Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
PRIZE ORATIONS
THE INTERCOLLEGIATE PEACE ASSOCIATION
Origin. In the autumn of 1904 President Noah E. Byers of Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, a Mennonite college, invited to a conference representatives of all the colleges in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that are conducted by those religious denominations that advocate nonresistance as one of their essential religious principles. Such bodies are the Mennonites, the Dunkards, and the Quakers. In the spring of 1905 a more specific invitation was sent out, with the result that a conference was held at Goshen College, June 22-23, 1905. This date is important, since the call of President Byers for such a conference was the first active step ever taken to interest the college world, and particularly undergraduates, in the great movement for world peace founded upon the idea of human brotherhood. While the conference did not take place until a month after President Gilman had suggested to the Lake Mohonk Conference, in May, 1905, that it should extend its peace work to the colleges and universities, yet the call for the conference was several months prior to the action of the Mohonk Conference.
Eight institutions were represented at this conference—Goshen, Earlham, Central Mennonite, Ashland, Wilmington, Juniata, and Penn colleges and Friends' University. No definite plan of work had been mapped out, but a simple organization was effected, and arrangements were made for a second conference at Earlham College (Society of Friends). Professor Elbert Russell of Earlham College was elected president, and upon him devolved most of the work of arranging for the second conference, which was held April 13-14, 1906. For this conference no denominational lines were drawn, it being felt that all colleges and universities should be interested in this important work. Hence invitations were sent to all institutions of higher learning in both Indiana and Ohio. Eight institutions were represented: Indiana, three—Earlham and Goshen colleges and Indiana University; Ohio, five—Antioch, Denison, Miami, Wilmington, and Central Mennonite. This representation was small, considering the importance of the conference and the excellent program that had been arranged for by Professor Russell. But notwithstanding the small number of institutions represented, the conference was a marked success, made so very largely by the many excellent addresses—among others, those of Edwin D. Mead, Benjamin F. Trueblood, Professor Ernst Richard of Columbia University, and Honorable William Dudley Foulke.
On the last day of the conference the delegates from the different colleges met and perfected a permanent organization, which it was agreed should be called the Intercollegiate Peace Association. Thus, after a year of preliminary work, the Intercollegiate Peace Association came into definite and permanent existence on April 14, 1906. At this meeting Dean William P. Rogers of the Cincinnati Law School was elected president, and Professor Elbert Russell, secretary and treasurer. The president and the secretary, President Noah E. Byers of Goshen College, and Professor Stephen F. Weston of Antioch College constituted the executive committee. The writer has remained on the executive committee from the beginning, as either an elected or an ex-officio member.
Two methods of propaganda were adopted: intercollegiate oratorical contests, and public addresses on peace questions before the student body and faculties of colleges and universities. It was also agreed that the work should begin with Ohio and Indiana and gradually extend to other states. Although no definite plan was formulated until a year later, at the meeting at Cincinnati, it was understood from the outset that it should be the aim gradually to extend the field of work, so that ultimately most of the institutions of higher learning in practically all of the states should be embraced within the organization and participate in the contests.
Purpose. The purpose of the association has been quite definitely set forth in my "Historical Sketch"[1] and in my report for 1912. From these the following statement is very largely borrowed. The fundamental purpose of the Intercollegiate Peace Association is to instill into the minds and hearts of the young men of our colleges and universities the principle that the highest ideals of justice and righteousness should govern the conduct of men in all their international affairs quite as much as in purely individual and social matters, and that, therefore, the true aim of all international dealings should be to settle differences, of whatever nature, by peaceful methods through an appeal to the noblest human instincts and the highest ideals of life, rather than by the arbitrament of the sword through an appeal to the lower passions; and, further, both on humanitarian and economic grounds, to arouse in the youth of to-day an appreciation of the importance of a peaceful settlement of international disputes, and to inculcate a spirit antagonistic to the inhuman waste of life and the reckless waste of wealth in needless warfare.