The Days of a Man 



1915 



America's United States would naturally and necessarily be the 

 kip dominant figure, and the work would certainly move 

 on a higher plane than temporary military advantage. 

 The President's administration had been distin- 

 guished by doing unconventional things his direct 

 messages to Congress, for example, and his A. B. C. 

 (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) Conference on Mexican 

 affairs. He was big enough to frame his own prece- 

 dents. The vital fact was that suffering peoples 

 looked to him to lead them out of darkness. The sup- 

 pressed and struggling liberal groups, containing the 

 best minds in Europe, would surely rally to the sup- 

 port of such a conference. Were it once established, 

 they would then persistently knock at the doors of 

 their chancelleries demanding that the move for peace 

 be given a respectful hearing. 



I then mentioned certain letters I had received 

 from people tired of war, quoting from a German 

 colonel in a hospital in Lorraine. This officer wrote 

 me thus: 



You will easily know my view now, when I tell you that you 

 were wholly right in what you say in "What Shall We Say?" 

 of January 19, 1915 . . . especially the last two paragraphs 1 

 contain all that I would say and prove by many details. 



J The paragraphs referred to read as follows: 



"If we want peace we must prepare for it, guarding it at every angle, and 

 reducing, so far as we can, all war's incentives. When nations are armed, a 

 very few men, a very small accident may turn the scale. To lose at one point 

 is to lose all. It is the armament itself which is the true cause of war. Trade 

 jealousies, race antipathies, land hungers all these are mere excuses which 

 would not of themselves lead any nation to fight. It takes a vigorous agitation, 

 war scares, war appeals, and unlimited lying to get these taken seriously. 



"The safeguard for peace is the minimum, not the maximum of armament. 

 As to this, Washington who warned us so sagaciously against entangling 

 alliances had also this word of caution: 'Overgrown military establishments 

 are, under any form of government, inauspicious to liberty, and are to be 

 regarded as peculiarly hostile to republican liberty/ " 



