PAX HUMANA I THE trouble with the ordinary or garden variety of pacifist is that he has a merely negative idea of peace. The true idea of peace is positive, constructive, forward-looking. It is not content with a mere cessation of hostilities at any particular period of the world's history. It aims at the establishment of reason and justice as the rule of the world's life. It proposes to find the basis of this establishment in the freely expressed will of the peoples of the world. The men and women who do the world's work are the sovereigns who must guarantee this real peace of the world. That is what we are fighting for. Not pax Romana, nor pax Germanica, nor pax Britannica, but pax Humana-a peace which will bring a positive benefit to all the tribes of humanity. Since the choice by the Imperial German Government, in August, 1914, of war as the means of settling international disputes, the Allies have been fighting against that choice and its bloody consequences. Every one of them-Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia -had pleaded for arbitration, conference, consultation, to avert this fearful conflict of arms. But it was in vain. The United States of America, forced by the flagrant violation of its neutral rights to take an active part in the war, and led by its vital sympathies to the side of the Allies, committed by honor and conscience to the duty of fighting for a real peace of mankind, must carry on this war until its humane and democratic object is attained. To do less than that would be to renounce our place as a great nation, to deny our faith as Americans, and to expose our country to incalculable peril and disaster. But now that all the nations of the earth have begun to realize the horror of this abominable German war, and to desire its ending, it is necessary for us, in conjunction with our friends of peaceful and democratic purpose, to consider, first, the conditions under which peace may be discussed with the Imperial German Government, and, second, the terms on which a peace may possibly be concluded. II THE CONDITIONS OF A PEACE CONFERENCE We should distinguish clearly between the conditions which must be fulfilled before we can honorably enter into any talk of peace with our adversary, the begetter and beginner of this war; and the terms which the Allies and the United States and the other nations at war with Germany would put forward in such a conversation as a just and durable basis for the establishment of peace. This distinction is essential. The conditions are antecedent and indispensable. Until they |