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Show 158 I59 are felt by the \vorltinenien and by their wives and by their chil- dren as an intolerable burden. That argument we wish to have presented as powerfully as it can be on all occasions. but the It]""tltliL‘llL which Mr. llurtt has presented to us this evening, grouine‘ out of the Christian fellowship existingr between worlx‘iner people, is a more beautiful, a more potent and a more powerful argument than the economic argument at its best. Therefore 1 rejoice to have heard what Mr. .litll‘tl has inst said to us. and I hope we shall bear it presented also by Mr. Gompers. l Cong atulate you in Chicago, and I congratulate Miss Addams on having presented the best argument. on the highest possible ground. (Applause) after all, from whom, if not from the great masses of the people, (A solo. "\Vhy Do the Nations So It‘uriously Rage To» gether from Handel's "Messiah," was then sung by Mr. t\rtliur Beresford.) Miss ADDAMSZ A national or international peace conference would he most incomplete if it did not give a large place upon its program to the claims of organized labor as a peacemaker. The fraternal dele- gates are sent from England every year to the meetings of the American Federation of 1.; bor, and we are most happy in that at this Second American Peace Congress, held in Chicago, the cause of organized labor and peace is to he presented by :\lr. Samuel (jornpers, the president now, as he has been for many years, of the American Federation of Labor. I take great pleasure in presenting to this audience Mr. Goinpers. (.'\pplause.) Organized Labor and Peace Mu. SAMUEL (loner. Mn. CHAIRMAN. Larinrs AND GI":'I‘LIZ.\ "\I: The question of. peace and of war is. peculiarly and particularly a question largely affectingr the \\'UTl{lllg' people of all countries. Not alone in battle. not alone upon the bloody field of contest. but long; after wars are over the working people must bear the brunt of it all; for of the workers, is to be drawn the soldiery of the countries? The only benefit that possibly may result, the only thing really that war creates is widows and orphans. (Applause) In all other respects war is the scientific, brutal and consummate art of destruction. \Ve hear occasionally some man valiant in battle who lends his voice with others in advocacy of peace, and to my mind there is no greater anomaly than to find any one trained in the art of wholesale killing adding his voice for peace, {or if peace were general and universal the man of war would have to go out of business. It is unthinkable for a lawyer to be without a brief or a client, a physician to be without a patient; and how about a soldier without war? Peace is the manifestation of the best in man for constructive purposes. When we realize the enormous sums of money that are expended by the nations of the world in war, in the prepara- tion for war, in the standing: armies, in tremendously increased navics, even upon a peace footing, it is enough to appall one. Today the newspapers published dispatches from \Vashington in which it was , .id that, notwithstanding it is the desire of the President and l 5 Cabinet to economize in the expenditures of our government, it is not possible to briner the estimates for the com- ing year within a billion dollars! it does not take very loner to say a billion dollars, but just give your thought a moment's time to grasp what that means and to realize, too, that so II'L'Iilt'IltlUtlS a part of that billion dollars is for our army and navy. Yet in spite of the fact that all thinking, observing men and women of our country realize the gr‘at exhaustion of the resources of our country, it has been difficult to obtain the appropriation of a dl rllar from Congress in order to protect the resources of our country from exhaustion. Niggardliness in amn‘oprialion for matters affecting the common weal! I recall an incident when I had the pleasure of err-operating with three ladies now occupying this platform. Mi." lane Addams, Mrs. Raymond Robins and Miss Mary McDowell, in trying to get Congress to authorize the appropriation of fifty thousand dollars to investigate the extent of that awful evil of child labor and woman‘s labor in unwholesomc occupations‘. \Vhat mattered |
