FOUR THINGS AGAINST

PEACE

The four influences-motherhood, the Catholic Church, labor, and capitalism are very strong, just as gravitation is very strong, dragging all the rainfall back to the ocean level.

But there are four forces working against peace, forces stronger than the forces working for peace, just as the evaporative power of the sun is stronger than earthly gravitation, which can only drag back what the sun previously lifted, and perhaps not even that much.

Instinct of Destructiveness

The first of the war forces is the universal instinct of destructiveness and pugnacity in man. Even the constructive instinct is first destructive.

Why did 10,000 people take the long trip to Carson City? To see two men batter each other with their fists for a few hours! Why, every year, do 30,000 crowd into the great arena at New Haven, with 3,000,000 more envious and regretful because they can't go? To see

twenty-two college youths batter each other into insensibility.

CONSOLATION

Visitor-It's a terrible war, this, young man; a terrible war.

Mike (badly wounded)-"Tis that, sor; a tirrible warr. But 'tis better than no warr at all.-Punch.

This is why several hundred thousand young men enlisted in our little quarrel with Spain. They craved the excitement of war! And the women are as intense as the men. In the Indian fight against Gen. Forsyth on the upper Arikaree the squaws squatted on the bank and urged the warriors on to death. In London to-day why do women wave white feathers at men on the streets? One poor wight, who had been refused enlistment three times, because unfit, was taunted into suicide. One young woman writes of her husband: "Harry is like a schoolboy enjoying a great experience. He says he would not be anywhere else for anything, and I agree. All men who are men should be out there, and I am delighted that he exchanged, and hope he will be able to remain until the end. He says discomforts make you enjoy your time off all the more."

I have before me the highly entertaining story of a "deplorable" French soldier, sentenced to two years' imprisonment-after the war -because he constantly deserted his own regiment (not yet in active service), taking his outfit with him.

But he was given a medal during the war because he was always in the thick of the fight with some other regiment.

I have also that wonderfully deep and pathetic letter of the German recruit who alternates pastoral reminiscences of the home farm with descriptions of the soldier's frenzy.

The fighting races of mankind are not yet pacifists. Their forefathers survived because they fought, and while extinction is no longer the lot of the meek, the fighting strain still dominates.

I am keenly sorry that my father died before the war occurred; he would have taken such an interest in it. I am keenly glad that I am alive while it is going on. To have missed it would have deprived my life of one of its greatest experi

ences!

National Resentment

The second great influence for war is the rankling sense of injustice and injury felt by every people engaged. It matters not whether the cause is real or imagined, the aching grievance is there.

The Serbian resented the occupation of Serb lands by Austria. Austria resented the murder of her crown prince. Russia resented the threats by big Teutonic and Hungarian Austria against the little Slavic Serbian brother. France and Russia resented the declaration of war by Germany. Belgium resented invasion. England resented the broken peace and broken treaties, and Germany resented European meddling in its allies' private quarrel and also the threat of a world combined against her.

Nothing smarts and galls like injustice, and as long as any people

thinks it is suffering from intolerable injustice and that it has a chance to win it will not lay down arms!

Fear of the Future

The third influence in favor of the war's continuance is the fear of the future. Belgium fears national extinction, France fears further dismemberment and imposition of staggering indemnity, England fears loss of her far-flung dominion, Serbia (like Belgium) fears extinction, Russia fears the fate of France in 1870, Italy fears fearful retribution, if Germany wins. Not one of these countries dares admit that it can lose. The blood curdles at the thought.

Germany most sanely fears not only annihilation of all German ideals of systematic expansion, as well of ideals to be secured by world expansion, but in addition fears sixfold punishment if the six allied powers win. What they separately and singly would like to do to her, Germany and all the world know; and all that stands between these plans and their execution is Germany's power not only to resist but to defeat her enemies. Her strong suit is not diplomacy, it is military organization and skill.

The old conditions have passed away, never to be restored.

Reconstruction Through

Destruction

The fourth influence against peace is the hope of reconstruction through destruction. I have seen engines tear up in a single day hundreds of acres of green, flowering prairie sod. The cruel plows tore and rended, made the beautiful living green a waste of dead brown,

Does any nation want peace not only with these ideals unrealized but sinking into darkness like a falling star?

Besides these four great war forces there are many minor ones -the fearful disappointment, the wounded pride, the desire for revenge that grows stronger with every added death, the fears of tottering dynasties, the blind credulity of those who think they have an infallible system, whether diplomatic or military.

From the beginning of the world down Mother Eve has not been able to keep her sons from killing each other.

From the dawn of Christianity the great Catholic Church has not been able to induce men to turn the other cheek.

Fear is more powerful than any labor leader-even just ordinary fear which prevented the Socialists from resisting military service in times of peace.

Capitalistic opposition did not prevent the American revolution nor the French revolution, nor our Civil

War nor the Balkan troubles, nor the present war.

At our very doors we see in a small scale and in a backward country what is happening in Europe on a larger scale.

How is motherhood bringing peace to Mexico?

How is the Catholic Church in that most Catholic country bringing peace?

What successful resistance has the starved peon offered to his own destruction?

What power do the enormously great capitalistic interests in Mexico exert?

What have the four great peace forces accomplished in Mexico? Nothing.

What will the four great peace forces accomplish in the world war? Nothing.

They are not forces for peace as against war, they are upbuilding forces when war is over, when the wilder instincts are sated and

drugged! They are influences which retard before war begins!

After a religious war, a war for ideals is begun. It should be waged fast and furiously to a decisive end, to a peace from which to date a new

era.

The giants, by their strength, dwarfs by their cunning destroyed helped the gods build Valhalla. The the gods. But the twilight of the gods was the dawn of humanity. HARRINGTON EMERSON. New York, Sept. 18, 1915.

A SIGN OF PEACE

"Freedom of the seas a debatable matter," the House of Commons heard again on October 13 from

Under Secretary Lord Robert Cecil. The reiteration of this statement, after the serious criticism of Sir Edward Grey's earlier remark, is the first definite sign that the minds of England and Germany are not so far apart that their differences cannot be compromised.

Bethmann-Hollweg and other German spokesmen have repeatedly stated that their battle was for the freedom of the seas. In this matter, it was stated, 'the whole issue of the war has been involved. Unless Germany has plans of conquest that cannot be compromised in a peace conference, there exists now an opportunity for a disinterested effort to end the war. Perhaps the opportunity for which our President has been waiting is at hand!-Oct. 15, 1915.

MR. FORD'S PEACE SHIP

Opinions may differ widely as to the practicability of the peace movement represented by Henry Ford's projected trip to the warring nations on board a peace ship. Some regard it as one of the most futile of all splendid ventures since the children's crusade. Others see in it the possibility, through its very idealism, of an effective appeal to the conscience of mankind.

On one phase of Mr. Ford's sincere attempt to reach the mind and. heart of warring Christendom all men may well agree that it is a tangible expression of the thought that is dominating the peoples of the world, with the exception of the council chambers of one or two mighty nations. That thought is one of numbing weariness of war; of a deep and passionate desire

MR. FORD FACING THE
FACTS

Two irreconcilable forces are in imminent conflict with the plan proposed by Mr. Henry Ford to call the warring armies out of the trenches by Christmas. These forces are the powers of the entente on the one hand and the powers of the Teutonic alliance on the other.

Is it conceivable that Great Britain would show the slightest disposition to lend a patient ear to any talk of peace while the Germans remain in Belgium, or while Germany shows not the most remote sign of a willingness to restore the kingdom of Belgium in its integrity, as demanded by the oft-repeated British declaration on the subject?

Is it conceivable that Germany would listen to any proposal to sheathe the sword before the acquisition of her irreducible minimum of conquest-a port on the English Channel, which she regards as essential to the security of her future share of the freedom of the seas?

Is it conceivable that Russia will prove amenable to any argument in favor of peace but the argument of army corps, while more than seventy thousand square miles of her territory is in occupation by the Germans?

Ask the women of France, Mr. Ford, if they are willing to surrender the richest part of France to the enemy who is now occupying it? Ask the women of Germany if they would consent to leave the task of their country unfinished after the enormous sacrifices which they have made?—Nov. 30, 1915.

MR. HENRY FORD

It is part of my daily work to read the editorial pages of two or three hundred newspapers. I have found only one newspaper approving his great venture. There is ridicule, sarcasm, scolding. He is the only man in the United States of great force of character, supreme ability and enormous wealth who has been willing to undertake a movement to crystallize and organize the deepest desires of all the peoples of the world. Let us imagine what might be done if the other masters of American achievement should combine with him.

Some years ago, when the indications of this war were first visible, I visited, as an editor, the capitals of England, France and Germany. It soon became obvious to me, as it does to any observer, that the basic cause of national animosities is the rivalry of the merchants, manufacturers and financiers of one country competing with those of another country to exploit the resources of the less well-organized regions of the world-Morocco, China, Asia Minor, etc., etc.

It was essentially a problem of co-operation or competition. Such a problem as faced the business men of America during the last thirty years, and which led to such organizations in America as the

United States Steel Corporation; and it seemed to me that, if the business powers of competing nations would combine as the various enterprises that were unified in the steel trust, war among nations could be avoided, just as war among steel mills was avoided.

There was one man, possessed of marvelous ability, in such work, and he further enjoyed a singular position of power and influence with the nations of Europe, namely, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.

I had a vision of the leading manufacturers, shipowners, financiers and publicists of the United States, England, Germany, France, Russia and Japan, to the number of one or two hundred, coming together and, under the presidency of Mr. Morgan, with a map of the world before them, agree on various spheres of influence, on territories where the interests of the various nations would co-operate, and settle by negotiation and agreement the conflicting aims and purposes, instead of by war.

England and France had settled their mutual differences after centuries of rivalry and war. England and Germany had made most encouraging progress in the same direction.

I saw a great deal of Mr. Morgan at Aix-les-Bains between my visits to the various capitals. He was somewhat reluctant to enter upon this plan, but he saw good in it. He finally expressed his willingness to co-operate toward the great end in view if our government would authorize him to act in this matter.

For reasons not at all connected with the feasibility of this scheme, this purpose came to nothing. In a recent conversation with Mr. Gary,