I had not been long on the Circuit before I realized that my audience had only a languid interest in my subject, that what they were really interested in, wanted to hear and talk about, was the War, then ending its second year. But I could not talk about the War. Nothing had ever so engulfed me as in a black fog, closed my mouth, confused my mind. Chiefly this was because of the apparent collapse of organized efforts to persuade or to force peaceful settlements of international quarrels. These had taken so large a place in the thinking and agitating of the liberal-minded with whom I lived that I had begun to delude myself that they were actually strong enough to prevent future wars. Largely these efforts were the result of the revulsion the conflicts of the nineties had caused; the Boer War, the Greco-Turkish War, the Spanish War. People who wanted to live in peace wrote books, talked, organized societies—national and international. Jane Addams stirred the English-speaking world by her “Newer Ideals of Peace.” William H. Taft, Elihu Root, leading public men, educators, combined in one or another society advocating this or that form of machinery.
And while this was going on Theodore Roosevelt was doing his best to counteract it by his bold talk of war as a maker of men, the only adequate machine for preparing human beings for the beneficent strenuous life he advocated.
What was the American Magazine to do about it? It seemed to us that we ought to find some answer to Theodore Roosevelt. Certainly we could not do it by promoting organized efforts; certainly not by preaching. We must prove him wrong.
In 1910 our attention was turned to what seemed a possibly useful educational effort against war, inaugurated at Stanford University by its president, David Starr Jordan. I knew Dr. Jordan slightly. His argument for opening the channels of world trade in the interest of peace had helped keep up my spirits when laboring against the tariff lobbies that so effectively closed them. What were they doing in Stanford? It was decided that I go out and see; at least there might be material for an article or two. Early in 1911 Dr. Jordan arranged that I spend a few weeks at the university. He was very cordial, meeting me at Los Angeles, where I arrived low in mind and body from an attack of influenza.
There was to be a peace meeting that night—Dr. Jordan was to speak. They had announced me, and when I refused to get out of my bed they took it as proof of indifference to the cause. The truth was that the idea of speaking extemporaneously was at that time terrifying to me; ill too, I could not, or perhaps would not, rally my forces. I would rather be regarded as a sneak than attempt it.
But Dr. Jordan understood and laughed off my apology, and together we made a leisurely trip to Palo Alto. He was a delightful companion when he felt like talking, as he often did! There was nothing which did not interest him. Looking out of the car window, he talked not of peace at all but of birds and trees and fishes and Roosevelt and the recent earthquake.
At Palo Alto I found that the most exciting course then offered to the students was the six weeks on war and peace which I had come to study. The big assembly room was packed for all the public lectures. Among the advanced students following the course were several who have since made names for themselves: Bruce Bliven, Robert L. Duffus, Maxwell Anderson.
There was considerable intensive work on special themes. One student was collecting war slogans; another, making a comparison of declarations of war, each of which called God to witness that its cause was just. Another student was compiling tables showing the yearly increase in the costs of armament in the twenty years from 1890 on; another, the economic losses through the devastations caused by war; and so on. All interesting and useful material.
But, study the work as closely as I could, I could not for the life of me lay my hands on that definite something which the American needed. Finally I took my discouragement to Dr. Jordan, and together we planned collaboration on a series of articles to be called “The Case Against War.” Dr. Jordan in his autobiography, “The Days of a Man,” tells of our scheme and what became of it; “crowding events permitted war to frame its own case.”
In August, 1914, all of the machinery on which peace lovers had counted collapsed. The Socialists in a body in every country took up arms; so did organized labor, so did the professional advocates of peace.