“Who will win, Russia or Japan?”
“Both will lose,” I replied, opening a trunk—(to the customs officer) “Only old clothes!”—(to the reporters) “Both will lose, and mankind with them.”
We proceeded directly to Boston, and, as night had already come on, the first impression of New York, which we crossed from Hoboken to the Forty-second Street Station, was only one mad whirl of dazzling lights, roaring streets, and houses high as the sky!
Boston has the reputation of being the most European city in the United States, and likewise the capital of intellect. Really I have not much to offer in the way of descriptions and observations; Boston for me was the gathering place of this year’s Peace Congress, and as such absorbed all my thoughts and attention. Here I was, then, once more in another quarter of the world, and just as at Rome and Budapest, as in Hamburg and Paris, among good old comrades; once more I was on the international forum, where the ideal of international friendship, with its promise of happiness, is practiced among the participants and is striven for in behalf of contemporary and succeeding generations.
The sessions of the American Peace Congress showed clearly enough what immense strides the peace movement has recently made, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the awful wholesale slaughter in eastern Asia, which arouses universal horror. The conviction that this matter is not only one of the weightiest questions of the time, but is the question of the future, and is the foundation on which a new era of civilization, already dawning, is to be erected, is penetrating into ever wider and wider circles, and is already forming in America a consistent part of public opinion, as was well shown by the course of the thirteenth Peace Congress and the interest taken in it by the people.
Of course there, as everywhere, one finds a chauvinistic tendency, a “yellow press,” imperialistic appetites, and the like; but in corroboration of the above-expressed opinion, that the peace question is the predominant one in the public mind, stands the fact that in the presidential campaign now convulsing the whole country the peace sentiment is incorporated into the platform of the Democratic party, and that Roosevelt’s opponents are striving to belittle, as an election maneuver, the peace policy which he is now so energetically advocating. The great mass of the people, and especially the more intelligent classes of the country, are strongly opposed to an unlimited increase of the navy, and to the spread of military institutions and of the warlike spirit.
A remarkable land, “Land of Unlimited Possibilities,” as it has been called in the well-known book title; verily it might rather be called “Land of Conquered Impossibilities.” Indeed, this young world,—in the true sense of the word, this New World,—exuberant in strength, glad in its daring, with peculiar insistency “gets on the nerves” of people of strong conservative feelings. But any one who looks to the future, any one who cherishes a comforting faith in development, will here feel joyously strengthened in his hopes of progress. Certainly all the acquisitions of the New World will redound to the advantage of the Old World, just as all the treasures of culture of the Old have been taken over and will still continue to be taken over by the New. It would be good if Europeans, eager to learn and to know, might be turned to America, in such mighty throngs as America pours into Europe. Yes, the nations have to learn from one another; that is better than for them to blow one another into the air. If one man desires to climb higher than another, he must mount on the other’s shoulders, but not throw him down.
The recent period, during which a World’s Fair and such numerous congresses—the Interparliamentary Conference and Scientific Congress at St. Louis, the Peace Congress in Boston, and the like—have attracted to America so many Europeans, will do a vast amount toward widening the knowledge and at the same time the appreciation of what we should get from and for America.
But let us return to the peace meetings. This time I was unfortunately unable to attend the Interparliamentary Conference. What a brilliant success it was we shall soon know by report. The members of the Conference were the guests of the government, and as such were specially honored, not only by the officials but also by the inhabitants of all the cities that they visited; and their two most important resolutions—the calling of a second Hague Conference and the establishment of a permanent International Congress for the discussion of world interests—have been laid before President Roosevelt and by him in a measure put in motion.
Who can doubt that the calling of a new Hague Conference, just as was the case with the first, will meet with much opposition, and that attempts will be made to belittle its significance and render nugatory its results? Nothing great and new is ever accomplished without opposition. But just as the first Conference, in spite of everything, left behind it not only the fact of the tribunal established and the text of the agreements “for the peaceful solution of international conflicts by means of the Court of Arbitration, mediation, and commissions for intervention,” but also the solemn declaration that the moral and material welfare of the nations requires a reduction of the burden of armaments, so also the next Conference will certainly bring forth further and fresh results. Granted we have the letter of the law already, all that is required is to breathe into it the spirit of life. “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” says the proverb; but where the way is all open the will must be exerted.