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Show 93 The Present Position of the International Peace Movement DR. BENJAMIN l". 't‘iit'iziahon \Ve have llikl in this Second National l'eace congress in the interests not of an unre.'1li/ahle dream but of a great already triumphine l't‘l-Ul'l‘di In a recent maga7ine article ex-l'resident Lorihet of France wrote: mam" t mnuw now "lnternational pacitication is not a dream, not an ideal from cloudlaud. but a progressn e tact observable in every civilized country." ",\ progressive fact~ observable li? exert civilized country. No words could more tittinely sinnniari/e in a single. phrase the present position of the reform which has hroue‘ht its together. The l'eace Movement has pxt<~cil it\ tit-wartieal period. It is far along toward the crunpletion of its practical stage. lt needs no more a Henry the Fourth with his Great l)e~i i , nor a \Villiam l't-nn with his finely wrought judicial plan for the peace of linrepe. The Mme de St. l'icrre with his scheme for perpetual I JRace is no longer our instructor. \\'e have passed lentham, and Ka l it with his lofty vision of a world-state: we have even left behind ].add and llurritt and Sumner and Kl' y with their splendid dream of a Cettg‘t't‘FS and Court (if Nations. "l c world was asleep when these great pioneers. were dreaming their dreams of arbitration. of an international court of arbitral justice, oi a con- gress of Itlttifllh. of perpetual peace and the true grandeur of nations. it is now awakefia part of it at least~antl with swift blows is carving into reality what they saw in the vi >11}.le stone of humanity. Let me sketch in the harest outi' :x txhat ll2l\ already been accomplished, The interpretation will ta , * care of itselt'i I, The men and women. now a great host. w to believe that the dav is past when blind brute force should (lit the policies of nations and preside at the stttlcment of their (lifiierences are tow thoroughly rre‘anized. .\ hundred years ago there was not a society in existence o' {mixed to promote app 'al to the forum of reason and rig-ht in the adjustment of internati onal controversies. Tor' tli. are mere than the: hundred. nearly every important nation havingr its group of peace organizations. Their constituents are numbered by tens of thousands, from every rank and class in society-philanthropists, Inen of trade and commerce , educators and jurists, workingmen, statesmen, rulers even, The organized peace party has its International Peace Bureau at .ierne, Switzerland, binding all its sections into one world body. It has its Jntcrnational Peace Congress which has held seventeen meetings in twenty years~congresc s over which statesmen now feel it an honor to preside and which are welcomed by kings and presidents with a warmth of interest and a generousness of hospitality scarcely accorded to any other organizations. It has its great national congresses in many countries, like this present one and that in Carnegie Hall, New York. two years ago; special conferences like that at Mohonk Lake. and its It has its unsur< passed banquets and festivals, like that given to the Seventeenth International Peace Umgress by the British government in Lon- don last July and those recently given by the Peace Society of the City of New York. It has its score and more of special organs of propaganda published in no less than nine ditlerent languages. It has its literature, abundant in quantity and high grade in quality, which is now much sought after by intelligent men and women of many calling: In another direction it has its Intei'parlianientary l'eace L'nion, an organization of statesmen, of legislators, two thousand live hundred of them. many of them amongr the foremost public men of the time, banded together not for any political purpose but purely to promote international understanding. good feeling and the pacitic settlement of inteP national controversies. it is this far~flung pacific public sentiment of the world. grotw ing‘ constantly. crossiufv' all boundary lines, disregarding all lan~ g‘uage barriers, organized and having its definite. well digested program, that constitutes the real strength and the promise of the peace movement. Out of this has come all the restfithe limitas tion and restriction of war, the splendid triumphs of arbitration, the Hague Conferences, the international Court of Arbitration, the beginnings of a \Vorld Parliament and ot' a Supreme Court of the Nations. it is on this intelligent organized public sentiment. to which governments are compelled to listen. that we must still rely absolutely tor the accomplishment of what yet remains to be |
