Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

disarmed scores of critics and re-echo in thousands of human hearts.

Germans all over the world, whether German subjects or not, admire and are proud of the devoted and courageous, highminded activity of the German Emperor. They see in him the typical representative of the restless striving of modern Germany for high achievement, and of its remarkable responsiveness to ideal impulses. For nothing, I believe, are they more grateful to him than for the fact that he has lost no opportunity for showing his keen desire to cultivate friendly relations with all other nations. His habitual recognition of men of talent and eminence, whether English, French, Russian, Italian or American, his ardent interest in the exchange of professors between German and American institutions of learning, his splendid gifts to Harvard University, are only a few expressions of this fundamental desire, the desire of the German people for a constantly growing friendliness and intimacy of international inter

course.

Let me close by giving to this desire one particular application. No greater blessing, it seems to me, can come to modern civilization than that the happily correct and friendly relations which now exist between Germany, France and England should more and more be strengthened into a firm and indissoluble friendship. If we reflect what these nations have given to each other; if we think of France's brilliant initiative in all matters spiritual, intellectual and artistic; of England's political genius and marvelous power of organization; of Germany's depth of feeling and philosophical grasp, it seems impossible to think that these nations should not henceforth always and forever stand together enriching each other, and working together for the good of mankind. (Applause.) The American people,-an Ueber-Volk, so to speak,-uniting in itself the Anglo-Saxon, the Teutonic and the Romance racial types, wishes for nothing more devoutly than for such an alliance as this, an alliance into which America's own natural instinct would draw her also, making it irresistible and inviolable.

MR. Low:

Professor Francke has done us a real service, I think, in calling our attention from the most obvious thing to that which

lies behind it. We so often think of Germany as an armed nation, that we forget sometimes that the leader of that nation has constantly shown himself a friend of Peace; and we often forget, what we in the University world never should forget, that Germany has carried beyond every other nation two ideas that are essential to the making of great universities: first, the right of the teacher to be free in what he says. The teacher is expected to be true to the truth he sees, but he is thought of as false to it if he dare not give expression to what he believes. (Applause.) And because of this conception of the university professor in Germany, it consequently follows that the German student is equally at liberty to learn. He may ask any question of any of the sciences, and refuse to be satisfied with the voice of authority upon any subject, because being a student he is free to learn, free to question, free to think. Now, a nation that sets no limit to freedom in the intellectual world, is the last of all the nations not to welcome Peace among men (applause), because a breach of the Peace in itself is a limitation of freedom for the time being; but Germany holds up before our eyes continually that illuminating torch.

Now, I have great pleasure in presenting to you another speaker, who, after speaking here, will speak to our friends at the Hotel Astor. I might say many things of him; but all I want to say to-night is, that in his speech this afternoon I thought he placed this movement on a remarkably high plane, and left it there,-left it as a beacon upon the mountain, to give us courage to walk in the right direction, even when we cannot see very clearly beyond our next step. I have pleasure in presenting Hon. William Jennings Bryan.

MR. BRYAN:

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: This Peace Congress has at least served one purpose. It has shown us that the nations which keep large armies out of supposed fear of each other, and build large ships for the supposed purpose of fighting each other are, after all, quite good friends when you bring them together, and have a free outspoken expression of opinion. I think this is a useful purpose. It cannot fail to have a good effect. And the manner in which these representatives have slyly admitted to each other the deep affection that they have been feeling for each other for

a long while, reminds me of a little story I heard a couple of years ago in the South.

A very bashful young fellow had courted his girl for a year before he had the courage to propose to her. One evening he told her that he loved her, and asked her to marry him. She was a very frank sort of a girl, and said, "Why, Jim, I have been loving you all these many months, and I have just been waiting for you to tell me so I could tell you." Jim was overcome with delight, and he went out and looked up at the stars, and said, "Oh, Lord, I ain't got nothin' 'gin nobody."

Now, after we have heard the representatives of the different nations tell how long they have entertained this secret affection, how impatiently they have waited for a chance to express themselves, we can feel that we might close this Peace Congress by unanimously declaring that, "We just ain't got nuthin' 'gin nobody." (Applause.)

In thinking of a subject which would be appropriate for this evening, it occurred to me that there is no subject more intimately connected with the subject of Peace than the subject of human life. I think it is because the world is coming to have a larger view of human life, and the value of the individual to the world, that it looks with increasing dread upon the slaughter of mankind. I know the people sing of the glory of war. They tell us of the heroic deeds, they speak of the inspiration that this higher act of human sacrifice brings to the world, but the burden of proof is on the advocate of war to show that war's blessings exceed its evils. It is not sufficient that we should count merely the good drawn from the lives of warriors; we must count the cost that war has brought to the human race. Who will measure that cost? Who will put an estimate upon the millions of lives that have been sacrificed upon the battlefield? Who will place a money value upon the millions of men who have died in camp, and on the march? Where shall we begin to estimate the value of a life? Shall we begin with the life of some one unknown to us, or with the life that is intimately connected with our own? If we would understand what war has cost, let us measure the affection we have for our own children and multiply it by the number who have fallen in battle. What is a life worth? What even is the life of a child worth? A child! Why, before it can lisp a word it has brought to one woman the sweet con

sciousness of motherhood, and to one man the new strength that added responsibility imposes. Before its hand can lift a feather's weight it has drawn two hearts nearer together, and the prattle of its innocent tongue echoes through two lives. Who will measure the value of this child? When the child grows up there is not one day in all its life that it does not make its impress upon the world, and who will set the limit to the influence that it exerts? Shall we measure the value of the lives that war has cost? Let us measure the value of the lives that war has left us, and by the value of those that remain we can estimate the value of those that have been taken.

Think, if you will, how much one human being has added to this world's history. There was a time when people saw in the lightning nothing but that which would terrify, but one man conceived the thought that this lightning might be brought from the clouds and made the messenger of man, and now the news of each day's doings is flashed around the world. For centuries people had watched the escaping steam with no thought of its value until one had a vision of its power, and now steam is made to draw the burdens of the world, and has united the continents until they are closer to-day than communities were a century ago. Can you measure what man has wrought? I have spoken of two inventions, but, my friends, the impressions that one man may make upon the heart of the world are greater than the value of inventions. Is it a wonderful thing that by means of the telegraph instrument we can send messages 10,000 miles away? The achievements of the heart are greater still. The heart that is full of love for its fellows, the heart that yearns to do some great good, the heart that yearns to put into operation some great movement for the uplifting of the human race will speak to hearts that will speak to hearts 10,000 years after all our hearts are still. Who will measure the value of one human life to the world? What would have been the world's loss had Gladstone been lost upon the battlefield in the vigor of his youth? What would literature have lost had Shakespeare, as a boy, gone out to give his life in war? Measure, if you will, what we owe to Schiller and Goethe, or what we owe to Victor Hugo, or to Pasteur. Measure, if you can, the value of Jefferson and Lincoln, and then tell me how much the world would have lost had these great spirits gone away while their possessors were in their

youth, patriotically giving themselves for things that they considered just. (Applause.)

How shall we measure the cost of war? Let the advocate of bloodshed come forth with his figures, and prove if he can, that the blessings brought by war are greater than its cost. Tell me that liberty is more precious than life! Yes, but why shall we take the alternative of liberty or death? Why not liberty and life? Not liberty or death! (Applause.) Is war necessary? Has God so made us that we shall degenerate if we do not have an occasional blood-letting? Who thinks so? If any, let him tell us about how often we must have war in order that we may have a more rapid growth. How often must we kill in order that we shall not become effeminate? If this theory that war is necessary for human development is a sound one, then sometimes, in cases where wars are too far apart, we must go to shooting each other rather than risk the possibility of degeneration. Who will say that war is necessary to human development? I deny it! War is not a necessity! I could not worship God with the zeal I do if I thought that He made my advancement depend upon my taking my brother's life. (Applause.) I prefer to believe that war is but the evil that man in his imperfection has brought into the world, and is not a necessary part of the Divine plan. (Applause.) I prefer to build society upon the doctrine of human brotherhood rather than upon the doctrine of hatred and ill-will. (Applause.) And, we shall not have done what we ought to do in this Congress, and in similar ones, if we do not as a result of our deliberations give a new impulse to this feeling of brotherhood.

Surely the effect of these meetings must be to draw us closer together in the bonds of sympathy, and make each more interested in the other's welfare. With civilization, with progress, with rising morality, there must be a clearer conception of the extended relations which we bear to all others. First, there is the self, and the selfishness. Next, there is the family and the family tie, then the tribe and the tribal attachment. Then comes the nation with its national spirit, a larger world, where all humanity is knit together in indissoluble bonds. A poet has described an incident in the Civil War. He tells how in a fierce battle a soldier thrust his bayonet through a soldier in the opposing lines, and when he stooped to draw the bayonet out, he

« AnteriorContinuar »