XVI
THE FUTURE—PEACE OR WAR
Impressions gained during my talk with the 1914
choice for the Nobel Peace Prize—Professor Ludwig Stein
In The Hague the Temple of Peace is empty; all over the world ordnance factories are full. Since the day of that first convention in Geneva educated men have organized and pushed the international movement, which is called world peace. Is it a success or a failure?
At his home in Berlin, early in February, I talked with one of the leading men of this movement concerning these things. I asked Professor Ludwig Stein,—whose activities for world peace are well known in America, he having been chosen for the Nobel Peace prize of 1914 which was never awarded, he being formerly one of the three permanent members of the Bern Bureau for International Peace, he having been selected to present the famous declaration of peace to the late Edward the Seventh, whom the peace people called Edward the Peacemaker, he having worked side by side with Andrew Carnegie for the "ideal"—I asked him, could peace soon be made in this war? A deliberate man is Professor Stein, and he thought so long without replying that his personality impressed itself upon you before he had uttered a word—a strange combination of the dreamer and the man of to-day, a contrast of gentle eyes and grim jaw.
"At this time," he said, tapping his finger on the copper-topped smoking table in his study, "peace is impossible. President Wilson's endeavors are futile. Before a decisive result has been reached, peace cannot be thought of. Once Warsaw is captured, it is likely that Russia will make peace; or if not Warsaw, if a large really decisive battle is fought."
It seemed significant that such an apostle of peace as Professor Stein should have so completely given up all faith in the immediate efficacy of his movement. I asked him therefore if he considered it a failure.
"The peace movement," he said, "is like a fire department. If a few houses burn, or the conflagration spreads even over a number of blocks, the fire fighters are effective, but if a whole city burns, like the big Chicago fire, the fire department can do nothing. And if the whole world burns, what can the workers for peace do? Our movement is not strong enough; it is not big enough. For the Balkan war, the firemen were effective, they could confine the burning within that limited area, but when all Europe sprang up in flames, we failed." I mentioned to the Professor that this was a new conception to the peace movement in America, the first admission from a peace-man that the power of the movement was to-day limited. I asked Professor Stein then if we were to think of the movement as being a limited success or was there any chance of it ever attaining something bigger?