A Touchstone for Peace-Makers

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

IT is hard to recognize a peacemaker, even in the looking-glass, these days. A few single-minded ones, like the Kaiser and Mr. Bryan, are unfalteringly sure of themselves, but the rest of us hesitate to call ourselves, or one another, ‘the children of God.’

Are we revealed in our works, — these Hague Congresses, peace ships, preparedness programmes, secret diplomacies, so potential for strife? In our motives, — aristocratic, democratic, lunatic? In our shibboleths, — blessed are the pacifists? Were they the ones that Jesus had in mind? Ought we to join the League to Enforce Peace, or the Fellowship of Reconciliation, or the Stop-the-War Committee, or all of them, or none? These are the questions which confront the peacemaker every hour. How to classify himself?

There is a little book that helps; a dove-colored and partisan little book, but of a clarity in thought and utterance that cannot but clear up the most unwilling reader’s hazy mind. It is not likely to convert any one; the value of a touchstone is in revelation, not in conversion; Miss Repplier may read it without trepidation; but it performs a service for the dovecote in pointing bewildered doves to their proper pigeonholes.

Women at the Hague is its title, and it describes the travels in Europe, and in their own minds, of Jane Addams, Emily G. Balch, and Alice Hamilton, during the summer of 1915. If it did no more than picture the Europe which the pacifists see to-day when they cross the ocean, it would render an invaluable service to stay-at-home Americans. No one else has seen just that Europe, and we cannot afford to miss it. The ordinary war correspondent spares us few details of life in trench and hospital, but he does not tell us of the young Englishmen ‘who cannot reconcile the thought of killing other men with what they have always held as their ideal of conduct, and yet who cannot refuse to respond to their country’s call.’ He is not the confidant of mothers who are thankful that their sons died early in the war before they had killed other women’s sons. Only the sympathetic listener hears of the husband who told his wife that under no circumstances would he be driven to kill a fellow man, and who was killed at night by a sentry from whom he could doubtless have defended himself. Surfeited as we are with stories of German hatred and stupidity, it is reassuring to know that the most famous journalist of Germany ‘was very fair to our country, saying that Germany had no right to criticize our sale of ammunition to the Allies,’ and that Germany’s attitude toward England was poor sportsmanship.

But the book does more than picture the pacifists’ Europe; it explains the congress of women at The Hague. The newspapers have done so much to bring ridicule and discredit upon this movement that our American instinct for fair play should make us eager to read what Miss Addams and Miss Balch, whose practical wisdom in other fields we trust and honor, have to say for themselves. Their action is no right-aboutface, but the logical outcome of their years of fighting for industrial arbitration. With all that Hull House stands for in humanitarian endeavor, and stress upon the sanctity of human life, could Miss Addams do less than she has done to stop the wasteful bloodshed of this war? She pleads for a conference of neutral nations, to endeavor to discover the price to be paid for permanent and immediate peace. To this end the congress presents a plan for continuous mediation without armistice, formulated by Julia Grace Wales, a delegate from the University of Wisconsin, and officially indorsed by the Wisconsin Legislature and recommended by them to the consideration of the Congress of the United States.

To propose a ‘commission of experts sitting throughout the war and in some way holding the possibilities of settlement before the belligerents,’ is neither foolish nor fanatical; nor does the following quotation suggest peace at any price: ‘If Germany’s terms are the annexation of Belgium and part of France and a military hegemony over the rest of Europe, or if the terms of France or England include “wiping Germany off the map of Europe,” then there is no possibility of peace at this time or at any time that can be foreseen, nor does the world desire peace on these terms.’ It happens to be Miss Balch who wrote these words, but it might have been President Wilson, so far as their sanity and wise neutrality are concerned. And it is Miss Addams who wisely reminds us that negotiations should be begun ‘while the civil authorities still have enough power to hold the military to their own purposes and are not obliged to give them the absolute control of the destinies of the nation.’

An international commission of experts, to be constituted without delay, to sit as long as the war lasts, to explore the issues involved in the present struggle and to make propositions to the belligerents, ‘in the spirit of constructive internationalism’: surely the least pacifist of peacemakers can go so far. What do we balk at? Why do we suspect the ultimate impotence of this sane and moderate propaganda? Does the little book hold the clue to our skepticism?

We read that ‘each power would be thankful indeed to secure an early peace without humiliation on terms a long way short of its extreme demands.’ Let us consider this phrase, ‘without humiliation.’ In it is implicit the weakness of our modern ethic: the unwillingness of the present generation to acknowledge the existence of sin and to face its consequences. More than four hundred years ago, another peacemaking woman, the trusted adviser of popes and princes, declared that you could not cure a running sore by plastering it over with ointment; and science and religion still uphold her metaphor. Do we perhaps miss the chapter that St. Catherine of Siena might have written in that little dove-colored book? Do we perhaps fear that those who are willing to press for terms of peace under which there shall be humiliation for no one, are trying to cure a running sore with a plaster?

‘Without humiliation ’: whether consciously or not, these words contain the denial of the Christian axiom that penitence is a prerequisite to peace. They assert that peace is possible, though Germany never recognize her crime against Belgium; though England never acknowledge that the secrets of her foreign office and the cold greed of her industrialism have betrayed her democracy; though the United States never discover that the true mediator, instead of feeding fat upon those for whom he mediates, suffers with them and for them willingly; though every nation, neutral and belligerent, hug to her breast her darling sin, unrepented to eternity. — Try it and see.

‘ Balancing magnanimous concession against magnanimous concession’ is not enough to give a stable equilibrium to peace. We magnanimously concede our rights. Concession implies that the burden of righteousness is on our side, when it does not imply that the burden of sin is on the side of the other fellow. All the nations had got so far as to recognize their own rights and their neighbors’ sins the day after Germany crossed into Belgium. When they recognize their own sins and their neighbors’ rights they will know that the word they are after is ‘expiate,’ not ‘concede.’ If a pact is based on humble expiations we need not fear its instability; and the concessions will take care of themselves.

There is a time to ‘speak gently to your little boy,’ and a time to fulminate in the language of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and St. John Baptist. — ‘Repent ye! Repent ye! ’ — It is this note of beneficent thunder that our little book lacks, and no league, or fellowship, or party which fails to stress the basic need for repentance, can make more than a superficial contribution to the problem. Of course, it is the Church’s opportunity, but as usual the Church is a slug-abed. If Lutheran pastors are preaching penitence to the Kaiser and Von Tirpitz, the censor is keeping it dark. Certainly the Pope hedges. England indeed has a notable exception in Canon Scott Holland of St. Paul’s, whose voice, boldly calling his nation to repentance, carries even across the Atlantic; and there must be others who have kindled at his flame; but the ordinary clergyman’s prayerful solicitude seems not to stretch beyond ‘safety first, for our side.’

Meanwhile, the plan for continuous mediation without armistice waits. No one has offered a good reason why it should not be tried. The commission’s power for good or evil will depend upon its members. If these experts have philosophical acumen, statesmanship, and fearless Christian persuasiveness, they may even go so far as to propose that the obstinate governments chant ‘ mea culpa’ in chorus.