Jacob H. Schiff, Esq.
Mr. Schiff to Dr. Eliot.
NEW YORK,
Dec. 5, 1914.
President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot,
Cambridge, Mass.
Dear Dr. Eliot:
Your letter of Dec. 3 reached me this morning, and has given me much food for thought.
I wish I could follow you in the position you have taken, for I like nothing better than to sit at the feet of a master like you and be instructed. But, much as I have tried, even before our recent correspondence was begun, to get at your viewpoint as from time to time published, I have not been able to convince myself that you occupy a correct position. Please accept this as expressed in all modesty, for I know were you not thoroughly convinced of the justice of the position you have taken from the start you would not be so determined in holding to it.
I am perfectly frank to say that I am amazed and chagrined when you say that you feel strongly that the war ought to go on until the Allies have arrived at attacking Germany on her own soil, which, if this is at all likely to come, may take many months yet, and will mean sacrifice of human life on both sides more appalling than anything we have seen yet since the war began. So you are willing that, with all the human life that has already perished, practically the entire flower of the warring nations shall become exterminated before even an effort be made to see whether these nations cannot be brought to reason, cannot be made to stop and to consider whether, with the experience of the past four months before them, it would not be better to even now make an effort to find a way in which the causes that have led to this deplorable conflict can be once and forever eradicated?
That it will be possible to find at this time any method or basis through the adoption of which the world would become entirely immune against war I do not believe, even by the establishment of the international police force such as you and others appear to have in mind.
The perpetual cessation of all war between the civilized nations of the world can, as I see it, only be brought about in two ways, both Utopian and likely impracticable, for many years to come. War could be made only to cease entirely if all the nations of Europe could be organized into a United States of Europe and if free trade were established throughout the world. In the first instance, the extreme nationalism, which has become so rampant during the past fifty years and which has been more or less at the bottom of every war, would then cease to exist and prevail, and in the second event, namely, if free trade became established throughout the world the necessity for territorial expansion and aggression would no longer be needed, for, with the entire world open on equal terms to the commerce and industry of every nation, territorial possession would not be much of a consideration to any peoples.