We must defend our commerce and the lives of our people in the midst of the present trying circumstances, with discretion, but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the method and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the occasion, if occasion should indeed arise.

Since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are suffering at the hands of Germany, there may be no recourse but to armed neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is abundant American precedent.

It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be necessary to put armed forces anywhere into action. The American people do not desire it, and our desire is not different from theirs. I am sure that they will understand the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose I hold nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in everything I do. I am anxious that the people of the nations at war also should under

stand and not mistrust us. I hope that I need give no further proofs and assurances than I have already given throughout nearly three years of anxious patience that I am the friend of peace, and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am able. I am not now proposing or contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and definite bestowal the means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace to follow the pursuit of peace in quietness and good-will -rights recognized time out of mind by all the civilized nations of the world.

No course of my choosing or of theirs will lead to war. War can come only by the wilful acts and aggressions of others.

You will understand why I can make no definite proposals or forecasts of action now, and must ask for your supporting authority in the most general terms. The form in which action may become necessary cannot yet be foreseen. I believe that the people will be willing to trust me to act

with restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months, and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas. I request also that you will grant me, at the same time, along with the powers I ask, a sufficient credit to enable me to provide adequate means of protection where they are lacking, including adequate insurance against the present war risks.

I have spoken of our commerce and of the legitimate errands of our people on the seas, but you will not be misled as to my main thought, the thought that lies beneath these phrases and gives them dignity and weight. It is not of material interest merely that we are thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the right of life itself. I am thinking not only of the rights of Americans to go and come about their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights of humanity without which there is no civilization.

My theme is of those great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has sought to throw about human lives, the lives of non-combatants, the lives of men who are peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes of the world quick and vital, the lives of women and children and of those who supply the labor which ministers to their sustenance.

We are speaking of no selfish material rights, but of rights which our hearts support and whose foundation is that righteous passion for justice upon which all law, all structures alike of family, of state, and of mankind, must rest, as upon the ultimate base of our existence and our liberty. I cannot imagine any man with American principles at his heart hesitating to defend these things.

THE

THE Socialist Party in this country has initiated a call for an International Socialist Congress at the Hague in June to take action to secure a "just and lasting peace." Several organizations in European countries have taken up the call. The official proclamation to American Socialists, framed by ex-Congressman Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin, Morris Hilquitt, John Spurgo, Anna Maley and John M. Work, is here reproduced for the information of WORLD COURT MAGAZINE readers.

"Thirty terrible months months have elapsed since the outbreak of the world war. Never in the history of the world has so much carnage, devastation and frightfulness been encompassed within such a space of time. As the twentieth century, with its science and inventions, its economic organization and achievements dwarfs all the previous history of mankind, so the war exceeds all previous wars of human history in magnitude, horror, destruction and deadliness. All the inventive genius and creative power of many of the greatest modern nations, in neutral as well as in belligerent countries, have been prostituted to the lust of war. Now that millions of lives have been sacrificed, and millions of other lives. broken and ruined, while all civilization has been imperiled, the warweary world cries with agonizing voice for peace. Even the ruling

classes are at last realizing its unspeakable horror and futility and are beginning to speak openly of their desire for peace.

"The Socialist movement ought to be and can be the greatest force for peace in the world. The Socialists of the world can do more to bring about a just, conclusive and enduring peace than all the world's diplomats and statesmen combined. Even amid the hellish hate and brute passions of the war, often at great peril to themselves, loyal comrades in all the belligerent countries, true to the principles of internationalism, have consistently opposed the resort to barbarous methods of warfare, and bravely urged the cause of international solidarity and peace.

"It would be a calamity only comparable to the war itself if the organized Socialist movement of the world should fail to exert its great influence and power to bring about a speedy termination to the war madness. Further, International Socialism would lose its great opportunity and betray its trust if it should fail to make all possible efforts to safeguard the interests of the working class of the world in the adjustments that are to come.

"Far more important than any or all of the questions of indemnification and territorial rearrangements, is the assurance which must be obtained by the proletariat that the settlement of the war shall be just and lasting;

that it shall not contain the germs of future wars. Every capitalist device or measure which may contain the potential provocative of future wars must be stoutly resisted by a reunited international Social-Democracy.

"It is in a special sense the task of the Socialist parties to create the necessary working-class sentiment and rally the forces to insure the adoption of means to prevent future

wars.

All that imperils the fraternity of nations must be avoided because good will is essential to an assured and permanent peace. To the rulers and war lords who have caused the implements of industry to be transformed into implements of murder and rapine, a reunited working class must manifest its determination to beat all the deadly armaments of the air, the land, and the sea into tools of life-giving industry.

"It is our task to see that the reactionary bureaucratic rules which war has of necessity brought to the most democratic of the belligerent nations, and enormously strengthened in the others, are not permitted to continue. A wide extension of democracy in all the lands must be our aim in the readjustments which the close of the great world tragedy must bring.

"On the other hand, those measures of collectivism which have been established in the different nations during the war, must be maintained. As Socialists we had always known and declared that capitalism was inefficient and incapable of affording

the largest utilization of our natural resources and our productive powers. In the perils and stress of war, the ruling classes and war-makers have discovered this, and as a result have been forced to replace capitalist industrial enterprise by a species of collectivism. The much talked of 'War-Socialism' is not Socialism at all. There can be no Socialism apart from democracy. But the collectivism which has been linked to militarism in the war is the wrong application of a great and beneficent principle of social action which must be redeemed from misuse and maintained to bless mankind. The collectivism of war must be made into the Socialism of humanity. Above all other needs is the need of a world organization based upon the solidarity of all nations. All barriers which stand in the way-tariffs, armaments, alliances, commercial treaties and fortifications at strategic channels of world intercourse-must be broken down. Upon the blackened ruins of this greatest of human tragedies must be laid the foundations of the greatest of human ideals, the federation of the world.

"Recognizing the solemn obligation resting upon the Socialists of the United States, as the representative section of the Socialist International in the greatest of the neutral nations, the Socialist party has taken the initiative in calling a special international congress to be held at an early date, to face the grave problems herein briefly indicated.

By means of such a congress we believe that the sundered strands of

tion and war. To our comrades in all the stricken lands we send greetings and fellowship, and hope that before long we shall be able to unite with them in a common struggle for Social-Democracy and

HOL

OLD all you have and get all you can, having little regard for the moral code and only such consideration for the laws of the land as will enable you to avoid their penalties"; such is now the ultimate philosophy of the industrial and commercial world. The international aspect of this philosophy is now bearing its legitimate fruits in the form of the world-war. The national phase of this same philosophy may be seen in the protective and prohibitive tariffs and restrictions against foreign commerce enacted and enforced by the several civilized nations of the earth. Locally this same philosophy takes the form of such activities as the Buy-It-Made-In-Texas Association, for brevity called the BIMIT Association.

This is the same philosophy that has thus far followed civilized mankind through the ages in the matter of exchange of products among the several communities of the earth. universal fruitage is war. And if we have other wars in the future, they

Its

will be based and founded on this same philosophy. The several civilized and more powerful states will contend among themselves for the right to trade with and exploit the weaker peoples and less civilized countries of the earth.

The unhesitating assumption that this condition must always continue is, so far as the present and future of the world may be concerned, the most serious phase of the situation. We go forward with this same policy knowing the results will be conflicts and wars. Instead of seeking remedies, we prefer to repeat what others have done for ages past, having full knowledge that war will follow war from generation to generation. We will not follow natural laws and avoid disasters. Rather do we prefer to erect our national and commercial structures on artificially established and forcibly maintained privileges, at the expense of the exploited portions of mankind.

Our papers and magazines, through their editorial columns and special contributions from leading

citizens, are working overtime to call attention to the national disaster which may befall us when the worldwar ceases. It is pointed out that the markets we now have will in large part be gone; that the peoples of the several belligerent countries will return to their labors and flood the earth with manufactured products cheaper than we can produce them; that not only will our foreign markets be taken away from us, but even the home markets will be invaded. It is argued that in order to avoid this national crisis we must adopt and enforce artificial means to insure our supremacy at home and abroad,and all to the end that we may be able to exploit the weaker peoples and countries on this and other continents.

Nature has been generous to bestow upon the several communities of the earth certain special privileges, in the shape of soils, climates, minerals, forests, waters, mountains, valleys, and other potential forces. For instance, the southern portion of the United States of America enjoys a monopoly in the growth and sale of the higher grades of cotton. Some portions of the earth enjoy monopolies in the culture and sale of sugar, rice and other articles. Other localities have such conditions as give them monopolies, at least in part, in mining, manufacturing and the exchange of products.

Manifestly the cotton farmer

should cultivate and gather for his own use such commodities as he may profitably produce. But if he be located in a country where the climate and soils are peculiarly adapted to the culture and production of cotton, he should devote such time, labor and resources to planting and gathering cotton as are at his disposal, for the markets of the world. He must avail himself of the bounties nature has bestowed, not alone for his own good and use, but for the whole world. The world is calling for his cotton, just as the cotton farmer is calling for the products of other portions of the earth. What the world needs, and this includes the cotton farmers of the South as well, is not less cotton; but the privilege of, and access to, the markets of the several continents. As it is with cotton, so it is with all other products, whether of field, forest, mine or factory.

The fundamental principle is, that each community should produce for the markets of the world the commodities which it may best produce in view of all natural conditions, and then this same community should be permitted to trade in these commodities with all other communities, without the artificial restrictions and prohibitions now encumbering such relationship throughout the earth.

A policy based upon such principles may result in universal and lasting world peace, but nothing less will accomplish it.