i9i6n The Neutral Committee 



letter 



quite out of sympathy with his point of view, and at 

 the end asked questions hard to answer. Some of 

 these being manifestly unfair, I turned in to help 

 him make his position clear. 



While in New York I was asked to meet with and 

 serve as chairman for the "American Neutral Con- 

 ference Committee," a group of men and women 

 interested in peace through mediation rather than 

 "prolonged attrition," or war to the bitter end. 

 Among those active in the movement were Jacob H. 

 Schiff, George Foster Peabody, Hamilton Holt, and 

 numerous persons of wealth and influence as well as 

 of humanitarian purpose. Besides a number of admi- jrevei 

 rable short addresses, we had a communication from y^^Cs 

 Charles P. Trevelyan, a Liberal member of the 

 British Parliament, in the form of an "Open Letter 

 to President Wilson." This had not been entrusted 

 to the mails, which even then were frequently vio- 

 lated, but was delivered in person by a young clergy- 

 man, David Anderson. Said Trevelyan : 



The one hope for the preservation of our western civilization 

 would be the United States. . . . The relative strength of 

 America grows as the vitality of Europe is ebbing away. It is 

 not alone the loss of money and of credit; not only the waste 

 and desolation of provinces during the war, and the economic 

 catastrophes w^hich will follow everywhere in its wake, not only 

 the millions of dead and maimed among the young men. It is 

 the complete collapse of the old national standards. . . . 



In the last resort, the continuance of war depends on hate. 

 If, however, some voice so loud that it reverberates across the 

 seas, so important that the censorship could not exclude it, 

 S'poke not to the governments hut to the -peoples, a change would 

 begin to come. In'these days the essence of a democratic appeal 

 is that it should be incessant until it is fully understood. If this 



n 707 D 



