APPENDIX
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
PEACE PROPOSALS AND PROGRAMS
1. INTERNATIONAL
Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, Stockholm
Ford Neutral Conference at Stockholm.
To the Governments, Parliaments and Peoples of the Warring Nations:
A conference composed of delegates from six neutral countries—Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States—has been convened at Stockholm upon the initiative of Henry Ford to work for the achievement of an early and lasting peace, based upon principles of justice and humanity. This conference represents no government. It has no official sanction. It represents the good will of millions throughout the civilized world who cannot stand idly by while the deadly combat rages unchecked. It does not attempt to impose its judgment upon the belligerents, but its members, as private individuals, unhampered by considerations which restrain governments, have resolved to do everything within their power to promote such discussion as may tend to bring the belligerents together on just and reasonable terms.
Through a thousand channels utterances have already reached the conference pleading that a long continuance of the struggle will mean ruin for all, but as both sides believe that only complete victory can decide the issue, ever new sacrifices of blood and treasure are made, exhausting the present and impoverishing the future. Still, we are convinced that an agreement between the warring nations might even now be reached were certain universal principles to be accepted as a basis of discussion; principles which cannot be violated with impunity, whatever the military results of the war.
The first duty of a neutral conference, then, is to call attention to those universal principles and concrete proposals upon which agreement seems possible, and upon which there may be founded a peace that will not only satisfy the legitimate demands of the warring nations themselves, but also advance the welfare of humanity at large. The neutral conference does not propose to discuss all the issues at stake. Nor does it desire to set forth a plan for the construction of a perfect world. But it emphasizes the universal demand that peace, when it comes, shall be real, insuring mankind against the recurrence of a world war. Humanity demands a lasting peace.