OPENING ADDRESS AT THE LAKE MOHONK CONFERENCE ON INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION, MAY 15, 1912

JUNE, 1912, No. 55

American Association for International Conciliation

Sub-station 84 (407 West 117th Street)
New York City

The Executive Committee of the Association for International Conciliation wish to arouse the interest of the American people in the progress of the movement for promoting international peace and relations of comity and good fellowship between nations. To this end they print and circulate documents giving information as to the progress of these movements, in order that individual citizens, the newspaper press, and organizations of various kinds may have readily available accurate information on these subjects. A list of publications will be found on page 15.

THE INTERNATIONAL MIND

OPENING ADDRESS OF NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

As Presiding Officer of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, May 15, 1912

At the time of our gathering one year ago it was natural and almost inevitable that a note of congratulation and happy augury should be sounded. All the signs both at home and abroad seemed propitious, and those who had labored so long and so earnestly to promote the cause of international justice and international peace could reasonably feel that substantial progress toward the goal of their hopes had been made. To-day we meet in a somewhat different atmosphere. Many of us find ourselves troubled by doubts and harassed by disappointment. Within sixty days after the Conference of 1911 had risen, two of the greatest, most powerful, and most enlightened nations known to history were widely believed to be on the verge of armed conflict about something which nobody was able to understand or to explain. The newspaper press of the world was filled with the most terrifying alarms. Charges and countercharges, suspicions and counter suspicions, were heralded all round the globe and the hearts of the lovers of peace with justice sank within them. All at once modern civilization seemed bankrupt, and the western world suddenly appeared as if approaching a cataclysm. Nevertheless, the oft-predicted contest did not take place. Strong, brave, enlightened men were at the helm of state and they conducted their grave business with so much discretion, with so much tact, and with so much

genuine statesmanship that the threatened danger was averted. Let us sincerely hope that it was averted forever.

It would be a pleasant task to tell in this company, if it were permissible, the detailed story of last summer's fateful work for war, and of what may well prove to have been last summer's epoch-making work for peace.

It is easy to run with the crowd and to follow the example of that French revolutionary who, hearing the noise and the roar of the street, cried out “There go the people; I must follow them, for I am their leader." But to stand with patience and self-control in a post of high responsibility when a strong current of public opinion goes sweeping by, careless of consequences and unrestrained in its expression of feeling, is the mark of a real man. This Conference should hold in everlasting honor the German Emperor and the responsible statesmen of France, Germany and Great Britain, who solved the difficulties and allayed the dangers of the summer of 1911 without permitting the precipitation of a colossal and devastating war. The Nobel Prize might appropriately be awarded to some one of those who then kept the doors of the Temple of Janus shut when mighty pressure was exerted to force them open.

The world is not likely to know until many years have passed and until the chief participants in the international business of last summer are dead and gone, just how grave the crisis was, just how trivial and how sordid were the causes that led to that crisis, and just how bravely and how honorably that crisis was met and averted by responsible statesmen.

The consideration by the Senate of the United States of the projected treaties of general arbitration with Great Britain and with France came to a rather lame and impotent conclusion. The debate, fortunately conducted in open session, revealed that few members of the Senate have any real grasp of our international relations or any genuine appreciation of our international responsibilities. It is fair to say that a very large majority of the Senate approached the consideration of these treaties with entire good will and with favorable mind. They appeared, however, to be so little accustomed to the study of international business and to reflecting upon the relation of treaties like these to the movement of the best opinion throughout the world, that many of them were easily led to give weight to obstacles and difficulties that were either irrelevant or wholly unimportant. As was to be expected, while the treaties. were under discussion the boisterous elements of our population, those that love to talk of war and to threaten it as well as to decry peace and to poke fun at it, were heard from under not incompetent leadership.

A yet more unhappy and discouraging event was the breaking out of armed hostilities between Italy and Turkey, two powers signatory to The Hague Conventions of 1899, without any recourse being had to the provisions of those Conventions which would, it may with certainty be said, have made a subsequent resort to arms either impossible or ridiculous.

These events of the past year serve to illustrate once more the real difficulties which confront us,