The police force to compel observance with the decrees of this Supreme Court will be incorporeal: It will be Dread.
There never will be established an international corporeal force capable of enforcing the obedience to the decrees of this Court. That means the establishment of a war force to prevent war; it is foolish in its conception. The power against which a decree is to be enforced will withdraw its representatives from the international force, and by the establishment of alliances, just as at present, meet with arms the force of arms.
If it be a weak nation; it will do, as it does now—obey the mandate through fear, unless the mandate means extermination, when it will fight. National extermination, while fighting, is better than extermination without resistance.
The first power for enforcement will be “Dread.” A greater dread than exists to-day, because of a greater object lesson of horror than has existed heretofore.
All things, that are, have a reason for their existence. The present conflagration must have its raison d’être. In orderly evolution it is not to be presumed that the reason is for the world control by any one power. That suggestion might meet the conceit of a nation, but would not meet the approbation of the world.
Nations having deviated from the moral law, the individuals thereof having gradually become accustomed to written rules of regulation, it has been necessary to substitute something for the moral code, for the present, until the moral code can once more take its rightful place.
Dread will be enthroned as the enforcer of agreements. Dread of war will prevent war.
That this may come about, it is necessary that there shall be a concrete example of the horrors of war in all its awful intensity. As nations have increased and as armaments have been multiplied, it is necessary that the lesson of “dread” must be planted firmly.
The times were ripe for the lesson. The wonders of art can bring before an audience a scene of horror as it was enacted thousands of miles away.
Hence the horrors of the present war. It must not be thought for a moment that they have reached their climax. They will be permitted to continue until they have increased to such intensity that men will mention war with bated breath, and nations that pretend to civilization will arm only to protect themselves from uncivilized countries; until the uncivilized become civilized and armaments cease.