3. Competition in armaments should end. The nations should agree to abandon compulsory military service and to limit military force to purposes of police and international defense.
4. All manufactures of arms, armaments and munitions for use in war should hereafter be national property. No private citizen or corporation should be permitted to engage in such manufacture. The export of such goods for use in armies and fleets should be prohibited.
5. No neutral nation should permit its citizens to make loans to belligerents for war purposes. As our own State Department has said: “Loans by American bankers to any foreign nation which is at war are inconsistent with the true spirit of neutrality.”
American School Peace League
American School Peace League.
1. A Concert of Europe. The surest method of establishing permanent peace is to bring about a Concert of Europe, based upon the knowledge that, with nations as with individuals, cooperation and not conflict is the law of progress. In order to insure mutual conference and concerted action, there should be organized a representative Council whose deliberations and decisions would be public. This would mark the end of offensive alliances and ententes which have proved their inability to safeguard the real and permanent interests of the people.
2. Nationality Must be Respected. No territory should be transferred from one nation to another against the will of the inhabitants, nor should any readjustments be made which might breed fresh wars. National boundaries should coincide as far as possible with national sentiment. No terms of settlement should be regarded as satisfactory if they impose upon any nation such harsh and humiliating terms of peace as would be inconsistent with its independence, self-respect, or well-being. All idea of revenge should, of course, be rooted out.
3. Limitation of Armaments. Since the policy of huge national armaments has lamentably failed to preserve peace, competition in armaments should end. The nations should agree to have no military forces other than those maintained for international police duty. Militarism should be abandoned by all nations, because they recognize the absolute futility of force as a means of advancing the moral or material well-being of any country. To facilitate the elimination of militarism, the conditions of peace should stipulate that all manufactories of arms, armaments, and munitions for use in war shall hereafter be national property. No private citizen or corporation should be permitted to engage in such manufacture.