Newer ideals of peace

by Jane Addams

The advance of constructive labor and the subsidence and disappearance of destructive warfare is a genuine line of progression. One sees much of protection and something of construction in the office of war, as the Roman bridges survived throughout Europe long after the legions which built them and crossed them for new conquests had passed out of mind. Also, in the rising tide of labor there is a large admixture of warfare, of the purely militant spirit which is sometimes so dominant that it throws the entire movement into confusion and leads the laborer to renounce his birthright; but nevertheless the desire for battle is becoming constantly more restricted in area. It still sways in regions where men of untamed blood are dwelling, and among men who, because they regard themselves as a superior race, imagine that they are free from the ordinary moral restraints; but its territory constantly grows smaller and its manifestations more guarded. Doubtless war will exist for many generations among semi-savage tribes, and it will also break out in those nations which may be roused and dominated by the unrestricted commercial spirit; but the ordinary life of man will go on without it, as it becomes transmitted into a desire for normal human relationship.

It is difficult to predict at what moment the conviction that war is foolish or wasteful or unjustifiable may descend upon the earth, and it is also impossible to estimate among how many groups of people this conviction has already become established.

The Doukhobors are a religious sect in Russia whose creed emphasizes the teaching of non-resistance. A story is told of one of their young men who, because of his refusal to enter the Russian army, was brought for trial before a judge, who reasoned with him concerning the folly of his course and in return received a homily upon the teachings of Jesus. “Quite right you are,” answered the judge, “from the point of abstract virtue, but the time has not yet come to put into practise the literal sayings of Christ.” “The time may not have come for you, your Honor,” was the reply, “but the time has come for us.” Who can tell at what hour vast numbers of Russian peasants upon those Russian steppes will decide that the time has come for them to renounce warfare, even as their prototype, the mujik, Count Tolstoy, has already decided that it has come for him? Conscious as the peasants are of religious motive, they will meet a cheerful martyrdom for their convictions, as so many of the Doukhobors have done. It may, however, be easy to overestimate this changed temper because of the simple yet dramatic formulation given by Tolstoy to the non-resisting spirit. How far Tolstoy is really the mouthpiece of a great moral change going on in the life of the Russian peasant and how far he speaks merely for himself, it is, of course, impossible to state. If only a few peasants are experiencing this change, his genius has certainly done much to make their position definite. The man who assumes that a new degree of virtue is possible, thereby makes it real and tangible to those who long to possess it but lack courage. Tolstoy at least is ready to predict that in the great affairs of national disarmament, it may easily be true that the Russian peasants will take the first steps.

Their armed rebellion may easily be overcome by armed troops, but what can be done with their permanent patience, their insatiable hunger for holiness? All idealism has its prudential aspects, and, as has been pointed out by Mr. Perris,[17] no other form of revolution is so fitted to an agricultural people as this continued outburst of passive resistance among whole communities, not in theory, but in practise. This peasant movement goes on in spite of persecution, perfectly spontaneous, self-reliant, colossal in the silent confidence and power of endurance. In this day of Maxim guns and high explosives, the old method of revolt would be impossible to an agricultural people, but the non-resistant strike against military service lies directly in line with the temperament and capacity of the Russian people. That “the government cannot put the whole population in prison, and, if it could, it would still be without material for an army, and without money for its support,” is an almost irrefutable argument. We see here, at least, the beginnings of a sentiment that shall, if sufficiently developed, make war impossible to an entire people, a conviction of sin manifesting itself throughout a nation.

Whatever may have been true of the revolutionist of the past when his spike was on a certain level of equality with the bayonet of the regular soldier, and his enthusiasm and daring could, in large measure, overcome the difference, it is certainly true now that such simple arms as a revolutionist could command, would be utterly futile against the equipment of the regular soldier. To continue the use of armed force means, under these circumstances, that we must refer the possibilities of all social and industrial advance to the consent of the owners of the Maxim guns. We must deny to the humble the possibility of the initiation of progressive movements employing revolution or, at least, we must defer all advance until the humble many can persuade the powerful few of the righteousness of their cause, and we must throw out the working class from participation in the beginnings of social revolutions. Tolstoy would make non-resistance aggressive. He would carry over into the reservoirs of moral influence all the strength which is now spent in coercion and resistance. It is an experiment which in its fullness has never been tried in human history, and it is worthy of a genius. As moral influence has ever a larger place in individual relationship and as physical force becomes daily more restricted in area, so Tolstoy would “speed up” the process in collective relationships and reset the whole of international life upon the basis of good will and intelligent understanding. It does not matter that he has entered these new moral fields through the narrow gateway of personal experience; that he sets forth his convictions with the limitations of the Russian governmental environment; that he is regarded at this moment by the Russian revolutionists as a quietist and reactionary. He has nevertheless reached down into the moral life of the humble people and formulated for them as for us the secret of their long patience and unremitting labor. Therefore, in the teachings of Tolstoy, as in the life of the peasants, coextensive with the doctrine of non-resistance, stress is laid upon productive labor. The peasant Bandereff, from whom Tolstoy claims to have learned much, has not only proclaimed himself as against war, but has written a marvelous book entitled “Bread Labor,” expressing once more the striking antithesis, the eternal contrast between war and labor, and between those who abhor the one and ever advocate the other.

War on the one hand—plain destruction, Von Moltke called it—represents the life of the garrison and the tax-gatherer, the Roman emperor and his degenerate people, living upon the fruits of their conquest. Labor, on the other hand, represents productive effort, holding carefully what has been garnered by the output of brain and muscle, guarding the harvest jealously because it is the precious bread men live by.

It is quite possible that we have committed the time-honored folly of looking for a sudden change in men’s attitude toward war, even as the poor alchemists wasted their lives in searching for a magic fluid and did nothing to discover the great laws governing chemical changes and reactions, the knowledge of which would have developed untold wealth beyond their crude dreams of transmuted gold.

The final moral reaction may at last come, accompanied by deep remorse, too tardy to reclaim all the human life which has been spent and the treasure which has been wasted, or it may come with a great sense of joy that all voluntary destruction of human life, all the deliberate wasting of the fruits of labor, have become a thing of the past, and that whatever the future contains for us, it will at least be free from war. We may at last comprehend the truth of that which Ruskin has stated so many times, that we worship the soldier, not because he goes forth to slay, but to be slain.

That this world peace movement should be arising from the humblest without the sanction and in some cases with the explicit indifference, of the church founded by the Prince of Peace, is simply another example of the strange paths of moral evolution.

To some of us it seems clear that marked manifestations of this movement are found in the immigrant quarters of American cities. The previous survey of the immigrant situation would indicate that all the peoples of the world have become part of the American tribunal, and that their sense of pity, their clamor for personal kindness, their insistence upon the right to join in our progress, can no longer be disregarded. The burdens and sorrows of men have unexpectedly become intelligent and urgent to this nation, and it is only by accepting them with some magnanimity that we can develop the larger sense of justice which is becoming world-wide and is lying in ambush, as it were, to manifest itself in governmental relations. Men of all nations are determining upon the abolition of degrading poverty, disease, and intellectual weakness, with their resulting industrial inefficiency, and are making a determined effort to conserve even the feeblest citizen to the State. To join in this determined effort is to break through national bonds and to unlock the latent fellowship between man and man. In a political campaign men will go through every possible hardship in response to certain political loyalties; in a moment of national danger men will sacrifice every personal advantage. It is but necessary to make this fellowship wider, to extend its scope without lowering its intensity. Those emotions which stir the spirit to deeds of self-surrender and to high enthusiasm, are among the world’s most precious assets. That this emotion has so often become associated with war, by no means proves that it cannot be used for other ends. There is something active and tangible in this new internationalism, although it is difficult to make it clear, and in our striving for a new word with which to express this new and important sentiment, we are driven to the rather absurd phrase of “cosmic patriotism.” Whatever it may be called, it may yet be strong enough to move masses of men out of their narrow national considerations and cautions into new reaches of human effort and affection. Religion has long ago taught that only as the individual can establish a sense of union with a power for righteousness not himself, can he experience peace; and it may be possible that the nations will be called to a similar experience.