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Show 90 91 financial and brain support which will strengthen and perfect the pacific institutions for the settlement of international contro- versies; and the causes of such controversies must be minimized by treaties with an arbitration clause, so that the decla'ation of ‘WJJUH mum the abolition of war will be a safe thing to do. and that each nation can safely begin, as it sees fit in its own peculiar case, to reduce armies and navies. This is the sense and purport of the world-petition. lt asks the governments of the Third Hague Conference to sign conven- tions pledging: I. The establishment of a universal law by which a decision by pacific means of any international difficulty shall in no case endanger the self-preservation and just development-i. a, the vital interests and honor-0f any nation. 2. Removal of the causes of war by regulating in speedy succession all international interests by conventions and treaties, each with clause insuring pacific settlement of any difficulty that may arise from said arrangements. 3. Settlement by pacific means of all difficulties arising from any international interest not yet covered by convention or treaty with pacific clause. And now I ask you, friends, will you not vote for the reso- lution, which will be presented to you in due time during our Congress, requesting the signatory powers to the Hague Con- ventions to place on the program of the Third Hague Conference these three points for consideration? And will you not do your part to make the world-petition. which already has between four and five million signatures, represent a majority world vote when it is submitted to the Third Hague Conference by, as I trust it will be. a large delegation of the noblest peace workers from all the lands of our earth. You will find the world-petition blanks, and "letters to the signers" giving directions, in the reception room. Don't merely sign the petition, but take home with you as many blanks as you can place amongr your individual friends, in your church, clubs or any organizations where each petition blank will form the nucleus of new circles of signers and distributors. Just give your imagination full rein for a minute or two and see what it will mean when these three points shall have been placed upon the program of the Third Hague Conference, and when conventions pledging agreement to these three points shall have been signed by the plenipotentiaries of the forty-four nations. It will mean the solution and disappearance of that whole line of subtle questions as to which kinds of wholesale murder, cruelty and piracy shall be allowed during war and which shall be forbidden. For what sense would there be in any longer trying to regulate and mitigate war after war is abolished? It will put an end to all the moral mischief done by duping people into the belief that a war is imminent every time a bill for building more warships or for increase in armies is before a parliament, because then all people, not only some, will know better; it will mean that these bills will gradually grow fewer and smaller. and that in proportion with the reduction of the nameless waste involved by standing armies and navies, sums upon sums of money and the physical and mental power of thousands and eventually millions of the finest specimens of men will be turned from destructive channels to help solve the new political and legal problems and the problems of hygiene, education and unemployment; it will mean the positive decrease of the sum total of suffering and hideousncss inflicted upon man by man, and the dead- fast increase of the sum total of happiness and beauty. Did ever tournament of old, did ever struggle for national independence hold out the peer of such a prize? But no prize of tournament or struggle for national liberty was ever won without noble and heroic effort and sacrifice These are needed today. Nothing dies without making a last desperate fight for existence, The \Varehloloch. the mighty ruler of the past, is making this last desperate fight for existence now. and every man's and woman‘s sacrifice of time. strength and money is needed; every man and woman must make a noble and heroic effort if we would win the larger liberty of all mankind from the tyranny of war, if we would win the prize of the victory of the Prince of Peace. At the conclusion of Miss Eckstein's paper, Chairman Paine introduced Dr. Benjamin F. Trueblood, Secretary of the Ameri- can Peace Society. |