191 63 A Peace Petition 



manys " 



Francis 

 JVebster 



military organization seemed temporary, arising 

 from well-grounded fear of a neighbor, and has no 

 direct connection with industrialism. Britain and 

 America are essentially unmilitary — that is, demo- 

 cratic; they develop much greater individual initia- 

 tive, less of enforced or group efficiency. 



I now prepared also a volume on "The Two Ger- "The Two 

 manys" dealing with the efforts of sane men to ^^'^ 

 redeem their country, as well as with the purposes of """' 

 the Pangermanist oligarchy. But this book was 

 courteously declined by two publishers, who con- 

 sidered the people at large to be interested for the 

 time being in only one side. 



Early in 1916 I became acquainted with Sir Francis sir 

 Webster, of Arbroath, Scotland, a leading Liberal 

 and a close friend of the late Sir Henry Campbell- 

 Bannerman, Lord Morley, and Francis W. Hirst. 

 Webster has large interests in New Mexico and 

 Oregon, and was spending considerable time in Cali- 

 fornia, where our similar views on political questions 

 brought us into close association. He is deeply inter- 

 ested in conciliation movements and in the spread of 

 democracy, one of the mottoes of his life being "Live 

 and let live." At his request — and largely as his 

 composition — I prepared a peace petition signed by 

 550 "hyphenated" citizens (about 400, however, 

 American-born), the whole representing all nation- 

 alities included within our great "melting pot." 

 Nearly half of these were German, Germany having 

 furnished the largest percentage of immigrants within 

 the generation, as a vast majority of those of British 

 parentage came in earlier years. 



The appeal was placed in the hands of about 



n 687 3 



