THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE WHAT is this European war all about? You know the alleged cause-that Austria declares Servia should be punished for fostering the movement to dismember AustriaHungary. A deeper cause is the ancient race-hate between German and Slav. War is collective hate. A reason still deeper and more real is the fact that millions of men are kept under arms, drilled, impregnated with notions of military glory, and hence welcoming any war as an outlet for their enthusiasm and an opportunity for advancement. The greatest cause for war is military preparedness. When a nation spends millions of dollars for fireworks sooner or later they want to see them fired off. When five hundred thousand young men have been practising with guns for years, by and by they want to shoot somebody. That is about all there is to it. Europe's method of keeping the peace-by maintaining enormous armaments-is the most towering folly that the minds of crazy men can conceive. The plain, simple, sensible thing for Europe to do is to FEDERATE-to form a union somewhat on the order of the United States of America. Then each nation might attend to its own affairs, and all international disputes could be adjusted by a European tribunal. At the disposal of this tribunal, to enforce its decrees, should be one army and one navy. War between one European state and another, as between Austria and Servia, should be as impossible as war between Ohio and Indiana. The old theory of entire national independence has broken down. Nations are mutually dependent. What injures one injures the other. One's loss is no more the other's gain. A general European war would mean inconceivable ruin. It would destroy the works of man that have been slowly perfecting for years. It would be to Europe what the earthquake and fire were to San Francisco. It would be pure destruction. Perhaps it will take a hideous universal conflict for the nations to see this. When they have wasted their substance and decimated their population and stand bleeding, bankrupt, and beggared, then they may come to their right minds. Perhaps then they may see that national vanity and touchiness, truculency, and warpreparedness are as terribly destructive and idiotic in a state as vanity, bullying, and boasting are vicious in a boy. War and that lack of federation which permits of war are always stupid. They that rule Europe are stupid, petty, wickedly childish. Possibly when they have had their fight out, and are prostrate from their insane anger, they may be willing to look across the sea to these mighty states, bounding forward in that prosperity which is the fruit of co-operation. Nations learn slowly and oftentimes at a dear price. And it may take the incalculable horror of a vast European cataclysm to teach the states of the old world how vain and how unworkable is the worn-out idea of rival empires safeguarded by armed forces, and how practical is the idea of federation secured by law. And it may be that in the mysterious mind of destiny this dread havoc is designed to be the means of bringing about THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE. Saturday, August 8, 1914. AN APPEAL TO SOCIETY WOMEN ABOUT half the population are women. It is the man who is the destroyer. The woman creates, conserves. She brings up children. He cuts down men. She lights the candles of life. He blows them out. The most efficient factor in ending war will be the coming of women into class consciousness. The feminist movement throughout the world is bringing this to pass. I have called the laboring man to organize against war, to strike against ivory-headed rulers who will not abandon militarism for law. I have urged the bankers to cut the moneynerve of battling nations, since banks prosper only as the people prosper. I now call upon the women of the civilized world to unite and stop the hideous hell-broth of destruction now bubbling. How can this be done? John Ruskin has told you. He said that "if |