith, as to a failure to appreciate the real implications of its philosophic position. It imagines that it must renounce as vain and empty all the spiritual ideals of past religions that are not immediately translatable into concrete social achievement. It is still obsessed by the notion that in discarding supernaturalism it must discard all the values that have been bound up with supernatural beliefs, and retain only the social values that are left when the super- natural realm is cut away. It fancies that a dualism is overcome by simply suppressing one of the two terms. It has so far shirked the real task of reinterpreting the old supernatural realm in terms of one unified realm of nature everywhere amenable to intelligent criticism and reflective thought. A deeper insight would suggest that the great religions, in discovering transcendent values in human life that are more than immediate social goods, had pene- trated to something vital and meaningful in human experience; that such enduring visions which have so well served the strug- gles of mankind were more than the confession of failure, were themselves deeply rooted in nature. Without them, we may well be cut off from further spiritual discovery; we may well confess, ‘The Western world is not in need of ideals.’’ But in so doing, we are confessing our spiritual and religious bankruptcy.

A prophet of our day who is more than a humanist has well said, ‘Those who best promote life do not have life for their purpose. They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarna- tion, a bringing into our human existence of something eternal, something that appears to imagination to live in a heaven remote from strife and failure and the devouring jaws of Time. By con- tact with what is eternal, by devoting ourselves to bring some- thing of the Divine into this troubled world, we make our own lives creative even now, even in the midst of the cruelty and strife and hatred that surround us on every hand."’ It may well be that humanism has no place for an idea of God. A naturalistic met- aphysics must discard a personal deity. But religion, a living religious faith, must find room for something Divine. And a natu- �[Page 66]66 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

ralistic interpretation of the religious quest of the ages cannot shut its eyes to the Divine as a fundamental datum to be explained Without some recognition of the Divine, without some reasoned interpretation of its significance for human life in its natural setting, humanism will offer a distorted view of past religions and a truncated religion for the present, a social idealism with- out faith even in a social ideal. Until humanistic leaders escape from the bondage of their inadequate philosophy, no thoughtful! and sensitive man can consent to the reduction of a naturalistic philosophy to the narrow limits of humanism, or find a sufficient living faith for the present within the constricted_compass of a program of pragmatic social reform.

A �[Page 67]ROUND TABLE

In beginning volume six it seems desirable to attempt a brief survey of what the magazine has accomplished since its ‘Statement of Purpose’’ was formulated three years ago. A new introductory page has therefore been added, listing some of the scrials and leading articles published since October, 1927, that the reader may judge the record for himself.

• * *

For the attainment of the special purposes of Wortp Unity \M{\GAzINE, the ordinary relations of reader to periodical or book are inadequate. What Wortp Unity hopes for is the sharing of a common consciousness, a positive cooperation of conviction and faith able to disagree on details.

• * *

In many people this consciousness is innate and exists with- out reinforcement of specific ideas. In the majority of us it Jevelops slowly by association with vital influences. The real achievement of Wortp Unity has been to provide an influence making for the truly human outlock.

• * *

This is a qualitative and not a quantitative ideal. The in- Jividual personality may pass from one stimulus or distraction to another, paying only occasional attention to that organic problem of civilization which, though it underlies all thought and action today, nevertheless appears too impersonal to hold the restless modern temperament.

• * *

With mental maturity, however, theie arises a profound need to achieve association with the truly constructive forces of one’s own era. Wortp Unity MaGazinr exists to serve that need.

67 �[Page 68]WORLD UNITY FOUNDATION

CHARTERED BY THE STATE OF NEW YORK

“To maintain facilities for promoting those ethical, humanitarian and spiritual ideals and principles which create harmony and understanding among religions, races, nations and classes; and for cooperation with established educational, scientific and religious bodies working for these ends.""—(From the Charter.)

HONORARY COMMITTEE

S. PARKES CADMAN RuFus M. JONES CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT David STARR JORDAN RUDOLPH I. COFFEE Harry Levi JOHN DEWEY Louis L. MANN HARRY EMERSON FosDICK PIERREPONT B. Noyes HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS HARRY ALLEN OVERSTREET MorbDEcAl W. JOHNSON WILLIAM R. SHEPHERD JAMES WELDON JOHNSON Aucustus O, THOMAS TRUSTEES JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, President and Director Mary RuMSEY Movius, Vice-President MELBERT B. CARFY Horace HO. ey, Secretary ALFRED W. MARTIN FLORENCE REED MORTON, Treasurer MOUNTFORT MILLS

Office of the Director 4 EAST 12th STREET NEW YORK CITY 68 �[Page 69]WORLD UNITY FOUNDATION

PURPOSE AND SCOPE

MArSa@

HE most powerful influence in the world today is that which, in numerous

forms and under widely different conditions, makes for re-education. Every thoughtful person has become aware of the necd to assimilate something at least of che new facts and viewpoints brought forward by creative workers in science, philosophy, history and rcligion. More important at present than the material changes which, in less than a century, have transformed the outer circumstances of lifc, is the rapid mental and moral readjustment we all are forced to undergo in order to restore the balance between the individual and his revolutionized social environment.

These profound advances and significant discoveries intersect in one common ideal—the ideal of human solidarity. In this concept of world unity we possess a common meeting ground for all sincere students and workers, a focal point of social power blending, as no uther concept can, the necessary factors and elements con- stituting the complete human life.

The World Unity Foundation represents an organized and collective effort to make this concept a living issue, a source of enlightenment and inspiration, and an ever-expanding basis of cooperation for men and women Seeking to understand and solve the fundamental problems now threatening to disrupt the world. Its aim is confined to the sphere of education—its scope enables it to serve and co- operate with groups and individuals irrespective of their race, religion, nationality

or class.

The aims of the Foundation are inclusive, and not to be confounded with those of organizations serving any one limited field, whether that of international peace, the advancement of science or the promotion of any religious program.

That such an organism of service is needed and appreciated at the present time has been attested over and over again by the enthusiastic response its activities have already evoked, and the widespread acknowledgment that world unity gives new

meaning and value to human life today. 69 �[Page 70]METHODS AND FACILITIES

HE program of World Unity activities promoted by the Foundation is

essentially an extension of the adult educational movement to include the moral and spiritual factors underlying true social progress. This program is entirely non-partisan and non-sectarian, having no interest in propaganda in the negative sense of the word. World Unity Foundation endorses no particular political theory, economic doctrine, social philosophy or religious creed, its endeavor being rather to assist in bringing about that general realization of the need for world brotherhood which alone can bring any useful principles to their full fruitage.

The program of activities maintained by World Unity Foundation is three- fold, touching the intellectual and moral life of society at many vital points.

Worla Unity Conferences

Durinc the past three years, a series of pub- lic meetings has been held in nearly thirty cities of the United States and Canada. Em- ploying the uniform designations of “World Unity Conferences’, these meetings have brought directly to the people of the local communities the considered views of leading scholars, clergymen and rabbis upon the vital issues of world peace, religious unity, racial amity and subjects of similar general im- portance.

The Conferences have long passed their preliminary, experimental stage. As now held, they have become a definite type of ~blic meeting possessing its own character and imbued with a distinct influence. It has been through the cordial cooperation of well known speakers, authors and scholars that the Conferences have been privileged to offer so many illuminating addresses dur- ing this period. At present, the Director of World Unity Foundation has on hand more requests from local organizations for similar Conferences than can be arranged without a great increase in the facilities.

The Evening Transcript of Boston de- scribed the Conferences in an article pub- lished December 11, 1926. ‘Probably no more universal public forum exists in this country today than the World Unity Con- ferences supply, since they offer the same hospitality to Jew and Moslem as to Chrstian, and to scientist or to philosopher as to re- ligionist, while the black and yellow races have also found on this platform a place not inferior to that accorded the white. The selection of speakers, however, does uphold

7o

a strict standard of suitability, in that each speaker must represent some approach to the problem of world unity.”

Institute of World Unity

ESTABLISHED to promote the same ideals as the Conferences, the Institute of World Unity enables those most deeply interested to go more thoroughly into the recent develop- ments of history, science, philosophy and re- ligion than can be done in the brief time allowed the public speaker.

The Institute functions as an informal school, with a lecture program covering a wide field of popular interest. The programs given during the first four seasons reveal a high standard of scholarship. The Institute, in brief, solves the problem of how men and women who seck to know the vital con- quests and discoveries of modern thought can bring these into their own lives as a fresh stimulus and awakening, without academic requirements or formalities.

The lecturers so far include: Herbert Adams Gibbons, John Herman Randall, Jr., Samuel Lucas Joshi, Kirtley F. Mather, Wil- liam R. Shepherd, Frank H. Hankins, Edwin A. Burtt, Nathaniel Schmidt, Parker T. Moon, Carleton J. H. Hayes, A. Eustace Haydon, Dexter Perkins, Rexford G. Tug- well, Cassius J. Keyser, Alfred W. Martin and Harry A. Overstreet.

World Unity Magazine Tue rich variety and significant scope of

the subjects presented at the World Unity Conferences and also at the Institute of �[Page 71]World Unity led inevitably to the realization that the world unity movement required its own distinctive organ and literature. The first issue of World Unity Magazine ap- peared October 1, 1927, sponsored by a lise of Contributing Editors representing Europe and the Orient, as well as the United States and Canada,

The value of a current literature on inter- national subjects grows more apparent with each successive political or economic crisis, an’ World Unity Magazine in this brief period has won the interest and respect of responsible scholars and public minded people in many lands.

World Unity Library

Sclective distribution has been made of a number of reprints from World Unity, more

particularly: A Reading List of Current Books on World Unity, prepared by John Herman Randall, Jr., and Building Up the International Mind, by H. A. Overstreet.

A more important contribution to literature has recently been made possible through co- operation with the F. A. Stokes Company in the publication of a series of books known as World Unity Library, The first two titles are: A World Community, by John Herman Randall, and Nationalism and International- ism, by Herbert Adams Gibbons,

The Director of World Unity Foundation has been appointed editor of another series of works regarded as a highly significant expression of current thought: Religion and the Modern Age.

MEMBERSHIP IN WORLD UNITY FOUNDATION

RANSLATING, as it does, all its facilities into direct public activities which promote the ideals and principles the value of which all fair-minded people agree upon, World Unity Foundation already possesses active agencies of service capable of extending useful cooperation to individuals and organizations aroused

to the fundamental issues of the hour.

The work of the Foundation is maintained by voluntary subscriptions, gifts and legacies, and the following classes of membership are available to those who would appreciate an opportunity of contributing to the realization of the ideal

of world unity.

Annual Member $10 Sustaining Member $25 Associate Member $50

Life Member $100 Patron $500 Fellow $1000

Benefactor $5000 Members receive complimentary copies of World Unity Magazine and all

literature of the Foundation.

That the Foundation has rendered notable service to the cause of education for world peace and international cooperation is amply demonstrated by the demand for its public meetings and the quality of its general literature.

As an agency which is influencing the minds of thousands of people, and

‘urning their attention for the first time toward the rea] meaning of present-day world events, the Foundation merits support from those who desire to make their lives count in the struggle between the forces of civilization and chaos in possession of the world today.

A Prospectus and Membership Application Blank will be sent by the Director on request.

New York 71

WORLD UNITY FOUNDATION 4 East 12th Street �