THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, Publishers The Second Pan American Scientific Congress-The Call to the Western Hemisphere-Some Pre- paredness Facts-The Hysteria of It-The President's Neglected Opportunity. Preparedness Defeated in Norway-The Vacuum in the Words of a Philosopher-A Rider for all The Effect of the War upon Pan American Co-operation. SENHOR MANOEL de Oliveira LIMA The Pan American Union and the Institute of International Law Pan Americanism as a Lesson for Europe. ALFRED H. FRIED A Pacifist Program for Preparedness. LUCIA AMES MEAD Effects of the World War on Central and South America. VOL. LXXVIII Advocate of Peace JANUARY, 1916 THE SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIEN- TH HE Second Pan American Scientific Congress to which we have been pleased to refer from time to time, is at this writing in session in the city of Wash NUMBER 1 for doubting the sincerity of the President's words that "We still mean always to make a common cause of international independence and of political liberty in America." to speak can fail to perceive that their passion is for It is evident that the President speaks from the ington. The importance of this Congress lies pri- the spirit of the great people for whom we are appointed heart when he says: "No one who really comprehends marily in its influence upon the developing understanding between our American Republics. THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE agrees with Señor Don Ignacio Calderon, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, who, speaking before the opening session of the Congress, said: "Pan Americanism is a noble doctrine, it does not mean exclusion or race distinctions like pan-germanism or pan-slavism, but implies the great federation of the American Republics, to work for the uplifting of mankind, under the enobling principles of right and freedom. It means the sovereignty of the people based on the equality of men; it means the open door into our territories for all persons able and willing to work for the common progress." pointed out by Secretary Lansing, the American Republics constitute "a group which is united by common ideals and common aspirations." As Because of this Congress, and because of the present hopeful emphasis upon the doctrine of Pan Americanism, we have been pleased to make of this journal for this the first month of the new year a "Pan American number." THE CALL TO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE HIS IS Pan Americanism. It has none of the spirit Tof empire in it. It is the embodiment, the elec tual embodiment, of the spirit of law and independence and liberty and mutual service." These are the words of President Wilson, taken from his address at the joint session of the two houses of Congress, December 7. They are hopeful and constructive words. As he said: "The states of America are not hostile rivals, but cooperating friends." It is becoming clearer and clearer that the twenty-one American republics have a decided community of interests-political, economical, and moral. The President is justified in seeing in these facts a "new significance." Whatever our views relative to the President's Mexican policy, two facts are very apparent: There is no war between any of the American states; and our sister republic to the south, "upon a footing of genuine equality and unquestioned independence," are less suspicious of the United States than ever before. There is no reason Con Repeating from his Manhattan Club address, the President informs us again that there is no immediate or particular danger to this country from abroad; and he adds the thought that "the gravest threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within. our own borders." The message closes with these words: "For what we are seeking now, what in my mind is the single thought of this message, is national efficiency and security. We serve a great nation. We should serve it in the spirit of its peculiar genius. It is the genius of common men for self-government. industry. justice, liberty, and peace. We should see to it that it lacks no instrument. no facility or vigor of law, to make it sufficient to play its part with energy, safety, and assured success. In this we are no partisans, but heralds and prophets of a new age.” Fortunately there is nothing in this language so provincial and parochial as "America for Americans," the President seeming to have arisen somewhat above a former doctrine of his that all America is for Americans, and Americans only. The fact is that true American interests can be subserved only in the light of English, German, Turkish, Chinese interests. True business can be in no sense a game of cutthroats. In refashioning our political conceptions we cannot leave out of account the welfare of other peoples. Self-interest alone requires that we shape our national behavior in harmony with the welfare of other, even if competing states. Pan Americanism is one of the most hopeful, concrete agencies for the promotion of the human weal. But Pan Humanity, including Pan Americanism, is or should be the ideal of modern statesmanship. Collectivism, cooperation of all commonwealths for the common weal, that is the call to the Western Hemisphere. Ο SOME PREPAREDNESS FACTS UR Secretary of the Navy is authority for the statement, made before the present war, that "the naval appropriations in our country have doubled in a dozen years, and have gone up by leaps and bounds in other countries. If this mad rivalry in construction goes on the burden will become too heavy for any nation to bear." Within a few years the cost of battleships has risen from about $5,000,000 each to $20,000,000, and ship materials and munitions of war have advanced over 30 per cent. But such facts are relatively unimportant compared with the additional fact that the navy of the United States is today superior to that of Germany or any other nation except that of Great Britain. The program now before us represents an increase in one year of an amount in excess of our total increase for the last fourteen years. Indeed, in a time of peace we propose an annual increase Government plants, $9.56; for a 31-second combination fuse, a profit of $4.08; for a 3-inch finished shrapnel case, a profit of $1.31; for gun carriages for 3-inch rifles, $882.22; caissons, $615.43; order ammunition, $979,840.00. Speaking of these figures, former Senator Robert M. La Follette rightfully calls them "outrageous." But more disheartening than any of these facts is the fact that not one of our hysterical "preparedists" deigns. ever to discuss the problems of concrete international policies out of which any rational program for preparedness must necessarily be developed. Not once do they apply their minds to the problem of international organ ization. Not once do they consider the interests of foreign nations. Not once do they seem to see the necessity for international adjustments, friendly compositions, arbitrations, judicial settlements. They not only do not tell us the truth about the details of their own exceeding the increase by Germany during the whole fif- housekeeping, but they insist upon a choloric interfer teen years preceding the European war, and more than the combined increase of all the nations in the world during any one year in their history. The program proposes to increase in five years our naval appropriation forty times the increase by Germany during any similar ence with all who talk in terms of ordinary morals. THE HYSTERIA OF IT E WOULD respectfully call the attention of our period of years. More than this, it represents an amount W readers to the following facts: $200,000,000 in excess of the combined increase of all the nations of the world for a similar period of years. Why do our preparedness friends fail to tell us that for years we have been spending every year from $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 upon our navy in excess of the amount spent by Germany or any other nation except Great Britain? The $500,000,000 naval program, $100,000,000 less than will be required to put it into effect, does not include what we are now spending, but, to the generous appropriation already made, that amount in addition. The army program, representing an increase of more than 100 per cent over our present appropriations for that branch of our service, calls also for a sum reaching nearly $500,000,000 increase, that is to say, extra! As pointed out by Mr. Kitchin, the United States is being asked to expend upon its army and navy more than any other nation of the world, in times of peace, ever expended upon its army and navy. Is it of no significance that, at the beginning of the European war, Germany was expending for past wars and preparedness for wars that is to say, on its army and navy-55 per cent of the total amount of revenues collected; Japan, 45 per cent; Great Britain, 37 per cent; France, 35 per cent; the United States, 60 per cent? Another group of facts not without their bearing is: Private firms are receiving for 3.8-inch common shrapnel in excess of the cost when manufactured at The organ of the Navy League, The Seven Seas, in a recent number says: "The true militarist believes that pacifism is the masculine and humanitarianism is the feminine manifestation of national degeneracy. World empire is the only logical and natural aim for a nation. . . . Land has always been the correct aliment for nations, and never till the arrival of the pacifist did gods or men ever witness a nation trying on straight-waistcoats as if they were life-preservers." We are told that we must have "at least 2,000 aeroplanes ready to be sent into the air at a moment's notice," and that we must have 100,000 officers for our army. Mr. Charles Edward Russell wants a fort every ten miles along our borders, a big naval army on our Great Lakes, compulsory military service, and an army and navy equipment greater than any nation of the world. Rev. Dr. Charles A. Eaton calls this war "the greatest blessing that has fallen upon mankind since the German Reformation." Hudson Maxim considers that a small army and navy are "worse than no army and navy," and that "any one of the great European powers would be able to land a million men on our shores in a few weeks." He adds: "It is not unlikely that some of us will be forced to see wife or daughter or sweetheart namelessly maltreated to gratify the brutal lust of an invader, and lose our own life for a blow on the scoundrel's jaw, unless-aye, there's the rub-unless this whole country awakens to its danger and rises up as one man and demands prompt and adequate defensive measures for national protection.” Many are crying for compulsory military training in our public schools, notwithstanding that even Prussia has never adopted such a system, and in spite of the fact that France has abolished it on the ground that it is wholly impracticable from a military point of view. Col. Robert Thompson, of the Navy League, asks for $500,000,000 to provide a naval military establishment "adequate for national defense," while Mr. Brooks Adams, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, held at Boston in November, flatly recommended the German military system for the United States. Conscription for free America is on the lips of editors and statesmen. ation the following impressive words from Lord Rosebery, spoken recently at a Rhodes Scholarship lecture in London: "I know nothing more disheartening than the announcement recently made that the United States-the one great country left in the world free from the hideous, bloody burden of war-is about to embark upon the building of a huge armada destined to be equal or second to our own. It means that the burdens will continue upon the other nations, and be increased exactly in proportion to the fleet of the United States. I confess that it is a disheartening prospect that the United voluntarily in these days take up the burden which, after States, so remote from the European conflict, should this war, will be found to have broken, or almost broken, our backs." But this is not all. A writer in a Sunday morning THE PRESIDENT'S NEGLECTED OPPORpaper of Washington, D. C., informs us that Great Britain is going to occupy New England, Maryland, TUNITY N SPITE of our great respect for President Wilson's Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and I Pan American outlook, it seems a misfortune that Florida; that France is to get the French parts of eastern Canada, and the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky; that Germany is going to occupy the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; that Japan is to take the Pacific coast; that Mexico will receive Arizona, New Mexico, and part of Texas; Russia is to take back Alaska; while the remaining western States are to be consolidated into an imperial crown domain of the German empire. The Hon. Claude Kitchin, Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, flatly accuses the Seven Seas Magazine of being an organization "which has created, by deception and misrepresentation, the apparently big sentiment for the militarism and navalism now proposed, and which seems to have stampeded many patriotic and usually level-headed people." Mr. Kitchin believes, and his beliefs are concurred in by not a few whose business it is to know, that the United States is “prepared” now, and that we are already preparing; that the country has been misinformed, and that it is not true that we have been negligent of national defense. In any event, the statements of facts to which we have called attention demand the serious reflection of thinking men. At best they are evidences of a wild and discouraging hysteria. When Mr. Maxim, Mr. Russell, Mr. Adams and the rest, give us one evidence that they can think in terms of international justice, righteousness, and peace, rather than in terms of mere force, then they will receive more attention from constructive persons interested in overcoming the ethics of the beast. Since our hysterical friends refuse to listen to counsel from us, we respectfully submit for their consider Pan Americanism should spell for him a necessity for an increase of appropriations for our army and navy of over $100,000,000 a year. If our Pan Americanism be real, we should be stronger, not weaker, because of it. Mr. Bryan, a sincere friend of the President, calls the President's recommendation for additional military preparedness "revolutionary." It is not necessary to agree with this statement, but the following from Mr. Wilson's former Secretary of State seems unanswerable: "Pan Americanism, if it differs at all from the Monroe Doctrine, ought to lessen rather than increase the necessity for preparedness. If a small army and navy Latin-American countries were suspicious of the United States, why do we need an increase now when that suspicion is removed and when the republics of Central and South America are willing to co-operate with us in the support of the Monroe Doctrine ?" were sufficient to enforce the Monroe Doctrine when the But the trouble with President Wilson's present international program is that he does not sense, at least he does not adequately interpret, our coming obligations to European states. His Manhattan Club address in New York was his first great disappointment. It is a strange and unfortunate thing that our political leaders are content to talk today in terms only of an isolated America. Now is the time for the American republics to concentrate their thought upon the finer internationa! adjustments soon to be the supreme problem of the world. The wild demand for preparedness against dangers which no intelligent man can name reveals a pathetic misconception of the real problem of this age. That the President of the United States has not once expressed any interest in the Congress of Nations surely to follow the European peace is a patent indication of a neglected opportunity. Preparedness Defeated in Norway. EDITORIAL NOTES The question of preparedness, like the high cost of living, is confined to no one country. In Norway, for example, under circumstances resembling the campaign for preparedness in this country, the proposed program for a general increase in that nation's armaments and defenses was some weeks ago overwhelmingly defeated. Though much nearer to the theater of war than we, and confronted much more alarmingly by the talk of a German and Russian menace, the Norwegian people have preferred to ignore the jingoes and to spend the nation's income for the purpose of civilization rather than upon the mad race of armaments and the evils of militarism. Beaconsfield may have overstated the case when he said that "all the great things have been done. by little nations;" but here we have again an illustration of the truth that greatness within a state is not buttressed upon bulk. The Vacuum in the Words of a Philosopher. In the December number of the At lantic Monthly, Ralph Barton Perry, Professor of Philosophy in Harvard University, aims to tell his expectant readers "What is Worth Fighting For." The professor grants that the experience of the race "points unmistakably to the fatally destructive character of narrow loyalties, and teaches the need of applying to national conduct the same standards of moderation, justice, and good will that are already generally applied to the relations of man and man." Yet he seemingly approves of Mr. Godkin's words, written in the days of Gravelotte and Orléans, that "the peace advocates are constantly talking of the guilt of killing, while the combatants only think, and will only think, of the nobleness of dying." Ignoring, however, the objection of the pacifists to war, which is that it does not and cannot of itself establish justice, he proceeds to justify offensive war "when undertaken in the interest of an international system or league of humanity." He concludes, so far as we are able to ascertain, that the things worth fighting for are: "civil law," "national integrity," "the general good of mankind." He adds darkly: "These greater goods are worth fighting for; nothing is really worth fighting against. It therefore behooves every high-spirited individual or nation to be both strong and purposeful. Strength without high purpose is soulless and brutal; purpose without strength. is unreal and impotent." Would that our learned philosopher would explain if it is not true that two leagues of peace are at the present time each defending as best it can "an international system or league of humanity." What in terms of the concrete is connoted by the expressions "national integrity" and "the general good of mankind?" Who has classified the elements under either or each of these? How can we fight for any good thing without fighting against something? What is meant by the expression "strength?" Is it not true that these words need to be defined, and that to use them undefined is to leave us where we began? In other words, are not such words, evidently clear to our Professor of Philosophy, in themselves vacuums only? And by adding such vacuums together, as has our respected scholar, have we anything at the last more palpable than a vacuum? A Rider for All Military Bills. A number of bills providing for marked increases in our military appropriations have already been introduced in the Congress. Many others are to be introduced. One of the bills already before the Senate, a bill which has been read twice and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, was introduced by Senator Shaffroth, December 17, 1915. The bill is known as S. 2710, and is designed to encourage the establishment of "a peace-keeping tribunal, and, pending such establishment, to ensure the military preparedness of the United States of America." This bill, drafted, we are informed, by Mr. Oscar T. Crosby, contains one sectionsection 3-that expresses a pertinent, rational, and hopeful suggestion. Eliminating such matters as seem to us irrelevant, the suggestion is that all military bills carrying appropriations shall be qualified substantially as follows: "that if at any time before the total sum hereby appropriated shall have been expended or contracted to be expended, there shall have been established, with the co-operation of the United States of America, an international tribunal, or a number of such tribunals, capable of functioning as a substitute for war, that then any unexpended balance of this appropriation shall be returned to the treasury and the program of defense herein proposed shall be suspended." It is true that such a provision might make it easier to have an extravagant military program adopted; but it is also true that such a section would be a constant reminder to our statesmen that the problem of international organization in terms of justice is both real and concrete; that, in other words, it is within the pale of practical politics. Again, it would serve to concentrate the efforts of the constructive pacifists. And, finally, it would bring the hope for a rational co-operative disarmament more nearly within the realm of the achievable. A "rider" such as this for every military appropriation bill, approved as it already is by a number of Senators and Congressmen, has sufficient merit to warrant the support of every friend of an orderly world. This is an opportunity lying close at hand for those who are anxious to act at once. Congressmen are still interested in the views of their constituents. |