Dear Friend:
May the new year prove prosperous to you and to the noble campaign which you are carrying on with so much power against human ignorance and ferocity.
I should like to dispose of a part of my fortune by founding a prize to be granted every five years—say six times, for if in thirty years they have not succeeded in reforming the present system they will infallibly relapse into barbarism.
The prize would be awarded to him or her who had caused Europe to make the longest strides toward ideas of general pacification.
I am not speaking to you of disarmament, which can be achieved only very slowly; I am not even speaking to you of obligatory arbitration between nations. But this result ought to be reached soon—and it can be attained—to wit, that all states shall with solidarity agree to turn against the first aggressor. Then wars will become impossible. And the result would be to force even the most quarrelsome state to have recourse to a tribunal or else remain tranquil. If the Triple Alliance, instead of comprising only three states, should enlist all states, the peace of the centuries would be assured.
XXXIX
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GERMAN PEACE SOCIETY IN BERLIN
When we came home from Bern much work was waiting for us. The editing of the review, the duties of the presidency in our two Unions, and at the same time uninterrupted literary activity,—all this gave us much to do. My correspondence had greatly increased. It was my ardent wish that a peace society should be established also in Berlin. During my visit there the matter had indeed been broached, but had not come to anything. Now once more I began correspondence with prominent persons in Berlin in order to take further steps in this matter. Even at the beginning of the year I had written letters with this object in view, and now I resumed these connections with redoubled zeal.
Passages from my own letters give some precise basal facts about the course of events connected with the founding of that society. I will put down these passages. The material lying before me consists of the letters that I wrote in those years to my publisher, A. H. Fried, who zealously coöperated with me in this matter—who indeed had really given the first impulse to it. He preserved all my letters, and has, at my request, put at my service the package containing those of 1892, from which there clearly appear, authentically and in chronological sequence, certain data which I should otherwise have forgotten long since, relating to that enterprise which lay so close to my heart.
January 2, 1892
There is really as yet no German peace society. Virchow was persuaded originally, but has since then relapsed into silence. Max Hirsch, member of the Reichstag, now wants to found one. Dr. Barth, the editor of the Nation, is also on our side. In Frankfurt there is also a Union, I believe.