The lobby, which had swarmed into Washington, overran its hotels, and camped in the corridors of the Capitol, was composed of a class of men and women who had never before ventured on such a mission. What they lacked of experience they made up in aggressive insolence--an insolence so cocksure of itself that a Congressman rarely ventured from the floor of the Chamber if he could avoid it. The leaders of the movement were apparently acting under the orders of the Reverend A. Cuthbert Pike, President of the Peace Union. Vassar was amazed to find that this Union was composed of more than six hundred chartered peace societies. He had supposed that there might be half a dozen such associations in the country. To be suddenly confronted by five thousand delegates representing six hundred organizations was the shock of his political life. But one society alone, the National Security League, was there to preach the necessity of insurance against war by an adequate defense. Against this lone organization were arrayed in a single group the five thousand delegates from the six hundred peace societies. They demanded the defeat of any bill to increase our armaments in any way, shape or form. Their aim was the ultimate complete disarmament of every fort and the destruction of our navy. In co-operation with this host of five thousand fanatics stood the Honorable Plato Barker with a personal following in the membership of Congress as amazing as it was dangerous to the future of the Republic. The admirers of the silver-tongued orator labored under the conviction that their leader had been inspired of God to guide the destinies of America. They believed this with the faith of children. For sixteen years they had accepted his leadership without question and his word was the law of their life. Barker was opposed to the launching of another ship of war, or the mounting of another gun for defense. He was the uncompromising champion of moral suasion as the solution of all international troubles. He believed that an eruption of Mount Vesuvius could be soothed by a poultice and cured permanently by an agreement for arbitration. He preached this doctrine in season and out of season. The more seriously out of season the occasion, the louder he preached it. That he would have a following in Congress was early developed in the session. Barker was not only on the ground daily; his headquarters had been supplied with unlimited money for an active propaganda and his office was thronged by delegates from his mass meetings called in every state of the Union. The Socialists had once more swamped the American labor unions with their missionaries and the labor federations were arrayed solidly against an increase of our army or navy.