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ON THE TRAIL 
 OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 

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 'Mm mm m ; 
 
 HIS HOLINESS MELETIOS 
 
 The Greek Patriarch, Constantinople. President World Alliance 
 of Churches for International Friendship. 
 
ON THE TRAIL 
 OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 BY^ 
 
 FRED B. SMITH 
 
 jgtto got* 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 Copyright, 1922 , 
 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1922. 
 
 Press of 
 
 J. J. Little & Ives Company 
 New York, U. S. A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. An Explanation 
 
 V. Japan. - 
 
 VI. China. - 
 
 II. Is Modern Civilization Doomed? 
 
 III. In the Heart of America . . 
 
 IV. Honolulu. 
 
 Part One . 
 
 Part Two . 
 
 Part One . 
 
 _Part Two . 
 
 VII. Singapore. 
 
 VIII. India .. 
 
 IX. Egypt.. 
 
 X. Palestine. 
 
 XI. Constantinople. 
 
 XII. Continental Europe .... 
 
 XIII. Great Britain. 
 
 XIV. America. 
 
 XV. The Christian Church . . . 
 
 XVI. The Cloud behind the Clouds . 
 
 XVII. Conclusions. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 5 
 
 20 
 
 27 
 
 34 
 
 40 
 
 49 
 
 59 
 
 70 
 
 77 
 
 88 
 
 103 
 
 121 
 
 139 
 
 162 
 
 176 
 
 198 
 
 217 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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ON THE TRAIL OF THE 
 PEACEMAKERS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 AN EXPLANATION 
 
 W HATEVER of value there may be to the 
 reader of the following chapters or to the 
 cause represented, will be very much aug¬ 
 mented by the privilege of a few personal comments by 
 the author. 
 
 In the first place, it is well to know that most of the 
 articles were written before there was any thought of 
 their taking permanent form and were the record of 
 incidents and impressions at the time of the visits to 
 each of the nations referred to. When it was thought 
 important to have them appear in the present form the 
 purpose was to rewrite or at least so to reedit that there 
 would be more of continuous logic and of sequence in 
 the whole. But several intensely interested persons of 
 literary ability strongly advised against any essential 
 change and they therefore appear practically as written 
 en route. 
 
 In the second place, those who read must also keep 
 in mind that many themes of particular interest, espe¬ 
 cially of a political character, are not dealt with be- 
 
 i 
 
2 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 cause they did not come within the scope of the com¬ 
 mission under which the work was done. The first 
 chapter reveals the fundamental issue of the book and 
 of the tour. Are w r e to have a world of more war or 
 peace, of hate or brotherhood, of jealousy or friend¬ 
 ship, of despair or hope? This was the central issue 
 and a desire to help a little, if possible, in realizing the 
 first alternative, was the objective. 
 
 The last chapter is the summary of it all and gives 
 the conclusions, so far as they are correct, upon which 
 the Christian Church and all peace-loving people must 
 go forward. All that is found between must be re¬ 
 garded as so much evidence to be accepted for what it 
 is worth, sifted out and used only where it helps one to 
 understand the real situation, makes known the 
 methods, and inspires continued effort. 
 
 The complete facts must be valued not as coming 
 from the mind of a technical expert, for the writer is 
 not an authority upon Internationalism, but more as the 
 honest record of what capable witnesses testified to, 
 concerning the signs of the times in many lands. 
 
 I was invited to go forth as a messenger of the 
 “World Alliance for International Friendship through 
 the Churches” and under the joint auspices of that or¬ 
 ganization and the “Federal Council of the Churches 
 of Christ in America” and also advantaged by the un¬ 
 official commendation of the following allied Christian 
 societies: The World Alliance of the Young Men’s 
 Christian Association; The International Committee of 
 Young Men’s Christian Associations; The World’s 
 Committee of the Young Women’s Christian Associa¬ 
 tion; The World’s Sunday School Association; The 
 World’s Christian Endeavor Union. 
 
AN EXPLANATION, 
 
 3 
 
 Particular reference ought to be made to the good 
 offices, so freely extended by the officials of the Young 
 Men’s Christian Association in every nation and in 
 every city; very much less would have been possible of 
 accomplishment in many places but for this assistance. 
 
 Of all the contributing elements no single one was so 
 significant as the fact that upon the day before my leav¬ 
 ing for the West, President Harding invited to the 
 White House over one hundred Christian leaders and 
 public men and said a few words of hearty, earnest 
 farewell and appreciation of the purpose of the tour. 
 
 Among other things he said: 
 
 “Bishop McDowell and Ladies and Gentlemen: I am 
 very glad to welcome you here to-day, not only because 
 of the organizations you represent, but because of the 
 peculiar interest you have in the great problems of 
 international friendship involved in the tour which 
 Mr. Smith is to undertake. 
 
 “I do not need any spur to arouse my interest in 
 this question, and I am quite sure America wishes 
 to have only most cordial relations with all the nations, 
 and seeks only good for every one of them. I have 
 never been known as an extreme pacifist, but I am in 
 this hour anxious for the preservation of the peace of 
 the world. Personally I have been preaching the gospel 
 of understanding, in the belief that if all the people of 
 the world may come to understand each other better, 
 that doctrine will eventually produce a tranquil world. 
 America’s attitude upon these questions is best ex¬ 
 plained perhaps by the approaching conference upon the 
 limitation of armaments which we have called to¬ 
 gether, and in the success of which all of our citizens 
 are so deeply concerned. 
 
 “I wish you all success in your undertaking, and you, 
 
4 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Mr. Smith, in the tour you are now to carry out, and 
 express the hope that it will result in great good to the 
 lasting friendship of the nations you are to visit.” 
 
 In view of the constant indictment of war, as a way 
 by which peoples may hope to adjust their differences, 
 which will be found in every chapter, I wish to make 
 clearly apparent that I am not arguing for an unpoliced 
 world. I was in Boston one evening when I could look 
 out of one window of my room in the hotel and see the 
 majestic spire of Trinity Church, where the great 
 Bishop Phillips Brooks presided with such dignity and 
 preached such a high type of Christianity. From an¬ 
 other window I could see the domes of Harvard Uni¬ 
 versity, one of the highest spots of Western culture. 
 But when I wished to go out for a short distance to call 
 upon a friend, the porter at the door stopped me and 
 said, “You are not permitted to go out; it is not prudent 
 to be on the streets of Boston to-night, for the police¬ 
 men are on strike.” 
 
 Churches and universities combined had not carried 
 society to a point where police protection was unnec¬ 
 essary. The lawless and the violent of earth can be 
 answered only by force and they will doubtless be found 
 among men to the end of time. But this book is wriL 
 ten in the conviction that police protection against these 
 and armed force for aggression, or for adjusting in- 
 temational questions, are two entirely different prin¬ 
 ciples. It is presented in the further conviction that 
 war as such an implement can be and must be elimi¬ 
 nated from the scene of human struggle. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? 
 
 Where All the Prophets Have Failed 
 
 W HAT follows in succeeding chapters is the re¬ 
 sult of a sudden awakening which came to the 
 author and seemed to be shared by millions of 
 people, not in one part of the world or of any one race 
 or tongue, but by all kinds in every part of the world. 
 
 Up to 1914 for a considerable number of years hu¬ 
 manity had been moving along rather complacently. 
 People were fairly prosperous and the methods of wel¬ 
 fare and uplift for the needy were being worked upon 
 a pretty satisfactory basis, at least enough to grant a 
 measure of consolation to the benevolently minded and 
 to give them the delightful prestige of being “gener¬ 
 ous.” 
 
 Eleemosynary societies were springing up every¬ 
 where, with romantic prophecies of good, followed by 
 “reports of great progress.’’ 
 
 The representatives of Western Christianity, who 
 had gone out to the non-Christians, were telling thrill¬ 
 ing tales of how these of other less promising faiths 
 were “crowding around, hungry and eager for Chris¬ 
 tian direction.” 
 
 The universities and colleges had been saying for 
 more than a generation that they were turning out 
 
 5 
 
6 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 graduates with such altruistic, socially inclined pur¬ 
 poses that every wrong in the world was going to be 
 righted. 
 
 The printing presses had been running overtime is¬ 
 suing papers and magazines filled with brotherhood 
 talk and plans for a world so harmonious that every¬ 
 thing would be lovely. 
 
 The parliaments, congresses, and legislatures had 
 been going through a change of function, so the people 
 were told, that had put economics in a second place and 
 had made the weal of human folks the supreme ques¬ 
 tion. They had legislated about everything from pre¬ 
 natal protection, to childhood, to maturity, to old age 
 and proper death surroundings. 
 
 Every day newspapers told a new story of the 
 “treaties” being signed by the nations, looking to clear 
 understandings and cooperation. It seemed as though 
 the goodness of God was being worked out upon a 
 constructive plan that would guarantee security for 
 the highest good of everybody. 
 
 Then, as though the devil got into action, the clouds 
 of July, 1914, gathered and the guns began firing, 
 rather quietly at first, across the Danube River. But 
 the momentum gathered and the great World War 
 broke with its fury, to last for more than four terrible 
 years. But even so amid this conflict people generally 
 said, “Well, it is just another war.” Worse, true, than 
 others, but after all just war. 
 
 Like most things in human joy or sorrow, the fight¬ 
 ing did come to an end. Then the traditional peace 
 conference was held and the papers were signed. The 
 victors were about like other victors. They had only 
 the past records to go by and so in their deliberations 
 
IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? 7 
 
 they followed ancient precedents. They readjusted 
 geography to their own pleasure. Then they tried to 
 make out a bill of damage to the losers and new troubles 
 arose. No statisticians had figures enough to put the 
 claim down on paper. No appraisers could be found 
 who had wisdom enough to compute the loss. No 
 mathematicians were or are available to figure out 
 even the interest charges, to say nothing of the prin¬ 
 cipal. Slowly it has dawned upon everybody that 
 what had been acclaimed as a great victory has de¬ 
 veloped into a confusion so complete that in 1922 there 
 is a doubt about who the final historians will say really 
 won in 1918. 
 
 Four years of fighting and four years of struggling 
 to find the platform of peace were necessary for the 
 horror of the thing to begin to sink into the conscious¬ 
 ness of humanity. Now the world is being flooded with 
 statements from great people, saying this present civi¬ 
 lization is wrecked and that the whole thing will go to 
 the refuse heap and slowly some new methods of gov¬ 
 ernment, education, religion, and business will have to 
 be evolved. Not foolish men or crazy people, but those 
 whose manner of life and training command respect, are 
 saying things like this. They rest their conclusions 
 upon the theory, not of inability to see some adjust¬ 
 ment discovered for the present muddle, bad as it is, but 
 upon the conclusion that war is a fixture in the emer¬ 
 gencies of national and international grievances—that 
 war always has been and always will be; that with the 
 progress of science and improved methods of equip¬ 
 ment and transportation and organization it will grow 
 more severe, more destructive with each generation. 
 Therefore, that the civilization of the boasted twentieth 
 
8 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 century is a failure and is doomed, is their solemn de¬ 
 cision. By every law of evidence and testimony, if 
 they are correct in their first theory concerning the per¬ 
 manence of war as a method, then they are correct in 
 the second. 
 
 There remains, therefore, just one all-important 
 question before the world; namely to find some plan by 
 which the principles of arbitration, of conference, and 
 of reference to some kind of a High World Court, may 
 be substituted for armed conflict, war, and slaughter of 
 human beings when nations differ one with another. 
 Everything else is incidental, secondary. Nothing else 
 matters much. If this question can be satisfactorily 
 answered and a better way of life, national and inter¬ 
 national, found, other problems will seem compara¬ 
 tively easy. If this attempt is a failure and wars and 
 more wars come, everything held of value will be de¬ 
 stroyed sooner or later. 
 
 In this connection it is tremendously important to 
 shake the complacent and easygoing out of the soft rea¬ 
 soning, which, without any foundation, seems willing 
 to drift along in a kind of gambler’s hope that, if the 
 thing comes again, it may not be so bad as it was last 
 time. It would be a great boon if all students in 
 schools, all church members, and all voters could be 
 required to read Will Irwin’s, “The Next War.’’ 
 Reading past history is not sufficient education upon 
 the terror of future war. One more upon a worldwide 
 scale and the wreck so nearly complete now will be 
 finished. 
 
 The awful shock, the terrible awakening is to the 
 realization that the common expressions heard and the 
 views quite generally held about war were false. If I 
 
IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? 9 
 
 may speak for myself at this point, in the belief that 
 the experience referred to is one in common with mul¬ 
 titudes, the statement will be made in the form of a con¬ 
 fession. Reared in a life where wars had been not in¬ 
 frequent, and the tales of their heroism had been hearth¬ 
 stone stories, they had become to me a sort of a natural 
 occurrence to be expected about every so often. Even 
 when the older maturer years came, with something of 
 a dread for this process, they produced no violent reac¬ 
 tion. 
 
 But 1914 came and 1915 and 1916 followed. Bel¬ 
 gium was invaded, and the Lusitania ruthlessly sunk 
 and a state of war acknowledged. I then took my part 
 in every form in assisting my own country in that 
 struggle. Through the cities and in the military camps 
 and on to France and the battlefields by every method 
 I sought to do my share in prosecuting to success that 
 conflict. The tragedy is that, as did many others, I 
 said that there were large beneficial by-products of war 
 which would in total compensate for the losses. It was 
 the kind of argument with which the very air seemed 
 filled. The memories of history corroborated that view 
 and patriotism demanded it. The years have passed, 
 the terrible facts are being slowly made known. Two 
 visits to Europe and the battle scenes since 1918 and 
 one tour around the world studying the conditions, have 
 led to the calm, profound conviction that there are no 
 “beneficial by-products of war.” I now believe war to 
 be a total loss, from the time the first shot is fired till 
 the last starved baby lies down dead by the roadside. 
 It is a total loss to the vanquished and to the victors, as 
 judged by long years. 
 
 I do not by this indict all those who were in authority 
 
10 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 in 1914 or in 1917. I do not say I would put my judg¬ 
 ment against all those who might be in authority in my 
 own country if some such crisis should arise again. 
 But the contention is that as a method war is not only 
 futile but is anti-Christian and unscientific, and belongs 
 to a lower order than the sons of God. The belief is 
 held that the hour has fully come when this method 
 ought to be forever abolished and peaceful ones adopted 
 for adjusting grievances. 
 
 One thing is certain: never again under any circum¬ 
 stances can I say the things about war which were ex¬ 
 pressed many times during the years of 1916 to 1918. 
 Instead of those beneficial, ennobling dreams there re¬ 
 mains the horror of the wreckage and ruins which baf¬ 
 fle the whole human race in its attempt to rebuild and 
 start again the God-intended life. 
 
 Leaving out ancient and older history with its doubt¬ 
 ful records, there are some present facts which are un¬ 
 answerable except upon the theory that war is a menace 
 and ought to be outlawed. 
 
 1. War Is an Enemy of All Human Progress 
 
 I think I am an evolutionist, but cannot help feeling 
 a degree of uncertainty about it, in view of the many 
 wide differences in definition. If by evolution is meant 
 what I think ought to be meant, then that theory is 
 accepted heartily as being historical, scientific, practical, 
 and Biblical. God surely intends the human race to 
 climb its way up by sources of earnest effort in the 
 realm of culture, education, and religion, till it shall find 
 that perfect life it had in the beginning before sin had 
 broken the ideals. The Creator has indelibly stamped 
 
IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? n 
 
 this desire, this passion, this purpose in the human 
 heart. A study of the various races of men in their 
 lowest state will establish this universal impulse. The 
 untutored, the uncivilized, and the wild men will re¬ 
 spond to a higher hope when brought in contact with 
 schools and churches. This is one of the marks of the 
 divine and immortal in man. The lower animals do 
 not so develop. 
 
 God’s plan for His own image is progress. War is 
 the exact opposite. Its results are always debasing. 
 
 One of the books worth reading often is that by 
 David Starr Jordan entitled “The Biological Results 
 of War,” in which the great educator reveals this crime 
 against the human family in its struggle to rise. War 
 as now conducted makes its first call upon youth. As 
 at present conceived, it reaps its first harvest of death 
 from youth. In the Great War 50,000,000 of earth’s 
 noblest youth were torn from natural normal life and 
 hurled into the holocaust of butchery, and 11,000,000 
 of these were killed in battle. They were the purest of 
 blood, the finest of muscle, the bravest of heart. The 
 battle claims first those of dauntless, daring courage. 
 The cowards usually find shelter. From 1914 to 1918 
 there were sacrificed in death by battle 11,000,000 of 
 the best breeders of the world—young men out of 
 whose loins ought to have gone reproduction in kind 
 to carry on the upward climb of the race. 
 
 Millions more shell-shocked, wounded, crippled, and 
 diseased have been scattered over the earth, to produce 
 in many cases offspring far below the standard which 
 might have been but for war legacies. The whole world 
 was more or less brutalized by the process. A genera¬ 
 tion was trained to read without a tremor of 10,000 or 
 
12 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 20,000 killed in one day—of men being buried alive on 
 bayonet hill at Verdun—of thousands gassed, writhing, 
 shrieking in agony of a death worse than Dante knew 
 or wrote about, and of thousands more every day who 
 were caught, like rats in a trap, on ships which were 
 submarined and went to the bottom of the sea. War 
 demands that participants shall be taught to glory, hold 
 celebrations, and have victory festivals, in measure 
 comparable to the dead in the enemy country. War 
 kills us off at the top. It is like cutting off all the buds 
 from the fruit trees and the gardens in the spring time. 
 
 No prophets live who dare attempt even to hint at 
 what those 11,000,000 prematurely dead youths might 
 have meant to future history if they could have been 
 saved to live the natural life God meant for them. The 
 prophet has not appeared who is farseeing enough to 
 suggest how long it will take the average people of the 
 whole world to climb their way back to where they 
 were in 1914. As an ordinary traveler, a layman with 
 no scientific ambitions, one who has circled the world 
 completely four times, I unhesitatingly say that I be¬ 
 lieve it will take a hundred years to heal the wounds 
 and put the program of human progress back where 
 it was in the pre-war years. 
 
 God is the friend of peace, good will, and progress 
 for humanity. The devil is the champion of war, hate, 
 and defeat for humanity’s hope of a better existence. 
 No friend of God can be an advocate of war. 
 
 2. War Is an Enemy of Sound Economics and 
 
 Prosperity 
 
 I am one of those who strongly believe that God 
 never meant any human being to starve to death. 
 
IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? 13 
 
 Wherever those of His creation perish for want of 
 food, the cause can be found in somebody's greed. 
 The divine solicitude is so great for human need that 
 in all time the rains have been enough, the sunshine 
 sufficient, and the soil so fertile, that the earth has 
 produced such a yield that all could eat and none be 
 hungry. Famine has been the work of greedy men, 
 who for gain will block distribution and juggle with 
 prices. 
 
 During the two recent terrible famines, one in Rus¬ 
 sia and the other in China, while at the same time 
 countless numbers were perishing by cold and freezing, 
 in the southern part of the United States the people 
 were burning up cotton, to brace up the market. In the 
 northwest the ranchmen were letting the sheep go un¬ 
 sheared and the wool was permitted to drop off to waste, 
 to brace up the market. In the central west, they were 
 using beautiful corn for fuel, rather than the trade, 
 to brace up the market. 
 
 God’s provision has been continuous and abundant. 
 Men’s greed sometimes causes famines in parts of the 
 world. But of all the famine-producing, God-defying 
 methods which history records, no other has ever ap¬ 
 proached war as a dispenser of starvation, famine, and 
 pestilence. If the data could be assembled covering the 
 dead by hunger toll of all the generations, I am sure the 
 proportion charged to war would be more than that 
 assigned to all other causes combined in human experi¬ 
 ence. Drought, insects, storms, floods, and fires may 
 have called thousands to death before their natural 
 time, but war has claimed its tens of thousands by 
 hunger and practically all of them innocent women, 
 children, and the infirm. But it has done more—it has 
 
14 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 upset the legitimate natural processes of the economic 
 order. The world is best off when all the people are 
 having a fair chance in the commercial world and the 
 many are reasonably prosperous. The war has played 
 havoc with the business world. Millions are left with¬ 
 out a penny or a method to go forward. But, ten 
 thousand times worse, it has left the vulgar “profiteer,” 
 who trafficked in the most sacred things of human life 
 and love. He lives on, a curse to everything he touches, 
 more contaminating to the economic world than a leper 
 Is to the physical. The starving in the war-ridden areas 
 are worthy of pity, but a war profiteer who gained gold 
 out of those scenes and kept it for his own sensual life 
 is an object of pity and contempt combined. 
 
 The economic order is as vital as breath to good 
 human existence. The war has wrecked it for many 
 years yet to be. 
 
 j. War Is an Enemy of the Kingdom of God 
 
 If I should be asked to give one single answer to 
 cover what seems to be the most serious result of the 
 Great War, I would not speak of the deaths in actual 
 battle, terrible as they were; reference would not be di¬ 
 rected to the financial losses, although the wiping out 
 of three hundred and fifty billion dollars of actual 
 values, to say nothing of the indirect losses, has left the 
 world a legacy of poverty and left nations bankrupt, 
 some of whom will never rise again. Neither would 
 attention be centered upon an attempt to appraise the 
 horrors of disease, plague, pestilence, and disturbed 
 mental conditions throughout the world, inexplicably 
 terrible as they are. If only one word was permitted 
 
IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? 15 
 
 in an appraisement of the whole result, it would be 
 HATE. 
 
 No one intelligent about the facts can doubt that 
 generation after generation will have to pass before 
 these hitherto unequaled passions of revenge, jealousy, 
 and hate are quieted. The economic world will suffer 
 fearfully from this fact because sound, normal commer¬ 
 cial enterprises do not prosper in the world amid the 
 scenes of hate which now exist. Even the physical 
 problems, as represented by disease, will remain un¬ 
 solved so long as this lack of friendship exists, but be¬ 
 yond all else this spirit is so much opposed to the very 
 fundamental character of God and of the life He meant 
 people to live that it has been a terrible blow to the hopes 
 of those who for centuries have been offering the 
 prayer which Jesus Christ gave to His followers: 
 “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it 
 is in Heaven.” 
 
 I am sure I met with a thousand different kinds of 
 so-called “brotherhood” organizations on a limited scale. 
 Perhaps many of them were exactly the opposite of 
 what real brotherhoods ought to be, and were just 
 selfish organizations to take care of their own inner 
 group, but even granting this allowance, there is a 
 hunger for brotherhood which is world-wide, and the 
 “Kingdom on Earth” can never be what it ought to be 
 until this universal brotherhood in true spirit has ap¬ 
 peared. That means a day when all the good men of 
 the world will be bound together to promote all the 
 good of the world, regardless of race, class, caste, or 
 place of birth. Brotherhood is a sham and an empty 
 dream except to those who see the day coming when no 
 man will think himself superior to others because of 
 
16 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 his family traditions, his education, or the color of his 
 skin. But of all the forces working against this hope 
 no other is so overpowering as the injection of war for 
 a season. Observing only continental Europe, the scene 
 of the last great conflict, and its condition in this re¬ 
 spect, it is quite enough to set every man’s heart against 
 the whole principle of war, if he professes to believe 
 in the Kingdom of God. 
 
 I found Greece not only hating Turkey with a furi¬ 
 ous passion, but also with a deep enmity against every 
 one of her national neighbors. I found Bulgaria 
 seething with heated passion against every border coun¬ 
 try. Jugo-Slavia is harboring memories of the fright¬ 
 fulness of war with its terrible havoc, but an even more 
 furious ill feeling toward Italy. In Hungary there was 
 found a bitterness, the depths of which can be under¬ 
 stood only by those who have measured the capacity of 
 righteous hate when aroused to its depths. There is no 
 friendly border anywhere for Hungary as at present 
 constituted. The same furious wrath was revealed in 
 Austria as she lies broken, hopeless, and bleeding yet 
 from a thousand wounds. Then contact with France 
 and Germany brings back again all the terror of human 
 hate known in 1914—1918, plus four years of constant 
 outrageous incidents. These are but a few illustrations 
 drawn from continental Europe which are reflected in 
 many forms throughout the whole Orient. 
 
 The purpose is not to condemn or indict beyond rea¬ 
 son any of the people of any of these countries. Hu¬ 
 man nature is sensitive. It is quick to feel a wrong and 
 there seem to have been a million causes arousing this 
 feeling. There is no value in just merely condemning 
 human life and human people and human processes. 
 
IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? 17 
 
 Condemnation ought to be centered upon the cause, the 
 method, not the people. War is not only a curse to 
 human existence, but it is a deadly enemy of the pur¬ 
 pose of God in the world. 
 
 There is just one man met occasionally in many dif¬ 
 ferent parts of the world for whom the writer has but 
 little respect. Reference is not directed here to mili¬ 
 tarists who, perhaps, sincerely believe that war is an 
 essential factor in the world full of ideas about what 
 ought to be, but rather to a certain type of so-called 
 religionists who search the Bible and, by a kind of men¬ 
 tality and standard of morality which ought to be out¬ 
 lawed, convince themselves and try to convince others 
 that somehow God has to do with war. Not long since 
 it was my sad experience on a Sunday morning to come 
 in contact with this sort of an interpretation. I went 
 in through a great stone arch at the right hand of 
 which was a bold sign, “Christian Church,” and under¬ 
 neath the name of a widely known preacher. I lis¬ 
 tened to hymns sung which I do not believe the founder 
 of Christianity could have listened to quietly Himself. 
 They had to do with a pious conception of the place 
 God’s pets were expected to have in Heaven. I listened 
 to a prayer expressing sentiments, for making a per¬ 
 manent record of which I do not believe the recording 
 angels could have had any method. It was more like a 
 recitation setting forth the greatness of the man who 
 delivered it, with a particular desire to call God’s at¬ 
 tention to the fact that he was one of a few left in the 
 world who had not forgotten the Faith. The sermon, 
 which lasted one hour and a half, was upon “the wheels 
 within wheels” of Ezekiel’s prophecy, and near the 
 close, with a burst of terrific passion, the preacher de- 
 
18 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 dared that the last great war was one of the wheels of 
 this so-called prophecy, and assured the people that 
 more wars of a worse kind were coming, because all 
 the horrors which he thought he could discover in the 
 Scripture referred to were not yet realized and God 
 would find it necessary to bring more cataclysms of 
 that kind, that this picture might be completed. He 
 seemed to be a sort of expert mechanic, or specially 
 assigned oiler, of the intricate mechanisms of Ezekiel’s 
 prophecy, and manifested a peculiar quality of ecstasy 
 as he pondered over these fearful instances and as¬ 
 signed them to a part of the plan of God. 
 
 Thinking men and women throughout all the world 
 will say that if this is religion, let us have no religion. 
 Thinking men and women will say that if this is the 
 religion of Jehovah God, which found its supreme ex¬ 
 pression in Jesus Christ as its founder, then we had 
 better by far turn to Buddhism, or Hinduism, for nei¬ 
 ther of these, weak and impotent as they are, has ever 
 inculcated doctrines of that kind. 
 
 The preacher referred to did not seem to relish the 
 fact that the writer suggested to him at the close of 
 the day that the sermon would have been splendid if 
 it had been preached in a Mohammedan mosque. 
 
 Humanity is longing for a world-wide era of love, 
 friendship, and brotherhood—a time when every man 
 shall seek the good of his brother-man and no one man 
 shall look upon the things that belong to him alone. 
 When that day comes it will be the Kingdom of God, 
 but every time war breaks out it sets that principle back 
 by hundreds of years. Therefore, every man who be¬ 
 lieves in, and every woman who hopes for, goodness 
 and love in the world, as the true Kingdom of God, 
 
IS MODERN CIVILIZATION DOOMED? 19 
 
 ought to be organized to the highest degree to repress 
 armed force as the process by which diplomats, rulers, 
 presidents, and royalty shall adjust their differences 
 when they arise. The Kingdom of God is peace among 
 men. The kingdom of darkness and evil is war. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN THE HEART OF AMERICA 
 The Land of Good Will 
 
 N O greater privilege could possibly have been 
 given to any living man than to encircle the 
 globe in the years of 1921 and 1922 as a mes¬ 
 senger of the Christian forces of America in behalf of 
 world peace and brotherhood, and, quite beyond the 
 hope of any contribution made directly to the cause, 
 to be granted the opportunity of knowing at firsthand 
 what the real sentiment is in nineteen nations upon this 
 topic. 
 
 The growing horrors of the World War of 1914- 
 1918, with its train of hate, disease, pestilence, famine, 
 poverty, jealousy, racial strife, national bankruptcy to 
 much of Europe, and the same inevitable for all the 
 great powers unless some relief is found, together with 
 the assembling of the Conference on Limitation of 
 Armaments in Washington, have combined to make 
 this the one great consuming topic of newspaper, 
 magazine, lecture and pulpit platform, conference, 
 convention, and personal discussion. The whole world 
 seems to have suddenly centered its mind upon this sub¬ 
 ject with a determination to know the cause of this 
 war disease and to find a remedy before the slumber- 
 
 20 
 
IN THE HEART OF AMERICA 
 
 21 
 
 ing fires break out anew to complete the havoc so nearly 
 final in the recent years. 
 
 I started with a good many misgivings about the 
 criticisms I would encounter, particularly in the Far 
 East. I had only recently spent three months in Europe 
 and all the while in the presence of a deep suspicion that 
 my own country was not playing fair with the rest of 
 the world, and was quite willing to build a secure fence 
 around herself and let other nations suffer alone the 
 penalties of a conflict in which we had been a partici¬ 
 pant. I remembered that I did not find one spot on the 
 British Isles or in France, Switzerland, Belgium, or 
 Germany, where this did not seem to be the idea held 
 of America. The fact that we did not go into the 
 League of Nations was being interpreted as suggesting 
 selfishness, greed, indifference, and a lack of genuine 
 interest in world peace. I was therefore very glad that 
 the route of travel was to take me through the heart 
 of my own country first, that I might gain for myself 
 those facts which would give confidence in declaring 
 that true America was not any of those baser, meaner 
 things which many foreigners fear. 
 
 I started armed with credentials from the two most 
 representative church organizations, the Federal Coun¬ 
 cil of Churches of Christ in America, representing 
 thirty-one denominations, and the World Alliance of 
 Churches for International Friendship; also comment 
 dations from the great interdenominational societies, 
 such as the Young Men’s Christian Association, the 
 Young Women’s Christian Association, the Young 
 People’s Societies, and the World’s Sunday School 
 Association, so that I had no doubt of the Christian 
 sentiment in American life. I had also a cordial letter 
 
22 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 from President Harding and a similar one from Sec¬ 
 retary of State Hughes highly endorsing the purpose 
 of the tour, and in addition, upon almost my last day 
 before starting west, the President had received me 
 with one hundred representatives of these organiza¬ 
 tions and had spoken with deep feeling upon the im¬ 
 portance of world peace and said he was “preaching the 
 gospel of understanding in the belief that it would even¬ 
 tually produce a tranquil world.” All of these gave 
 first proof that at heart America was true to the doc¬ 
 trine I was to try to carry around the world. But I 
 purposed to supplement this by every possible method 
 as I traveled west to San Francisco. 
 
 First, I talked upon the subject with every kind of 
 man I could meet, without revealing my own mission— 
 a Pullman car conductor and the porter, a cab driver, a 
 street car motorman, a bell boy in a hotel, a policeman, 
 an ex-oversea soldier, an army officer, a hotel manager 
 and a lot more. Every one of them without a shadow 
 of reservation advocated some way of getting along 
 without going to war every few years. A railroad man 
 felt sure there would never be another war if they 
 would let railroad employees vote on the question and 
 accept their verdict. The ex-oversea soldier was furi¬ 
 ous at what he believed was the tendency of some poli¬ 
 ticians to “play with the fire” of another war. He had 
 been a delegate to the American Legion Convention at 
 Kansas City and said, “That whole crowd hate war 
 and will have nothing to do with it any more for any¬ 
 body for anything.” 
 
 Second, I spoke in Chicago in two great Sunday 
 afternoon and evening clubs—one in Evanston, Illinois, 
 at the center of Northwestern University; one in Wil- 
 
“The World Alliance of Churches for International Friendship,” the “Federal Council of 
 the Churches of Christ in America,” and the Allied Christian Organizations. 
 
 Received by President Warren G. Harding, at the White House, October 30, 1921. 
 
 The President expressed to the Committee his appreciation of the purposes of the Tour and 
 of the effort of these societies in behalf of World Peace. 
 
IN THE HEART OF AMERICA 
 
 23 
 
 mette, a typical high-grade suburban part of Chicago. 
 At both places the audiences were tremendous in their 
 approval of the statement that war was a crime against 
 humanity and ought to be abolished root and branch 
 from the earth. There was no room for doubt about 
 the sentiment here. 
 
 Third, I spent a day at the State Agricultural Col¬ 
 lege at Ames, Iowa, where I spoke before two thou¬ 
 sand in convocation and I do not believe they would 
 have celebrated winning a football game any more 
 enthusiastically than they received the proposal to 
 abolish war. I found seventy volunteer groups meet¬ 
 ing in different places on that campus studying the 
 principles of disarmament and peace. I met two hun¬ 
 dred and ten members of the faculty at lunch; they were 
 unanimous upon the subject. The college and uni¬ 
 versity students whose minds are open to the new 
 social questions have no compromise to make with war. 
 
 Fourth, I spent a Sunday at Riverside, California, 
 at the “Mission Inn” and spoke before a great audience, 
 which I was told was typical of California. I was espe¬ 
 cially anxious to know how much they would be influ¬ 
 enced by the “yellow peril” talk. Their response was 
 exactly the same as that in New York, Illinois, and 
 Iowa. The “yellow peril” is not an impossible adjust¬ 
 ment with Japan, but in “yellow journals” and “yellow 
 politicians.” So far as California is concerned, they 
 want no war with anybody. 
 
 Fifth, while en route the news was flashed over the 
 wires of President Harding’s two speeches—one at 
 Arlington, at the burial of the Unknown Soldier on 
 Armistice Day, and the other at the opening of the 
 Conference in Washington, November 12—also of 
 
24 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Secretary Hughes’s proposals for naval reductions. 
 The effect was tremendous, not the noise of November 
 ii, 1918, but a deeper, grander kind of satisfaction. I 
 think it was the first man I spoke to after reading the 
 news who said, “Well, maybe it isn’t such a bad old 
 world after all.” New hope for a decent human life 
 seemed to possess everybody. I was glad for this token 
 upon my own country’s soil before contact with na¬ 
 tions far away. 
 
 Sixth, I met at Riverside the noble Dr. David Starr 
 Jordan. A world tour upon the problems of world 
 peace would be incomplete, it seems to me, if Dr. Jor¬ 
 dan were not included somewhere. For a quarter of a 
 century he has been using all his powers to bring the 
 nations to realize the folly of war. His face flamed 
 with delight as he referred to the addresses by Presi¬ 
 dent Harding and Secretary Hughes. He said: “For 
 the first time in all my life I seem to be with the ma¬ 
 jority on this subject of world peace; we have won the 
 first victory.” 
 
 Seventh, I had the opportunity of real knowledge of 
 the feeling of the people of the Hawaiian Islands. A 
 big banner I met crossing the States assured me I would 
 find a decided sentiment among the representatives of 
 the Stars and Stripes farther west, that the sooner we 
 had a war with Japan and got her out of the way the 
 better it would be for everybody. But instead of any 
 such sentiment in Honolulu, I met here again the same 
 determined purpose to eliminate war from the program 
 of international affairs. These western American folks 
 know that another great war will surely sweep the 
 Pacific Ocean, and that these islands would become a 
 part of the battle ground and part of the territory 
 
IN THE HEART OF AMERICA 
 
 25 
 
 fought for. As Christians they do not believe in war, 
 and as sensible people they realize its consequences to 
 their own life. They are solidly against war. 
 
 Eighth, I saw anew the benign influence of prohibi¬ 
 tion. I believe it is a vain dream to hope for world 
 peace so long as nations harbor great sins against 
 human welfare. There will be no settled universal 
 peace so long as the powerful exploit the weak in the 
 economic affairs of life’s struggle. There will be no 
 settled universal peace so long as whisky is sold as a 
 beverage to degrade individual life and debauch public 
 morals. The passing of the American open saloon is 
 probably the finest call to the possibility of idealism in 
 human affairs of any one word which can be spoken. 
 This element reached its highest testimony in a six 
 days’ ocean voyage from San Francisco to Honolulu 
 on a ship where no intoxicating liquors were sold. It 
 was like a dream as. compared with the ships where the 
 poison flows freely. As a part of America’s message 
 to the world upon friendship and brotherhood, this is 
 an item of prime significance. 
 
 I was glad to start on to the distant parts of the 
 world confirmed in the confidence that the United 
 States is true in her heart toward the best good of all 
 the people of the earth; that she harbors no secret 
 schemes to get the upper hand of anybody for the pur¬ 
 pose of selfish gain; that she loves peace and is willing 
 to sacrifice every honorable thing that good will and 
 brotherhood may supplant suspicion and hatred. I did 
 not forget that among her population there are some 
 profiteers who would welcome even war if they could 
 get more dollars for their own sensual purposes, or the 
 pitiful truth that the country still has to endure cheap 
 
26 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 politicians who seek to entrench themselves by insult¬ 
 ing other nations and by every method are trying to 
 produce international discord and suspicion. Neither 
 did I forget that worst and most dangerous group of 
 all, the lurid yellow journalist who lives only to incite 
 class and racial hatred, who sees the Japanese army 
 marching by millions across Texas via Washington to 
 capture Wall Street and dreams of Great Britain min¬ 
 ing New York harbor clear up to the Bronx. Granting 
 all of these their limited sphere of influence, I went my 
 way with thanksgiving to God for America and with 
 boldness to convey to all of whatever nation, color, race, 
 kind, or condition, who share the hope of a world rid 
 of armed force as an international instrument for set¬ 
 tling differences, the certain unbounded cooperation of 
 my country toward this supreme ideal. 
 
 America's heart is right. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HONOLULU 
 
 “The American Laboratory” 
 
 A N unusual privilege came in the opportunity of a 
 fifth visit to the Hawaiian Islands, and also in 
 an unexpected delay in sailing, which gave time 
 for some unhurried contact with the real situation. I 
 was happily surprised in the discovery of a very vital 
 link there in the problems of American relationship 
 with the Orient. Feeling rather familiar with Hono¬ 
 lulu and the people there, it had not occurred to me that 
 anything of new significance would attach to this stop 
 as bearing directly upon the main purpose of the tour. 
 I shared the average tourist’s appreciation of this won¬ 
 derful spot, famous for tropical foliage, glorious in 
 mountain scenery, fascinating in bathing beaches, al¬ 
 most unequaled in climate, rich in sugar and pineapple 
 plantations and highly endowed in noble people, but I 
 was to find a fact more valuable to the American fu¬ 
 ture than all of these combined except the last. With¬ 
 out human intention or plan I found a most remark¬ 
 able piece of experimental laboratory work being car¬ 
 ried out there upon the vexed questions of racial and 
 international human relationships, the test being the 
 more valuable because those engaged in it are not the¬ 
 orists or expert students, but are just common people 
 
 27 
 
28 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 forced to meet and solve these questions for practical 
 everyday living results. As is often the case, they are 
 discovering principles which may become of inestim¬ 
 able value to future generations, not only of Americans 
 but the whole Pacific Ocean peoples. 
 
 The first fact to be noted is that here, as in no other 
 spot in the world, the races of the Occident and the 
 Orient are meeting, not as passers-by, but as fellow 
 citizens of a permanent life, where all must work and 
 live together. There is no escape for,* whether they will 
 or no, here they are and must either find a basis of 
 cooperative, friendly working together or accept the 
 final crisis of force and the survival of the strongest. 
 
 In the Territory they have 275,000 population, of 
 whom 114,000 are Japanese, 37,000 white Americans, 
 25,000 Portuguese, 23,000 Filipinos, 22,000 Chinese, 
 21,000 native Hawaiians, 7,000 Koreans, 5,000 Porto 
 Ricans, and the rest scattered from every Asiatic spot 
 known. The East Side of New York City may be a 
 melting pot for Europeans, but it never had such 
 heated elements in it at any one time as this popula¬ 
 tion represents in the mid-Pacific, the most westerly 
 of all the immediate American territories. 
 
 There isn’t a tint of color or an accent of tongue 
 which is anywhere found on the shores of the Pacific 
 Ocean but that in some form is represented here under 
 the American Government. I had the privilege of at¬ 
 tending flag drill one morning at the Kauilani public 
 school, seventeen hundred students enrolled, forty dif¬ 
 ferent nationalities among them. During the exer¬ 
 cises fourteen different groups, representing as many 
 nations, marched out under the great waving Stars and 
 Stripes and each in turn, after saluting, repeated a poem 
 
HONOLULU 
 
 29 
 
 or verse of their own selection, upon their love for the 
 flag, and then the whole school sang “The Star 
 Spangled Banner” together. There is not another spot 
 on earth where at any one time so many varied tongues 
 from faces of so many hues sing the national hymn 
 of a country. All of these children were born under 
 the American flag and are to remain Americans citi¬ 
 zens for life. Mrs. Fraser, the principal, and others of 
 the faculty expressed positive certainty that their loy¬ 
 alty to the country was genuine. 
 
 I hurried from this school to an international lun¬ 
 cheon which was given in the Oriental branch of the 
 Y. M. C. A. About a hundred picked men were pres¬ 
 ent, selected from the American, Japanese, Chinese, 
 Korean, Filipino, Portuguese, and Flawaiian groups. I 
 was called upon to speak upon the importance of friend¬ 
 ship among nations and peace as a permanent policy 
 throughout the world. Then followed responses from 
 one of each of the types present. The most impressive 
 of all these addresses was by the Lion. C. Yada, Consul 
 General of Japan. He pleaded for good will and 
 brotherhood in a manner to leave no doubt but that 
 he was a part of the society springing up everywhere 
 to promote permanent concord in the world. Among 
 the guests were the Hon. Wallace R. Farrington, the 
 present Governor; Judge Frear, an ex-Governor; and 
 the great Judge Sanford B. Dole, the first Governor, 
 intimate friends themselves and all ardent apostles of 
 the doctrine of friendship and brotherly relations 
 among all these people. 
 
 I believe if all the Presidents, Premiers, Secretaries 
 of Foreign Affairs and members of Parliaments and 
 Congress could have been in that room and could have 
 
30 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 felt its spirit they would have believed anew that war 
 can be abolished from the face of the earth. Here are 
 these mixed nations, crossed and recrossed, different in 
 traditions of society, commerce, and religion, but they 
 are finding a way to live in harmony, and their experi¬ 
 ence may be worth billions in money and millions in 
 lives yet to be saved, in armed conflicts averted in the 
 future by reason of this splendid achievement in good 
 will. 
 
 America will do well to be generous with these ear¬ 
 nest people and give them every facility to work out suc¬ 
 cessfully this problem to which they have set them¬ 
 selves. This is a good spot for this laboratory, not only 
 because here the East is literally getting acquainted with 
 the West, but also in view of the fact that here is where 
 nearly everybody going east or going west “changes 
 cars.” I believe it would be a good thing if a rule 
 could be established that every American on his first 
 trip to the Orient would be required to stop a month in 
 Honolulu and be taken into the heart of what is going 
 on there. It would calm down his conceit (perhaps?). 
 It would soften his voice so accustomed to blow and 
 brag. It would teach him that there is a wisdom in the 
 East that he can respect. He would find a splendid 
 illustration of business energy; great business blocks, 
 beautiful homes, every modern principle of the proper 
 care of a city, and a real American spirit. Hawaiians 
 exported in 1920 $145,000,000 worth of products, 
 $116,000,000 of it being sugar. They have $52,788,- 
 000 in bank deposits. They have capacity to double 
 and treble these figures. I happened to be there when 
 the managers of the great sugar plantations from all 
 the islands were holding their annual convention, and 
 
FOURTEEN NATIONALITIES REPRESENTED 
 

HONOLULU 
 
 3i 
 
 met a good many of them personally. They repre¬ 
 sented the financial spinal column of the country, and 
 would grace any assembly of business men of any type 
 of enterprise anywhere in the world. Most of them 
 seemed to be Scotchmen, and I therefore knew the 
 sugar industry was to be a permanent success regard¬ 
 less of wind, weather or politics. He would also find 
 one of the most advanced pieces of Christian and phil¬ 
 anthropic work being carried on anywhere in the world. 
 I am not able to give the actual figures, but I believe 
 there is more money invested in enterprises of this kind 
 in Honolulu, according to the population, than in any 
 other city in the United States. While I was there they 
 put on their Annual Community Chest drive—$270,000 
 the goal. They went over the top in three days. 
 Churches, schools, hospitals, settlement houses, Young 
 Men’s Christian Associations, Young Women’s Chris¬ 
 tian Associations—four buildings for the two latter 
 representing over a half million dollars, all paid for. 
 
 The American ought to see and feel this fused life 
 before he rushes, raw, into the Far East. The benefits 
 would be equally profitable for the Oriental going east 
 to make a similar stop. Here, in a life which is not 
 soft, not colorless, God has in a wonderful way set 
 these people at this place where the tension is so se¬ 
 vere, to live their lives true, and at the same time to 
 demonstrate that such a mixture can live in harmony 
 in this limited sphere, and therefore such a hope is not 
 impossible, by the same rule of conference, forbear¬ 
 ance, and unselfishness, upon a world-wide scale. The 
 most impressive thing in it all seems to be the fact that 
 nobody started out to do a scientific thing based upon 
 superior knowledge of biology, racial traditions or 
 
32 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 “post-war reconstruction.” No great “congress” has 
 been held, no “commissions” appointed to make a “long, 
 exhaustive, intensive study” of the situation. 
 
 Common sense, based upon the fruits of that great 
 Christianity planted by those early foreign missionaries 
 who came there when the wild men ruled in lust and 
 passion, has led them to adopt a few simple principles: 
 
 First, get sympathetically acquainted with each other. 
 Learn the other fellow’s point of view. 
 
 Second, practice the square deal doctrine. Give every 
 fellow a fair chance for his life. 
 
 Third, have confidence in folks, believe the other 
 fellow means what he says until the evidence proves to 
 the contrary. 
 
 Fourth, have patience. Don’t insist upon setting 
 your own pace all the time; wait for the fellow who 
 seems to be slow. 
 
 Fifth, magnify the Christian religion as the ultimate 
 hope of permanence in friendly relations. 
 
 On this last point I have never visited any place, 
 East, West, Near East or Far East, where the funda¬ 
 mental people seemed to believe this more funda¬ 
 mentally than they do in the Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 While the nations struggle for adjustments and the 
 people suffer the penalties of useless war, I thank God 
 for this illustration being so successfully worked out of 
 good will, even among almost impossible races. 
 
 Since writing the earlier part of this article I have 
 talked with another American of his impression of this 
 same spot. I am afraid he would not draw the same 
 conclusions. He said he had it upon “reliable informa¬ 
 tion” that the Japanese have secretly stored away ship¬ 
 loads of rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition 
 
HONOLULU 
 
 33 
 
 and are ready at a signal from Tokyo to assassinate 
 Governor Farrington, slaughter the white people, and 
 annex the island to Japan. He says the police of Hono¬ 
 lulu are sold out to the prostitutes, and that “half the 
 city is given over to vice.” He says the Hawaiian 
 Islands people say, “to hell with Washington and pro¬ 
 hibition,” and goes on to say there are “twice as many 
 saloons in Honolulu as there were five years ago.” 
 Isn't it funny what different people find out in the same 
 spot? 
 
 But, lest the writer may seem to have been limited to 
 one side of the question of life in Hawaii, it may be 
 well to add that they have still severe strains in rela¬ 
 tionships, they have had some bad strikes, they may 
 have some more. They have submerged vice to con¬ 
 tend with (none openly). They have violations of the 
 Eighteenth Amendment. Not one open saloon. Surely 
 they have struggles with every kind of carnality. But 
 the good is proving more potent than the bad. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 < 
 
 JAPAN 
 
 Part One: A Flashlight in the Sunrise Kingdom 
 
 O F all the nations to be visited, with one excep¬ 
 tion, I was more in doubt about what my 
 reception would be and what I would really find 
 in Japan than in any other country. I was full of 
 doubts and prepared to be confirmed in general distrust 
 of everything Japanese. To understand and appreciate 
 fully what follows it seems necessary to say that I was 
 exceedingly critical of the Japanese, so far as the inter¬ 
 national friendship topic was involved. I took, there¬ 
 fore, unusual care to talk with Europeans and Ameri¬ 
 cans en route, and found certainly ninety per cent of 
 them apparently full of the idea that Japan was clearly 
 militaristic, deliberately planning for war with some¬ 
 body, and that that somebody was probably the United 
 States. This sentiment seemed to be absolutely fixed 
 in the minds of the travelers, and later after leaving 
 Japan and going on farther into the East I found ex¬ 
 actly the same sentiment. Europeans, Americans, and 
 neighboring Orientals all seemed of one accord in utter 
 lack of confidence in the Japanese, no matter what they 
 might profess. 
 
 Personally, I had been prejudiced by the attitude of 
 Japan toward China and the severity of methods used 
 
 34 
 
JAPAN 35 
 
 in Korea, and had also by some experiences been led to 
 wonder whether the average sincerity of the average 
 Japanese was equal to that found in other people. In 
 fact, I arrived in the land of the sunrise flag and glori¬ 
 ous Fujiyama suspicious and determined not to be 
 fooled, fixed in purpose not to accept any impressions 
 till the evidence was enough to leave no room for rea¬ 
 sonable doubt. In other words, I started as rather a 
 biased witness and conducted my investigation with the 
 expectation of having my suspicions confirmed. 
 
 For the information I have, whatever its value, I am 
 indebted to many people—pastors, college presidents, 
 missionaries, public officials, Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. 
 A. secretaries, bankers, lawyers, manufacturers, stu¬ 
 dents, merchants, and editors, as well as to meetings 
 and conferences I conducted myself. 
 
 No sudden superior knowledge is now claimed that 
 warrants saying all of those who gave the earlier im¬ 
 pressions were wrong. Maybe they are right, and 
 Japan may be guilty of every sin of which she is ac¬ 
 cused. I do not pretend to answer these charges. 
 There may have been cause for everything said. I was 
 not on an investigation of political situations, and in¬ 
 deed avoided questions of that character, for my mis¬ 
 sion was to learn the truth about the issues of inter¬ 
 national friendship as related to the Christian churches 
 and to stimulate that ideal. 
 
 The result was the delightful discovery of a “peace” 
 sentiment in Japan far beyond anything I had supposed 
 possible. From the time I arrived in Yokohama till 
 I left for China I was constantly and everywhere con¬ 
 scious of a deep, genuine, growing hunger for world 
 peace and a desire to know that humanity had put war 
 
36 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 behind it and was to pursue conference methods for 
 settling differences in the future. 
 
 I am perfectly willing to record this statement and 
 meet it any time for the next twenty-five years or more. 
 The military party may be strong; it doubtless is. 
 There may be strenuous armament plans being carried 
 on; there doubtless are. There may be a rather extreme 
 nationalist movement which thrives on jealousy of 
 other nations; there doubtless is. There may have 
 been some serious blunders in diplomacy and some un¬ 
 thinkable methods in military control; there doubtless 
 have been. 
 
 But in the midst of it all there is a veritable passion 
 for peace and disarmament which I firmly believe rep¬ 
 resents the view of a vast majority of the people. What¬ 
 ever may be the motives of some, this fact is as sure as 
 that I saw snow on Fujiyama, jinrikshas on the streets 
 or rice in the fields. 
 
 This evidence was found in the first place in the 
 organized peace societies. I am led to believe there are 
 more different kinds of this work going on in Japan 
 than can be found in the United States. The Japanese 
 Council of the “World Alliance of Churches for Inter¬ 
 national Friendship” is doubtless the most conspicuous 
 one and most widely known. Then the Committee upon 
 International Friendship of the “Federated Missions 
 of Japan” and a similar committee of the “Federation 
 of Churches of Japan” are both active. “The Society 
 of New Men,” non-sectarian, little advertised but pow¬ 
 erful in personalities, is really a peace effort. 
 
 Nearly every university, college, and school of first 
 importance has a peace committee or department in 
 operation. 
 
JAPAN 37 
 
 From the standpoint of effect upon the Government 
 and politics, “The Japan Peace Society,” of which 
 Baron Yoshiro Sakatani is president, is the most sig¬ 
 nificant. I have known Baron Sakatani personally for 
 nine years and believe him to be a noble, sincere man 
 of great force. 
 
 Perhaps the newest and the one of greatest possi¬ 
 bilities is the “Woman’s National Peace Society,” 
 which, while largely directed by Christian women, is 
 by no means confined to Christians. Many of 
 Japan’s most influential women of all faiths are 
 interested in it and are determined to have the 
 voice of their sex heard on the war questions of the 
 future. 
 
 In Korea, where they have suffered so much and are 
 naturally grieved almost beyond measure to be com¬ 
 pelled to live in the presence of the Japanese soldier 
 guarding every railway platform and crossroad, never¬ 
 theless the Christian churches, the Federated Missions, 
 as well as some independent citizens’ organizations, 
 have peace or international friendship committees in 
 active work. At a packed meeting in the Young Men’s 
 Christian Association at Seoul on Christmas Sunday 
 the young men applauded to the echo an address which 
 prophesied peace instead of war as the coming method 
 of human relationships. The organized expressions of 
 Japan’s weariness of war are a powerful testimony of 
 the desire for friendship. 
 
 The attitude of the public press also gives certainty 
 of this fact. Our ship, much delayed, came into har¬ 
 bor at Yokohama amidst a severe storm and docked 
 after dark. Before I was able to get my hand bag¬ 
 gage out of the stateroom ten reporters from as many 
 
38 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 different dailies were in my room clamoring for an in¬ 
 terview. I jokingly told them I was not a candidate 
 for office, or the king of any country. The answer was, 
 “You represent peace and Japan is glad to welcome 
 you.” I was told that my visit and what I said were 
 written up literally as a “front page headliner” in 
 every prominent newspaper in Japan all the time I was 
 there. I was never photographed so many times in my 
 life in so short a space of time. This certainly was not 
 personal interest, but a genuine indication that the 
 newspapers were after the “stuff” the people wanted to 
 read. Not every paper in Japan shares this feeling; 
 they have some of the same “yellow” character found 
 in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, 
 London, and Paris. But for the most part the peace 
 hope is the biggest theme of the periodicals, papers, 
 and magazines of the entire country. 
 
 The enthusiastic interest in the Washington Confer¬ 
 ence on the Limitation of Armaments was another 
 guarantee of the power of the peace desire there. At 
 no interview, at no meeting, at no conference could 
 this subject be left out. Every time I was introduced 
 to speak the audience was assured that I would bring 
 the latest information upon that subject. In this con¬ 
 nection the names of Harding and Hughes were nearly 
 always used as the chief champions of peace. The in¬ 
 terpreter told me at one place during an introduction 
 that the chairman said: “America once produced a 
 Lincoln who gave liberty to one race, but now I think 
 she will produce a Harding to give freedom from war 
 to all races.” There were those opposed to the Con¬ 
 ference as there were in other countries, but they were 
 an unimportant minority; essentially the Japanese were 
 
JAPAN 39 
 
 intensely in favor of it as a strong prophecy of per¬ 
 manent peace. 
 
 The enthusiasm and attendance where meetings and 
 functions were held upon this topic were also a token 
 of this fact. Unattended by something else, this may 
 be a poor or doubtful factor upon which to base judg¬ 
 ment of the real sentiment of people, but when sur¬ 
 rounded by the contributing elements which were pres¬ 
 ent here I believe it may be given due consideration. 
 After many years’ experience with this type of work, 
 and being rather capable of giving fairly accurate esti¬ 
 mate of its value, I venture to say that not at any time 
 or place have I witnessed such profound interest or 
 manifest approval in platform presentation as in these 
 events in Japan, with the possible exception of some 
 such evefits during the Great War. To my surprise 
 and satisfaction, I found in Japan that a plea for world 
 peace would produce as spontaneous sanction as a call 
 for fidelity to patriotism in a world war. Out of sev¬ 
 eral meetings this reached perhaps its highest point in 
 Osaka (the Japanese Pittsburgh). The address lasted 
 two hours and ten minutes, one-half for direct presen¬ 
 tation and one-half for interpretation by Mr. Kato, 
 chief editor of the Osaka Mainichi and the Tokyo 
 Nichi-Nichi. At the close I did what occurred at only 
 one other place. I asked every man in the audience who 
 believed in everlasting world peace and who felt that 
 Japan never ought to engage in another war to raise 
 his right hand. Instantly practically every hand in the 
 audience was up, and then, without signal, suggestion 
 or leadership, involuntarily the whole audience rose 
 and shouted uproariously, “Banzai, Banzai!” To catch 
 the full significance of this one needs to be reminded 
 
4 o ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 that this is not the usual style of approval by the Ori¬ 
 ental. In some form this was typical of the spirit of 
 every public meeting everywhere. 
 
 The same interest in a more dignified form was 
 shown in the luncheons or banquets for public officials 
 and business men in nearly every city. In Tokyo about 
 one hundred were the guests of Baron Sakatani, mem¬ 
 ber of the Imperial Diet and former Mayor of the city, 
 and Mr. Fujiyama, president of the Chamber of Com¬ 
 merce. Eight bank presidents were in attendance, sev¬ 
 eral managers of leading business houses, city officials 
 and educators. Similar events occurred at Kyoto, 
 Osaka and Kobe. At the latter 175 men of the same 
 type attended the banquet presided over by Hon. C. 
 Ariyoshi, the Governor of the district, at which the 
 Mayor of the city, Hon. T. Sakurai, was also a speaker. 
 At all of these the feeling in behalf of universal peace 
 was tremendous. And running through them all was 
 a fervent appeal for understanding between the United 
 States and Japan. 
 
 The frankness with which many men of many kinds 
 freely commented upon the fact that Japan had made 
 some serious mistakes in relationships with China and 
 Korea was to me an added earnest of a fervent desire 
 for peace and a future free from the diplomatic blun¬ 
 ders of the past. I am quite aware that admissions of 
 this kind are not spoken by many and it may not be 
 realized by the majority, but among those I talked 
 with and met there seemed an openness and liberty to 
 speak of serious errors and acknowledge wrongs which 
 was surprising and at the same time assuring. One 
 could only wish that a similar willingness to concede 
 wrong and less persistence upon infallibility could be 
 
JAPAN 41 
 
 heard in some portions of Europe; it might kindle new 
 hopes for lasting peace and prosperity in that part of 
 the universe. 
 
 The unwavering unanimity of all Christians of every 
 kind and name as messengers of world peace was also 
 a satisfying proof of the strength of this hope in the 
 nation. Numerically the church membership is not 
 large in Japan—about 300,000 total. In Korea prob¬ 
 ably about the same. But the permeating effect of 
 these Christians upon social, educational, civic, and 
 moral issues cannot be measured by their numbers. I 
 heard public men of entirely different religions refer 
 to the Christians as the leaders of the great progressive 
 ideals. They are the leavening hope of the old world. 
 Therefore, I was encouraged to note the unbroken soli¬ 
 darity of the Christian clientele for world peace. 
 
 Once again it seems necessary to say that the writer 
 makes no profession of wisdom enough to give decided 
 opinion upon vexed political topics or merits of Japan's 
 severe critics, but only to affirm with gratitude to God 
 that the peace movement and sincere desire for inter¬ 
 national good will are a reality in Japan and may be 
 reckoned as a worthy factor in the better days hoped 
 for by all good people throughout the world. 
 
JAPAN 
 
 Part Two: What Japan Is Thinking 
 
 A S a messenger of the hope of a world brother¬ 
 hood, where good will and cooperation will sup¬ 
 plant the old order of “an eye for an eye” and 
 “a pound of flesh” for every grievance, I could not turn 
 aside lightly from certain great facts I met in Japan 
 which reflected what they are thinking there, and be¬ 
 cause they are so thinking all who work for under¬ 
 standing and cooperation must give consideration to 
 them. If they are wrong in their conclusions, they must 
 be so convinced; if they are right, they must be given 
 their place in reaching decisions. In presenting the 
 following statements I do not wish to argue any par¬ 
 ticular view, but only to convey the truth of the state¬ 
 ments made to me by serious men of many kinds 
 whose honesty I have no reason to doubt. I will ad¬ 
 vance, however, to comment that no progress will be 
 made toward final peace by those of any department of 
 life who refuse to give these facts just recognition. 
 The Japanese people are thinking these things in des¬ 
 perate earnestness of a kind which will not be easily 
 brushed aside. 
 
 In the first place, they are thinking that there is no 
 permanent reason why the brown and yellow races are 
 to be forever subservient to the domineering attitude of 
 
 42 
 
JAPAN 43 
 
 the white man. As they study their own national and 
 individual characteristics, they are not willing to admit 
 that the Japanese is an inferior being. I am of the 
 opinion that they could get a verdict in their favor upon 
 this point from a fair-minded jury which had all the 
 facts before it. “Forward,” “Progress,” seem to be 
 written all over Japan. Their energy is unbounded, 
 their determination is contagious. I spoke to great 
 audiences in auditoriums as beautiful as anything in 
 New York City. I addressed one meeting of business 
 men in a club in Tokyo more beautiful in furnishings 
 than any I know of in America. I remember only one 
 which equals it in London. In all of these clubs and 
 gatherings of business men I was reminded that the 
 yen is at par in any bank in the world and above par 
 all over the Orient, giving proof of their solvent eco¬ 
 nomic situation. 
 
 In most of these clubs I was ill at ease, for my 
 clothes were not so perfectly cut as those of the men 
 to whom I was speaking. By the way, “European 
 clothes” are the common thing in Japan. In audiences 
 numbering from one hundred to four thousand nearly 
 all the men were fitted out in so-called “European’’ 
 suits of the latest model. I could not but hope that 
 - some influence would save the Japanese women from 
 following the trend of the men in this respect. From 
 the standpoint of grace, beauty, modesty, and comfort 
 their own are far superior. I do not believe any half¬ 
 respectable Japanese woman could be hired to appear 
 in the half-naked costume of the American or Euro¬ 
 pean society lady in evening attire. The Japanese wo¬ 
 man has some modesty left, the European and Ameri¬ 
 can seem to have assassinated theirs. 
 
44 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 I met personalities as finished as found anywhere on 
 earth. Their courtesy makes the ordinary man from 
 the West look like a coarse boor. My wife attended 
 a charming reception in a Japanese home where seven 
 white men were present, three of them so disgracefully 
 drunk that they insulted the entire company. 
 
 I sat at a banquet one night between two men who 
 kept me in constant anxiety by their discussion of 
 history and literature about which I knew but little. I 
 was told that next to the municipal building the public 
 school building was the finest in every town in Japan. 
 I saw many of these myself. Ninety-six per cent, of 
 all the people are literate. Schools and colleges are 
 running to full capacity. There is a nation-wide pas¬ 
 sion for education. I met a Japanese shipowner who 
 had just given away $2,000,000 for educational pur¬ 
 poses. From any view they take of the Occidental, 
 mentally, socially, commercially, or morally, they are 
 unable to discover the “Why?” of this assumed pre¬ 
 eminence. This whole note of progress is what is 
 called the “high collar” movement, which means that 
 the Japanese has dressed himself up to date in every 
 feature, including his clothes, his manners, his mind, 
 and his pocket-book. By the law of evidence and com¬ 
 parison they have candidly concluded they are not less 
 in future possibilities than other men and are demand¬ 
 ing to be met upon a platform of equality for all time 
 to come upon all questions to be mooted. Peace, har¬ 
 mony, and understanding are idle dreams when Japan 
 is involved, unless the conferees have accepted fully 
 this fact number one. 
 
 In the second place, Japan believes the white man 
 would have swallowed the whole earth if she had not 
 
JAPAN 45 
 
 protested. She had watched Germany with her ban¬ 
 ners flying, “Germany Uber Alles.” She had heard the 
 Britisher singing “Rule Britannia.” She had observed 
 the American loudly proclaiming “America First” any¬ 
 where he put up the Stars and Stripes. She had seen 
 the Russian slowly but surely moving toward a pan- 
 Slavic control of the western Pacific. She had wit¬ 
 nessed the great powers meet to divide up China. She 
 looked at the map and observed that the white man, 
 with one-quarter of the population of the world, was 
 in control of seven-tenths of its surface and certainly 
 planning to take the rest promptly. As a matter of 
 fact, as she studied this map, about all there was left of 
 the darker races, not in some form dominated by the 
 white man, was her own soil and a white man’s face 
 upon the horizon of every point of the compass, as she 
 believed and believes ready to swallow her up also. 
 Unorganized Africa seemed to ofifer but little resist¬ 
 ance. India was apparenty without any method to 
 oppose successfully the onslaught, China hopelessly 
 divided, lying upon her back in despair, Korea, the 
 buffer for all the ill winds which seemed to blow. In 
 the language of the American westerner, she simply 
 got up on her hind legs and issued a protest. What¬ 
 ever argument there may be about the ethics of the pro¬ 
 cedure and methods employed, the protest has been 
 heard and the white man has stopped, for the time 
 being at least, in the presence of this protest made so 
 loud that it has been heard around the world. Right 
 or wrong, Japan believes furiously that her protest has 
 saved the day, and that eventually all the darker races 
 will praise her for her courage and indomitable will. 
 
 In the third place, Japan is thinking that whatever 
 
46 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 she has achieved in securing recognition from the rest 
 of the world has been because she fought for it. Upon 
 nearly every occasion when I tactfully spoke of the 
 general impression that Japan had become “militaristic” 
 or was accused of being the “Hohenzollerns of the 
 East” the same answer was forthcoming. In substance 
 it was that the West came to the East with battleships, 
 navies, and armies. Her invasion was everywhere 
 under a military threat and the only answer was to 
 fight. They are sure Russia meant to take Korea, the 
 Japan Sea, and the Yellow Sea. They fought both 
 China and Russia and won. They were very en¬ 
 thusiastically invited to clear the Pacific of Germans in 
 1914. They fought then and won. They are thinking 
 that the results they have attained in the integrity of 
 their own soil, freedom from Russian or German in¬ 
 vasion and a place of respect among the great powers, 
 is because they fought. It is not strange that their 
 minds often return to the fact that they had a first place 
 in the Washington Conference upon the Limitation of 
 Armaments and that they are in the famous “Quadruple 
 Alliance,” and that out of what only a few years ago 
 was a position of begging for the crumbs which fell 
 from the white man’s table they have come to be a 
 respected guest. 
 
 That man does not live who can convince them that 
 any such place in the world would ever have come to 
 them if they had just sweetly waited for the roaring 
 white man to give it to them voluntarily. The white 
 man’s history has not been so full of that kind of 
 magnanimity that they were able to embrace such a 
 hope. The whole past military record of Japan is 
 written in this deep conviction they have, that 
 
JAPAN 47 
 
 fighting has done this much. They know British, Rus¬ 
 sian, German, French, and American history and are 
 suspicious. Their minds work like lightning. Ameri¬ 
 cans repeatedly say, “Look out for the Japanese; they 
 are clever.” Rather interesting that the American, 
 who loves so much to be told “he is clever” and revels 
 in the thought as his chief virtue, should regard the 
 same quality when found in the Japanese as a heinous 
 sin, a sort of crime. 
 
 On a train from Mukden to Peking one day I got 
 into a conversation with four Americans and one 
 Britisher. They furiously assailed the Japanese mer¬ 
 chants. I asked for particulars and one of them finally 
 said, “They have just cleaned us out of the fur trade 
 all over Manchuria.” I could not but wonder if some 
 of this sentiment was not jealousy of the white man 
 that a brown man had risen in the business world who 
 was more than a match for him. This cleverness in 
 the commercial realm is naturally reflecting itself upon 
 the present political issues. 
 
 They are thinking hard just now; they want arma¬ 
 ments limited; they want peace if possible, but un¬ 
 doubtedly they are cherishing hopes beyond the present, 
 and if they cannot get what seems a fair deal any other 
 way, they are thinking they may be called upon to fight 
 some more. This need not be scoffed at, after all, by 
 the West as such a strange philosophy. I heard one 
 high-grade Christian Japanese tell of being in London 
 in 1914 when all the press praised the naval prepared¬ 
 ness of Britain as the only hope of preserving the 
 Empire. A little later he said he was in New York 
 and saw the greatest parade of his life, when all 
 America seemed marching to the tune of “military 
 
48 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 preparedness.” The military philosophy of Japan is 
 based upon observation of Western methods. There 
 may be intrigue, deception, and all sorts of wild dreams 
 mixed up in it, but these do not change the mental 
 operations of the people. America’s second religion, 
 the “Monroe Doctrine,” for which she has fought, has 
 given birth to a child in Japan called “Militarism.” 
 
 In the fourth place, Japan is thinking that there is 
 nothing to he gained by long extended delays in the 
 readjustments. It is quite probable that the military 
 party is making big use of this thought and seeking to 
 capitalize it as a doctrine of jealousy and unrest. But 
 granting all this, and even more which might be added, 
 the people generally believe that now is the day of their 
 salvation and that to delay pressure would endanger 
 all the advantage gained. Hence the persistence with 
 which they are urging their views now. 
 
 Whatever is said of Japan and her people, no one 
 accuses her of being dull in the thinking department, 
 and just quietly reasoning from cause to effect from 
 one incident in history to another, she says, “We had 
 better take our firm stand now, or a few more strokes 
 of Western diplomacy (which she utterly distrusts) 
 may put us where we will have no capacity to resist.” 
 One very earnest minister of a native Christian church, 
 who was accused of being a pacifist, said in my hear¬ 
 ing, “If Japan is not heard now, she never will be.” 
 Therefore, this stubborn insistence upon some things 
 being settled immediately. Japan must be met upon 
 the basis of what she is honestly thinking, and not what 
 the American thinks she ought to think. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHINA 
 
 Part One: Where the Peace Doctrine Has Been Tried 
 
 and Failed 
 
 N r 0 stranger contradiction could come to a man, or 
 no stranger reversal of what might be called 
 the psychology of crowds, than to spend some 
 time in European nations speaking upon the necessity 
 of world peace and the abolition of the war method, 
 and to remember the joy with which such a proposal 
 was received everywhere, then to follow with great 
 meetings straight across the United States of America 
 in cities and universities upon the same theme, always 
 to be met with the characteristic American enthusiasm 
 and approval, then to have a perfect whirlwind cam¬ 
 paign over Japan, speaking of the possibility of a war¬ 
 less world, again to be received with such praise that 
 one was at times nearly swept off his feet amid the 
 applause, and then to come to China. In all these cities 
 and countries mentioned, representing nearly 12,000 
 miles of geography from east to west, I had been looked 
 upon as a progressive, as a prophet of a new dawning 
 era, as a harbinger of a great hope just beginning to 
 take root in the world. In substance, the only query 
 seemed to be, “Is it not too good to be really true?” 
 There was no opposition worth noticing to the general 
 
 49 
 
50 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 proposition. Some doubt was expressed here and there 
 about the methods proposed, but that war stood con¬ 
 demned before the court of human judgment all gladly 
 acknowledged. If it does not sound too much like con¬ 
 ceit, I had been indulging myself in the thought of 
 having been privileged to get up in a high place, where 
 a wider vision could be seen of a better order of peace 
 and brotherhood coming upon the horizon than that 
 accorded to most folks. 
 
 Then I came to China. It will be many years before 
 I can forget the change in atmosphere, in attitude, in 
 response. There was no applause, no gathering around 
 for hearty congratulations, no great manifestations of 
 enthusiasm. These audiences, at first at least, seemed 
 to look and listen with surprise and pity. Then I 
 slowly got their point of view. They looked upon me 
 as a delayed sort of man, a fellow who had arrived 
 too late, one who was about two generations behind the 
 times, an expositor of an idealism which had been tried, 
 weighed in the balance, and found woefully wanting. 
 
 China was saying to me: “Yes, that is beautiful, we 
 wish it were true; we preached it and tried to practice 
 it, we traditionally love it; but as a practical proposi¬ 
 tion any man is a fool who advocates it. Look at 
 us, 400,000,000 strong in population, yet peace has 
 made us the serfs of the earth, the football for the game 
 of world diplomacy. Peace has brought us a wrecked 
 national life and one almost without hope in the future. 
 You come from a Western nation which has fought 
 her way by frequent wars to wealth and power and 
 now maintains her position by big navies and armies. 
 Your doctrine has failed with us and its opposite has 
 succeeded in your own country. Much as we dread the 
 
CHINA 
 
 5i 
 
 process, we are now going to organize our millions of 
 men for war, and even if it takes fifty years and fifty 
 million men we are going to fight our way out of the 
 mire peace got us into.” 
 
 I was where all the evidence seemed to prove that 
 international good will and universal brotherhood were 
 dreams only to be indulged in by the student in his 
 study and the over-sentimentalists. The intensity of 
 this feeling was brought to my attention one night 
 when, following an address in which I had said, “China 
 had better suffer injustice for a hundred years than 
 resort to war,” a Chinese Christian minister of high 
 character and more than ordinary spiritual fervor said 
 to me privately, “Mr. Smith, you talked of a hundred 
 years, but we have now suffered injustice and ignominy 
 for a thousand years and see no relief.” This view 
 was not confined to Chinese alone, but to my utter 
 astonishment found expression among some American 
 and European missionaries. One as noble as any 
 Christian I ever met, after hearing my first address, 
 said: “Smith, that is all very well, but the next thing 
 the Chinese must do is to whip somebody in the war 
 game and get some kind of respect among the nations 
 of the world before we can hope to make this people 
 truly great.” 
 
 This terribly solemn conclusion had been borne in 
 upon them not only by remembrance of the past but 
 by the results of the most recent efforts of diplomacy. 
 The Washington Conference had at first ruled out 
 the Shantung Question as irrelevant to a meeting called 
 to discuss the Pacific Ocean issues. To the Chinese 
 Shantung Province, with its sacred temples and 
 shrines, its soil the birthplace of Confucius, its enor- 
 
52 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 mous commercial resources and strategic distributing 
 possibilities, now controlled by alien people, is the 
 Pacific problem. They can’t talk, think, or plan with¬ 
 out reckoning with this issue. They had prayed for a 
 hearing of the “Twenty-one Demands” document, only 
 to get no answer. One Chinese university man, a 
 Christian of high standing, said to me: “The only 
 language the Versailles Conference knew or the Wash¬ 
 ington Conference knows now is the threat of a big 
 gun. We have none at present large enough to speak, 
 but we are going to get them, and then we will be 
 heard.” I had come to a nation, the largest numerically 
 on earth, where they seemed to have closed the books 
 on poetry and philosophy of peace as being antiquated 
 and were getting the engineers ready to estimate their 
 war strength and tell how long a time would be neces¬ 
 sary to get equipped for the slaughter. 
 
 This attitude of mind seemed to be almost unani¬ 
 mous, so much so that I was soon made aware that the 
 committees handling my program were kindly, but 
 earnestly, trying to divert me from pressing inter¬ 
 national friendship to other themes of a more general 
 character. But presently I began to find that of all 
 places visited there was none where they would so 
 deeply love to share my views if they could only have 
 any real grounds for genuine expectation that the thing 
 would work. I found that I was following the same 
 route of travel as that‘taken by the great Rev. H. T. 
 Hodgkin, of London, while he was delivering a series 
 of lectures upon the same general subject, and that at 
 every place he had left behind a profound impression 
 of real belief that world concord was not a phantom 
 vision, but a tangible possibility. I availed myself of 
 
CHINA 
 
 53 
 
 the advantage in cooperation with those groups he had 
 left, and very rapidly learned that if only the rest of 
 the world will give any adequate evidence of sincerity 
 in its disarmament and permanent peace proposals, 
 there will be no trouble with China. All the Chinese 
 ask for now is a decent chance to show their real heart 
 upon the doctrine I was there to preach, and they will 
 not be classified as militarists, but as the supreme lovers 
 of peace. 
 
 Whatever may be the vexed questions upon which 
 men may differ concerning the China of the future, the 
 rest of the world ought to see that they are given such 
 an abundant opportunity. They deserve above all else 
 such encouragement now. 
 
 In the first place, that as a nation they may be rescued 
 from further attempts at military preparedness, just 
 when all the world seems bent on wiping out the menace 
 of militarism. Europe is stirred by contempt of the 
 “War Lord” party, and is every day trying to belittle 
 further military activities. The public platform, the 
 press, and the educators of the United States are 
 constantly warning the people lest unawares that 
 nation be swept into the peril of big armies and navies. 
 The severest critic of the Japanese, when aroused to say 
 the worst thing possible, charges them with being 
 “militaristic.” It is a synonym of contempt, a thing 
 to be dreaded and annihilated. Strange, if while the 
 rest of the world so condemns this principle it should 
 by its blundering, materialistic, nationalized, office¬ 
 seeking diplomacy drive the most peace-loving nation 
 in the world to militarism to save its life from utter 
 collapse. 
 
 I do not know just what the real issues are. I did 
 
54 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 not attempt to find out, for I was not a judge, a member 
 of the jury, or an arbitrator. But I did not find one man 
 from Paris to Peking who, if the Chinese question 
 came up, did not say that great injustice had been done 
 to China. All with one accord agree upon this point. 
 If unfair dealing is persisted in, and no apparent hope 
 suggested from other sources, then China will be 
 militaristic, and finally some day that means war, and 
 when it comes it will not be between China and some 
 other single nation. But it will surely involve every 
 nation with a foot on the Pacific shores anywhere. As 
 an earnest of reality, of sincerity, of honesty, the big 
 talkers against militarism ought to see to it that China 
 gets a square deal. 
 
 In the second place, China deserves encouragement 
 to proceed by peaceful methods, because she is not by 
 temperament, tradition, or training a soldier-like type. 
 Hers is the natural aptitude for philosophy, literature, 
 and the scholastic life. I shall later speak of what a 
 pitifully small percentage of her people ever had oppor¬ 
 tunity in this realm, but nevertheless that is her charac¬ 
 teristic, evidenced by every man who has had long 
 knowledge of her people. In this connection it may 
 also be said that she is not materialistic. Perhaps she 
 ought to be more so, grant that. But I wonder if the 
 nations with marching soldiers and speeding warships 
 and overfed millionaires would not themselves profit in 
 some nobler qualities if they should unite to let great 
 China have an unobstructed opportunity for growth 
 and prosperity without fighting for it. While writing I 
 am reading Sir Philip Gibbs's “More That Must Be 
 Told,” in which he so furiously and justly condemns 
 the debauch of militarism which has followed the war. 
 
CHINA 
 
 55 
 
 If his conclusions are correct and the need of the world 
 is a nationalism of more spiritual type, which I firmly 
 believe, then China ought to be given guarantees that 
 she can go forward, letting her truest characteristic be 
 revealed without resort to bloodshed and slaughter of 
 human beings. I looked at Chinese soldiers and could 
 not but feel a sense of indignation that these men were 
 being forced to wear clothes not to their liking and 
 stand at “attention” when they so poorly know how to 
 handle a gun. The Chinese soldier is an artificial 
 product. The world of politics and affairs in history 
 has enough sad pages to reckon with now, without 
 adding another in a vicious debauch of China and her 
 resources. If this nation is forced to go on arming 
 and by so doing go on spreading poverty, which is 
 already unspeakable and indescribable, and eventually 
 to break out in another war, I believe it will be the 
 supreme crime of human history. 
 
 In the third place China deserves a square, honest 
 deal and a peaceable opportunity to go forward, because 
 of the superb contribution she can make to the ultimate 
 peace of the world. 
 
 Earlier reference was made to what seemed to be 
 the overwhelming sentiment for war. That is true and 
 it remains true and will continue till some better form 
 of diplomacy is developed in the world that has thus 
 far shown itself. But I also found, not only in indi¬ 
 viduals, but in groups, the finest expressions of the 
 principle of world brotherhood to which I ever listened. 
 The European, American, and Japanese language about 
 international friendships is pretty strongly tinctured 
 with economics. I have seen some Americans suddenly 
 become peace advocates who have never been famous 
 
56 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 for philanthropy or religion. En route West I met 
 one such who when I inquired about the influences 
 prompting his new attitude very quickly revealed the 
 fact that it was not human idealism or spiritual results, 
 but horror at the size of his “income tax.” Reduced 
 incomes have made a good many converts to the ex¬ 
 tinction of war idea. Some nations are discussing 
 world peace as a remedy for national bankruptcy. I 
 venture the suggestion that this basis will not produce 
 enduring peace. Some day the balance of money 
 advantage might seem to be the other way and then that 
 platform would lead to war. That was Germany’s 
 blind, brutal, sordid blunder in 1914. 
 
 I spoke to churches, clubs, schools, colleges in the 
 greater cities of China. I met great personalities in 
 public, business, educational, and private life, and felt 
 that I had not at any time heard the desire for universal 
 good will among men put upon a higher basis than by 
 the Chinese. I found myself quite unconsciously shift¬ 
 ing the emphasis in addresses to those most religious as¬ 
 pects of the friendship topic. There are places where the 
 economic phase, with its consequent burden of taxation, 
 business depression, and loss of efficiency, seems the 
 most binding argument against armed conflicts. But 
 this is not the supreme apologetic in China. These 
 audiences softened into cordial friendliness and lost 
 that frigid resentment under the pressure of facts 
 about war being an enemy of brotherhood, of human 
 welfare, of childhood and of the Kingdom of God. 
 I was only sorry at the close of about sixty addresses 
 delivered in China that I had not been more conscious 
 of this psychology at the beginning. I could have gone 
 very much more directly to the heart of the subject 
 
CHINA 
 
 57 
 
 and been much more effective. Before one perfectly 
 splendid audience of Chinese church leaders, where 
 there was present a large number of beautiful women, 
 for the most part of mature years, I made use of a 
 large clause upon war's toll upon motherhood, and in 
 the name of the women who bear in pain the young 
 men who are sent to be butchered, I spoke against more 
 war. I could wish that all the war-crazed politicians 
 and dirty yellow journalists who are trying to provoke 
 more hatred and jealousies and strife among the nations 
 could have witnessed the sight and felt the emotions 
 in that room. Stern men and women made no attempt 
 to restrain tears. One Chinese minister with degrees 
 from half a dozen universities, said to me at the close, 
 “If that side of this war business is carried through 
 China it will kill the military party dead in five years.” 
 
 When some day a generation arises who by the grace 
 of God make “wars to cease,” I believe a high tribute 
 will then be paid to the influence of the Chinese upon 
 this consummation so much to be desired. I still hope 
 that the generation of which I am one of the older 
 group, may yet have sense enough to let this nation 
 express its better life rather than to drive it, against its 
 deepest will, to follow the train into more brutality. 
 
 China presents a queer contradiction. Admit every 
 frailty of her past, every sin of which she is accused, 
 every omission which can be thought of, and here re¬ 
 mains the fact. 
 
 One channel of thought followed says: “War, get 
 ready,, organize, arouse the people to revenge, fight, or 
 succumb to inevitable national oblivion and eternal 
 servitude.” Another channel followed says: “We 
 long for peace on earth, we hunger for good will and 
 
58 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 kindness, our ambitions are for a renaissance of the 
 nobler qualities of human life.” The whole Christian v 
 clientele in China, native pastors and church members, 
 college and school faculties and foreign missionaries, 
 are yearning for this side of Chinese life to be given 
 a wide privilege. The great big world with its tangle 
 of European geography, its reparation funds, its open 
 seaport privileges, its Yap Islands, its social rumblings 
 and all the rest, has no weightier problem before it than 
 to answer which one of these voices in China shall pre¬ 
 vail. 
 
 No nation liveth to itself alone anywhere just now, 
 and never will again, but this is preeminently true of 
 China. She cannot of herself ordain which element will 
 prevail, but the courts and conferences of nations can. 
 
 If she is led to believe that she will be treated justly in 
 the future, she will be in the vanguard of the peace- 
 loving people. If she is forced to believe she is to be 
 traded and juggled as a sop among the bargaining 
 nations, she is going to give the world another baptism 
 of the blood of swords and guns. The date is the only 
 unknown quantity in the latter. 
 
CHINA 
 
 Part Two: The Land of Vast ness 
 
 I N the previous chapter a serious effort was made 
 fully to recognize the danger and tragedy of 
 exasperating China into a military effort to pre¬ 
 serve her life and also to make vivid the significance 
 of the deep natural love of China for peace and a desire 
 to move out into a better life free from resort to the 
 dog’s method of fighting. 
 
 Wherever there are those whose material greed and 
 lust for conquest have led a desire to see China remain 
 impotent, that they may pursue the exploiting method 
 undisturbed, no argument will avail which may enlist 
 cooperation from them, looking to a better day in 
 China. But I am one of those who cherishes a real 
 belief in the world-extended power of that new cult of 
 liberal-minded, God-fearing men and women who are 
 putting justice above gain and brotherhood above in¬ 
 sane nationalism. It is important that all of these shall 
 be brought into sympathy with the vastness of thin’gs 
 if China is to be helped to become a potent force in 
 the universal international friendship doctrine. I am 
 persuaded that these furious widths and depths and 
 heights of things in China must be reckoned with and 
 patiently dealt with by all who work and pray for the 
 
 59 
 
6o ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 good of the human race and the peace of the world. 
 As only a casual visitor, I ought perhaps to offer 
 apology for the attempt even to summarize some of 
 these problems in this nation of five thousand years of 
 history. I am reminded of an interview once with a 
 wise old physician of superb medical training and ex¬ 
 perience who, when I asked him to explain the genesis 
 of inflammatory rheumatism and inquired whether it 
 was a disease of the blood, internal in actual location, 
 or muscular as being from without, paused, thought, 
 and then rather sadly said, “Oh, I really do not know; 
 I could have told you forty years ago.” I am quite 
 aware that I will attempt some comments which great 
 men who have been in China forty years would fear to 
 undertake. But I have grown so tired and weary of 
 swift tourists, met in travel, saying, “Why don’t they 
 do this?” “Why do they do that?”—people who pre¬ 
 tend, at least, to feel astonished not to find order and 
 procedure there, like New York, London, or Paris, 
 and are therefore ready to wipe the whole of China off 
 the map as being no good now and with no prospects 
 in the future! I am sure the workers for world con¬ 
 cord in which China is to be a part must take into 
 account some of these issues which are almost beyond 
 the imagination. 
 
 First, China is vast in area, population, and inac¬ 
 cessibility. She has about six thousand miles of 
 northern border line and almost the same from farthest 
 north to farthest southern boundary. Her borders 
 bring her into contact with every kind of “ism” in 
 government and religion that the Far and Near East 
 can supply, and most of it of a nature to degrade 
 her people rather than lift them up. She has about 
 
CHINA 
 
 61 
 
 the same number of square miles as all North America 
 and four hundred million people with no common 
 binder—no common sympathy, no common patriotism 
 or religion. I was told that my first address de¬ 
 livered in Japan was liberally reported in the daily 
 papers throughout the entire nation the next morning, 
 a picture of Japanese compactness. Even if the 
 quickest methods were used and there were papers in 
 the farthest points in China it would take three or four 
 months to convey the message. In the United States 
 nearly every man in Seattle has at least talked to some¬ 
 body from Florida, if indeed he has not been there 
 himself. Not one man in ten thousand in South China 
 has ever heard of North China, much less has heard 
 anybody tell him about it. Peking and Canton are in 
 reality farther apart than Peking and New York City, 
 and these are great modern cities upon the highways of 
 travel. There is no railway from North to South, no 
 direct line of telegraph. The great interior west is an 
 unexplored vastness where the swiftest transportation 
 is the sedan chair upon a coolie’s back and where the 
 printing press and the telegraph have not yet found 
 their way. The hurried man from the West who ex¬ 
 pects China to express herself in national terms quickly 
 must first pause in the presence of this vastness in 
 distance and method of communication. 
 
 In the second place, China is vast in resources of 
 possible wealth and a contradictory poverty. 
 
 I chanced to be in Peking just when some new sta¬ 
 tistics were being assembled upon the resources of the 
 nation, and was furnished the latest through the office 
 of the High Industrial Commissioner, the Hon. E. L. 
 Hsieh. They have forty-five thousand million tons of 
 
62 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 coal (45,000,000,000,000). I have written this figure 
 out, for my mathematics does not tell me for certain 
 how many ciphers ought to be used. I was told that 
 Shensi Province alone can furnish all the coal now 
 being used in the world for the next one hundred years 
 at twenty-five cents a ton, based upon the present scale 
 of wages. She has one hundred million tons of iron 
 ore stored away in the mountains. She produced in 
 1920 1,049,191,000 bushels of corn, 148,659,000 
 bushels of millet, 120,034,000 bushels of wheat, 
 23,777,ooo bushels of barley. I could not get late 
 figures upon beans (an immense asset), silk, ivory, 
 silver, vegetables, and so on. China is not excelled in 
 the world in her riches of acres of minerals, and behind 
 these possibilities there is an abundance of labor that 
 is dependable. I was glad to find that Chinese labor 
 had reached the hour of “organization” and “strikes.” 
 Reference will be made later to this significant develop¬ 
 ment. But the fact is, that the supply of good ready 
 labor, born of the soil, and desperately in love with it, 
 is as vast as the work which needs to be done to realize 
 upon the wealth. As I rode days across those great 
 stretches through Manchuria to Peking and on south 
 I was reminded of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana 
 and the northwest of my own country. As far as the 
 eye could carry, rice, corn, wheat, barley, millet and 
 bean fields. China has wealth that is simply staggering 
 in possibilities. 
 
 Now the confession: She has poverty that no de¬ 
 scription can portray, the people living in mud and 
 mat houses unfit for humans. Drought and floods 
 have, incidentally, periodically accounted for some of 
 this, but only feebly tell the real reason. Their poverty 
 
CHINA 
 
 63 
 
 has been so long, so constant, so severe, that they have 
 settled down to accept it without much grumbling, hav¬ 
 ing millions hungry all the time. I am told this ex¬ 
 plains in part, at least, their custom of hanging food, 
 such as fruits, nuts, and vegetables, by the new-made 
 graves, suggesting that hope that at least those passing 
 through the great adventure may find a haven with 
 food enough. The figure by Ernest Poole, “Beggars 
 sitting on bags of gold ” came to my mind every day 
 I was in China. 
 
 The soil has produced for centuries a great yield and 
 is rich now. The mountains are jammed with wealth. 
 The labor is faithful and abundant. Then what is the 
 matter? I think I asked a hundred men where that 
 wealth had gone to, and nobody could answer except 
 by a subdued insinuation, “The people have been per¬ 
 sistently robbed by somebody.” I believe this is the 
 fact. Who the robbers have been may not be certified. 
 But the crime has been committed. No buildings of 
 ancient glory, no remnants of a once great wealth can 
 be seen. The people of China have been robbed and 
 left as destitute as the poor man on the Jericho road. 
 
 Some day this will stop and this wealth be turned 
 into channels of progress, and then China will speak 
 with a new voice among the nations when they sit 
 around conference tables. 
 
 In the third place China is vast in internal troubles. 
 Those busy people who are now engaged in readjusting 
 the world will fail utterly in a solution which means 
 permanent world concord unless they are wise enough 
 to take account of the inside vexations of China and 
 render verdicts upon a theory of justice different from 
 that which is demanded of those nations free from such 
 
64 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 furious home upheavals. This theory of justice must 
 remember that here is a nation of so many millions of 
 people that nobody pretends to give a close figure upon 
 the population, which, after three thousand years 
 of the rule of “dynasties” and emperors of iron will, 
 has suddenly thrown over the whole regime, kit and 
 bag, and is setting up a republic. More patience would 
 have been vouchsafed to them had this marvelous revo¬ 
 lution occurred without a great world w T ar being thrust 
 into the scene, with tasks of world reconstruction which 
 have tested the best strength and genius of the most 
 perfectly organized nations. China has been called 
 upon to battle with foes within and foes without at the 
 same time. A little remembrance of history is sufficient 
 to show that other nations passing through similar 
 transitions have not had smooth sailing for a good 
 many years. The American and French revolutions 
 are apt illustrations. Unhappy as the present hour is 
 with them, they have done enough sight better than 
 Russia up to date. In justice we must also acknowledge 
 the fact that just now nobody seems to know where the 
 government of China really is. In Peking they act as 
 though it was there, but nobody five hundred miles 
 away thinks so. There is a total army of 1,500,000 in 
 uniform and more or less (mostly less) equipped, but 
 the Peking authorities cannot control more than 8,000 
 of these. The Peking group can’t collect a dollar of 
 taxes outside that immediate province, except a small 
 export and import item. The outside world talks of 
 the “North” and the “South,” but as a matter of fact, 
 there are at least five separate autonomous governments 
 which pay no tribute or respect to Peking. Some day, 
 somewhere, somehow, they will get together and a 
 
CHINA 
 
 65 
 
 central authority will come forth. Till that time they 
 are pitifully impotent in national expression and cannot 
 take that place of power in the counsels of the nations 
 which their population and wealth would seem to accord 
 
 them. 
 
 In the fourth place, China is vast in courage. As I 
 went day after day discovering new ‘‘problems/’ most 
 of them so tremendous that any one of fifty would seem 
 to be enough to wipe out hope, and no tangible solution 
 being offered by anybody for them, and to the question 
 I advanced till I grew ashamed of it myself, “What are 
 you going to do about it?” being given the quiet answer, 
 “We don’t know,” I marveled that there was a spark 
 of courage left in the heart of any thinking Chinaman. 
 But there is, and of a wonderful type. Here is a 
 nation of resources indicated, yet treated as a child. 
 One of the strongest men of the new Cabinet [this is 
 written in February, 1922; there may be another 
 government by April] said to me: “We seem to be 
 the curios for the other nations to buy and sell.” Look¬ 
 ing out of my window in Peking I could see the flags 
 of the nations wavering over the Legations, which are 
 more than the name implies, for they are backed by 
 their soldiers, on the ground, ready to compel obedience 
 to their proposals. Japanese influence is very evident 
 through the north country. In Shanghai, the “Inter¬ 
 national City,” is there, not as guest but ever present, 
 dominating the whole place. To the south, Hongkong 
 and the British; still farther south, the French and the 
 Dutch. “Spheres of influence,” denoting the powerful 
 presence of the foreigners, are so much in evidence 
 that the Chinese very naturally wonder whether they 
 really have anything to say about their own country or 
 
66 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 not. While in Peking, in a most delightful interview 
 with the American minister, Dr. Schurman, he told me 
 that that day the Chinese authorities had asked him to 
 request his government to “permit them” to increase 
 import duties from three to five per cent., and that the 
 same request was being made of other major powers. 
 Imagination fails to suggest what would happen if such 
 a proposition were made at Washington, or London, 
 or Paris, or Tokyo, when those governments were dis¬ 
 cussing tariffs. But that is a picture of China. She 
 must ask outsiders for permission to establish her own 
 rates of income. 
 
 Small wonder if they are beginning to say they must 
 fight. I have spoken of their wealth, but I did not see 
 one spot where those riches gave promise of becoming 
 available but that some white man or a Japanese was 
 sitting on watch, to grab it upon some pretense or other. 
 The whole process is so humiliating that it would seem 
 as though they would give up in disgust and despair. 
 But they don’t, and their calm courage in adversity, in 
 darkness, in confusion is great and ought to challenge 
 the admiration, sympathy, and cooperation of all the 
 fair-minded people of the world. All the world ap¬ 
 plauded Belgium in 1914 when the German hosts 
 started their invasion and she resisted with her small 
 army. “Wonderful courage,” was the verdict. France 
 stood the hammering of that same powerful army in 
 1916 around Verdun and sang all the while, “They 
 shall not pass.” Again everybody shouted about their 
 “courage.” In March, 1918, on the west, came that 
 baptism of blood and death to the British. But the 
 bulldog grit won universal praise. “Great courage.” 
 Others won such plaudits also on those fields. But I 
 
CHINA 
 
 67 
 
 firmly believe that if all those experiences are pressed 
 into one the sum of the courage necessary would not be 
 so great as that I came in contact with in China. From 
 public officials to merchants, to college professors, to 
 manufacturers, to mechanics, to bankers, and all the 
 way to the coolie, with his back pretty nearly breaking 
 under his load, every man in China is sure they are 
 going to win out. Of all the courage I have met or 
 read about in books, the most sublime is that I found 
 in China. The rest of the world does not know how 
 properly to appreciate real sportsmanship if it fails to 
 give them an honest, square opportunity in the future. 
 
 The truth in a nutshell. I am not going to hazard 
 any fixed opinion of what the final destiny of China is 
 to be. The nation may utterly collapse with internal 
 dissensions. The economic weight may completely 
 bankrupt her. The greed of other nations may some 
 day devour her. A lot of things may happen, but as a 
 world peace asset the vital thing is for a just appraise¬ 
 ment to be made. One man sees China in poverty, in 
 ignorance, in dirt, in dissensions, in weakness, in im¬ 
 morality. He can make his case with the barroom 
 crowd of almost any Far Eastern hotel. I heard one, 
 en route by train from Canton to Hongkong, say he had 
 traveled all over China and had never seen a Christian. 
 Another man looks in a different direction and he sees 
 China awakening and rising to power. The real test 
 is leadership. Has she leaders who can find the way? 
 I was never surer of anything than that this question 
 can be answered in the affirmative, and that these new 
 great Chinese personalities will solve the problem if the 
 rest of the world will keep hands off and give them a 
 fair chance. I met university and college presidents of 
 
68 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 as fine a grade of scholarship and administrative ability 
 as are known anywhere in the West. Dr. Chang Po 
 Ling, of Tientsin, would grace any university. I met 
 church leaders of vision, courage, and personal quali¬ 
 ties quite as significant as anything I have come in 
 contact with in thirty years. Rev. Cheng Ching Yi, 
 D.D., of the Chinese Continuation Committee, Shang¬ 
 hai, is not surpassed by any man of my acquaintance in 
 this regard. I met student leaders that are not second 
 to any I have known in the West. Mr. T. Z. Koo, of 
 the Student Department of the Young Men’s Chris¬ 
 tian Association, reminded me of a John R. Mott or 
 Robert E. Speer in the making. I met manufacturers 
 who are the last word in up-to-dateness. The great 
 Dr. C. T. Wang, scholar, religious leader, politician, is 
 also the managing director of as fine a cotton mill as I 
 ever saw—three thousand people at work, mill running 
 day and night, at Woosung. I met bankers, lawyers, 
 doctors of a number one grade. I met student groups 
 that would not be ashamed in the presence of Harvard, 
 Yale, Cambridge, or Oxford men. I saw girls’ schools 
 which reminded me of Vassar, Mt. Holyoke, and 
 Smith. The leaders are in China and more are rapidly 
 being produced. I found any number of self-support¬ 
 ing churches, big, strong congregations. Perhaps no 
 one item impressed me so much in contrast with the 
 memories of an earlier visit in 1913 as did this one. I 
 was shown through a beautiful library building at St. 
 John’s College, Shanghai, which had just been opened, 
 all paid for and every dollar given by the alumni. I 
 arrived in Hongkong just after the Morrison Memorial 
 Church, which has never had a cent of outside help, had 
 voted $90,000 to build a new church and at the same 
 
CHINA 69 
 
 meeting voted $1,000 each to two new churches just 
 starting to build. 
 
 The same week the Board of Directors of the Young 
 Men’s Christian Association had voted to build another 
 building to cost $100,000, all of which they will raise 
 themselves. These illustrations can be multiplied in¬ 
 definitely. They prove leadership. If China is treated 
 fairly, if the people who believe in world peace will 
 help her in the period of transition, she will be a power¬ 
 ful factor in establishing the better order of brother¬ 
 hood in the world. If she is treated unfairly and beaten 
 back in her struggle, the sense of injustice will linger 
 and some day break out in war. China has great possi¬ 
 bilities for peace among men, or more war, and the 
 decision is more in the hands of foreigners than the 
 case of any other people on earth. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SINGAPORE 
 
 The Home of Mixed Races and Ideas 
 
 I F the earlier chapter upon Honolulu had not been 
 written till after the visit to Singapore of the 
 Malayan country, some few sentences might have 
 been modified, for there are several elements in which 
 Singapore can easily compete with Honolulu, and in 
 some of these claim superiority. It is a very interesting 
 thing to observe that all tourists we met in Singapore 
 at once asked, “Have you visited Honolulu?” “Which 
 one do you like better?” We were asked exactly these 
 questions by three Americans within twenty-four hours 
 after arrival. 
 
 I was not in Singapore as an expert as to which one 
 of these unique tropical cities may claim preeminence 
 of climate, foliage, or scenery and will not now enter 
 a discussion upon this point, but will try to convey the 
 facts which grew upon me every hour of the ten days 
 spent there, bearing upon Singapore as one of the cen¬ 
 ters which may eventually bind the Christian world 
 together in a peace compact strong enough to make 
 wars a thing of the past. I may say at the outset that 
 I am thoroughly convinced that this Malayan peninsula 
 is vital to the universal peace program and that there 
 
 70 
 
SINGAPORE 
 
 71 
 
 are strategic possibilities there which ought to be culti¬ 
 vated earnestly in this respect. 
 
 Something has happened here in this remote strip 
 of country, the farthest tip south where Asia reaches, 
 which ought to be studied, not only for its value imme¬ 
 diately as a brotherhood area, but as well for its lessons 
 to other territories where complicated populations are 
 threatening the peace of the world. To get an estimate 
 of these facts, it is necessary to dig back about one 
 hundred and five years in Malayan history. 
 
 Then this was one of the wildest spots on earth, if 
 the historians are correct. “The wild man of Borneo” 
 had nothing on the wild pirates of Malaya. The whole 
 country was a savage, heathen jungle of robbers and 
 murderers. If “Captain Kid” and “Jesse James” and 
 “Gyp the Blood” had been here in their “best” days 
 they couldn’t have taught these natives anything in the 
 game of robbery and slaughter. They have a sort of 
 an all-round comprehensive word in the native tongue, 
 “Mengamok,” which describes what happened in those 
 days only a little more than a hundred years ago. It 
 means a kind of wholesale killing, a festival of 
 slaughter, a fourth of July of blood shedding. It was 
 when the savage gave himself to unrestrained murder 
 and fought and fought till everybody in reach was 
 killed or he himself was dead—a regular carnival of 
 human slaughter, to which they looked forward with 
 the pleasure which the young boy now has in anticipa¬ 
 tion of Christmas. These straits, the only highway for 
 commerce East and West, were impassable. Unnum¬ 
 bered ships which drew too near were never heard of 
 again. It is recorded that back somewhere in the 
 1700s the Rajah of Johore offered to give the whole 
 
72 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 thing to an English Captain Hamilton, who declined 
 the present with thanks. This was the Malayan Straits 
 Settlements in 1800. 
 
 Soon after that a young Britisher, Stamford Raffles, 
 afterward knighted, appeared. This was not the first 
 or last time that things have happened, when some 
 Britisher appears on the scene. More direct reference 
 will be made to this later, but as an understanding of 
 the influence of this spot of earth and water now, a 
 few things need to be noted. Sir Stamford Raffles 
 bought it and paid for it with good English money and 
 hoisted the Union Jack. He was a God-fearing 
 Christian man, he read only the Bible and religious 
 books upon Sunday. He had the Roger Williams idea 
 of justice to the natives. He treated them honestly 
 and kindly. He had visions of the future, he is spoken 
 of yet as the man of “long, long thoughts.” He was 
 appointed the first Lieutenant Governor of the Colony. 
 Singapore and the Straits Settlements are, to an im¬ 
 mense degree, just a story of Sir Stamford Raffles and 
 what he planted there. There is a “Raffles Square,” 
 the business district; a “Raffles School,” a “Raffles 
 Library,” a “Raffles Museum,” and a “Raffles Monu¬ 
 ment.” One hundred years and this seed has produced 
 what I saw there in 1922: A beautiful city of gardens, 
 lovely homes, wide boulevards, prosperous banks and 
 business houses, churches, missions, schools, libraries, 
 a Young Men’s Christian Association, the finest kept 
 one I was ever in, and a Young Women’s Christian 
 Association. The city proper is modern to a degree 
 which would seem impossible in that spot only seventy 
 miles from the Equator. The country is rich, first, in 
 rubber plantations. Two thirds of the whole world 
 
SINGAPORE 
 
 73 
 
 supply comes from these islands. Tin, one half the 
 world’s supply, comes from here. Spices—it would 
 seem as though they are growing enough pepper to 
 furnish all of that hot ingredient necessary for the 
 universe. Cocoanuts, such groves as I have never seen 
 before anywhere. Fruits a hundred kinds, oranges, 
 pappai, bananas, mangoes, mangosteen, durian, guavas, 
 and melons, although they buy peaches, pears, and 
 prunes from the United States, and apples and grapes 
 from Australia. The harbor was a constant study 
 to me—ships from every nation on earth coming 
 and going. The annual tonnage of the port 
 is over 15,000,000 tons, with a valuation of $811,000,- 
 000. 
 
 Out of the heathen jungle in a century, there has 
 emerged this beautiful city of 400,000 prosperous 
 people, the pivot of an area of wide significance. One 
 could only wish that some method might be discovered 
 by which Westminster and Washington could always 
 be led to send out representatives of the Christian 
 character of Sir Stamford Raffles; not only would the 
 benefit in trade and economic profit be great, but the 
 peace and happiness of the world would be set forward 
 by advances not yet known and some of the fierce 
 jealousies and suspicions of the Western white man 
 could be removed. 
 
 The peculiar interest in all this to me was not the 
 streets, the business houses, the ships, or the flower 
 gardens, but the fact of such a population at this place 
 at this time when the world is in anguish for a peace 
 plan of life which will save the coming generations 
 from the butchery war has been imposing. Singapore 
 has an immense opportunity to become essential in this 
 
74 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 program, and I am afraid has not yet realized this fact. 
 Since leaving San Francisco this was the first large 
 city visited in which I did not find some kind of inter¬ 
 national friendship organization, World Alliance group 
 or League of Nations Union. I could not find any¬ 
 thing of the kind and was conscious of the fact that, 
 while they were glad to see me, they were in fear and 
 trembling about what I was going to say and, like the 
 chap who has to take a dose of bitter medicine, were 
 wishing the thing were over as quickly as possible. I 
 was astonished at some of the questions I was asked 
 by those who seemed to be surprised that there was 
 any peculiar anxiety about the war issues. But after 
 getting past this rather superficial impression, I began 
 to catch the deep facts. 
 
 First, Singapore has a mixture of different kinds of 
 color, races, types, and religions not equaled in this 
 great world. I am absolutely certain of this. Refer¬ 
 ence has been made to some places having this dis¬ 
 tinction in the Pacific Ocean, but when Singapore is 
 reached no exceptions need to be made. Here are 
 found first in number, Chinese from both North 
 and South, Japanese, Singhalese, Siamese, Javanese, 
 Bornese, Indians, from the Sikhs of the North to the 
 Bengalis and on to the Tamils of the South, Burmese, 
 Sakeis, the original natives, Malayans, Eurasians, 
 Portuguese, Americans, Australians, and British 
 Islanders. I thought the “Tower of Babel” must have 
 fallen near Raffles Square as I stood there and listened 
 to that clatter of tongues and studied those tints of 
 complexions. I thought I knew mixtures, but I had 
 to see the conglomeration when I got into Singapore to 
 get a little faint idea of how many kinds of folks it 
 
SINGAPORE 
 
 75 
 
 takes to make up a world. I do not think there is a 
 color in the rainbow, or a tint of the sky with the rising 
 or setting sun, or a blackness of a moonless, starless 
 night, which is not represented upon somebody’s skin at 
 Singapore. Naturally the truly great men are just 
 anxious about what this mixture may develop and have 
 not therefore been pressing the world situation to the 
 front very conspicuously. But the conviction is none 
 the less there and must be given expression. I have 
 spoken of the population of Singapore as about 
 400,000, but the Malay Peninsula has over 6,000,000 
 —almost equal to that of Canada or Australia—and in 
 those adjacent South Sea Islands there are close to 
 50,000,000 people and Singapore is easily the dominat¬ 
 ing center, and will be the leavening peace influence of 
 the whole, when once her Christian forces become 
 organized. I was made grateful in the realization of 
 two facts before leaving there. 
 
 In the first place, while the outspoken international 
 friendship doctrine from the viewpoint of organization 
 has not been as active as in some places, the quality of 
 leadership is not second to any visited. The pastor of 
 the English Presbyterian Church, a veritable Scot, Rev. 
 Douglas, and the principal of the boys’ school, Mr. 
 Dixon, are as intense on the world brotherhood topic 
 as any men I ever met on land or sea. Bishop Bickley, 
 of the American Methodist Church, who presided at 
 the first meeting, is equally in earnest upon it, as are 
 all his associates so far as I could learn. Not at any 
 place have I heard a truer indictment of the whole 
 theory of war than from Bishop Ferguson, of the 
 Church of England, who took the chair at the second 
 meeting. He left no loophole for a militarist phi- 
 
76 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 losophy to get through. Singapore is highly equipped 
 with rich personalities for this great ideal. 
 
 In the second place, I was grateful to see the per¬ 
 sistent determination to make permanent in organized 
 form the sentiment which had been quickened there. I 
 shall remember longest the last meeting, a group of 
 twenty-four men representing the best in business, 
 educational, political, and religious life who came to¬ 
 gether to consider ways and means of going forward. 
 Among them was Mr. David G. Stead, the vice-presi¬ 
 dent of the Australian League of Nations Union, who 
 brought a tremendous testimony on the Australian 
 peace sentiment. Not a doubt was expressed in that 
 room but that war was a menace to all the good of life, 
 and they voted with deep earnestness to organize a 
 Singapore League of Nations Union to take up not 
 only the issues of the League of Nations, but the whole 
 question of extending the ideals of world peace and 
 universal brotherhood throughout these South Sea 
 islands with their vast populations, which are to be 
 developed either as peaceful citizens of the future, or 
 as warriors to wage conflict upon each other, as well 
 as eventually to measure swords with the white men. 
 Thus here in the glory of the South Seas, amid its 
 mysterious peoples and innumerable problems, beset 
 with such possibilities of strife and revolution, there is 
 a group of some of God’s choicest personalities, who 
 have set themselves to meeting their part in setting the 
 world free from the voice of guns and swords and 
 filling it with the music of peace and good will. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 INDIA 
 
 The Land of Turmoil 
 
 F all the countries visited, no one presents such 
 an almost impossible condition to describe, 
 from the viewpoint of probable friendly inter¬ 
 nationalism, as India. It seems on the surface to be 
 just one vast conglomeration of contradictions. The 
 so-called “best informed ’’ men differ upon many points 
 where it would seem as though there would be common 
 judgment. Japan and China present some confused 
 ideas, but when thought of in contrast with India they 
 become as simple as the twos of the multiplication 
 table. India is a nation of turmoil, discontent, unrest, 
 agitation, with threatenings of immediate revolution, 
 rebellion, war. I am not too confident of some of the 
 conclusions reached; they may be exploded in a month, 
 while on some others a feeling of absolute certainty 
 is entertained. 
 
 For all of them, however, I am more indebted to 
 personal interviews and conferences with small groups 
 than has been the case with any other of the nations 
 to which I have referred. I sought diligently to know 
 the mind of those who seemed to be in positions which 
 would give them the true facts, and I find writing now 
 the more difficult because I must differ radically with 
 
 77 
 
78 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 some of these, among whom are not a few highly es¬ 
 teemed friends of many years. Whatever the truth 
 may be about causes or remedies, two fundamental facts 
 are to be clearly recognized: 
 
 First, India, with its 325,000,000 people, is the 
 world’s storm center of jealousies and fomented dis¬ 
 cord. Europe is not happy, and outbreaks there would 
 be no surprise; China is restless; Japan is suspicious 
 and threatening; America is far from tranquillity; 
 South Africa is in the throes of terrific industrial strife, 
 and Egypt and Mesopotamia are always asking for 
 something. But India surpasses them all in the depth 
 of her grievances and the wide barrier between what 
 she is asking and what is proposed to be granted. 
 
 Second, there can be no universal peace, friendship, 
 and brotherhood till some remedy is found which will 
 effectively quiet this turmoil. Delay may not mean 
 immediately more war on a wide scale, but it does mean 
 an unsettling of world affairs, so long as it continues 
 in its present state. Humanity needs something more 
 than the order to “cease firing” which was given upon 
 November 11, 1918. It must have international friend¬ 
 ship and good will, brotherhood and cooperation. His¬ 
 tory is filled with proof that no armed force, be it ever 
 so overwhelming, can coerce peace and quietness. The 
 disturbance in India is a world problem, and the whole 
 human race is more or less involved. The British 
 Government may for the moment be facing the brunt 
 of the struggle, but eventually it will involve the entire 
 world. 
 
 Reference has been made to the contradictions of 
 India. They are after this fashion: In the first place, 
 if this people were free from the present annoying ele- 
 
INDIA 
 
 79 
 
 ments and were left to live out that which they so 
 persistently profess, they ought to be the leaders of all 
 the peace movements of the world. No suggestion is 
 to be made as to the wisdom of granting what is asked 
 by their agitations, or as to the sincerity of their pro¬ 
 fessions. This is merely a statement of fact. Their 
 professions would give them the supreme seat of honor 
 in any peace conference or convention. This is evi¬ 
 denced by the presence of 225,000,000 Hindus over¬ 
 whelmingly in the majority in the country whose re¬ 
 ligion forbids taking life for any cause. Their doctrine 
 of “reincarnation” is so sweeping that the very lowest 
 of the animals become sacred, to say nothing of human 
 beings. Life is precious in their sight beyond any other 
 race that ever existed. If this is real to them, as I 
 have no reason to doubt, war becomes a thing of per¬ 
 fect horror to the Hindu, and he ought to be the peace 
 advocate par-excellence. One of the first Indians with 
 whom I talked, a saintly old Christian minister of forty 
 years’ experience, said, “You are now in the land of 
 the lovers of peace, but in the land of the next great 
 war.” 
 
 That the peace idea ought to manifest itself in 
 India in a more than ordinary way, is witnessed by 
 the tremendous power of the “non-resistent” movement, 
 which has swept over the nation like a miracle. Leav¬ 
 ing aside all arguments pro and con about the sincerity 
 of this method, the fact is that it has worked in India, 
 and I do not believe any other people on earth would 
 have responded to such an idea. “If you are arrested, 
 do not resist; if you are attacked, do not fight back.” 
 This is the method by which they propose to change 
 government and all existing methods of procedure 
 
8o ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 which have been in operation for two hundred years. 
 Bishop Frederick B. Fisher, of the Methodist Episco¬ 
 pal Church, wrote a very remarkable book some years 
 ago about India under the title, “The Silent Revolu- 
 tion. ,, It was then written as a record of existing 
 facts; it has now become strangely prophetic. 
 
 France back yonder in history had a revolution, but 
 nobody talked of a “non-resistant” method. America 
 had one in 1776, but it wasn’t “bloodless.” China has 
 had a few, but none of them “silent.” Japan has shared 
 her part, but never by “quiet” ideas. Russia had one 
 recently, but “force” was the implement. India alone 
 would listen and respond to such a way, and ought 
 therefore to be kind of a peace John the Baptist to the 
 world instead of the probable soil of more blood¬ 
 shed. 
 
 There may be added what those who have lived 
 long in the country comment upon, .viz.: The Indian is 
 by nature a docile, quiet, peace-loving type. The 
 northern races of whom this is not true are a decided 
 minority. A day in Ireland without a street fight would 
 seem unnatural; a fight of that kind is almost unknown 
 in India. When terribly wrought up they sometimes 
 push, but they do not fight. Like the Quakers, they 
 can fight furiously if pressed beyond endurance, but it 
 is not their instinct. They have much in common with 
 the Chinese in this respect. Here, then, stand these 
 facts which if unencumbered would give them one 
 hundred per cent as peace leaders. But the cross¬ 
 currents are so vicious, so obvious, so obstinate that 
 these virtues are submerged, and for the present, at 
 least, of small influence. The other side of the con¬ 
 tradiction is that the student of history would say that 
 
INDIA 81 
 
 there are three or four causes working there which can 
 result only in war. 
 
 The Gandhi non-violent revolution, if persisted in 
 and permitted to come to full fruition, means armed 
 conflict. No manner of resolutions or messages sent 
 out can change the eventual method either of Mahatma 
 Gandhi’s followers in prosecuting their campaign or 
 the Government’s method of suppressing it. He and 
 his committee of the Indian Congress are advocating 
 “civil disobedience” to all the established laws, properly 
 enacted, of the land. Police force only can compel 
 obedience. The genuine seriousness of this is under¬ 
 stood only when considered in the light of what they 
 are really asking for, and declaring they will have. 
 There may be a good many subdivisions in their ranks, 
 but fundamentally the bottom principle is “India for 
 the Indians.” This interpreted, means the exclusion of 
 the white man except as a casual visitor or trader. The 
 Gandhi doctrine says he is a menace, that he is con¬ 
 taminating the otherwise pure stream of native life. 
 The British Government is the first point of attack, and 
 they want it to leave, bag and baggage. Then it goes 
 on down the line, until the government officers, the 
 soldiers, the educators and missionaries from the West 
 are cleaned out and gone. This is the Gandhi program 
 when fully in operation. Behind the scenes the 
 strangest thing in it is the temporary support of 
 70,000,000 Mohammedans. They are giving allegiance 
 not because they love Gandhi more, or because they 
 have suddenly ceased to love the sword, their faithful 
 weapon of seventeen hundred years, less, but because 
 they hate the Christian Westerner and the British 
 Government more than anything else just now. One 
 
82 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 prominent Mohammedan leader, with a glare in his 
 eye and his clenched hand upraised, said to me in com¬ 
 ment upon their support of the non-resistant, non¬ 
 violent movement, “By Allah, we will some day get 
 our chance.” He left no lingering doubt in my mind 
 of what he thought would be the eventual method. One 
 of Mr. Gandhi’s closest associates told me they had 
 “no confidence in the sincerity of the Mohammedan 
 support.” Thus this so-styled peaceful revolution has 
 in it perils not only to the peace of India, but to the 
 peace of the world. 
 
 This statement would not be true to its real purpose 
 if it failed to record that most men met in India believe 
 in the sincerity of Mr. Gandhi and credit him and his 
 associates with pure motives. Those who try to im¬ 
 peach his character or impugn his noble purposes are 
 probably false to facts. His arrest, his trial, and his 
 quiet plea “Guilty” all combine to give weight to this 
 fact. He attempted no dramatics, no attack either by 
 act or spoken word upon the officers, but with profound 
 sincerity accepted the penalty as a part of a great move¬ 
 ment in behalf of liberty. But whatever may be the 
 judgment of coming generations upon this marvelous 
 phenomenon of the Gandhi wave of influence, one thing 
 is sure: It represents in this hour the possibility of the 
 outbreak of violence and the answer of armed force not 
 to be confined to India. 
 
 As though this were not enough for one people to 
 carry, there must be noted the “Brahmin vs. non- 
 Brahmin” struggle in the south. The common people 
 have grown weary of the rule, tyranny, and oppression 
 of the lazy Brahmin priest. He has for centuries held 
 the offices, levied and collected taxes, reported to no- 
 
INDIA 
 
 83 
 
 body, and condemned folks at will to perdition or 
 paradise. The end has come to this order, and the 
 Brahmin is suddenly finding himself shunted out of 
 power. The forces are being marshaled, and, were it 
 not for other more spectacular agitations, this one 
 would be a headliner in the papers. This represents a 
 long struggle and may upset all India before it is over. 
 
 Added to these must be again noted the Moham¬ 
 medan vs. Hindu vs Buddhism vs. Christianity prob¬ 
 lem. Comment has been made on this question, but it 
 is more than merely Moslem antipathy to Western 
 government. If the Gandhi movement should succeed 
 on any given day and be granted every demand, a ten 
 times worse issue would appear the next morning: 
 The Moslems believe they are called of God to rule 
 Asia and Africa quickly, that they may thus early have 
 all energies freed to meet the Western satanic powers. 
 Hinduism in India is a menace to this ambition, and 
 their thirst is keen to settle supremacy with this com¬ 
 peting religion. Of no fact am I more convinced than 
 this—India turned over to the Gandhi cabinet would 
 be India in religious armed struggle or surrendered to 
 the Moslems. No peace to India and no common peace 
 to the world till this issue is solved. 
 
 Again, India has a caste warfare to be settled either 
 by arbitration, which involves the whole revision of 
 Hinduism, or else by a series of outbreaks and riots. 
 For ages the low castes, born to degradation, have 
 plodded their weary way without a protest. There are 
 50,000,000 of these poor starved slaves, so low they 
 must not drink from the wells of pure water. They 
 are the “untouchables,” worse than dogs. But some¬ 
 thing has happened, and they are organizing and de- 
 
84 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 manding a chance. While we were in India they held 
 a convention in the north. Thirty thousand delegates 
 attended. One of the ruling princes (of whom India 
 has about eight hundred, at least 799 too many) ad¬ 
 dressed them in a speech of congratulation that the 
 time had come when they were asking to be treated as 
 human beings. One must know something of the 
 depth of the caste system to realize what this means. 
 The Brahmin priests would prefer war any day to this, 
 for “their trade is in danger.” After other woes are 
 settled, this one will last a long time. It may be carried 
 to success without violence, but it certainly has possi¬ 
 bilities of civil armed strife. 
 
 These are not all the causes of unrest. The industrial 
 question is here, of which a later word will be said in 
 common with other countries. But these major ones 
 are enough to command the deep -sympathy of all who 
 long for the better human life of friendliness and 
 cooperation throughout the world, and prayer for those 
 sincere men and women, foreign and native, who are 
 trying to find the way for India. 
 
 One more question must be raised. Is India worth 
 the struggle? Attention was called earlier to the im¬ 
 portance of India as a world problem. I am aware 
 that to a certain type of uninformed person this may 
 seem absurd. One man on shipboard, in speaking of 
 the unhappy conditions existing there at the present 
 time, said, “The white man may as well leave it any¬ 
 way, for it is a good-for-nothing country with no 
 future.” 
 
 In contrast with this superficial view I was amazed 
 by the figures given me at various times by different 
 men concerning the economic possibilities of the future. 
 
INDIA 
 
 85 
 
 Its resources are an unknown quantity even yet to the 
 best engineers. Agriculture, which has been almost the 
 entire pursuit, is still in its infancy. Two hundred and 
 twenty-five million acres were under cultivation in 
 1920, not more than half of the reasonably arable area 
 being worked; but cotton, rice, wheat, corn, jute, sugar, 
 and tea in enormous quantities were produced. Now 
 the thrill of the whole nation is the mineral and in¬ 
 dustrial revival. In 1920 the coal output was 22,660,- 
 000 tons, with deposits unknown in capacity. One 
 of the ablest engineers of the British Government told 
 me there was iron ore enough in the Nagpur district 
 to care for the entire steel industry east of the Suez 
 Canal. The oil movement is just getting under way, 
 and yet in one year 306,000,000 gallons were put on 
 the market. Asbestos, tin, manganese, gold, and silver 
 in vast deposits are yet to be brought into service. Now 
 the slogan is “from hand to the machine.” 
 
 To my surprise I was told emphatically that India 
 is not overpopulated. Her poverty is largely the result 
 of living on the land and buying European goods at 
 European prices. The revival of industry is on. Two 
 hundred and sixty-three cotton mills were in operation 
 while I was there, operating 6,714,000 spindles owned 
 and managed for the most part by Indians. Woolen 
 and paper mills are springing up. A paper mill operator 
 told me they had bamboo and other fibrous plants 
 enough growing in India to furnish the paper for the 
 whole world when they get the mills built, and proph¬ 
 esied that India would change the paper market of every 
 nation inside of twenty-five years. Even the brewery 
 business has been taught them by the Europeans. One 
 immense new building was pointed out to me as the 
 
86 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 sixteenth brewery to be erected within a few years. 
 It seemed to me a pity to see this as one more blot 
 on the already besmirched record of the Western Chris¬ 
 tian, and also to know that some day it would have 
 to be rebuilt for a decent purpose; for the rising 
 temperance sentiment of India will never cease till the 
 alcohol job is finished. 
 
 Therefore, the geography makers, the Association 
 of Nations or League of Nations builders, the World 
 Court administrators, the universal peace and brother¬ 
 hood societies must all reckon with and cooperate with 
 great, troubled India. These rather sobering com¬ 
 ments would be incomplete if no distinct reference 
 were to be made to the evidences of the intense senti¬ 
 ment among great numbers for a campaign in behalf of 
 the anti-war theory. At first I was told by some that 
 meetings and conferences upon this theme at this time 
 would probably be fruitless. But I met no audience 
 or group which did not respond with zeal to the 
 message. One of Mr. Gandhi’s most intimate fol¬ 
 lowers, after hearing one address, called upon me to 
 say that he was confident Mr. Gandhi would be glad 
 to have such a message delivered in every town and 
 village throughout the land. A British government 
 official, himself a soldier, was most cordial and per¬ 
 sistent in urging that some arrangement be made by 
 which I could extend the time of my visit in India for 
 a widespread campaign in behalf of the hope of good 
 will among men. Another man in an important official 
 position, in pressing the same request, said: “This is 
 the very thing we need. All of us here, Indians and 
 Europeans, must be lifted out of our prejudices to see 
 the larger world’s issues and to be made conscious of 
 
INDIA 
 
 87 
 
 the folly of war and what it will do to us if it breaks 
 out. War is madness ” Then, again, as in every other 
 place, the missionaries, every last one of them I met, 
 of every kind and description, were united in heart, 
 prayer, hope, and effort for the coming of harmony and 
 the annihilation of the war spirit. Taken as a whole, 
 the Christian population of India is not large in com¬ 
 parison to the total, but it is tremendous in influence 
 and is solid against the war theory of the militarists. 
 
 India has a powerful company of all kinds of 
 people—Europeans and Indians, government officials 
 and civilians, Christians and non-Christians—who be¬ 
 lieve the hour has fully come when the brute force 
 method of dynamite, powder, and swords ought to be 
 supplanted by conference, arbitration, and cooperation. 
 The sentiment is strong, and, although weakened by 
 lack of organization, cohesion, and leadership, will 
 eventually be a real factor in helping to bind this ele¬ 
 ment together throughout the world. India, even in 
 turmoil, strife, and discontent, is not without great 
 personalities who see beyond the present the dawn of an 
 era of friendliness among men and nations. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 EGYPT 
 
 The Land of the Mysterious King 
 
 A T no place were our expectations aroused to a 
 higher pitch than when we arrived at Port Said 
 in Egypt and proceeded at once to Cairo. We 
 had traveled through old countries, nations, and peoples, 
 but here we were to enter the scene where the human 
 race began its struggle to fulfil the plan and purpose 
 of the Creator, and in some respects it was to be a 
 land where, although so ancient, they seemed to be 
 starting all over again, as a man who has been lost will 
 sometimes strike the trail anew and command all his 
 forces for one more great effort towards the real goal. 
 The Egyptians were once again making a struggle for 
 world recognition. Our entry there was upon March 
 21 and the bulletins on ship had announced that a 
 “King” had ascended to the throne and the coronation 
 had taken place upon the day before, March 20. Dis¬ 
 appointment had been very keen that we were unable to 
 reach the capital city in time to witness the glory of 
 the event. Crowning kings is regarded by Americans 
 as something rather unique and unusual, and here was 
 a golden opportunity missed by only twenty-four hours. 
 I felt certain that if I could have been present I would 
 
 88 
 
EGYPT 89 
 
 have been able to make the home folks green with envy 
 by relating the dazzle of the spectacle. 
 
 Having missed the event itself, the next best thing, 
 it seemed, would be to get as quickly as possible the 
 impressions of those who had been more favored the 
 day before and to find out just what this event would 
 mean as related to the rest of the big world. Would 
 this new monarch be for peace or war, friendship or 
 jealousy, brotherhood or hatred? These seemed to be 
 the most important things to find out about him, for 
 I had long since been convinced that kings are of only 
 two kinds—“good” and “bad.” Very few in all history 
 have failed to classify distinctly under one or the other 
 of these definitions. As an advocate of the peace idea, 
 I was restless to know where this new one belonged. It 
 really seemed a strange thing which had happened, for 
 in our wanderings about the world the trend had seemed 
 all away from the throne to democracy, from the one 
 man unit in power to the voice of the people in suffrage 
 and open parliaments. The Great War had been waged 
 to make democracy safe, and yet here was a nation 
 which, to the outsider, seemed to be turning the clock 
 backwards. 
 
 With all these queries I started searching amid the 
 “ruins of Cairo” for the true facts. The first rude 
 awakening was to discover that there were no evidences 
 left anywhere of the big events in connection with the 
 coronation—no great arches over the boulevards, no 
 flags up (I was told there had been a few, but they 
 were all down the next morning), no streets strewn 
 with bunting, or other signs of the joy of the folks. 
 Not one single man mentioned the incident to me unless 
 I introduced the subject, and then there was a cynical 
 
90 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 smile, a little nod of the head, and in most cases a wink. 
 I was naturally bewildered. Cairo on that morning 
 was a hundred times more concerned over collecting 
 fees from a new American tourist party of 684 people 
 which had just landed than they were over talking 
 about a king. I said to one resident of whom I in¬ 
 quired and got no information, “I can’t understand this, 
 for in White Plains, New York, where I live, we make 
 more fuss over the introduction of a new traffic police¬ 
 man on Main Street than you do over the coronation 
 of a king.” His droll answer was, “Probably that 
 means more to you than this does to us.” 
 
 Slowly a few conclusions were arrived at. One was 
 the fact that the thing which had happened wasn’t what 
 the people had been clamoring for. The cables had 
 been for months telling of riots in the streets, of the 
 students holding great meetings and organizing pro¬ 
 cessions, and of occasional violence to life, all as an ex¬ 
 pression of the demand of the people for freedom from 
 British rule, and ordinarily one would expect to meet 
 great rejoicing and exultant glee over the new king 
 and national independence. But instead there was 
 absolute public indifference and an undertone of dis¬ 
 gust. A little searching revealed the truth that the 
 people had been anxious and indeed many of them 
 desperately in earnest for “independence,” but none 
 except a cult of office-hungry politicians had been ask¬ 
 ing for a monarchy. The mass of the people are to-day 
 like those who, having cried for “bread,” have been 
 given a “stone.” The nobler, better class are stunned 
 by what has taken place and believe their present status 
 is worse than the former. It is not amiss to add right 
 here that the longer I searched the more convinced I 
 
EGYPT 
 
 91 
 
 became that this development, so much against the de¬ 
 sire of the people, is almost a guarantee of trouble in 
 the future. Unless all signs fail, the thing will have 
 to be done over again, either by the present regime 
 yielding to the pressure of popular demand or by 
 violence in some form. Not one person of all those in¬ 
 terviewed believed the present system would last for 
 any considerable length of time. 
 
 A second conclusion reached was, that if a king was 
 to be granted to them the one they got was about the 
 last man on earth they would have chosen. I do not 
 know but that he is the best qualified man in Egypt 
 for the job, but I do know that the mass of the people do 
 not want him, and that if any method of public choice 
 had been used he would never have been on the throne. 
 One simon-pure Egyptian, a Mohammedan, a man of 
 great social and financial power, told me he thought 
 that of fifty so-styled princes, possibly eligible, this 
 man would have been about “forty-ninth” in the choice 
 of the citizens. On the one hand, his profession to be 
 a Mohammedan is not accepted by the leaders of the 
 faith. They do not trust him. The depth of this feel¬ 
 ing was evidenced by the students of one of the colleges, 
 who, upon hearing that their president was invited to 
 the reception which followed the coronation, called 
 upon him and said they did not want him to represent 
 them (the students), as they refused to recognize the 
 new ruler as their king. On the other hand, the old 
 Coptic church, whose people had earnestly joined in 
 the petition for independence, utterly repudiates his 
 leadership as representing their desires for the rehabili¬ 
 tation of the nation. Then, again, the pure sons of the 
 soil do not accept him as an Egyptian. A few years 
 
92 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 ago when the Albanian throne was vacant he announced 
 himself as an Albanian and applied for the position of 
 king there. The people are being sternly reminded of 
 this incident now, and there is widespread feeling that 
 he has been a throne hunter for several years and would 
 probably rather have a European job now than the 
 present one, for two reasons. First, it would satisfy 
 his social ambitions a little more, and second, it would 
 have promise of a degree of permanence which is not 
 very assuring in Egypt. The saying is, “He is an 
 Albanian by blood, an Italian by education, a French¬ 
 man by sympathy, a Britisher for orders, and an Egyp¬ 
 tian for an office.” 
 
 Another conclusion which I came to was that it is 
 very difficult to get a true estimate of his character. 
 Brushing aside all the mooted questions of the method 
 of his selection, his ancestry, and his training, I felt 
 that the important question for the outside world and 
 the bearing upon international brotherhood was to 
 learn about his true character and ability. For in years 
 of strain this always becomes the determining factor. 
 If Irvin Cobb wants to write the funniest thing he 
 ever penned he ought to go to Cairo and quietly go 
 about asking different people concerning the personal 
 character and fitness of King Fuad. To this question, 
 here are some of the answers I received: 
 
 “He is positively unfit, morally and mentally, to be 
 the ruler of this people.” 
 
 “His morals will break down inside of twelve 
 months.” 
 
 “He is ignorant of Egypt or Egyptian needs.” 
 
 “His selection as king is an insult to the womanhood 
 of Egypt.” 
 
EGYPT 
 
 93 
 
 “He is just a dummy set up by the British Govern¬ 
 ment to blind the people.” 
 
 “He is a deep scholar and a man of fine artistic 
 tastes.” 
 
 “He is a very devout man—an ardent Mohamme¬ 
 dan.” 
 
 “He is a man of unusual administrative abilities and 
 will make a noble record as king.” 
 
 Out of this mass of contradictions it became rather 
 difficult to form definite ideas, but I did discover this: 
 the people who gave the first set of answers were usu¬ 
 ally those who are most concerned with moral, spiritual, 
 and religious interests. Right or wrong, this is their 
 estimate of the man. The people who gave the second 
 set are those more or less mixed up in politics, socially 
 ambitious, or who may have to ask favors of the gov¬ 
 ernment. Right or wrong, sincere or otherwise, this 
 is what they say. Here, then, is the story of a 
 mysterious king. Mysterious in how he got his throne. 
 Certainly not because his own country wanted him. Pie 
 seems to have been appointed at Downing Street, Lon¬ 
 don. Small wonder the folks are asking, “Why?” 
 Mysterious in his qualifications. Nothing in the past 
 that anybody knows about has qualified him. Some 
 very blunt people say he was appointed by Britain be¬ 
 cause they could no longer withstand the demand of the 
 Egyptians for fulfillment of the promise for freedom 
 made during the war, and finally put this chap up be¬ 
 cause he would obey their orders and stop the agitation 
 for independence. For the sake of the peace of the 
 world and the good name of Britain, it is to be hoped 
 that time and developments will fully disprove this 
 theory, which is so current at present. 
 
94 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 There are a few places in the Far and Near East 
 which, while small in comparative population, are ex¬ 
 ceedingly important as centers of world discord and 
 possible cause of more wars. Egypt is one of these 
 places. To understand it in a few days is impossible, 
 but the casual visitor comes to realize the absence of 
 a common binder or unit of the people, the lack of 
 which makes internal disturbances easily possible and 
 increases the tendency for these factions to begin bar¬ 
 gaining with outside forces for assistance in trying to 
 overthrow anybody who chances to be in power. It is 
 easy to find the Japanese spirit, the Chinese central pur¬ 
 pose, or Indian patriotism. But no such rallying center 
 is known in Egypt. I thought I found three almost 
 entirely separate, distinct types of people, with nothing 
 in common which would stand in a severe strain. 
 
 First, there are the sincere Egyptians, who love the 
 country and whose hearts burn with a deep longing to 
 see the old nation rise again. These are men and 
 women who are not ambitious for office or gain, but 
 who remember the ancient glory of the land and would 
 give life itself willingly, if need be, to see the ruins turn 
 to new life. I talked with men in whom this sentiment 
 seemed pure, noble, unsullied. Here was the oldest 
 known nation; their ancestors built the first civilization; 
 they loved the soil. The ruins on the Nile, the marvel¬ 
 ous collection in the museum at Cairo, the matchless 
 grandeur of the Pyramids tell that their devotion in 
 life and their hope in death were consuming for the 
 permanent greatness of Egypt. This spirit is not gone 
 entirely. There is a sincere element whose wish for 
 Egypt as a free, self-governing nation is not spoiled 
 by intrigue. 
 
EGYPT 
 
 95 
 
 Second, there is a political group hungry for office 
 and its emoluments. I do not know of any place where, 
 in so limited a time, I have heard of so many politically 
 ambitious men as around Cairo. The air is full of a 
 kind of feeling that somebody is about to cut up a big 
 political “melon,” and fellows of all brands, shades, 
 types, and past records are hanging around to be in at 
 the carving. Here, as everywhere, they are a curse. 
 The place is infested with a sort of a ten-cent aris¬ 
 tocracy. People who have failed to shine in splendor 
 socially anywhere else are making a last mighty en¬ 
 deavor to be in the ring at Cairo, and a political job of 
 any kind, name or description is believed to be an asset 
 in getting one’s name in the social register. 
 
 Third, there is a dangerous majority of “don’t 
 cares.” I was astonished in conversations with men 
 born of the soil to have them answer again and again 
 when asked the effect of the new government, “Oh, I am 
 not interested,” “One king or one government is as good 
 as another.” This is not so surprising, however, when 
 thought of in the light of their history. They have had 
 five thousand years of ups and downs, all kinds of kings 
 and rulers and sultans, most of whom have finally be¬ 
 trayed the people and left them in the humiliating dust 
 of defeat. No wonder they can’t get excited over the 
 coronation of another king. I overheard a spirited 
 conversation among a group at Alexandria, five of 
 whom were Egyptians, and all of them said, “We do 
 not care who is king in Cairo—that has nothing to do 
 with us.” 
 
 The “don’t cares” are interested in three questions 
 which to them seem really significant: First, “Will 
 taxes increase or decrease?” They have known a time 
 
96 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 when the king took ninety per cent of the crop from the 
 peasants and the poverty of the land to-day is a history 
 of the common people having been robbed of the reward 
 of their toil. They do want to know if those unhappy 
 hours can come back again. They are not sure that one 
 more king will have any effect upon this, but if so, then 
 they will be heard from. 
 
 Second, “Shall we be able to get water on the land?” 
 This is a big question. For over five hundred miles 
 yonder stretches the marvelous valley of the Nile. 
 Once in every year for two months God has so ordered 
 the upper rains that the whole low land is flooded, and 
 with the water automatic fertilization takes place. 
 There is nothing else like it on earth. Vegetables, 
 wheat, oats, barley, corn, cotton, alfalfa, simply rush 
 to harvest. Having spent most of my younger life as a 
 farmer and all my years in contact with the agricultural 
 problem, I looked with keen admiration upon those 
 wonderful crops in the Nile valley, worthy of the finest 
 farming district anywhere in the United States. Of 
 some of these three bounteous crops are gathered each 
 year. But following the flood these fields must have 
 water from the irrigation canals. Egypt’s history is 
 full of bribery and crooked dealing over this water 
 question. Unless the powers that be are honest, the 
 peasant may find the supply cut off, his crops will die, 
 and starvation will be his lot, while the big land owner 
 will thrive. The most real animation I discovered 
 about the new king was at this point. Those familiar 
 with his unsavory past expressed the fear that he would 
 quickly fall into this form of corruption “if he had 
 the power.” This water question is more vital to ten 
 million of the fourteen million population than forms 
 
EGYPT 
 
 97 
 
 of government, national independence, autonomy, or 
 liberty. 
 
 Third, “Will the tourist season be protected?” If 
 you want to touch the real bare nerve of Cairo and 
 Alexandria, just say some pessimistic word about the 
 future of the tourist. They had lean years during the 
 war, and this past winter gave thousands their first 
 good meal since 1914 and some ready money. A large 
 element in the country would accept any kind of govern¬ 
 ment if only assured of a big continuous tourist busi¬ 
 ness. I chanced to have a short conversation with one 
 merchant and introduced the king question. He very 
 quickly said, “I do not care who is king or what kind of 
 a government we have, just so long as they keep from 
 doing some fool thing to drive the tourist away.” 
 
 The purpose of this article, or that of my visit, is 
 not served by any lengthy comment upon these sight¬ 
 seeing travelers, but they do have a bearing upon the 
 well-being of the country. I was privileged to see them 
 in their glory—four hundred, five hundred, six hun¬ 
 dred, and up to eight hundred in a “party.” After 
 traveling long and far I lived to see the high-water 
 mark of this Americanism upon the steps of “Shep¬ 
 herd’s.” Talking in high-pitched voices, expressing 
 amazement at anything or anybody, just to feel they 
 were getting their money’s worth, finding real joy in 
 being duped by Cairo fakirs—they are vital to Egyp¬ 
 tian prosperity, and the inhabitants are human enough 
 not to want to see this snap spoiled. 
 
 I do not censure the tourists for centering upon this 
 as one place to be visited, even if a lot of others have 
 to be omitted. I know of no place which seems to offer 
 such attractions to so many kind of travelers as do 
 
98 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Cairo and Egypt: If the bent is for biological research, 
 no one spot can compare with it in interest. If the 
 appetite calls for history, here it is to be found, with a 
 sweep from Adam and Eve to the newest monarchy in 
 the world. If the desire is to be confirmed in the 
 essential truth of the Bible record of early history, 
 nothing equals the valley of the Nile. The pick and 
 shovel of the archeologist are putting arbitrary theology 
 in the background as a witness to the truth of the 
 Christian’s sacred book. If the artistic is sought and 
 pictures are to be painted, there is the spot. Of eight 
 evenings in Cairo I spent four watching the changing 
 shades and lights of the setting sun upon the magnifi¬ 
 cent Pyramids and the surrounding hills. If health 
 demands rest and favorable climate, this wonderland 
 can be marked one hundred per cent. If amusement 
 and recreation seem necessary, fifty-seven different 
 varieties are offered. No age, kind, or condition need 
 have a dull hour in Cairo. Therefore, the people who 
 have to struggle for a livelihood are not to be too 
 severely criticized for their anxiety to protect this asset. 
 
 As a part of the answer to the utter lack of interest 
 in the king and what the new administration is or may 
 be, the struggle of the vast majority for bread and a 
 decent life must be understood; but all of these con¬ 
 siderations must not dim the deeper questions of 
 Egypt’s influence for good or bad in the world of 
 politics. There are great possibilities of internal strife 
 there. Just across the Mediterranean Sea, held de¬ 
 ported as dangerous, is a pure Egyptian whose blood 
 puts him in direct line for the throne, if one there is to 
 be, who is there waiting to return at any auspicious 
 moment to throw King Fuad out. He is without doubt 
 
EGYPT 
 
 99 
 
 more loved by the people than any other prince. He 
 and his followers may upset the whole scheme some 
 day with a suddenness which will not wait for any kind 
 of a conference. 
 
 The language most spoken in Cairo and almost en¬ 
 tirely in Alexandria is French. The French would 
 love to have Egypt again; in their hearts they believe 
 it belongs to them. Germany, if ever again in reach of 
 wide colonies, would be delighted to get Egypt. She 
 spent millions of marks and thousands of lives in that 
 vain effort in 1916 and 1917. Then the pan-Moham¬ 
 medan rule can never be satisfied with any half-breed 
 affair in Cairo. Upon the surface now it seems smooth 
 and calm, but beneath are explosives enough to make 
 peace-loving people tremble for the future. 
 
 Egypt has, however, strong signs of hope quite be¬ 
 yond many other spots in the world. The natural de¬ 
 sires of the people, taken together with influences which 
 are in action there, lead one to believe that, given rea¬ 
 sonable time, without upheavals in the rest of the world, 
 they may become a real element in the better conditions 
 so much needed everywhere. Among these may be 
 noted the new Egyptian spirit already referred to, in 
 those of the inhabitants who have unselfish desires for 
 the nation’s good. They may be most largely found 
 among the students, who are unqualifiedly of this type, 
 but not alone among them, for they are to be found 
 in many departments of Egyptian life. Too generous 
 praise cannot be given to what is spoken of as the 
 “new party” there, made up of men who have set their 
 hearts and minds in a sincere purpose to redeem the 
 good name of Egypt and establish a nation with all the 
 essential institutions of education, religion, and gov- 
 
100 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 ernment necessary to give them a real place in the 
 world of affairs. Despite all the handicaps, they give 
 promise of a better day in the land of Goshen. 
 
 The continued relation of the British Government is 
 also a very substantial guarantee that the riots and dis¬ 
 orders prophesied by many in the event of a change of 
 authority will not take place to any considerable degree. 
 It is true that King George did send a telegram to King 
 Fuad congratulating him upon his ascendancy to the 
 ancient throne of the Pharoahs, and it is also true that 
 Lord Curzon sent his felicitations to the new member 
 of the world’s royalty upon having been granted a king¬ 
 dom and “full independence,” but it is also true that 
 Britain retains “certain relations” to the government 
 as a necessary means of guarding her interest there. It 
 is also true that the Union Jack floats supreme over 
 the entire length of the Suez Canal and no suggestion 
 is made of its being removed. Neither is any change 
 hinted at in the Soudan concerning British “influence.” 
 Every man of whom I inquired about the nature of the 
 new regime, and as to how it was expected to operate, 
 seemed to base his conclusions upon something Lord 
 Allenby had told him or was reported to have said to 
 somebody else. From what I could learn I came to the 
 conclusion that, notwithstanding the appointment of 
 King Fuad and a cabinet and the promise of a consti¬ 
 tution, His Excellency Lord Allenby is vice king, prime 
 minister, member extraordinary of the cabinet, editor 
 of the constitution, interpreter of the laws and treaties, 
 ambassador of the Court of St. James and major gen¬ 
 eral of all the armies of Egypt. This fact is an omen 
 of an era of order and the establishment of a stable 
 government. 
 
EGYPT 
 
 IOI 
 
 The American influence in Egypt, I am glad to state, 
 is of the highest order for good. Peculiar satisfaction 
 accompanies this statement in remembrance of the fact 
 that this is not always the result of the American con¬ 
 tact in the distant parts of the world. The tourists who 
 visit Cairo from the United States are morally and 
 mentally away and above the average of the rabble who 
 rush to the giddy European resorts. I heard frequent 
 comments on the absence of liquor from the tables in 
 the dining rooms where these travelers were guests. I 
 did not see one of them intoxicated. The present dip¬ 
 lomatic staff, presided over by Dr. Howell, is of a high 
 moral and intellectual tone. We have furnished enough 
 drunkards there in the past to add to the enthusiasm 
 of appreciation for the present type. No whisky, no 
 gambling, no unsavory social events enter into Dr. 
 Howell’s plan. 
 
 The representatives of the American mission and 
 their work are of inestimable value to the future of 
 Egypt and the good name of America. The mission is 
 a fitting tribute to the spirit of the sturdy old United 
 Presbyterian Church. Later comment will be made on 
 the whole Christian missionary movement throughout 
 the world as a peace program, but the unique work of 
 this company of Americans in this unique place at this 
 unique time is a matter of such significance that atten¬ 
 tion is called to it as a substantial feature in Egypt’s 
 new birth. The central mission house is in the heart 
 of the city, with its publishing plant and distributing 
 centers at church schools, with Dr. Alexander with over 
 forty years’ experience in charge. The college for girls 
 is to the north, with Miss Atchison as principal, and the 
 American college for men in the south with Dr. Me- 
 
102 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Clenahan as president. These, with over one hundred 
 other teachers, preachers, and missionaries engaged in 
 every possible form of Christian work, are literally 
 penetrating the whole life of Egypt with Christian 
 ideals and hopes. The Young Men’s Christian Asso¬ 
 ciation, with Mr. Wilbert B. Smith as general secre¬ 
 tary, is another wholesome factor in American con¬ 
 tributions to Egypt’s future. A similar work by the 
 Young Women’s Christian Association is strengthen¬ 
 ing the sum total of American influence in making 
 Egypt a place which may help the world in its search 
 for relief from strife and violence and a land of peace 
 and prosperity. 
 
 Mystery may surround the king, his being where he 
 is, how he got there, and how long he will stay where 
 he is, but there is no mystery about the law of cause and 
 effect in the moral world. If the elements in Egypt 
 which are now being pressed for good can be preserved 
 stronger than the older ones of intrigue, immorality, 
 and bribery, then this land of the fathers still has a place 
 in making the world one fit for the sons to dwell in in 
 brotherhood. 
 
The publisher was in error in having the picture of 
 The Greek Patriarch appear on the front page, as 
 President of the World Alliance of Churches* This 
 picture should have appeared in connection with the 
 Constantinople article, and he should have been given 
 the title of Chairman for the Council there* 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER X 
 
 PALESTINE 
 
 At the High Place in Jerusalem Where Religions 
 
 Have Failed 
 
 I T is difficult to express the deep, anxious curiosity 
 which came to me as the time drew near to enter 
 “Palestine,” “Jerusalem”—“The Holy Land.” 
 After months of wandering, conferring and speaking 
 upon the theme of some plan or philosophy which would 
 bind the world together in a real brotherhood of friend¬ 
 liness and cooperation, and having been everywhere in 
 the presence of rumors of war and evidences of bitter¬ 
 ness and jealousies, I anticipated these sacred scenes 
 with peculiar interest. Memory brought back the story 
 of beautiful Bethlehem upon that quiet Christmas night, 
 the star in the heavens, the angels singing “Glory to 
 God in the highest, and on earth peace good will 
 toward men,” the shepherds keeping their flocks in the 
 valleys; then the Mount of Beatitudes, Nazareth, and 
 blue Galilee. Surely, it seemed as though this spot must 
 give hope of the fulfillment of the time when the Golden 
 Rule would be in actual practice. I had been preaching 
 Christ, the “Prince of Peace,” to large audiences round 
 the world and had challenged all other doctrines to 
 give proof of having in them the essence of good will 
 to all men. I remembered that the meaning of the 
 
 103 
 
104 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 word Jerusalem was “peaceful city,” and recalled that 
 here Christ gave as the second greatest commandment, 
 “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” 
 
 With these thoughts we arrived in Jerusalem, the 
 city of world influence in older history, and the one 
 yet to be of vast significance in the weal or woe of the 
 whole human race. I was there upon a specific errand, 
 with definite duties imposed, but I found it impossible 
 to keep aloof from the historic setting or from some 
 impressions, which are general in character, but are 
 involved in the whole story of international affairs. 
 For what Palestine is in character, in people and cus¬ 
 toms, must be taken into account in the attempt to see 
 it smoothly articulated with the rest of the world. The 
 impressions given are largely the ones which were 
 made by direct contact with scenes and people, and 
 while they may be in error at some points, they are fun¬ 
 damentally true to facts. 
 
 In the first place , the visitor is overwhelmed by the 
 apparent religiosity of the place. This is true more or 
 less of all Palestine, but reaches its high point in the 
 capital city. Inside of twenty-four hours I had seen 
 enough long-frocked priests, monks, and ecclesiastics of 
 various kinds to save the whole world in twenty months 
 if they had any real virtue in them. I had seen pro¬ 
 cessions of religionists, heard endless prayers being 
 said, and seen women in one church taking relays in 
 reading Scripture, so there should be no break in the 
 reading from daylight till dark. I had been awakened 
 at four-thirty in the morning by the muezzins on the 
 towers calling the people to early prayer at the mosques. 
 Of these there are three hundred and sixty-six in the 
 city, but in eight days I didn’t find one hundred people 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 105 
 
 in them altogether, although I sought diligently. Upon 
 two occasions I went upon Friday, their special prayer 
 day, but with the same result—there were not over ten 
 people in any one of them. 
 
 I have no doubt some of these ecclesiastics are sin¬ 
 cere, but for the most part I believe them to be just 
 ordinary lazy fakirs. It is a strange thing how this 
 cult has hung to Jerusalem like leeches for thousands 
 of years. Here they were in Solomon’s time, and Jesus 
 found their descendants still pestering the people in His 
 day, and now they confront one at every corner. As 
 the great Temple seemed to be their favorite rendezvous 
 in His day, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has that 
 distinction now. Jesus rather vigorously drove that 
 crowd out of the Temple, and I solemnly believe He 
 would do the same thing now if He came there and 
 witnessed the gang of pious bakshish hunters who in¬ 
 fest the place. The words of the Savior, “Beware of 
 the scribes which desire to walk in long robes and love 
 greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the 
 synagogues and the chief rooms at the feasts; which 
 devour widows’ houses, and for a show make long 
 prayers; the same shall receive greater damnation,” 
 came to me every hour I walked inside the walls of the 
 old city. The same old type is there now and, one 
 might easily believe, wearing some of the same robes 
 of two thousand years ago. 
 
 They are a parody upon the simple, beautiful life 
 He lived and the precepts He taught. The saddest 
 thing about this crowd is the fact that they have cap¬ 
 tured most of the traditional sacred places, covered 
 them with some kind of a so-called church or mosque, 
 and stand around collecting admission fees from trav- 
 
io6 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 elers. You are taken down into a dark, dingy base¬ 
 ment and pointed to a spot where Christ was born— 
 bakshish. If you wish to see the supposed palace of 
 Caiaphas’ judgment hall, more bakshish. The imagin¬ 
 ary spot of the crucifixion is a place to leave another 
 bakshish. The pool of Bethesda, the dome of the rock 
 of Solomon’s Temple, now a Mohammedan mosque, 
 the tombs of Abraham, Sarah, Leah, Isaac, Rebekah, 
 and Joshua are all under a mosque entered by the route 
 of bakshish. This early impression is one of debauched 
 sacred history. It seems a shame that these spots could 
 not have been redeemed and kept with clean, pure sur¬ 
 roundings, which would inspire respect for religion 
 rather than make them the by-word joke of the hotel 
 lobbies. 
 
 This feeling and statement should not be construed 
 as a criticism of all ecclesiastical dress or of Christian 
 churches in other parts of the world bearing exactly the 
 same name. I have met many of these who are of the 
 noblest in real service to humanity. But for some un¬ 
 accountable reason the inside Jerusalem type is a re¬ 
 proach upon the very name it bears. 
 
 Fortunately, this is not all the story of the Christian 
 manifestation in Palestine or Jerusalem. There are 
 splendid missions, schools, churches, hospitals, Y. M. 
 C. A/s and Y. W. C. A/s, but they are not related to 
 the holy places and therefore ofttimes not seen by the 
 tourist. After I had wandered eight days through 
 these distressing scenes I had the privilege of attending 
 divine worship in St. George’s Cathedral of the Church 
 of England; it was like balm to tired nerves. The same 
 Sunday afternoon I spoke to a magnificent audience in 
 the Young Men’s Christian Association, and later vis- 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 107 
 
 ited some of the other missions and churches. Finally, 
 we had dinner at the American colony, and an evening 
 of sacred music. This is the group brought out by the 
 famous Spofford to live the pure, simple Christ-life of 
 friendship and service, as a true illustration of what 
 Jesus meant His followers to be. I felt as though a rule 
 ought to be established requiring travelers to include 
 these places in their sight-seeing expeditions, as a kind 
 of corrective to the rest of their experiences. 
 
 In the second place, I was impressed with the fact 
 that to follow the dragomans ( guides ) through their 
 well-learned speeches one needs to leave all ideas of 
 reason and common sense behind. The writer has been 
 rather familiar for twenty-five years with the prepared 
 stories for travelers at most of the places of unique 
 interest throughout the world, but all of them fade into 
 innocent nursery rhymes as compared with Jerusalem. 
 You are shown a hole two feet deep, in a solid granite 
 rock, caused by Mohammed’s once jumping up from his 
 prayers and bumping his head at that spot. You are 
 also told that this same rock started to follow Moham¬ 
 med on his ascension and has ever since remained sus¬ 
 pended in mid-air without support, notwithstanding the 
 fact that one end seems to be a solid rock and the other 
 is liberally supported by heavy posts to be seen right 
 before your face. 
 
 A cabinet is pointed out where one hair from Mo¬ 
 hammed’s beard has been preserved and is still growing 
 nearly thirteen hundred years after his death. His 
 footprint in a marble slab is one of the sights. The place 
 is indicated over the valley of Jehosaphat where at 
 the final day of judgment a sharp sword will extend 
 and all of those who can successfully walk across upon 
 
io8 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 the sharp edge of the sword will be saved, and those 
 who have sinned will fall off and drop down into hell. 
 Six golden nails are shown, in a room dark as a dun¬ 
 geon, sticking in a stone wall eight feet thick, and we 
 are told that as soon as someone pushes one of them 
 clear through the wall the world will come to an end. 
 In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre you are taken to 
 the spot where the crucifixion took place, the table 
 where the body was prepared for burial, the tomb, and 
 the rock upon which the gamblers cast lots for the gar¬ 
 ments, and all in a space about thirty feet square. At 
 Hebron, you are escorted to the very oak tree under 
 which Abraham pitched his first tent when on his pil¬ 
 grimage to Egypt. 
 
 In Samaria we were taken through dark tunnels 
 and dirty narrow streets down into musty subways, 
 up stone stairways, and finally to a mysterious room 
 where three gorgeously dressed priests appeared, 
 said to be a part of the remnant of the old 
 Samaritan Jews, only twenty-five of whom are now 
 living. With the pomp of the great high priest they 
 brought out a white-robed roll of something which, 
 when uncovered, we were told was the ‘'original Pen¬ 
 tateuch written by the brother of Aaron just thirteen 
 years after the death of Moses.” A little more bakshish 
 and the show was over. These are just a few samples 
 of the fables which have been worked up to impose 
 upon the sentimental traveler as the surest way of se¬ 
 curing liberal bakshish. 
 
 The first day we were in charge of a guide who told 
 these tales with an intensity which suggested that he 
 expected them to be believed. For the rest of the time 
 we had a Christian boy of the American colony, who 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 109 
 
 did not deprive us of the thrills of the incidents, but 
 introduced them always by the comment, “They say.” 
 I would strongly advise visitors to Jerusalem to secure 
 guides of the “they say” variety. It is pitiful to know 
 that here where more people come to be reminded of 
 God, life, duty, and eternity than at any other place 
 on earth, tens of thousands are being thus deluded, 
 while to others these scenes which ought to produce 
 reverence become just a cheap farce. 
 
 In the third place, at the end of ten days I thought I 
 knew a little more of why God seemed to love this land 
 and seek to have it for the permanent abiding place of 
 His chosen people. Dr. Henry Van Dyke, in his book, 
 “Out of Doors in the Holy Land,” says he had no 
 trouble in finding Palestine, but he did have a hard time 
 finding the Holy Land, and did not really succeed till 
 he got out into the hills and country. The West has a 
 way of describing types of men, one being an “inside 
 man” and another an “outside man.” Whatever one’s 
 tastes, naturally, one who hopes to find the glory of 
 Palestine must be of the “outside” kind. Our first trip 
 in the country was from Jerusalem to Jericho and the 
 Jordan, over the hills of Judea by that famous robber 
 road and the inn which marks the supposed spot where 
 the Good Samaritan took the wounded man, through 
 the valley of the brook Cherith where Elijah was fed 
 by the ravens, on to ancient Jericho and to the fountain 
 where Elisha purified the waters. We breakfasted 
 there by the side of the stream, then went on under the 
 sycamore trees to the little Jordan, where John baptized 
 Jesus; from there to the Dead Sea, and amid the Arabs, 
 the camels, and the donkeys back past the Mount of 
 Temptation with a stop at Bethany to pick the “lilies of 
 
no ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 the field,” and then to Jerusalem. Again, the same 
 afternoon,, we made a trip to the Mount of Olives and 
 by some strange coincidence there was an eclipse of 
 the sun while there which gave the distant Jerusalem a 
 glory of golden tint never to be forgotten. We walked 
 down the steep, rocky hillside, where Jesus led His 
 disciples so many times, and watched the sunset from 
 the Garden of Gethsemane, which is just an open plot 
 filed with lovely flowers and shrubs and a cool spring of 
 water. A thousand memories were revived, and the 
 beauty of that scene had made all the inside incidents 
 seem insignificant. 
 
 Again, we motored north on the road via Sychar to 
 Galilee. Yonder was the hill where Samuel judged, 
 and just across the valley were the ruins of the boy¬ 
 hood home of Saul and the valley where he grew jealous 
 of David. We stopped at Jacob’s well, near Sychar, 
 where Jesus told the poor wicked woman of the spring 
 of living water, and made another stop in ancient 
 Shechem. Then we broke the trip to see Nazareth, 
 where Mary and Joseph lived just like folks and Jesus 
 was a regular boy and a good carpenter. Over there 
 was Mount Tabor and the other way the Mount of 
 Beatitudes. Then we went on through Cana, up the 
 steep of a high mountain, where away to the north 
 snow-capped Mount Hermon could be seen, and then 
 on to the beautiful Sea of Galilee. It cannot be de¬ 
 scribed. It must be seen. All the way were peasants 
 with donkeys and camel trains not different from those 
 times of two and three thousand years ago. We went 
 by boat from Tiberias to old Capernaum. Uncon¬ 
 sciously some in our party kept humming that beauti¬ 
 ful hymn: 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 hi 
 
 Oh, Galilee, sweet Galilee, 
 
 Where Jesus loved so much to be; 
 
 Oh, Galilee, blue Galilee, 
 
 Come, sing thy song again to me. 
 
 But at one place we were surprised and delighted to 
 have our four Galilean boatmen stop rowing and join 
 in exquisite harmony in singing nearly the entire song. 
 Then we visited Bethsaida, where Jesus met James, 
 John, Andrew, and Philip. Small wonder the Savior 
 loved this sea, with its almost matchless scenery, and 
 hurried back to it so often. It is a source of satisfac¬ 
 tion to know that nobody can build a mosque or so- 
 styled church over it to hide its glory. A lady in Jeru¬ 
 salem said, “The Peace has not left Galilee, but I can 
 almost hear the crowd inside the walls of Jerusalem 
 shouting 'Crucify Him, Crucify Him!’ now as I walk 
 through those narrow streets.” 
 
 Once more we went over the hills where David kept 
 those few sheep, to the south, to old Hebron that Ab¬ 
 raham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and David loved so much; 
 through the vineyards where Caleb and Joshua found 
 the big grapes, past the field where Ruth gleaned and 
 won Boaz, and on to Bethlehem, where Joseph and 
 Mary found only a stable open for them and a manger 
 cradle for the Savior of the world. Another time we 
 went west, where Samson won and lost his glory, over 
 the hills, down in the valleys, past the shepherds by 
 thousands still keeping their flocks, through the Bedouin 
 camps, whose people still wander here and there as 
 some whim moves them, but who have no permanent 
 abiding place. 
 
 It is a glorious country, and ought to be redeemed 
 
112 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 to speak yet more of God’s triumph in the gift of the 
 Christian Gospel. Its scenery, its sacred history, its 
 rich soil, its vast grazing hills, and its location, all 
 testify not only to its permanent importance in past 
 history but to its place of power for good or bad in the 
 story of life that is yet to be written. 
 
 In the fourth place, there are found in Palestine 
 elements of severe jealousy, bitterness, and restrained 
 violence which may some day imperil the peace of the 
 whole world. Palestine as a unit will probably not de¬ 
 clare war on anybody, at least not for many, many 
 years. She has no power within herself to do that. 
 But here are found some of the most delicate points of 
 friction, of the kind for which men will fight more des¬ 
 perately than for economic advantage or geographical 
 expansion. Were the rest of the world less disturbed 
 these would not be so dangerous, but the sensitive 
 nerves of Palestine reach very wide areas, and unless 
 great care is exercised and a superior grade of wisdom 
 brought to bear upon her affairs, here may be found 
 the provocation for an outbreak which will know no 
 bounds. Small Serbia was such a spot in 1914. I 
 am persuaded that no place, in my knowledge, of ten 
 times the population furnishes anything like such pos¬ 
 sibilities as may be discovered in Palestine, when one 
 begins to dig a little beneath the surface of the well- 
 worn tourist routes. 
 
 Here, as in few places, the problem of the effect of 
 the Western ideas, types, and methods is a source of 
 irritation, and what the result is to be is yet to be re¬ 
 vealed. The Far East is made up of nations with some 
 form of protection for their traditions, but Palestine 
 has nothing, and the West is running riot here with a 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 ii3 
 
 free hand. High-powered automobnes go racing over 
 the Jericho road, through Bethlehem to Hebron, and 
 past Jacob’s well into Nazareth, whizzing to the edge 
 of the Lake of Galilee, while the long, slow camel trains 
 are pushed aside, the Arab looks on bewildered and 
 the poor little, heavy-laden donkey seems anchored to 
 his spot. 
 
 Filled with a great sense of sacredness and reverence, 
 I started to climb the hill at Nazareth to visit the boy¬ 
 hood home of Jesus. Inside of ten minutes I had seen 
 in open shop doors a dozen Singer sewing machines 
 being operated, some of them making the famous 
 “Nazareth hand-made lace” the ladies rave about. I 
 stood a long time in front of the Virgin’s fountain try¬ 
 ing to get a snapshot of the spring before I was suc¬ 
 cessful—not because the water carriers were not com¬ 
 ing and going, but because most of them had tin cans 
 instead of jars. These cans, formerly used to bring in 
 Standard Oil, are a pest to the eye, and have about 
 wrecked the pottery industry. 
 
 Then, forcing the English language everywhere is 
 putting the peasant nativ: clear out of touch with what 
 is going on around him. The most disgusting thing 
 has been the introduction of the public bar where 
 liquors are freely sold to anybody and everybody ex¬ 
 cept “N. C. O.’s and men of the British army.” I was 
 told repeatedly that this curse was not known a few 
 years ago. 
 
 These are only a few illustrations out of many which 
 might be noted and which raise the whole question of 
 what the total effect of the West upon the East will be. 
 If a cry of discontent should go out and a call for help 
 in defense should be sent across the lands of the Arab 
 
114 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 and the Bedouin over Mesopotamia to India and China 
 and Japan, it might arouse the whole East against the 
 West. 
 
 Worse than this, however, is the conflict of religions 
 which is so intense, around Jerusalem in particular, 
 that even the most casual visitor comments upon its 
 peril inside of twenty-four hours after arrival. It is to 
 be remembered that here the three world religions have 
 their most sacred high places: Christianity, Judaism, 
 and Islam, for the Mohammedans are now making 
 about as much of Jerusalem as they do of the famous 
 Mecca. The tension is fierce, for after some fashion 
 they each believe that dominating Jerusalem and Pales¬ 
 tine is essential to world power, and of those active 
 there now every one is thirsting for world political 
 dominion by the route of religion. The people who 
 sincerely hope for a free religious faith based upon lib¬ 
 erty ought not to be deceived upon this point. This 
 is the Jerusalem struggle right now. 
 
 First in severity of hatred probably come the Mo¬ 
 hammedans, who are suffering under the sting of the 
 humiliation which came when in 1916 Lord Allenby 
 marched in through the Jaffa Gate. For the present 
 moment they seem to be centering their attack upon the 
 Jews, but that is probably only because they fear the 
 Jews most, not because they would be more friendly 
 towards the Christians. They believe that God meant 
 this to be Mohammed’s country, and that it is the link 
 to connect them with the Sultan in Turkey and the 70,- 
 000,000 of their kind in India. The Crusaders had 
 no deeper fire burning in their bosoms than the desire 
 of Mohammedans to exterminate the Jew. 
 
 Then comes the Jew, fired by the prophecies ex- 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 ii5 
 
 pressed in England in 1918 that at last the Hebrew 
 people were again to be gathered to Palestine and be a 
 nation among the other powers. They look upon these 
 Mohammedans and Christians as trespassers and usurp¬ 
 ers and fit only to be driven out as cattle. Whatever 
 may have been the sincerity of the early Zionist move¬ 
 ment so far as Palestine is concerned, it seems to have 
 fallen into the hands of those who have lost, if indeed 
 they ever had, any religious purpose in coming back to 
 the soil of their fathers. The weight of the evidence 
 I heard would indicate that during the riots of two 
 years earlier they slaughtered Arabs in the street as 
 the Turks have been slaughtering the Armenians. 
 
 Then come the Christians. To be perfectly honest 
 and not to be misleading, I venture to suggest that the 
 Protestant Christians are not included in this state¬ 
 ment. Neither do I wish to infer that all the com¬ 
 munions involved in this complication are of the same 
 stamp, or would countenance what occurs inside many 
 of these sacred spots. I am only trying to give an 
 actual picture of what a debasing demonstration is 
 being given, particularly inside the walls of old Jeru¬ 
 salem, by the self-styled Christians. 
 
 Among these Christians there remains the old ani¬ 
 mosity and fear of the Moslem. At the close range of 
 church and mosque standing side by side in scores of 
 cases, one may imagine what the pressure is at times; 
 but also the fact that practically all of the great show 
 mosques were formerly either Latin or Greek Catholic 
 churches gives cause for friction. The Mosque of 
 Omar, upon the site of Solomon’s Temple, was built as 
 a Roman Catholic church, and is a daily exasperating 
 memory to the Christians now. But this is mild, con- 
 
n6 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 trasted with their zeal to abolish the Jew from the 
 face of the earth. If he is recognized, he cannot put 
 his foot inside a church or mosque. At the great 
 Mosque of Hebron, which covers the tomb of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, under great pressure the Mohamme¬ 
 dans have permitted the Jews, one day a week, to come 
 up seven steps out of about fifty in the street leading up 
 to the entrance. So far as these general divisions are 
 concerned, the only sign of any common interest dis¬ 
 covered is that it would seem as though these Christians 
 and the Mohammedans might temporarily unite, if they 
 thought by so doing they could drive all the Jews into 
 the Mediterranean or Dead Sea. 
 
 But this is not the saddest part of this silent re¬ 
 ligious warfare which is going on amid these hallowed 
 scenes. The hatred between the Latin Catholic, the 
 Greek Orthodox, and the Armenian sects is about as 
 bitter as between the Jews and the Moslems. The 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre is held jointly by all 
 three, and soldiers are on guard to keep them from 
 fighting. The same is true of the Church of the 
 Nativity, which marks the place of the birth of Christ 
 at Bethlehem. When I got down to the supposed place 
 in the stable where the Savior was born, and within 
 a few feet of the place where the manger was in which 
 the baby was cradled, I noticed a big, well-armed Mo¬ 
 hammedan soldier standing between the two spots, 
 and when I asked the guide why this guard was needed 
 in such a holy place he replied, “They have to keep 
 him here to prevent the Latins, the Greeks, and the 
 Armenians from fighting when they come down here.” 
 A beautiful golden star is nailed in the rock which is 
 supposed to mark the place of birth. In some strange 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 ii 7 
 
 manner one of the nails was taken. If the truth were 
 known, it was probably stolen by some crazy American 
 tourist. They would carry the Jordan away if it were 
 loose. However, the warring sects did finally agree on 
 the selection of a nail to replace the missing one, but 
 could not agree upon who should drive it back in place. 
 After a long controversy they finally permitted the 
 Turkish Government to have it done by a “Gypsy,” who 
 was supposed to have no religion and therefore to be a 
 neutral. 
 
 Repeatedly I heard people say, “We shall be glad 
 when Easter is over and gone.” To one taught to love 
 Easter morning, with its songs of resurrection hopes, 
 its flowers and music, this seemed sacrilegious. But it 
 was understood when we were told that this is the usual 
 day of riot, when these sects fight for preeminence in 
 the streets. I met a British officer on the road with a 
 big army truck, who confidentially told one of our 
 party that he had just taken a load of the most radical 
 of one of the sects out to a detention camp where they 
 were to be kept over Easter as a protection against riots. 
 
 I read a column article in a daily newspaper in Cairo 
 commending the British Government for its great wis¬ 
 dom in preparing against outbreaks in Jerusalem dur¬ 
 ing the feast of the Passover and Easter. A graphic 
 description was given of the military precautions. An 
 armored truck had been stationed at the Jaffa Gate, 
 soldiers were to be kept night and day patrolling upon 
 the walls, and the inside guard was to be doubled. 
 What a travesty upon the day of days in the year when 
 all men ought to think kindly of each other, to say 
 nothing of the followers of Him whose resurrection 
 from the grave was to be celebrated! 
 
n8 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives and wept two 
 thousand years ago: surely He must weep now to wit¬ 
 ness that kind of life among those who profess to be 
 His followers. History records the terror of religious 
 wars, and unless all signs fail there are possibilities of 
 an explosion among these warring factions which 
 would spread to many parts of the world where the 
 same animosities exist upon a smaller scale. No 
 thoughtful, well-informed man can doubt what is in 
 the heart of the Moslems. I met and talked personally 
 with a splendid young American missionary and his 
 wife who had just been driven out of their field, twen¬ 
 ty-five miles east of the Jordan, at the hands of the 
 Moslems, and their schools and missions broken up be¬ 
 cause these folks will not tolerate interference at any 
 point where they hold sway. Many of its adherents 
 are doubtless devout, sincere, God-fearing men, but 
 fundamentally that faith is set for political dominion 
 and would act promptly and violently at any moment 
 of provocation and hope of success. Turkey, Persia, 
 Egypt, Mesopotamia, Arabia, and India could quickly 
 become involved. This quarrel among the Palestinian 
 Christians is to them a good omen and they are doing 
 all in their power to encourage it as a part of the utter 
 collapse of their competitors in this part of the world. 
 Palestine furnishes just the right kind of a religious 
 foment to be the genesis of such an outbreak. 
 
 Summing it all up, Palestine seems to be living under 
 an armed truce. Never in any country in the same 
 length of time in what was supposed to be a time of 
 peace have I ever seen so many men carrying rifles. 
 Nearly all of the Arabs one meets, riding their wonder¬ 
 ful horses, have guns swung over their backs. Every 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 119 
 
 Bedouin camp has shooting weapons in good view. 
 Many of the police go around, not with the usual club, 
 but rather a regulation army carbine. There is a sort 
 of an undercurrent which suggests that trouble is ahead. 
 
 Quietly, however, behind all the scenes is the British 
 Government, with men of high character at the helm. 
 I met the second most influential man in the official 
 family, Sir Wyndham Deedes, and felt a sense of hope 
 for the future in just the presence of such a man at 
 such an hour in the history of Palestine. Hearing from 
 many of the changes wrought in Jerusalem since the 
 British mandate, I was to a degree reconciled to that 
 part of. the war which was necessary to give re¬ 
 ligious and political liberty to the people of these sacred 
 hills. 
 
 In the fifth place, I was impressed by the utter failure 
 of the religions of Jerusalem to produce peace, brother¬ 
 hood, or good will. Later reference will be made to 
 what the men of many walks of life and types of peo¬ 
 ple are saying about the need of a great spiritual, moral, 
 religious awakening as the only sure guarantee of end¬ 
 ing war. It has become so common to hear this that 
 its repetition is almost a platitude. But it must be 
 acknowledged that the Jerusalem religions have not pro¬ 
 duced this result and give no promise that upon their 
 present basis they ever will do so. I wandered through 
 the zones of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism 
 and never felt led to say they were utter failures in 
 doing something for the brotherhood of man. But 
 of this conglomeration in Jerusalem there is no hesi¬ 
 tancy in saying they have failed utterly and absolutely 
 to add one impulse to this great human need of friend¬ 
 ship and brotherly love. They have done worse—they 
 
120 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 have been breeders of hate and advance agents of pos¬ 
 sible wars. 
 
 I hope I am wrong, but as the train pulled away and 
 I saw that beautiful city on the mountain, with its 
 domes, towers, and minarets, fade away I felt as 
 though, from the standpoint of peace on earth and 
 brotherhood, Jerusalem and Palestine would be better 
 off by far if the whole lot of them were cleared out, bag 
 and baggage. Singing, chanting, praying, bowing 
 down, wearing long mysterious robes, and making signs 
 inside police-guarded walls is a big sham, while the 
 people outside are sick, blind, dirty, ignorant, and hat¬ 
 ing each other to death. I refuse to believe this is what 
 Jesus came to leave as the faith to be called by His 
 name. For the first time in my life I was forced to 
 believe that, af least in this spot, false religion is worse 
 than no religion. 
 
 The leaders of the World Alliance of Churches for 
 International Friendship and other peace societies have 
 been sending a good many petitions and addresses to 
 parliaments and public officials, and that is all well 
 enough, but greater is the imperative necessity of cul¬ 
 tivating a Christian clientele in the world which will 
 truly exemplify the thirteenth chapter of First Corin¬ 
 thians, the fourth chapter of First John and the “Great 
 Commandment.” 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 The Danger Zone of a Religions World War 
 
 T HE zone of Constantinople had to be reached, 
 really to find the answer to a series of perplex¬ 
 ing questions with which I had found myself 
 confronted for a good many weeks. I had been feel¬ 
 ing a new set of irritating vibrations which were dif¬ 
 ferent from those in Japan, China, and South India. 
 The earlier causes of unrest and dissatisfaction met in 
 the Orient were at least understandable. They could 
 be reduced to language. They could be partially found 
 out by asking direct questions and getting direct an¬ 
 swers. But the new set, first met in North India, 
 seemed shrouded in great mystery. They were not to 
 be talked of in the open. They belonged exclusively 
 to the special order of inside confidential agents. Only 
 once was I able to get a comment which seemed to be 
 at all frank upon this subject. While in North India 
 where this new impulse first began to be felt, one 
 Britisher whose office would seem to suggest knowl¬ 
 edge, said to me—when the famous telegram went out 
 of Delhi from the Government of India to the Govern¬ 
 ment of London, demanding that Constantinople and 
 the Turkish Government be put upon a sort of ‘‘As 
 you were” basis, or practically a pre-war platform— 
 
 121 
 
122 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 “The Moslem religion is at the bottom of that.” With 
 this one exception, while many there seemed anxious, 
 and all felt that strange new influences were beginning 
 to work, nobody had a strong idea of what was under¬ 
 neath, or if they had, they very much preferred to 
 keep silent. 
 
 When I got to Egypt, there remained no doubt but 
 that the recent events there had some peculiar relation 
 to the North India affair, and yet the men I met mostly 
 talked away from the suggestion that there might be a 
 far-off genesis of causes, quite different from the ones 
 reported in the local papers. In other words, the resi¬ 
 dents in and around Cairo either did not wish to be¬ 
 lieve that there was collusion in these events between 
 India and Egypt, or felt it more prudent not to discuss 
 the situation. But to the traveler, the vibrations 
 sounded exceedingly similar. 
 
 Jerusalem was another step nearer, more pronounced 
 in evidence, that the Britisher’s blunt remark in India 
 was probably the statement of actual fact. But the ele¬ 
 ment of doubt was fairly well removed by a part of a 
 day in ancient Athens in a conference with the leaders 
 of the World Alliance of Churches for International 
 Friendship in Greece. I was taken from the ship and 
 quickly driven a considerable distance to an orphanage, 
 where, by the way, a brass band of about forty boys 
 struck up “The Star Spangled Banner” as I entered 
 the building. After months of long absences from 
 home, and more or less wearied by travel and attempts 
 to find sufficient ground upon which to base hope of 
 permanent friendship among nations, that music 
 sounded more magnificent to me than anything I ever 
 heard in grand opera, or rendered by Sousa or the 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 123 
 
 United States Marine Band. If I had not been in the 
 presence of Greek art, literature, and philosophy, I 
 would have exclaimed, “Ain’t it a grand and glori¬ 
 ous feeling?” The memories stirred by that music 
 on that day in that place were a good tonic for the 
 experience to follow. Greece was at war with the 
 Turk and I was again in a land where the soldiers were 
 being called up, and the government centering all its 
 powers to prosecute military movements; taxes were 
 being levied to the limit, and a forced loan had just 
 been put through, by which all the currency had been 
 cut in two and one half held as bonds for war measures. 
 
 In a conference with men, said to be as well informed 
 as any in the nation, their statement of the fundamen¬ 
 tal issue seemed to confirm the earlier suspicions that 
 Mohammedanism was bestirring itself again for terri¬ 
 torial advance. These men said it was a war with 
 the Turk, pure and simple, for control of the Dardan¬ 
 elles, the Bosphorus, and Constantinople as a base, and 
 then on to the rest of the contested territory. Nothing 
 could seem sadder than this situation here, amid the 
 glorious scenes of ancient Greece, which might even 
 now be the center of the world’s learning and supreme 
 culture, had not wars wrecked it generation after gen¬ 
 eration. Only a little way and there were Thermopylae 
 and Marathon. Yonder was the hill where Xerxes sat 
 in his golden chair and watched his fleet fight to death 
 for the /Egzan Sea. Alexander the Great had fought 
 as no other had ever done to make this spot perpetually 
 great. I climbed the Acropolis and stood amid the 
 ruins of the Parthenon and looked down over Mars 
 hill where St. Paul preached the Christian Gospel as 
 an answer to the hope which built the altar to “an Un- 
 
124 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 known God/’ The wisdom of Socrates, the oratory of 
 Demosthenes, the theology of Paul, and the soldiers of 
 Alexander, all combined, had not freed Greece from 
 war or kept her great. Again she was passing through 
 the agony of armed struggle, this time with the des¬ 
 perate Turk. 
 
 I got one step nearer yet, however, by a day’s stop 
 in Smyrna. Here was the seat of one of the worthy 
 churches of John’s vision. Yet we were met at every 
 look by soldiers, soldiers, and a harbor full of war¬ 
 ships—not Greek only, but of many nations, ready to 
 take their various subjects “to places of safety if any¬ 
 thing happened/’ so one officer told me. I asked an¬ 
 other man who -seemed to be in a position to know the 
 facts, what this war really was about, and without hesi¬ 
 tancy he said, “Several minor questions, but one real 
 one: it is the Turks fighting to rid the country of 
 Christians.” As the children say when playing hide 
 and seek, “I knew I was getting ‘hotter/ ” These vi¬ 
 brations which were felt first in North India and then 
 more forcibly as I journeyed through the Arabian Sea, 
 the Suez Canal, in Egypt and Palestine, were becoming 
 intelligible as I got into actual Greek territory at the 
 capital, Athens, and in Smyrna. 
 
 But all disguise was eliminated when we sailed 
 through the Dardanelles, of such sad memory to the 
 British in 1916, and on to Constantinople. Open, free 
 shop talk explained what the unadulterated issue was, 
 involving everything from Adrianople in the Balkans 
 to India. Constantinople is the radiating pivot from 
 which the rumblings are being sent out, and there is no 
 reluctance upon the part of public men to say it is a 
 demand for a pan-Moslem control from the Danube to 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 125 
 
 the Ganges. This is the area over which the Moham¬ 
 medans are a very considerable part of the entire popu¬ 
 lation and in most of it a decided majority. Just now, 
 in open speeches and newspaper articles, they are de¬ 
 manding the territory from Adrianople to the Arabian 
 Sea, but not one informed man believed they would be 
 content with that area for five years, even if it were 
 granted to them. 
 
 Constantinople has been the center of envy, strife, 
 and war between different factions, races, and nations 
 for over two thousand years, and while some govern¬ 
 ments have survived for hundreds of years, none of 
 them have known a period of ten years without having 
 to resist enemies. It has been one of the world centers 
 of continuous struggle. Constantine undoubtedly 
 thought when he rebuilt and enlarged the city, and sur¬ 
 rounded it with impressive walls, only second to the 
 Great Wall of China, that he had erected a perpetual 
 defense, in remembrance of which his son built the 
 beautiful St. Sophia as a Christian cathedral. But 
 the Turks battered down the walls, sacked the city and 
 transformed St. Sophia and all the rest of the ancient 
 churches into mosques. Nobody seemed to know how 
 many mosques there are in the city, probably three or 
 four hundred. 
 
 To-day the Allied High Commissioners representing 
 Great Britain, France, and Italy are supposed to be in 
 control, but the impression is general that they all 
 have their ears to the ground to know what the Turk 
 wants and to be sure not to give him offense. One high 
 American official said to me, “One thing is sure, the 
 Turkish Government is coming back to Constantinople 
 and the best thing we can do is to accept the situation 
 
126 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 without protest.” I do not profess to have wisdom 
 enough to state arbitrarily what this event means, but 
 I do feel certain of some facts upon which all the 
 people I met are agreed. They are submitted not as 
 personal conclusions, but as the mind of practically all 
 those with whom I came in contact. Leaving final 
 judgment of the merits of the questions involved to 
 later knowledge, to be gained as actual experience re¬ 
 veals all the hidden complications, the present move¬ 
 ments for peace and harmony must take account of the 
 following facts. The writer will be glad beyond ex¬ 
 pression if the passing years prove that these witnesses 
 were mistaken, and that unseen influences are at work 
 which will produce results better than those which seem 
 now to be inevitable. The conclusions presented are 
 based upon the theory that, if they are correct, it is far 
 wiser to state them now for whatever value they may 
 have, rather than to keep silent now and later wish 
 they had been recorded. 
 
 Fact Number i: All are agreed that the Turk is in 
 the midst of a tremendous reassertion of his power 
 and prestige. Whether he is warranted or not in his 
 conclusions, he believes his hour of opportunity has 
 come. In January, 1919, the Turk was on his knees, 
 begging for a crumb from the table of the Allies. He 
 was bankrupt, and without an army worth counting, 
 and had no friends. He was ready then to accept any 
 terms. The Allies were generous and gave the gov¬ 
 ernment some small territory and a chance to keep a 
 semblance of national unity. But mandates granted 
 to four leading powers and the International Allied 
 Commission at Constantinople did not seem to leave 
 much to be proud of or upon which to base any expec- 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 127 
 
 tations for the future. All the world looked on and felt 
 that at last the end of a terrible story had come and that 
 the Turk’s power was permanently broken and the 
 menace removed. Once before in 1912, this same 
 hope had been cherished, only to be shattered when the 
 Balkan States after a great victory fell to quarreling 
 among themselves and the Turks, although circum¬ 
 scribed, remained a menace to the peace of Europe. 
 
 But the evolution of the after-adjustments of a great 
 war seems again to be making strange new alliances, 
 and none so mysterious as the change of front by 
 several of the Allies towards the Ottoman power. The 
 American Government refused a mandate over any of 
 this territory, France made a gesture as though she 
 would accept responsibility, but no sooner did she do so 
 than her armies began to withdraw and have practically 
 evacuated the whole of what she promised to protect 
 and administer. Some are uncharitable enough to say 
 the French are withdrawing to protect large loans they 
 have made to the Angora Government. Others are 
 saying it is to get all the army ready for the march 
 to Berlin. Whatever the facts, they have turned most 
 of the territory back to the Mohammedans. Italy never 
 did anything serious about it. 
 
 Now Britain is exceedingly courteous to the Turk. 
 This changed British attitude was hinted at by Field 
 Marshal Sir Henry Wilson M.P. in his interview re¬ 
 ported in the Paris edition of the Daily Mail, May 3, 
 1922. In commenting upon Mr. Lloyd George’s blun¬ 
 der in advising the Greeks to go into Smyrna, he said, 
 “We shall never get peace in Palestine or Mesopotamia 
 or Egypt or India until we make love to the Turks. It 
 may be very immoral, but it is a fact.” 
 
128 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Greece has failed to hold what she had twelve 
 months ago, and is being advised by the Allies to with¬ 
 draw from Smyrna. The result is that the Turks think 
 everybody is afraid of them. 
 
 Demands now being made, similar to those pathetic 
 requests of 1919 which were promptly refused, are be¬ 
 ing considered, modified a little, and granted. It is 
 not strange, in view of this situation, that these Mos¬ 
 lems have their heads up high, their hopes renewed, 
 and are full of confidence that they will soon be in full 
 possession of all their 1914 territory. Whether they 4 
 are justified in this assumption is a question no one I 
 met could satisfactorily answer. But with Britain, 
 France, Italy, and the United States all salaaming and 
 bowing to them, that they are reasserting their old atti¬ 
 tude as dictators, no one entertained any doubt. Con¬ 
 stantinople talk was filled with this impression. The 
 Turk has changed in a few months from being a poor, 
 beaten, suppliant asking for mercy, to a domineering, 
 arrogant, confident egotist, naming terms to everybody 
 in sight. This significant new attitude is enough to 
 make all those familiar with Turkish history wonder 
 what the future of that part of the world is to be. 
 
 Fact Number 2: Every man, woman, and child I 
 talked to, of those who are familiar with anything in 
 the past, said without hesitation that the stories of the 
 atrocities, the massacres, and the terrific persecutions 
 of the Christians by the Turks were true. 
 
 I came into this zone determined to know for my¬ 
 self to what degree these accounts were to be dis¬ 
 counted. I remembered that the early winter of 1918 
 had proved that the stories of German atrocities at the 
 beginning of the war had been very highly colored and 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 129 
 
 exaggerated, and I felt that the same might be true of 
 the incidents so commonly reported of the treatment of 
 the Armenians by the Moslems. I was amazed at the 
 unanimity with which absolutely all of those I met 
 said those statements were correct. The Turks did 
 massacre whole villages. They did take as captive 
 slaves young women and girls. They did drive them 
 by thousands into the desert to die. They did carry 
 on a determined plan to eliminate the Christians from 
 their territory. They have almost succeeded in exter¬ 
 minating the Armenian nation. Of five millions who 
 were in that part of the Turkish Empire in 1910, only 
 a million of a scattered remnant remain in Anatolia, 
 and the promised independent Armenian nation is a 
 wreck, overrun by Bolsheviks on one side and Turks 
 on the other. Some have fled to Europe, some to 
 America, and some to other parts of the world. But 
 the fact of the method is verified by everybody with 
 whom I came in contact. These actual incidents must 
 be known to such governments as the United States, 
 Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, and will 
 form the basis of the most fearful indictment of these 
 so-called Christian powers, when in later years the 
 historians appraise the true values of the twentieth 
 century. For myself I was astounded at the calm an¬ 
 swer I got everywhere. “Oh yes, those reports are 
 true/’ My inquiries were not confined to missionaries 
 and Christian workers, but included some business 
 men, several officials of three different nations, and 
 some educationalists who were making investigations 
 for historical purposes. 
 
 I was able to get only two comments which would 
 even modify the viciousness of the crime committed. 
 
130 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 One was the suggestion that there had been other atro¬ 
 cities committed in the world. Even the one or two 
 who advanced this argument agreed that the others did 
 not approach these either in the methods used, the 
 lives involved, or the term of years during which this 
 plan of organized murder had been carried on. 
 
 A second theory was given by an American official, 
 and was spoken of as calmly as though he was reporting 
 the topic of a recent prayermeeting. He said: “Yes, 
 the stories of the massacres are true; they did occur, 
 but you must remember that these Turks do not have 
 the same ideas upon this question as we hold. They 
 have been trained to this method and do not hesitate 
 to kill; it is not a serious offense in their eyes.” I do 
 not know that his soothing, extenuating idea would be 
 much of a consolation to the bones of the skeletons in 
 the desert, to the tattooed slave girls of the harems, to 
 the remnants of families separated and driven apart 
 forever, or to the remaining half dead waiting for the 
 end, but he sat in his easy chair and offered it as a 
 very satisfying argument to himself. 
 
 I followed this same trail of blood through Bulgaria, 
 where people’s memory is vivid of this policy when 
 they were under Turkish power. The same sad wounds 
 remain in Serbia and Hungary. All the way to the 
 gates of Vienna the footprints of the Turk are marked 
 by ruthless slaughter of men, women, and children who 
 dared to worship Christ. 
 
 Whatever may be the secret purposes or whatever 
 may be the future, the record of the Turk as the su¬ 
 preme murderer of the last fifteen hundred years stands 
 undisputed by the best witnesses in the area of Con¬ 
 stantinople. With this background of history and the 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 131 
 
 new revival of Turkish hopes for political power, there 
 is abundant reason for great anxiety as to what life 
 for the Christians is yet to be in the Near East. 
 
 Fact Number 3: Practically all agreed that there is 
 no sufficient evidence that the reinstated Turk will be 
 any different than the Turk of twenty-five or fifty or 
 five hundred years ago. Sad as the older story is, and 
 in the face of a nearly unanimous opinion that this 
 reinstatement is inevitable, I felt it most important to 
 know whether the future would be better than the 
 past. This question was urged upon every type and 
 kind of a man or woman with whom I could get an 
 interview. These included American and British offi¬ 
 cials, college presidents and professors, highest eccle¬ 
 siastical authorities of Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and 
 Protestant churches, editors of papers and periodicals, 
 secular and religious, commercial men, welfare and re¬ 
 lief workers, missionaries and public officials of the 
 Turkish Government. One or two evaded the ques¬ 
 tion. One American said he thought the new regime 
 might be better, but was not sure. All the rest with 
 deep feeling said they saw no reason to expect any¬ 
 thing different in the future from what had happened 
 in the past. No evidence could be found that there 
 was any change in heart or mind among the ruling Mos¬ 
 lems. The name of Moustafa Kemal, who is the real 
 brains of the revived government, is as much dreaded 
 as that of any Sultan or ruler of the past. Some sug¬ 
 gested that the procedure might be a little more politic 
 than the older one, but that the purpose would be the 
 same. “Deporting for military purposes” seems to be 
 the more elegant recent method rather than direct kill¬ 
 ing. Some felt very clearly that the new order would 
 
132 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 be worse than the old. One great church leader in 
 making this statement said: “In the old days, the 
 Turks were a little afraid of what the United States 
 or Great Britain might do; now they are not afraid of 
 anybody and will rule with terror.” Some officers of 
 Christian movements and institutions which had sur¬ 
 vived the old persecutions and the war period, thought 
 it highly probable that they would have to withdraw 
 if the Turkish rule came back animated by its present 
 spirit of power. 
 
 Those who see no prospect for anything better in the 
 future base their views largely upon happenings in the 
 territories where the Turks have been reinstated. The 
 missionaries have all practically been driven to the sea- 
 coast ports, where foreign elements are still in control. 
 A few remain in the interior, but nine out of ten have 
 been forced to flee. The refugees were arriving while 
 I was in Constantinople from Syria, Cilicia, Aleppo, 
 and Smyrna with fearful tales of suffering and perse¬ 
 cution. The highest authority of the Greek Orthodox 
 Church told me he was sure 800,000 Greeks in Smyrna 
 would die, if the Allies compelled the withdrawal of 
 the Greek army there. He said: “It is not a choice 
 of life or death with them; it is only a choice of what 
 kind of death they prefer. To remain will mean death 
 by the hand of the Turk in some form; to try to get 
 away means death by starvation as they go.” The 
 politicians may sit by and view the come-back of the 
 old Ottoman political power with complacency, but 
 those Christians who must either live under that regime 
 or get away view it with sickening alarm. With the 
 Turk filled with delight that he is again a force in the 
 political world, and with an apparent certainty that 
 
133 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 his government is to be again established as before 
 the war, and with the evidence seeming to indicate that 
 the new order will be no better than the old, peace 
 advocates cannot but look upon Constantinople as a 
 center from which disturbing elements may become so 
 pronounced as to upset the whole Near and Far East 
 at least. 
 
 I have a copy of a long editorial written by Aka 
 Kountouz one of the high tempered Nationalists and 
 which appeared in the Kemalist newspaper of Angora, 
 the Peyam Sabah , under date of January 13, 1922. 
 The whole article is a terrific attack upon the Govern¬ 
 ment of Great Britain and a call for all Moslems to 
 “hate the British.” The following quotation is a pic¬ 
 ture of what this radical group, who are closest to 
 Moustafa Kemal think the function of government is: 
 
 “And thou, the Army of the Creator and Just! 
 Every time you massacre a Greek you are pulling down 
 one of the corner-stones of the British Empire. There¬ 
 fore, for GocTs sake massacre, for the love of your 
 country massacre, in revenge of your dead brethren 
 massacre, in the name of crying humanity massacre, 
 for the salvation of the world massacre!” 
 
 Remembering fully that this is an extreme view, and 
 represents the most radical wing among the Moslems, 
 and is not shared by thousands of their people, the 
 fact that it was written and printed and does express 
 the sentiment of the controlling political regime, does 
 not leave much room to base any expectations that the 
 future performances of the Turk, when in control, 
 will *be changed from those in the past. 
 
 Fact Number 4: Everybody was agreed that the 
 only possible hope of saving the people there from 
 
134 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 more persecutions at the hands of the Turks, and help¬ 
 less women and children from death by starvation or 
 worse, would be the intervention in some form by the 
 American Government. Later more complete refer¬ 
 ence will be made to this worldwide expectancy con¬ 
 cerning the place the United States has in preserving 
 harmony and order among the nations. But these Near 
 East problems brought this topic so intensely to my 
 attention that justice would not be done without spe¬ 
 cial reference to this in connection with the part the 
 Turkish Government is to have in the future of the 
 world. “America can settle this whole disturbance 
 any hour she will announce her willingness to assume 
 the responsibility,” was the fervent statement of an edu¬ 
 cator who had lived in Constantinople for sixteen years. 
 
 I was so ashamed of the fact that a few ossified 
 isolationists of my own nation had dragooned the 
 whole political machinery into cowardly dodging its 
 clear duty to other parts of the world that I did not seek 
 to have this question discussed. It was pressed upon 
 me at every interview held with men and women with 
 humaritarian instincts. 
 
 This statement made by the educationalists was re¬ 
 peated to me in substance by a hundred people. With 
 others it came in the form of a pitiful appeal, a prayer 
 that even yet America might come to the rescue. These 
 voices, representing many nations but especially Amer¬ 
 icans, British, and Greeks, all united in saying that the 
 saddest hour in the history of this part of the universe, 
 for the past hundred years at least, was when America 
 refused to accept a mandate for Armenia. One trav¬ 
 eler, not an American and with no relation to politics 
 or armies, reported to me the glee of the Turks in one 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
 135 
 
 of the interior cities when the message was received 
 that America had refused to accept the care of the Ar¬ 
 menian territory. He said it was a regular Fourth of 
 July celebration. He also said that from that day on, 
 as he traveled through that country, he saw the change 
 in their attitude from one of quiet submission to one 
 of belligerence. The people believe that our presence 
 there would have saved not only Armenia but the rest 
 of the disputed territory, which now seems destined to 
 be swept back into the hands of the Turks. If these 
 people are correct in this impression, nor more solemn 
 question of duty has come to the United States since 
 i860. No frantic speeches about “entangling alliances’’ 
 or excuses about “cost of expeditions” will clear us in 
 the judgment of time if our participation there is neces¬ 
 sary for peace and the protection of human life. If 
 these people are correct, and the return of the Turk 
 means more persecutions, then the peace of the world 
 is sure to be upset and armed force will be required. 
 For no conference voice will have any effect with the 
 Turk in his present frame of mind and dn aroused 
 world will surely not sit by and see helpless people 
 suffer indefinitely again. And if the guns once start 
 shooting in the Marmora and the Dardanelles, America 
 will hardly find the isolation argument sufficient to pro¬ 
 tect her human and temporal possessions there. 
 
 In justice to all the facts, what is called the “new 
 party” in Constantinople must be mentioned. It is 
 said they have a sincere desire to see a new and puri¬ 
 fied Turkish Government take the place of the old 
 order. I was privileged to meet for an hour with three 
 of the most conspicuous of these men. For their sake 
 and what they represent, I wish I had been able to find 
 
136 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 a real foundation for their hope. But it was not pos¬ 
 sible, even upon their own statements, for one of them 
 with sadness in his voice said, “Oh, we are in an ocean 
 of sin which does not change.” They themselves did 
 not prophesy anything very different from the tradi¬ 
 tional older order. In a milder form they concurred 
 in the first three facts stated. Nevertheless, they do 
 without doubt represent the hope at least that the Turk¬ 
 ish Government may some day be reformed. Gladly, 
 to give every possible encouragement to that element, I 
 quote the following which appeared in many Constan¬ 
 tinople Turkish papers upon April 13, 1922. It is a 
 brief quotation from a message sent out by the Moslem 
 Academy in anticipation of the holy month of Rama¬ 
 zan : 
 
 “Oh, Brethren of our Religion! Come, let us re¬ 
 pent and ask forgiveness. In these holy nights let us 
 abstain from liquor and immorality, and let us pray 
 for the salvation and happiness of our nation and 
 country. Let us ask that the blood which has been 
 shed, the calamity of the families which have been 
 ruined, the sufferings of people who were rich but 
 have become poor and emigrant, the tears which have 
 run from the eyes of the innocent children should not 
 go in vain. Let us love one another. Let us never do 
 enmity to any person. Let us try to reform ourselves 
 with a strong purpose, let us try to be helpful to every¬ 
 body and especially to one another among ourselves. 
 Let the bad spirit of disunion and condemnation be 
 away from us, and the good will of God and the 
 Prophet, power and peace shall be with us.” 
 
 This represents the minority party and is in splendid 
 contrast to the earlier quotation, the plea of the Angora 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 137 
 
 Kemalist extremists for the rule of the Turk by the 
 sword. 
 
 I do not profess to have firsthand evidence enough to 
 make these facts I have stated indicate my own per¬ 
 sonal conclusions. I would be glad to believe they are 
 in error, but they are an honest summary of what I 
 had from the lips of a host of competent witnesses, 
 who were more unanimous than I ever knew so many 
 people to be upon any question which might have two 
 sides to it. Constantinople, with its related issues 
 which reach as far as India, has political and religious 
 dynamite enough under it to blow up the peace of the 
 entire human race if somebody drops a match into the 
 magazine some black night. 
 
 Here, as in many other places, the silent, pervading 
 influence of the Christian movement is apparent, as an 
 earnest hope of continual peace and a solution of all 
 the complicated problems without resort to arms. But 
 here it seemed as though that factor were more pro¬ 
 nounced than ever. The very language of the Chris¬ 
 tian movement and the atmosphere it creats are in 
 striking contrast to the kind encountered in economic 
 and diplomatic circles. The former sees the ideals of 
 brotherhood and friendship yet possible, notwithstand¬ 
 ing all the obstacles of the Mohammedan and Christian, 
 East and West hatreds. The latter group, peculiarly in 
 this zone, has taken a cold fatalist philosophy—“an 
 eye for an eye/’ a fight to the finish, the strong to live 
 and the weak to die. Robert College for the men and 
 Constantinople College for the women, as typical of the 
 entire vast Christian movement there, are worth more 
 every twenty-four hours for the preservation of peace 
 in that part of the Near East than their total cost in 
 
138 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 all their history. As I moved through that scene and 
 heard the threats being made, the prophecies of out¬ 
 break, and listened to the tales of dread of more 
 massacres, I was led many times to wonder just what 
 would be going on if there were no restraining 
 influences of the Christian institutions—teachers, 
 preachers, Young Men’s Christian Association secre¬ 
 taries, Young Women’s Christian Association secre¬ 
 taries, relief workers, and all kinds of missionaries. 
 It would be a scene of indescribable conflict within 
 thirty days. If the present crisis is passed and order 
 preserved without military intervention, the rest of the 
 world may offer gratitude to those Christians rather 
 than to the political diplomats. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 In Acute Nervous Prostration 
 
 “Europe, the Mother Continent, has not yet run her race or 
 finished her achievement. Scarred and suffering, destitute, 
 pauperized, and humiliated, she keeps both her pride and her 
 ideals, and deep in her heart, too deep as yet for utterance in a 
 language that others can understand, she bears the promise of a 
 future which will cause men to reverence her, even in her ad¬ 
 versity, not merely as the source and origin of civilization, but 
 as its pioneer.”—Alfred E. Zimmern, “Europe in Convalescence.” 
 
 A T the close of the two most intense months of a 
 lifetime, spent in travel through continental Eu¬ 
 rope, meeting the most vital people of nine na¬ 
 tions, including visits to each of their capitals with but 
 one exception, listening to prepared statements from 
 most of them bearing upon their grievances, their sor¬ 
 rows, their hopes, and their despairs, I find myself al¬ 
 most devoid of any language to describe at all accurately 
 this situation. It is full of seemingly impossible con¬ 
 tradictions. People in whom one may place implicit con¬ 
 fidence as to their veracity and sincerity were making 
 statements, with assurance of their truth, which were so 
 far apart as to fact that they left no apparent room to 
 hope for reconciling them upon the theory of misinfor¬ 
 mation or misunderstanding. One morning a commit¬ 
 tee submitted typewritten data, on the happenings in a 
 certain portion of the disputed geography of Europe. 
 
 139 
 
140 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 These facts seemed indisputable, the gentlemen who 
 presented them were entirely trustworthy. But the next 
 day there was obtained from an equally reliable source 
 another fund of information, which denied every state¬ 
 ment previously received, and presented a set of accusa¬ 
 tions charging the first party with every offense which 
 the first party had pleaded against the second. I be¬ 
 lieved in the honesty of this second group then, I be¬ 
 lieve the same thing of them now. I was convinced 
 that some explanation other than a hasty charge of 
 falsehood was necessary if justice was to be granted. 
 
 Incidents of this type, however, were constantly met 
 at intervals of about four days each. But for knowl¬ 
 edge of the character of the people and personal 
 acquaintance with many of them, I would have been 
 led to conclude that all Europe had joined the Ananias 
 club and was holding a tournament with some valuable 
 trophy at stake. One thing is quite evident—any man 
 who visits Europe now and who wishes to come out 
 with a connected story which hangs together logically 
 from beginning to end, with no cross currents, no con¬ 
 tradictions, no puzzling entanglements, must visit only 
 one nation. If he visits two, even if they were allies 
 in the war, he is sure to be in a muddle of ideas. In the 
 midst of this confusion, I chanced to hear a medical 
 expert discussing the causes and effects of “nervous 
 prostration.” A good many of his technical expressions 
 I did not follow, but between times I gathered a few 
 salient points. He said this prevalent infirmity had 
 three possible causes: 
 
 I. It is sometimes brought on by “overwork” but 
 not often, and never unless accompanied by some other 
 contributing element. 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 141 
 
 2. In nine cases out of ten it is brought on by the 
 long pressure of some great “fear/’ some dread of a 
 terrible calamity. 
 
 3. It may be produced by “brooding” over sorrow, 
 disappointment, or fancied or real wrong. 
 
 He then made a general comment that the most 
 violent cases were where all three of these were com¬ 
 bined in their attack upon one patient. In speaking of 
 the manifestations he said three were usually to be 
 found in varying degrees of severity: 
 
 1. The patient loses “hope” and drops into a state of 
 almost utter despair. 
 
 2. The patient usually imagines the “worst” about 
 the possible results which may follow in the problems, 
 concerning which fears are entertained. 
 
 3. The patient rapidly develops a state of “unrelia¬ 
 bility”—a condition which makes impossible rational 
 thinking or normal action. 
 
 He made a second general statement to the effect 
 that the disease was never fatal unless the patient was 
 attacked by some other complaint during the period of 
 nervous exhaustion; but added that unless relieved it 
 did, in many instances, result in a permanently im¬ 
 paired mental condition. 
 
 In responding to inquiries as to the surest method of 
 recovery and remedy, he said two things were abso¬ 
 lutely essential: 
 
 1. Remove the cause of the fear. He was certain 
 that travel, change of environment, sea resorts, and all 
 the rest would be of small value till the fear quality had 
 been eliminated. 
 
 2. Surround the patient with hopeful people and 
 hopeful expectations. 
 
142 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 In general comment he said again that just “rest” 
 was no remedy at all if the causes remained the same, 
 and that sometimes “a vacation in the hills” made the 
 patient worse. 
 
 This scientific man was discussing the sad condition 
 of a mutual friend, a single individual. But a little 
 time for thought led me to the conclusion that this is 
 just what has happened to continental Europe. She is 
 nervously wrought upon to a state not at all realized 
 by the more distant parts of the world, and to a degree 
 far beyond that of which she herself is conscious. If 
 the physician was correct in his diagnosis, Europe is 
 suffering from all three of the causes. 
 
 These people, in the vast majority, have always had 
 to work beyond that which God meant human beings 
 to endure, but since 1914 their burden has been in¬ 
 creased till everybody is involved, and everybody is 
 working (of those who can get employment) beyond 
 the limit of any natural endurance. It has been, and is 
 now, a close clutch with terrific work or starvation. If 
 overwork of itself alone could produce nervous pros¬ 
 tration, these people have sufficient reason to be so 
 afflicted. 
 
 But added to abnormal physical tasks, they have one 
 hundred per cent to their credit in the second cause; 
 namely, “fear.” Every spot upon which I trod literally 
 throbbed with fear, dread horror of the return of the 
 blackness of 1914 to 1918, with its death and destruc¬ 
 tion in the battle zones, and of worse in the 1918 to 
 1922 period with plague, pestilence, disease, and starva¬ 
 tion. The people of continental Europe have not 
 simply been through one or two wars; they are the 
 creatures of the soil overrun by wars and more war. 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 143 
 
 Generation and generation has struggled up a little, 
 only to be beaten back to the dust by another war. 
 They have likewise seen the evolution of this thing in 
 frightfulness of results till its fury in 1914 to 1918 
 has about paralyzed their capacity for cheer. They 
 have sense enough to wonder what another one would 
 be. They hear the ominous rumblings of more conflict 
 coming. They are repeatedly told that another out¬ 
 break is imminent. They listen in vain for any voice 
 of authority from Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, 
 or Petrograd, saying that the war theory is past. The 
 people, the common people of Europe, are working on, 
 yet under the horrifying depression of terror that the 
 same old devilish war crowd will thrust the sword into 
 their hands again. They have just cause to be afflicted 
 with nervous prostration, by reason of this fear hang¬ 
 ing over them year after year. 
 
 But as though these were not enough they have a 
 tremendous amount of the third element of “brooding/' 
 “sorrow,” “disappointment.” Only two of the nations 
 visited were at all free from a deep, terrible feeling 
 that they have been wronged. Leaving apart any dis¬ 
 cussion of the merits of these feelings, they are fear¬ 
 fully real, and as the doctor said, “fancied” wrongs 
 are just as dangerous as real ones in the effect upon 
 the patient. They are thinking over the dead who they 
 believe were needlessly slaughtered. They are thinking 
 over the wrecked areas which, at best, can be only 
 feebly restored in a hundred years. They are thinking 
 of the ruthless territorial adjustments, which they be¬ 
 lieve were made with small recognition of the actual 
 justice involved. They are thinking of those of com¬ 
 mon blood, tongue, and religion who have been torn 
 
144 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 from them, who are not permitted to come to them and 
 to whom they are not permitted to go. Their ears are 
 filled with the stories of how those who belonged to 
 them a few years ago are now deprived of the right 
 to use their native tongue, to have their children taught 
 in their own religion, or to worship God in their own 
 free way. Europe had one Alsace-Lorraine from 1870 
 to 1918, but there are a hundred now and in every one 
 of them daily tears are shed, prayers are offered, and 
 vows are made. No one individual or company of 
 people can fully estimate the “sorrow” liability of 
 Europe. It is nerve-racking—enough to produce acute 
 prostration, and to unfit them for the great tasks neces¬ 
 sary in reconstruction. 
 
 But true as the diagnosis of causes was, and the 
 parallel to these causes which was found in the life of 
 continental Europe, the results were more convincing. 
 One of the methods the medical fraternity follows in 
 determining the nature of disease, so I am told, is to 
 watch its manifestations in the patient, not only by 
 temperature, but by actions, desires, and various whims. 
 If that is correct, and the expert to whom reference 
 has been made is correct, then surely Europe has nerv¬ 
 ous prostration. 
 
 These causes have led to these results. In most of 
 the nations spoken of, there is an absence of hope. 
 Despair of anything good in the future is largely pre¬ 
 valent. More stolid fatalists were met in these two 
 months than in as many previous years. Most of the 
 people in these nations have surrendered to the horrible 
 conclusion that they are in a war-mad world, in which 
 brute force is to rule without mercy, and that their only 
 hope is to anticipate the possibility of being on the 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 145 
 
 winning side some day. They do not believe there is 
 any such thing as a world where justice, righteousness, 
 and brotherhood will prevail. 
 
 They are inclined to expect the worst of all the pos¬ 
 sible things to happen. Nearly every suggestion made 
 of signs which indicated a better order of diplomacy 
 and international processes, signs of which I was and 
 am convinced there are many, was met by a counter¬ 
 argument of some perfectly terrible thing that might 
 happen. They are so wrought upon by what they have 
 witnessed, and what they still fear, that they are not 
 quite in command of their best faculties when consider¬ 
 ing the problems with which they must now cope. I do 
 not remember any individual or group, who I believe 
 willfully made false statements or submitted untrue 
 data; but I am rather led to conclude that, when the 
 facts stated were so far apart that otherwise the only 
 conclusion could be falsehood, the real truth is to be 
 better accepted in the extenuating circumstances of a 
 fearfully overwrought nervous condition. 
 
 To go into these incidents adequately as applied to 
 nine nations would take volumes for each one. But for 
 all sorts and conditions of men who are true advocates 
 of peace and brotherhood, it is of premier importance 
 to get a sympathetic knowledge of the deep sincere feel¬ 
 ings of these nations. They may be based upon error, 
 but even error does not change their effect; neither does 
 it remove the necessity for recognition in the adjust¬ 
 ments which are yet to be made to secure the peace of 
 the world. Remote, hasty conclusions will be of small 
 value in helping the friendship ideal. Whatever the 
 final verdict is to be, it must come from sources which 
 have taken full account of how these leaders of all 
 
146 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 kinds of life in their nations truly feel, and rigid, 
 metallic, unyielding, unsympathetic attitudes only tend 
 to make the situation worse. 
 
 The comment is not infrequently heard that some¬ 
 times nervous prostration is assumed by a certain type 
 of individual as an excuse to evade unpleasant duties, 
 to explain unseemly conduct, or to secure a good vaca¬ 
 tion. To those even partially familiar with the facts, 
 this charge against Europe will not avail. The causes 
 are overwhelming. A few general conditions may be 
 noted which are having their effect, more or less, upon 
 every nook and corner of these countries of continental 
 Europe. 
 
 First: All of that part of the world expected the 
 Peace Treaty would be based upon the famous “Four¬ 
 teen Points” enunciated by President Wilson. Re¬ 
 peated explanation that these were at best only pre¬ 
 liminary suggestions and only the view of one indi¬ 
 vidual, does not at all lessen the keen sense of dis¬ 
 appointment. People point to the fact that, to all 
 appearances, the whole world arose, cheered, and pro¬ 
 claimed these principles as the basis of a new civiliza¬ 
 tion, in which justice and good will would supplant the 
 old forms of aggression, secret compacts, and inter¬ 
 alliances. There certainly remains no doubt but that 
 their expectation in this respect had real foundation. 
 The general feeling is that the Armistice was hastened 
 by at least ten months by this proclamation. President 
 Wilson issued them to the world in January, 1918. 
 Upon November fifth the Entente Allies accepted them, 
 with only one mild suggestion of change. November 
 11, 1918 they were signed as the basis of peace, to be 
 fully worked out later. But the Versailles Conference 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 147 
 
 came and, little by little, these points were obliterated 
 or so modified that in the final document they had 
 passed out of recognition. Perhaps they were bad; 
 possibly they ought not to have been published in ad¬ 
 vance of the Armistice, but, even so, the serious effect 
 remains. They were the hope of the world then, and 
 they are gone the way of all the earth now. But in 
 their loss most of the nations of continental Europe 
 have been so stunned that they have nearly abandoned 
 all capacity to believe in anything which has humani¬ 
 tarian expectations in it. In several nations the current 
 view is that these principles were never seriously meant 
 to be adopted, and were issued as a trap, as a trick, to 
 break down the morale of the powers opposing the 
 Entente forces. Completely as one may disbelieve this 
 theory, it is not easy to convince these people that such 
 was not the case. Trained by long years to be deceived, 
 schooled in the realm where secret diplomacy had 
 always been accustomed to tell the people one thing 
 and mean something else, they naturally wonder if the 
 Fourteen Points were not just staged for psychological 
 results. 
 
 Whatever may be the last judgment about the 
 wisdom of the Fourteen Points, as to content or time 
 of issuance, there is no possible doubt but that if they 
 had been lived up to at the Versailles Conference, 
 Europe and the whole world would not be in its present 
 mess of bankrupt finances and worse yet bankrupt 
 morale, in loss of confidence that anybody in the diplo¬ 
 matic world will tell the truth. 
 
 Second: All these nations believed that the United 
 States would go into the League of Nations and take 
 the leading part in making it effective. This was an 
 
148 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 American proposal, it was approved by practically all 
 the standard papers, respected by respectable folks, and 
 there was never a suspicion that we were to bring it 
 forward and then refuse to become a member of it. 
 All the well-worked excuses do not alter this pri¬ 
 mary conviction upon which the whole world was pro¬ 
 ceeding. 
 
 Lest the spirit of this chapter may be misunderstood, 
 the writer feels led to say he was among those who 
 earnestly welcomed the ideal of a League of Nations, 
 and was sorely disappointed when the actual covenant 
 was made known. But this statement and every other 
 attempt to explain, do not relieve the effect this inci¬ 
 dent has had upon European conditions. Once these 
 nations hoped to have recourse in hours of trouble to 
 a League in which there would be such a sense of fair 
 play, and behind which there would be such prestige, 
 that justice to the least in the world would be guaran¬ 
 teed. But, instead, they look with doubt to the present 
 organization and are led to believe they must just fight 
 in the old way to get anything. 
 
 The depressing effect of these facts cannot be easily 
 overstated, neither can it be easily understood by 
 those far removed from the actual soil involved. 
 Prominent men in every nation visited are constantly 
 talking of how different the whole situation might be 
 if the principles declared in the Fourteen Points had 
 prevailed and America had been a member of the 
 League of Nations. The failure to bring this about 
 has left the marks of fear for the future and resent¬ 
 ment for the past. 
 
 Third: All Europe is literally bewildered in its 
 attempt to understand the almost complete economic 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 149 
 
 wreck which has swept practically over every nation, 
 even involving seriously those which remained neutral 
 from 1914 to 1918. Happily, God has caused the rain 
 and sunshine to bring forth enough food to relieve the 
 starvation factor to a large degree. But from the 
 standpoint of the future they see no hope of recovery. 
 All the natural channels of older commerce are broken 
 up by the new geographical divisions. Nations left 
 with coal have no raw materials; those with the raw 
 materials have no coal. Nearly all the borders are 
 closed tight against exports or imports. The exchange 
 is so hazardous that no one dare make a decided move 
 in any business enterprise. At one place, I asked the 
 price of an auto for about a sixty-mile drive over as 
 fine a road as may be found in Massachusetts or Cali¬ 
 fornia. It was quoted to me at 120,000 kronen. In 
 normal times this would have meant $24,000. In reality 
 it was about twelve dollars. At the same rate I would 
 have been compelled to pay about 200,000 marks, had 
 the transaction been in Germany. I was told, while in 
 Czecho-Slovakia, that Polish money had practically 
 been abandoned as of no value—what had already 
 happened in Russia. The result is that there is no field 
 for manufacturing in a normal way and no outlet, 
 with borders mostly closed. One member of the British 
 Parliament announced in May, 1922, that he had been 
 making an investigation which led him to believe there 
 were 17,000,000 unemployed in Europe (none of these, 
 however, in Germany) all of whom were responsible 
 bread-winners. Debts are accumulating beyond the 
 power of the mathematicians to compute. The Genoa 
 Conference met, struggled hard, endured much, did 
 something, but sent out no word of encouragement. 
 
150 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Therefore, there need be no surprise if many of these 
 peoples seem to do utterly absurd things and say crazy 
 things. I remember watching Wall Street one day in 
 1897 when one or two trust companies had failed. 
 Men otherwise calm and dignified ran coatless and hat¬ 
 less through the streets, knocking people over in their 
 haste. Continental Europe is seeing whole nations 
 going into bankruptcy. Men who were worth millions 
 of dollars even two and three years ago are paupers to¬ 
 day. But I haven’t yet seen anything as silly as that 
 New York City scene, when a few men were afraid 
 they were going to lose a few dollars. No judgment 
 of Europe is fair now unless it is sympathetic enough 
 to understand this psychology. Czecho-Slovakia, 
 Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia are in¬ 
 volved less than others, but all are under this fear. 
 These general elements are intensified to a fearful de¬ 
 gree and are common to all Europe, but the unique con¬ 
 ditions in some of the nations are even more severe and 
 are worthy of particular attention. 
 
 Judgment of Greece must be tempered by knowledge 
 of the fact that the Greeks feel they are being aban¬ 
 doned by their former allies, and left unsupported to 
 be the buffer for the furious coming of the Turk. 
 That contest they believe is for life or death as a nation. 
 Their fears are increased by the rumors that, in the 
 midst of the struggle, Bulgaria may attack from the 
 north to regain what was lost in 1918. They are the 
 children of the world’s ancient glory. In their veins 
 the blood is yet rich in their ancestry, and their love of 
 the past and their hope for the future make the welfare 
 of their nation precious. But they are seeing the 
 possibility of being wiped out of existence, of being 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 151 
 
 literally annihilated as a nation. The Greeks have 
 reason to be nervous. 
 
 Judgment of Bulgaria must be based upon some 
 comprehension of her feelings. She is a land of beauty 
 and culture; ninety five per cent, of her people are 
 literate; schools are abundant and of high quality; her 
 people are famous for industrious life. She feels that 
 she was betrayed into surrender in October, 1918, by 
 a promise of a treaty founded upon the Fourteen 
 Points. She believes she had no part in bringing on 
 the war. She believes her cause was never listened to 
 by the Versailles Conference. She believes the penal¬ 
 ties imposed are beyond all reason. Territory has been 
 lost to nations of the south and north. The present 
 suggested reparations call for an amount equal to one 
 thousand dollars from every man, woman, and child 
 in the nation to be paid inside of three years, or about 
 five thousand dollars for each producer. The purpose 
 now is not to argue personal opinions about the right 
 or wrong of the penalties, but to say that the feelings of 
 the people must be thought of seriously by all who hope 
 for final peace. 
 
 Judgment of the Serb-Croat-Slovene state must be 
 in remembrance of what they have passed through, not 
 only since 1914, but back as far as the fifteenth century. 
 However, the later years are enough. They were over¬ 
 run by armies of the Central Powers twice during the 
 war. Every railroad bridge over every stream was 
 destroyed. Two hundred and fifty priests of the 
 Orthodox Church were shot, and a thousand more 
 taken as prisoners. The loss of life compared to popu¬ 
 lation was second only to that of Belgium. They be¬ 
 longed to the winning side in the war, but they are 
 
152 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 being left as between the upper and nether millstones, 
 to struggle their way back to self-support and a stable 
 government, and all the while with a dread of what 
 Italy is going to do to them on the west. They think 
 the fact that they were an ally of Italy from 1915 to 
 1918 has been forgotten, and with dread they are ex¬ 
 pecting outbreaks of a violent kind with the Italians 
 upon their western frontier, who seem unwilling to have 
 them benefit by accessible ports on the Adriatic Sea. 
 Jugo-Slavia is nervous and the critics are severe, but 
 there is genuine basis for their sensitive feelings. 
 
 Judgment also of the Hungarians is useless unless 
 tempered by ability to realize what their feelings are. 
 Every ancient charge may be true, or less severe than 
 they may have deserved, but even if that theory were 
 accepted it does not relieve the strain of their present 
 anguish and resentment. In common with other 
 farther Eastern nations, they feel tremendously that 
 they were not the cause of the war, and had no voice in 
 deciding whether they would participate or not. One 
 American who was in Budapest when the bulletins 
 were being posted in the last hours of July, 1914, told 
 me he heard men and women weep aloud as the news 
 told them they were in the war, and must again go 
 through the horrors of older years. Their destiny was 
 fixed primarily in Berlin, incidentally in Vienna. They 
 were not asked what they thought, and they now feel 
 that those who dispensed the penalties ought to take 
 this into account. 
 
 They are also bewildered by the fact that they 
 stopped fighting when the Fourteen Points were pub¬ 
 lished, and felt a great sense of relief as they based 
 their hopes of the future upon Clause No. X of that 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 153 
 
 famous prophecy, which reads as follows: “The 
 peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the 
 nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should 
 be accorded the freest opportunity for autonomous 
 development/’ Instead of this safeguarding they have 
 been ripped asunder, one chunk tossed to Jugo-Slavia, 
 another to Roumania, some more to Czecho-Slovakia, 
 and finally a piece to their former ally, Austria. In 
 1914 they had 28,000,000 population; they now have 
 a little less than 12,000,000. Upon one square there 
 have been erected in Budapest four marble statues, com¬ 
 memorating their losses to each of these nations, and, 
 of course, as a reminder to those who follow them, that 
 love of country demands that these lost parts shall 
 someday, sometime, be won back. They ask that the 
 effect of what they hoped for and what they received 
 be reckoned with. 
 
 They stopped fighting in October, 1918, but they 
 were invaded in 1919 by the Roumanian army, which 
 swept clear into Budapest, and for days loaded train 
 after train with everything of value the soldiers could 
 get their hands on, and shipped it to Bucharest. The 
 Entente Allies offered no protest; the Hungarians had 
 no army with which to resist. They are remembering 
 this, and the wound is deeper the longer they think and 
 get no explanation. 
 
 They are sitting amid the wreck of their economic 
 system, wondering how they will ever rebuild it. Gov¬ 
 ernor Horthey said in a personal interview, “Our most 
 valuable assets have been given to others; as illustra¬ 
 tion, we haven’t wood enough left to make coffins for 
 our dead.” They feel as though they have been used 
 as a sort of a “slush fund,” out of which the bills were 
 
154 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 to be paid as the various conquerors made their de¬ 
 mands. When Bohemia had to be compensated, 
 7,000,000 of the population were cut off to make up 
 Czecho-Slovakia. When Serbia asked for her share, 
 about the same amount was awarded to her, out of 
 which was built the Serb-Croat-Slovene State. When 
 Roumania came forward for her part of the spoil, 
 2,000,000 more of Hungary’s people were charged off 
 to that account. For some reason nobody knows, a 
 small slice was taken off and stuck on the western bor¬ 
 der of Austria. 
 
 While pondering over these incidents, they see the 
 Reparation Commission living in luxurious style while 
 they deliberate upon the final penalties. A colonel's 
 salary, the decorative element of one of these com¬ 
 missions, is double that of the Governor. A common 
 soldier of the Entente commission gets 675,000 kronen, 
 while the Hungarian Prime Minister receives 15,000. 
 The commission takes the Bristol Hotel and operates 
 it at top speed. All this is a final charge to the 
 Hungarian Government. They have capacity for great 
 sorrow, and it is being taxed to its utmost, and, what¬ 
 ever the final decisions are, they are worthless unless 
 they have taken these elements into the bookkeeping. 
 A direct comment is ventured to the effect that, of the 
 defeated nations visited, the Hungarians have more 
 courage and will to go forward left than was observed 
 at any other place. Hardly able to see a ray of hope 
 for many years to come, they are struggling valiantly. 
 
 The same general statement may be made of Austria. 
 Once she was the proud center of Europe’s finest life— 
 a nation of nearly 30,000,000, now less than 8,000,000. 
 Of these 2,000,000 are in Vienna, with no possible 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 155 
 
 means of adequate support, with all the borders closed 
 against her. They see only two hopes: one, to be 
 joined to Germany that they may at least have that 
 much outlet for commerce; the other, to save their 
 universities and colleges, and thus remain a great center 
 of culture and education. 
 
 Likewise, all the verdicts about Czecho-Slovakia are 
 good only as they enter into the causes of some 
 anxieties under which the people live. This newest 
 republic of Europe, presided over by the gallant Presi¬ 
 dent Masaryk who was elected for life, while having 
 much to give satisfaction and encouragement, shows 
 signs of severe nervousness. They are trying to bind 
 into a unit elements as widely different as the inhabi¬ 
 tants of the North and South Poles might be. They 
 know the fury in the heart of Germany, Austria, and 
 Hungary towards them. They view with alarm the 
 alliance between Germany and Bolshevik Russia. They 
 have in their western territory those who would join a 
 revolution at any moment Germany might begin 
 another war. They have more in the south who would 
 do the same thing, if either Austria or Hungary would 
 take the initiative in the attack. They are passing 
 through anxious hours concerning internal affairs. 
 The new Czech National Church, which is composed 
 of hundreds of former priests of the Roman Catholic 
 Church and hundreds of thousands of people who have 
 thrown off that control, has injected a religious tension 
 which in ordinary times would be enough of a problem 
 alone for one government to handle. The Bolshevik 
 sentiment, while well in the minority, is a constant 
 menace. 
 
 A short time in Eastern Germany was not sufficient 
 
156 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 to gain any new evidence with which to modify the 
 common view, that the people are writhing under the 
 sting of defeat, rebelling against accepting responsi¬ 
 bility for what happened in 1914, determined to evade 
 payment of reparations, and vowing for revenge by 
 the method of war some day. 
 
 Russia and Poland, the two nations most in chaos, 
 were not visited; but every manner of information, 
 either through printed page or from those who had 
 been in personal contact, indicated that their nervous 
 system had reached the hysterical stage. 
 
 A strange yet wonderfully helpful contrast was 
 found in crossing the border into Switzerland, that 
 charmed nation which, although surrounded by war 
 from 1914 to 1918, remained neutral. A few days 
 there, with visits to three of the popular centers, re¬ 
 vealed no malice toward others, no desire for revenge, 
 no necessity for defense—conditions which might have 
 been found in others of the neutral nations if they had 
 been included. For the first time in eight months, I 
 was not called upon to listen to any story of wrongs and 
 injustice or threats of revenge. Yet even Switzerland 
 is nervous. The business depression is the most severe 
 of a generation. Manufacturing is at a low ebb and 
 has no market. The great hotels are empty and porters 
 are standing at the door waiting for the uncertain 
 American tourist to arrive. Switzerland listens to the 
 mutterings, the wrangling, the threatenings of all her 
 neighbors, and cannot feel sure that another and even 
 more desperate war is not approaching. She is like¬ 
 wise not at all sure but that, in such an event, she will 
 be involved, and thus, some day not too far distant, be 
 in the same deplorable condition as that of the recent 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 157 
 
 combatants. Therefore Switzerland, typifying the 
 neutrals, is not free from the malady, although it has 
 not reached the acute stage in her life. 
 
 Judgment of France is worth listening to only if it 
 is supported by wisdom enough to appreciate the French 
 attitude of mind. Upon this question I have some 
 opinions well enough established to express them with¬ 
 out reservation. From San Francisco to Paris, through 
 Japan, China, India, Egypt, and Europe I had been 
 hearing that France had suddenly become the imperial¬ 
 istic nation of the world, bent upon military aggression 
 for world power. I knew I did not believe that, 
 from some knowledge of France before 1914. I 
 know I did not believe that in 1917 and 1918. 
 I knew I did not believe that by personal contact 
 in 1921. I wondered if all this change would have 
 taken place in twelve months. Here, once more, 
 it is not the purpose of the writer to argue the merits 
 of certain incidents. Perhaps France was too severe in 
 the Versailles Conference. Perhaps France was too 
 insistent at Washington upon her military necessities. 
 Perhaps France had been too generous in treatment of 
 the Turk. Perhaps France was too stubborn at Genoa. 
 But what are the actual, deep, honest convictions which 
 the French have and which must be remembered in 
 appraising their movements? France believes the 
 Treaty of Versailles, which all the nations signed, 
 ought to be lived up to. She is utterly unable to under¬ 
 stand why so many nations signed that Treaty and then 
 immediately began to act as though it were not binding. 
 
 France believes the calling of special conferences is 
 just one more method of defeating the Versailles 
 Treaty. These conferences may have the highest 
 
158 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 motives and, if so, France is willing to participate, but 
 she cannot help feeling that the real purpose is to reopen 
 the whole situation clear back to November n, 1918. 
 France believes Germany is persistently preparing to 
 attack her again, and that if she does her ally will be 
 Russia, and that if successful, “Mercy” would be the 
 last word to be found in the dictionary. France believes 
 the rebuilding of the devastated regions is to be delayed 
 by many, many years. Nearly four years have passed 
 and, to a terrible degree, the devastation is still about 
 as it was when General Foch gave the order to cease 
 firing. No substantial reparations have been paid by 
 Germany, and none are probable for a long period yet 
 to come. Thus, the wreck of northern France remains 
 an element of increasing aggravation. 
 
 France lives in perfect horror of what the future has 
 in store for her. Five times in one hundred and thirty 
 years she has been invaded by Germany. I talked with 
 one man whose home had twice been occupied by Ger¬ 
 man officers in his lifetime. Germany, with almost 
 twice the population of France, with millions of her 
 men well trained soldiers, only lacking uniform and 
 arms, and with every public utterance of her prominent 
 men couched in terms of threat and revenge, gives 
 abundant ground for this tremendous fear of the future 
 and determination to be prepared for the blow if it 
 comes. 
 
 I found no evidence that France was jealous for 
 more territory. I heard men in high political office 
 say with deep feeling, “God knows we want no more 
 war; we are sick and tired of it.” I saw a major- 
 general of the French Army applaud the expressed hope 
 of a warless world. I believed France a worthy ally 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 159 
 
 in 1917 and 1918; I believe her equally worthy in 1922. 
 France has convictions, and her chief characteristic is 
 not to be vacillating. The Entente praised her qualities 
 of determination in the autumn of 1914. They praised 
 them more in 1916, 1917, and 1918. There may be 
 yet more cause to be thankful for the same tokens in 
 1922. She is nervous, and, as one of her friends 
 said, inclined to be a bit “jumpy.” She may have 
 been unwise in some utterances; but only those 
 who can appreciate her feelings, her fears, her mem¬ 
 ories, her hopes, and her history are eligible to be her 
 critics. 
 
 Europe presents a sad picture: wrecked financially; 
 living in a state of complete confusion about the future; 
 having her hopes lifted high at one moment in the 
 presence of some new prophecy, of some new remedy, 
 only to have them dashed to pieces by the discovery 
 that it is not acceptable to the powers that be; swept by 
 waves of hate and envy which forbid cooperation; 
 horrified at the possibility of another great war. It is 
 not strange that she is broken down nervously. 
 
 I was glad the medical man said that this affliction 
 was never fatal unless accompanied by other complica¬ 
 tions. No man who travels over the beautiful hills and 
 fields of Europe, and sees her people so willing to work 
 hard and endure much, can easily accept the theory of 
 death. Even in the presence of no ability to suggest 
 any apparent basis of relief, there remains the confident 
 assurance that there is a way out and that it will be 
 found. Europe is about as sick as any patient ever 
 was who recovered, but she will recover. Among the 
 things necessary, the ordinary layman can easily discern 
 two which are fundamental. There is, doubtless, need 
 
i6o ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 for loans and financial commissions, but they will not 
 avail much if unaccompanied by deeds. 
 
 In the first place , remove the fear of war. 
 
 Tired and distracted as they are, I believe if some 
 voice with authority could tell the people of Europe 
 that there never would be another war, every man, 
 woman, and child—except the war lords—in every 
 nation would throw up their hats in glee and go tG 
 work with a song on their lips and new courage in their 
 hearts. The task ahead would still seem severe, but it 
 would be undertaken with confidence. It is the horror 
 of more war which makes the job intolerable, not the 
 magnitude of it. 
 
 In the second place , persuade Europe to accept the 
 program of cooperation, instead of closed borders and 
 isolation. 
 
 If every state in the United States was jealous of 
 all the bordering states, and had barriers against travel 
 and trade, it would wreck the whole nation in a few 
 years, but this is just what is going on in Europe. I 
 preached a doctrine at one meeting in Prague, which I 
 thought was upon a high level, when I said that Europe 
 needed to adopt the ideal of “live and let live.” A 
 beautiful Bohemian woman, president of the “Mothers’ 
 Peace Society,” in responding said: “Mr. Smith’s 
 platform isn’t high enough. What we in Europe need 
 is an era of living to help live, if we are to recover.” 
 If every ideal of the Washington and Genoa Confer¬ 
 ences is realized, if loans big enough to float the in¬ 
 debtedness of all the nations are secured, if all nations 
 join the League of Nations and follow it, and even the 
 terror of war is removed, but still the present system of 
 hate, jealousy, and refusal to live upon a platform of 
 
CONTINENTAL EUROPE 
 
 161 
 
 cooperation is to be continued, there can be no cure 
 for Europe. “Cooperation” is the biggest word to be 
 taught to continental Europe if she is to recover. 
 
 Peace or War; Life or Death; Hate or Brotherhood 
 are still the vexed uncertain questions of Europe. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 The Land of Unfailing Courage 
 
 A T the close of a tour through many nations, with 
 never twenty-four hours on land or sea entirely 
 free from some problem related to the issues 
 involving the peace of the world, the perils of war, the 
 principles of brotherhood, or the new demands of re¬ 
 construction, it was a strange set of impulses and 
 memories which were put in motion as the soil of the 
 British Isles, the heart of the British Empire, was 
 reached. As contrasted with much of the life met in 
 most of the nations earlier visited, it was like a newborn 
 hope that everything everywhere was going to be all 
 right after a while. I had been led to write of conti¬ 
 nental Europe as very ‘‘nervous,” of other peoples in 
 “turmoil,” and others excited and fomenting disorder. 
 The British Isles I found calm, thoughtful, serious, 
 fully conscious of the world crisis, but going ahead 
 steadily to perform a great service with traditional 
 courage. We had for all the months been struggling 
 with border entrances, where it seemed as though every 
 possible handicap was being used to make intercom¬ 
 munication difficult. Police, passport, and custom legis¬ 
 lations had been almost intolerable. Everybody 
 seemed suspicious of everybody. These border cross- 
 
GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 163 
 
 ings were remembered as being noisy, boisterous, and 
 wrangling experiences. One fact alone made them en¬ 
 durable. So far as customs regulations were involved, 
 I said frequently as we were compelled to pull every¬ 
 thing out and have it overhauled and examined, “This 
 is horrible, but not so horrible as entering the United 
 States.” America still retains the blue ribbon in this 
 form of international pest. 
 
 But entering England was quiet, orderly, and with a 
 kind of “welcome friend” touch to it. Leaving by the 
 route of one of the greatest ships on sea was of the 
 same type. No shouting, no crowding, no pulling and 
 hauling. Traveling in eighteen different nations and 
 then coming to the British Isles is a good way to know 
 real British character. In all the long reaches of travel 
 by rail and ship, covering approximately thirty thousand 
 miles, we had been one half the distance and one half 
 the actual days under the Union Jack, the emblem of 
 the Empire. But the pivot of it all was here on these 
 little islands, so small that I am always more or less 
 afraid to go out at night lest I may fall off. I usually 
 feel a bit worried on a train there lest if it gets run¬ 
 ning too fast it may not be able to stop before it gets 
 clear across the place and goes plunging into the 
 water. 
 
 I went out soon after arrival in London and found 
 my way to Westminster, and just looked at the majesty 
 of the Parliament Buildings, and the Abbey at their 
 side. There is no other scene like that on the earth; 
 all others are imitations. There are typified govern¬ 
 ment and religion of a type, upon a world scale not yet 
 attempted, achieved, or dreamed of by any other people. 
 Other journeys round the world and many other visits 
 
164 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 to this spot all combined had never made the deep, pro¬ 
 found impression of this hour. 
 
 I knew that of all the nations not one was carrying 
 such a load as this one. Her tax rate is now ten times 
 higher than that of Germany, who keeps herself in 
 the papers every day with an awful tale of woe about 
 “bankruptcy”—a word, by the way, not heard in Lon¬ 
 don. Her internal domestic problems are fierce, from 
 Ireland to India. Her unemployed are as large in per¬ 
 centage as any nation on earth. Her loans to foreign 
 powers are the largest of any and no request does she 
 make that what she owes to others be refunded. She 
 suggests this for others of her allies, but goes forward 
 expecting to pay pound for pound with interest herself. 
 Great Britain has a thousand reasons why she might 
 send out an “S. O. S.” but she does not, and there is 
 no flurry, no turmoil, no whimpering, no sordid por¬ 
 trayal of collapse. 
 
 I had read in newspaper accounts the address of Sir 
 James M. Barrie upon “Courage” which was delivered 
 at St. Andrew’s in Edinburgh, and is well worth being 
 read by the youth and elders of all the world in any 
 generation, but particularly so in this one. It seemed 
 to me that he had spoken not the sentiment of one man, 
 but rather opened all the secret chambers of the heart 
 of Britain and had spoken of the truest character of a 
 mighty nation. For they are called upon now, to live 
 not by seeing, not by what may be counted in assets, not 
 by what is made sure in the future, but by courage. 
 While I stood by those tokens of Westminster Govern¬ 
 ment and morals I had no desire to magnify this nation 
 over any other, and I have no such inclination now, but 
 I could not and cannot resist two impulses—the first, 
 
GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 165 
 
 to ask why this nation should have, started upon these 
 spots of land and spread till the sun never goes down 
 upon its colors; the second, to record the conviction 
 that the unchanging peace of the world is more depend¬ 
 ent upon the good offices of the British Empire than of 
 any other one power in existence. I hold no scant view 
 of the place the United States of America has in great 
 hope for influencing the rest of the world, but it is 
 second in importance to Britain. Therefore to that 
 growing multitude of peace lovers in the world it is of 
 immense value to understand the British Government, 
 its past glory and errors, its recent service from 1914 
 to date, and its fundamental purpose for the future. 
 
 Because I had read and heard so much of what might 
 be called criticism of the British Empire and had been 
 often told it was to decline and go the way of others 
 of great fame in the past, I sought with diligence to 
 know every fact both favorable and otherwise concern¬ 
 ing it as I traveled. Even though I was passing over 
 the same territory I had covered three and four times 
 in previous tours, I sought again the latest, newest im¬ 
 pressions. The statements that follow are made only 
 because they are believed to be essential as elements in 
 the fulfillment of the grandest hope ever cherished by 
 the human race, and in helping to answer the mightiest 
 prayer ever offered to Almighty God; namely, that this 
 world may speedily become forever free from the 
 devastating effects of war. 
 
 By the evidence at hand, the welfare of the British 
 Empire and the peace of the world are interlocked and 
 inseparable. 
 
 The British Government exhausted every avenue to 
 this end in 1914. The messages of Lord Grey in the 
 
166 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 closing hours of July of that sad year will be read a 
 hundred and five hundred years hence as the witness of 
 this nation’s dread of war in Europe and hope for peace 
 at that time. All the vital records from that month to 
 the last hour of the Genoa Conference confirm this 
 quality as the truest expression of British life. All 
 actions may not have been the wisest—upon this point 
 good men can differ—but the sincere desire for peace 
 has been so evidenced that no room for doubt is left. 
 
 That this power shall not be hampered or lost in the 
 future, some facts about the world characteristics of the 
 Empire are of immense importance to the friendship 
 movement everywhere. Personal contact and persistent 
 inquiry leave these facts undisputed about Great 
 Britain’s Government, what it does, what it forbids, 
 what it really is. They are submitted not with any 
 reference to sequence or logic and not at all as bearing 
 upon international treaties or alliances, but as common 
 facts accepted by friends and sometimes enemies, and 
 as principles essential to any and all nations that really 
 seek the good of the world in these perplexing years. 
 
 First: The British Government has a very high and 
 just respect for religion. From the time one reads this 
 carved on the walls in the great cities of the British 
 Isles—in St. Paul’s Cathedral, where in the stone steps 
 is carved the spot where Queen Victoria gave thanks 
 to God upon her sixtieth anniversary, and in West¬ 
 minster Abbey where kings and royalty bow their 
 heads in recognition of the Supreme Ruler—out to the 
 remotest corner of the Empire, they respect religion. 
 This is found on land and sea, at home and abroad. 
 There is, almost without exception, a divine service on 
 the Sabbath day in every ship carrying the British flag. 
 
GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 167 
 
 The ordinary sports and games are put away upon the 
 holy day. I cannot refrain from remembering the 
 contrast between Sunday on a ship flying the Union 
 Jack and on ships of any other flag. The latter usually 
 make no difference for Sunday, and sometimes I have 
 felt attempts were made to have that day one of special 
 hilarity. I regret deeply to say that thus far the ships 
 flying the Stars and Stripes have not been taught to 
 observe the sacredness of this day. On a ship of 46,000 
 tons of a British line on the north Atlantic I saw the 
 great lounge filled to capacity on a Sunday morning 
 for “Divine Worship” which was conducted by the 
 Master of the Ship himself and no other—a scene the 
 like of which I never have witnessed on a ship of any 
 other nation in twenty-five years of almost annual 
 voyages somewhere. On land the stores, shops, fac¬ 
 tories, and offices close for that one day of rest and 
 worship throughout the Empire. The Britisher be¬ 
 lieves in and respects religion. 
 
 There is found, however, a very remarkable quality 
 in this, that while their religion is intensely of the 
 Christian faith, in administerng regions where other 
 types of religion such as Hinduism and Mohammedan¬ 
 ism abound, they are equally insistent that there should 
 be free, full, absolute liberty of conscience to worship 
 in every man’s own peculiar way. In conversation with 
 a Hindu leader, an effective politician, who was a rather 
 severe critic of the Government, I asked if he had ever 
 heard of any instance in which any official of the 
 Government had in any manner interfered with the 
 liberty of the Hindu people in their form of worship, 
 and his quick response was “No.” I have not infre¬ 
 quently heard some critics say that this principle was 
 
168 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 guarded so carefully that advantage was given to oppos¬ 
 ing faiths. The British Government believes in Chris¬ 
 tianity as a religion, they respect it, they recognize it 
 on land, on sea, in peace, in war. 
 
 The British Government believes in the rights of 
 religious majorities or minorities, and does guarantee 
 to all protection in performing their acts of worship. 
 This element is in striking contrast to the history of 
 some nations which by force have compelled religious 
 conformity, and some which are even yet making this 
 the chief factor in their persecution of conquered sub¬ 
 jects. A part of the secret of this nation’s power is 
 this attitude toward the divinest thing in human life. 
 
 Second: The British Government believes in the 
 doctrine of an “open door.” It is a genuine pleasure to 
 remember that it was a great American, the Hon. John 
 Hay, who gave widest public recognition to this ideal, 
 but an equally satisfying thing to observe how this 
 world-extended Anglo-Saxon empire has practiced it 
 to the remotest corners of the traveled world. This 
 statement is made with no fear but that it can stand in¬ 
 vestigation, notwithstanding many charges that are 
 being brought forward of incidents said to disprove 
 it, with which the writer is familiar. Whatever may 
 have occurred in the past, this fact is sure now: At 
 any port of call anywhere, in which any ship of any 
 nation en route upon an honorable voyage of commerce 
 sees the British flag flying over the government house, 
 it may be known that the port is open to be freely 
 entered. They may buy, sell, trade, exchange, without 
 interference. This, once more, is in striking contrast 
 to much other national life. The sin of Europe to-day 
 is its closed doors. Its people may cry for a hundred 
 
GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 169 
 
 years about reparations and geography, but there will 
 be no permanent relief till they open the doors for 
 travel, trade, and friendly intercourse. A decided ele¬ 
 ment of the strength of the British Empire is this open 
 door idea, for if their attitude had been different in 
 the past they could not have survived the strain of their 
 long, thin, natural borders during the last three years. 
 A closed door with selfish purposes in the past would 
 have meant ruin now. Their open door method is a 
 vital quality in their enduring strength. 
 
 Third: The British Government believes in auton¬ 
 omy in relation to all parts of its kingdom. I rather 
 think the word “autonomy” was put upon the political 
 map by the President of the United States, the Hon. 
 William McKinley, during the Spanish American War 
 as the principle being contended for in reference to 
 Cuba. President Wilson gave the idea a furious jump 
 forward when he declared for “self-determination.” 
 But in practice this has been the cardinal doctrine of 
 the British Government for a good many years. All 
 Americans and most Britishers recall an hour when 
 that idea was not prevalent. If it had been in 1770, 
 the entire continent of North America might now be 
 a part of the British Empire. King George III didn’t 
 hold that view then. But later years and records have 
 established it thoroughly. Wide differences may still 
 obtain about the necessity of the Boer War in 1900. 
 But the attitude of the Government since has been gen¬ 
 erous. Within six months of the close of that war a 
 general election was ordered, all citizens eligible to 
 vote anywhere in the Empire were granted suffrage, 
 and practically all the important offices have ever since 
 been held by Dutchmen. 
 
170 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are supreme 
 illustrations of this conception of autonomy. There 
 are many in the world who believe the British Govern¬ 
 ment has been too generous in this respect with Ireland 
 and Egypt. Certainly no one familiar with the facts 
 can believe they are unwilling to grant India all that 
 is possible without harm to the rest of the world and 
 their own Empire. There may have been blunders in 
 details and in specific cases, but surely not in the vital 
 fact. 
 
 This doctrine is a significant quality in the greatness 
 of the solidarity of the nation. 
 
 Fourth: The British Government has an intense 
 anxiety for the human welfare of all its people. Whole 
 volumes could be well written by informed men upon 
 features of this general statement. 
 
 No sooner does this Government’s representative 
 arrive anywhere than a general clean-up of physical 
 conditions begins, if such is necessary. I have inci¬ 
 dents of this sort related by outsiders, concerning the 
 prompt application .of good methods of sanitation, the 
 supplying of pure water, the establishment of good 
 order, and respect for law which came with the presence 
 of this authority, many of which have sounded like 
 romance. Jerusalem “before” and “after” Lord 
 Allenby would be a good illustration for the seeker after 
 facts. The filth was carried out, the street rioting was 
 stopped, and the brigands were put in jail. Where 
 there was no decent water to drink, inside of three 
 months 300,000 gallons of pure water per month was 
 made available. All food for sale in the bazaar was 
 immediately inspected and made to pass as number one 
 in quality. 
 
GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 171 
 
 The British open every door to education. They in¬ 
 vite schools. I heard with intense interest of how the 
 Government is just now giving special grants of finan¬ 
 cial aid to anybody conducting standard schools for 
 the lowest castes of India. They underwrite partially 
 all the schools which maintain a high grade of efficiency. 
 They grant support and property to hospitals, play¬ 
 grounds, recreation and social centers. This human 
 service in human ways to common needy people is a 
 part of the secret of Britain’s power. Many unique 
 elements, some of which are peculiar to certain places, 
 might be included but these mentioned are the ones 
 which seemed most conspicuous and are common every¬ 
 where. 
 
 To protect this statement for some who read and 
 may feel that these facts are written by one who is 
 entirely unfamiliar with the other side of the story and 
 not conscious of some of the current gossip, I think it 
 important to note that I have read much from the pens 
 of Lord Northcliffe, Colonel Wedgewood, and the sup¬ 
 pressed Horatio Bottomley. I have studied Keyne’s 
 “Economic Results of the Peace Treaty” and Zim- 
 mern’s “Europe in Convalescence.” I am not unfa¬ 
 miliar with the writings of H. G. Wells, Sir Philip 
 Gibbs, Madison Grant, and Lathrop Stoddard. I have 
 heard with lasting profit Dean Inge preach. I am too 
 well acquainted with the views of Mr. Hearst, and of a 
 few American politicians who seem to be able to keep 
 in the public eye by attacks upon England. I am well 
 aware that some fearful mistakes have been made. 
 “Amritsar” and “Colonel Beyer” will long live in India 
 as a menace to the good name of Britain. I know per¬ 
 fectly well that there still lives a certain type of 
 
172 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Britisher who does not know good manners. He 
 bullies around as though God created the sun, moon, 
 and stars, as well as the earth, for his exclusive use. I 
 have some sympathy with the Englishman who, when 
 writing of this peril in the Far East, said, “Bad man¬ 
 ners are bad enough in themselves, but if they persist 
 now, in this new-made world, they will ruin us, destroy 
 us, as insolence destroyed Carthage, Rome, Spain, and 
 Potsdam.” I have with my own ears heard men of 
 this nation singing “Rule Britannia” in a fashion to 
 disgust serious folks who knew the song to be a huge 
 joke and an echo of a dying philosophy. I know Great 
 Britain is drinking enough whisky and soda to wreck 
 her eventually if it is not restrained. I heard one of 
 her ablest citizens say that if they could save their 
 annual drink bill of about $2,400,000,000, with its 
 attendant penalties, they could pay their whole war 
 debt in five years. I know there are men saying that 
 the British Empire is dying, breaking up, and that its 
 glory is in the past. I know there are plenty of people 
 who believe Lloyd George is a politician and only a 
 politician, and that he is hanging on to an office far 
 beyond the day when he is of any good to his country. 
 I have no doubt but that it was a strategic blunder to 
 have the Prince of Wales visit India in the winter of 
 1921 and ’22. Even his delightful personality, his 
 democratic manners, his evident sincerity, could not 
 balance the weight of the deep feeling of resentment 
 at this display and extravagance in the midst of India’s 
 cry for liberty. I have heard all this gossip and read 
 these books and magazine articles. 
 
 I also know there are a lot of “funny things” in Eng¬ 
 land. We had the privilege of attending Grand Opera 
 
GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 173 
 
 in Covent Garden. King George, Queen Alexandra, 
 and most of the royal family were there. They were 
 given a worthy reception as they entered. A few days 
 later we attended the great Derby horse race at Epsom. 
 The papers said a million people were there. The King 
 and the royal family also came. That night we 
 attended a theater, when I saw in Leicester Square what 
 I thought was the same million people packed to suffo¬ 
 cation waiting for something. Of course I thought the 
 King was following me again. But upon investigation 
 I learned that Donohue, the jockey who rode “Captain 
 Cuttle” to victory in the Derby, was expected. The 
 ovation given him made the King’s seem like a church 
 service in Scotland. That is a “funny thing.” v 
 
 But of each of these sad and humorous incidents I 
 also know the reverse. I know the men and women of 
 that noble majority whose service to India is always 
 kind and generous, who shudder at violence or injustice 
 there. I know that host of larger number whose man¬ 
 ners are always gracious, who are forever saying “I’m 
 sorry” when they have nothing to be sorry for. I know 
 that deeper element who think of their country in terms 
 of service rather than ruling. 
 
 I know that tremendous temperance sentiment which 
 is rapidly being organized to fight out the liquor ques¬ 
 tion. I am sure it is a potent power, for already they 
 have driven whisky to its corner with two of its dying 
 cries, very familiar to Amerca: First, “Don’t meddle 
 with my business, for in doing so you attack the divine 
 right of personal liberty”; second, “Don’t meddle with 
 my business, for in doing so you will cut off revenues 
 and bankrupt the nation.” Whenever or wherever the 
 liquor crowd begin to say these things, one may be sure 
 
174 • ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 there is a strong temperance movement under way. 
 Add to that the supreme wail, “Prohibition does not 
 prohibit/’ and the evidence of power is complete. All 
 of these are now being heard in Britain. 
 
 I know the vast number of God-fearing people 
 around the world who believe Britain’s greatest contri¬ 
 bution to humanity is in the years yet to be—changed, 
 modified, reconstructed surely, but to live on. I know 
 Britain will have more prime ministers. The spirit of 
 Gladstone is still in the blood. Return to my original 
 thought leaves me room to say that I have no ability 
 which warrants the assumption of all knowledge con¬ 
 cerning the Government of Great Britain. I have no de¬ 
 sire to excuse her faults or magnify her virtues unduly. 
 What is written is based on the most intense feeling of 
 a lifetime, that every possible capacity of good is going 
 to be necessary to preserve a suffering humanity from 
 another great war. 
 
 Peace on earth is more important now, than hope of 
 peace for a millenium in eternity. If the utter collapse 
 of the British Empire or of any other nation, including 
 my own, were essential to that consummation, I would 
 hope for that to occur. But because I believe Great 
 Britain as a world power is seeking that peace, and 
 because I believe such a condition among the nations is 
 impossible now without the good offices of Great 
 Britain, and because I believe the enemies of inter¬ 
 national good will and concord have been unjustly im¬ 
 pugning the motives of this nation, I have been led to 
 call attention to these facts. 
 
 All those in this great world who have human love 
 for humankind, who seek peace and brotherhood, ought 
 to have warmest sympathy for the services now being 
 
GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 i/5 
 
 rendered by this steady persistent nation of unfailing 
 courage: Great Britain—sometimes in the wrong, 
 sometimes shortsighted, sometimes selfish, sometimes 
 very “peculiar”—she is a true friend of World Peace. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 “For unto whom much is given from him shall much be re¬ 
 quired.” 
 
 “In spite of our complete divorcement of church and state, 
 quite in harmony with our religious freedom, there is an im¬ 
 portant relationship between church and nation, because no nation 
 can prosper, no nation can survive, if it ever forgets Almighty 
 God. I have believed that religious reverence has played a very 
 influential and helpful part in the matchless American achieve¬ 
 ments, and I wish it ever to abide. If I were to utter a prayer 
 for the republic to-night, it would be to reconsecrate us in 
 religion and devotion and make us abidingly a God-fearing, God- 
 loving people.”—President Warren G. Harding, in an address 
 to the Bible Class of Calvary Baptist Church, Washington, D. C. 
 
 “It is gradually dawning upon the intelligence of mankind 
 that if they want to avoid going along the old ways which 
 lead to wars, it is America that matters most, America and 
 Britain. America more than Britain. Americans do not grab.”— 
 Colonel J. C. Wedgewood, M. P. 
 
 “It is in the power of America to rescue the world or lead it 
 to ruin .”—The Daily Yorodzu, Tokyo. 
 
 A FTER a long period away from home, a ship on 
 the Atlantic bound for New York is a good place 
 on which to get a right perspective of America by 
 an American. An earlier chapter entitled “In the Heart 
 of America” remained a sort of anchorage during 
 periods of many kinds of estimates, good, bad, and 
 indifferent, heard in many kinds of countries. Nothing 
 
 176 
 
AMERICA 
 
 177 
 
 has changed that essential view of what America is 
 now, but intervening experiences have raised a multi¬ 
 tude of questions about the long, long years which are 
 yet to be. What this great nation will be one hundred, 
 five hundred, and a thousand years hence is a more 
 complicated question, by far, than the mere recitation 
 of present facts. I have traveled over lands now in 
 ruins which were once the home of nations with a glory 
 of wealth and splendor and population never equaled 
 from New York harbor to the Golden Gate. I have 
 also been through others of more recent power which 
 are surely crumbling, breaking down, and on their way 
 to oblivion. It has, therefore, been impossible many 
 times to restrain the question, “What is America’s real 
 destiny?” “What has the distant future in store for 
 this favored people?” I know there is a type of pro¬ 
 vincial, untutored, untamed, loud-talking American, 
 who declares our country to be the grandest of all 
 history up to date, and with boisterous confidence avows 
 it will be forever greatest and will eventually swallow 
 up the whole earth. Out of many wanderings my re¬ 
 turn now brings this kind to memory with more pity 
 and disgust than ever. This loud-mouthed, swagger¬ 
 ing, boasting character is not only a travesty upon the 
 country, but a positive menace to the good friendship 
 America so much wishes to enjoy with other races and 
 nations. Every time he shouts about America’s great¬ 
 ness the country loses prestige among thinking folks, 
 and her stock goes lower. 
 
 On the deck of the ship I met one of America’s truly 
 great men, who had also been traveling around the 
 world. He said, “Out of your contacts with these 
 various countries which one are you most concerned 
 
.178 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 about, which one is most dangerous?” Without delay 
 I answered, much to his surprise, “America.” He was 
 thinking, I doubt not, of where there was most peril 
 of war breaking out immediately. I was thinking of 
 those forces necessary to produce enduring pfeace and 
 an enduring nation. 
 
 It would take a congress of the wisest men, repre¬ 
 senting all the varied life of the nation, even to 
 approach a prophetic program adequate to this future, 
 but one thing is absolutely certain and needs to be 
 written over every activity of the country’s life. If 
 America is to remain great, she must follow a phi¬ 
 losophy of national and international life which is 
 different from that of the older powers. She must be 
 saved from gradually adopting the old creeds of greed, 
 jealousy, selfishness, love of territorial expansion, and 
 hope of life by the means of force, and by war in 
 emergencies. These have been tried in the balance and 
 found wanting. These are the surest route to destruc¬ 
 tion. I would feel a greater degree of confidence for 
 the far future if I was certain that the whole nation 
 was convinced that we must be different. There would 
 doubtless be many long struggles in finding that dif¬ 
 ferent way, but they would be filled with hope if the 
 people were united in searching for a national life 
 which would be free from the pits into which so many 
 others have fallen. 
 
 I, therefore, look to the west over the bow of a great 
 ship, restless for a sign of the shores of that land out 
 of which I was born, and ready to salute the flags 
 floating from Forts Hamilton and Wadsworth and to 
 kiss the Statue of Liberty if I am so permitted to do. 
 But anxious for America, as not hitherto. Having 
 
AMERICA 
 
 179 
 
 looked forward to the same homecoming, up the same 
 matchless harbor, upon more than a score of other 
 occasions, I do not remember any similar feeling of 
 anxiety and, to a degree, of uncertainty. Will travelers 
 and tourists some day point to these shores and tell of a 
 glory once unparalleled but long since departed? 
 
 This feeling of anxiety is cherished, because America 
 must continue to be worthy of the noble name she has 
 now in the great wide world. I have been profoundly 
 impressed all the way by the expressions of almost ex¬ 
 travagant appreciation spoken by people of every place. 
 There is a feeling, which nearly reaches the mystical 
 at times, that our country and our people can do any¬ 
 thing they will to do. There is also a feeling in many 
 places that we are waiting to see how the rest of the 
 world acts and that if they do not do as we think they 
 ought, then we will properly step in at the psychological 
 moment and regulate the whole thing. I heard great 
 men in China say, “We are placing our hope in your 
 country, to see that we get fair play.” I had a com¬ 
 mittee of Indians say about the same thing, in an in¬ 
 terview in which they implored me to present their 
 problem to the highest officials of the United States. 
 In Constantinople I was told by men representing every 
 side of that fearful complication that any word America 
 would speak would be accepted. The voices of the 
 Greek and Armenian Patriarchs there were like a prayer 
 as they pleaded for our nation’s help. Greece, Bul¬ 
 garia, Jugo-Slavia, Hungary, Austria, and Czecho¬ 
 slovakia say the same in some form. At Belgrade a 
 Major of the Serbian Army took us to the monument, 
 in a park overlooking the Danube, which was built by 
 the Kaiser to commemorate the spot where the first 
 
180 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 shot of the Great War was fired, and where he had 
 placed a huge painting of himself, as he expected to sit 
 there and view the glories of his victory. But now 
 instead of his portrait the crown of the new nation is 
 displayed. As the officer reviewed the incident and 
 told of the gratitude of the Serbs he said, “We owe 
 all this to American dollars more than to French and 
 British bullets.” Even France and Great Britain are 
 saying they cannot hope for real solutions unless 
 America will stay by and help. It is just one continuous 
 query from one nation to the next, from one city to the 
 next, from one individual to the next, “What is 
 America going to do?” I do not believe all the world, 
 ever before in history, has turned to one nation with 
 such longing expectation as it now turns to America. 
 This of itself is a solemn responsibility. 
 
 At this point it is very interesting to observe that the 
 United States has clearly entered upon a world career. 
 Regardless of politics or statutes or party platforms, 
 the world scope of American life is begun. This may 
 have been going on little by little before 1914 or 1917, 
 but when we entered the scene of conflict and said by 
 so doing that a European war did affect us, the last 
 barrier was passed and the new young republic of the 
 West was a world affair, never to be the same again. A 
 new page in history was to be written and a new na¬ 
 tional psychology had to be reckoned with. There may 
 be a large element of doubt about how successful the 
 career will be, but it has commenced. To stop it would 
 be as difficult as to interrupt the growth of a healthy 
 twelve-year-old boy. “Isolation’' is impossible. It may 
 still be a good platform expression for a certain species 
 of politician who is found in Idaho or in Calfornia or 
 
AMERICA 
 
 181 
 
 in parts of Missouri, but it does not represent the best 
 in any one of those states, and cannot survive in the 
 nation. A traveler is led to observe with satisfaction 
 that America has accepted her share of the mandate for 
 the good morals of the world. The voluntary gifts 
 poured out in the realm of philanthropy by the people 
 of our land have simply staggered the world by their 
 magnitude. Sixty-eight million dollars spent in various 
 forms of relief in Russia alone since 1918 by American 
 societies is an item that evokes universal comments of 
 praise. A Scotchman said to me, “We stand aghast at 
 your American benevolences.” The American Relief 
 Association, the Near East Relief, the European 
 Student Relief, the Red Cross, the Young Men’s 
 Christian Association, the Young Women’s Christian 
 Association, the Young People's Movements, the Sun¬ 
 day School Association, the missionary societies, and 
 the educational boards are on the march to the utter¬ 
 most parts of the earth with magnificent programs, and 
 no hint of danger from entangling alliances is heard in 
 their circles. They have accepted the common duty of 
 all to help all in the struggle of life. They have no 
 small nationalistic borders to their vision, and no small 
 “Main Street” vocabulary. I know no language to 
 express properly the sense of appreciation which was 
 manifest in every place toward the Americans’ gen¬ 
 erosity in the realm of morals, welfare, education, and 
 religion. It is the truest token of the highest there is 
 to be found in American life. 
 
 In the presence of this unequaled era of munificent 
 giving for humanitarian purposes, however, we as a 
 people need to be reminded that this alone is not our full 
 duty. There are those who perhaps sincerely believe 
 
182 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 that this function is all that is required to meet what is 
 called responsibility in cooperation. Alfred E. Zim- 
 mem in his book “Europe in Convalescence,” in speak¬ 
 ing of this as a peril, says: 
 
 “The English-speaking peoples are giant givers and 
 it is ungracious to criticise what is a golden virtue. 
 But money given by private individuals, in a tardy 
 attempt to cure what should have been prevented by 
 public policy, carries with it less than the usual blessing. 
 It cannot be too often repeated that charity is no sub¬ 
 stitute for justice.” 
 
 In addition to these foreign expressions of America’s 
 altruistic spirit, the Eighteenth Amendment on Prohi¬ 
 bition is talked of to the most remote corner of the 
 world as an index of the nation’s tremendous moral en¬ 
 thusiasm. I spoke at luncheon and dinner functions, 
 where in many cases the tables did not give the im¬ 
 pression of a “bone-dry” affair, but where reference 
 to the persistent determination of the American people 
 to keep that law and enforce it, was applauded with 
 vigor. Men are saying that any nation with courage 
 enough to carry out such a program as that is worthy 
 of the highest esteem. America is meeting this moral 
 challenge at home and abroad not perfectly, but very 
 well, but she must do more. 
 
 America has also accepted a mandate in the financial 
 and economic world conditions. I have not met any 
 man in travel, neither have I read an article in any 
 paper or magazine intimating that United States money 
 and products and economic genius ought to be kept at 
 home. The men of power in this field do not seem to 
 be afraid of being contaminated even by European con- 
 
AMERICA 
 
 183 
 
 ditions in 1922, when at their worst in history. They 
 are not shouting about the Monroe Doctrine or exclu¬ 
 sive Americanism. They are on a regular crusade for 
 business. It is to be noted that the Wall Street banks 
 are engaged in “moratoriums,” “consortiums,” big 
 loans, and buying bonds. They have started on a 
 world scale. Also I observed that South Bend sewing 
 machines, Detroit automobiles, Jersey City soaps, Bos¬ 
 ton razors and garters, Hartford typewriters, Wichita 
 mentholatum, New York City gasolene, Pittsburgh 
 pickles, Poughkeepsie cough drops, Chicago reapers 
 and mowers, California peaches and grapes, Penn¬ 
 sylvania steel and iron, and a hundred other worthy 
 enterprises have cut the lines of all littleness and 
 launched out into vast internationalism. No place so 
 remote could be found without running smack into 
 the world-entangling economic sweep of these American 
 schemes. The men of business are far too sensible to 
 sit in a snug corner and talk about geographical limits 
 to their efforts. They believe in the uttermost parts 
 of the earth and are going there. I was proud to know 
 that their contribution is, generally speaking, making 
 a good impression. I am quite certain the reputation of 
 the American business man is better than it was in 
 1913, when I had watched the earlier beginnings of 
 this phase of our life in many of the same countries. 
 It is not perfect, much is to be desired, but it is on the 
 whole good. 
 
 But even greater anxiety is felt for America and her 
 future because she must continue to follow these world 
 impulses to their logical and final conclusion. They 
 must be accepted where they are most needed and where 
 they have more influence than at any other point. We 
 
184 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 feel the moral command to be our brother’s keeper 
 without regard to geography. We ask the right to go 
 anywhere at any time to conduct business with anybody 
 and demand protection, and by the law of common 
 decency we ought to carry the principles clear through 
 and assume all that inheres in such a philosophy. The 
 following quotation from the correspondent Mr. O. P. 
 Bland is given as a remark made to him by the late 
 Willard D. Straight, and is worthy of real considera¬ 
 tion by all honest Americans: 
 
 “Read the history of our diplomatic relations, which 
 is full of inconsistencies, where we have demanded full 
 recognition not only of our rights but of our privi¬ 
 leges, and failed to accord just compensation to those 
 whom we ourselves had injured or imposed upon. 
 Time and again we have demanded our share in the 
 international pie and refused or failed to furnish the 
 fuel for cooking it or to assume any responsibility for 
 its proper digestion.” 
 
 As the world sees our mandate accepted in the realm 
 of philanthropy, and witnesses the desire ever growing 
 to profit by the commercial relations, it is bewildered 
 when it hears that we have a high and holy horror of 
 being asked to assume vital relationships to perfectly 
 simple and necessary political responsibilities. In con¬ 
 versation with Dr. W. W. Yen in Peking, who was 
 then a member of the Cabinet, he said: “We can’t 
 quite understand you and your country. You seem to 
 have two kinds of life—one moral, religious, and 
 philanthropic. This one is very noble and generous. 
 It led Mr. Rockefeller to give us our great hospital. 
 But the other is political and it seems to be narrow, 
 
AMERICA 
 
 185 
 
 selfish, and unworthy/’ This is the view of the world, 
 and the unfavorable change in sentiment, very marked 
 during the past two years, is because many friends of 
 a short while back believe that this lower, baser type 
 has come to prevail. 
 
 America is at the crossroads, and in a short time will 
 have accepted a philosophy, which will do one of two 
 things for her eventual destiny. First, she may permit 
 a little clique of small, selfish-minded politicians to 
 dragoon her into the “America First,” “Keep out of 
 entangling alliances,” “Remember the Monroe Doc¬ 
 trine” idea. These so styled “irreconcilables” have 
 already blackened the good name of America in the 
 estimation of high-minded people in every nation on 
 earth. If they should finally prevail and the selfish 
 theory become a national characteristic, then there is 
 defeat ahead somewhere, some day, for this proud 
 nation of power to-day. Second, she may brush this 
 selfish cult aside and follow the noble impulses for 
 universal service, and in doing so accept political man¬ 
 dates, accept world responsibilities, in the field of 
 diplomacy as well as in morals and money. If history 
 means anything, and the law of cause and effect still 
 exists, then by the choice of one of these two doctrines 
 America will remain great and be greater or she will 
 begin to shrivel and, while the process may be slow, 
 she will eventually go out as others have who have tried 
 to live for themselves alone. There is just one supreme 
 issue in America to-day and that is to make secure the 
 second principle. The accomplishment of this end 
 ought to engage the energies of every man and woman 
 who sincerely loves the nation. 
 
 Lest the attitude of the writer be interpreted as that 
 
186 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 of one who himself was on the wrong side of the Presi¬ 
 dential election of 1920, it is important to say that he 
 voted for the Hon. Warren G. Harding for that office 
 and worked for the success of that ticket and has thus 
 far had no reason to regret that action. He would do 
 the same again by what knowledge he has. Decision 
 was based then upon Mr. Harding’s attitude toward 
 the Eighteenth Amendment and also upon a lack of 
 confidence in the Covenant of the League of Nations 
 and certain elements of the Versailles Treaty. None of 
 these has changed. He was also largely influenced by a 
 personal interview with Mr. Harding on October 5, 
 1920, and by the following personal letter received 
 under date of October 22, 1920: 
 
 “Marion, Ohio, 
 
 “October 22, 1920. 
 
 “My dear Mr. Smith : 
 
 “I greatly regret that the plans made for me by the 
 National Committee have made it impossible to carry 
 out the tentative arrangement we had made for a 
 meeting with the delegation of clergymen here. I 
 should have welcomed this opportunity to meet with 
 these men who have so much to do with the guidance 
 of our people in matters which affect our welfare as a 
 people, for our welfare is concerned, not only with the 
 material things of life, but with our spiritual, moral, 
 and ethical progress. 
 
 “The home and the church are the foundations and 
 bulwarks of our civilization, and the public men of the 
 country and the ministers of the churches should be 
 brought into frequent contact for their mutual enlight¬ 
 enment and for the uniting of their efforts for the 
 common good. 
 
 “I should like to have impressed upon these men 
 
AMERICA 
 
 187 
 
 that my announced position with reference to our part 
 in the world movement for world peace did not indi¬ 
 cate any desire to fail to recognize our duties and 
 responsibilities' as a Christian nation, but that it was 
 formed out of a conviction that the proposed League 
 of Nations would endanger rather than preserve that 
 peace and that at the same time it would sacrifice our 
 independence and endanger the liberties which we have 
 secured for ourselves at such great cost but which we 
 hope to aid other nations in acquiring. 
 
 “I should like to have said to them directly that I 
 am committed morally, religiously, and politically to 
 every movement which will aid the United States to a 
 reconsideration of the principles of morality, honesty, 
 and spirituality, which marked the Pilgrim settlements 
 upon our shores and which laid the foundations for the 
 first enduring Republican government. 
 
 “Upon one of the issues in which the Church has ex¬ 
 pressed naturally a great interest I should have said to 
 them that I stand by my vote upon the Eighteenth 
 Amendment; that I would not recall it; that I would 
 oppose the reestablishment of the traffic in intoxicating 
 liquors and that, if elected, I would do my part to se¬ 
 cure the enforcement of the law with all the power 
 vested in the Executive. 
 
 “And I would have asked these men of the churches 
 to have remembered that a successful administration 
 of the office of President requires that he shall have 
 back of him in all his worthy aims and purposes a con¬ 
 stantly aroused and enlightened public sentiment and 
 that to produce such sentiment would be in a large part 
 their work and their responsibility. 
 
 “If you have opportunity, will you not convey to the 
 men of the Church who have proposed to honor me 
 with a visit and to other clergymen whom you meet, 
 the sentiments which I have indicated and which are 
 
188 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 sincerely held by me and to which I am pledged 
 officially and as a churchman and a believer in the 
 Master ? 
 
 “Very sincerely, 
 
 “Warren G. Harding. 
 
 “Fred B. Smith, Esq., 
 
 “New York.” 
 
 I believe the President is honestly trying to carry out 
 those promises and that but for a certain kind of politi¬ 
 cal heckling and blocking he would have been much 
 further on the way than he is now. 
 
 This is not written as a defense of myself or any 
 others who followed the same course then. That may 
 have been error; time alone can answer that question. 
 This comment as a parenthetical remark is given, that 
 even more value may be accorded to this view of the 
 overwhelming importance of America’s accepting now, 
 fully, in all respects, the doctrine of world cooperation, 
 instead of international welfare service only and na¬ 
 tional political isolation. 
 
 I believe this choice is paramount for America: In 
 the first place that the streams of her own life may be 
 kept pure and strong. There is a law as scientific as 
 anything ever worked out in the laboratory that “with¬ 
 holding more than is meet tendeth to poverty.” 
 America is rich now beyond all others and will be so 
 for generations to come. I am to-day reminded of the 
 poverty through which I have passed during these 
 months, covering more than three fourths of the entire 
 distance—people by millions whose daily theme of con¬ 
 versation still remains, “How big was your piece of 
 bread to-day?” I am reminded of what I shall see in 
 a few days—rich fields, well fed and clothed people, 
 
AMERICA 
 
 189 
 
 factories running, banks prospering. “More million¬ 
 aires three times over than in all the rest of the world 
 put together”—so a banker in Austria said in describing 
 our country. All of this notwithstanding the fact that 
 I notice some American papers still talking about 
 “business depression.” As compared with the other 
 parts of the world such talk ought to appear only in the 
 funny columns of Life, or ought to be inserted in the 
 “Death Notices” page with heavy black lines around it. 
 America is so rich that the statisticians are running out 
 of ciphers enough to convey the actual figures. America 
 is the only place on earth where they sell the book 
 entitled, “Eat and Grow Thin,” or where Walter 
 Camp’s reducing records are on the market. What will 
 she do with this power? This is more vital than tax 
 rates or the Bolsheviki movement. Mr. Franklin 
 Simonds, the newspaper correspondent, wrote an 
 article recently telling of the shock which came to him 
 in returning from a tour through Europe to see the 
 contrast in what was talked of in America and Europe. 
 He said there seemed to be more interest in the United 
 States in the baseball score than in the destiny of the 
 human race. 
 
 If an era of high living, ease, indulgence, and luxury 
 has commenced, all that is needed to know the future 
 is to study the nations, from ancient Persia to Rome, 
 where once the people lived by that theory and remem¬ 
 ber what happened to them. Luxury and soft living 
 have left a train of destruction and death, with never 
 an exception. America ought to hear no call to small¬ 
 ness, no lure to selfishness. She needs the voice of 
 service, of sacrifice, of cooperation to save her own soul 
 from defeat by an easy life. The greatest teacher of 
 
190 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 % 
 
 mankind left as one of His finest principles the slogan, 
 “He that saveth his life shall lose it.” It is as true in 
 collective relationships as in the experience of an in¬ 
 dividual. 
 
 In the second place, America must follow this prin¬ 
 ciple of complete cooperation, that she may do her full 
 duty in preserving the world from more disaster. I met 
 one of New York City’s greatest citizens on the ship, 
 who talked of the terrible situation of atrocities and the 
 peril of armed conflict in the zone of Constantinople. 
 After he had covered the range of that unthinkable con¬ 
 dition, with millions having been hastened to death 
 and more doomed to the same end and of the probable 
 fact that only guns and soldiers would ever quiet it, he 
 said, “And I believe America is to blame for it and 
 could have prevented it.” His name is known all over 
 the nation for benevolence and good works. He is a 
 Republican in politics and voted for the present ad¬ 
 ministration. He is a patriot of high order. Yet this 
 was his conclusion as to one result of American isola¬ 
 tion. This terrible indictment is shared by thousands of 
 people the world around. One public official of a nation 
 which remained neutral during the war said to me, “If 
 more war breaks out here in Europe, as now seems 
 probable, I believe it will be America’s fault. Your 
 country could stop it and it is the only country which 
 can.” If these gentlemen are right or half right, there 
 is no other question of duty so important since 1776 
 as that America shall stop quibbling, stop evading, stop 
 listening to politicians who are most concerned about 
 votes, stop heeding newspaper articles from a source 
 which was never known to do an unselfish service, and 
 wholeheartedly without reservation walk in and sit at 
 
AMERICA 
 
 191 
 
 the table where serious men try to fathom the depths 
 of the complications left by the war. 
 
 I have no desire to exalt one nation over another at 
 this time; far too much of that has been done already. 
 Neither have I any desire to irritate the questions 
 between the Entente Allies and the former Central 
 Powers. But, with charity to all, America needs to 
 be furiously reminded that Great Britain needs the help 
 of the rest of the Anglo-Saxon constituency, to hold the 
 line she has marked out for the reconstruction of the 
 world. Lloyd George may have been very fallible and 
 weak at times, and all the rest that is said of him. But 
 he is not Great Britain, he is only Prime Minister. 
 Britain at heart is contending for the principles we hold 
 and needs our vote and presence in every trying hour. 
 She was generous to the United States’ view in the 
 Washington Conference, and if America loves liberty 
 and peace and brotherhood and a square deal, then she 
 ought to take her place and help in all other such criti¬ 
 cal periods. The peace of the world cannot be secured 
 without the unfailing solidarity of the Anglo-Saxon 
 people. And this solidarity is not possible so long as 
 America holds aloof with a ‘‘holier than thou” sort of 
 political philosophy. 
 
 In the third place, this principle of world coopera¬ 
 tion is vital to America if we are to fulfill the high 
 purposes we professed in 1917 and 1918. Ambassador 
 Harvey gave the whole world a rude shock in his fam¬ 
 ous London speech, when he said that America entered 
 the war “to save her own skin.” Reduced to its logical 
 conclusion, that meant that liberty and democracy were 
 not vital things in our life, but that we would fight if 
 our own interests were involved. How poorly he rep- 
 
192 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 resented the people of his own country was made known 
 by the storm of indignation which swept over the land. 
 People of all parties were outraged by such insolence 
 and by such an interpretation. How poorly he repre¬ 
 sented the White House is evidenced by the fact that 
 he has not since given way to any more bursts of that 
 type of oratory. Colonel Harvey said it and no doubt 
 meant and probably thinks so now. But at least a 
 hundred million other Americans do not accept that 
 definition. However, the philosophy of isolation, of 
 refusal to help carry the burdens of the world’s an¬ 
 guish which came as one of the results of a war in 
 which we were engaged, will finally lead the rest of 
 mankind to think he was correct, notwithstanding our 
 protests and contradictions. 
 
 Already it is being freely noted that when the Pacific 
 Ocean looked threatening and Japan was being talked 
 of as a coming foe, the Washington Conference was 
 called for the limitation of armaments and the Pacific 
 problems. Everybody accepted the invitation and the 
 results were so good that the war peril is far removed 
 from the western border of the United States. Soon 
 after that, however, the Genoa Conference was called; 
 we were invited but didn’t think it expedient to accept 
 and graciously declined. It is very natural for Europe 
 to think and say that this looks as though Colonel Har¬ 
 vey was right. Genoa didn’t get along very well and 
 has left Europe in gloom. It might have done better 
 if we had been there. I have heard no one question the 
 high motives of President Harding or of Secretary of 
 State Hughes. Their names are synonyms of justice, 
 peace, and good will. But the people in distant parts 
 think we were again kept out of a place of service to 
 
AMERICA 
 
 193 
 
 the world by the fear of the same group of home¬ 
 brewed politicians. I believe there is no reasonable 
 doubt that America would have been at Genoa if there 
 had been any danger in securing the ratification of the 
 Pacific treaties. But folks just can’t help feeling that 
 our immediate “skin” was in danger at Washington 
 and not at Genoa. Other conferences and assemblies 
 are going to be held, and some Society or Association 
 or League of Nations will live, and America must par¬ 
 ticipate or be branded as a selfish quitter. The peril to 
 humanity by the world situation now is more dangerous 
 than in 1917. It is more alarming than in March, 1918. 
 America didn’t quit then. Her contribution of men, 
 money, and morale saved the world in those dark hours. 
 She has men, money, vision, influence, and courage now. 
 The need, the emergency, the impelling necessity, are 
 greater. She must enter the scene and help to the 
 utmost, or accept the verdict of humanity that 
 she responds only when her own skin is attacked, 
 and carry in her own heart a consciousness of cow¬ 
 ardice. 
 
 The most prominent leaders in eighteen nations be¬ 
 lieve that at present Europe is headed to financial ruin 
 and, worse still, to another war, and also that the whole¬ 
 hearted unselfish cooperation of America may avert 
 both tragedies. If another war should come, with its 
 harvest of death, disease, and starvation, and the judg¬ 
 ment should be that our failure to help was the indirect 
 cause, it will form the saddest page in all history. 
 America is glorious in fields and harvests, in men and 
 women of courage and vision, in the place she has in 
 the affections of the world, and in influence. She must 
 not permit an insignificant minority to defeat her ful- 
 
194 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 fillment of the truest love she cherishes for the peace, 
 concord, and brotherhood of all the world. 
 
 Once again, I am led to remember that all the sources 
 of correct information have left the impression that the 
 American people in vast majority are in favor of this 
 complete, unqualified cooperation in world affairs. I 
 am convinced that if that question were submitted to 
 a referendum by the whole people, the result would be 
 two to one in favor of it. A few professional politicians 
 who live by office rather than by principles still think 
 the vote of November, 1920, indicated something of the 
 other view. One very prominent man attempted to es¬ 
 tablish the isolation theory as an American idea based 
 upon that result. As one who voted with that majority, 
 I protest against that analysis. As one knowing rather 
 intimately the sentiment of 170,000 Christian churches 
 with 27,000,000 communicants, I protest against that 
 being presented as the doctrine to which they subscribe. 
 There were a dozen other questions involved in Novem¬ 
 ber, 1920, the chief of them being the Eighteenth 
 Amendment. 
 
 I am remembering this now, only because it relates 
 to the method by which America can find liberty to 
 cooperate in a truly Christian way. It is obvious that 
 this full, free participation of the United States, in good 
 service in all the tasks of a distracted world, will never 
 be secured by a unanimous vote of the Republican party. 
 It is equally obvious it will never be secured by a unani¬ 
 mous vote of the Democratic party. There have been 
 frequent times since 1918 when such unanimity in either 
 party would have carried the principle to victory, in¬ 
 cluding participation in the League of Nations with 
 reasonable reservations. There is a small minority in 
 
AMERICA 
 
 195 
 
 each party ready to bicker, trade, vote any way or not 
 at all, to defeat this noblest desire of a free people. 
 There was an hour when United States Senator Lodge, 
 if he had had no solicitude for party machinery, could 
 have written his name in a different realm than it is 
 eventually to be in, by reason of his failure to carry 
 the League of Nations ratification. There was an hour 
 when President Wilson could have said the word and 
 advised his party to accept the perfectly innocent res¬ 
 ervations, and the United States would have been in the 
 League of Nations. In that first hour Senator Lodge 
 could have led enough Republicans to vote with the 
 Democrats to have carried the Senate. But it was a 
 Democratic measure and would have been a Democratic 
 asset, and therefore could not be. In the second hour 
 President Wilson only needed to say “Yes” if he loved 
 the ideal so purely as he professed. But it was a Re¬ 
 publican measure and would have been a Republican as¬ 
 set, and therefore could not be. 
 
 The Christian people of the United States are prac¬ 
 tically unanimous in this hope of cooperation, believing 
 it to be the only real Christian attitude to take. But 
 they may as well know that prayers and petitions and 
 frenzied zeal will not suffice till this ridiculous political 
 contradiction is blasted wide open. America’s heart is 
 not selfish, her desire is not for “America first and to 
 hell with the rest of the world,” her hope and wish is to 
 help in every way she can. The Christian churches are 
 literally aflame with this expectation of peace, based 
 upon international good will and service. What 
 America must realize is that this is a new political 
 cleavage, possibly worked out in changing the old 
 parties to fit the new hour, possibly by a new one Cer- 
 
196 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 tainly as the old ones stand to-day, they are both de¬ 
 void of any great burning moral issues to inspire sacri¬ 
 fice or call out the nobler qualities of a nation’s life. 
 They each hold on their books men who never ought 
 to belong to anything in common. William Jennings 
 Bryan I think is still a Democrat. When I left home, so 
 was Charles Murphy of New York City. Strange com¬ 
 bination that. It is not easy to know why Warren G. 
 Harding and Charles E. Hughes should belong to the 
 same political regime as Hiram Johnson and William 
 E. Borah. All of these are as different as men who 
 might have lived in centuries two thousand years apart 
 and in distances as remote as Mars and the Island of 
 Yap. 
 
 I believe in churches and Bibles and preachers, and 
 prayers and colleges and universities, but, function as 
 they may, if America is to fulfill her hour, is to en- 
 hearten the world, is to share with the peacemakers, she 
 must find some way to mobilize all the good people who 
 love universal concord and have sense enough to under¬ 
 stand that its future weal is in mutual affiliations, social, 
 moral, spiritual, economic, and political. 
 
 America is a peace-loving nation. She has no ac¬ 
 count in her ledger for “indemnities.” She returns 
 them for educational purposes if they are received. 
 She does not want an inch of any new territory. She 
 is not harboring any passion of hate or jealousy against 
 anybody. She is in command of her faculties, not 
 having suffered terribly as others did. She is strong, 
 healthy, prosperous, and ought to be the last to wrap 
 the cloak of her security about her and refuse to exhaust 
 every talent and capacity of her life to bind up the open 
 wounds of earth’s struggling, war-cursed, less favored 
 
AMERICA 
 
 197 
 
 sister nations and to help usher in the day when God 
 will make wars to cease. If a cablegram could be sent 
 to every capital city of the world, announcing that 
 America had decided to accept fully her world responsi¬ 
 bility and to participate in every function of world af¬ 
 fairs, the morale of the distressed nations would be 
 lifted fifty per cent, the depleted and depressed money 
 markets would jump up fifty per cent and the peril of 
 war would be removed almost completely. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE CPIRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 Is It a Help or a Menace to World Peace? 
 
 “If one of my trade union friends in America should gather all 
 the organized labor men together some Sunday morning and see 
 that they all went to church, they would fill every church to 
 overflowing. They would also create a sensation. Now the* 
 organized labor men would do just that thing if they could 
 have seen what I have seen in the Orient. 
 
 “Whatever we have in the West—and we have considerable— 
 we owe to Christianity.”—Victor Murdock, “China, Mysterious 
 and Marvelous.” 
 
 “We need if not a new religion, a new impetus towards the 
 unseen, towards the realm where moth and rust do not corrupt 
 and where are garnered the riches which no grasping govern¬ 
 ments can tax and no fluctuations of exchange can diminish. 
 Who shall guide us into that country? Those who have 
 already looked across at its shining distances. . . . 
 
 “The central difficulty of the economic situation in Europe 
 is the problem of reparation. That problem is, at bottom, not 
 an economic problem; it is not even a political problem; it is a 
 vtoral problem. . . . 
 
 “So long as the moral atmosphere remains as it is, coopera¬ 
 tion between France and Germany must remain on a purely 
 material plane, capable indeed of involving Britain in a damag¬ 
 ing isolation and even of forming the nucleus of an anti-British 
 or anti-Anglo-Saxon bloc of continental peoples, but not of re¬ 
 awakening the old lost sense of the moral unity of Europe.”— 
 Alfred E. Zimmern, “Europe in Convalescence.” 
 
 T HE most difficult of all the attempts to appraise 
 the impressions of a world tour upon a peace 
 message is that one reached when the issues of 
 the Christian Church are involved. Remembering the 
 
 198 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 199 
 
 wide range of views given by the witnesses who so 
 largely make up the facts which have been recorded 
 upon many topics and at many places, and that ofttimes 
 they have seemed to be at complete disagreement upon 
 vital questions, I am forced to the conclusion, however, 
 that upon no other theme are the extremes so wide apart 
 as upon the question of the Christian Church, its past 
 influence, its present hope, and its future possibilities. 
 Amid these conflicting views there has sometimes risen 
 a temptation to omit any effort to formulate another 
 statement, but rather to leave those who read to draw 
 their own inferences so far as the Church is involved. 
 It would be the easiest way past a difficult situation. 
 
 This impulse, however, cannbt be followed because 
 the auspices under which all the facts have been at¬ 
 tained have in every place been the Christian churches 
 and their affiliated societies, related to the world alli¬ 
 ances of churches. Neither could it be followed, be¬ 
 cause it would be in neglect of the most pronounced 
 personal conviction which abides out of all the confu¬ 
 sions. Likewise it could not be adhered to, for if the 
 Christian Church is as indispensable as many believe 
 it to be, then that fact ought to be verified, so that all 
 energies might be more wisely directed towards those 
 methods which have real potency. 
 
 Two conclusions are vital at the beginning. The 
 Christian Church spoken of and finally held in highest 
 permanent esteem is not just what the super-ecclesiastics 
 call “Church” and around which they attempt to build 
 a high, holy, limited sacredness. If I were compelled 
 now to accept as a Christian church every building 
 which I have seen with that sign on the gate, or with a 
 cross over the spire, I would abandon the hope which I 
 
200 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 expect to record. Many of these have seemed more 
 like ecclesiastical garages, with a few high-salaried re¬ 
 ligious chauffeurs in charge. Something grander than 
 these is the Church here referred to. It is, on the con¬ 
 trary, an inclusive term, centering in the primary 
 Church but also taking into full account its specialized 
 branches, such as the temperance societies, the Sunday 
 schools, the Young Men's Christian Association, the 
 Young Women’s Christian Association, the young 
 people’s organizations, and others which bear vital fel- 
 lc .ship to the Church as the Mother of all. I think of 
 the Christian Church as something infinitely grander, 
 broader, and bigger than the organized institution 
 which has grown up by that name and is so largely 
 dominated by human limitations, by man-made stand¬ 
 ards of membership and functions. 
 
 There is also a certain elimination which is de¬ 
 manded, or all that follows will break down in the pres¬ 
 ence of thinking men. The Church here believed in is 
 not the type proclaimed by a certain sect of orthodox 
 agitators found in every land at every port at every 
 occasion. They are usually self-styled preservers of the 
 faith, guardians of the holy of holies, the inside friends 
 of God, the champions of their own pet ideas of the fun¬ 
 damentals, the supreme judges of “who’s-who” in the 
 Kingdom. I would join the league of church pessimists 
 if I felt they represented the Church of the future. They 
 thrive on controversy, they are happy only when ma¬ 
 ligning the characters of those who do not accept in 
 every detail their pet dogmas, they relish calamity as 
 a sweet morsel, and contemplate heaven as a place where 
 the select, whom they have approved, shall sit in bliss 
 watching all others burn in hell. This type naturally 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 201 
 
 cannot be concerned about peace and good will on earth, 
 for their philosophy is based upon the opposite culmina¬ 
 tion. Without further comment so far as this article 
 is concerned, no account of that cult is taken. 
 
 With this much cleared away, return can be made 
 to the place the Christian Church has in this vital 
 task of bringing order out of world chaos. 
 
 The two voices referred to which seem so far apart 
 must both be listened to, if a just conclusion is to be 
 reached. One is saying in terms of unqualified confi¬ 
 dence that the Church has failed absolutely and is no 
 longer to be counted upon as a potent factor in influ¬ 
 encing questions which reach beyond those of personal 
 morality. This one calls attention to the hopeless divi¬ 
 sions in the Church, and points to important parts of 
 the world where the sects are still fighting each other 
 and to others where the Church once flourished and is 
 now dead and its place taken by alien forms of religion. 
 Attention is likewise directed to the fact that the 
 Church as now organized is unable to meet great human 
 needs in the world in time of panic, famine, or war, and 
 that immense independent relief and welfare societies 
 have been organized to fulfill these missions, which 
 ought to have been the first concern of the Church. The 
 attitude of much of the Church upon the social and in¬ 
 dustrial questions of the past twenty-five years is being 
 called to mind as an evidence that the Church is tra¬ 
 ditionally ultra-conservative and is rather inclined to 
 follow instead of lead in great social reforms. 
 
 No small notice is directed to the trend of schools, 
 colleges, and universities of all kinds towards freeing 
 themselves from the direct administration of the 
 Church. The statement is commonly made that no high 
 
202 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 grade school or university with a high grade faculty 
 can live if controlled by direct ecclesiastical agencies. 
 Comparisons are being made of this significant fact as 
 applied to one hundred and fifty years in the past. 
 Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, North¬ 
 western, and a long list of other universities which once 
 were under exclusive church control and are now inde¬ 
 pendent, form the basis for this criticism, and by this 
 reasoning the verdict is reached that the Church is 
 passing out of the realm of leadership in the educated 
 world. 
 
 Recently I heard a great preacher, a highly cultured 
 man, a known optimist during twenty years of inti¬ 
 mate acquaintance, say, “The Christian Church has 
 reached a new day in history. She is now entering upon 
 a fight to a finish; it is a struggle for life as against 
 death.” 
 
 Not long ago I chanced to be speaking to seven hun¬ 
 dred upperclassmen of a university and had presented 
 to them what I believed then and now to be the supreme 
 opportunity of investing life in the Christian ministry, 
 when at the close I was met by a Bishop of the Church, 
 one of those men bigger than any one church who said, 
 “If the Church is to be led by progressive men in the 
 future you were right in your appeal, but if reaction¬ 
 aries are to be in control, then the Christian ministry 
 is only a fit place for second class men, and not for the 
 kind you were addressing.” 
 
 These are only mild hints of the negative kind. A 
 more violent group is saying the Church is not only 
 inefficient, but a menace to the good of the world and 
 ought to be put clear out of the field. Alfred Zimmern, 
 who has already been quoted, says that the Church 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 203 
 
 instead of being the foremost institution in the peace 
 of the world has in reality become an “obstacle.” The 
 author of “The Mirrors of Downing Street” in his 
 most recent book, “Painted Windows” draws the same 
 lesson in the concluding chapter and not only ignores 
 the Church as having any value, but indicts it as a posi¬ 
 tive hindrance. The writer has been familiar for a 
 quarter of a century with all forms of attacks upon the 
 Christian institutions, but has not in as many years 
 heard any so severe as during 1921 and 1922. 
 
 These criticisms are pathetic, they are sad, it is a 
 calamity that any ground should have been given for 
 them. But sadder yet is the complacent manner in 
 which some church leaders arlswer them with a cynical 
 smile and the same old shelf-worn excuses and ex¬ 
 travagant claims. One with whom I talked personally 
 upon this phase of the world situation, calmly said, 
 ‘Well, that does not apply to my church, for we in¬ 
 creased our membership eight per cent in two years 
 and closed the period with all bills paid.” Such an¬ 
 swers to solemn problems of church life or death lead 
 one to be inclined to accept .the Zimmern theory. These 
 criticisms are serious; they are not without some basis; 
 they must be met upon a platform of respect for those 
 who utter them. 
 
 Just as striking, however, are the comments being 
 made by the other type, who are saying that the Chris¬ 
 tian Church is the hope and the only hope of humanity 
 and the world, in its travail for peace and harmony. 
 Some are saying, “Every other institution and program 
 has failed and the Church has never been really tried 
 on a big scale; let the Church be given an honest 
 chance.” Others are calling attention to the thought 
 
204 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 that, sad as the world conditions are and terrible as the 
 Great War was, both might have been indescribably 
 sadder but for the influence which the Christian Church 
 and its organizations have exercised. 
 
 I have heard men pointing to the Church as the se¬ 
 curity of a better life among the nations, who do not 
 go to church or belong to any religious society. I sat 
 at a luncheon where an orthodox Hebrew, a rich mer¬ 
 chant and philanthropist, pleaded with a hundred church 
 leaders to take the initiative in a world crusade for 
 brotherhood, and during his remarks he said, “This is 
 the only organization I know which has any basis of 
 genuine hope in preserving us from another war.” I 
 heard a politician, a Prime Minister, a labor leader, 
 who said he had not been in a church in twenty years 
 say: “We have tried the politicians; they can’t keep 
 us from war. We have tried the newspapers; they 
 have failed. Let us now try the Christian Church; 
 perhaps they can teach us a better way.” 
 
 With due consideration for all and not the full con¬ 
 fidence one might wish to possess, and with the facts 
 available by limited visits to many different nations, 
 the writer accepts the latter view as the correct one, 
 and the one which above all the handicaps ought to be 
 stressed to the remotest corner of earth with every 
 speed compatible with efficiency. This conclusion is 
 buttressed by a few indisputable evidences. 
 
 In the first place, the great peace emotion or impulse 
 which is so manifest in the world needs an organization, 
 a deposit, equal to the depths of its desires. The Chris¬ 
 tian Church confesses that its organic life is not perfect, 
 but it also claims it is the best thing the world has upon 
 a scale wide enough to hope for success. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 205 
 
 All the data is not at hand, but enough is available to 
 state that the Church has at least 1,125,000 special 
 messengers of the official class, not to mention the mil¬ 
 lions of unclassified of the laity, who are united in the 
 belief that peace on earth is the mightiest message ever 
 delivered to man. With ample allowance for the utter 
 inability and unworthiness of many of these, there is 
 found here a vast promoting power which, when once 
 aroused and united, can carry the world for a com¬ 
 manding moral ideal. A percentage, all too large, may 
 be tied hand, foot, and mouth to obsolete topics, but 
 the greater majority of these are free, unbought, and 
 unafraid souls who will speak what they believe to be 
 God’s truth. In view of the fact that it seems to be 
 rather popular to belittle Christian clergymen and spe¬ 
 cial religious workers, I venture the suggestion that of 
 no other profession of like numbers is there so large a 
 percentage who are, from tip to toe, consecrated to 
 the vows they have taken. There are not as many as 
 the needs of the world call for, and none of them claim 
 perfection. But as pleaders they are the world’s best 
 hope of peace. I have visited many cities in many 
 lands of varying vicissitudes, but never one spot where 
 there was no Christian preacher, missionary, evangelist, 
 or teacher. They are everywhere. No political or edu¬ 
 cational system can claim this wide expanse for its 
 organization. Poor, lame, halting as it may be, the 
 Christian Church comes to this hour with an organiza¬ 
 tion which is world extensive and getting stronger 
 every hour. The peace movement in behalf of all 
 humanity needs this machinery. 
 
 In the second place, the true doctrine of the Gospel 
 of Christ is perfect. If all the horrible interpretations 
 
2o6 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 are listened to, and all the weird theological incanta¬ 
 tions which have been dragged in must be given place, 
 and a full catalogue be made of all the parasitical sub¬ 
 jects which crazy people have attached to Christianity, 
 all combined they do not mar the beauty of the Gospel 
 of Jesus, given in the unequaled Sermon on the 
 Mount with its Beatitudes and central theme, 
 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called 
 the children of God.” Men are fallible, weak, and 
 bigoted, but this doctrine was perfect two thousand 
 years ago and is perfect now. I found in mingling with 
 many forms of religion much of beautiful poetry and 
 much of high sentiment about eternity and immortality, 
 but I found no other proposing to heal the wounds of 
 this world’s hurt and to have a Kingdom of life and 
 brotherhood on earth. 
 
 The world is in need of some message which can in¬ 
 terpret life upon a plane higher than cold materialism. 
 The pit in which the European nations find themselves 
 now, which is deeper and darker than in 1918, has been 
 dug by an incessant irritation of economics and geog¬ 
 raphy and the bottom has not been reached, and will 
 not be till some new moral, spiritual, altruistic wave 
 moves their dominant life. The Christian Church has 
 this doctrine, it knows this language, it is the only plat¬ 
 form from which may go out a new* higher call which 
 may leaven humanity with the hope of brotherhood. 
 
 In the third place it is to be observed that somehow, 
 someway, the Christian Church produces an atmo¬ 
 sphere, an attitude, a great hope. 
 
 I have been led to say a few times that if put in a 
 room blindfolded and permitted to talk with men in 
 periods of five minutes each, I could give an accurate 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 2°7 
 
 statement of the controlling belief of each, without pro¬ 
 pounding one direct religious or theological question. 
 All that is necessary is to provoke discussion of the 
 problems of war, its past effect and the probability of 
 more. To the man a stranger to the Christian theory, 
 “war always has been and always will be.” To him it 
 is silly and sentimental to talk of a time when armed 
 conflict will have ceased. He says, “We are in a fight 
 all the way, the world is built on the idea of the sur¬ 
 vival of the biggest.” Cold, calculating, metallic, ma¬ 
 terialistic, fatalistic is his vocabulary. 
 
 In the man who has really been brought into the zone 
 where the Gospel of Christ is working, there is a 
 brotherhood desire, a searching after concord, a love 
 of comradeship, a conviction that God did not mean 
 wars to be, and that He will eventually make them to 
 cease. The world is under the spell of an awful pes¬ 
 simism ; the printing presses seem to be running night 
 and day turning out the somber prophesies of the utter 
 collapse of civilization. The street and market places 
 are filled with the recitations of hate growing keener, 
 and war and desolation of a worse kind yet dawning 
 nearer. The Christian platform still speaks of the 
 Kingdom of God, of the higher hope of the day when 
 everywhere men will be bearing one another’s burdens 
 as the joyful law of Christ. The Christian Church is 
 worth all it costs and all its energies, even with its de¬ 
 fects charged at full value, as the center where the 
 language of universal brotherhood, peace on earth, good 
 will to men is still spoken and the doctrine still believed. 
 
 In the fourth place, the Christian Church is still the 
 mightiest disseminator of a truth which carries with it 
 moral sanction enough to restrain the violent passions 
 
208 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 of men as individuals as well as in groups. One is at 
 every point reminded that, following the Great War, 
 there has come an almost insane desire for license to do 
 anything, anywhere, regardless of the effect upon per¬ 
 sonal life or society. Sometimes, this spirit has been 
 miscalled “liberty.’' What the Bolshevists claimed in 
 the economic order in Russia has passed rapidly to the 
 moral realm. A large part of the depression in the 
 world’s business life is occasioned by the lawlessness 
 which leads men to be afraid. They do not trust in¬ 
 dividuals, they dare not trust nations. The world is 
 passing through a period of well nigh unbridled lib¬ 
 erties, so called, which are undermining confidence. 
 Some platform, some doctrine, some faith must be 
 found strong enough to enter the arena and control 
 morals. The grandest thing about Christianity is not 
 its story of the birth, life, and death of its Founder, 
 beautiful as they are to those of that faith. But rather 
 is its supreme glory discovered in its moral program, 
 which proposes to graft into life not only pretty ideas 
 but a divine moral energy, a sanction, a command, 
 which will restrain the lawless passions which cry for 
 indulgence. The Christian Church still dares preach 
 the Ten Commandments as being just as binding at 
 Moscow, Berlin, Constantinople, Paris, London, and 
 Washington as at Mount Sinai. 
 
 In recognition of the first set of criticisms and in 
 realization of the fact that their existence is a calamity, 
 even if they are exaggerated, and in the more serious 
 recognition of the fact that if the second group are at 
 all correct these obstacles ought to be removed to the 
 last degree possible, attention is again directed to them. 
 One thing is sure in accepting either view or both, 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 209 
 
 this is a momentous hour for the organized system of 
 Christianity. The Church as it is may live on a long, 
 long time but be of small value to the big needy world. 
 But if it can enter the field of influence now opened to 
 it and live up to the high hopes being entertained for it 
 by tens of thousands in every part of the universe, then 
 it is entering upon an era of unprecedented power. 
 Some issues are to be dealt with promptly if this latter 
 dream is to come true. 
 
 Of these the one which seems most essential is that 
 the Christian Church free itself of its war heritage, its 
 war record, its war affiliations, and take bold leadership 
 of the world-extended hunger for the final judgment 
 upon military force as a method of adjusting interna¬ 
 tional differences and misunderstandings. This state¬ 
 ment is made in full knowledge of the fact that many 
 complacent church officials will contend that that has 
 been the attitude of the Church all along. Granting 
 full credit to that host of men and women in the Church 
 who always held that personal feeling, and to some 
 small communions which not only believed but prac¬ 
 ticed it, yet taken as a whole the Christian churches of 
 the world have not been upon that basis and many of 
 them have been the most ardent advocates and pro¬ 
 moters of wars. The Near and Far East are literally 
 hurling with scorn into the faces of the missionaries 
 this record of the wars of the West and Christian rela¬ 
 tions to them. 
 
 A noble native minister, immediately after my second 
 public address in India, took me aside and said, “You 
 must know that the educated people of this country 
 look upon Christianity as a warring, blood-spilling re¬ 
 ligion.” Another, translating a part of an article in a 
 
2io ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 prominent paper in which the editor associated Mo¬ 
 hammedanism and Christianity as being kindred faiths, 
 gave the Moslems the advantage of sincerity in that 
 they freely advocated the sword, while the Christians 
 talked and professed peace, but were waging the worst 
 wars in all history. 
 
 Before leaving New York I received a splendid letter 
 from a great Indian Christian, extending an assurance 
 of welcome to his country, but giving this strange coun¬ 
 sel : “I would strongly advise you not to use the word 
 ‘Christianity’ in speaking in India. It is here regarded 
 as the name of a Western religion which has failed. 
 You can preach Christ here, but you cannot preach 
 Christianity.” Similar illustrations could be multi¬ 
 plied from China and Japan, although the comment 
 would be a little less severe in the case of the latter. 
 Hindus, Mohammedans, and Buddhists are filling the 
 Far East with descriptions of Western Christianity as 
 a war-loving and war-promoting organization. 
 
 Whatever may be said of the purity of their motives, 
 it is quite certain they are not entirely bereft of argu¬ 
 ments to substantiate their attack. The record of the 
 Christian churches from 1914 to 1918 is not very much 
 in harmony with the teaching of the Founder of the 
 faith. Organized Christianity in Russia, Germany, 
 France, Great Britain, and the United States was not 
 only silent when the storm broke, but soon became the 
 trusted track to promote the slaughter. When I look 
 back upon things I heard in Christian pulpits and words 
 personally uttered concerning that war, much of it 
 seems a hideous nightmare. I quietly strolled through 
 those majestic aisles of Westminster Abbey, when en 
 route home, but must confess that as I went I shud- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 211 
 
 dered at what the impression must be upon any non- 
 Christian who should visit that place. Most of the 
 greater statues, monuments, and tablets are to the mem¬ 
 ory of furious warriors. In nearly every church in my 
 own country, as well as in others, there is displayed 
 some honor roll, some tablet to visualize to the young 
 the glory of war. 
 
 If any suggestion was intended to lessen the bravery 
 of any of these, it would be brutal and unpardonable. 
 But I venture if the dead who gave precious life upon 
 battle fields from 1914 to 1918 could speak, they would 
 ask that even the use of their names should not become 
 a part of a process to deify war in the name of Christ 
 in His Church. The Christian Church must make 
 wide its fixed purpose to be forever free from war 
 alliances and to be faithful to the program of peace, 
 even though most of the clergymen have to go to jail 
 and the buildings are invaded by armies. Either this 
 is to be its future, or the Western churches may as 
 well call home the foreign missionaries and close the 
 books. A great Hindu, a member of the Imperial Leg¬ 
 islature, said to me, “Ten years ago it looked as though 
 Christ was to become the dominating personality of 
 India, but the Great War has settled that forever.” 
 Then turning abruptly, as though seized by a feeling 
 too intense to be controlled, he said, “Why in God’s 
 name ought Indians to accept your Western religion? 
 It promotes the very thing we hate most.” The Chris¬ 
 tian Church must become famous as the center of love 
 of peace and equally famous for its abhorrence of war. 
 
 Among the things which seem to demand a new 
 consideration there may also be noted the imperative 
 cry for a bigger, better, nobler definition of Christ. 
 
212 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 To read the Sermon on the Mount and then to go to 
 some churches and listen to the narrow individualistic 
 interpretations of it, an unsophisticated person would 
 never suspicion they were related to the same philoso¬ 
 phy. They are ofttimes as far apart as a Masonic 
 lodge and the Sinn Feiners. 
 
 There is no thought in the mind of the writer of 
 impugning anyone’s sincerity, but sincerity when in 
 awful error becomes almost a crime. Is Christ the 
 Savior of only a handful of each generation? Does 
 God continue to bring millions of innocents into the 
 world every year that He may have the satisfaction of 
 sending them to hell later ? Is the Gospel only to regu¬ 
 late individual morals and let all collective relationships 
 be run by the Devil? If the interpretations of Christ 
 commonly held are the only ones and no more prophets 
 will learn bigger things and teach us broader ways, all 
 of these questions must be answered, “Yes.” And if 
 they are so answered then Christianity is not a world 
 religion and never will be, even if the process is con¬ 
 tinued for a million years. 
 
 It is not easy to explain the feelings aroused as one 
 comes out of those sections of the world where the 
 whole Christian movement is being challenged and its 
 very life mooted because the critics say it does not fit 
 the need of the times, and then to find much of the home 
 religious press filled with satisfying reports of a small 
 numerical increase and a few new buildings erected. 
 Important as they are and ever must be, these things 
 are insignificant beyond expression, as contrasted with 
 the universal problem of a definition of the Gospel 
 adequate to the truth of the New Testament and worthy 
 of the crisis of the world’s humanity. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 213 
 
 Perhaps too much of the life of the Church in this 
 hour is being directed to “activities.” A nervous, rest¬ 
 less, worried generation is apt to say, “Let’s do some¬ 
 thing,” when in reality probably it ought rather to sit 
 down and think. Buildings, hotels, social centers, re¬ 
 lief stations, clothes, baths, gymnasiums, playgrounds, 
 music, entertainment, and preachers will not carry 
 Christianity, of the kind the world is now thinking 
 about, triumphantly through every land. We need a 
 new definition, not because all in the past was wrong, 
 but because a new set of conditions has arisen and 
 because we must have one that is so much like the things 
 Jesus said that the distant non-Christian world can be 
 met without the messenger’s spending two-thirds of his 
 time in apologizing. It would be a great thing if a 
 hundred men like the Church’s McConnells, Cannons, 
 Fosdicks, Vances, Jeffersons, Merrills, Speers, Fran¬ 
 cises, Barbours, Woelfkins, Brents, Knubels, Ainslees, 
 and Melishes could go apart for one year, away from 
 the noise, and with only the New Testament to read, 
 and then send a little letter about Jesus Christ—His 
 teaching, His purpose, His love, and His brotherhood 
 •—to all the churches. It would mean more to the future 
 of the world than for some billionaire a billion times 
 suddenly to pay all the war debts, and for the world 
 to keep its old philosophy and the Church to try to go 
 forward with a materialistic fraud of Christianity. 
 
 Another necessity pressing itself hourly upon the 
 Christian Church is the discovery of some method by 
 which practical, working unity may be brought to bear 
 upon the new functions which church leaders of all 
 forward-looking types are now accepting. Without 
 doubt this question is more talked about among those 
 
214 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 who cherish great hopes for the future of Christianity 
 than any other one subject. Likewise, it is also the 
 most prominent item discussed by the severest critics 
 of the Church. They point to the fact that the really 
 great tasks of the future are social, civic, national, and 
 international, and that these do not lend themselves 
 to the functions of a divided Church. That the smallest 
 unit which can be dealt with successfully in the new 
 order is the community, is being accepted by all who 
 believe in the welfare of humanity and think in terms 
 of the Kingdom of God on earth. While these facts 
 are forcing their way, the critics say that instead of 
 unity the after-war period brought a revival of sectari¬ 
 anism. Certainly there is some ground for this state¬ 
 ment by the student of church affairs in the United 
 States and the British Isles. Instead of a common 
 coming together worthy of the time, there seems to be 
 a nervous denominational “Hurrah” going on, the only 
 excuse being a suggestion of expediency in the interest 
 of a larger unity later. It is not strange, then, to find 
 a great doubt about the Church for the coming years, 
 when the utterly inexcusable and ridiculous divisions 
 and subdivisions are considered. Those vast divisions 
 are sad enough, which are illustrated by Greek Catholic, 
 Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Roman Catholic, and 
 Protestant. But add to this the cross sections of some 
 of these and particularly those of the Protestant group 
 itself, and then notice that unity is not yet possible even 
 in the Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Baptist 
 denominations, and finally crown all this folly by such 
 a demonstration of acute narrowness and bigotry and 
 conceit as that given by the self-styled “fundamental¬ 
 ists” of the Northern Baptist Convention at Indianapo- 
 
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 
 
 215 
 
 lis in June, 1922, and the stranger thing is that so many- 
 noble people still do believe in the Church and hope on. 
 
 But a practical, working plan must be found by which 
 greater solidarity can be realized or there is no hope 
 for true greatness, and there is a certainty that an 
 increasing number of men and’women who think and 
 will insist upon continuing to do so, and an ever larger 
 company who are moved with desire to serve needy 
 folks in human ways, will leave the Church and seek 
 other channels for their endeavors. I found no place 
 in travel which was so remote that this subject was not 
 in the forefront of all conferences. It is gratifying to 
 record not only that there is an intense sentiment, but 
 that also earnest constructive effort is being made to 
 meet this responsibility. It would be impossible to 
 make a complete list of all the unity, cooperative and 
 federated committees, societies, and organizations 
 found in many parts of the world. The sense of the 
 importance of united effort is bringing forth a host 
 of men and women determined that progress shall be 
 made. In this connection “The World Alliance of 
 Churches for International Friendship” is probably the 
 most conspicuous illustration of this ideal upon a large 
 scale. Twenty-two nations are already organized with 
 their own Councils, of which many different kinds of 
 Christians are members, and all are working heartily, 
 harmoniously together to preserve the nations in peace 
 and brotherhood. 
 
 This organization will soon make possible bringing 
 to bear the solid influence of at least one-half the num¬ 
 erical strength of Christianity upon the peace subject. 
 Nearly every nation visited has some kind of national 
 church organization representing varied forms of 
 
216 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Christian faith. The Federal Council of the Churches 
 of Christ in America is perhaps the best illustration, 
 with its thirty-one different denominations united in 
 common purpose to perform those national duties for 
 which the Church is accountable. In nearly every 
 larger city of the United States there is a local Council 
 which binds the Church together for the good of the 
 entire community. The divisions are sad, the organism 
 is far from perfect, but it is not hopeless as some would 
 seem to feel. There is a world-wide impulse toward 
 unity in cooperation for the common good without re¬ 
 spect to creed or dogmas. The great federated idea 
 which is effecting so much in the world is not lacking 
 in the Christian Church, and better days are coming. 
 
 The world is longing for peace, it is weary of war. 
 Men are saying that a new kind of human purpose and 
 plan has to be injected if world brotherhood is ever to 
 be anything more than a dream. Alfred Zimmern says 
 there are three forces which can produce the result— 
 “the press, the university, and the church.” I believe 
 in them all, but I know that without the Christian 
 Church such an order will never be, and that with the 
 right kind of a Church such an order is possible. It 
 must be a free Church, it must have the voice of the 
 fearless prophet in it. The Sermon on the Mount must 
 be applied. It must be fired with the conviction that 
 war and Christianity cannot both permanently survive 
 in the human race. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CLOUD BEHIND THE CLOUDS 
 
 The Peril of Industrial Revolution 
 
 HERE are two great human, moral questions 
 
 which the world teachers have to answer. There 
 
 is no escape, they cannot be evaded, they cannot 
 be suppressed. All the struggle of humanity, the rest¬ 
 lessness, the discontent, are but the distant warnings 
 that these two questions will not be quieted until an 
 adequate satisfactory solution is found for both of 
 
 them. 
 
 There may be avenues by which brute strength may 
 prevail and rule for a while in either of these realms, 
 but “good wiir and “cooperation,” without which the 
 world cannot live a decent life, is impossible till they 
 have both been met fairly and the human race convinced 
 that the decision is righteous and just. 
 
 First: Can we get rid of war? 
 
 This is only first, however, because it is on now. It 
 is with us. The human race has just been drenched in 
 the blood of this horror. It is still burying the dead as 
 a part of the result. It is still living by the open graves 
 of its slaughtered. It is just now going down deep 
 trying to pay the money debt. That is the only reason 
 it can be said to be first. All that is written in this 
 book, and all that goes with it, is only one more simple, 
 
 217 
 
218 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 modest witness to this thought and an effort to con¬ 
 tribute a little to its solution. But that is not all of the 
 human cry of the world. There is another one, fiercer 
 than the first and involving more people, and equally 
 persistent in its demands. 
 
 Second: Can we solve peacefully the social and in¬ 
 dustrial problem? 
 
 The author might omit entirely any reference to this 
 question, for he was not commissioned to make any in¬ 
 vestigation upon this phase of life. He does not pro¬ 
 fess to be a scientific student of the intricacies of this 
 issue, but it early became apparent that to omit it was 
 impossible and to evade it would seem ridiculous. It 
 was everywhere. No conference could be held at any 
 point where discussion was permitted but that inside of 
 ten minutes, in some form or other, under the general 
 title of the peace topic, the local, national, and inter¬ 
 national issues related to the social and industrial prob¬ 
 lem would be introduced. Thoughtful people were not 
 willing to discuss the evils of military action among 
 nations and to ignore the one with which they were 
 involved right at their door and the one many believed 
 to be far more serious than international adjustments. 
 
 It was rather a striking and alarming thing to go 
 into every city of practically every nation visited, espe¬ 
 cially those of the larger and major populations, and 
 in every case find them in the grip of some terrific labor 
 strike. San Francisco was left and the last paper read 
 had glowing headlines of a strike. Japan was reached 
 and the first papers received had headlines covering the 
 story of four great strikes called the day before in as 
 many leading cities. In China, from Peking to Hong¬ 
 kong, there was some kind of a strike on in every city 
 
THE CLOUD BEHIND THE CLOUDS 219 
 
 visited. No boats could go up the Pearl River to Can¬ 
 ton because upon the day of arrival the coolie labor on 
 the docks had gone on strike. One man flippantly told 
 me that they did not have brains enough to carry on a 
 strike for twenty-four hours, and that there would be 
 no trouble in returning to Hongkong by boat forty- 
 eight hours later. But that strike was carried on furi¬ 
 ously for four months and finally to success. While 
 we were in the north, 40,000 ’riksha boys went on 
 strike in Hankow and tied up the whole city and made 
 the business interests beg for mercy. India was reached 
 only to find there, in addition to the Gandhi “Non-re¬ 
 sistant Movement” (which was only another name for 
 strike) that every kind of organization from one end 
 of India to the other had been striking for something. 
 Even the fifty million “untouchables” had gone on a 
 strike and were holding a convention in Delhi, which 
 thirty thousand delegates attended, to protest against 
 further abuses of the low castes. Europe, not satisfied 
 with war legacies, is full of strikes. 
 
 Then home was reached, only to read in almost the 
 first daily paper the story of thirty-one slaughtered in 
 Herrin, Illinois, in the most brutal riot the newspapers 
 ever recorded. Therefore, a few articles upon the topic 
 of international friendship, peace, and good will, would 
 be totally absurd if no reference were made to this 
 question. 
 
 The author is persuaded that if some method could 
 be found by which everybody in the world could be sat¬ 
 isfied concerning geographical boundaries, and that if 
 then somebody else could be found with knowledge 
 enough to answer the great economic problem so that 
 all the reparations could be paid, all indemnity bills met 
 
220 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 and every obligation satisfactorily canceled, and then 
 another discovery could be made of a way by which 
 all those human grievances, those harbored bitternesses 
 could be healed and everybody made satisfied in that 
 realm—yet with all this accomplished, which seems like 
 an impossible dream, still another cloud is to be seen 
 on the horizon, and humanity must yet find its path 
 through the social and industrial struggle. Some way 
 must be found by which a man who has a good deal of 
 money can live in a friendly way with a man who has 
 very little money. The writer was not sent out upon 
 this subject and did not assemble any information upon 
 which to base conclusions and does not wish to attempt 
 to any extent a recital of the facts, but he must record 
 a conviction that international friendship, good will, and 
 brotherhood will not come to this world until this ques¬ 
 tion also has been honestly met and some remedy found. 
 
 No word of appreciation high enough can be com¬ 
 manded now, to express fully the admiration for those 
 on both sides of this controversy who are fair-minded 
 enough, fearless enough, Christ-like enough, to face 
 the issues, honestly discuss them, and somehow in the 
 name of God and humanity find a remedy. Either this 
 must be done, or some day in the future worse havoc 
 will occur than that which has taken place in the past 
 as an outgrowth of international grievances. If this 
 industrial outbreak becomes world-wide, it will divide 
 every city, every state, every commonwealth, and every 
 nation on a new line of cleavage. Right solutions, 
 therefore, of the various social, industrial, class, and 
 caste struggles must be found, or the peace of the 
 world is not guaranteed. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 “It is a great thing to have won the war, but to have won it 
 at the cost of more wars to come, and with the domestic prob¬ 
 lems intensified and multiplied to a degree of gravest danger, 
 this is an achievement which cannot move the lasting admira¬ 
 tion of the human race.”—The Author of “The Mirrors of 
 Downing Street.” 
 
 O UT of the confusions, the contradictions, the 
 threatenings, the hatreds and the ruins, none of 
 which ought to be lightly thought of and all of 
 which present a world situation that is severe enough to 
 form a reasonable basis for every pessimistic word 
 being spoken or written, a few convictions are definite 
 enough and certain enough to be presented in positive 
 form. They are the platform upon which all ardent 
 peace advocates must go forward. They are the 
 essence of all the meetings, conferences, and interviews 
 of earlier reference. With no attempt at details and no 
 claim for originality in several respects, they are sub¬ 
 mitted as having qualities of great importance and 
 forming a framework, at least, for constructive pro¬ 
 grams for every kind of international friendship and 
 peace society. 
 
 221 
 
222 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 CONCLUSION NUMBER ONE 
 
 The sentiment of the world is overzvhelmingly against 
 war and in favor of permanent peace. 
 
 It is not easy to give an adequate statement of this 
 very encouraging fact, one which is decided and uni¬ 
 versal enough to give real hope for the future. I was 
 repeatedly told, as the long tour began, that I must 
 expect severe opposition in many parts of the world as 
 the tidings of “militarism” were coming in alarming 
 manner from many of the nations. Of those to be 
 visited these statements were most pronounced con¬ 
 cerning Japan. I got repeated warnings of this situa¬ 
 tion. But the exact opposite was the fact discovered 
 and so evident, to which attention was called in the 
 previous chapter upon Japan. Inasmuch, however, as 
 the Japanese-American issue is one of the pivotal prob¬ 
 lems of the world peace task, I wish to emphasize the 
 fact that I believe the attempts being made by certain 
 political and commercial cliques to portray Japan as a 
 war-mad nation, are maliciously, viciously, and 
 deliberately false. There was found all over Japan 
 a deep desire for peace and friendship with other 
 nations. 
 
 Then going on through China, the great mystery of 
 the nations, the sentiment for peace and not war grew 
 with every day as the campaign continued, notwith¬ 
 standing China’s bitter memories of wrongs. Then to 
 India and to Europe, Greece, Bulgaria, Jugo-Slavia, 
 Hungary, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Switzerland, 
 France, and the British Isles—in every one of these 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 223 
 
 nations there was accumulating proof that the com¬ 
 mon people, the real folks, were sick, tired, and utterly 
 weary of the military outbreaks and that a consuming 
 passion for unbroken peace was taking possession of 
 humanity. Not one single incident occurred to call this 
 statement in question in eight months’ travel in nine¬ 
 teen nations representing all kinds of folks, to whom 
 over two hundred and sixty public addresses were de¬ 
 livered, the substance of which in every case was a 
 condemnation of war as a method and a prophecy of a 
 warless world some time. 
 
 One incident is recalled in a city, the capital of a peo¬ 
 ple defeated by the verdict of arms in 1918, where, 
 when an audience of over one thousand had assembled, 
 the Chairman took me aside and said, “Before you go 
 upon that platform it seems important that you should 
 know that most of those in that assembly are against 
 your theory. Do not be disappointed in their lack of 
 enthusiasm.” But at the close there was a demonstra¬ 
 tion of approval so spontaneous, so sincere, that no 
 doubt remained with anyone of their unbounded joy 
 in the hope of peace and their disgust for militarism. 
 Single individuals holding the opposite view were met 
 often, but never one collective group that failed to 
 record its approval of the theme presented. 
 
 From 1914 to 1918 there were encountered a few 
 people of each country who were styled “extreme paci¬ 
 fists,” or “conscientious objectors,” who were opposed 
 to war upon any basis. Small in number as they were, 
 they presented a very embarrassing problem to many 
 public officials. Some were sent to prison, others were 
 shot. Should another war break out, I venture the sug¬ 
 gestion that there will be found one thousand “pacifists” 
 
224 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 where there was one found in 1914. The whole world 
 is being filled with those who believe that the “Thou 
 shalt not kill” of the Bible ought to be followed even 
 when rulers call for war. If prison sentence is im¬ 
 posed upon all who hold this view next time, there will 
 not be prisons enough in the world to hold them. If 
 death is the verdict, more will be shot as pacifists than 
 in battle. This conception of war is sweeping around 
 the world and pervading its best life with an anti-war 
 philosophy so pronounced that the war lords had best 
 take recognition of it before reaching hasty decisions. 
 I am of the firm opinion that if some vexed interna¬ 
 tional tangle should arise, and the diplomats should 
 confess that they could not agree, and that they had 
 decided to submit the case to popular referendum by 
 all those of voting age, men and women of every 
 nation involved, the result would be ten to one against 
 resort to war. 
 
 There is sentiment enough in the world which is op¬ 
 posed to war and in favor of arbitration as a method, 
 that, if it can be mobilized, organized, and equipped so 
 that it can function in international crises, it will pre¬ 
 serve the world from more wars. If other conflicts 
 break out, it will be because the minorities who hold 
 public office can defeat the will of the vast majorities. 
 Amid all the somber notes and the discouraging condi¬ 
 tions, this one is worth much consideration and grati¬ 
 tude. The People will some day find an adequate way 
 to make their wishes the rule of the world, and on 
 that day all war proposals will be “laid on the table.” 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 225 
 
 CONCLUSION NUMBER TWO 
 
 The present methods being applied to settle the issues 
 of the last war are rapidly adjusting the stage 
 scenery for another slaughter of the innocent . 
 
 I am quite aware that this sounds very much like a 
 definite contradiction of the previous statement, and, as 
 a matter of accurate fact, it is, for in every city to which 
 reference has already been made, where in public meet¬ 
 ings of a large popular character there would be over¬ 
 whelming enthusiasm for the proposals of peace, in re¬ 
 sponse to prophecies that a day was coming when wars 
 would cease and humanity would have learned a better 
 way, notwithstanding this fact, one could go direct 
 from assemblies of this character into more limited con¬ 
 ferences of inside men, dealing with the delicate in¬ 
 tricacies of the readjustments going on, and there dis¬ 
 cover chasms of differences so wide and deep that it 
 would seem as though no possible settlement could 
 peacefully be made. I did not find but one nation in 
 all the months of travel in which I was not called upon 
 to listen to a recitation of grievances and causes for 
 war. Nobody seems satisfied. Naturally those who 
 lost in the recent war and have been penalized are won¬ 
 dering, way down deep in their hearts, whether any 
 other fairer settlement is possible except as they gain 
 it sometime in the future with the sword. But even 
 the nations that were on the winning side, in all but one 
 instance (Great Britain), are feeling that they did not 
 get enough and perhaps a little more war would bring 
 some more fruits of the victory. Then, whereas there 
 
226 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 were one or two quite distinct, definite issues in the 
 Great War, there seem now to be a hundred entirely 
 new ones. It is foolish now to cry “Peace, Peace” when 
 there is no peace, and can be no peace so long as these 
 serious disagreements exist and so long as the minds 
 of leaders turn to military action as the only remedy. 
 
 In addition to the old legacies of the continental 
 European situation, there is now the seething unrest 
 in the Orient. Japan, China, and India, each of them 
 shuddering at the thought, are nevertheless sordidly led 
 to believe that eventually they will have to accept the 
 sword as the only means of defense from the boisterous 
 invasions of the Western white man. Constantinople 
 with the present attitude of the Turk spells inevitably 
 war, unless something else takes place there pretty 
 promptly. I found no man in travel who could give 
 any other answer to the present Russian situation ex¬ 
 cept recourse to armies and navies. The border be¬ 
 tween France and Germany reminds one of a large field 
 of race horses, champing at the bit to be away for the 
 contest. 
 
 It is a strange thing, but nevertheless true, that with 
 all the portrayals of the horror of the past war, and 
 with all the lessons the teachers are trying to instill into 
 the diplomats and the rulers concerning the utter fu¬ 
 tility of the process, reminding them that the cataclysms 
 of death and suffering from 1914 to 1918 did not settle 
 any of the questions which existed previous to the war, 
 with all of this information at hand and all the essen¬ 
 tial facts accepted, and with the common people in vast 
 majority calling for peace, the manipulators are going 
 steadily forward preparing for more wars. Almost 
 every nation in the world has a “chip on its shoulder” 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 227 
 
 of some kind, and with plenty of near neighbors ready 
 to knock it off at a moment’s warning. Therefore, 
 unless something more takes place than has taken 
 place, unless some new kind of influence is brought 
 to bear, unless the snarling about “reparations” and 
 territory is quieted, more war is sure to come, 
 the only unknown element being the hours in the calen¬ 
 dar. 
 
 CONCLUSION NUMBER THREE 
 
 « 
 
 There is need for a world-wide campaign of education 
 to tear the halo completely away from the war 
 story. 
 
 War as a method is a very deep-rooted thing. It has 
 been followed so long and recognized for so many 
 centuries as the only method of recourse in times of 
 severe variance amid peoples of different races, clans, 
 cults, and nations, that many who are in the present 
 hour weary of the process, with hearts sick, turn back 
 and say it seems the only remedy and the only way. A 
 method which has been followed so long that the mind 
 of man runneth not to the contrary, cannot be changed 
 by one sudden burst of disapproval. The present at¬ 
 titude toward war is the result of centuries of training, 
 and worse yet, has not only its advantage of long tra¬ 
 dition, but the fact that it has been so universally glori¬ 
 fied. The human race but little realizes to-day how 
 thoroughly it is committed to the military program and 
 how unconsciously, when it seeks for some hour of 
 peculiar ecstasy, or wishes for some adequate method 
 in recognition of any great event, it turns to glorifying 
 
228 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 its war heroes. War has been exalted in poetry, art, 
 and music. The school children of a thousand years 
 have been taught in their histories to give the supreme 
 place in admiration to military heroes. Parks and 
 boulevards for the most part are filled with monuments 
 erected to the memory of warriors on land and sea; 
 sadder yet, as already referred to, even the churches 
 have pretty largely decorated their walls with emblems 
 of militarism. 
 
 Something by way of education must be brought to 
 bear, to make war horrible instead of glorious. All 
 the rules of war must eventually be changed, for now 
 from the time the first declaration of war is issued 
 until it is finished, the precedents commonly accepted 
 are those which carry a certain amount of romantic 
 halo with them. I would like to suggest a few changes 
 in the rules which might help to modify this glorifica¬ 
 tion idea. 
 
 First: If war is the only way and no other method 
 can be found when nations disagree, let an international 
 law be passed that only older men shall be sent to the 
 front, and no young men permitted to touch it in any 
 shape, manner, or form. It would make a vast differ¬ 
 ence in the war spirit of the older generation if it was 
 known that in the next outbreak, when the call was 
 issued, only men from forty-five to sixty-five would 
 be eligible. There is no reason now, when war is con¬ 
 ducted by the modern methods, why a man of sixty 
 would not be just as efficient as a young man of twenty- 
 one. This suggestion is made in the belief that it is 
 thoroughly practicable and that it is thoroughly fair 
 and just, for the wars of the past have always been 
 brought about by the differences of older men, so 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 229 
 
 metallic that they had lost the abilty to give and take. 
 The youth of 1914 did not get up that war. Let those 
 of the older generation do the fighting in the future. 
 
 Second: If another hour comes when the wise men 
 who rule can find no other way out except by measur¬ 
 ing arms on the battle field, pass an international law 
 which will remove entirely the economic temptation. 
 There is a thoroughly rooted feeling throughout the 
 world that greed of money, financial gain, temporal 
 profits, have been a great factor in the war-producing 
 elements. Such a law might well demand that on the 
 day the war is declared every man and woman in the 
 world be called upon to sign a sworn statement as to 
 the exact amount of money held on that day, and might 
 also declare that, when the war is at an end, every man 
 and every woman shall start at exactly the same place, 
 except for the expenses incident to the war, which 
 ought to be conscripted to pay all bills of the war every 
 thirty days. To remove the economic temptation would 
 mean in the first place that no individual would profit 
 by war and no insulting, indecent profiteers would live 
 after the war to menace society. In the second place, 
 it would mean that the war could be carried on only as 
 wealth could be conscripted during the activities, and 
 no legacies of unbearable debts would be left for gen¬ 
 erations of poor people to struggle with. If profiteer¬ 
 ing and economic gain were eliminated from the war 
 zone, about fifty per cent of the sentiment would die. 
 
 Third: If nations must go to war, there ought to 
 be an international law that no geography should change 
 for ten years after the war. In the reference made to 
 what seems the inevitable return of war, that statement 
 is very largely based upon the fact that every nation, 
 
230 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 with but one or two exceptions, of those proposing to 
 fight again, is doing so in the face of what it believes 
 are impossible geographical limitations. Humanity has 
 been persuaded, and is now persuaded, that the only 
 remedy for adjustments in geography is fighting. 
 Probably there was no more disturbing thing in the 
 Versailles Conference than the geographical question, 
 the undertaking behind closed doors arbitrarily to es¬ 
 tablish national boundaries, and there never will be 
 peace on earth, and in many places probably ought not 
 to be peace, until a new appraisement has been made of 
 those more natural, racial, economic, moral, and re¬ 
 ligious interests which are concerned in the grouping 
 of people. One thing is clearly apparent—geographical 
 changes ought never to be permitted amid the passion 
 of war when the victors, filled with a sense of power, 
 are thinking only of their own views and have no care 
 for the welfare of the defeated. 
 
 Fourth: If the legislatures, the parliaments, the con¬ 
 gresses, and the political ministers can find no way to 
 harmonize their quarrels, and finally decide that they 
 will try war, an international law should exist, which 
 would require that within twenty-four hours after such 
 a declaration every member of every parliament, every 
 congress, and every legislature of the participating na¬ 
 tions, shall himself go to the front, as a private soldier, 
 and sleep in the front-line trenches for at least six 
 months. The crime of war, as conducted in modern 
 times, is that the men who sit behind the scenes and 
 quarrel and finally cry war, themselves never smell 
 powder, and never get gassed, except from talk in con¬ 
 ference rooms, which unfortunately is never fatal. As 
 a citizen of the United States, and more or less familiar 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 231 
 
 with the small politicians talking of war, I have grown 
 very tired of hearing these men in hysterical appeal 
 cry for war, when they themselves will never get far 
 from the central aisle of the United States Senate. A 
 very large percentage of the whole war possibility 
 would be eliminated throughout the world by a little, 
 simple, fair reasonable international law of this kind. 
 There might well be added, as a “rider” later, a pro¬ 
 vision that no officer, either in the army or navy, should 
 be eligible for promotion during the period of the war. 
 If all second lieutenants knew the day war commenced 
 that they would be second lieutenants when it was over, 
 both in rank and compensation, there would be taken 
 away a good deal of the inside expectation of what war 
 might do in the realm of selfish personal advancement. 
 
 Fifth. If the hour comes when those in authority 
 find it impossible to agree and have deliberately reached 
 the war conclusion, an international law should be in 
 existence that the final act could not be consummated 
 until there had been a referendum in all the nations 
 involved and that upon that particular issue only 
 mothers should be permitted to vote. This comment 
 is not made as fantastic, it is not made as purely hypo¬ 
 thetical, but it is brought forward as a real genuine 
 proposal. Motherhood travails from the beginning of 
 life to its end for the manhood the world must have. 
 Motherhood is paying a price, the like of which parlia¬ 
 mentarians in their highly nervous debates have never 
 reckoned with. Those who pay the largest price, those 
 who give birth to sons who may be conscripted, have a 
 right to say whether the cause justifies the method pro¬ 
 posed. This is not meant as a suggestion that the vote 
 would inevitably be in the negative, for if the issue were 
 
232 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 a great moral and spiritual one, clear and well defined, 
 if the issue were one that involved the sacrifice of home 
 and the preservation of virtue, motherhood would not 
 fail at the ballot box. 
 
 Sixth: If finally, after every word has been spoken, 
 war is the decision, an international law should so con¬ 
 trol the operations that they would be conducted only 
 out in the heart of the Sahara Desert, taken away from 
 the view of humanity, and the fighting would be done in 
 the loneliness of the wilds, in an arid spot, that, there¬ 
 fore, humanity should be less shocked by the horror of 
 the slaughter and the torture of the warfare. 
 
 To guard against any feeling that perhaps these sug¬ 
 gestions are impossible and are offered as only purely 
 imaginary, the author wishes to say he believes them 
 seriously and genuinely possible, with a single excep¬ 
 tion it may be of the Sixth. Otherwise, they are prac¬ 
 ticable, and if worked out would take away the glory 
 which now seems to hang about the whole mention of 
 war. 
 
 CONCLUSION NUMBER FOUR 
 
 There never will be continuous peace till some form of 
 open democratic diplomacy is discovered and 
 adopted. 
 
 The writer has no political ambitions and frankly 
 admits no special wisdom concerning the intricacies of 
 government, above that of the average man. But it 
 does not take superior knowledge, in a journey around 
 the world, visiting nineteen capitals, and coming in 
 contact with educational, political, and religious leaders, 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 233 
 
 to discover that the present kind of diplomatic pro¬ 
 cesses, so largely secret, have been the curse of the 
 world. It has been disheartening beyond any expres¬ 
 sion to learn more and more of the intrigues within 
 intrigues, of the bargainings within bargainings, of the 
 deceptions practiced on top of other deceptions, 
 throughout all the activities in these warring nations 
 from 1914 to the present hour—most of these being 
 carried out behind closed doors by a few so-called dip¬ 
 lomats. Secret compacts are always a menace any¬ 
 where. I have seen religious organizations, whose har¬ 
 mony and power have been marred and almost defeated 
 by the presence of some little self-appointed gathering 
 behind closed doors assuming supreme ability to make 
 programs and arrangements for all the unsophisticated 
 outside. Commercial and educational history tells the 
 same story. There are many evidences of the weakness 
 of this system in every walk of life, but at no point 
 is it so pernicious as when it involves international alli¬ 
 ances and agreements. The secret conferences of the 
 past have been the curse of the human race, and the 
 new ones made now are forerunners of more violence. 
 
 The past ten years have witnessed no sadder tragedy 
 than the mistaken, exalted view which the “Big Four” 
 had of themselves at the Versailles Conference. When 
 those four men, whatever may have been their motives, 
 were led to believe that they were so much more im¬ 
 portant than, not only their compatriots and colleagues 
 of that conference, but than all the people in the nations 
 they represented, they not only wrecked the largest use¬ 
 fulness of the League of Nations, but they also made 
 havoc of the Treaty of Peace. If the open democratic 
 method had been followed concerning the League of 
 
234 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 Nations, America would doubtless be a member of 
 that League to-day, and if so the whole story from 
 1918 to 1922 would have been different. One hundred 
 million people in the United States waited anxiously 
 for some information, but none came till it was too 
 late to remedy the mistakes which had been made in 
 the secret room, where only one mind was thinking 
 for a whole nation. If those four men had opened the 
 door and felt that there was more wisdom in the uni¬ 
 verse than that which they took in with them, it would 
 have been a vastly better world to live in now. Sad as 
 is that lesson, it seems at this moment doubtful as to 
 whether it has been sufficiently impressed, for already 
 the same method is beginning to be adopted. 
 
 Inside alliances are again being rumored. All the 
 conferences held from Washington to the Hague may 
 do their best to patch up the world now for a few 
 months, but if behind the scenes more secret contracts 
 are being made, more selfish compacts entered into, by 
 which a little group is planning to get the best of the 
 rest of the world, then it is perfect folly to talk about 
 peace. War will come to the world in exactly the 
 measure of the iniquity of secret diplomacy. 
 
 CONCLUSION NUMBER FIVE 
 
 There is need for some method which can lift the 
 negotiations out of the sordid rut of economics. 
 
 After hearing this statement made in substance in a 
 hundred places, in introductions made at great public 
 meetings and functions, and after reading it in news¬ 
 papers and hearing it commented upon in travel by men 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 235 
 
 of every kind and condition, it seems almost a common¬ 
 place to relate it in a survey of this kind, but perhaps 
 its wide presence is an added evidence of its importance 
 and sufficient to warrant repetition again and again. 
 The fact is the war broke out in 1914 when materialism 
 was running rampant, demanding first consideration 
 over all else of human concern. There may have been 
 supplementary questions, but fundamentally at least 
 the selfish materialistic idea prevailed and war was its 
 method. If that was true in 1914, the following years 
 can be said to have permitted materialism to go clear 
 mad. The world is crazy with its desire for greed, and 
 rights, and property, and all that is necessary to repro¬ 
 duce that war, plus all that will go with another one, is 
 to continue long enough to have conferences, with the 
 incessant cry for money, money, and then add to that 
 the supplementary discussions of geographical terri¬ 
 tory. Then the prophecy of war will be a reality. 
 
 I chanced to read from the pen of the late Willard 
 D. Straight, written, by the way, long before the war, 
 this observation: “The need of Europe in this hour 
 is to discover some new kind of morality which will be 
 strong enough to bind the people together and save 
 them from the peril of an economic war.” 
 
 This same sentiment in varying forms can be heard 
 in every nook and corner. It was listened to as enunci¬ 
 ated by Buddhists, Hindus, and even by Mohammedans, 
 as well as by Christians of all names, and people who 
 said they had no religious affiliations at all. There¬ 
 fore, the hope of the world lies now in those agencies 
 and institutions that know the language of the higher 
 morality and of a humanity concerned with ideals of 
 service, rather than those of gain and profit. The uni- 
 
236 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 versities can help, the schools and colleges have a large 
 place, the peace organizations of every kind and name 
 are of immense value, religious organizations of what¬ 
 ever faith may be vital factors, but returning once more 
 to that which is believed more profoundly than anything 
 else, this is the task to which the Christian Church must 
 give itself and let every other thing become of secondary 
 importance. 
 
 A great British official said to me at the close of a 
 meeting at which he had taken the chair: “Mr. Smith, 
 there ought to be a thousand men traveling up and 
 down the world proclaiming this sentiment, for there 
 is a respite now and in my judgment another outbreak 
 will not occur upon a wide scale for at least five years. 
 This is your chance. Fill the world with this idea, and 
 war may be averted. Leave the world to follow the 
 processes now being adopted, and war is as inevitable 
 as the rising of the sun.” 
 
 FINALLY 
 
 The author wishes to express a sentiment which 
 would doubtless be voiced by millions in various parts 
 of the world were they to have it brought to their atten¬ 
 tion. There doubtless is a sense of profound regret 
 that the numerous warnings of approaching war heard 
 from 1910 forward were not taken more seriously. I 
 sat at dinner once in Paris, in the home of a great 
 Frenchman who, with evident emotion, said he felt a 
 sort of crusade ought to be launched throughout the 
 world to stop the war which was surely on its way and 
 would involve at least France and Germany if not all 
 Europe. I remember the only comment made to my 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 237 
 
 friend was that he was “a little nervous and tired and 
 needed a rest.” Shortly after that when crossing the 
 English Channel, a Britisher whose eyesight was nearly 
 gone stood on the deck of the ship and, pointing across 
 toward the north, said, “Unless something is done 
 pretty soon, we on this side of the sea are going to be 
 in a terrible war.” His remarks were not taken seri¬ 
 ously, but regarded as rather the normal condition of 
 the European mind. No feeling of the seriousness of 
 a great catastrophe was produced. 
 
 In 1911, it was my rare privilege, and very sad ex¬ 
 perience, to have invited the great William T. Stead to 
 come to the United States to deliver an address upon 
 “The Principles of Universal Peace,” at a convention 
 to be held in Carnegie Hall. After listening to the 
 proposal and the invitation, this wise man of discerning 
 mind pointed out of his window in the direction of the 
 English Channel and said: “It is a perfect farce for 
 me to go to the United States to deliver such an address 
 when we here are getting ready for the damnedest war 
 the world has ever seen.” The only answer made to 
 Mr. Stead's somber anticipation was : “Mr. Stead, this 
 is one of your off days. You will feel better to¬ 
 morrow.” He, however, accepted the invitation, but 
 never delivered the address, for he was a passenger on 
 the ill-fated Titanic and went down with the brave. 
 The address which he was to have given was delivered 
 by Dr. MacDonald, then the editor of the Toronto 
 Globe. Those who heard him will never, never be able 
 to forget that hour as he repeatedly remarked, “Stead 
 would have said if he were here” this and this, but 
 probably the clause which thrilled the people most was 
 the prophecy that unless something was done in the 
 
238 ON THE TRAIL OF THE PEACEMAKERS 
 
 world promptly, another terrible war would break out 
 in Europe. While the impression was strongly made, 
 the feeling generally was that even Mr. MacDonald 
 was a little overwrought by the tragic death of his life¬ 
 long friend and had, therefore, painted the picture in 
 colors rather too high. 
 
 All who lived during those years, sensitive to the 
 horror of what has taken place in the world, cherish a 
 feeling of supreme regret that the warnings were not 
 heeded, and that at least an earnest, serious, world-wide 
 effort was not made to stay the calamity. No adequate 
 protest was heard, the storm gathered, the clouds broke, 
 the fury came. History cannot yet tell the tale of the 
 results. 
 
 The warnings are more serious now. It is suggested 
 that war may break out not only over Flanders fields 
 again, but in a hundred other places, and the general 
 feeling is that if it starts furiously at any one of these 
 hundred places, it may involve the other ninety-nine. 
 
 The world is filled with peace-loving people. There 
 is scarcely a spot now but that somewhere someone is 
 preaching a sermon, or delivering an address, or writing 
 an article upon the virtues of “peace on earth, good 
 will to men.” To this innumerable company there re¬ 
 mains in this hour the solemn duty to make a protest 
 against war so strong, so intelligent, so profound, that 
 if war occurs, none will be compelled to say, “We failed 
 to do our duty in trying to teach humanity a better 
 method of living.” 
 
 Certainly 1922 is not silent with its voice of alarm. 
 No metropolitan center exists but that many of the fore¬ 
 most citizens are saying, “Another war is going to 
 break out some day.” 
 
CONCLUSIONS 
 
 239 
 
 This book, with all involved in it, is written and dedi¬ 
 cated in the hope of universal, unbroken, enduring, 
 unchanging 
 
 Peace on Earth, Good Will to All Men . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 11 i a i 4 
 
 JokTH 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 DEMCO 38-297