The Task of the Twentieth By Author of "The Enlargement of Life," Scribner, Mar. 25, 1911 This book is dedicated to ALBERT K. SMILEY as an appreciation of his untiring efforts in the cause of international good-will and as a tribute of personal gratitude for his many instances of kindly hospitality I INTRODUCTION HAV red this book from beginning to end with interest and profit. The record is truthfully told and we see beyond all question that the path of man is ever upward and onward, so that just as he has abolisht cannibalism and no longer eats his fellows, or tortures, burns or slays his prisoners, and has abolisht private war (duelling) in Englishspeaking lands, so the killing of man by man in international war is as certain to follow as the sun is to shine, and nations, like individuals, are to settle their disputes in courts of justice, neither man nor nations sitting as judges in their own cause. The author pays to President Taft no undue credit, for he was first among rulers to unfurl the banner of unrestricted international judicial arbitration of disputes,—and thousands of years hence his will be one of the few names posterity will still preserv as the man of our century or of all centuries, who did most to banish the last, but the foulest, blot upon our so-cald civilization, provided |