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NOTES AND COMMENTSSource: American Advocate of Peace (1892-1893), Vol. 55, No. 4 (APRIL, 1893), pp. 84-87Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27899881 .

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84 AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

most important ever held. All peace societies and all institutions and bodies interested in the cause of peace are invited to send delegations. The Congress Auxiliary has sent out invitations through the State Department to other governments to be represented in all the Congresses to be held during the summer, and though the United States Congress failed to authorize the President to ex tend a special invitation to other nations to send delegates to the Peace Congress in August, it is to be hoped that a considerable number of governments will send accredited

representatives under the general invitation.

It is not probable now that the delegates of the Peace Societies will try to hold a separate Congress of their own, with a separate program, but will throw their whole

strength into the general Congress. It is the judgment of the Committee on Organization representing the Peace Societies of America that this is the best course to pursue, and so far as heard from the peace workers of Europe are of the same opinion.

However, there are certain questions of special interest to the Peace Societies, left over from last year, and others with regard to future work, which will require their dele

gates to hold special meetings during the week of the

Congress. For this ample opportunity will be given. The program of subjects for discussion in the Congress

is nearly completed and will be ready for distribution in a short time. This list of topics will remain open for revi sion for a few weeks, while persons to present papers and to deliver addresses are being chosen.

It is sincerely to be hoped that the friends of Peace

everywhere will try to arrange to make their visit to the

Exposition so as to be present during the week beginning August 14th. No other one of the many Congresses to be held during the summer is more important, in the issues which it represents, than this one whose purpose is to pro mote the brotherhood of humanity, the unity of the nations, the abandonment of war.

AN APPEAL FOR FUNDS. By invitation of the Peace Societies of the United

States and of Hon. Charles C. Bonney, President of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition, the Universal Peace Congress will hold its fifth annual

meeting in Chicago, commencing the week beginning August 14, 1893, in connection with the International Arbitration and Peace Congress to be held under the

auspices of the World's Congress Auxiliary. While the halls and committee rooms for the several

sessions will be furnished free of expense by the World's Congress Auxiliary, the Committee on Organization will

necessarily be called upon for the expenditure of consid erable sums of money in the printing of circulars, of propositions and papers, of programs for the Congress, of cards of membership, etc. Badges will have to be

provided ; materials for the Peace Exhibit will have to be

gathered and arranged. Distinguished foreign guests who have been invited will have to be entertained, etc., etc. All this, as may readily be seen, will take money, and the Committee will be entirely dependent on the

generosity of the friends of peace in supplying what shall be necessary. This will be a great opportunity for

furthering the cause of peace, and we make this appeal confidently expecting that all the friends of peace through out the country will respond gladly and generously.

The Committee have been fortunate in securing the services of Jonathan W. Plummer, a well-known business

man of Chicago, as treasurer of the funds raised for this

purpose. He will receive and hold the funds subject to the order of the Committee. Donations may be sent

directly to him at 200 Randolph street, Chicago, or, where more convenient, forwarded through the proper officers of the different peace societies.

(Signed) BENJAMIN F. TRUEBLOOD, Chairman, Boston, Mass. ALFRED H. LOVE, Philadelphia, Pa. HANNAH J. BAILEY, Winthrop Centre, Me.

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD, Washington, D. C.

DR. R. H. THOMAS, Baltimore, Md.

Executive Committee of the Peace Societies.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

We publish in full in this number the Preliminary Address of the Committee on Arbitration and Peace of the World's Congress Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposi tion, which was received too late for insertion in our

March issue. The address is meant to give in a general way the reasons for holding such a Congress. The list of

topics appended is not intended to be the program of the Congress, but only to suggest such subjects as are

thought suitable for discussion, to guide the Committee and the Advisory Council in making up the program.

The following interesting account of the unarmed Indian police at the Qua Paw Agency is given by Charles

W. Goddard in The Christian Worker (Chicago) for March 16th:

" Some months ago the agent for the Qua Paw Indian agency was compelled to discharge several of his police for drunkenness, and asked Hiram Blackfish to fill one of the vacancies. But Hiram said,6 There are three things that most of the police do, that I can't ; one is to drink whiskey ; if you expect me to do that I can't serve ; then if you expect me to go to dances to keep order, I can't do that ; and if you want me to serve on the Sabbath, I can't do that ; I must have my Sabbath to go to church, and to serve the Lord with his people.' With the agent's assur ance of exemption from these things he was appointed. But when he presented himself for duty, the agent said, 'Where is your revolver?' He replied, 'I haven't any.'

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AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE. $5

Well then, I'll get you one, '

answered the agent. 6 What for, ' Hiram said,

4 don't you believe I can whip the meanest man in the Agency with kind words?

' This Shawnee bearing eighteen scars from wounds, some near

fatal, with Samuel Clinton, a Modoc, who four years ago was the only sober man in the company when the agent and all the rest of the police lay too drunk for business, now ride their rounds and discharge their dutie3 success

fully unarmed.

"Samuel Clinton says that formerly when he cam.3 near where there was to bs business, he would be sure that his pistols were well loaded and thought, now if there is to be any shooting, I'll be sure of the first shot.

"But now he trusts in Jesus and feels safe. Such testimonies need no comment.

"

At the regular meeting of the Directors of the Ameri can Peace Society on the 13th of March, attention was called by the President, Hon. Robert Treat Paine, to the statement of Mr. Simon Hanauer, given in full in aa

editorial on page 82, in reference to the feelings in America toward England, a statement which has been

quoted in several papers. After discussion of the sub

ject, a resolution was passed " that in the judgment of the

Directors of the American Peace Society, the statement made by Mr. Hanauer is a gross exaggeration of the state of feeling existing among citizens of the United States toward England."

Soon after his inauguration on the 4th of March, Presi dent Cleveland asked the Senate to return him the Hawaiian Annexation Treaty which had been sent in by ex-Presi dent Harrison. This was promptly done. This recalling of the treaty by Mr. Cleveland is not understood to sig nify opposition to annexation, but only the wish to have time to consider the subject carefully before committing himself. As the treaty is to be made, if at all, by him and the Senate, this action of his is not only justifiable, but it is the only rational course he could have pursued. Meantime he has sent Mr. Blount of Georgia as a special Commissioner to the Sandwich Islands to make thorough investigation of the condition of things there. No graver question, in connection with our international

relations, has confronted the United States for many

years, and at the same time no question more thoroughly two-sided. Joseph Cook, in a recent Monday lecture,

frankly confessed that he was as yet unable to say how

he should vote on the subject. Many of the best men in

the land have had the same perplexity of mind It is

hardly fair for great papers like The Independent which

favor annexation to charge those who oppose it with being enemies to progress and ready, as at all times, to keep civilization from advancing. Does the extension of our

ideas of liberty and equality throughout the world neces

sarily mean the swallowing up of the autonomy of island

nations and the bringing of them under our sway ? It is

precisely in the interest of the spread and exemplification of these ideas that many are doubtful about the lawfulness or the utility of annexation. A careful examination of

the quotations made by Mr. Thurston in his long article in the March North American Review will show that a

large number of the prominent statesmsn there referred to favored the independence of the islands rather than an nexation.

It is curious also to note that the argument most per

sistently put forward by the friends of annexation is our need of the islands as a naval station, as if it were a for

gone conclusion that we should be compelled at an early day to fight England on the sea. Their next argument is the purely selfish one that the possession of these islands would be of great commercial value to us. We must have them because it will pay. The idea of annexing them because that will enable us to extend our civil and religious institutions is wholly secondary in the argument as usually put forward. We are glad that considerations of justice and liberty and equality are to be fully weighed before the case is decided, and that the people of the country are in

sympathy with the considerate course which the authori ties at Washington are pursuing.

In the German Reichstag at the last of February Dr.

Barth, a member of the Independent party, and one of the foremost men in the Interparliamentary Peace Conference

at Berne last August, asked the government whether they would join Great Britain and the United States in an effort to establish arbitration as the method of settling inter national disputes. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr.

Bieberstein, replied that the imperial government was

entirely willing to do so in " special cases." Mr. Bebel, a Socialist Democrat, suggested that sometime in the future the question of the disposition of Alsace-Lorraine should be submitted to arbitration. Chancellor von

Caprivi replied that, in case the question of these two

provinces were submitted to arbitration and a decision adverse to Germany given, Germans would prefer to shed the last drop of their blood rather than give them up. This statement was received with patriotic cheers.

This does not look very hopeful for the reign of reason and good sense in that country, but after all it is a most

encouraging sign that such a question as that pro

pounded by Dr. Barth can be asked by prominent men in broad daylight in the German Parliament. The very vehemence of the Chancellor is an evidence that he feels the force of the new movement. The peace cause does not advance by strides as long as those of Homer's gods, but it goes forward surely and unceasingly, in Germany as well as other countries, and it is not at all improbable that men now living will see the question of Alsace Lorraine discussed in a court of arbitration, with the free consent of both France and Germany, as peacefully as

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86 AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

the question of the Alaska seals is about to be by the

Behring Sea Commission. Can any one give a reason

why it should not be ?

The German Army bill, whose fate has been watched with so mach interest, has been defeated ia committee, a sure indication that it cannot pass in the Reichstag. The opposition to the increase and reorganization of the

army has resisted all appeals from the Emperor and

Chancellor Caprivi. The latter refuses to make any concessions in the bill and threatens, if it is not passed, to dissolve the Reichstag and appeal to the country. A

crisis, therefore, is imminent. The peace party in the

German Parliament, represented by Dr. Barth and

supported by the Socialist Democrats, is already making itself felt.

The Lombard Union Peace Society held its annual

meeting at Milan, Italy, on the 5th of March. The Presi

dent, Mr. E. T. Moneta, gave an account of the Society's

work for the year, in the course of which he referred to

the deplorable indifference and even hostility of the

general press, which had refused to publish the notice and

conditions of the Siecardi prize offered by the Society. Mr. Mazzoleni moved a resolution of greeting to America

on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the country by Columbus. This greeting will be sent

to the Peace Congress at Chicago in August. The Secre

tary offered a resolution expressing the desirability of the

education of children being so conducted as to suppress their brutal instincts, instead of intensifying them. The

Lombard Union is doing most excellent service in the

dissemination of peace principles in Italy.

The Belgian Peace Society held its annual meeting on the

12th of February. Mr. Auguste Couvreur was elected

President of the Society in place' of Emile de Laveleye who died last year. The deceased President was one

of the most distinguished friends of peace in Europe. The new President, Mr. Couvreur, was one of the first

on the Continent of Europe to respond to the appeal of

Henry Richard, many years ago and secured the passage in the Belgian Parliament of a unanimous vote in favor

of international arbitration. The annual report of the

general secretary of the Belgian Society shows a year of good work done in the peace propaganda. The

Society now has a membership of four hundred and

thirty-eight in different parts of Belgium. It publishes a most excellent little paper entitled Annals of Peace

(Annales de La Paix), which is just entering on its

second year and is published bi-monthly.

The Behring Sea Arbitrators met in the office of the

French foreign ministry, Paris, March 23d. All the

members of the Court of Arbitration were present. A

speech was made welcoming the delegates, agents and counsel. Credentials were presented, rules for regulating the daily meetings were adopted and the court adjourned until April 4th. Meantime the printed arguments of the United States and Great Britain are to be examined.

Through the earnest entreaty of President Cleveland and Secretary of State Gresham, Hon. Josiah Quincy has

accepted the office of Assistant Secretary of State under the present administration. This appointment removes from Massachusetts, for the time, one of her most useful citizens. Mr. Quincy is one of the honorary counsel of the American Peace Society, and his address on THE COMING PEACE is one of the best peace publications of recent times.

Artillery experts in Germany have been testing a new

explosive invented by Dr. Weiss of the Gera dynamite factory, to take the place of gunpowder in the German

army. It is a brown, fatty substance, which retains the

consistency of frozen oil up to a temperature of one hun

dred and twelve degrees Fahrenheit. The explosion of the new substance is not caused by a shock or spark, but

by contact with another chemical compound, and is com

paratively noiseless and almost unaccompanied by smoke.

The new explosive is not suitable for use in the old rifles, but, if future tests prove as satisfactory as previous ones, it will be generally introduced into the artillery service. Dr. Weiss has also invented anew rifle with many advan

tages over the old one.

We wonder if it ever occurs to such inventors that they are monstrously prostituting their talents to the wickedest of purposes in inventing these means of destruction. Such instruments of death are made only to destroy human life

with.

The War Office at Vienna is planning to increase the Austrian army. Twenty-eight new batteries are to be added to the field artillery and the infantry is to be con

siderably increased. The initial cost of the changes is estimated at twenty million florins.

Secretary Carlisle, on being asked about the enforce ment of the Chinese Exclusion Act, says that the pro visions of the Act will be carried out. The Chinese

companies have raised large sums of money to test the

constitutionality of the Act and are being aided by many Americans. We devoutly hope, and have reason to

believe, that we shall be delivered in the Courts from the disgrace into which an unrighteous and cowardly legislation has brought us. After the open and oft

repeated condemnation of the Geary measure by the

religious bodies representing the Christian sentiment of our land, by many great newspapers and religious

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AMERICAN ADVOCATE OF PEACE. 87

weeklies, and by many of the foremost citizens of the

country, it is puzzling in the extreme that the late

Congress should have blinded its eyes and hardened its heart to the claims of justice and national honor in

respect to the Chinese.

If any of our subscribers have copies of the ADVOCATE for October last which they do not care to keep, we shall be greatly obliged if they will send them at once to this office. Our supply of that issue is exhausted, and we have a few calls for it which we should be very glad to meet.

The Secretary of the American Peace Society has just spent a week in work in Maine, giving addresses at Win

throp Centre, Winthrop, Kent's Hill Seminary, Oak Grove

Seminary, Bates College (Lewiston) and Portland. Good

appreciative audiences were present at all these places, and the Secretary believes that the sentiment in favor of

peaceful and sensible methods of settling difficulties is

slowly and surely gaining ground. This course of addresses was arranged by the efficient and indefatigable superintendent of the Peace Department of the W. C. T.

IL, Mrs. Hannah J. Bailey.

The Universal Peace Union, of Philadelphia, has lost one of its oldest and most esteemed vice-Presidents, by the death of Irwin M. Wallace, of Erie, Pa.

Ex-Secretary of State Bayard has been appointed Minister to England. He is an able, experienced and conscientious man and will prove a worthy successor, in this most important of our foreign missions, to such men as Adams, Lowell, Phelps and Lincoln.

The Social Economist for March contains a well written article by Mr. Johannes H. Wisby entitled "A War

against War." He says: "It has taken us nearly six

thousand years to learn the practical significance of Cain's

brother-murder, and to understand that war is but a

blazoned tool with which we slay our brother." "How, from a purely religious point of view, can war be con

sidered necessary, if the laws of State and government are modelled upon the law of God, the gospel of peace? Are we true Christians if we hesitate in our belief as to the practical value of Christ's teachings ? Never with a

icord or an allusion does Christ recommend war (italics ours). His own placid, divinely-balanced temperament is an historical as well as a religious protest against war,

nay, against the hatred that begets war, and his words, when he speaks on the subject, accord with his example." "The civilization of the present needs a re-established

Christianity and rehabilitated Christians to reinstate the

gospel as originally preached." "Are we truly imbued

with the spirit of hnmanity if we maintain that evil must be perpetuated to insure the progress of the race?" it To-day the soldier is simply a mechanical butchering

machine, propelled by the levers of discipline, regulated by the valve of strategy. Politicians open the valve and lean back in their chairs to estimate the damages conse

quent upon the collision of hundreds of thousands of human beings. That cannot be true patriotism which will lead men to murder and incendiarism."

The Concord for March says that Hon. W. Randal Cremer decided not to make his motion in the House of Commons on March 7th, in favor of a permanent treaty of arbitration between Great Britain and the United States, because at that date sufficient time could not be had for a

proper presentation and discussion of the subject. Gov ernment business had so encroached upon the time to be

given to the motion as to make it unwise to bring it for ward. Signatures to the number of more than a million and a half have been obtained in various parts of England in favor of such a treaty. The petition has been eminently successful at Oxford and Cambridge, fourteen hundred residents of the latter place having signed it, including the

Mayor, sixteen magistrates, one hundred and eighty mem

bers of the University including fourteen masters of

Colleges. At Oxford a large number of members of the

University signed. Mr. Cremer will bring forward his motion when sufficient consideration can be given to the

subject. Our readers know that the United States has invited the formation of such treaties, and no country will be more welcomed into a league of peace with us than the mother country.

CORRESPONDENCE.

There has been so much misunderstanding about the outcome of the arbitration treaty recommended by the Pan-American Congress in 1890, that the following let ter recently received from William F. Wharton, late

Acting Secretary of State, will be of interest to our read ers. The United States, as we understand it, still stands

ready to ratify the treaty whenever the other nations whose representatives originally signed the treaty at the Conference are ready to do so.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 1893. BENJAMIN F. TRUEBLOOD, ESQ.,

Sir - I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st inst., and to say that the Arbitration Treaty recommended by the late International American Conference was never ratified by the Senate ; in fact, was not submitted to it.

There were eleven governments that signed the original treaty which was dated April 28, 1890. They were

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