This, in addition to the one hundred and fifty-odd treaties privately entered into by two or more nations, many of which contain pledges to submit certain classes of disputes to the Permanent Court, is, in brief, what has been accomplished by way of constructive political organization by the modern peace movement. How much does this signify? In view of the present attitude of the social mind, what are we to infer from this as bearing upon the ultimate outcome of international arbitration? It shall be the purpose of this paper to answer that question. In an address before the Mohonk Conference of 1911 Dr. Cyrus Northrup, ex-president of the University of Minnesota, said: "What is really wanted is not continued talking in favor of peace with the idea of converting the people; for the people are already converted! They are ready for peace and arbitration!" In the October number of the _Review of Reviews_ for 1909, Privy Councillor Karl von Stengel, one of the German delegation to the First Hague Conference, is quoted as follows: "It must be stated emphatically that in its ultimate aims the peace movement is not only ... Utopian, but ... dangerous...." These quotations are given as typical of the attitude manifested by the two extremes, the injudiciously optimistic and the ultraconservative, toward every social reform. All true progress pursues a course intermediate to these two. The idea entertained by so many enthusiastic peace advocates, that the world is ready for peace if we but had institutional facilities adequate to carry out the will of the people, is erroneous. In all democratic states political institutions are but a concrete expression of the social mind, the media created by the people, through which society executes its will. "With a given phase of human character ... there must go an adapted class of institutions."[1] Therefore, I submit that if the people were ready for peace they could easily provide the means necessary for its accomplishment. [1] Herbert Spencer, "The Study of Sociology." The first gentleman quoted above drew his conclusion from the indications that of the two million inhabitants of his state, one million nine hundred thousand would favor arbitration as shown by the enthusiasm manifested at a meeting of the state peace society a few weeks before. Similar conditions in other parts of the country, he thought, would corroborate the application of his assertion to the entire country. Such a conclusion is fallacious in that it fails to consider three essential facts about the people of the United States which largely determine the attitude of any people toward war. First, they have no grievance. Second, no appeal is being made to their patriotic bias. Third, their emotions and passions are quiescent.