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Page 22 - THE IDEA OF A LEAGUE OF NATIONS. II' MANY people have said to themselves, like Jeannette in the touching old ballad, — If I were King of France, or, still better. Pope of Rome. I'd have no fighting men abroad, no weeping maids at home; All the world should be at peace, or, if kings must show their might, Then let those who make the quarrels be the only men to fight. But even Jeannette evidently realized that the idea of making the fate of a tribe or a nation depend upon the fortunes of one or two...
Page 44 - It is clear that, if a world-league is to be living and enduring, the idea of it and the need and righteousness of its service must be taught by every educational system in the world. It must either be served by, or be in conflict with, every religious organization; it must come into the life of everyone, not to release men and women from loyalty, but to demand it for itself. The answer to this criticism that the world-peace will release men from service, is, therefore, that the world-peace is itself...
Page 25 - If we look into the matter closely enough, we shall find that all Geneva Conventions and such palliative ordinances, though excellent in intention and good in their immediate effects, make ultimately for the persistence of war as an institution. They are sops to humanity, devices for rendering war barely tolerable to civilized mankind, and so staving off the inevitable rebellion against its abominations.
Page 9 - ... wars without exhaustion. To take a primitive example, it was possible for the Zulu people, under King Chaka, to carry warfare as it was then understood in South Africa — a business of spearmen fighting on foot — to its utmost perfection, and to remain prosperous and happy themselves, whatever might be the fate they inflicted upon their neighbors. And even the armies of Continental Europe, as they existed before the Great War, were manifestly bearable burdens, because they were borne. But...
Page 21 - If I were King of France, Or, still better, Pope of Rome, I 'd have no fighting men abroad, No weeping maids at home." But. squire, are you really for peace at any price ? I remember what you once wrote in approval of the extermination of the Canaanites by the children of Israel, and of the soldier's duty, taught not only at the Pass of Thermopylae, but in...
Page 5 - ... entirely antagonistic to the continuance of national separations. It is necessary to state very plainly the nature of these new forces. Upon them rests the whole case for the League of Nations as it is here presented. It is a new case. It is argued here that these forces give us powers novel in history and bring mankind face to face with dangers such as it has never confronted before. It is maintained that, on the one hand, they render possible such a reasoned coordination of human affairs as...
Page 25 - ... redeeming features' of war. But the necessities of war completely override all such weaknesses as soon as they begin to endanger actual military interests. And the logic of war tolerates them only as cheap concessions to a foolish popular psychology. It must be remembered that undisguised atrocities on a stupendous scale — such, for instance, as the massacre in cold blood of whole regiments of helpless prisoners — would be too strong for the stomach of even the most brutalized people, and...
Page 38 - ... an eternal peace the League of Nations would be forced to stand ready for an eternal war." But the final barrier to the scheme was the impossibility of admitting Germany to the company of its former enemies. "Even if revolution followed defeat," Whibley argued in 1918, "and a wave of Bolshevikism broke suddenly over Germany, even if a provisional government were minded to come into a League of Nations, its accession would be but momentary. The old German spirit would revive: a Scharnhorst would...
Page 18 - If, from humanitarian principles, a nation decided not to resort to extremities, but to employ its strength up to a given point only, it would soon find itself swept onward against its will. No enemy would consider itself bound to observe a similar limitation. So far from this being the case, each would avail itself of the voluntary moderation of the other to outstrip him at once in activity.
Page 6 - All political and social institutions, all matters of human relationship, are dependent upon the means by which mind may react upon mind and life upon life — that is to say, upon the intensity, rapidity, and reach of mental and physical communication.

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