workers. Thus shall the nations advance in culture and wealth.

The nations seek but justice. This we will determine by seeing whose guns can shoot farthest.

By all means a nation must defend and maintain its honor. The only way to show that we are honorable is to be prepared to kill anyone that says "boo" to us.

This is the reasoning of statesmen, not of native Fiji Islanders, of cannibals, nor of Flatfoot Indians.

It is this sort of tomfool stuff that common folk are expected to admire.

It is sheer, rotten stupidity. It illustrates the utter incompetency of the professional rulers of the nations.

How much longer are the plain people going to stand it? How much longer will they consent to march out and be piled up in horrific hecatombs to pay the price of misgovernment?

Thursday, October 1, 1914.

THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT WITH THE EAST

CONGRESSMAN JIM MANN has done broke loose, as follows:

"It is as certain as that the sun will arise to-morrow that a conflict will come between the Far East and the Far West across the Pacific Ocean. I hope there will be no conflict of arms.

"I have little faith that in this world of ours people and races are able to meet in competition for a long period of time without armed conflict. A fight for commercial supremacy leads to a fight with arms, because that is the final arbiter between nations."

There is no reason why we should inevitably drift into a fight with any nation, except one, and that is that we prepare for war, multiply battleships, bristle with forts, and otherwise go around with a chip on our shoulder.

There is no logical connection between commercial competition and armed conflict. Nor

for believing that rivals in trade should by and by go shooting each other.

On the contrary, commerce is one of the greatest preventives of war. It is in a way a substitute for war, as it provides an outlet for the surplus energy of the people, gives a certain risk and adventure, and, best of all, implies travel and better acquaintance.

One deep root of war is provincialism. The less you know of the people in a foreign country the more easily you fall to hating them. The more familiar you become with Japanese, Chinese, Hindus, or Europeans the more you love them.

Ignorance, narrowness, clannishness, and racial egotism produce a kind of patriotism which is childish, violent, and brutish. Europe is now a prey to these race animosities, as fierce as the mutual hatred between ancient Scottish clans.

The self-esteem of a savage is marked by the degree to which he despises his rivals and by the ferocity with which he attacks them. The self-esteem of a civilized man is marked by the extent to which he appreciates his competitors.

Trade with a foreign land ought to mean, and does mean, profit for both parties. When

we buy silk of China or tea of Japan, both countries are benefited.

Commerce means mutual increase of wealth to both sides; war means mutual destruction. One is the opposite of the other.

Brother Mann's scream about competition leading to armed conflict, therefore, is mediæval. Such talk is as out of date in statesmanship as the eternal damnation of infants is out of date in theology.

The people of the Orient are kindly and gentle. They are a hard-working and peaceful folk. We have no quarrel with them and any differences that may arise can be settled. easily by lawful means, provided we do not go at them with blow and brag and bluster, gunboats and armies.

Why in the world cannot the U. S. A. statesmen and newspapers behave like gentlemen and not like Bowery gunmen?

A war with Japan would cost us, say, two billion dollars. But if we invest half of that amount in cultivating the friendship of the bright, energetic people of Nippon, interchanging college professors, building up trade, disseminating friendly literature, and submitting all debated questions to an international court, then no war cloud shall ever darken our horizon.

Our dealings with the Orientals have been characterized by the cheapest, nastiest, and most offensive narrowness and bluster of which politicians are capable. If we would turn over a new leaf and be courteous, just, self-controlled, and gentlemanly, we would not need to get ready for "the inevitable conflict with the Japanese."

Monday, October 5, 1914.