And if illustration were
wanted, let them remember the kind of triumphant satisfaction with which
the failure of the Hague conferences to achieve any radical results was
generally greeted, and the contemptuous and almost abhorring pity meted
out to the people called "pacifists." Well, the war has come! We see now,
not only guess, what it means. If that experience has not made a deep
impression on every man and woman, if something like a conversion is not
being generally operated, then, indeed, nothing can save mankind from the
hell of their own passions and imbecilities.
But if otherwise, if that change is going on, then the way to deliverance
is neither difficult nor obscure. It does not lie in the direction of
crushing anybody. It lies in the taking of certain determinations, and
the embodying of them in certain institutions.
First, the nations must submit to law and to right in the settlement of
their disputes.
Secondly, they must reserve force for the coercion of the law-breaker;
and that implies that they should construct rules to determine who the
law-breaker is. Let him be defined as the one who appeals to force, instead
of appealing to law and right by machinery duly provided for that purpose,
and the aggressor is immediately under the ban of the civilized world, and
met by an overwhelming force to coerce him into order.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133