THE HOPE OF PEACE
The history of civilization is a record of changing ideals, and ideals are best reared in the hearts of the world's young men. Inevitably, nations look toward the cradle for their future and intrust the care of their destiny to the hands of youth. "Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men," declared Edmund Burke, "and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation." When the blood of youth is sluggish and impure; when the young hold wealth more dear than worth, remove the check of virtue from their selfish aims, establish Mammon as their god, and, ambitious to govern the world, forget how to govern themselves,—then nations choke and die. But when the blood of youth is rich and pure, pulsating through the veins of the universe with strong, resistless surge; when fathers teach anew the angel's message of good will and peace, and sons build high their goal upon a pedestal of service and of truth,—then nations breathe and live. What hope, then, asks the world, finds the doctrine of peace in the ideals and aspirations of America's youth to-day?
The nation faces a charge of militarism. It is the indictment of her critics that never before in American history has the government entertained an attitude so hostile toward her neighbors and so dangerous to the interests of peace. They point to the attempt to fortify the Canal and cry out that America would drain her treasury to build a monument of reproach to international integrity. They criticize the vast appropriations for the navy and declare that America is starving her poor that she may more pompously parade the seas. They protest against the "war-game" on the Rio Grande[1] and even charge that in the interest of a Wall Street king America invites the world to arms. And these are not illusions. The lure of gold has turned the nation from her mission. The spirit of commercialism has eclipsed the sentiment of brotherhood and tempted the Republic to barter her honor for the price of imperial supremacy. Wherein, then, again asks the world, finds America hope for the future? And to the charges of her critics, with their dismal prophecy of a "wrong forever on the throne," this is the nation's answer and defense—that an eclipse is never permanent, that the world stays not in the valley of the shadow forever, and that the solution of the problem, the fulfillment of a national mission, and the hope of world peace find their common assurance in the changing ideals of America's aspiring young men.
[1] Part of the United States army was mobilized on the frontier for maneuvers, in 1911, owing to the Mexican revolutionary disturbances.—Editor.
The young American is essentially ambitious. He is wont to seek the shortest path to leadership, and, when blocked at one highway, to turn with undiminished ardor to another. And his ideal is a mirror of the age in which he lives. In revolutionary days he covets the glory of a minuteman, and in the deeds of Warren and Putnam finds the consummation of his hopes. Again, in the hour of civil war his eyes turn toward the battlefield—and from her boys under twenty-one the Union draws eighty-five per cent of her defenders. But fortunately for America this drama of the youth's ideal has one more act. The lure of fife and drum has become a thing of the past. The glamour of military life has become a dream of yesterday. The young man is learning that the prize of battle is never equal to the price. And with the growing conviction of the folly and futility of international strife must disappear the last apology for war. Nations will cease to struggle, not when they have learned that war is a tragedy but when they have discovered that it is a farce.
And the youth of to-day is learning it. In the same deplorable conditions which the nation's critics have regarded as an alarming tendency toward militarism, he reads a message of the absurdity of war. Militarism itself is revealing a mission. Based as it is on the spirit of aggrandizement, it is teaching to youth the economic value of a human life. It is uncovering its own selfish motives and betraying its own senseless ends. It is impressing the world with the truth that battles are fought for purse string and not for principle. It is teaching to youth a new ideal; it is itself the answer to complaints of friends and calumnies of foes. It is the cloud before the dawn. It heralds the coming of the brightest epoch yet chronicled in American history. It is the realization of that glorious prophecy of John Hay that the time is coming when "the clangor of arms shall cease, and we can fancy that at last our ears, no longer stunned by the din of armies, may hear the morning stars singing together and all the sons of God shouting for joy."
And is this but the dream of a visionary? Is it merely the fancied perception of an inexistent star? Is it nothing more than a groundless hope and an alluring vagary? The answer is visible everywhere. And the hope of peace finds its safest assurance among the institutions of learning in America. James Bryce has referred to the United States as the nation having the largest proportion of its young men in college. In the last month of June more than fifty thousand collegians wore the cap and gown of graduation. It is to the trust of the college-bred man that the peace movement confides its future, and modern education assumes no greater responsibility than the training of the new world-citizen. Already the school has become the most potent factor in the new uplift. The youth is no longer dependent upon the newspaper for his knowledge of world-politics. An intelligent study of foreign affairs is at last regarded as of as much importance as a study of the past. To broaden the young man's vision of the world, prominent educators are even advocating traveling fellowships. In twenty-five of the larger universities of America an association of Cosmopolitan Clubs is establishing the groundworks for a wider international fraternity. Plans are already under way to have an organized delegation of more than a hundred students of all nationalities present at the third Hague Conference. Day by day the problem of world-unity is becoming more and more deeply embedded in the mind and thought of the rising generation. More and more is youthful patriotism becoming a realization of the truth that "Above all nations is humanity." The lure of war is losing its magnetic power and the brotherhood of man becoming more and more an international reality. A sentiment for universal peace is sweeping the world, and behind the defenses of advancing civilization, armed with the strength of a lofty and unselfish purpose, stands an army of America's young men, mustered from the nation's colleges, enlisted to serve for an eternity, and invulnerable in the protection of a new and a conquering ideal.
Therefore the significance of the young man in the world's affairs to-day is something more than a fancy. Again and again the plea for world-harmony hears a response in the changing ideals of a new generation. The growing sentiment of the educated youth of Japan finds its crystallization in the efforts of Count Okuma toward the consummation of world-disarmament. The spirit of the youth of England finds expression in the ambitious dream of George V, whose hope it is to tie the bond of Anglo-Saxon unity, long since dissevered by George III. Among the young men of Russia the life of the great philosopher of world-citizenship has left a lasting conviction of the senselessness of war. Even in imperialistic Germany the reckless building of dreadnoughts brings out a vigorous and uncompromising protest from the thinking youth of the land. In America a vision of the international parliament of man, growing large in the minds of her leading statesmen, finds expression in the continued philanthropy of a great industrial king. And, most significant of all, these are the world-wide examples that the college man enthrones in the empire of his thoughts. Sixty thousand European students, bound together by the cosmopolitan ties of a peace fraternity, have ceased to glorify the triumphs of the battlefield. The commentaries of the hero-worshiper to-day do not record the names of a Marlborough or a Bonaparte. Rather does the young man find his idols in the more humble annals of a Tolstoy or a Hay. And the new ideal of international peace is not merely the religion of a few enthusiasts. In an individual way these apostles of peace voice to the world the spirit of the unnumbered thousands of obscurer men whose lives and talents are directed, not to the construction of material kingdoms but to the building of a better and more world-wide brotherhood.