mous prosperity of a thrifty and ingenious people was sucked dry to feed a huge army and navy.

The result? Any one not blinded with militarism, the great illusion, might have foreseen it. At the first movement of this terrific war machine every country is arrayed against her.

What has made Belgium frantically oppose the kaiser's advance and disbelieve his promises? Fear of Germany.

What has made France arise, to the last man, and go madly into the fray? Fear of Germany.

Why did England and Russian move so quickly to take their stand among her enemies? The same reason.

"What?" asks E. P. Bell, "has nerved, solidified, and armed to the teeth Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Balkan nationalities? Fear that one day something or somebody would start the German avalanche."

THIS IS THE PENALTY FOR MAKING ONE'S SELF FEARED.

If Germany had pursued steadily the constructive and creative arts in which her people were unmistakably the foremost in the world, her undisputed empire in trade, in science, in

all the finer fields of human activity might now have been acknowledged to the ends of the earth.

Her undoing was that hideous war machine of which she was so proud.

Never was a more striking example of the truth of the saying, "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword."

At what stupendous, unthinkable cost do nations learn the very beginnings of wisdom, that the perfection of their destructive power is their curse and burden, and possibly their ultimate destruction.

What is true of Germany is true in hardly less degree of England, France, Russia, Japan, and all other soldier-cursed nations. Their way is unto death.

And it will be the ruin of America also, if she listens to the bullying, big stick, big navy, and bellicose arguments of some of her alleged statesmen.

For a nation to make itself feared is to invite destruction.

Do we want to follow the lead of the insane states of Europe?

Friday, August 21, 1914.

THE OPPORTUNITY OF AMERICA

Now is the time to begin a movement to establish a world federation.

And the United States of America is the nation that ought to take the lead.

Now is the time. Let us not wait for the diplomats to arrange the new order after the war. If they settle the matter conditions probably will be as bad after as they were before the conflict. For they can only move from precedent to precedent; and the precedents are all bad.

What we need is that the earth's people get together by intelligence, humanity, and mutual benefit and establish a new precedent.

What we need is to consider the people— all the people-and to send the interests of dynasties and the "honor" of nations to the scrap heap.

The United States should inaugurate the universal agreement. We are the most powerful of the neutral states.

We have no entanglement with old world jealousies.

We are composed of all races. compound of all humanities.

We are a

Our people have no war madness. We want no more territory. We harbor no revenge against any alien country.

Let us, therefore, take the first step. Let us send to each nation this proposal:

"The United States of America asks you to join her in these two things—

"First-Universal disarmament, the reduction of all armies and navies to police proportions.

"The world has been shown that heavy armaments cannot insure peace. The world knows they are an intolerable burden upon human creative work and that they tend to grow constantly more unbearable. Let us reduce them.

"Second-Let us form a world-federation, each nation to be sovereign and independent in its own territory, all international questions to be settled by a body of delegates from all nations.

"We have an American constitution, a British, German, Japanese constitution. It is time to have a world constitution, defining the fundamental rights of each state and providing

for the legal settlement of all misunderstandings.

"America invites you to join a world movement to move out of the realm of violence into the realm of law.

"We, therefore, request you to send a representative of your country to meet with representatives of all other countries in the city of Washington to prepare a plan for the federation of the world, to prevent forever the outbreak of war, to foster international trade, and to increase the prosperity of each nation.

"It is time to discard jealousy and race hate from statecraft and to begin to develop the spirit of world co-operation."

Let us begin now, so that at the conclusion of the present war the plan may be ready to hand!

Saturday, August 22, 1914.