It is on this point, the most essential of all, that one begins to have doubts and fears. Why are there so many vice-presidents of peace societies who are supporters of the big navy policy—why so many advocates of peace who are enthusiastic preparers for war—why so many disciples of good will who believe in peace in the abstract but in battleships in the concrete? Above all, if the peace societies are really in earnest, why are they so slow in joining hands and hearts with the vast hosts of labor throughout the world—the unionists, Socialists, syndicalists, and all the rest, who constitute at this moment the one really serious menace to the supremacy of the war lords? It is here, to my mind, in this last query, that we find the real weakness of the organized peace movement. This movement is too academic, too aristocratic, too exclusive. It is too much confined to earnest scholars who deal in theories, and amiable social leaders who deal in fads. It holds too many dinners at $10 a plate, conducts too many meetings in luxurious parlors and salons, and puts its privileges of membership and co-operation at too high a price of refinement, culture and material wealth. There is too much “function” and not enough “crusade!” Too much library dust, midnight oil, pink tea, after-dinner speaking, and not enough sweat and tears and blood. Bankers, lawyers, clergymen, college professors, club women—these are all right and we need them every one. But they can never in the world accomplish their aim alone. It is the common people—peasants, artisans, factory workers—who pay the price of war and it is only through the organized revolt of these people that the curse of militarism can be destroyed. Here, in “the multitudes,” whom Jesus sought out with so true an instinct, do we find the hope of future peace upon earth. No movement which ignores this factor in the situation can be regarded either as efficient or genuinely in earnest. Sincere it may be, I grant you, but sincere in that narrow, unsympathetic, petty way which has blasted many a precious hope and destroyed many a noble cause! It is time for the peace movement to democratize itself, to work from the bottom up and not from the top down, to organize, inspire, co-operate with the workers in their rebellion against militarism. This done, something will happen in the world of armies and navies, and happen quick! But not before! And is it not here that the social worker may count for much? No one hates or should hate war more bitterly. No one sympathizes with the organized peace societies more deeply. No one understands the common people more truly. Is it not time for him to act? BOOKS MODERN PROBLEMS By Sir Oliver Lodge. George H. Doran Co. 348 pp. Price $2.00; by mail of THE SURVEY $2.13.