Title: What Price Peace?
Author: Libby, Frederick J.
Language: English
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                              WHAT PRICE
                                PEACE?

                          FREDERICK J. LIBBY


                            [Illustration]


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      Additional copies of this pamphlet may be obtained from the
                National Council for Prevention of War
           532 Seventeenth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.

                        _Issued January, 1925_



                          SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT


Potential causes of war confront us on every hand. Peace has not come.
Our military men tell us that getting ready for war is the way to
peace. It is their duty to prepare the nation for war. This method,
however, will not bring peace. It will only hasten another world war,
and that would fatally weaken our white civilization.

To possess peace with justice and security, we must build machinery
adequate to settle all international disputes that might cause war,
and we must create behind the machinery a world opinion so strong that
no nation will defy it. Small national armed forces theoretically
can supplement world opinion, but the reliance must be on world
opinion. Competitive armaments, the result of fear or ambition, must
be progressively abolished by international agreement. International
understanding and goodwill must be consistently cultivated beginning in
the schools. The road to peace is a long uphill road.

For machinery we shall require a court for our legal disputes and a
town meeting of the world for the rest. I favor immediate adherence
to the existing World Court with the Hughes reservations. For the
world town meeting, I believe that we should join the existing League
of Nations with reservations on Articles X and XVI in order that we
may avoid both legal and moral commitments to use either military or
economic force. These seem to me to be the first two steps towards
peace.

The third step is the outlawry of war. Since this will involve
sacrifice of sovereignty in certain respects for the sake of peace,
with a voluntary agreement to submit to the proper tribunal all
disputes that threaten war, it requires a higher development of the
will to peace than does the creation of the Court and League. It will
fail if attempted as a political device to perpetuate the _status quo_.
It can succeed only when the nations, and especially the great powers,
are willing to be just, have a reasonable appreciation of one another’s
problems, and are actuated by a fair degree of goodwill.

The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International
Disputes and Senator Borah’s proposal for the outlawry of war should be
studied together in the light of the concrete problems to be solved,
especially the political and human problems. I believe that the
provision for “sanctions” to be automatically applied is impracticable.

A conference for the reduction and limitation of land, sea, and air
armaments is imperatively needed in the interest of economy and
world peace. No one knows how soon such a conference can be held
with reasonable assurance of even partial success. All nations must
participate. I believe that a conference of this kind would now be more
fruitful if held in Geneva than if held in Washington.

The interim policy for the United States should be to avoid increasing
armaments, holding “defense days,” and the like. Our aggressive and
growing militarism is bringing us no added security and is engendering
fear and suspicion at home and abroad. On the other hand, as mighty
armaments give a sense of security and stability――albeit a mistaken
sense――I expect no substantial reduction by America alone.



                           WHAT PRICE PEACE?

                         By Frederick J. Libby


                “PEACE! PEACE!” WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE

We are farther from peace than we were in 1922. The French occupation
of the Ruhr and the passage by Congress of the Japanese Exclusion Act
were blows at the very heart of world peace. Hate has been growing in
Europe. Militarism has been given a new lease of life in Germany and in
Japan. The question of race equality has been made a permanently living
issue to be coupled in future years with the problems raised by white
domination over peoples that want to be free.

New Alsace Lorraines――such as the Polish Corridor――have been created
by the Versailles Treaty. Religious and race antagonisms, kept acute
by the economic imperialism of the white race, stir the awakening
Mohammedan world.

Militarist and narrow nationalist groups in every country flood the
press with propaganda breathing fear or hate. A new race in armaments
has started. Our Monroe Doctrine, in view of the growing importance
of the immigration question, contains dangerous possibilities insofar
as it may be regarded as a commitment to go to war for Latin-American
policies. Taken in conjunction with certain acts of aggression on our
part and with the utterances of our jingoes, which are reprinted from
the Rio Grande to Cape Horn, it injects poison constantly into our
relations with Latin America, so that our military guarantee of two
continents brings us no gratitude but only suspicion from our grown-up
and unwilling wards.

The Dawes Plan is a fleeting ray of sunshine in a dark and ominous sky.
We are not drifting into permanent peace.


                NO SALVATION IN INCREASING PREPAREDNESS

Our military men tell us to get ready for war. This is their duty.
We are surrounded by potential causes of war. In their optimistic or
disingenuous moments, our militarists talk of “peace by preparedness.”
“America must be so strong that no nation will dare attack her,” is a
popular slogan.

Preparedness never has prevented war and it never will. Germany had
that slogan. Look at her! History shows that preparedness has always
led to war. It can lead nowhere else.

We build; our rivals build――cruisers, airplanes, gas factories,
submarines, armies. We build more; they build more. A race in armaments
starts, and this always ends in war.

General Frederick B. Maurice of the British army says: “I used to
believe that if you want peace, you must prepare for war; but I have
come to see that, if you prepare for war thoroughly and efficiently,
you will get war.”


                   ANOTHER WORLD WAR WOULD FINISH US

Militarist theories predicate winning one’s wars. No nation won
the last war. France is less secure than in 1914; England is less
prosperous. All the “victor” nations are staggering under taxes and
armaments; and there are the multitudinous dead.

Herbert Hoover at Los Angeles on Armistice Day declared that another
great war would be the “cemetery of civilization.” Winston Churchill
describes it as the “general doom.” His article entitled “Shall We
Commit Suicide?” should be widely read.

A war of airplanes, poison gas, and hate――a baby killers’ war――the
women conscripted and exterminated with the men――a city wiped out
at a time――America’s cities almost as vulnerable as Europe’s, now
that airships and submarines carry planes――such a war would surely
be the twilight of the white civilization. We should perish as other
civilizations in the brief span of human history have perished before
us.

Consequently, while war is threatening from every quarter, preparedness
for war offers no hope to any nation――not even the hope of victory.
Increasing preparedness can only hasten the “general doom.” Our sole
hope of survival lies in preparing adequately and intelligently for
peace.


                HISTORY HAS SHOWN A SUCCESSFUL WAY OUT

The way out of the perilous chaos into which godless and stupid
policies have brought the world is a way that has proved uniformly
successful. It has been tried so far in cities, states, and nations. It
worked in the Maine township where I grew up, and it works equally well
on a national scale in every civilized land on which the sun shines. It
is now universally practised――except between nations.


                     MACHINERY PLUS PUBLIC OPINION

We call it, roughly speaking, the substitution of law for war. To
express it more accurately, our present task is to build machinery
adequate to settle all disputes that might cause war, and to build
behind that machinery a sound world opinion capable of bearing very
heavy strains.

Machinery unsupported by public opinion is dead. On the other hand,
public opinion without machinery through which to function is helpless.

These are the two main tasks. At the same time, armaments must be
reduced by international conferences, war must be outlawed, and
goodwill must be cultivated. The development of goodwill should be
begun in the schools.


                        THE MACHINERY ESSENTIAL

In Maine we had both a court and a town meeting to keep us out of war.
The court dealt with our legal disputes and the town meeting with the
rest. Both were supported by public opinion. The strength of this
opinion made the work of our one policeman light. The system worked.

In California in ’49, men relied on pistols for justice and security.
It did not work. Thugs could shoot as straight as honest men. So in
California they shifted from the war system to the law system and were
able before long to forbid the carrying of pistols. Obviously, this
change of method was wrought without changing human nature.

The progress of civilization has been characterized by just such an
extension of the reign of law. One step remains to be taken. Since it
works everywhere else, we should enthrone law between nations. As I
see it, the essential institutions necessary are those with which New
Englanders are familiar――a court for the world’s legal disputes and a
town meeting for the rest.


                            THE WORLD COURT

A court of justice has long been recognized by American statesmen as
the cornerstone of world peace. It is clear to anyone who thinks that
some provision must be made for the settlement of legal disputes. The
Hague Tribunal is not a court of law, but a court of arbitration, and
therefore cannot perform the tasks now under our consideration.

The Permanent Court of International Justice, popularly called the
World Court, is the kind of court required. It has been accepted by
47 nations. It, too, meets at The Hague. It is largely the creation
of American genius. Elihu Root is its father. It is the practically
universal judgment of the peace forces of America that our first step
towards peace should be to join the existing World Court and with
the Hughes reservations. The Hughes reservations protect us from
inadvertently joining the League before we are ready. We accept this
limitation. We will proceed one step at a time.

No substitute plan receives any support whatever, and for excellent
reasons. This specific proposal has the endorsement of President
Coolidge and of both the Republican and Democratic platforms. I
regard joining the World Court with the Hughes reservations as this
winter’s job (1924–1925). The Senate has had the measure before it in
committee nearly two years. Meanwhile the world drifts towards war. It
is reasonable to demand speedy action. We must all work to secure it
through our Senators.


                THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS WITH RESERVATIONS

As a court can deal only with legal disputes, and as the most dangerous
disputes named above are political and economic rather than legal, it
is clear that the World Court alone will not end war. A town meeting
of the world under some name is as necessary as the court. This fact
is generally recognized and the idea of a League of Nations is nearly
everywhere accepted.

The existing League of Nations I used to oppose on the ground that it
seemed to me to be so tied up with the Versailles Treaty that it was
more likely to cause war than to prevent it. I believe still that its
coercive features are impracticable. I have come to the conviction,
however, that America should now consider joining the League of Nations
with such reservations on Articles X and XVI as will relieve us from
every legal and moral obligation to go to war or to undertake any
coercive economic measures that might lead to war. We should also be
protected by reservation from any possible construction of obligation
under the Versailles Treaty. I may add that my observation is that
the genuine opposition to the League in this country is in reality
opposition to the commitments indicated in these reservations.

Although the League is still in its formative period, it is, I believe,
firmly established. Fifty-five out of 64 eligible nations belong to it.
Turkey and Germany will probably join within twelve months. Then only
Russia, the United States, Mexico and four small nations of those now
eligible will remain outside.

Important decisions are being made by the League. America should have
a part in making all such decisions, because they inevitably affect our
future. The world is now a community, and the welfare of each nation is
closely wrapped up with the decisions of the rest.

The League fortunately was not made a political issue of the recent
presidential campaign. Secretary Hughes for one took pains to say that
he regarded our foreign relations as not an issue. Party politics
should stop at the 3-mile limit. Secretary Hughes was also careful to
say with reference to the League that it was against the “commitments”
of the Covenant that he believed America had declared herself. I
believe that we should join the League of Nations on the conditions
stated and that we should do so during the present Administration. It
is surely becoming increasingly difficult for us to stay outside.


                          THE OUTLAWRY OF WAR

With court and town meeting established, I believe that the effective
outlawry of war is possible. War cannot be outlawed if this is proposed
as a device to preserve the present division of territory in Europe.
War cannot be outlawed for the protection of injustice or oppression
anywhere. Such political chicanery in the outlawry of war would in the
end meet with a fearful punishment.

The outlawry of war can succeed permanently, I think, only when
accompanied by a general willingness on the part of nations to be
just and by such an appreciation of others’ problems as will lead to
a friendly spirit of “give and take.” Such jealous nationalism as
has historically ruled our Senate is incompatible with it. “Vital
interests” and “the national honor” cannot be made exceptions for
private treatment, neither can “domestic” questions that are not
exclusively domestic, as the American delegation justly urged at the
recent opium convention.

The honest outlawry of war demands a higher development of the will
to peace and justice than has been observed among great nations in
the past. This is why it is the third rather than the first step to
be taken. Yet, until aggressive war has been branded as a crime, and
until the aggressor has been defined, the prevention of war will be
haphazard, and the growth of an effective world opinion against war
will be slow and uncertain.

The Geneva Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International
Disputes has been ratified by 16 nations including France. It deserves
study side by side with the Borah Resolution. Personally I believe
that “sanctions” which are to become effective automatically are
impracticable. I cannot imagine England seizing our property or
blockading us because our Senate refused to accept a League decision.

Wise men make no threats, knowing that they may not want to carry them
out and that perhaps to do so would be injustice and folly. Events have
justified the founders of our Republic in giving the Supreme Court no
force but public opinion to support its decisions as between states.
The system has limped at times, but it has always worked better than
attempted coercion would have done.


                   DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

International Law is in its infancy. It is mainly concerned with
procedure in war――a procedure no longer observed. It needs to be
extended and codified. I believe that this can best be done by a
commission of the League of Nations, which shall report from time to
time to the League of Nations Assembly. Late news from Rome indicates
that this is being provided for by the Council of the League.


                 CONFERENCE ON REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS

Both the League of Nations and President Coolidge have given expression
to the universal desire to reduce the burden of armaments in the
interest of economy and world peace. Armaments, speaking generally,
express a nation’s fears or the ambitions of its controlling classes.
Reduction of armaments will follow increasing world security and
still more extensively an increasing sense of security, which is a
very different matter. We are used to our armaments as we are used to
locking our doors at night. Neither actually gives security, although
we have been brought up to think both do. I have shown above that
armaments cannot give security from another world war, and that is the
only security that would be worth having.

Increase of armaments increases the general sense of insecurity.
Therefore, while waiting for another conference on the limitation of
armaments, we should not hold “defense days” nor competitively multiply
our cruisers, submarines, and other arms. President Coolidge is right
in “standing pat” on the vast sum of $550,000,000 as enough for war
preparation for the year 1926.

On the other hand, drastic reduction of armaments, except by
international agreement, is psychologically impracticable for us in the
present state of things. Hence another conference for the reduction and
limitation of land, sea, and air forces is necessary. To be fruitful,
it must include all nations. France cannot disarm unless Russia does.
Although it might seem that Washington would in some respects offer
the best atmosphere for such a conference, it must be remembered that
France has not yet ratified some of the important treaties adopted here
three years ago (1921). Delegates achieve nothing permanent if they go
beyond public sentiment at home. Consequently, as the League of Nations
is considering such a conference, I believe it might be well for it to
meet in Geneva. There would, perhaps, be greater probability that its
decisions would be accepted by the powers represented.


                       NO SALVATION IN MACHINERY

Machinery will not save the world. It is dead by itself. When
legislation gets too far ahead of public opinion, we have trouble in
enforcing our laws. Similarly the weakness of the League of Nations
has been mainly the weakness of the public opinion behind the League.
It will be remembered that the League was set up at a time when to a
considerable degree the world was skeptical of its practicability.

Press opinion in France scoffed at “Wilson’s ideology.” Lloyd George
exacted payment for his support. Our Senate rejected the League through
the efforts of a determined minority of doubters. Puny and unwelcome,
it lived by the faith of a few men until Italy last year, by defying
it, proved to the small nations its vital worth.

Now the terrors of the future have made the League the cornerstone of
the foreign policy of several states including France. It is flouted
still by the nationalists of every country when it stands in their way;
but even they do not dare try to destroy it. Without it no one sees any
hope ahead――nothing but universal warfare and wholesale extermination
until the end.


                 GROWING PUBLIC OPINION BEHIND LEAGUE

The change, be it noted, has been in public opinion. The small nations
saw in the attack on Greece the fact that their existence rests with
the League. French liberals perceived that they could reduce the burden
of armaments and achieve security only through the League. Statesmen,
leaders of thought everywhere, discovered that they were leaning upon
it more and more heavily as they looked ahead into the dark.

Winston Churchill, sincere imperialist though he be, writes: “It
is through the League of Nations alone that the path to safety and
salvation can be found. To sustain and aid the League of Nations
is the duty of all.” His government failed to live up to his wise
admonition in the recent crisis in Egypt, but it is something that he
should have recognized the obligation in principle. The League will
progressively destroy imperialism, one may hope.


                        BUILDING WORLD OPINION

We have only to read our morning paper thoughtfully to become aware
that the sound world opinion required to make the new machinery of
justice effective will not come of itself. It must be built by the
conscious and purposeful cooperation of governments and of all good
citizens.


                           ENGLAND AND EGYPT

England’s conservative government has just thrown away a precious
opportunity of this kind in refusing to submit to the League her
quarrel with Egypt and resorting to the coercive policy of the old
diplomacy, seizing the opportunity of a murder to advance the interests
of the empire.

The thirst for liberty that is stirring North Africa, the Near East,
and India cannot be quenched by repression. “Only a few agitators
are to blame for this unrest,” say the old-school imperialists. That
is what they said with some justice of the American Colonies once.
England would have been wiser to strengthen the League now against the
difficult days that everyone can see ahead of the British Empire.

It is by such voluntary submission of important matters to the Court
and League by governments strong enough to evade doing so that in the
last instance our world opinion must be built.


                     A TASK FOR ALL GOOD CITIZENS

Despite two glaring instances of Congressional insularity that are
at present in our minds――passage of the Japanese Exclusion Act and
two years’ delay in taking up the World Court――in the long run and
haltingly a democratic government obeys the people’s will. If we want
international law and order in place of war and chaos, we must say so
and keep saying so.

How is public opinion created? How was Mr. Coolidge elected president?
Talk, talk, talk and talk, talk, talk. Not, as it happens in this
instance, by Mr. Coolidge but by those who wanted him for president.
It was talk in the press and talk from the soapbox and talk in the
circles in which one moved, talk with convincing earnestness, talk with
arguments that reached down to the motives on which men really act.

Similarly in furthering the only policy that can save our country
and our civilization from being ruined by another war, we must talk,
talk, talk and talk, talk, talk――in the press, from the pulpit, in
the schoolroom, in books, from the billboards, in public meetings,
and through the programs of club and lodge and grange. We must work
as men in haste, remembering that we are sure only of this “period of
exhaustion,” in which to build machinery and world opinion, both strong
enough to bear incredible strain. It will be only as by the skin of our
teeth that the world will get by some of the danger corners that we all
can see must be passed.

Why America particularly? Because what is whispered in America today
echoes and re-echoes around the world.


                       MUST BEGIN IN THE SCHOOLS

All movements that succeed start in the schools. It is in the schools
of the world that the peace movement will succeed or fail. If the old
style militant nationalism continues to be taught there――the arrogance,
the hate of past days――there is no hope.

Hate is being taught now in the schools of every land and sometimes it
is called patriotism. For myself, I learned to love France and to hate
England as a schoolboy, through the lessons of the Revolutionary War.
These lessons could have been taught without breeding hate, I think;
but they weren’t.

South and North have not yet agreed on a history of the United States.
Both are handing down from generation to generation the animosities
of the Civil War by using different textbooks with utterly different
viewpoints. They call this loyalty. It is loyalty to the past but not
to the future. The future demands that the glorification of war with
its hatreds shall cease.


                     CULTIVATE AND TEACH GOODWILL

Secretary Hughes, in the course of his famous speech, May 15, which,
whether intentionally or not, cut the ground from under “Defense Day,”
said, “There is only one avenue to peace. That is in the settlement of
actual differences and the removal of ill will. All else is talk, form,
and pretense.”

After speaking of the settlement of differences through “institutions
of justice,” he went on as follows: “Between friends any difficulty can
be settled. There is no substitute for goodwill. There is no mechanism
of intercourse that can dispense with it.”

I am convinced of the correctness of Secretary Hughes’ conclusion. We
must be better men if our race is to survive. A civilization shot
through with hate cannot continue long after it is fully equipped with
poison gas and airplanes. Even for self-preservation we must cultivate
goodwill――goodwill between classes and religions and nations and races.

We must subdue in our own hearts the swiftly rising prejudice by
nursing, often by an effort of the will, the kindly thought that
follows tardily. We must seek to know and understand those we hate;
for then, as Charles Lamb discovered, we cannot hate them. Cooperation
must replace isolation; progressive world organization must replace
international anarchy; and, above all, the spirit of the team must
replace “grandstand playing” and national egotism.


                             IT WILL WORK

The success of our national experiments in “audacious
friendliness”――returning the Boxer indemnity to China, feeding the
children of Europe, aiding stricken Japan; the success of Ramsay
MacDonald’s pursuit of the same policy, which changed the atmosphere of
Europe markedly for the better in six months; the success of Herriot
in his policy of “rapprochement” with Germany, following Poincare’s
ghastly failure with coercion――all this goes to show that international
relations are but human problems and that the spirit that “removes”
our personal “mountains” will be similarly triumphant between nations.
Our realists are going to discover some day to their astonishment that
the “practical” policy they are seeking, the policy that will bring
security with justice and peace, is this very policy of audacious
friendliness functioning through appropriate machinery. We can climb up
to peace in no other way.


                  Model Printing Company, Washington

                            [Illustration]



 Transcriber’s Note:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).



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