The Proposed International Court to Induce the Recognition of Justice by Concerted Military Action
By M. ELLSWORTH OLSEN
DURING the League to Enforce Peace Congress in Washington, May 26 and 27, Prof. John Bates Clark, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called attention, in his speech, to the fact that a world league to enforce peace is what we may naturally expect as the outcome of the present war.
"Three alternatives," he said, "are within the limits of possibility; namely, a draw, a crushing victory by one side, and a moderate victory by one side, leaving its opponent strong. The last is by far the most probable outcome; and if it occurs, the successful league will become, ipso facto, the league of peace which the nations need, and the only one they can get. . . . A world court can be established by their coöperation. The neutral powers will readily join in maintaining it. International law can, in a like way, be developed and made exact. Economic activities can be resumed on an international scale, and, as the years advance, with fewer hindrances and causes of irritation. Conferences of all the powers can be held with greater frequency, till they become periodic and increasingly influential. In the end, let us hope, a single League of Nations can be established, as nearly as may be akin to the one foreshadowed by the programs of our own organization.
"Out of one of the fighting leagues must evolve the union that will convert Dreadnoughts into cargo carriers, huge guns into engines of industry, and the fighting instinct of men into strenuous rivalry in the activities of peace."
Would Bring Swift Retribution
THE possibility of the members of the proposed league getting into war was discussed by Theodore Marburg, former minister to Belgium. "The only contingency," he pointed out, "which binds the league to make war, is an overt act of war committed by one of the signatories without a previous hearing of the dispute. The certainty that such an act would bring swift retribution at the hands of a league representing practically the civilized world, would cause any nation to pause. It is not claimed that the plan would prevent all wars. Nations bent on aggression might go through the form of a hearing and afterwards proceed to war. But the demand for a hearing, leaving the nation free to make war afterwards, is such a reasonable demand, and the penalty of ignoring it is so heavy, that it is almost inconceivable that any nation, however powerful, would ignore it; and therefore the league, as such, would seldom, if ever, be called upon to make war upon a recalcitrant member. But this result cannot be brought about without great preponderance of military strength on the part of the league. And we must face the fact that the United States, as a signatory, would be called upon to make its proper contribution to this military strength."
Other speakers, as well as Mr. Marburg, were not backward in admitting that the United States needs an adequate army and navy. Even the adoption of the program of the league does not mean disarmament.
Armaments to Maintain Reign of Law
"LET us not deceive ourselves," urged Oscar S. Straus, former ambassador to Turkey, and member of the Hague Court, "by failing to see that this war has let loose throughout the world the spirit of conquest, the hunger for territory, and the rivalry for domination on land and sea. Even our efforts to maintain our neutrality, instead of making for us friends, have made us envied, distrusted, and, by some nations, hated. But entirely apart from the menace of foreign attack, if we are to be an effective influence, either now or hereafter, in the promotion or maintenance of the peace of the world, the measure of our influence will certainly not be in proportion to our weakness, but in proportion to our available strength. It is said by some that to enlarge our naval and military forces will of itself be a provocative of war, in that it will prompt the spirit of militarism. This is true where armaments are piled up for the sake of domination or of conquest; but armaments for defense—subordinated, as they always must be under our form of government, to the civil power—are not the promoters of militarism, but a bulwark for the maintenance of the reign of law and of justice, and for the security of all those ideals which constitute the elements of enlightened and progressive civilization."
He went on to show, however, that while the pacifists who encouraged their governments to participate in the peace conference at the Hague have met disappointment in the events that have since occurred, it is also true that the militarists have come woefully short of accomplishing what they expected.
HON. NEWTON D. BAKER
Secretary of War
"This world war," as the speaker summed the matter up, "is a distinct proof that neither pacifism without might, nor might—unless dominated by right—can be effectual in securing a permanent peace."
Induce the Recognition of Justice
THE possible effect of a world league upon the Monroe Doctrine was considered by George Grafton Wilson, professor of international law at Harvard University. He admitted that the United States might have to relinquish some of its older interpretations of the doctrine in case of a dispute with European powers, but said we should have to do that anyway under the peace treaties signed during the present administration.
Ex-president Taft, who presided at the meetings, discussed certain constitutional objections which had been raised, showing that there is nothing in the program of the league that calls for any change in the constitution. Congress would still have, as it does to-day, the power to declare war. The relations with other nations into which this country would enter as a member of the league, would correspond to the relations we have already entered into by means of various treaties which have been signed.
Benjamin Ide Wheeler, in opening the discussion in the afternoon of the second day, emphasized the fact of the prevalence of force in the world as constituted at present. "To undertake," he said, "the automatic and unerring production of peace—all kinds of peace, at all times and everywhere—is an inspiration of folly."
"Our optimism," he added, "may have led us too far in tempting us to use the word 'peace.' The associations which come to us from the hopeless and light-winged use of that word in organization, movements, and orations warn us that what we perhaps meant to say was, League to Enforce the Recognition of Justice. It is a delusion and a snare to speak or think of peace as a normal status of human affairs, to which we must seek return. It is a delusion to think out our problem in that order—a delusion of the same cast as the old-time argument from 'the state of nature.' This argument from the state of nature finds no standing in anthropology, nor, for that matter, in zoölogy. Man438is by anthropology and zoology a homicidal mammal. He kills and often eats his enemy. The normal status of human affairs involves competition, contention, strife. With that he starts; from that he must seek to advance. . . . What we need to find is some form of expressible innate power in human society which will induce the recognition of justice."
Stage Tricks for Arousing Patriotism
SPEAKING for the American workingman, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, said: "No class has more to lose and less to gain in war than the workers. No class renders such sacrificial service during war, and bears such staggering burdens after war, as does labor. In war, labor sees the results of years of struggle for wider justice swept away. In one mad moment, the clock of industrial progress may be turned back for a generation. War diverts the mind of peoples from the constructive work of humanizing and democratizing the relations of men. Recognizing them, workingmen the world over have avowed their allegiance to the cause of peace, and have sworn undying opposition to the forces that make for war."
He recurred sadly to the way the workingmen of all the warring countries had been brought into the struggle.
"Before the present war, the working people of the several countries now in conflict sincerely gave international pledges that they would not fight each other. I confess that I banked strongly upon these pledges; but in an hour of crisis, brought about by forces over which workingmen had little control, their pledges were shattered by the hurried ultimatum of kaiser and king, of president and czar. Secret diplomacy and arbitrary autocracy lifted the battle standards, raised the cry that the integrity of the fatherland was at stake, and placed the workingmen of all the nations in a position where adherence to their pledges and to the larger interests of humanity would have branded them as traitors. Under the urgency of the situation, with autocracy and militarism resorting to their accustomed stage tricks for arousing patriotic emotions, instinct prevailed over reason, and the laboring men of the nations rushed into the paths that had been marked out by the diplomatic and ruling classes."
Points at Issue Not Yet Determined
IN expressing general approval of the proposed league, he summed up, under five heads, what he understood to be the program of the new organization:
"1. That the nations shall band themselves together in a federation, and agree to delay, in every instance, the actual declaration of war until the dispute at issue has been thoroughly examined by an international tribunal, and the public opinion of the world given a chance to express itself.
"2. There shall be an International Court to consider questions that can be decided upon established law and evidence.
"3. That there shall be a Council of Conciliation to consider questions that are not ordinarily regarded as justiciable, such as questions of national honor.
"4. That in addition, there shall be, at stated intervals, international conferences for the progressive amendment of international law.
"5. That the nations of the league shall agree to turn their united strength — first in the form of a business and economic boycott, and finally in concerted military action if the boycott is not effective — against any one of their number that wages war without first submitting its dispute for complete examination to one of the International Tribunals created."
"The league's program," he continued, "wisely refrains from attempting to stop the present war. Hating war as I do, I am free to confess that if I could stop this war now by a turn of my hand, I would not do it. I hold that something must be determined by this war; and that something is, whether the future belongs to autocracy and militarism, or to democracy, liberty, and humanity. These are the points at issue, and they have not yet been determined."
No Man Lives to Himself
THE Hon. Newton D. Baker, secretary of war, spoke on "American Ideals and the League Program." The ideals of America, he said, were not some fixed and unchanging thing, but a growing and expanding principle. In general, America stands for "the opportunity of the man in the world as against things."
"American history, for the first century of it, was a struggle to preserve a kind of individualism which was ideal under the conditions which civilization had then assumed. But we have outlived all that. We have come to a time now when no man lives to himself, when the artisan at his bench in this country is dependent upon some producer of raw material in the antipodes. There has come a situation in the world in which, whether we want to or do not, whether it is good business or just ordinary idealism, we are obliged to take a planetary view of the human race."
Hamilton Holt, of New York, editor of the Independent, who has been prominent in advocating the league idea, gave a stirring address, in which he showed very clearly the practical working of the proposed federation of nations. He said in part:
"When our forefathers established the United States, the state of New York and the state of Virginia each had a separate navy; but by the constitution, they abolished their separate navies. They guaranteed home rule and local autonomy. But more than that, the taxes which the states paid for protection were less than they had paid to the state treasuries for state protection separately, their pro rata share by pooling forces were less, and they disarmed. Further than that, they created these machineries for doing interstate business, and with less expense.
A Proposed Internationalism
"THE same thing could be done between nations. Let them have a court to settle justiciable questions, a legislative body to make rules, and let them disarm, as our forefathers did down to the point where in Congress assembled they agreed that the forces of the Union were strong enough to preserve it from enemies from within or without. Let them reduce armaments to the point where the combined armaments are a little larger than any one nation's. . . .
"The object is, to substitute for the competitive theory the collective theory of armaments. Instead of one nation being against all, it is to be all against one; and that means a change in the whole theory. When you have all against one, the combination will be greater than the so-called English navalism or German militarism, and it will gradually go down until we get to the international police.
"It seems to be the destiny of the United States to lead. The United States itself is the greatest league of peace known to history. The demonstration of that is that all peoples can come and live under one form of government. Every president of the United States has advocated peace through justice, and none has grasped this idea more directly than the president of this League to Enforce Peace, Mr. Taft. Every president, from the first great Virginian, George Washington, to the last great Virginian, Woodrow Wilson, has upheld that idea. Another great Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, called war the greatest scourge of mankind. Is it too much to suppose, therefore, that the man who happens to be president when this war is over, can do, if he has the courage and vision and world statesmanship, something analogous to what George Washington did for our states after the Revolutionary War? Stranger things than that have happened. So let us add to the Declaration of Independence, a Declaration of Interdependence, when, as Victor Hugo prophesied, the only battlefield will be the market open to commerce, and the mind open to new ideas."
The closing of the League to Enforce Peace Convention with its memorable banquet, and its speeches by President Wilson and President Lowell of Harvard, forms the subject of the concluding article of this series, which will appear next week. EDITOR.
What God Thinks of You
"TAKE very little account of what your neighbors think of you, but think much of what God thinks of you."
CHRIST OR BUDDHA
By L. H. Christian
THE GOSPEL OF HOPELESS FATE
BY L. H. CHRISTIAN
THERE is a persistent effort, on the part of certain faddists, to bring into this country the religion and philosophy of India. We hear the wisdom and virtue of Buddha lauded to the skies. Assiduously, though indirectly, in lectures and by artistic magazines, the people are educated to believe that Gautama was the equal, if not the superior, of Christ.
Great interest was awakened in this subject years ago when Sir Edwin Arnold first published his pagan poem, "The Light of Asia." That poem purports to give us the preëxistence, birth, life work, and final destiny of Buddha. Those who read it will see at once the vast difference between Christ and Buddha. Buddha, like any other child, had a human father and mother. His father reigned as a mighty monarch of India; and his mother, who died when the boy was nine days old, was a beautiful queen in an Indian harem of women and wine.
At his birth, both heaven and earth were stirred and expectant. The wise and mighty among men and the great spirits above ministered to him. He was brought up in the splendor and glory of an Indian palace, and spent many years after his marriage in all the luxury of royalty. During the latter part of his life, he labored as a teacher. He died at the age of eighty, surrounded by his friends.
LIGHT THAT IS DARKNESS
Speaking of his departure from this life, Buddha informed his followers that he was going into Nirvana — that is, a state of hopeless nonexistence. Of this he said:
"If any teach Nirvana is to live,
Say unto such they err!"
As to his preëxistence we read that one day when he, by some strange spell, had subdued a black stallion which no other rider could tame, he told his friends that he remembered using the same magic power "myriad rains ago," when as a male tiger in the forest he fought and subdued the other tigers, in this way winning his mate, a large, beautiful tigress. When asked, at another time, why he chose the beautiful maiden who became his wife, he replied that in "ages long gone by," he was a hunter's son, and as such lived with and loved her in a humble home. The gospel of Buddha was a gospel of law and fate. There was in it no power to save from sin, and no hope of eternal life.
How different from this is the Bible story of Christ! Buddha was first a tiger, then a hunter, then a mighty prince, and then nothing. Christ came from the glory of His Father, lived in humility upon earth, and returned to prepare a kingdom of glory for His own. His gospel is not mere ethics or morals, but the power of God to salvation. The light of Asia is darkness; the Saviour of the world is light and life.
The Struggle Against Apostasy
By Benjamin G. Wilkinson
Apostolic Church and Doctrine Succumb Before a Baptized Paganism
This is the second article by Dr. Wilkinson on Revelation unfolded, dealing specifically with the seven seals, and spanning the time from the first to the second advent of Christ. The article that will appear next week portrays the "struggle against the medieval darkness," the suppression of truth, and the persecutions of the church.
EDITOR.
"AND I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer." Rev. 6: 1, 2.
By reading Prov. 21: 31, we see that in Scripture the horse is used as a symbol of warfare; and by referring to Luke 9: 29, we understand that white is the color of purity and divinity. The first seal therefore announces a warfare that is pure and conducted under divine leadership. We find that the warrior, as he starts out, has already given to him the crown of victory. Of no other conqueror could the surety of victory be predicted than of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, it is said that he went forth "conquering and to conquer."
The first seal, then, denotes the combat of the early Christian church with the Roman Empire. With great solicitude, Christ endeavored to unite the twelve disciples in the bonds of perfect unity, though at times the strife for first place was manifest among them. Yet the humility and love of the Saviour bound them together with a united front before a common enemy.
Had Spread Like Wildfire
ON the other hand, there stood the Roman Empire, with a population of one hundred million. The provinces reached from Scotland on the northwest to the Euphrates on the southeast, and from the forests of Germany on the north to the sands of the Sahara on the south. One writer says that it was the mightiest fabric of human organization ever formed. The legions stood on the frontiers of the empire, guarding the imperial domain from external foes; while its splendid organization and legal system made the empire, as the historian Gibbon says, a safe and dreary prison for any one who had offended against its majesty.
Yet, "greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." So victorious was the spread of the gospel, that Pliny, writing in the second century to the emperor Trajan, said that this sect, or heresy, had not only entered the cities, but had spread like wildfire through the villages and the country places as well. In great purity, therefore, was the conquest of Christianity under the first seal made.
The rider had a bow in his hand; and we read from the prophet Habakkuk, "Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even Thy word." Hab. 3: 9. So the weapons of warfare of the Christian church were not carnal, but were the mighty arrows of truth, shot from the bow of God's divine word. In other words, we may say that the period covered by the first seal reaches from the birth of Christianity to about 100 A. D., the time of the last apostles.
"AND when He had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword." Rev. 6: 3, 4. The word "red" here is the same word used elsewhere in the Scriptures to denote blood-red. The sword that the warrior carries is not the ordinary war sword, but it is more the sacrificial knife. These specifications agree with the statement of the result of this rider's work. He was "to take peace from the earth."
The church had no longer its united front. Strife and division had entered into the body; and in the eyes of God, the progress of truth was being sacrificed to the blood-red work of ambition, worldliness, and covetousness. If the church during the apostolic period had the power of union and peace within, and went forth conquering and to conquer, she soon was to see worldliness and sloth sow discord among her members, and turn their arms one against another.
Already the apostles, during their own day, had warned their disciples against the appearing, at an early hour, of ambitious leaders. As Paul says (Acts 20: 29, 30): "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them."
Likewise we read the words of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, speaking of the Christians in the time succeeding the apostles: "Forgetful of what believers had either done before in the time of the apostles, or always ought to do, they, with insatiable ardor of covetousness, devoted themselves to the increase of property. . . . Among the priests there was no devotedness of religion; among the ministers there was no sound faith. . . . They would swear not only rashly, but even more, would swear falsely; would despise those set over them, with haughty swellings; would speak evil of one another, with envenomed tongues; would quarrel with one another, with obstinate hatred." (The Lapsed VI.)
And this went on until Constantine, that half pagan, half Christian Roman emperor, that colossal juggler of men and religions, arose to exalt the church to imperial favor. And then to her was given the great sword of civil power.
"AND when He had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." Rev. 6: 5, 6.
Black, in the Bible, is a symbol of mourning or famine. The ages were growing dark. It was in 325 A. D. that Constantine presided over the great Council of Nice, and exalted the Christian church to imperial favor. Professor Emerton, of Harvard University, in his book entitled "Introduction to the Middle Ages," says that at the Council of Nice, the Christian church had ceased to be a persecuted body, and had now become the church of the Roman Empire.
In Lam. 5: 10 and Jer. 14: 2, we find that black represents famine. The time had come for a famine of the word of God, for the voice from the throne said that a measure of wheat was sold for a penny. The Saviour told of the sending of men into the vineyard as laborers for a penny a day. Therefore a penny was the wages for a day's work. But a measure of wheat, which was all that could be bought for a penny, was absolutely insufficient for a man or his family.
Wheat represents the word of God, as the Saviour once said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." And the injunction to "hurt not the oil and the wine" brings us to the consideration that wine represents Christian doctrine, as Christ once spoke of His inability to put new wine into old bottles. The oil, we all know, represents the Spirit of God. So then the pair of balances in the hand of the rider represented a scarcity of Christian graces, with divine Providence to see that neither the Holy Ghost nor the Bible should be rendered entirely extinct.
Adulterated the Gospel Doctrines
THIS is precisely the situation as recorded in history. That things developed just as this scripture described them, from the days of Constantine, may be seen from the following quotation from Beugnot:
"Through Constantine, the Christians acquired the love of riches and of luxury; and it is beginning with his reign that those simple and frugal habits which had been the glory of the church in the three preceding centuries began to disappear."—"History of Paganism in the West," volume 1, page 87.
To denote the darkness that came into the church from the study of the heathen philosophy, against which Paul had warned in Col. 2: 8, and which crowded God's word out of sight, Beugnot further says:
"Christianity during the third and fourth centuries was troubled by two formidable enemies, Neoplatonism and apostasy. One prevailed in the East, the other in the two empires. The first strove to appropriate to itself, while adulterating them, the doctrines of the gospel; the second caused the most scandalous depravity to run riot among the Christians." So, from about 325 A. D., when the church came into favor, until 538, when she came into power, we may consider the period of time covered by the third seal.
A VALKYRIE
The Sparks of Temptation
"SOME will endeavor to justify the dress of the ball by quoting, 'To the pure all things are pure.' But human nature is human nature. You might as well say that powder is not what it ought to be because it explodes when sparks fall upon it. We have Bible authority for keeping the sparks of temptation away from the powder of human nature."
