And speaking of the proposed League of Peace, I notice that its partizans do not contemplate the use of force to compel the execution of a judgment. Force is to be used to get the parties into court or before the Council of Conciliation; that is to say, in case of a nation that refuses to submit its case to the court or to the council and invades the territory of the country with which it is in controversy, the members of the League bind themselves to unite their forces with the other party willing to arbitrate, and to use their forces thus combined against the nation going to war instead of arbitrating the dispute. If public opinion can be depended upon to execute the award, cannot public opinion be depended upon to force nations into court, if only the controversy be made public and public opinion be given a chance?
The suggestion of a League of Peace is very attractive in that it does not propose any particular kind of solution, but contents itself with the statement that the difference, whatever it is, shall be settled peaceably, leaving it to the parties in dispute to determine the form and nature of the adjustment. Some of the speakers at the Philadelphia gathering, in referring to the proposition of using force against a recalcitrant nation, admitted that the United States would need to change its policy in order to become a party to the League, but felt that the United States should be willing to do so. I gather the impression that such speakers had in mind the use of force by the United States against other countries, not the use of force by other parties to compel the United States to settle a dispute peaceably which our people might be unwilling to arbitrate or submit to a Council of conciliation. We might be willing for instance, to combine with other nations to use force against a weak power, but I doubt whether we would be willing to use force against a nation such as Germany over the Servian question, and I feel sure that we would be unwilling to allow foreign nations a right to use force against us.
THE MILITARIST
BY
JOHN EDWARD OSTER
A militarist is a blind, heartless, soulless, murderous, irrational being. He is not a man. He is a savage either in heart or manners or both, and is not even a brute, for a brute kills only in self-defense, or for the want of food. He has the feelings, thoughts and inclinations creditable to the worst beast, but not to civilized man.
Without the slightest doubt, the lowest occupation that a man can have is to be a militarist, and it matters not if it is his vocation, avocation, or, whether he is merely an abettor, accessory or accomplice. When he becomes active he is a soldier and then he can no longer distinguish right from wrong, and as far as humanity is concerned, he ceases to think, and is not allowed to reason under any circumstances, and his only alternative is obedience to the commands of his superior, or he is shot with less compunction than a stray dog.
Uncompromising obedience is the first law of militarism, consequently, he obeys without hesitation when ordered to fire on his fellow citizens, on his nearest friends, on his fond children, on his aged parents, or even on his beloved wife. When he is ordered to fire down a crowded thoroughfare where poor non-combatants and emaciated victims of military rule are clamoring for bread, he instantly obeys and sees the wrinkles of old age filled with gore, and the gray hair of fathers and mothers stained with red blood, and streams of life blood gushing from the mangled breasts of helpless women, feeling neither pity nor compunction of conscience.
The militarist is responsible either directly or indirectly for the state of mind which causes these cruelties. The mind is so calloused by the spirit of inhumanity which the militarist fosters, and by the atrocities which according to his reasoning he rightfully practices, that without giving a thought, he will, when appointed as a member of a firing squad to execute an illustrious hero or public benefactor, shoot him down without hesitation, although knowing that the bullet kills one of the noblest men who ever lived on earth.
The militarist thinks in terms of bloodshed, and measures everything in terms of force, hence, his encouragement of the use and application of murderous machinery and methods by the nations of the earth.