World Unity/Volume 6/Issue 2/Text
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WORLD UNITY
A Monthly Magazine for those who seek the world outlook
JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, Editor HORACE HO tey, Managing Editor
CONTENTS MAY, 1930
Design for a Temple of Religious Harmony Frontispiece
The Economic Ingredient of World Peace Editorial Mexico and Its Promise Hubert C. Herring War and Competitive Armaments John Herman Randall The Fellowship of Reconciliation Paul Jones Nationalism During the World War Herbert Adams Gibbons Fellowship and Class Struggle A. J. Muste Peace by Force or Peace by Promises? Dexter Perkins The European World View John Herman Randall, Jr. Round Table Editorial
World Unity Conferences
Wortp UNITY MaGaziNE is published by WorLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORA-
TION, 4 East rath Street, New York City: Mary Rumsey Movius, president;
Horace HOLLeY, vice-president; FLORENCE MORTON, ¢reasurer; 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 Wortp UNiTy
PUBLISHING CORPORATION and its editors welcome correspondence on_ articles
related to the aims and purposes of the magazine. Printed in U. S. A. Contents
copyrighted 1930 by WorLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION.
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“ . ~ 7 ee ee ee rh ent oe Na & te - eee
Reproduced from “The Metropolis of Tomorrow" by Hugh Ferriss. Ives Washbura, Publishers.
A TEMPLE TO EXPRESS THE HARMONY OF RELIGIONS
“Our criterion for judging this selt-con- scious Architecture will be its effect on human values: its net contribution to the harmonious develop ment of man.”
Hugh Ferriss
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WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
Vor. VI May, 1930 No. 2
EDITORIAL CaN
THE ECONOMIC INGREDIENT IN WORLD PEACE
N THE rise of class consciousness we are witness to a rapid recapitulation of the processes which formed countries and national states. Because this new economic grouping has behind it so much impetus, and because the realization of
its purposes challenges the whole principle of nationalism, the basis laid for world peace through political agreement will be insecure until the outcome of the class movement is determined.
Broadly considered, every society is formed by pressure laid upon its members—the sharing of a common peril or the bearing of a common burden. Class consciousness reflects the peril and burden of poverty in an industrial age when the source of pov- erty lies inside and not outside the existing social structure.
Granting the consciousness of social unity in the affected group, the next step is the formulation of an objective and the adoption of administrative machinery—government. During the fluid stage, choice is made between idealistic and practical objec- tives, and similarly between democratic and autocratic forms of administration. But this choice is not free; it is determined by the intensity of pressure exerted upon the group. Both political and economic autocracy reveal the need to meet the ‘‘foe’’ upon his own ters.
In view of the inability of the English Labor Government to solve the economic problem, the future of European class con- sciousness seems committed to radicalism and violence. In America alone has ‘‘labor’’ a real choice between organizing for exclusively class objectives and organizing for objectives pos- sessing vital human values. How long this fluid condition will last depends upon the attitude of industrialists and politicians.
If they retreat into policies of exclusive privilege and domination,
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the reaction upon labor policy will inevitably throw it in th direction of European social experience.
The burden-bearing classes throughout the world have beer given one formula and one ideal—communism. Through com: munism we are to replace privileged inequalities with theoretica equality—destroy property since property has been abused. Since man has failed in his ownership, man himself is to be owned For human will and feeling, we are to substitute the rule of the state.
World peace through political agreement, and_ politica! agreement alone, might have been possible a generation ago Had the industrial era opened with the heads of states firmly pledged to peace, the rise of the wage earning classes could have proceeded peacefully and the sanctions of violence discarded by the evolving human mind. Today, world peace requires not only political agreement but also a social program capable of removing the burden of poverty from the race.
The economic ingredient is decisive in world affairs today. If uncertainty of labor and injustice of income is indefinitely prolonged, class consciousness will take over the worst features of the present state and attempt to apply its formula with any available means and at any cost.
Fundamental in any approach to the problem of world peace, consequently, is the adoption of a social formula making for justice and betterment without the communist doctrine. In- equality is inherent in men, and its association with injustice is the tragedy of history—the real proof that religion has failed.
The formula that not merely opposes communism in practice but constitutes the light of which communism is merely the shadow, involves substituting human well being for personal wealth as the aim of industry and the motive of life. The ‘‘social revolution’’ needed is a change of heart. Communism, in reality, is a blind protest against the lack of spiritual community—the sense of human solidarity so profoundly felt that it will sustain an actual partnership between ‘‘capital’’ and ‘‘labor’’ for mutual ends.
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MEXICO AND ITS PROMISE
by Husert C. HERRING Committes on Cultural Relations with Latin America
unite in believing that Pascual Ortiz Rubio, the new
president, will have an orderly administration with the
opportunity for peaceful and constructive development of the educational, economic and governmental program.
There have been twenty stormy years in Mexico. Rival ‘generals have contended for power; scores of them ‘have faced tiring squads; they have led their rival factions in a long series of revolutions and counter-revolutions. Today, the generals are assuming a less important rdle. Civilians are taking power. The schoolmaster outranks the soldier. The engineer does the work that the general could never do.
Five years and some months ago, Plutarco Elias Calles took office. It was the beginning of a new day for Mexico. I saw Mexico for the first time on the day of his inauguration. I was one of the forty thousand who gathered in the stadium of Mexico City to shout our Vivas as Mexico's man of promise took his post. The promise of that day was generously fulfilled. Calles ruled Mexico for four years and went far in establishing the tcpublic solidly and constructively. These were years of road building, school building and nation building. Obregon was elected as Calles’ successor last year, but fell before the assassin’s hand. Portes Gil served one year as provisional president. Ortiz Rubio now takes office.
I view Mexico in terms of the past five years. Each year a group of us have spent a few weeks in Mexico, seeking through
the ‘Seminar in Mexico’’ to establish contacts between repre- 83
Te is hope in the air in Mexico. Friend and skeptic
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sentatives of the United States and Mexico, in the belief that through mutual understanding we may come to mutual apprecia- tion, confident that appreciation affords the only secure basis for continued peace.
Five years acquaintance with Mexico leaves certain words headlined in my thought.
Land is the first word.
The revolutionary leaders who led their ragged bands after the downfall of Diaz had many slogans, and these slogans always began with land. Tierra y Libertad! Land and Liberty. Tierra 3 Libros! Land and Books. The hunger for land is the basic hunger of the Mexican. Land is the only tool which he knows. It affords the only security upon which he can build. The Mexican is an agriculturist.
The Mexican Indian lived upon his communal lands long before the Spaniard came. He continued to hold his lands subject to Spanish taxes. Not until the days of Porfirio Diaz was he driven from his lands. Diaz favored the foreign investor, and created three million peons out of free Mexicans. The revolutionists of 1910 inherited a nation .*hose land had been diverted from its rightful owners. Great haciendas of a hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, a million acres—these were the rule. The peons worked on the haciendas, illy housed, poorly paid, and sentenced to a system little better than slavery.
The Mexican revolution proposed to restore these alienated lands. Under Calles, fourteen million acres were taken from the haciendados and given to the former peons. This meant friction with alien land-owners and with their governments—British, American, and so on.
Ortiz Rubio takes office, committed to further distribution of land, but only where lands so expropriated can be paid for in cash. This course will mean peace with the United States. It remains to be seen how much land can be distributed on such a cash-and-carry basis.
Oil is the second word.
We came perilously close to a war with Mexico in 1927 overt
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MEXICO AND ITS PROMISE 85
that little word. Mexico inherited the theory from its Indian code as well as from its Spanish law-givers that the sub-soil wealth belongs to the state, and that the right to exploit mineral wealth cannot be granted save for definite and limited terms. These convictions were written into the constitution of 1917 and into the enabling legislation which was built upon that con- stitution. This did not please the American oil companies. There were hot words, and the threat of hot deeds. Two men had domi- nated the American oil interests in Mexico, and had shaped the policies of their companies—Harry F. Sinclair and E. L. Doheny. We did not go to war with Mexico. The American people spoke in no uncertain terms, demanding of our President and State Department that shooting be delayed until peaceable methods had failed. President Coolidge accepted Sheffield’s resignation and sent Mr. Morrow. Mr. Morrow brought peace. The Mexican government held its hand from the more extreme measures. The oil companies, in many cases dissatisfied with the situation, are marking time. Nothing has been finally settled, but the atmos- phere has cleared, the danger of armed intervention has passed.
Schools is the third word.
Mexico's consuming passion is for education. Mexico is illiterate—at least 75% of it. President Calles went into office with the avowed purpose of establishing a thousand new rural schools each year. This program was carried out. Schools have been established in villages which never before had schools. The educational program of Mexico has been pushed with vigor and wisdom and imagination.
The rural school in Mexico is the outward thrust of the
revolution in Mexico. The Mexicans have a name for the little
community school—they call it Ja casa de la puebla—the house of
the people. The school is the social center of the community. The
teacher is the social worker, the physician, the agricultural
expert, the consultant upon questions of community and personal
life. The teacher may have but scant education, he may be picked
for good intentions and resolute purpose rather than for academic
attainments, but he is the true apostle of the new national order.
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Mexican education has the immense advantage of being free from any set and determined educational theory. It is experi- mental in spirit and method. The schoolmaster is confronted with a situation and is told to cope with it as best he can. He is not given elaborate buildings nor modern educational equipment. He is not blessed—nor burdened—with finely wrought out ‘‘educa- tional standards.’’ He has not been to Columbia and learned to use the trade-terminology of education. He does not know about being ‘‘situation-centered,’’ but he knows what to do with a cow which shows signs of being poorly adjusted to her particular life-situation.
In no field has Mexican education made a finer record than in the teaching of the arts. The Mexican was born to be an artist, and the Mexican school is giving the Mexican boy and girl a chance to develop his birthright. The open-air schools of painting and of sculpture in Mexico ate showing results which amaze the visitor.
The Indian is the fourth word. There are four or five million pure blooded Indians in Mexico. Mexico, under Diaz, apologized for its Indians. Mexico, uader Calles, boasts of them. Mexico is Indian. The Spanish culture is but 2 veneer. The Spaniard did not conquer the Mexican. He furnished a thin veneer of language and reltgion, but scratch that veneer and Mexico is Indian in race and culture and thought. Mexico is today seeking to unify the national life, to merge Indian and Meztizo and Spaniard into one people. Far from discounting the Indian contribution to the conglomerate, Mexico recognizes that its Indian population must furnish the stuff of which Mexico will be fashioned.
Religion is the fifth word. It is a stormy word. Mexico 1s
devoutly, passionately religious. Her religion is a synthesis of
Catholicism and Indian cult. The Virgin of Guadeloupe is the
blessed one, the mother of God; she is also Tonotzin, the dark-
skinned Aztec divinity who was worshipped near the hill of
Tepeyac long before the Spaniard came. Mexico dances on feast
days and saints days, and the dances are the same as were danced
by Maya and Toltec and Mixtec and Aztec ten centuries ago.
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The animus evide~ced against the church hy the leaders of the Mexican revolution is to be explained by the identification of the church with foreign power. The priest came with the conqueror. The church became the bulwark of foreign power. The priest was too often allied with the exploiter. Furthermore, the church grew rich, and growing rich, became increasingly conservative. The Revolution struck out against the established order—against large land holdings, against privileged and wealthy overlords—and the church was involved with the over- lords. It should be noted by Protestant critics of the Catholic church that Mexican Catholicism followed the trend which all churches are apt to follow—it was allied with the rich, the pow- erful and the conservative.
Gentler counsels are evident in the present church-state situation in Mexico. The heads of the Catholic church and the leaders of the Mexican government are searching out new bases for cooperative effort. On both sides, an irenic temper is manifest. The Roman church holds the loyalty and affection of the great masses of the Mexican people. The church has served the people and will serve them. The adaptability of the Roman church proves again in Mexico to be her strength. The church becomes increas- ingly indigenous, taking on the color of the land. Some Catholics deplore this tendency, but they need not. Catholicism will serve Mexico by farnishing the instrument through which the spiritual genius of a people shall increasingly find its channel for expression.
The Mexican balance shcet is confused and mixed. He is no friend of Mexico who would paint the picture in clear and bright light. There is good and bad in Mexico—just as there is in every other land under the sun.
Mexico faces grievous /iabilities.
First, there is ignorance, illiteracy, superstition and poverty. These are bound up together. The masses of the population are bitterly poor, badly housed, ill fed, unschooled, scourged by disease, hounded by all the devils of ignorance.
Second, there is little national unity. Mexico is a vast con-
glomerate. Her Indian population is divided into more than
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fifty groups, each with its own language. Lack of roads means the isolation of large sections of the country. Illiteracy prevents national communication of ideas through the printed page.
Third, there are several inherited economic handicaps. There is a national debt aggregating over a billion dollars. Large areas are owned by aliens. Oil rights are largely in the hands of out- siders.
Fourth, Mexico is handicapped by serious 1. ‘n natural resources. The climate of large sections of the . -y is un- favorable to effective living and production. Ther © little rainfall in northern Mexico and upon the centrai '; too
much rainfall in the tropics.
_ Fifth, Mexico is cursed by its military machine 1 pre- dominance of the general in Mexican life is a national weakness. The appeal to arms has prevented the appeal to minds. The elec- tion of an engineer—Ortiz Rubio—to high office is encouraging.
Sixth, Mexican politics are graft-ridden. State government is notoriously corrupt. The Mexican is however inclined to suggest that we clean up Chicago and Pennsylvania before we grow unduly heated over his lapses from official integrity.
Seventh, Mexico faces the constant threat of international pressure. Mexico is proud, and resents any interference. The con- viction that such interference may come at any time—whether that conviction is well-grounded or not—does not make for national security, althoagh it does make for national solidarity.
Mexico, on the other hand, possesses decided assets.
First, the growing number of able and honest leaders. Each year there emerges a new group of young men, well trained in law, medicine, engineering, finance, and education. These new leaders are the hope of Mexico.
Second, a growing pride of race and nationality. The Mexi- can, having shaken free from the cult of European worship which prevailed under Diaz, is increasingly proud of his Mexican culture, his art, literature and race.
Third, a pioneer spirit. The leaders of Mexico are alive to
the possibility of building a new nation. They are not bound by
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MEXICO AND ITS PROMISE 89
traditions. They believe in social pioneering. They may make their mistakes, but they will not stand still.
Fourth, the educational program of Mexico affords ground for great hope. The schoolmaster leads the way in Mexico as he does in scarcely any other country. Unfettered, imaginative, the teacher is the builder of the new Mexico.
The annual “Seminar in Mexico,"’ held under the auspices of the Committee on Cultural Rela- tions with Latin America, and directed by Hubert C. Herring, holds its Fifth session in Mexico City July 5-25, 1930. This Seminar is an effort to relate strong representatives of the life of the United States to the life and people of Mexico. Applications for membership should be addressed to Mr. Herring at 112 East 19th Street, New York.
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A WORLD COMMUNITY
The Supreme Task of the Twentieth Century
by Joun Herman RanDA.y
WAR AND COMPETITIVE ARMAMENTS
eration,’ the author says, ‘‘The war which is formally renounced in the Pact of Paris and practically guarded against in the Covenant of the League is not an instinct, it is a form of State action. It is not an element in human nature, it is part of a political program. It is no more an element in human nature than the adoption of an income tax, or State-owned railways, or a protective tariff on wheat. And further, it is a form of State action which may at one time have been profitable to one of the parties engaged, but under modern conditions it is indubitably disastrous to both. . . . Governments find themselves at war, not cause they like war, but because they go on doing the things that lead to war.’’ The war-guilt controversy and th. revelations of pre-war diplomacy point to this irresistible conclusion. Not the will to fight, but the will to empire building, to irredentism, to imperialist concessionist-hunting, to diplomatic bluffing, to competitive armaments and alliances, is the real cause of war. In July of 1929, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, there assembled the representatives of forty-six leading nations to listen to President Hoover proclaim as now effective the Kellogg-Briand Pact for the Renunciation of War. More significant by far than the impressive promulgation of the Pact was the accompanying statements by the Prime Minister of England and the President of the United States as to go
I Gi1LBerT Murray's recent book—‘*The Ordeal of this Gen-
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WAR AND COMPETITIVE ARMAMENTS gI
the suspension of naval construction programs in their respective countries. These are the first definite official acts of any nation to indicate that their political leaders regarded the Pact as any- thing more than a gesture of peace. This action on the part of President Hoover and Mr. MacDonald reveals how seriously they take the Pact. The acid test of the real value of the Pact for the renunciation of war as a national policy lies in whether the nations who have thus solemnly agreed to renounce war are now ready seriously to take steps looking in the direction of gradual disarmament. If they are to continue to pile up armaments after they have not only renounced war but also solemnly agreed to settle all disputes that may arise in the future by pacific means, then their actions will certainly belie their words and professions, and the people in all lands will have neither faith in, nor respect tor, the governments which have thus betrayed them.
It is obvious that the old problem of war is closely bound up with the problems of both nationalism and imperialism, and that no solution for any one of these particular problems can be found that is not also closely involved with the solution of all of them. Nationalism in its narrow sense, and imperialism in all its methods of unjust exploitation, are dependent for their very existence on armed force and are among the prime causes that lead to war inevitably. If these are to continue to dominate the life and practices of nations, then there is no possibility of a genuine disarmament, no hope of achieving a world order; and the establishment of world peace, in spite of its many advocates, is only a beautiful dream. On the other hand, if the nations are to continue to place their supreme faith in armies and navies, in force and violence, then international anarchy is bound to prevail, . and selfish nationalisms and greedy imperialisms will hold sway as of old, forever thwarting the coming of a world community.
When we remember that there has been a steady increase
in the money spent and the amount of armaments built by the
Great Powers from 1913 down to the present time, we must
realize tho gravity of the situation. Here are the official figures
compiled by the League showing the increase in expenditures:
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Spent in 1913 Spent in 1926
Great Britain... ... . . . $374,000,000 $584,000,000 Framce 0. ws ee ew we ee )|«6RGOOO,000 384,000,000 Italy . 2... 1. 1 1 wwe 4). )~©142,000,000 164,000,000 Japan. ....... 4... . 4 104,000,000 2.07 ,000,000 United States ...... . .« . 491,000,000 $92,000,000
A brief survey of the more outstanding professed attempts to do something in the direction of disarmament is, to say the least, not encouraging. When the Council of the League came to organize its first commission on disarmament it did so by adopting a report prepared by Léon Bourgeois of France, proposing a com- mission made up entirely of military, naval and air men. It was as foolish to expect a disarmament convention from such a commis- sion as a declaration of atheism from a commission of clergymen.
The Washington conference did indeed refrain from starting a ruinous armament race, but can it be said in all honesty that it was ‘‘as rich in true international wealth as it was in five national savings? While much Christian feeling was aired—indeed a trifle too much for the French delegation—politically at least, the undercurrents of mistrust, resentment and ill-feeling were strong and intense. . . . The construction of the Singapore base was an admirable illustration of the ultimate inanity of these half- measures for premature disarmament,'’ and also, a demonstration of the inadequacy of the direct method of approach.
The famous Geneva Protocol was the nearest approach to triumph which the indirect method has been allowed to make in the history of the League. Nevertheless, while the Protocol was the ‘‘masterpiece whereby the patient constructive genius of France obtains security for her Europe in exchange for dis- armament to satisfy British Liberal opinion, that very virtue killed the Protocol in England. France insisted upon sanctions; England dodged arbitration; the claims could not be reconciled and the Protocol was born dead."
A careful appraisal of all the political measures and efforts of the ten-year period since the War fails to assure anyone that
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WAR AND COMPETITIVE ARMAMENTS 93
an effective bulwark against war has as yet been erected. Up to the coming of the Kellogg Pact, the whole disarmament situation was one of anarchy and seeming hopelessness. And when the Jeficiencies of the old methods employed are pointed out, it is easy to see why.
In the first place, the constant emphasis on the prevention of war instead of the supreme necessity of cooperative building for reace, is a futile and wasteful folly; for one is merely negative, the other is positive. This negative effort is apt to ignore, or at lcast minimize, the deep underlying causes of war, while the positive method seeks the removal of the causes that inevitably breed war. The one tends to exhaust itself in sentimentality and vague generalities, while the other faces realistically all the grim facts involved. The one is inclined to think of peace as the mere absence of war, while the other regards peace as a mighty achieve- ment whose helpful, healing influences are to be operative con- stantly in the life and relations of nations. Those who are content to prevent war are inclined to employ old ideas and familiar tormulas in new situations, while the builders of peace are search- ing diligently for a new technique in international dealings that shall more adequately meet the new situations, and thus make war obsolete.
A second deficiency lies in the old-fashioned, out-of-date
political negotiations between official representatives of the
nations—whether it be the secret diplomacy of the past or the
“new diplomacy’’ pretending with an hypocrisy now almost
blatant to be a democratic meeting of political representatives,
when everyone knows that these political representatives are
habituated to thinking in terms of an age that is gone, and are
rarely even conscious of the new world into which we have come.
Why should such negotiations, dealing with so humanly vital
a problem as War, be left to the politicians, dominated by their
respective nationalisms and controlled by the imperialistic
motives of their own countries? Why should not the intelligent
nations call upon the social engineers, the scientific experts, the
trained economists, yes, and the intelligent international banker
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and big business man, for all the light they may be able to throw on such problems—men who realize at least the new conditions that confront the world?
Thirdly, the attempt to settle differences in advance of any known facts or conditions, instead of seeking a settlement by sensible and scientific negotiation, followed if unsuccessful, by references to the World Court or arbitration decision.
Fourthly, the failure to audit or appraise the current sources of international sore spots so that international technique may become one of preventive medicine, rather than attempted, and often, disastrous emergency surgery.
Fifthly, the almost utter failure to recognize that political values and political boundaries and political nationalisms will be, and largely have been, superseded by the inevitable economic development growing out of our new civilization; that old cus- toms of thought no longer apply to this world of realities; and that the idea of cutthroat competition must give way in inter- national affairs exactly as it has given way in the internal life of nations to a cooperative willingness to produce a greater good for all by yielding something to all.
In spite of the ‘‘war waged to end war,’ the manifold activities of peace organizations of every description, and the unquestioned widespread diffusion of the sentiment for world peace, the first real hopes for the establishment of peace since 1918 were not kindled until August 27, 1928—ten years after the War. On that day a historic event took place in the hall of the Foreign Office in Paris. The governments of fifteen nations signed on that day a treaty by which they renounced the right to use war as an instrument of their national policies, and invited all the other nations of the world to give their adherence to the same great act of renunciation.
Up until this time, during the decade following the Great
War, preparations for coming wars went merrily on in the gov-
ernments of all civilized nations, armaments increased in the
leading nations, army, navy and air-force leaders vied with one
another in predicting the inevitability of the next war, and the
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WAR AND COMPETITIVE ARMAMENTS 95
large number of those who profit from war together with the one-hundred percenters in every country laughed to scorn all efforts directed toward peace. ‘‘Pacifist’’ was applied by the great majority as a term of opprobrium to all workers for peace. Ten vears after the great conflagration, in spite of a succession of international conferences called professedly to prevent war, in spite of the League of Nations in its honest efforts to secure peace, in spite of Arbitration Treaties, Pacts of Non-Aggression, Great Ententes, Little Ententes, the Treaty of Locarno and all the rest, the force of war was still the recognized and acknowledged means of attempting to solve the insoluble, and the threat of war still hung more menacing than ever over the life of nations.
If this be questioned, then why did England insist on the
so-called one-power standard for her navy? Why did the United
States in her turn insist on a navy equal to that of any other
nation? Why did France in spite of her straitened finances con-
tinue to maintain the largest air force in the world and the most
powerful army? Why did she reinsure her position by a system
of alliances and subsidize the armies of her protégés? Why did
England again in her turn demand an air force of such strength
as to make any other nation hesitate before attacking her? Why
did Japan, in spite of her financial troubles, maintain so powerful
an army, navy and air force? Why did the Germans chafe and
agitate because while all the nations that had signed the Treaty
of Versailles agreeing to take steps towards disarmament were
steadily increasing armaments, Germany alone was by the Treaty
strictly limited in her army and navy, and forbidden airplanes
and submarines? Why did Italy and Serbia count so carefully the
rifles, bayonets and machine-guns in their opposing armies, and
why did France and Italy, unable to afford battleships, cling so
desperately to the submarine for so-called defence purposes? And
why have all the attempts at the limitation of armaments to
which the nations were pledged, including the farcical ‘‘Coolidge’’
Naval Conference of 1927, failed so signally, with the single
partial exception of the Washington Naval Conference of 1921?
Why, in the laboratories of all the Great Powers, has science
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been pressed into the feverish service of discovering still mor deadly weapons or destructive warfare? Why, in spite of the growing sentiment for peace in the United States, has one of the leading American magazines issued a special number devoted to “The Next War,"’ consisting of articles written by well-known “army and navy men, and dealing with the place, methods, line. up of the nations, and probable results, of the next war, which is regarded by all the writers as inevitable in the not distant future ?
The answer to these questions is not simple but complex. In large part, the mad race in armaments has thus gone steadily on with no attempts at limitation, much less*reduction, because of the natural psychological aftermath of the Great War. The wide prevalence of the war-mind in governments and peoples, the realization of the many sore spots left by the Treaty of Versailles, the fear and suspicion more lasting than the hatred and bitterness always left in the wake of war, and the opportunity that this affords the big army and navy men to push their case, the vested interests of those who profit directly from war seeking to combat the movements for peace; in the governments, the preponderance of aggressive nationalism and selfish imperialism over the new spirit of internationalism, and in large masses of the people the lingering honest but mistaken notion that war must always be, because “‘you can never change human nature’’—all these, and others that might be mentioned, have been among the chief contributory causes to the wide-spread preparations for war.
Back of these influences, however, lay the real cause—the
strong feeling, amounting among the most intelligent to a clear
conviction that in spite of all that had been done for the cause
of world peace, the problem of war had not yet been solved, that
the machinery created to prevent war was all too inadequate,
and that as long as the United States held aloof from the League
of Nations, World Court, etc., even this machinery lacked a
sound foundation; and above all, that as long as War was recog-
nized as a legal institution and nations were granted the right
to wage war as they pleased without the loss of prestige or the
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WAR AND COMPETITIVE ARMAMENTS 97
respect of other nations, the issue of peace or war still hung trembling in the balance, and in the crisis of strain or emergency between nations it was war, not peace, that would win the day.
It is not necessary in this connection to repeat the story of the negotiations that led at length to the signing of the Kellogg- Briand Pact and its final promulgation by President Hoover in Washington in July of 1929. That the Peace Pact has awakened new hopes is evident, and that it may lead to the first definite steps in the direction of disarmament now seems probable, in the light of the attitude of both President Hoover and Mr. MacDonald. But what real basis is there for these new hopes? Can the Peace Pact, taken by itself alone, lead to the establish- ment of world peace? If not, what further is needed to supplement it and make it truly effective?
The signing of the Pact of Paris has awakened widely di- vergent feactions in the minds of thoughtful students of inter- national affairs, both in this and other countries. By some it has been denounced as the most dangerous endorsement of war the world has ever seen. Professor Borchard of Yale took this position in his analysis of the Pact at the Williams College Institute of Politics. To some it has appeared as a meaningless piece of hypo- critical demagoguery. Some have gratefully accepted it, but have doubted both its practical effectiveness and its exact mean- ing. Many have seen in it the definite turning of the world from darkness to light. Who of these are right? Only the future will reveal. The simple fact is that the Pact may prove to mean much or little; it may indeed prove to be a turning-point in human history, or it ma’ prove to be merely another pious gesture to- ward peace. Whatever of blessing it may yield in the future depends upon the gover ments who have signed the Pact, and the people behind those governments. This much is clear.
Professor Shotwell gives it as his sober judgment that it was
the rising tide of public opinion that was directly responsible
for the negotiations that led to the Pact. But what created this
public opinicn? In a word, the growing realization that modern
war is a colossal loss as revealed by the results of the Great War.
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No men who reflect or read, as they look back over the last ten years, can fail to realize how serious are these losses, social, economic, political, intellectual, moral and spiritual defying language to express. There are no gains perceptible from the grim tragedy of 1914-1918, unless, possibly, the nations may learn the supreme lesson of those years and discover the better way that leads to cooperation and peace. That war has ceased to be an effective means of achieving any policy was the supreme lesson ot the World War. Thoughtful men everywhere have come to realize that ‘‘war has become a futile instrument incapable of direction and, therefore, criminal in use. In modern warfare. there is no keeping events within bounds. War is today as un- certain in its direction as in its intensity, or its spread. It is no longer a safe instrument for statesmanship under any citcum- stances; it is too dangerous to emplcy. Victor and victim may suffer a common disaster. Its effects reach even into the unformed future, and rob the savings of generations yet unborn. In short, war which was once a directable instrument of policy has now changed its nature with the nature of modern society, and ceases to be controllable and directable in the hands of statesmen. By reason of its all-embracing needs, it becomes a contagion among the nations; and one cannot safely use a contagion as an instrument."
Professor Shotwell emphasizes the immemorial hold of the
method of warfare in the dealings of sovereign states, and the
theory implicit in al] international law that both in declaring
war and in conducting it the state is the sole judge of its own
actions. He makes it plain how deeply European nations have
felt the necessity of employing this implement, and how hard it
has been for Americans in their isolation to comprehend European
needs. At the same time he points out how modern scientific and
technological advances have made it necessary to discover another
method of international policy. Just as slavery was abolished
when humanitarian sentiment was reinforced by the needs of
industrial society, so war will be renounced when the peace
sentiment is reinforced by the realization that war is no longer
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an effective instrument in a scientific and industrial world community. ;
‘The movement for international peace owes its validity, which is real, to the fact that a new civilization has arisen which rests upon the interdependence of nations, and that the prosperity of the present depends upon the buying power of the future. The world of credit is essentially a world of peace. The activities of business now decide most of the major relationships within and between societies which formerly were left in the last resort to the instrument of war. If we are to have world peace, it is because the world has turned that corner in history when civilized so- cieties need peace for their continued existence and find the instrument of war no longer pertinent. . . . A new attitude is forcing its way in international politics, as it is .lso revealing itself in the world of business and internal economics—one which seeks to substitute for ruthless competition’ some measure of cooperation, so that each member of the community of nations may have a larger share in an increasing common good. This change in attitude is itself a fact of history. This means that a world community is emerging, based upon the solid ground of joint and common interests. But it is only just emerging, and is still in the early stages of development."’
It is Professor Shotwell's opinion that the reservations with
which some of the nations accompanied their adherence to the
Pact, notably France and England, and upon which Professor
Borchard based his rather pessimistic view, were not real reserva-
tions striking at the Pact, but merely explanations and inter-
pretations. He insists that the only real reservation lies in the
Pact’s recognition of the right of self-defense, and in its statement
that each nation ‘‘is alone competent to decide whether circum-
stances require recourse to war in self-defense.’’ It is in this con-
nection that one sees how much less of a guarantee of peace lies
in the Pact than in the Covenant of the League, which provides
a machinery of investigation for the hour of crisis, and by recalling
the obligation to employ it, instead of arms, for the settlement
of disputes forces an application of the test of aggression then
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and there. ‘‘As a practical measure, therefore, the Pact is by no means so well implemented for effective action as is the Covenant of the League.”’
It may be thought that Professor Shotwell is inclined to take a more sanguine view than the situatiou warrants. Never- theless, it is our contention, to state it once again, that whether the Pact is to mean much or little in the securing of world peace depends not upon its particular phraseology, or on its failure to provide the machinery necessary, or even upon the reservations that accompany it, but upon whether there is in the governments and the people behind them, the honest will to peace. The machinery needed can be created if more is required than that already furnished by the Covenant of the League, the reservations made today can be swept aside tomorrow if public opinion so decrees; whatever is now lacking in the Pact as it stands can be supplied. What we have in the Pact today, as 1c has now been proclaimed effective, is a first real stcp toward world peace, but only the first step. The next steps that must be taken without delay involve the great task of the organization of the world for peace, even as it has always been organized for war. If the Paris Pact can now be fo!lowed by the successive steps looking toward the cooperative building of a world in which peace is as much at home as is now war, then the Pact will indeed prove a turning point in human history. The great need now is for a practical program of peace in which all nations can join in genuine cooperation.
President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University, one of the foremost leaders in the movement for world peace in America, has suggested such a program of peace which is worth quoting: ‘‘The Pact of Paris opens the gate to international peace. To enter at that gate and to travel the path to peace there are several things which the responsible leaders of civilization should quickly do. These constitute a veritable Program of Peace. They are:
C1) To substitute fer Departments or Ministries of War,
Navy and Aviation, a single Department or Ministry of National
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Defense, with sub-divisions for the Army, the Navy and the Air Forces. The Irish Free State has already led the way in substitut- ing a Minister of Defense for the conventional Minister of War; and in France, M. Painleve, Minister of War, has suggested that the same step be taken. The economic gain in taking such action would be considerable, the administrative gain would be still greater, and the psychological gain would be the greatest of all. There is no longer room for the word War in the permanent or- ganization of any government signatory to the Pact of Paris or giving its adherence thereto.
‘‘(2) To abolish compulsory military service and to reduce the armies of the world to police forces and skeletons of an emergency Organization as is now the case in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States. The last word on army organiza- tion and use in a peace-loving democracy was spoken by Elihu Root in his five classic reports as Secretary of War, followed in like spirit by the late Viscount Haldane when Secretary of State for War in Great Britain. These statesmen have pointed the way.
(3) To get rid of battleships, destroyers, submarines, and like instruments for the destruction of life and property, and to maintain navies of peace. These will doubtless consist of cruisers of an agreed number, tonnage and equipment for purposes of police and relief work, and for sea patrol. Competitive navy building is a provocative scandal.
‘‘(4) To develop speedily a controlling body of international law and a code of international conduct. The more closely these follow the evolution of the common law of England, doubtless the sounder and safer they will be; but much material is now ready to be cast in code or statutory form.
(5) To strengthen the authority of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague, as well as that of the Per- manent Court of Arbitration there, and to build up other institu- tions for conciliation and arbitration as needed, for use when the ordinzcy processes of diplomacy halt or fail.
(6) To increase the prestige and uphold the authority of
the League of Nations.
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(7) To move toward the quick carrying out of the plan projected by Secretary Blaine nearly half a century ago, and to bring the governments of the American continent into stated and formal cooperation, without dictation or overlordship on the part of anyone of them.
(8) To develop, in cooperation with the League of Nations or otherwise, 2 plan for safeguarding the peoples of the Orient Cand ail other backward peoples) and for protecting them from exploitation by any people, government, or private interest.
‘‘(g) To maintain and multiply those contacts, intellectual moral and spiritual, which so greatly promote international sympathy and understanding and which at the same time advance national pride and satisfaction. Science, literature, the fine arts, together with visits by representatives and guiding personalities, are the most potent instruments with which to develop and to safeguard the International Mind.
“All this the Pact of Paris suggests and makes possible. It is a Program of Peace for the constructive statesmanship of today and tomorrow."
While other steps may, and will be, added to the suggestions of President Butler, it is along the line of some such constructive prograin in the building of peace that the nations must cooperate if the Pact of Paris is to fulfill the high hopes of those responsible for it.
The most discouraging fact we face at present is the inert
state of public opinion in this and other countries on the whole
subject of war and peace, even in the presence of the noisy jingo-
ism of the blatant 100 percenters and the professional mouthpieces
for war. It is a strange kind of muddled thinking, or something
worse, that leads the United States Senate to ratify the Paris Pact
with but one dissenting vote, and then proceed on the following
day to pass the new cruiser bill. One cannot escape the conviction
chat while there is in the United States considerable sentiment
for world peace, it is as yet largely unorganized and by no means
as effective as it might be in bringing pressure to bear upon the
government. It is also quite clear that with few exceptions, our
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WAR AND COMPETITIVE ARMAMENTS 103
members of Congress and those who stand in high places have not as yet taken the Paris Pact very seriously, and seem to feel that the United States has nothing directly to do with world peace—which grows naturally out of our blinding policy of isolation.
Meantime, whatever obstacles may be encountered, whatever delays or opposition, whatever discouragements or defeats, let us keep our hopes bright and our courage undismayed as we re- member these heartening words of Charles Evans Hughes: ‘‘The building of the institutions of peace is the most distinctive enter- prise of our time. We are still in the preliminary stages, engaged in the study of architectural drawings and blue prints, with much disagreement. We are contriving to live in a partial and frail structure with incomplete and inadequate facilities while we seek to perfect our plans. We are troubled about the foundations of our edifice, as borings show pockets of quicksand, in national policies, age-long antagonisms, and developing rivalries. Even the materials at our command are fragile and hard to solidify to such a degree as to give assurance of being able to withstand the fierce storms of passion which are not unlikely to recur. The difficulties do not make the task any the less the supreme task of modern civilization, for, unless we measurably succeed in it, that civilization will destroy itself as it brings the discoveries of science and the improvements of invention to the operations of war in both weapons and methods. We shall have to build and rebuild, and then mayhap build again, but the constructive processes must go on.’
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THE WORLD WE LIVE IN
Men live less and less in geographical and more and more in spiritual communities. The involuntary elements 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 population 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 outlook, but also offers the true remedy for the sense of isolation and Joneliness which has followed the breakdown of the traditional local aeighborhood.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation by
Pau. JoNEs Chairman of the Council
HE outbreak of the World War forced men everywhere to
face the deep contradiction between war and the way of
Jesus. Among the many who in much perplexity of spirit
sought a solution, some in every land came to realize that a better way not only must be found, but must be followed with- out delay and at whatever cost. Out of this situation the Fellow- ship of Reconciliation came into being in Great Britain at the end of 1914. Men and women (among whom were Henry T. Hodgkin, lately one of the secretaries of the National Christian Council in China, Rev. Dr. Leyton Richards, Rev. Richard Roberts of Toronto, and Miss A. Maude Royden) found themselves united in the conviction that war was wrong and that they could not take part in it. Instead they set out to discover together how the way of love and service as shown in Jesus of Nazareth could be followed in every relationship of life, and human society be thereby radically transformed.
It was felt that in the ministry of reconciliation thus under-
taken the principle of fellowship must play a predominant part,
and so the name Fellowship of Reconciliation was chosen. The
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THE FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION 10§
movement aimed to unite men and women, without barriers of class, race, or nation, who wished to adventure upon the life of loving fellowship, who were ready to take the risks involved in applying the principles of Jesus in a world which was not yet ready to accept them.
One of the members of the Fellowship coming to America found an acceptance for this message and an American group of the Fellowship of Reconciliation was formed at a conference at Garden City, N. Y., in November 1915.
In 1919 the first international conference of the Fellowship was held in Holland and since that time the movement has spread to most of the European countries and other parts of the world.
Conferences have been held each year, and oftener, as well as more frequent group meetings in various cities and towns, through which the members have sought tu discover together what the way of fellowship means when it is followed in the home, in the education of children, in the treatment of offenders, in the rela- tions of commerce and industry, as well as in dealings between people of various races and nations. The Fellowship has grown by contact from one person to another.
A minimum of organization has been the practice. Secretaries at a few central points, such as New York and London, endeavor to assist the activities of individual members and groups; and they aid in coordinating the work and in the active presentation of Fellowship ideas. John Nevin Sayre, Amy Blanche Greene and J. B. Matthews are now the American secretaries. Charles A Thomson is secretary for Latin America; Howard A. Kester in the South and Charles C. Webber for Industry.
General policies of the American Fellowship are determined
by a Council elected annually from the membership in the United
States. Of this Council, Bishop Paul Jones, executive secretary
of the Fellowship from 1920 to 1930, is chairman, and A. J. Muste,
head of Brookwood Labor College, vice-chairman. The Fellow-
ship of Youth for Peace, formed in 1924, became the Youth Section
of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in 1926 and comprises thasg@™
under thirty years of age.
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The distinctive note of the Fellowship is its repudiation of war and commitment to a way of life creative of brotherhood. It has, however, never required of its members any merely negative pledge against war; for membership implies such a dedication to the practice of the principle of love as the inviolable law of personal relationships and the transforming power of human life that any use or countenance of the war method by those who belong is impossible.
It is intended that members shall work out personally and in their own way what fellowship life involves. There is no pro- gram or theory of social reconstruction to which the members are committed, but it is their aim to seek with others such changes in the spirit of men and in the structure of the social order as shall make possible the full expression of love in personal, racial, industrial, national, and international life.
All who hold to the principles of the Fellowship are urged to join. Those who are not ready to repudiate the war method entirely are invited to become associates. The Fellowship has no dues but is supported by voluntary contributions of members. The office of the Fellowship of Reconciliation is at 383 Bible House, Astor Place, New York City.
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NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM
by
HERBERT ADAMs GIBBONS Historian
Nationalism During the World War (1914-1918) and the Peace Conference (1919)—Concluded
Treaties by their fruits. The injustice of the boundaries
was apparent at the time: it i stronger with the
years. At the time of the Peace Conference a major portion of the regions taken away from the losers was already in the hands of the new owners. Italy had virtually all she intended to ask for, as did France, by the armistice terms, and the ceded re- gions had been in the actual pussessiva of these two powers for from eight to ten months when the treaties were signed. The new states, Poland and Czechoslovakia, came into existence at the very moment of the collanse of Austria-Hungary and Ger- many. Serbian soldiers hurried into the Serbian-speaking portions of Austria and Hungary to get ahead of the Italians even before the war came to an end. Transylvania, Bukowina, and Bessarabia ‘the latter was taken from Russia) proclaimed their union with Rumania before the Peace Conference met.
The German army was not demoralized; and the Revolution in Germany was orderly in most places. But the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was complete. With the exception of the Czechs, and to a certain extent the Rumanians, the people on the whole had supported the Hapsburg regime until the end. Yugoslav fear of Italy and Polish fear of Russia had contributed powerfully to this loyalty. But the moment the ship began to sink, the breakup was complete. Austrians and Hungarians pro-
107
[ THE perspective of nearly ten years we can judge the Paris
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claimed republics like the others. Each of these peoples was ar ethnic minority, and the solid mass of Germans in the empire o: the northern ally was nine times as large as the Hungarians ani ten times as large as the Austrians.
Outside of Europe the most notable development of nationa! spirit from 1914 to 1919 was in China. The long and enthusiastic propaganda of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen had brought about the downfal! of the Manchu dynasty, and the proclamation of a republic in the oldest country in the world. The Young Chinese, who gathered round this lead, were, like most educated nationalists, convinced parliamentarians. They wanted a constitutional govern- ment in the fullest sense of the word. The military leaders, virtua! dictators in the provinces, while they were willing to see the Manchus go and the experiment of a republic in Peking, refused to countenance the introduction of constitutionalism in their particular regions. They would support the Nationalist movement when it suited their purposes. But they were more interested in the anti-foreign aspect of it than in its goal of a parliamentary regime.
Canton and Peking fell out. There was civii strife in China, sometimes active and at other times only smoldering, throughout the war. China followed the United States into the World War, an unofficial truce was maintained between Peking and Canton while China hoped to improve her international position.
However great might have been the divergence of views be-
tween the North and South, all Chinese were agreed upon the
importance of the Peace Conference in Paris. Exceptional efforts
were made then, as they were later in Washington, to present a
harmonious front during these negotiations. In the second year
of the World War, shortly after Japan had taken Shantung from
Germany (two foreign powers fighting a war of their own on
Chinese soil, as it happened in 1904 and 1905) instead of giving
back Kiao-Chau and the German concessions to China, Japan
presented at Peking a serious note. The Twenty-one Demands,
as they have been known since, represented a deliberate attempt
on the part of Japan to profit by the preoccupation of the powers
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NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM 109
in Europe and by the civil strife in China to become virtually ‘‘the protecting power.’ Belligerency was China's hope of avoiding this protectorate and also of getting Japan out of Shantung. In view of the war aims of the Entente Powers and Wilson's speeches, Chinese statesmen thought they would put Japan in an embarrass- ing position at Paris.
The victorious powers were bound by secret treaty, which had been signed between the time the United States broke off diplomatic relations and declared war, to make Germany cede Shantung to Japan. In vain the Chinese statesmen pleaded at Paris, northerners and southerners showing solidarity. Nothing they had to say influenced the Big Four. Not only were they bound to Japan, but each one of the three European allies had a similar axe to grind. One could not say that the failure to treat China decently at Paris was the reason for the continuance of chaos in that coun- try. But it was certainly a blow against the prestige and influence of those Nationalists who were working for the regeneration of their country along Occidental lines. It discredited all the Powers with the younger Chinese generation.
When Russia went Bolshevik, in November, 1917, a whole
vear before the war ended, the new rulers of the Muscovite
dominions declared nationalism the corner-stone of their policy.
They said they had thrown out the Kerensky regime because of
its half-heartedness and insincerity in acknowledging the right
of national groups to their own separate existence. The conception
of Lenin was @ union of federated socialist republics. He was quite
willing to recognize as separate political organisms any ethnic
groups who wanted to call themselves independent and organize
a government. So, before the Peace Conference met, thcre were
already in Russia many states, such as Ukrania, Georgia, Armenia,
Daghestan Union, Azerbaidjan, Bokhara, Siberia—we cannot
name them all here. Poland's independence had been admitted in
the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Then there were Finland, Esthonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania. Around the Baltic frontier, the Black Sea,
the Caspian, and along the frontiers of Persia, Afghanistan, and
China the Soviet republics took form. And Soviet Russia an-
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nounced the renunciation of all the old imperialistic one-sided treaties of Czarist Russia. Persia was freed of her shackles, and China. The Bolshevists made themselves the champions of all nationalist movements throughout Asia.
We cannot go into the involved story of Allied intervention and counter-revolutionary movements in the Caucasus, the Baltic provinces, Archangel, and Siberia, nor into the close relations of Soviet Russia with the new Turkish nationalism that had it; center at Angora. Then there were anti-Bolshevist movements in the Caucasus, the Baltic provinces and Finland, and, shortly after the Treaty of Versailles went into effect, a war between Russia and Poland.
As far as technical frontiers go most of these transfers of territory might remain permanent. They might easily remain permanent! All that is needed is a different spirit on the part o/ the race that happens to be on top for the moment, and a drastic
modification in tariff and traffic regulations. For the bulk of the / people are not as nationalistically-minded as one would think.
They get stirred up by agitators only when they are oppressed politically and economically, only when their cultural interests are threatened, and, above all, only when their pride is hurt.
To this optimistic generalization concerning the changes, some of them rather violent, made in Europe by the World War there is one exception. That is the Polish corridor, as it is called. Whoever was responsible for this stupidity (I do not want to us a stronger word) will have much to answer for before the bar o! history. Lloyd George personally disclaimed in the most emphatic manner possible any part in this conception of giving Poland access to the sea by means of a strip of territory that cut East Prussia from the rest of Germany. Shrewd statesman, he foresaw the inevitable reassertion of German sovereignty over this strip. He felt that true friends of Poland—friends with any vision— should counsel against what was an artificiality, by geographical, economic, political, and ethnic tests alike.
The Polish corridor is to German nationalism like a strong
cocktail served before every repast. It gives the German a fillip,
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NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM riz
stirs them up, keeps them unreconciled, inspires them to work for a new decision before the only court of appeals that has ever been heard in European history—the court of Mars. The map of Europe was so remade that despite the World Court at The Hague an eventual areopagus would have to be evoked.
The Covenant of the League of Nations, incorporated in all the treaties, provided for the establishment of three types of mandatory government, under the supervision of the League of Nations. The mandatory idea was conceived for the double pur- pose of making it appear that the victors were not annexing enemy territories and for keeping Italy from getting her share of the booty. These were the practical reasons, as has been realized since by students of League of Nations mandates. Another reason, which has frequently been given but which we must in all fairness say has not been proved, was the purpose of the Allied premiers to bamboozle President Wilson. On the face of things, it looked as if this were the motive behind mandates, which were to be ‘a sacred trust for civilization.’’ But we cannot be sure on this point. We can be sure, however, of the first two reasons.
The Treaty of Sevres, with Turkey, was not concluded at Paris in 1919. The rivalries among the victors were so great that it took continuation conferences to settle the text of the treaty. The final terms of the compromise were effected only in the spring of 1920 at San Remo. In the meantime, Great Britain had occupied Palestine and Mesopotamia, France Syria, and Greece the Smyrna region. The Covenent of the League of Nations, anticipating the dissolution of the Ottoman’ Empire, had provided for a mandatory regime in the Arabic-speaking portions. The text of the Covenant is explicit. It states that the peoples, freed from the Turks, are to be educated to self-government; that the mandatory power ts to perform this task; and that the wishes of the people are to be the first consideration in the choice of the mandatory.
There never was any intention on the part of Great Britain
and France to abide by these stipulations. The two powers had
violated the terms of the treaty before it was signed, and had been
taithless to each other in the Near East. It is one of the most
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amazing chapters of diplomatic perfidy in all history. But it has always been that way in the Ottoman Empire, whenever Great Powers dreamed of or made a move to secure the succession of the Osmanli. We deal here wholly with facts. The statements I have made are not a matter of speculation or opinion. The man who hai most to do with the Arab revolt during the war and who came to the Peace Conference with Emir Feisul, son of the King of the Hedjaz, wrote in the Westminster Gazette of London shortly after the Peace Conference that the Arabs had been betrayed. Colonc! Lawrence openly accused the British Government of having failed to carry out the treaty promises he had made in its name when he was inducing the Arabs to revolt against Turkey and join the Entente Powers during the war.
The Zionist movement is one of the most curious manifesta. tions of nationalism of the twentieth century. In the original conception of Hertzl, Zionism was a mystical religious move- ment, to call the Jewish people to a spiritual regeneration. He wanted Palestine to signify more than a pious hope, expressed in a meaningless ritual. Then, because the persecution of the Jews in Eastern Europe grew more bitter at that time, Zionism came to mean the possible finding of a homeland where there would be freedom from persecution, in the same sense that New Englan< was the goal of the Pilgrims.
For years the Jews, in their conception of Zionism, had much the same feeling as is expressed in the famous poem of Felicia Hemans. The homeland, the Zion, did not necessarily mean Palestine. This is proved by the negotiations between the Zionists and the British Foreign Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, for estab- lishing Zion in the highlands of East Africa. As for Jerusalem, when the Jews yearned for the Holy City, they had just the same vague, intangible feeli 7s as the Christians, who sang, ‘‘Jerusalem the Golden”’ or ‘‘Jerusalem My Happy Home."’ Neither Jew nor Christian would have been anything else than dismayed if he were suddenly told that his wish was granted and that he had to g0 and stay there!
In countries whete they were persecuted, kept within the
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NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM Ti3
pales, discriminated against economically and politically, where they lived under the menace of pogroms, Jews were ju..ified in not having a feeling of loyalty to the country. In Russia and Poland, in Galicia, they had their own language. They were a people apart. But when they came to America, to cast in their lot with us, they had the same position before the law as other elements; they were admitted to citizenship on the same condi- tions; and no Jew in America could say that he had not had a square deal from the economic point of view. In our country, composed of all religions and races of Europe, nothing could be more disastrous to national solidarity than to have an element look to another flag, foster any sort of national spirit other than American, or pretend that it had the right to double nationality. In France and Great Britain, where Jews had no disabilities, there was the same incomprehension of the reasons for Zionism in the sense of a national movement.
The common sense of American Jews has prevented the Zionist question from becoming a serious one. In Palestine, how- ever, it was serious for several years after the mandate was assumed by the British. Since then, because the Jews are so hopelessly in the minority and because of their inadaptability to agriculture, the Zionist question is not as troublesome as it was.
For a while the British, who assumed also the mandate for Mesopotamia, had a serious time with the Arabs there. Finally, they withdrew their garrisons to Mosul, a seaport, and put Emir Feisul on the throne, as King of Irak. He had just been chased out of Damascus by the French. The British have collaborated in the Government of Irak admirably. It is one of the bright spots in the post-war Near East.
Since 1922 the Turks in Asia Minor, freed of the Armenians and Greeks, have had a hard time economically. And they have had other rebellions on their hands. For three years the Kurds have asserted their nationalism—-and they are a Muhammedan people, like the Turks.
The most interesting thing about the Turks is the program
of national reforms of a sweeping character that Mustapha Kemal
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has initiated. He has gone to the very heart of the problem o} Turkish nationalism. Realizing that a Muhammedau country i; incapable of attaining nationhood, in the Occidental sense of the word, so long as the clergy dominate the social life of the people, he emancipated women, doing away with their veils; abolished the khalifate, and deposed the Sultan; made it a misdemeanor to be illiterate; did away with the red fez as the national headgear; divorced the Church and State absolutely; adopted the Roman letters for Turkish, and made the people learn them; and has jus: lately given the vote to women. This is the most thorough-going program of reforms ever adopted by a non-European people. Up to now it has been “ccessful, also, quite unlike the similar effort of Amanullah in Afg. nistan. If the Turks can solve their economic problems, the history of nationalism may give a high place to the Angora movement.
And now we have come to the end of our brief summary of the results of the treaties of the Paris settlement upon nationalist movements. We have seen something of the constructive and destructive side of nationalism. Many things have been omitted, especially in the treatment of the nationalism of the Great Powers. This has been done intentionally, in regard to some matters, for we want to speak of them as obstacles to the growth of inter- nationalism in the next chapter.
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FELLOWSHIP AND CLASS STRUGGLE
(Concluded)
by A. J. Muste Chairman of the Faculty, Brookwood Labor College
also, I think, fairly good Christianity according to Jesus.
In other words, the answer to the question how we ate to
reconcile the philosophies of Marx and Jesus is that at many fundamental points there isn’t anything to be reconciled.
Let us glance for a moment at the rdle which Jesus played in the world of his day. He, too, cut himself off from, set himself in definite opposition to the dominant imperialism of his day. It is recorded that Satan took him into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Actu- ally, that meant the Roman imperialism of his day, the dictator- ship of the Roman bankers expressing itself politically in the dictatorship of the Roman Caesars, which was giving to the ancient world two centuries of unexampled culture, prosperity and magnificence. For a little bowing of the knee, a little com- promise, Jesus might have become one of the rulers of that world. What was his reply? Not that this world which lay before him Was very magnificent; that it was bringing prosperity and culture to great masses of people; that it might need to be improved at this little point or that, but on the whole represented a great triumph of the human spirit. He regarded this Roman imperialism as Satan, anti-Christ. He set himself positively and unmistak- ably over against it. He was a revolutionist. He set himself the task of building a new social order—the Kingdom of God (in
the terminology of that day)—in which there should be no arbi- 115
S FAR I have been stating fairly good Marxian doctrine, and
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trary distinctions between men, and justice and brotherhood should be realized on earth. |
Furthermore, he shifted the spirit of revolt amor his people from a nationalistic or racial to what may quite fittingly be de. scribed as a class basis. Nowhere in his teachings do you find him pronouncing woe upon the Romans and blessings upon the chil- dren ‘of Israel, woe upon the Gentiles and blessings upon the Jews. Nowhere do you find him pronouncing woe upon the ignorant and unlearned and blessings upon the learned, or woe upon the harlots and the Publicans and blessings upon the chaste and respectable. There is one distinction, however, which is written in the teachings of Jesus and runs pretty clearly through- out the entire New Testament and other writings of the early church. He did say: “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the perse- cuted, blessed are those that weep now, and woe to you that are rich, woe to you that laugh now."’ There is the parable of Dives and Lazarus to which reference has already been made. It was surely not an accident that it was precisely the money-changers who were driven out of the temple. Under the circumstances it was logical that the rulers both among the Jews and among the Romans should have been suspicious of him. The early church undoubtedly practised a large measure of communism. Christians were anti-militaristic. They were regarded, and doubtless rightly so, as a danger to the imperial Roman government. The rich, it is true, could also enter into the new order, but only provided that they disowned their own class and their class privileges. Nor will it be easy to find in the most lurid denunciatory literature of modern revolutionists anything to surpass the denunciation of the ancient imperial world order and the rejoicing over its im- pending downfall, presented in the Book of Revelation.
By what method, however, was the Kingdom of the World
to be overthrown and the new order to be brought in? Surely by
the process of love and goodwill. Those who do not understand
how Jesus could pray for the forgiveness of those who crucified
him, are probablv as far from comprehending his real character
and mission «s <hose who do not see that he was distinctly a
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revolutionist as over against the imperialism of the Roman bank- ers and the Roman Caesars of his time.
In this connection, it is important to emphasize again that he cut himself off definitely from the nationalistic and terrorist movement among the Jews of his day. Incidentally, is there not here an interesting analogy with the way in which Karl Marx struggled to free the Socialist Labor Movement of his time from the influence of Bakunin’s brand of Terrorist Anarchism? It seems to me sufficiently clear that Jesus did not believe that a violent revolt against Roman imperialism was feasible or desirable under the circumstances with which he found himself confronted. Whether, however, this means that he would never under any circumstances have countenanced the use of violence against the oppressor, does not seem to me susceptible of a conclusive answer. When he told people to turn the other cheek rather than to re- taliate, it is quite conceivable that he was not primarily trying to lay down a rule of universal application, but was trying to persuade the lowly and the oppressed of his time not to waste their energies in personal quarrels with each other. Just as when he told people not to be concerned about what they ate or drank, he probably did not mean to suggest that the material foundation of life is not important, but rather that this material foundation of life could never be secured so long as people engaged in bitter individualistic strife with each other, whereas if they were to seek first the Kingdom of God, that is to say, establish a human order based on justice and brotherhood, it would be a comparatively simple thing for all to obtain food and clothing and shelter from the natural resources provided by the earth. In making these sug- gestions I do not have in mind suggesting the slightest doubt as to the primacy of the attitude of love, the spirit of brotherhood, respect for human personality in the soul of Jesus.
Positively, it seems to me that when he built the foundations
for the Christian church, what he was trying to do was to de-
velop a worldwide fellowship of the lowly, the oppressed, the
toilers, who were to be bound together in solidarity and affection
tor each other, and to devote themselves to the bringing in of a
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new social order. It is possible that he believed that if the op- pressed would shed their individualism and overcome the petty differences constantly separating them, they would not necd to use violence in overthrowing the powers that held them in thrall.
Those who desire to work for the Kingdom of Heaven in the world today will certainly therefore build a worldwide labor movement, aiming to bring together all those who toil by hand or brain, in a great fellowship which shall aim to establish a social and industrial order based on the motives of service and cooperation instead of exploitation and strife.
When, however, one undertakes to work in some practical way to this end, he finds that the labor movement also is composed of human beings, not angels, and that there is much about it that is out of accord with the ideals of Jesus. The same can be said, of course, about every institution and organization, including the church. Those, however, who hold up the labor movement as the great idealistic movement of our time, in spite of its short- comings, may not lightly evade the problem created by those shortcomings. The following observations may be made in the brief space at our disposal.
For one thing, those who experience a certain shock and disillusionment on first coming into practical contact with the world of labor, should ask themselves whether this arises from a fundamental defect in that world or from superficial external characteristics. It is desirable to have both the ins’ 'e and the outside of the cup and the platter clean, but we cannot always have it that way. Some of us have long tolerated a social and industrial order which was ‘“‘full of dead men’s bones’’ within because it was outwardly pleasant and agreeable. We shall be more nearly in accord with the Christian spirit if we learn to overlook certain crude and unpleasant outward marks of a move- ment which is fundamentally sound.
We must beware also of being led astray by words. There is
the parable of the son who said he would do his father’s will
and did not, and of the other son who said he would not do it
but nevertheless did. Many things sound Christian and are not,
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others are Christian though they don’t sound like it. In both labor and employer circles, for example, there is a considerable amount of talk these days about conciliation and reconciliation, which does not mean these things at all, but rather a compromise between labor or certain sections of it, and the employing class, which leaves the underlying social situation as vicious as ever or perhaps worse, because it means that certain sections of the workers also become obsessed with the capitalistic get-rich-quick psychology.
It must be borne in mind, when reports of violence on the part of labor in industrial disputes are made, that these are almost invariably grossly exaggerated, and that much of it is provoked by industrial spies to whom we have already referred. The basic fact furthermore is that the economic, social, political order in which we live was built up largely by violence, is now being extended by violence and is maintained only by violence. Our foremost task certainly must be to seek to persuade those who, directly or indirectly, are the beneficiaries of that situation, to relinquish every attempt to hold on to wealth, position and power by force, to give up the instruments of violence on which they annually spend billions of dollars of wealth produced by the sweat and anguish of the toilers. So long as we are not dealing honestly and adequately with this 90% or more of our problem, there is something ludicrous, aud perhaps hypocritical, about our concern about the small percentage of violence that may be cmployed by rebels against oppression. ‘‘Cast out first the beam which is in thine own eye.”’
In general, while we may believe that a particular industrial
dispute is unnecessary or inexpedient, we shall take care not to
fight against the workers, even if they use violence. This does
not mean that we have to approve the violence. We may do all
we can to prevent it, but we shall be careful not to put ourselves
in the position where we oppose the fundamental things for which
they are striving, for in that case we should simply be helping to
perpetuate a system of violence and oppression of which we
happen to be the beneficiaries.
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For the most part, workers today are like such groups have always been, prone to endure suffering and injustice passively, until they become thoroughly intolerable. When then, in their despair, they use violence, it is begotten by the violence systemati- cally used against them for years and generations. They who have sown the wind reap the whirlwind at last. Perhaps few of us have earned any moral right in such circumstances to stand before workers and preach to them against the use of violence. In Marion, North Carolina, I have seen children ten or eleven years of age, who have been working in the cotton mills; men and women dying in their prime from diseases contracted because of the un- sanitary conditions in those mills and the near-starvation induced by an average wage of $11.00 for a sixty-seven hour week. What have we ever done to root out these conditions? If violence should be used by workers in the attempt to banish them, what right should we have to protest?
In that same mill village six workers engaged in peaceful picketing were recently killed by ‘‘officers of the law,"’ killed by being shot in the back after having been blinded with tear gas. The sheriff in charge of those who did the killing is not only going scot free, but he is still the chief officer of the law in that county. There was ‘‘not enough evidence to hold him for trial.” There has been no gesture of violence against that sheriff and against others involved in this unspeakable outrage. If workers were to rise up and make such a gesture, what right would any of us have to protest? What have we done to make a tragedy such as this impossible in North Carolina or in other states? The fact is that they are occurring incessantly. If it is not the cotton mill workers in North Carolina, then it is a miner beaten to death in Pennsylvania, or Sacco and Vanzetti murdered in Massachusetts, or Mooney and Billings imprisoned in California.
Yet all this does not mean that evil does not beget evil when
used by labor as a method, as well as by any other group in the
community, nor that the labor movement is not confronted with
a serious problem regarding the means to which it will resort
to advance its aims.
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The labor movement in New York City not long ago gave a striking illustration of the law upon which the pacifist so often insists that the means one uses inevitably incorporate themselves into his ends and, if evil, defeat him. Some years ago employers in che garment trades resorted to the practice of employing armed gangsters to attack peaceful picketers. It seemed impossible to send men and women on the picket line to meet such brutal at- tacks, so the union also resorted to hiring gangsters. Once you started the practice, you had to hire gangsters in every strike, of course. Thus a group of gangsters came to be a permanent part of the union machinery. Next it was easy for officers who had employed the gangsters in strikes to use these same gangsters, who were on the pay roll anyway, in union elections to insure continued tenure to the ‘‘machine.’’ The next step in the “‘descent to Avernus’’ was for the gangsters on whom the administration depended for its tenure of office to make themselves the adminis- tration, the union ‘‘machine.’’
In the meantime, the union gangsters naturally came to a gentleman's agreement with those hired by the employer, so that both sides were paying out large sums of money to gangsters no longer doing any decisive work in strikes or lockouts; both sides had likewise to pay graft to the police so that they would not interfere with their private armies; and the rank and file of union members, having come to look to gangsters to do the real picket- ing, no longer had the desire, courage, or morale to picket peace- fully, appeal to strikebreakers to join them, and so on. The whole process, working itself out so fatally and from the aesthetic viewpoint so beautifully, had not a little to do with the deteri- oration undergone by these unions of which the bitter left-right factional strife was rather a symptom than a cause.
Those who can bring themselves to renounce wealth, position
and power accruing from a social system based on violence and
putting a premium on acquisitiveness, and to identify themselves
in some real fashion with the struggle of the masses toward the
light, may help in a measure, more doubtless by life than by
words, to devise a more excellent way, a technique of social
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progress less crude, brutal, costly, and slow than mankind has yet evolved.
It would appear then that in practice we are caught in a cruel dilemma. If we function in some ordinary capacity in a capitalist, imperialist, militarist system, we share in the corporate sin; we are beneficiaries of corporate injustice, oppression and violence. If we throw ourselves into the struggle to supplant such a system, we find that the forces actually working to this end are also far from being perfectly angelic, and employ methods which we may be unable to reconcile with the spirit of love which we seek to enthrone into our lives. I do not think that there is any complete and final escape from this dilemma. No more than the body can jump out of its own skin can the spirit jump out of, extricate itself from the social system in which it lives and moves and has its being.
Furthermore, it seems that this is what theoretically we might have expected to find. If we were indeed made for fellow- ship and if the good life is possible only on that basis, then there can be no good life until the means for the expression of fellow- ship are established. In other words, until we have realized a classless society. There is no escape from sin for anyone save as escape is provided for all. |
It follows also that we achieve accord with ‘‘the Father's will’’ not by the negative process of refraining from this and not doing that, of withdrawing from this temptation and the other, but by the positive process of keeping our inner integrity, keeping the soul poised, keen, alert, striving ever as straight as possible toward the light which it sees. Thus we achieve the only perfec- tion that is possible in this world, not the perfection of the Pharisee who has broken no rules, but the perfection which is still clothed in the garments of humility, saying ‘‘Why callest thou me good?”
In conclusion, mankind has many times developed an im-
posing civilization such as that in the midst of which we live,
and invariably the imposing structure has again crumbled into
dust. If we ask ourselves what forces exist in the modern world
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which mankind has not previously possessed, and which might conceivably enable us to maintain and constantly to enrich, en- noble and extend our ci¥ilization, the answer is that there are two such forces: namely, modern science and the organized labor movement. Now, ordinarily, when new forces have emerged in history, they have been met with suspicion and opposition, not least from the good, the respectable, the supposedly religious elements of their day. When Jesus came ‘‘there was no comeliness that we should desire him.’’ The result has been not the destruc- tion of the new elements, though their progress was often slowed up, but rather the destruction eventually of the institutions and persons which stood in their way. ‘‘There shall not be left here one stone upon another which shall not be torn down."’ If the elements in our modern world which seek to conserve moral and spiritual traditions which have come down from the past, now meet the new force of science with obscurantism, and of labor with suspicion and hostility, shall we not have a repetition of the age-old tragedy?
On the other hand, if the various agencies which exist to pass down to us the heritage of moral and spiritual idealism out of the past, were to take these new forces by the hand and spirit- ualize them, then indeed we might hope, with more reason than men have ever had before, that in the years ahead the fellowship of all those who toil might replace class control, that an intelli- gent and classless society would be developed, and that so we might build in America and England and ‘‘every green and pleas- ant land,"’ the city which hath the foundations whose builder and maker is God.
An address at the Annual Conference of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Haverford, Pa., Sunday,
September 1J, 1929.
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THE QUEST OF WORLD PEACE
by DexTer PERKINS Dapartment of History and Government, University of Rochester
PEACE BY FORCE OR PEACE BY PROMISES?
N PRECEDING afticles in World Unity, I have dealt with most of the activities of the League of Nations as an instrumen- tality for preserving world peace. There is, however, one aspect of this great institution which we have not yet con-
sidered, namely, its role as a possible agency for imposing peace upon an aggressor nation. This matter raises many important questions; and it brings us face to face with a pronounced division in the peace movement of today, the division between those who would put their faith wholly in agreements for the arbitration or other pacific settlements of international disputes, and those who believe that a true international society should constitute for itself some kind of international police power. It will be the object of this and succeeding articles to trace the development of both points of view in the actual intercourse of the nations since 1919. The theory of an international police power has found its most concrete expression in the famous treaties of Locarno; the theory of peace by agreement has been carried to its greatest length in the famous Kellogg-Briand pact of 1928. In the develop- ment of the League itself the two theories have been seen con- tending against one another in a way which is highly interesting. Before undertaking, however, an analysis of these concrete developments, it may be well to examine a little further the theo- retical basis upon which the two conflicting views of the future of the peace movement rest. Let us take, first, the view of those who disbelieve in anything whatsoever that savors of force in connection with the consolidation of an international society.
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PEACE BY FORCE OR PEACE BY PROMISES? 125
The proponents of this point of view declare that it is an absurdity to fight war with war. They contend that any such expedient will only tend to widen the area of war, and serve to make every local conflict one that will embroil virtually the whole world. They declare that in many instances it will be virtu- ally impossible to determine who is the aggressor in 2 ,‘ven quarrel, and that, on this consideration alone, machinery for the punishment of the aggressor will be worse than useless. Such machinery, if it existed, would soon be brought into disrepute. It would multiply, and not reduce, antagonisms. For the United States, moreover, it would mark an absolute breach with this country's traditional policy of non-intervention in European affairs, and would involve our government up to the very maxi- mum in the complicated politics of Europe.
Nor, say the proponents of this viewpoint, is this all. The
theory of keeping peace by force involves the perpetuation of
the status quo. This is virtually stated in so many words in Article
io of the League of Nations Covenant. ‘‘The members of the
league,’’ runs that often-cited provision, ‘‘agree to respect and
preserve aS against external aggression the territorial integrity
and existing political independence of the members of the League."’
In other words, the various political settsements made eleven
sears ago at Versailles, many of them subject to the severest
criticism on the grounds of abstract justice, are to be guaranteed
by the common action of the League members. Arrangements
which, in their very nature, ought to be regarded as subject to
revision, which were made at the end of a great war deeply
involving the passions and selfishness of the nations, are given
a virtually inalterable status by the doctrine that force is to be
used against any power which attempts to change them. It is no
answer to this contention to say that they may be changed by
peaceful means; in any case, that the League Covenant only
prevents an alteration by war; for no machinery exists for peace-
able modifications of the existing order, and it is Utopian to
assume that such modifications will be easily brought about.
The truth of the matter is, say the critics of Article 10 and of the
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whole theory of peace resting upon force,—the truth of th: matter is that an unjust settlement is given something like a fina! validity by the acceptance of the notion of an international polic¢ power which will act against all forcible attempts to change th status quo.
In the arguments which I have just traced, there are to k discerned two currents of thought not wholly consistent with one another. On the one hand, opposition to the use of force js bottomed upon a detestation of force generally, upon a deep an/ sincere conviction that the appeal to the human spirit should rest upon some other and better basis. On the other hand, at least some of the opposition to the use of force to keep the peace, as will be clear from the preceding paragraph, is based upon the feeling that force may be needed to rectify some of the existing injustices in the world, and that it would be a pity to throw in its way still superior force in the service of an unjustifiable statu; quo. The opponents of Article 10 have not always faced the issue in their own minds; but what they really are saying, or at any rate what they must say to make their position intelligible is, that in some cases justice justifies or even demands the use of force, and that it would be a pity to prevent the use of force in the service of justice by the creation of an international authority which would always act to keep things as they are. Thus the pacifist who disbelieves in force entirely, and the moral philos- opher who believes that force may be used to correct existing evil, unite in opposition to an international system which would invoke force in the name of peace, but for the preservation of the existing order.
But those who believe that an international society needs an international police power behind it are not lacking in cogent arguments to support their point of view. To them the view that force is under no circumstances whatever to be invoked seems a bit doctrinaire. No doubt force is bad, a last resort when the appeal to reason has been tried, and tried again and yet again, and still has failed; but there do occur instances in the course of history where no other course of action has seemed possible.
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PEACE BY FORCE OR PEACE BY PROMISES? 127
To deny entirely the utility of force is to adopt the position of the philosophical anarchist. Is such a view practicable today? It is not the point of view upon which our civil society is based. Is it a sound foundation for an international society? It may be true that the ideal goal is a society based wholly upon consent. But is not this a long way in the future?
In answer to the contention that the use of force will only serve to widen the area of war, the proponents of international machinery for the maintenance of peace declare that the very contrary is the case; that if, in a given case, a nation knows that it will have turned against it the major force of mankind, it will hesitate long before taking up arms. A firm determination to put down aggression will narrow, not extend, the sphere of war. As for the difficulty of determining the aggressor, it is not im- possible to set up tests which, if not mathematically accurate, will at least operate in the majority of cases. The Covenant itself sets up one such test in declaring that a nation which refuses to submit its dispute to arbitration or conciliation must be regarded as having violated its obligations, and hence as exposed to eco- nomic and military measures of a punitive character. It is within the province of statesmanship to evolve tests still more inclusive and satisfactory. The task can be solved, if it is faced. If there is a common will to maintain peace, the mechanism to translate this will into action will be evolved.
As for involving the United States in European affairs, the proponents of the international police theory declare that this country is already involved. They point to the fact that an obscure Balkan quarrel kindled the flames of a war that sent 2,000,000 Americans across the seas; and they argue that, in the light of this fact, it is mere elementary prudence to lend our efforts to the preservation of peace today. The maxims of a hundred and thirty years ago, they maintain, are no longer safe standards of guidance for the United States in 1930.
There still remains for these persons, however, the bother-
some point raised by the critics of Article 10. Shall international
machinery be created to maintain the status quo?
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To this question the best theoretical answer would seem to be that the upsetting of the status quo by force is hardly likely to lead to a condition of affairs more satisfactory than that which actually exists. If the map of Europe were thrown into the melting pot in a new war, it would doubtless emerge in a form as little satisfactory to the idealists as is its form today. It would wipe out old injustices, and create new ones. That is what war commonly does. Is it not better, through such League agencie: as the Mandates Commission and the Minority Treaties, to strive to mitigate the inequities of the existing order, than to sanction the overturn of good and evil alike in a new war? The last ten years have brought genuine modifications in the treaty of Ver- sailles. They have brought modifications outside the sphere of its operations, in China and in Egypt, where wise statesmanship has made concessions to the rising spirit of nationality. Must we conclude that the status quo is frozen into absolute rigidity unless war be permitted? To believe this comes perilously near to believing that force is a necessary solvent of human difficulties.
I leave to my readers the answer to the question as to which of these two views which I have here set forth is the sounder. and which offers the best hopes for the future peace of the world. The division of opinion here represented is a deep one. Both views are sincerely held by the friends of peace. Both deserve to be pondered, and respected.
But what must concern us here is the practical working out
of the issues which we have just examined. The League of Nations
was based upon the theory of a League to Enforce Peace. How
has it evolved? What have been its off-shoots, regarding it from
this point of view? These are questions which I shall wish to
examine in my next article.
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THE EUROPEAN WORLD VIEW
by)
Joun Herman RanDaALt, Jr. Department of Philosophy, Columbia University
HE Unity oF THE Wortp,' by Guglielmo Ferrero, distin-
guished Italian historian and protagonist of democracy,
comes to us in English with extraordinary praise by Charles
A. Beard. It isa small book about a great subject, writes Mr. Beard in his preface. ‘‘High among the qualities of the volume is its spirit. In these pages there is none of the petty nationalism that mars most of the books on the civilizing process, especially those on America. If Ferrero prefers some of the loveliness of the Old World to the efficiency of the New, he knows why and at what price. With a kind of Olympian serenity, he watches the great Kaleidoscope of History turning remorselessly on its axis, shaking Out new patterns—vast mosaics beyond the designs of little men and women. And if I am not grievously mistaken, this hook will become one of the universal classics to be read with Plato and Aristotle by the long generations to come. Its structure of thought symbolizes the solid masonry of Rome and its phil- osophy the brooding spirit of the Acropolis. Those who may be inclined to dispute some of its propositions will concede its essential power."’
For once, this reviewer begs leave to dissent from Mr. Beard’s intemperance. The book is stimulating, but it is also tantalizing. As the expression of a democratic faith in world unity by an Italian writing in the shadow of the regime which has founded itself on those principles to which he is most opposed, it is a noble political program couched in the universal terms of an idealistic faith. To an American it is bound to be irritating, for
' Guglielmo Ferrero, The Unity of the World. A. and C. Boni. 196 pp. $2.50.
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it is in a genre natural to the Latins but almost unknown in po. litical writing in English. [t abounds in universals, and it remain; far above the tangled web of facts. It is dogmatic, uncompromis. ing, and grandly simple, at once coldly realistic in analysis and doctrinaire in interpretation. There is much talk of the historic mission of nations, of implacable destiny, of the inexorable logic of history, of permanent and of capricious wills of the people, of the divine rights of the masses. It is just such a book as Rousseau might have written in the shadow of II Duce; indeed, its politica! philosophy is almost pure Rousseau. In the face of /'infame, old or new, it is natural for the Latin to take refuge in divine rights and self-evident truths. And who knows? Such a ringing faith may once more cause /'infame to totter and crumble.
Such a volume does not pretend to factual accuracy; and strictly speaking, not a line in it is literally true. Yet for all that it penetrates to the essential truth of things, as Rousseau, for al! his romancing, was miraculously able to do; and one lays it down with the feeling that he has been listening to a clear mind im- patiently sweeping aside the petty entanglements of facts and concentrating on what in one swift rational insight it sees to be their essential meaning. Woe to him who acts on that perception without full cognizance of the grime and dust of the actual world; but to him who has that knowledge Ferrero adds a living vision.
‘‘The unification of the world, accomplished by colonization, by exploration, by emigration, by universal religions, by wars, by commerce, diplomacy, railroads and telegraphic communica- tion, must lead to a civilization of a universal character. A single body cannot go on living under the guidance of several discordant and inimical consciences. The world body, which is now almost a single physical entity, requires a single conscience in which there will be room for all that is best of the civilizations already existing to reside in harmony: Christian morality, occidental industry and science, the ancient wisdom of the East, the flower of European and Asiatic art.”’
And yet the very forces that have made inevitable a unified
world have so far rent it into bits. This is the great paradox, the
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great contradiction, of history; and it is this contradiction that is the core of Ferrero’s vision. ‘Ignorant of what it has been doing, for four centuries the human race has been laboring at the most gigantic of its tasks: the conquest and unification of the earth. The earth has slowly been evolving into a single and im- mense body. This unification, nevertheless, was not accomplished without a curious contradiction. The more unified the world grew in knowledge of itself, the more apparent became the differentia- tion of its parts as regards language, religion, conception of life, morality and interests. Out of diversity hatred and love simul- taneously were born: the unification of the world was thus accom- nlished equally by the gospel and by the sword, by comity and extermination, by exchange of treaties and gunshots. At the same time that unification was making headway, the world was be- coming a volcano of war and revolution. It was laid waste, during the past four centuries, by wars and revolutions of constantly in- creasing importance and violence, until at last the human race discovered that it possessed but a single body and a single soul, and discovered it in the midst of the worst war in history.
‘The contradiction is tragic, terrible, monstrous. We should not, however, too violently decry it: fate has willed that mankind should rely for foundations not only upon mutual trust and assist- ance but also upon mutual hatred and injury. For four centuries the outcome of every war, unless one of the combatants has been annihilated, has been coalition. This tragic contradiction is the preparation for universal civilization, which tomorrow will dominate the earth."’
Ferrero drives home this paradox by pointing to the trend of
recent history. On the one hand, hatred and fear, bound up with
the whole system of European life; nations did not go to war
because they hated one another, they hated one another because
they had to go to war. On the other, growing interconnection
between nations, and intellectual disarmament. Yet that emerging
world unity will not be brought about by the dominance of a
single nation, either America or Russia, nor yet by the domination
of the united Western powers over the East, which was a transient
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19th century episode. Money cannot permanently rule the world for the benefit of one country, for though all the world be ir America's debt, America cannot afford to neglect the interests o; its creditors. The Russian revolution cannot be world-wide, for “powerful as Europe is, it cannot within the span of little mor than a century produce two revolutions of a universal character.” European civilization, founded as it is on doctrines of criticism and individualism, flounders hopelessly in a ‘‘total and virtua!iy organic impossibility of compelling obedience.’’ The moment a people is occidentalized, it revolts against the Occident. ‘‘We are moving towards a world without directing centers, a world divided into a large number of states, great or small, each one of which will exist'for its own sake, submitting less and less to the political influence of its neighbors. Let us not ask, therefore, who is going to be tomorrow ruler of the world, because the world of tomorrow will belong to no ruler. Yet is not this pulverization of states and peoples the opposite of European and world unity?”
No, answers.Ferrero, for the world is being unified by édeas, notably by the ideas of democracy and progress. The democratic idea is one of the most powerful and most dangerous unifying forces of the modern world. It is the outcome of the rationalistic theory of the state which in the 19th century won out over the traditional mystical doctrine. Uncontrolled universal suffrage 1s today in disrepute; yet the dictatorship of Italian or Russian leaders is ultimately impossible. The problem of democracy 1s still with us; as in Rousseau's day, it is the necessity of providing that the profound and permanent will of the people will always triumph over its fleeting and capricious will. Universal suffrage can become, according to the moment, the organ either of the permanent and healthy will, or of destructive caprice. Can a political instrument be devised for the application of the former? The Italian democrat is clearly speaking here; he believes it can.
Ferrero sees three great negations of world unity. First is the
denial of that freedom of the seas for which he believes America
entered the Great War, and which she abjectly surrendered to
England. The seas are today less protected than ever against the
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THE EUROPEAN WORLD VIEW 133
tvranny of British force; there is less security and increased naval requirements as a result of America’s defeat at Paris. The second negation is the creation of artificial want in European lands by protective tariffs on food, a deniai of the most inviolable right of the workingman, the right to eat. Third is the impotence of “international plutocracy”’ for eitixer good or evil. International bankers and business men did not cause the War; it was not planned in the board rooms of banks but in the salons of certain courts and in the offices of certain military staffs. Neither is it working now for world unity. Banks and business are far more international than are the bankers. ‘‘The world will never be governed by a single force. Where the greatest religions have been defeated, money will never succeed. Bankers are quite content to harvest the enormous profits which the internationalization of business assures them. Therein they show more common sense than the public which detests them for a tyranny of which they have never dreamed for the simple reason that they have neither the desire nor the ideas nor the means of using it.”’
So far as the League of Nations goes, Ferrero sees it as merely
another of the coalitions that have answered Europe's desire for
peace after great wars. ‘‘It is not as new a thing as its name would
indicate. After every great war European states have felt for three
centuries that a certain stability was needed to support the prin-
ciples underlying the peace. The latest attempt will be neither
more nor less vital than its predecessors. The League of Nations
will impose itself on every state and render the greatest scrvice as
long as Europe has need of peace and reason to shun a general
conflagration. Like the Holy Alliance, it can gru.’ feeble and
exhausted should the danger of general war lessen, and should
localized and particular war again become at once essential and
possible for the settlement of otherwise insoluble questions."
Europe needs such a League today, and it will be successful every
time it deals with Eu-opean problems, provided it acts with
courage and foresight. America does not need the League, for
the danger of war there is negligible. And the League will be
unable to act frequently or successfully in Asia, for revolutionary
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124 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
ferment seems to make Asiatic stabilization for the present impossible. The question remains, ought the unity of the world to be a living unity which does not exclude discord, struggle, war? Ferrero is inclined to answer it ought. He is keenly alive to the dangers and impossibilities of a permanent crystallization of the status quo.
The Italian democrat closes, with his eye on the situation in his native land, on a pxan of praise for liberty and universal suffrage. The twin concepts of nation and civilization have become disunited. The task ahead of young Europeans is to reunite them. This is possible only by the creation of a new spiritual authority, superior to the national state, a European aristocracy of faith and ideals, of science and art; a modern substitute for the medieval church. To create such a spiritual élite, liberty must be safe- guarded. ‘‘Political and intellectual liberty is today the vital problem of European civilization. Universal suffrage is today not merely the safeguard of civilization; it is even the rampart of God."’ Only by universal suffrage can nations be governed by a policy of compromises between ideas and parties, conciliation between conflicting interests. Without it, they will fall prey to dominant minorities pledged ultimately to nationalistic wars. “The mass can commit every mistake, possess every conceivable fault. But it has one quality: it is impossible that so heavy and heterogeneous a mass would let itself be convinced or carried away in its entirety by an extreme idea. Before it can dominate the state, the homogeneous minority must seize control unaided. Universal suffrage makes this impossible.’’ A class dictatorship can set up the State as the supreme authority; democracy, by preventing agreement on a single undivided national program, can leave room for an internationally-minded spiritual aristocracy to create a world consciousness.
Ferrero is one of those who delight to give the simple reason
why what is, is inevitable. He finds the present a great contradic-
tion of centrifugal and centripetal forces. His solution is to
preserve a completely nationalistic political organization, founded
on Rousseauan democratic principles, and tempered for a time
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THE EUROPEAN WORLD VIEW 135
in Europe by the coalition of the League, while at the same time creating a common and universal civilization. He sees the logic of events working to such an end. A unity of civilization with a plurality of political sovereignties is his v:sion. In other words, Ferrero is a r9th century democratic liberal. Of a world organiza- tion to coordinate a unified world life, of a group of individual- ized and differentiated nationalities cooperating in a single political and economic structure, he has no notion. The roth century saw its ideal in a union of nationality and political in- stitutions, and a culture universal and world-wide in scope. Is it too much to say that the industrialized and scientific 2oth century sees its ideal in a divorce of nationality and political institutions, and a pluralistic and variegated symphony of cultures? Uniting Europe,’ by William E. Rappard, Swiss delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations, and Professor at the University of Geneva, embodies a second series of lectures de- livered at the Williamstown Institute, and is thus a sequel to lris International Relations as Viewed from Geneva. Tie volume is a lucid and scholarly survey and interpretation of the trend of inter- national cooperation since the war, by one whose personal con- nection with the League blinds him neither to its shortcomings nor to the cooperation existing outside its framework. Europe, he believes, has been enjoying a slow, irregular, but still a gradual convalescence. As a Swiss observer he is impressed by the great diversity between the nations of Europe; many of them, he remarks, have far more in common with America than with the rest of Europe. Consequently he first surveys the political and economic evolution of the various European states, and then examines their growing cooperation without and within the framework of the League. He emphasizes the significaiice of the adoption cf republican institutions in Europe, which he attrib- utes rather to Wilsonian propaganda and the military defeat of munarchies than to enthusiasm for the republican ideal. He looks on the establishment of dictatorships, not as a destruction of existing democracies, but as a temporary and perhaps useful
William E. Rappard, Uniting Europe. Yale University Press. xvii, 309 pp. $3.00.
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136 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE
abolition of their false appearance in those still agricultural lands not yet ready for their substance. That substance being essentially dependent on urban life, he looks forward to the triumph of democracy with increasing industrialization, and points to the fact that in encouraging rapid industrialization the dictatorships are preparing their own downfall. The population of Europe, while still increasing, is mounting by only half the rate of the pre-war period, and most rapidly in the agricultural states. The chief cause for alarm is the unequal growth in different countries, which bodes ill for a League founded on the preservation of the status quo. Production is slowly increasing, faster than the popu- lation, though not so rapidly as in the New World. Since 1927 international trade has risen above the level of 1913. European economic life is dominated by three nations, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States.
In international cooperation the progress of Europe since 1918 has been fitful, but in the last few years distinctly real. Tariff fences and commercial wars, whose disappearance seems unlikely in the near future, provide the chief obstacle. The weak but law-abiding small states are most earnest in their desire for peace; next come Germany and the United States. M. Rappard is somewhat sceptical of the Kellogg Pact, like a good European; he compares it to a total abstinence pledge, inferior in its results to the effective enforcement of legal prohibition. He points out also that the many recent treaties of mutual assistance between nations are directed more to securing allies in time of war than to preventing its outbreak. On the whole, the League, although as yet hardly more than a clearing-house, is the best hope of the internationalist.
The League itself has become a more purely European in-
stitution. It has ceased to be a mere league of victors. Yet it has
steadily developed a technique of voluntary intergovernmental
cooperation, in which non-members like the United States par-
ticipate fully as effectively and completely as members; and this
habit of cooperation is to date its most important contribution
to peace. Essential to such functioning has been the successful
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THE EUROPEAN WORLD VIEW 137
establishment of an independent and impartial Secretariat. The chief problem of organization within the League's structure is presented by the increasing divergence between the internation- ally minded but rather irresponsible Assembly and the Council through which major nationalistic conflicts are still adjusted in terms of force. —
In its political action the League has slowly changed from a coalition of victors for the enforcement of the peace treaties to a genuinely international body. The War has receded, differ- ences between the Allies have provided checks upon sheer might, the vanquished have taken their place at its councils, and public opinion has been brought to bear on its actions. In a large number of cases peace has at least been maintained in the face of danger- ous crises, and increasingly that peace has approached a founda- ton of justice.
M. Rappard closes on the note of hope, not only for a further crowth in power and international-mindedness within the League, but for the still closer cooperation of the United States. ‘‘The evolution of humanity, in spite of all protectionisms and restric- tions of migration, tends toward ever closer international soli- darity. That war is not avoidable by policies of national isolation, recent history should have made abundantly clear. The world- policy of the future will be a policy of rational regulation and of peaceful coordination of the inevitable and beneficial entangle- ments of history. To quote President Wilson, I would say that tor all nations the policy of the future is one of universal, vigilant, constructive, and ‘continuous superintendence of peace.’ "’
Perhaps the chief criticism of M. Rappard’s thoughtful
evaluation of the trend of international cooperation is his failure
to understand the roots of the American attitude toward Europe
and the League, because he does not find that attitude intelligible.
But then what American does?
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ROUND TABLE
In Prof. Muste’s Fellowship and Class Struggle, we have had the great privilege of publishing what perhaps may be considered the best American equivalent of that social radicalism which has so profoundly altered European life and thought.
Readers desiring reprints of Fellowship and Class Struggle may purchase them from the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Bible House, New York City.
- * *
Human evolution involves so many factors that it is often impossible to distinguish between victory and defeat. Those who lament the lack of inspiring achievement at the London Naval Conference probably have overlooked the need for regional readjustments as the only sound basis for a world order. Hubert C. Herring's Mexico is refreshing evidence that when formal peace agencies seem to falter, mankind is still on the march. A year which has brought about the adoption of a Pan American arbitration agreement cannot be called a failure for peace, what- ever may be the result of the London meeting.
- * *
The tail pieces used this month are reproduced from a de- sign made by Svecoslav Roerich for Nicholas Roerich’s Sham- bhala, published by F. A. Stokes.
- * *
Recent World Unity Conference speakers include: Rev. Dil- worth Lupton and Rabbi B. Gerson, Cleveland; Prof. Jesse S. Reeves, University of Michigan; Rabbi Morris Samuel Lazaron and Dr. Katherine Jeanne Gallagher, Baltimore; Rev. Jason Noble Pierce and Prof. A. Fleming, Washington, D. C.; Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson and Prof. Alfred Proctor James, Pittsburgh;
and Mr. Alfred W. Martin, New Yorl:.
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WORLD UNITY CONFERENCES
Under the Auspices of World Unity Foundation
The World Unity Conferences are a medium by which responsible leaders of opinion can convey their message to the public without restriction of race, class, nationality or creed. Upholding the ideals of brotherhood found in all religious and ethical teachings, the Conferences strive to quicken the spiritual resources of the community by bringing upon one platform gifted speakers representing the universal outlook and capable of interpreting the meanings of the new age. World Unity Con- ferences are held at frequent intervals in cities of the United States and Canada, and this educational activity will be extended as soon as possible to Europe. A distinctive feature of the Conferences consists in the local World Unity Councils, composed of leading liberals, established in the various
cities to further the world unity ideal.
Program of Meetings—October, 1929—-May, 1930
Cleveland, Ohio—October 20 to 24 Chicago, I]l.—November ro to 24 Buffalo, N. Y.—December 1 to 5 Detroit, Mich.—January 19 to 23
Washington, D.C.—February 16 to 19 Baltimore, Md.—March 9 to 13 Pittsburgh, Pa.—April 6 to 10 Philadelphia, Pa.—May 4 to 8
Boston, Mass.—May 18 to 22
Rev. R. Carl Seoil, Chairman Dr. Allen Knight Chalmers Mrs. Joseph Devine
Mrs. Harold M. Esty
Prof. Fred Merrifield, Chairman Dr. George W. Allison
Prof. Edward Scribner Ames Dr. William H. Boddy
D:. Preston Bradley
Mrs. Charles S. Clark
Mrs. Henry Clay Doffeen
Dr. Charles F. Thwing, Hon. Chairman Mr. peters Holmes, Chairman Rabbi S. Goldman Rev. Joel B. Hayden Prof. W. G. Leutner Dr. Dilworth Lupton
WORLD UNITY COUNCILS
Buffalo
Mr. William Evans Rabbi Joseph L. Fink Mrs. Chauncy J. Hamlin
Chicago
Mrs. Ed. E. Dixon
S. John Duncan-Clark
Mr. F. C. Eiselen
Dr. G. George Fox
Dr. Charles W. S. Gilkey Professor A. Eustace Haydon Mrs. Edward S. Lowenthall
Cleveland
Parker Wright Meade ag le erent
r. h Remenyi Rabbi Hillel Silver Mrs. Judson Stewart Judge George S. Addams
Rev. Palfrey Perkins Dr. Augustus H. Sherrer Rev. Donald Tullis Miss Olive Williams
Miss Mary McDowell Rabbi Louis L. Mann Dr. Rowena Morse Mann Dr. Curtis W. Reese
Mrs. P. A. Spaulding Lorado Taft
Dr. Ernest F. Tittle
Dr. Henry Turner Bailey Dr. Dan Bradley
Mrs. Frances F. Bushea Mr. Dale S. Cole
Miss Linda A. Eastman Dr. A. Caswell Ellis Mrs. Royce D. Fry
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Dr. Frank D. Adams, Chairman Mrs. Philamine Altman
Mrs. Wm. Alrord
Mrs. Carl B. Chamberlin
Dr. Frank Cody
Dean W. L. Coffee
Mr. John Dancy
Mrs. Robert L. Davis
Rabbi Abraham J. Feldman,
Chatrman Miss Mary Bulkley Rev. Willis H. Buuler Mr. C. C. Heminway
Dr. Lawrence L. Doggett, Chairman
Rev. Fred Winslow Ac.ms
Mr. William B. Belli
Mrs. W. J. Campbell
Miss Mary V ide Clark
Dr. George Lawrence Parker, Chairman
Judge Jason B. Barber
Dr. Ro‘ ert Blvch
Miss Matilda Campbell
Miss Olive Colton
Mr. Maurice Hutton, Chairman Mrs. John S. Bennett
Dr. Murray G. Brooks
Mr. Maurice Bucovetsky
Mr. J. W. Bundy
Rev. W. A. Cameron
Dr. Trevor H. Davies Professor de Lury
Miss Hettie P. Anderson Dr. George F, Bowerman Senator C
‘Kno. Mr. Wm. Knowles Cooper
Mrs. John H. Wells, Chairman Dr. John L. Alger
Mrs. James E. Cheeseman Rev. Arthur W. Cleaves
Rev. David Rhys Williams, Chairman
Mrs. Helen Probst Abbore
Rabbi Philip Bernstein
Mr. Thomas A. Bolling
Miss Elizabeth Brooks
WORLD UNITY
Detroit
Mrs. H. W. Dunklee Dr. Chester B. Emerson Rabbi Leo M. Frvaklin Mrs. Eric Leyton Gates Mrs. G. T. Hendrie Mr. Ralph C. McAfee Mrs. Charles M. Novac
Hartford Mr. George C. Hubert Dr. John C. Jackson
Rev. Richard H. McLaughlin Dr. A. B. Meredith Miss Ella E. Muir
Spring field Miss Maude B. Corbert Rev. W. N. de Perry Rev. Owen Whitman Eames Mr. Carlos B. Ellis Dr. James Gordon Gilkey Rev. Frank B. Fagerburg
Toledo
Mr. John D. Dun Mrs. F. L. Geddes Dr. John L. Keedey Rabbi Kornfield
Dr. R. Lincoln Long
Toronto
Mrs. See O<areb Dr. E. A. Bard = J. W. Ho kins
ames L. Hughes Rab i Ferdinand M. Isserman Dr. D. D. MacDonald Mrs. J. Pat McGregor
Washington Dr. ae Grattan Doyle Dr. Mordecai Johnson Rev. Moses R. Lovell Mr. Allan B. McDaniel
Providence
Mrs. George H. Crooker Professor L. M. Goodrich Rabbi Samuel M. Gup Rev. Richard McLaughlin
Rochester
Mrs. Mary Thorn Lewis Gannett Mr. Frank E. Gugelman
Dr. Raymon Kistler
Mr. Clement G. Lanni
Dr. Dexter Perkins
MAGAZINE
Rt. Rev. Herman Page Dr. M -ton Pearson
Dr. Augustus P. Reccord Mr. Jarvis Schermerhorn Mr. Adam Strohm
Mr. Lee M. Terrill
Mr. W. W. Wing
Mrs. R. P. Nason
Dr. Rockwell Harmon Potter Mrs. Milton Simon Professor Edward L. Troxel] Mr. Fred D. Wish
Mrs. Archer F. Leonard Mrs. Asel A. Packard Rabbi Samue! Price Mrs. Joseph Pynchon Mrs. Robert E. Stebbins Mrs. Hilley C. Wellman
Mrs. George Lawrence Parker Mr. Grove Patterson
Mr. Harold C. Place
Miss Florence Sprague
Mrs. Robert J. West
Mr. Fred C. Meyer
Miss J. M. Norton
Dr. George C. Pidgeon Rev. C. V. Pulcher
Mrs. H. W. Price
Dr. J. R. P. Sclater
Mrs. Robert B. Thompson Mrs. F. C. Ward
Judge Mary O'Toole Dr. Jason Noble Pierce Rabbi Abram Simon Mrs. Wm. Adams Slade
Miss M. S. Morriss
Mrs. Frank E. Peckham
Rr. Rev. James de Wolf Perry Rev. O. S. P. Thompson
Dr. Justin Wroe Nixon Miss Helen W. Pomeroy Dr. Orlo J. Price
Mr. Harold W. Sanford
Mr. LeRoy E. Snyder
Mr. William F. Yust
�[Page 141]
WORLD UNITY
FOUNDATION
CHARTERED BY THE STATE OF NEW YORK
TRUSTEES JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, President and Disector Mfany RUMSEY Moviws, Vice-President MELBERT B. Carey Horace Hortey, Secretary ALFRED W. MARTIN FLORENCE REED MORTON, Treasurer MoOuUNTFORT MILLS
T.. 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 need to assimilate something at least of the new facts and viewpoints brought forward by creative workers in science, plulosophy, history and religion. More important at present than the rnaterial changes which, in less than a century, have transformed the outer circumstances of lite, 1s 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 other concept can, the necessary factors and element’ 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
neace, the advancement of science or the promotion of any religious program.
141
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METHODS AND FACILITIES
HE progrem 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 a. one can bring any useful principles to their full fruitage.
The program of activitics maintained by World Unity Foundation is three- fold, touching the intellectual and moral life of society at many vital points.
World 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 mectings 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 public meeting possessing its own character and imbued with a distinct influence. It has been through the cordial cooperation of well known speakers, anthors 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 iio 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, docs uphold 142
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, Nathanicl 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 Tir rich varicty and significant scope of
the subjects presented at the World Unity
Conferences and also at the Institute of
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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 list
of Contributing Editors representing Europe
and the Oricnt, as weil as the United States
and Canada.
The value of a current literature on inter- national subjects grows more apparent with cach successive political or economic crisis, ind World Unity Magazine in this brief period has won the interest and respect of responsible scholars and public minded people in many ' ds,
World Unity Library Selective 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 copics 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 qualit, of its general literature.
As an agency which is influencing the minds of thousands of people, and turning their attention for the first time toward the real 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 143
WORLD UNITY FOUNDATION 4 East 12th Street
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PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION
The monthly magazine for modern educators and parents
Contents for May Tenth Annual Conference Number
STANWOOD Copsp—President’s Message
BurTon P. FowLer—Incoming President's Message
GrorcE A. Coz—Character as End and as Process
PAUL V. Wrst—Some Pros and Cons of Handwriting Instruction
Rocer W. Ho_mMrs—Aristotle and Aristotelianism in Education
Lucy L. W. WiLson—The New Education in Chile
EDWIN L. MILLER—The Organization of the Detroit High Schools
JouN L. FoLtey—Progressives and Experimentalists as Educational Allies
ELEANOR OLMSTEAD MILLER—An Expetiment in Individualized Instruc- tion
A. GORDON MELvIN—Temperance and Technique
Special Offer
With a year's subscription to PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION we will include one copy of eithe: “After Ten Years,” or ‘Education as Active Process,” reprints of important issues.
Progressive Education Association 10 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C.
Enclosed find my check for $3.00 for which enter my subscription to PRO- GRESSIVE EDUCATION for one year. This entitles me to membership in the Progressive Education Association, with the benefits of its service.
weet. PEC ee Sle ae te OTR OSS SSH CET SEH ea SM SSB EEC LAS SCE OHM EASE SF HOD EC
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‘The International Journal of Ethics Seeks
To Clarify
Theory and Improve Practice.’’ —T.V.SMITH, EDITOR
Social problems will be separately analyzed in special issues of The International Journal of Ethics during
1930.
Within the province of this publication lie both the central field of ethical knowledge and the bordering fields of law, politics, economics, literature, and re- ligion.
For forty years
The International Journal of Ethics has been the lead- ing quarterly in its field. It numbers among its con- tributors the leading writers in America and Great Britain.
The Journal is published by the University of Chicago Press in the months of January, April, July, and October. Subscription price, $4.00 a year; single copies, $1.00.
SAMPLE COPIES SENT FREE UPON REQUEST
ORDER FORM
The University of Chicago Press
5750 Ellis Avenue Chicago, Illinois
Kindly enter my subscription for one year to The International
Journal of Ethics. Bill me for $4.00.
�[Page 146]
“The religious basis of internationalism’
TWO IMPORTANT TITLES FOR YOUR INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY
RELIGION AND THE MODERN WORLD
By John Herman Randall and John Herman Randall, Jr.
The first volume iz: the series Religion and the Modern Age—a systematic attempt to deal briefly and clearly with the problems of present-day religious life in the light of modern knowledge and current social corditions,
“Most dynamic treatment of the modern religious complex yet published in our country.”-——Harry Elmer Barnes, “An interest- ing book, a needed book, a good book. Good for those who glory in religion and for such as scoff at it. Serviceable and thought- provoking.”—Harry Levi.
RELIGION IN AN AGE OF SCIENCE By Edwin Arthur Burtt
Vuiume two in the same serics—showing how far the scientific attitude has transformed the outlook on religious truth.
“Both of these books are thought-provoking. . . . Every min- ister and religious worker should have the two volumes.”— William Wilson. “I regard them as the best books yet published, presenting in concise form and popular style, with the full authority of knowledge, the problems that are most pressing in religious thought today.”—E£. 5S. Ames.
Either book will he sent postpaid for retail price, $1.50.
With year’s subscription to World Unity, either book, $4.25; both books, 35.75.
WORLD UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION
4 East 12th Street New York City
�[Page 147]
FOR THE RESEARCH WORKER
Thie compilation of brief abstracts of studies, published during one year, in psychology, religious and character education, and social work is of incalculable value to the research worker and student. Within 62 pages is a survey of 506 articles. A discussion and analysis of the material orients the reader.
Price $1.00
A YEAR OF RESEARCH--1927 By Goodwin B. Watson and Delia H. Biddle
FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN GIRLS
An attempt to chart the driving interests and the perplexing prob- lems of the yvoung office worker hae resulted in a monograph filled with information gathered from 665 girls. Famiiy relationships, vocational problems, the ‘boy friend,” church relationships, budgets—all find a place in this readable monograph. Price $1.00
RUSINESS GIRLS—A Study of Their Interests and Problems By Ruth Shonle Cavan
FOR COLLEGE TEACHER AND ADMINISTRATOR
A curvey of undergraduate in- struction in: religious education names the institutions giving such instruction, and covers such points as organization, training of the in- structors, methods of teaching, an evaluation of the textbooks used, and the historic setting. A _ final chapter points out major trends and problems. Price $1.00 UNDERGRADUATE INSTRUCTION IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES
A Co-operative Survey |
FOR ALL CHARACTER AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATORS
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, pub- lished ten times cach year, points out new trends in rcligious and character education. Price $5.00 per year Write for complete list of Publications
The Religious Education Association 308 North Michigan Ave. Chicago, Illinois
An Ever-Growing Library of Internationalism
Bound Volumes of
WORLD UNITY
Volume One October 1927—March 1928
436 pages. Serial articles: Science and Religion, Kirtley F. Mather; In- teraction of Europe and Asia, W. R. Shepherd; Sacred Scriptures of Hin- duism, Alfred W. Martin; Ideal of World Unity, John Herman Randall, etc,
Volume Two
April 1928—September 1928
432 pages. Scrial articles: Progress by Telic Guidance, Mary Huil; Sacred Scriptures of Buddhism, Al- fred W. Martin; International Poli- tics and World Peace, Dexter Perkins; The New Humanity, Mary Siegrist, etc.
Volume Three October 1928—March 1929
444 pages. Serial articles: Racial Relationships and International Har- mony, F. H. Hankins (Chap. 1 & 2); Science, Philosophy and Religion, E. A. Bu’ (Chap. 1); Sacred Scrip- tures of Confucianism, Alfred W. Martin, etc.
Volume Four
April 1929—September 1929
452 pages. Serial articles: Raciai Relationships and International Har- mony, F. H. Hankins (Chap 3-5); Science, Philosophy and _ keligion, E. A. Burte (Chap. 2-5); Sacred Scriptures of Mohammedanism and Taoism, Alfred W. Martin, ete.
Volume Five October 1929—March 1930 432 pages. Serial articles: A World Community, J. H. Randall; Nationalism and Internationalism, H. A. Gibbons; One Religion— Many Faiths, J. Tyssul Davis, etc. Each volume bound in blue buckram, gold stamped. $4.25
World Unity Publishing Co. poration 4 East 12th St. New York City
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