World Affairs Institute

Savage, Senseless WarSource: The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920), Vol. 73, No. 5 (MAY, 1911), pp. 97-98Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20666179 .

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VOL. LXXIII. BOSTON, MAY, 19M. No. 5

THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY, Publishers,

31 beacon street, boston, mass.

Cable Address, " Peace, Boston."

MONTHLY, ONE DOLLAR PER YEAR. TEN CENTS PER COPY Entered at the Boston Poet Office as Second Class Matter.

Make all checks payable to the American Peace Society. To personal checks on Western and Southern banks add ten cents for collecting.

CONTENTS. page Editorials. 97-98

Savage, Senseless "War ? Japan and International Coaling Stations.

Editorial Notes . 98-99 New England Department ? First Universal Races Congress

? Peace Exhibit at the Rome Peace Congress

? Education or Battleships ??Southern California Peace Society.

The Baltimore Peace Congress. ICO What the Peace Organizations Are Doing. 100 Brevities . 100 General Articles:

Eighty-third Annual Report of the American Peace Society. Benjamin F. Trueblood. 101-105

The Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty ? Opinions, Resolu

tions, etc. 105-107 The Practical View of the Peace Question. Marcus M. Marks. 107-108 Canada and World Peace. W. L. Smith. . 108-111 Laying the Foundation Deep. Bradley Oilman. Ill A World Court. Charles Richardson . 111-112 The Visit of Baron d'Estournelles de Constant to Salt Lake City

and the Peace Movement in Utah. Prof. Torild Arnoldson.. 112 Friendship between Great Britain and the United States. 112-113 The Oriental Peace Society of Japan. 113 The American Peace Society of Japan. 113-114 The Growth of a Great Movement. Howard Evans. 114-115 Excessive British Naval Estimates. W. Moore Ede. 115 A Woman's Cry. Poem. Mary Wimboro Ploughe. 115-116

New Books. 116-117

International Arbitration and Peace Lecture Bureau. 117

Removal Notice. The National Headquarters of the American Peace

Society have been removed from 31 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass., to the National Capital. All letters,

papers, etc., should hereafter be addressed to the

American Peace Society, 313-314 Colorado Building,

Washington, D. C.

Savage, Senseless War. The conflict in Northern Mexico between the

insurrectos and the government troops, which now

happily seems to be coming to an end, can hardly be called war in the accepted sense of the word. But whatever term may be used to describe it, it has

exhibited, in its small way, all, or nearly all, the characteristics of war. The appeal has been to brute

violence, to the arbitrament of powder and bullets, to the savage spitting of machine guns, to cunning and deception. Men have stood up in opposing bands and shot each other to death or blown each

other to pieces from behind rocks and bushes, re

gardless of the ties of race, of family, of humanity. Property has been destroyed, widows and orphans have been made, non-combatants have been driven from their homes, while the bloody struggle has

raged.

War, big or little, can never be changed in its essential nature. It is impossible to humanize it, for it is always inhuman. Some of its attendant horrors and cruelties have been suppressed, and others will be. But in itself it remains, and always will remain, the same savage, senseless thing. It decides nothing as to the justice of the thing about which men fight. It only determines which of the two combatants is, all things considered, the strongest, the most cunning, the most crushingly brutal. If the insurgents in

Mexico win, it will not prove that the Diaz govern ment has been undemocratic and tyrannical ; if Diaz

wins, it will determine nothing as to the rightness and justice of the course he has followed.

There is in this direction still an enormous work of public enlightenment and public moralization to

accomplish. Vast numbers of people still, in spite of the immense progress of humanization which has been made, as soon as their passions are stirred by injustice and wrong, or their "patriotism" offended, instinctively turn for redress to the fist, the club, the rifle and gatling gun. This is true in all countries

? Japan, Germany, Great Britain, the United States,

as well as in Mexico. The governments them selves are affected in this way perhaps even more

readily than the people. They do not seem to be

capable, often, of throwing off the old habit. It is so much easier to have recourse to the army and the

navy, to fortifications and big guns, than to the saner and more certain ways of conciliation and negotiation.

The campaign of public education in right princi ples and moral self-control must therefore go on

perhaps for a long time after unlimited treaties of arbitration are concluded between the leading coun tries. Men must be persuaded that resort to violence in our day is unworthy of them; that there is no

real justice, no redress for wrong, in brute force; that it only adds cruelty to cruelty, injustice to in

justice. The ape and tiger must be worked out of

men, the savage and barbarous eliminated. This is more fundamental work than the negotiation of arbi tration treaties and the holding of Hague Confer

ences, imperative as these are. The latter will take care of themselves, certainly and swiftly, if we only

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98 THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. May,

pluck up the roots of war in the beliefs, the instincts and habits of the people.

Japan and International Coaling Stations.

The persistence with which certain of our eminently "patriotic" citizens seek to demonstrate that Japan is

studiously, craftily and incessantly making ready for an

early war upon the United States is most disheartening. The extent of this perverse activity sometimes makes one

wonder, in spite of the most undying optimism, whether the country is not, after all, already well along on the road of both intellectual and moral degeneracy. Of course it isn't, for the masses of the people are neither

jingoes nor imbeciles. The latest attempt of these mongers of war with our

very best friend among the nations has shown a depth of

perversity beyond, if possible, anything which they have

previously manifested. In their attempt to find a dra matic explanation of the big army man uvres in Southern Texas they fell immediately upon Japan, for whom they are continually lying in wait, and set to pounding her, as the man who fell among thieves on the road to Jericho

got pounded. President Taft, they averred, had discov ered that the Japanese government was negotiating a secret treaty with Mexico with the view of using the latter country as a basis of operations against us when the fateful hour should come. Then they invented the

theory of a Japanese intrigue to secure a coaling station on Magdalena Bay, with the same sinister motives.

President Taft has been driven by these brainless and heartless representations to put a quietus on the gratuitous charges of base machination against us by the Mikado's

government, by giving a frank denial of all these charges and an explanation of the mobilization of the army near the Mexican border. But will his frank statement silence these malignere of Japan ? Probably not for long. The first favorable moment they will be at it again. But our

Japanese friends across the Pacific, who have been so

deeply wounded by what has been said here in dispar agement of them, have by this time, we think, learned the real animus of these utterances, and are not likely to be fooled by them any more. Nothing could be more

fitting than the manner in which President Taft, repre senting the whole nation, has, on occasion of these

repeated vaporings, hastened to assure Tokyo that the

people of our country, small sections excepted, believe none of these misrepresentations, but sincerely trust the Mikado and his people.

The mention of coaling stations leads one to wonder what possible harm could come to us if Japan had such a station on Magdalena Bay. Our government seeks to have coaling stations wherever they can be had; why

should not Japan do the same ? Why should we not do unto others as we would have them do unto us? Why should coaling stations continue to be classed among instruments and menaces of war? Have they not, in

view of the world-wide development of commerce and

travel, a beneficent service to render in the further unifi cation of the nations and peoples of the earth ? It seems to us so. We think, therefore, and venture to suggest, that the time has come for the establishment of great neutralized international coaling stations at all the

important crossroads of commerce and travel throughout the world. It ought to be easy for the maritime powers to agree upon a convention for the establishment of such international stations, in a way to put an end forever to the talk of coaling stations as instruments and menaces of war, and to make them links of friendship, trust, co

operation and peace. Here is a chance for President Taft to do another service to the cause of international concord similar to that done by him a year and more ago, when he declared in favor of the arbitration of all inter national controversies without exception.

Editorial Notes. On account of the removal of the

D^partmenf National Headquarters of the American Peace Society to Washington, D. C, a

Department for New England has been created, which will for the present maintain an office at 31 Beacon

Street, Boston, in charge of Dr. James L. Tryon, repre sentative. A Massachusetts Branch of the American Peace Society has also been organized, the details of which will be given in the next issue of the Advocate of Peace. This Branch Society will also have its office at 31 Beacon Street, Boston, in connection with the New

England Department.

The first Universal Races Congress,which First universal \8 to be held at the University of London Races Congress,

^ ^ ^?8 gummeri un(jer the presi

dency of the Right Honorable Lord W eardale, promises to be one of the most striking and imposing demonstra tions of an international character ever held. "The

object of the Congress will be to discuss, in the light of modern knowledge and the modern conscience, the gen eral relations subsisting between the peoples of the West and those of the East, between so-called white and so called colored peoples, with a view to encouraging between them a fuller understanding, the most friendly feelings and a heartier cooperation.'' On the program are many distinguished men from different countries ? Great Brit

ain, the United States, Germany, France, Italy, India, China, Japan, etc. Nearly all phases of the race problem will be discussed, in most cases by those who may be

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