Chapter 4: The Education of The World for Peace: Opening Address as Chairman of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration, May 24, 1911

The reassembling of this Conference for its seventeenth annual session takes place at the moment and under circumstances when our feelings of exhilaration and enthusiasm run high. Never before has the mind of the world been so occupied with the prosblems of substituting law for war, peace with righteousness for triumph after slaughter, the victories of right and reasonableness for those of might and brute force. It begins to look as if the stone of Sisyphus that has so often been rolled with toil and tribulation almost to the top of the hill, only to break loose and roll again to the bottom, is now in a fair way to be carried quite to the summit. The long years of patient argument and exhortation and of painstaking instruction of public opinion in this and other countries are bearing fruit full measure. In response to imperative demands of public opinion, responsible governments and cabinet ministers are just now diligently busying themselves with plans which but a short time ago were derided as impractical and visionary. Even the genial cynic, whom, like the poor, we have always with us, is quiescent for the moment. But a new adversary has been lured from his lurking place. Arguments are now making, in publications not wholly given over to humorous writing, that war and the preparations for war must not be harshly and rudely interfered with by the establishment of international courts of justice, because these wars are part of the divine order of the universe. This is certainly important, if true. We used to be told that war was essential for the development of the highest moral qualities; we are now assured that it is part of a true religious faith as well. Surely, in this sublime contention lack of humor has done its worst! The establishment of peace through justice and of international good will through international friendship, must be making great strides when its adversaries are willing to appear in so ridiculous a guise.