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The Annual Meeting and Reorganization of the American Peace SocietySource: The Advocate of Peace (1894-1920), Vol. 74, No. 6 (JUNE, 1912), pp. 129-130Published by: World Affairs InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20666463 .

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it if VOL. LXXIV. WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE, 1912. No. 6

THE AMERICAN PEACE SOCIETY,

PUBLISHERS,

313-314 COLORADO BLDG., WASHINGTON, D. C

CABLE ADDRESS?"AMPAX, WASHINGTON.'*

MONTHLY, ONE DOLLAR PER YEAR. TEN CENTS PER COPY.

Entered as Second-Class Matter June 1, 1911, at the Post Office at Washington, D. C, under the Act of July 16, 1894.

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. 129-130

Annual Meeting and Reorganization of the American Peace Society?The Lake Mohonk Arbitration Conference and the Platform.

Editorial Notes. 131-133 The McCall Resolution?A New Department?Peace Day on

the Pacific Coast?The Vermont Peace Society?The Eigh teenth of May?The Angell Memorial.

What the Peace Organizations are Doing. 133

Brief Peace Notes. 134

General Articles :

Eighty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Peace Society 135

Meetings of the Directors. 136 Revised Constitution of the American Peace Society. 137

Eighty-fourth Annual Report of the Directors of the Ameri can Peace Society. 138

The International Mind. Nicholas Murray Butler. 143 A Flight of Angels?Poem. Edna Dean Proctor. 146

Proposed Program for the Third Hague Conference. William I. Hull. 147

War Not Inevitable. Jackson H. Ralston. 148

Chicago Omce and Field Secretaryship. Charles E. Beals. . . 149 The New York Peace Society. William H. Short. 150

New Books . 151

Peace Lecture Bureau. 153 Branches of the American Peace Society. 153

The Annual Meeting and Reorganiza tion of the American Peace Society. The eighty-fourth annual meeting of the Ameri

can Peace Society, held in the Hotel Raleigh, Wash

ington, D. C, on May 10th, was the most important meeting which the Society has held in recent years. A summary of the proceedings is given on another

page, including the text of the revised Constitution and also of the Annual Report of the Board of Direc tors in full, with a condensed statement of the re

ceipts and expenditures for the year, taken from the treasurer's report.

For the first time an effort was made this year to have the branch societies, which now number

twenty-five, represented by official delegates at the annual meeting. This attempt was made with a view of trying to put in operation at once the new federative plan of the Society's reorganization. The result was of course not what it is expected that it

will be in future years, when the representative system comes into full force, but a good beginning was, however, made. Nine of the important branch societies were represented by 15 delegates. The

meeting was full of interest, and the discussions on the various phases of the reorganization were un

usually clear and strong and carried on in a fine

spirit. The members present all showed their deep and genuine interest in the effective promotion of the cause of peace, and it was encouraging to believe that the disposition manifested was representative of the general spirit of the pacifists throughout the country and the world.

The subject which claimed the chief attention of the meeting was the reorganization of the Society and the revision of the Constitution through which it was sought to effect this reorganization. In this revised Constitution an effort was made to embody the bases of a federation of all the peace forces in the nation, with a view to preventing duplication of effort and waste of energy and means. The Consti tution as presented, after slight changes and addi tions, was adopted with practical unanimity and

much enthusiasm.

The new Constitution, which was immediately put into full force, provides that of the board of directors twelve shall be elected by the Society at large, and that in addition to these each branch society having 100 members shall choose one member of the board and an additional director for each additional 500

members. It will be noticed that the Constitution also provides that the board of directors may invite other peace organizations of special character to ap point each a member of the board. Under this pro vision the Carnegie Endowment, the Mohonk Arbi tration Conference, the World Peace Foundation, the Society for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, the American Association for International Conciliation, and the American School Peace League have been invited to choose each one member of the board, and one or two other organizations of similar character will likewise.be invited to do the same. The twelve members at large of the new board were elected at the annual meeting and thirteen directors have been chosen by constitutent branches. It is expected that a few more of this class of directors will be appointed by branches at an early date.

When this scheme is fully carried out, as is now certain to be the case, there will be such a union and co-operation of the peace forces of the country as has not heretofore been possible. A study of the Con stitution will show that this federation is in nowise to interfere with the independence and autonomy of the various constituent societies. These are to be

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130 THE ADVOCATE OF PEACE. June,

independent in their own fields, but the union is intended to enable them to throw the whole weight of their influence, in a large and constructive way, into the strengthening and advancement of the cause, which had already begun to suffer by the lack of unity and coherence among the various forces al

ready working for the peace of the world. It is the purpose of the Directors of the American

Peace Society to complete as quickly as possible the

organization of the national forces working for peace by the creation of branch societies in all the States where none now exist. Since the adoption of this federative plan at the annual meeting new State branches have already been organized in Vermont and Rhode Island, and two or three others are nearly ready to be announced.

Another feature of the new plan of work is to establish departments in certain groups of States

throughout the country as fast as possible, in order that the work in each of these-sections may have the constant benefit of the services of a strong worker

giving himself entirely to that particular field. A new department, as announced on another page has

just been organized for the South Atlantic States, with headquarters at Atlanta, making five such de

partments already in operation. It was strongly felt at the annual meeting that,

in spite of the discouragement naturally following from the wars and disturbances now going on in various parts of the world, there is every reason for the peace forces to be encouraged to continue and further enlarge their operations, as all the great currents of civilization and progress are setting steadily toward the grand consummation for which the American Peace Society and other similarmorgani zations have been steadily working for so many

years. We ask the loyal and hearty co-operation 61 all the pacifists of the country in this new effort to increase the power and efficiency of the peace forces of the nation.

The Lake Mohonk Arbitration Conference.

The Eighteenth Lake Mohonk Conference on Inter

national Arbitration, held May 15 to 17, was on the

whole a worthy successor to those which had gone be

fore. About the usual number of guests, 300 or more, had accepted Mr. Smiley's invitation to enjoy his gener ous hospitality for the days of the conference.

We observed an unusual number of new faces in the

meetings, and the absence of many of those who had

often participated in former conferences was particu

larly noticeable. Only six of those, outside of the

Smiley family, who attended the first conference in

1895 were present this year. The South and West, Canada and South i^merica were more strongly repre sented than usual, and the number of guests from Eu

rope and Asia added an interesting feature and gave

the conference more of an international character than it had ever before had. Among these latter were Dr. A.

Gobat, secretary of the International Peace Bureau at

Berne; Dr. Christian L. Lange, director of the Inter

parliamentary Union Bureau at Brussels; Baron de Neuf ville and wife and daughter, of Frankfort; Dr. Otfried Xippold, of the University of Berne; Abdul

Baha, the distinguished Persian teacher, and a group of Persians with him; Dr. K. Assakawa, a distinguished Japanese scholar, now professor at Yale; Jean de Pu

ligny, a distinguished French engineer; Rustom Rus

tomjee and wife, of India, and a fine group of Cana dians.

The speaking in the conference was on the whole of a high order. A few of the addresses were exception ally strong, and we hope to give our friends the pleasure of reading some of these in the Advocate of Peace

during the summer months. There was, necessarily, a

good deal of repetition of what had been said in pre vious conferences, and some of the remarks were dis

tinctly platitudinous. There was a touch of discouragement in the gather

ing, especially in the earlier part, over the fate in the

Senate of the arbitration treaties which had aroused so much enthusiasm throughout the country. But the

conference soon rallied from this, and did not waste

much time in mourning over the failure of the Senate to rise to a high sense of its responsibility and an ade

quate appreciation of the unusual opportunity which had come to it. Mohonk set its face again resolutely toward

the future, in the belief that the apparent setback given

by the Senate to the principles of universal, unlimited arbitration will soon be overcome by the evident deter

mination of the people of the country to perfect such a

system of settlement of international disputes as will make recurrence of war between this and any other

country practically impossible. On the question of limitation of armaments, the most

urgent political question of the day, the conference did

not, to our regret, take again the positive and une

quivocal stand which it took a year ago, though the

platform adopted proved that the members as a whole were not inclined to recede from their previous attitude.

The reports of the meetings have been widely circu lated in the public press, and we are sure that the in fluence of the conference will be widespread throughout the nation, and in Europe as. well, and will prove a

strong support to the President in carrying through the plans for the further advancement of the peace

movement which he is understood to be preparing for the coming winter. We give below the platform which was adopted on

the last day, which sums up in a concise and admirable

way the sense of the conference:

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