What Price Peace?Libby, Frederick J. (Frederick Joseph)
History
What Price Peace?
Libby, Frederick J. (Frederick Joseph)
Peace
I am convinced of the correctness of Secretary Hughes’ conclusion. We
must be better men if our race is to survive. A civilization shot
through with hate cannot continue long after it is fully equipped with
poison gas and airplanes. Even for self-preservation we must cultivate
goodwill――goodwill between classes and religions and nations and races.
We must subdue in our own hearts the swiftly rising prejudice by
nursing, often by an effort of the will, the kindly thought that
follows tardily. We must seek to know and understand those we hate;
for then, as Charles Lamb discovered, we cannot hate them. Cooperation
must replace isolation; progressive world organization must replace
international anarchy; and, above all, the spirit of the team must
replace “grandstand playing” and national egotism.
IT WILL WORK
The success of our national experiments in “audacious
friendliness”――returning the Boxer indemnity to China, feeding the
children of Europe, aiding stricken Japan; the success of Ramsay
MacDonald’s pursuit of the same policy, which changed the atmosphere of
Europe markedly for the better in six months; the success of Herriot
in his policy of “rapprochement” with Germany, following Poincare’s
ghastly failure with coercion――all this goes to show that international
relations are but human problems and that the spirit that “removes”
our personal “mountains” will be similarly triumphant between nations.
Our realists are going to discover some day to their astonishment that
the “practical” policy they are seeking, the policy that will bring
security with justice and peace, is this very policy of audacious
friendliness functioning through appropriate machinery. We can climb up
to peace in no other way.
Model Printing Company, Washington
[Illustration]
Transcriber’s Note:
――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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