Preliminary Issue. ^ £ - ^ J^QJJ 3 ?ARV ,-'1/-' STOP THE WAR! Set the Example of Mutual Concessions ! ALASKA PANHANDLE Its Proposed Cession to Canada OPINIONS \ ' The accompanying folder contains : 1. Two Maps. 2. House Joint Resolution 373, introduced by Hon. Frank O. Smith of Maryland, October 16, 1914. 3. Extracts from speeches in support of the resolution. 4. Population of Alaska Panhandle. pone all other railway work until we had seen the first train running from the United States to the Arctic Circle, even though we knew that the line would not pay a cent in divi dends for 20 years to come. However, though the longitu dinal line might by itself remain unremunerative, the trans verse branches to the ports, unhampered by a hne of cus tom-houses, would at once give rise to an active trade, and the northern half of British Columbia, with the climate of Scot land, Denmark, and southern Sweden, would soon be filled with settiers. Skagway, Juneau, Wrangell, and all the other 82 ports of the present coast strip of southeastern Alaska would in a few years develop into wealthy emporiums, controlling the lumber trade of the interior and smelting its ores. Some Canadians in their patriotic pride feel uncomfortable to think that, in -virtue of the Monroe doctrine, Canada is under the protection of the United States. They ihay gain a new sense of equilibrium from the knowledge that the United States is also under the protection of Canada, in virtue of a Canadian supplement to the Monroe Doctrine, a supple ment which we may without undue presumption call the "Vancouver Doctrine," after the city where, so far as we know, it was first promulgated. DON'T USE THE KEY TILL THE DOOR IS OPEN A REPLY Several correspondents having expressed the opinion that the "Model Concession" to Canada must wait till all similar questions can be adjusted, it may be of interest to pubhsh a letter in reply. " I have your letter approving the proposed "Model Con cession" to Canada in principle, but expressing "the opin ion that this cession of territory should take place simul taneously with, and not before, the establishment of an In ternational Court, with power to enforce its decrees." If you will allow me to extract the essence of your argu ment, it is this : Never use the key till the door is open. The Model Concession to Canada is intended to be the key to the union of the four leading nations into an In ternational Executive Power, to give effect to the decrees of the International Court you are planning. If you say that the Model Concession must wait till the International Executive Power has been organized, you imply that we must use some other method to . organize that power. I fear — and you seem to share my fear — that the door will remain closed for a long time if we merely run our heads against it. With the key we could open it tomorrow. An International Executive Power cannot be efficient un less there is harmony of aims and interests among the na tions composing it. Such harmony cannot be established (83) 84 unless these nations are willing to make mutual concessions. It is a mere platitude to say that the best way, practically the only way, to promote mutual concessions is by example. Ever since we went to school we have been told a thousand times that "Actions speak louder than words." Set the im pressive example of the Model Concession to Canada, and concessions will quickly become fashionable. We are told that a pebble can start an avalanche. The Model Conces sion will start an avalanche of concessions, each new con cession adding its momentum till a movement of increasing velocity is created which will sweep the inertia of wrongly accomplished facts out of existence. Every concession will be followed by a lessening of irritation, an increase of har mony and mutual confidence, rendering cooperation easier. Half a dozen such concessions would suffice to establish the International Executive Power, and then your Interna tional Court could go to work, with the assurance that its de crees would not remain a dead letter. The "concert of the powers" of unhappy memory shows what sort of international court we shall get if we wait till all the nations join it. That "concert" was simply a dead lock of conflicting interests, an agreement to do nothing. It is a common saying that if nothing must be done till everybody is convinced, nothing will ever be done. Quot homines, tot sententiae. This is not solely due to the lim itations of the human brain and the equally lamentable limitations of the human heart; it is largely due to a real confiict of interests. The good people who talk about har monizing the interests of all nations are shutting their eyes to the fundamental fact of life, the struggle for existence. It is simply impossible in many cases to gratify the am bition of one nation without depriving another nation of its gratification. What, then, are we to do? We have no choice but to fall back on the fundamental motive of human action: the in crease of human happiness. Whatever leads to an increase of human happiness is right, whatever leads to a decrease of 85 human happiness is wrong. We have to decide what in terests are most conducive to an increase of human happi ness and give the preference to those interests. The lead ing factors making for increase of human happiness are in telligence and public spirit. Judging by results, the largest accumulation of intellectual force and of public spirit is found today in the four leading civilized nations: Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. In giving the preference to their interests, we shall best serve all humanity. For this purpose it is evidently necessary that they shall be strong enough to make their interests prevail. Now we all know the main source of strength. "In union is strength — L'union fait la force — Einigkeit macht stark" say the millions of Britons, Frenchmen, Germans, and Americans every day, even while doing their best to keep up disunion. Bestow on them the armament of union, and the globe is theirs to have and to hold. They will of course use it mainly for their own interests, but those interests, as we have seen, coincide with the best interests of humanity. If indeed we are to believe the present utterances of the British, French, and German press, the people of those three countries are all criminals and savages. We know, however, that the press in time of war is simply a literairy artillery, auxiliary to the army, hurling shrapnel of epithets. We know that Britons, Frenchmen, and Germans are not worse today than they were before the war, when their press — at least the decent part of their press — was lavish in mutual compliments. We are all woefully imperfect, not nearly as far advanced in evolution as we should like to be, but if we possess any honesty and logic, we will try to place our destiny in the hands of the least imperfect among us, and these, to the best of our knowledge, are found in great est abundance in Britain, France, Germany and the United States. If they are to take proper care of our interests, it is necessary, first of all, that their strength be not paralyzed by mutual opposition. 86 We have been told a thousand times that "many cooks spoil the broth." Is it not about time that we paid some at tention to that bit of condensed wisdom? What we want is an International Executive Power that will execute. A single preponderant nation would be by far the best for that purpose. It would exist by this time if the American Revolution had not taken place. Could we undo the work of that Revolution, could we reunite the two fragments of the Enghsh-speaking people, we should come very near even now to an Executive Power strong enough to impose peace on the globe. It would not be a tyrant, for Britons and Americans are even now instinctively carrying home rule to every land they occupy. Anglo-American reunion, however, must remain a dream so long as the German-Americans are opposed to it. They would change their opposition to ardent advocacy if Ger many were admitted into the union. Germany will not con sent to this except on condition that she be allowed a suf ficient sphere of infiuence to assure her future as a great power. The British Government at present seems to think that such a concession to Germany would be fatal to Britain's world position, because Germany's growth has in recent years been so rapid that with an enlarged sphere of influ ence she would soon overshadow Britain. The current say ing that Britain is fighting for her life may well be taken as representing the conviction of the average Briton. But if Britain were reunited with the United States, all that fear would be at an end. No power on earth could ever hope to keep pace with the growth of the reunited Anglo-Saxon na tion. Britain would then be reheved of the unenviable, imbrotherly, anti-social task of having to oppose that Ger man expansion which is such a blessing to humanity. She would promptly concede Germany's -vital demand: carte blanche in all lands of the Old World not owned by Britain, France, Italy or Russia. Nothing better could happen to any backward country than to be drawn within the circle of Germany's enlightenment and prosperity. 87 Thus by favoring Anglo-American reunion, the German- Americans can put an end to a cruel situation. Every lover of progress who has been following Germany's development with admiration and delight is pained at the thought that this most efficient of nations is cabined, cribbed, confined within her 208,825 square miles — for her million square miles in Africa can hardly be called an outlet. Her neigh bors, Britain, France, and Russia, have been saying to her: "You have come too late; the banquet is over. We have eaten all the choice dishes and nothing is left but the crumbs. You can't even have the crumbs, because we in tend to take them ourselves. Why? Because we have got into the habit of taking things and therefore have a right to continue so long as there is anything to take." Britain would at once abandon that attitude and insist that all the crumbs shall belong to Germany, if she knew that thereby she could gain the German-Americans' consent to that Anglo-American reunion which would forever assure Anglo^ Saxon supremacy. Far from being "the death-knell of American independ ence," Anglo-American reunion would mean greater inde pendence for both partners. Pennsylvania and Ohio are more independent as members of a great Union than they would be as separate republics. In a reunited Anglo-Saxon nation, the United States would be the bulkier half, and therefore have a predominant infiuence over the common pohcy. We would of course not interfere in the slightest degree in the internal affairs of the present British Empire; we would leave them as severely alone as we should expect Britain to leave our internal affairs alone. She does in fact leave Canada's internal affairs so completely alone that Canadians have got into the habit of speaking. of "the Cana dian nation." Only in dealing with outside nations would Anglo-Saxondom act as a unit, dispensing peace and pros perity to the world, as the leading member of the Inter national Executive Power, in close union with France and Germany. The reunited nation would be one for defense only; a union for offense would not be needed, for the United States, as President Wilson told the world, does not desire another inch of territory, and Britain, too, in the words of Mr. Asquith, has enough land and does not desire to acquire more. The territory of the united nation would measure 17,000,000 square miles, more than one-fourth of the 56 million square miles of the land surface of the globe, and comprising its choicest parts. If there are any more colonies to acquire, they ought clearly to go to Germany who is so sorely in need of land and knows better than any other nation how to make use of it. To repeat, if the International Executive Power is to be efficient, it must consist not of an incoherent, discordant patchwork of macroscopic and microscopic nations of all de grees of culture and barbarism, but of a group of the most highly cultured nations, a group large enough to be pre ponderant, with the greatest possible number of common ideals and interests, and the fewest occasions for confiict. The more partners you introduce the more difficult will it be to reconcile their interests. Hence the group, at least at the start, must not comprise more nations than will just suffice to make it preponderant. A brief survey of the globe shows that there is only one group capable of fulfilling these conditions: Britain, France, Germany and the United States. It would within a few years be reinforced by the addition of Italy. This view of the International Executive Power ought to quiet your alarm at the dominant position which Britain enjoys through her navy and the possession of the most important strategic naval bases and waterways. That is ex actly as it should be. Instead of being an obstacle to the de velopment of an efficient International Court, that condi tion is one of the best preparations for it. The International Executive Power, in order to be pre ponderant, in order to execute, must have the requisite tools, to wit, a preponderant army and a preponderant navy. If it did not have them, it would have to create them. How con venient to find a preponderant navy ready-made, controlling 89 most of the naval bases 1 In all efficient organizations there is a division of labor. In an efficient International Executive Power Britain would furnish the navy ; France and Germany would furnish the army ; the United States, being half Brit ish, half German, with a goodly spicing of French, would, with her financial power, her unlimited supply of material, constitute the umpire, the reservoir, the family tie. You say that "Britain must give up her armaments and her strategic bases, if we are to have an international control for peace keeping." For sweet reason's sake, let us deal in things, not words. If we are to wait for a formal surrender of the British navy and of the French and German armies to the International Executive Power, we shall have to wait till doomsday. Let the British na-vy remain British, the French and German armies French and German, so long as it is evident that, the moment the four powers agree to act together to promote their common interests, the main function of their armaments -will, from the sheer force of facts, be to assure the execution of the decrees of the Inter national Court. For that purpose the mere existence of these armaments -wiU suffice, since nobody will care to resist the irresistible. From a court representing the four most en- hghtened, most progressive, most humane nations we may expect a far higher degree of justice for everybody than from a court representing alike the ci-vilized and the bar barian, the progressive and the reactionary, the brainy and the brainless. It is not the well-meaning, sober people, the true friends of humanity, that rant about the sacred inde pendence of microscopic, backward nations, but only noisy cliques of selfish demagogues, whose only object is to retain the power of exploiting the helpless mass of their fellow- citizens. A man who has only his right hand is sorely crippled ; a man who has only his left hand is more sorely crippled; when the right and left hands belong to the same man he is far better off than the two one-armed men. The moment the four leading nations combine for the protection of their 90 common interests, the British navy will ipso facto be placed at the service of France and Germany ; the French and Ger man armies will ipso facto be placed at the service of Britain ; and both the British navy and the French and German armies will ipso facto be placed at the service of the United States. The United States will have practically nothing to do except to make money, to cut down her naval and mili tary expenses, and to act as the rock-ribbed and inexhaustible but never-touched reserve, the financial and moral cement to give coherence to the League of Civilization. "And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends, A hoop of gold to bind. thy brothers in. That the united vessel of their blood. Mingled with venom of suggestion— As, force perforce, the age will pour it in — May never leak, though it do work as strong As aconitum or rash gunpowder." If we are not willing to assume this merely nominal re sponsibility ; if we refuse to contribute this merely nominal share to the laying of the secure foundation of eternal peace ; if we prefer the less to the greater independence; if we value the letter that killeth more highly than the spirit which giveth life; if we worship the phrase "no entangling alli ances" above the motive which inspired it, to wit, the se curing of lasting peace for our country— we shall prove false to every noble quality ever attributed to our Republic. Thus instead of trying to calculate how soon Britain could be persuaded to surrender her naval bases to the Interna tional Executive Power, I should like to see her control every important naval base on the globe. In order to have com plete control of the strait of Gibraltar, she ought to acquire the Spanish zone of Morocco, in exchange for Gibraltar, which today would be practically defenceless against an army posted on the surrounding heights. For the control of the strait, Britain would need only the Tangier-Tetuan peninsula; the rest of the coast could be surrendered to France. 91 Britain ought also to have complete control of the Suez Canal, including the right to fortify it, and she could prob^ ably get it by — surrendering the rest of Egypt to Italy, a plan which, I suppose, must remain a pipe dream, notwith standing the patent advantages which it would offer to Italy, Egypt and Britain. To keep that dream company, let me concoct another. Everybody knows what an immense economic and social advantage a Channel tunnel would be. A part of the British press seems to think that that project has received its death blow. But if both ends of the tunnel belonged to Britain, would not the danger of a surprise be eliminated? The hor rible war ought to have at least one good result — to create sufficient mutual confidence between Britain and France to enable them to conclude a bargain whereby, in exchange for the Channel Islands and some other bits of land, Britain would acquire Calais and enough of its vicinity to give her complete control of the continental end of the tunnel. As for the Panama Canal, Anglo-American reunion would make it virtually the joint property of the reunited nation. I suppose you would not be unpatriotic enough to say that the absolute control of that strategic waterway by our own people would ever constitute a danger to humanity, an ob stacle to the smooth operation of an International Court. None of these advantages can be gained by Britain unless she is willing to agree to one condition: a free hand for Germany in all the lands of the Old Worid not controlled by Britain, France, Italy or Russia. In return for that vital concession, I feel sure that Germany will not only acknowl edge Britain's -vital need of naval supremacy, but will reso lutely back Britain's demand for the control of every im portant naval base or waterway, including the strait of Dover, Germany's own outlet. Germany has no desire to dominate; she simply does not wish to be crowded out. Let us have a clean job, no haggling, no cheese-paring, no patchwork, no half measures. Since Britain must have naval supremacy, let her have it to the fullest extent. Since Ger- 92 many must have more land, let her have all the land that can still be got. Only by such frank recognition of each other's vital interests can these two great civilized countries be extricated from the horrible necessity of having to block each other's progress, of having to place the interests of all sorts of barbarians above those of their nearest kin. Is it not about time for white people to remember that they are white? When the future of both countries has been made secure by the above-named mutual concessions, when their rivalry is at an end, they will quickly remember their kinship, their millennial friendship, their "historic alliance," and joyfully cooperate to promote their common interests. In stead of repeating their present mutual accusations, could not we in America employ our time more usefully in re minding Britons and Germans what fine fellows they both are, by their own reciprocal testimony of less than a year ago? How brutal, diabolical, to say that these fine people, the salt of the earth, must "fight to a finish !" And when the International Executive Power has been in operation for a few decades the lines separating its component nations will grow fainter and fainter, while the sentiment of a common Celto-Germanic nationality will grow stronger, till it becomes the dominant feeling, just as in the United States the national feeling has grown from a weak begin ning till it completely overshadows the sectional feeUng. The slavish worship of custom, which is such a stumbling- block to progress, can be made a stepping-stone if the slaves can be started to worship the right custom. On all sides is heard the cry for a larger army and navy to secure our nation against attack. It seems strange that not one voice has been heard to demand the strongest of all armaments, which would cost absolutely nothing: union with our parent nations, the nations whose ideals and inter ests are most nearly identical with ours, and, first and closest, the nation which speaks our own language. There are really no two sides to the question. All the arguments are on one side and on the other there is nothing but the 93 sluggishness of habit. When men get into a rut it usually takes an explosion to lift them out of it. Let it be hoped that the tons upon tons of explosives spent during the last seven months in smashing thousands of the finest human beings may at least render one service — lift Anglo-Saxon dom out of the rut of disunion. At first glance the war seems a scene of tremendous ac- ti-vity. In reality it is a symptom of mental torpor, the torpor which prevents nations from making mutual con cessions. It is an exhibition of tremendous physical courage and of tremendous moral cowardice — for the observance of the Golden Rule really requires the highest kind of cour age. In mere physical courage, no man can surpass the rhinoceros or the bulldog, two of the stupidest animals. As regards generalship, it may be doubted whether any of the present military leaders can compare with the Mongol chiefs of 700 years ago, who were mere savages. No one doubts that when it comes to fighting, the physical courage of Americans will be found equal to that of any nation. Shall we not aspire to the higher courage which distin guishes the man from the brute, the civilized man from the savage? Shall we be physical heroes but moral cowards? Shall we not rouse ourselves to that mental energy which is necessary for the observance of that Golden Rule which we profess every day — ^with our Hps? Surely the strongest microscope cannot detect a particle of glory in our reten tion of the Alaska Panhandle. Its surrender to Canada would invest our nation with the truest kind of glory, the glory of the leadership in that policy of mutual concessions which is the only one that can usher in the era of eternal peace, under the control of the most enlightened and progressive elements of humanity — the only peace worth having, for a peace under the control of the reactionary elements would be worse than war. In a word, the cession of the Alaska Panhandle to Canada is the key to the new palace of humanity. Let me present the argument once more in a nutshell. The union of Britain, France, Germany and the United States into an 94 International Executive Power to guarantee the world's peace is not possible without mutual concessions. If we refuse to make to our own neighbor a concession demanded by every consideration of equity and common sense, it would be a piece of effrontery, of brazen hypocrisy, on our part, to point out to our parent nations the necessity of making concessions to their neighbors — of drawing the motes out of their eyes. On the contrary, if we first draw the beam out of our own eye, no verbal exhortation will be needed. People will do anything to be fashionable. Start the fashion of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us, and every nation will soon want to be '*in the swim." To quote from my first speech, "we can send to Europe an invisible missionary, a ubiquitous, intangible, unsilence able, uninterruptable preacher, in whose presence the tongue of contradiction will be dumb, the most ranting jingo will bite his Up in speechless rage. An ounce of example is worth a ton of words. We have at this moment a unique, incomparable, God-sent opportunity to inculcate the policy of mutual concessions, the policy of compromise, by the most persuasive, the most inoffensive of all methods — ^that of example. To our neighbor, Canada, we can make a Model Concession which would electrify the world, take the heart of Europe by storm, sweep away the inertia of a hun dred wrongly accompHshed facts, and continue for cen turies tearing iron shirts of pernicious habit into shreds." America has it in her power to stop the war at once and to establish permanent universal peace by declaring her willingness to join Britain, France and Germany in an International Executive Power, and showing how the essen tial condition of such a union may be fulfilled — by fulfilling it, so far as we are concerned. "Act in behalf of peace instead of merely talking about it." Will you still insist that we must not use the key till the door is open? 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