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 AN ORATION °£Cl6i944 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 THE CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND 
 SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 
 At the Invitation of the Councils of the 
 Citv of Philadelphia, 
 
 IN INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, JULY 4th, 1893, 
 
 JAMES M. BECK, 
 
 Of the Philadelphia Bar. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 Press of Allen, Lane & Scott. 
 
 i8 9 3- 
 
Li y-A 
 
 GROUND ARMS!" 
 
 AN ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 THE CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND 
 SEVENTEENTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 
 At the Invitation of the Councils of the 
 City of Philadelphia, 
 
 IN INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, JULY 4 th, 1893, 
 
 BY 
 
 0* 
 
 
 JAMES M. BECK, 
 
 Of the Philadelphia Bar. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 Press of Allen, Lane & Scott. 
 
 1-893- 
 

 GIFT 
 
 MRS. WOODROW WILSON 
 
 NOV. 25, 1939 
 
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 •-S- 
 
 "GROUND ARMS!" 
 
 
 
 AN ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA, 
 JULY 4 th, 1893. 
 
 My Fellow-Countrymen : — One hundred and seventeen 
 years ago this day some fifty provincial gentlemen, with knee 
 breeches and powdered queues, the representatives of thirteen 
 colonies of the British Crown, which, located on the edge of an 
 unbroken wilderness, were less accessible to civilization than is 
 the Congo now, met in Philadelphia, a country town of about 
 twenty thousand people, and deliberating within the walls of 
 the building within whose shadow I speak, thence issued to 
 the world a statement of their grievances against the British 
 Crown, and a declaration of their assumption of independent 
 sovereignty. Apart from the statement of grievances, which 
 was only of transient importance, the Declaration, as drafted 
 by the young Virginian farmer-lawyer, contained a declaration 
 of the rights of man more radical and revolutionary than any 
 similar political document, and utterly subversive of adopted 
 theories of government. At the time apparently insignificant, 
 this event has become of overshadowing importance in the 
 affairs of men. It lit a train of human revolt which has 
 slowly and increasingly blasted a pathway of freedom for hu- 
 manity through the granite rocks of Csesarism and feudalism. 
 Well might Mirabeau say that, tried by its standard, every 
 government in Europe was divested of its rights. To the 
 masses of men in every part of the world, struggling to escape 
 from the house of bondage and into the promised land, it has 
 been as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 
 This is the areat fact of which the colossal statue in New York 
 
harbor is the beautiful symbol. It would be impossible to 
 properly estimate its importance, for it can only be determined 
 in its due perspective of time and result. Even in this evening 
 of the nineteenth century we can as little appreciate its true 
 position in history as one can judge the architectural beauty of 
 the Cologne Cathedral by standing on its steps. Carry your 
 minds forward in imagination yet another century. Picture 
 to yourselves the greatest republic in the world, whose popu- 
 lation will be two hundred millions, and whose territory will 
 reach from the land of the North Star to that of the Southern 
 Cross, reflecting the most splendid and perhaps the culmina- 
 ting civilization of the world, and from such vantage ground 
 you can appreciate that in the preceding two thousand years 
 of human history the three events which ma)- then dominate 
 the entire landscape, even as Mt. Blanc rises above its fellows, 
 are the birth of Christ, the discovery of America, and the Decla- 
 ration of Independence. The first gave to men a new spirit, 
 which has since leavened humanity; the second, a great conti- 
 nent, whereon, as on a stage, the splendid drama of democracy 
 could be enacted ; and the third, a free people, who have de- 
 monstrated their capacity to rule themselves. Of each event 
 one can say, in the exalted language of Richter, that it has 
 " lifted empires off their hinges, turned the stream of the cen- 
 turies out of its channel, and still governs the ages." 
 
 We would dishonor ourselves did we fail to celebrate an 
 event so glorious ; and what more fitting place on the face of 
 the whole earth for such commemoration than here within 
 the shadow of the tower from which, as from Pharos, the light 
 of liberty has streamed, under the gothic arches of God's trees, 
 and in the presence of the historical descendants of the peo- 
 ple who first heard the old bell in joyful reverberations "pro- 
 claim liberty throughout the land and unto all the inhabitants 
 thereof?" What Mecca is to the Mussulman and Jerusalem 
 to the Israelite, must henceforth forever this temple be to 
 every lover of liberty. Did we not thus meet in high festival, 
 these very walls would cry out against us. Indeed even now 
 they speak to us out of the past, reminding us with an elo- 
 quence unattainable by mortal man of our debt to the dead 
 and our duty to the unborn. Here then we have met, my 
 
countrymen, on the greatest festal day in our nation's calen- 
 dar, and to Him by whose gracious ordinance the word was 
 spoken, we will appeal in the simple but stately language of 
 Whittier's Centennial hymn : — 
 
 " Our father's God, from out whose hand 
 The centuries fall like grains of sand, 
 
 We meet to-day, united, free, 
 
 And loyal to our land and Thee, 
 To thank Thee for the era done, 
 And trust Thee for the opening one." 
 
 It is the unique distinction of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence that its definition of liberty is so full and ample that time 
 cannot make it obsolete. Other similar events have been 
 but milestones in the march of progress. The Magna Charta 
 and the petition of right are no longer sufficient in themselves 
 to satisfy the ripened aspirations of men, but when Jefferson 
 drafted the great Declaration he drew for all mankind, without 
 distinction to race, condition, or creed, a title deed to liberty, 
 so broad and comprehensive that " time cannot wither nor 
 custom stale " its eternal verity. That all men are created 
 equal ; that they have a right as the gift of God and independ- 
 ent of government to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness ; that governments derive their just powers from the 
 consent of the governed ; that the people have the inherent 
 right to alter or abolish their government when it has ceased to 
 answer their necessities, thus constituting the people the first 
 and only estate, are principles which satisfy the highest ideals 
 of liberty. By the much quoted and much misunderstood 
 axiom, that all men are created equal, Mr. Jefferson did not 
 mean either a natural equality or even an equality of natural 
 opportunity, for either would contradict the common observa- 
 tion of men, which discloses as infinite a difference between men 
 and their environments as between the stars. He was simply 
 defining the province of government, and he was contending 
 that politically all men were equal and that the government, 
 therefore, should not give to any man an artificial and law- 
 made advantage over another. " Equal and exact justice to 
 all men, special privileges to none." He therefore proscribed 
 the spirit of caste, and an hereditary monarch or a feudal 
 
aristocracy came equally under his anathema. He illustrated 
 his meaning by his last and most significant commentary on 
 the text of the instrument which is inseparably connected with 
 his name. When asked nine days before his death to write a 
 sentiment for the forthcoming fiftieth anniversary of the Decla- 
 ration — the day of jubilee on which, by a singular coincidence, 
 he was destined to die — he wrote, " The eyes of men are opened 
 and opening to the rights of men. * * * The mass of 
 men are not born with saddles on their backs nor a favored 
 few booted and spurred ready to ride them legitimately by the 
 grace of God." It is to be feared that we have hardly realized 
 as yet his splendid ideal, else why the extraordinary honors 
 recently paid within our country to the representatives of the 
 class who claim, by the right of heredity, " to ride booted 
 and spurred the masses of mankind ? " We have witnessed the 
 gentleman in charge of the Spanish princess write circular 
 letters instructing American ladies and gentlemen how to 
 act in the presence of royalt)^, and we have read his complaint 
 that the Infanta had been insulted and annoyed by the social 
 snobs and tuft-hunters, who insisted upon thrusting them- 
 selves into her presence. Eminent foreigners, distinguished 
 for learning and genius, have visited our shores comparatively 
 unnoticed, but the possession of a title has seemed to have 
 the fascination for our countrymen that the candle has for 
 the moth. These ovations to Spanish grandees and Russian 
 nobles, in so far as they are inspired by considerations of 
 rank, are wrong. Otherwise Mr. Jefferson was wrong, and if 
 he was wrong, then America was wrong. The spirit of caste 
 is not dead nor the race of Tories wholly extinct. 
 
 The noblest virtue of the great Declaration was the spirit 
 which impelled it. This was so far in advance of the times as 
 to deserve comment here, and it is to this I desire to di- 
 rect especial attention. It is obvious that the statement of 
 grievances was not intended for the colonists. No need 
 existed to remind them what they had suffered. The intoler- 
 able burdens and wrongs set forth in this terrible indictment 
 of the British Crown had driven its loyal and willing sub- 
 jects to open rebellion, and had been burned into their recol- 
 lection as with a red-hot iron. For years they had been the 
 
subject of innumerable pamphlets, speeches, petitions, and 
 discussions both in England and America. The time for dis- 
 cussing them with the Mother Country had ceased with the 
 first shot of the embattled farmers at Lexington. The 
 purpose of the Declaration, as clearly set forth in its 'noble 
 preamble, was to appeal to the justice of the world in 
 support of the necessity of the separation. It commences, 
 " When in the course of human events it becomes neces- 
 sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have 
 connected them with another * * * a decent respect to the 
 opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes 
 which in/pel them to the separation!' No State paper ever con- 
 tained a nobler sentiment than this. It assumed that there 
 was a rule of right and wrong and of justice and injustice 
 that regulated the intercourse of nations as well as individuals. 
 It is believed that there was a great human conscience, which, 
 rising higher than the selfish interests and prejudices of na- 
 tions and races, would approve that which was right and con- 
 demn that which was wrong. It felt that this approval was 
 more to be desired than national advantage. It constituted 
 mankind a judge between contending nations, and lest its 
 judgment should temporarily err it established posterity as a 
 court of last resort. It placed the tie of humanity above 
 that of nationality. It solemnly argued the righteousness 
 of the separation at the bar of history, solemnly prefixing 
 its statement of grievances with the words : " In proof of 
 this, let facts be submitted to a candid world;" and finally 
 concluded its appeal from the judgment of the moment 
 to that of eternity, in the words : "Appealing to the Supreme 
 Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions." The 
 nobility of this appeal becomes more manifest when we re- 
 gard the conditions of thought at that time. There existed 
 then no law of right or wrong between nations. Mankind 
 was engaged on both sides of the Atlantic in armed con- 
 flicts, which succeeded each other with horrible frequency and 
 intensity. While at nominal peace, nations levied commercial 
 warfare against each other by prohibitive tariffs and burden- 
 some legal restrictions. Each Government regarded its own 
 selfish interests as the highest and only good. International 
 
8 
 
 law existed only in name, and consisted of " a wilderness of 
 single instances.'" Wars were commenced without provoca- 
 tion — often without a formal declaration, — were conducted 
 without regard to the rights of neutrals and non-combatants, 
 or the commonest dictates of humanity, and were consum- 
 mated by the wholesale spoliation of territory and the pil- 
 laging of galleries, museums, and libraries. The armies of 
 Wellington and Napoleon were only worthy of Alaric or 
 Attila. The only law of nations was that ascribed by the poet 
 to Rob Roy, 
 
 "The good old rule 
 Sufficed! them, the simple plan, 
 That they should take who have the power, 
 And they should keep who can." 
 
 Think, for example, of the events which took place in Europe 
 within the succeeding forty years ; of the decrees by which 
 France and England forbade the world to trade with the 
 other, and under cover of which they preyed upon the 
 commerce of the world like hawks upon a dove-cote; of the 
 destruction of the Danish fleet, and the bombardment of 
 Copenhagen by England in advance of any declaration of 
 war and without any provocation ; of Napoleon's invasion 
 of neutral territory and the assassination of the Due D'Eng- 
 hein, of his appropriation of whole countries without regard 
 to the wishes of their inhabitants by placing Bernandotte on the 
 throne of Sweden, Murat on that of Naples, his brother Louis 
 on that of Holland, Jerome on that of Westphalia, and Joseph 
 on that of Spain. In such an age, with every nation as an 
 Ishmael, there would seem to have been no sentiment of right 
 or wrong or enlightened conscience of man to which an appeal 
 could be made. The sentiment of the Declaration, made out 
 of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," is therefore 
 the more striking and commendable. We need not stop to 
 note how splendidly that appeal has been sustained. As the 
 Declaration states, facts were submitted to a candid world, 
 which in an age of force convinced the calm reason of 
 humanity, and when, a century later, the time-stained docu- 
 ment, to which our fathers had pledged their lives, their for- 
 tunes, and their sacred honors, was brought out on this very 
 
spot, the representatives of every nation, including that of 
 England herself, were here to testify by their presence their 
 approval of an appeal to the universal conscience of man. 
 The United States has demonstrated its right to separate ex- 
 istence and no discordant protest is now heard against its 
 splendid vindication by humanity. 
 
 I am persuaded that the spirit, of which this Declaration 
 was only an expression, is now a new force in humanity. In 
 the one hundred and seventeen intervening years the world 
 has progressed so swiftly towards an enlightened sense of 
 justice that a " decent respect to the opinions of mankind " is 
 a greater power in regulating the intercourse of nations 
 than the combined armies and navies of the world. Each 
 nation does at least in some measure fear to-day the dis- 
 approval of humanity and covets as a good the approval 
 of posterity. This respect for public opinion is increasingly 
 causing nations to arbitrate their differences by other means 
 than that wretched survival of barbarism — war. Prior to 
 the nineteenth century, there is hardly an instance when 
 nations settled their grievances other than by a resort to 
 the sword, while during the present century over seventy- 
 five disputes have been adjusted by mediation and arbitra- 
 tion. Of these twenty-five related to claims for damages 
 to citizens in one country while in the offending country; 
 in sixteen disputed boundaries were amicably fixed ; and in 
 five the yet more difficult questions of disputed acquisitions 
 of new territory were peacefully decided. In some of these 
 cases the national honor and historical prestige were believed 
 to be involved and found entirely capable of amicable adjust- 
 ment, namely, the Luxemburg question of 1867, the Crete 
 affair, and the Alabama claims. The incalculable gain to 
 humanity of these peaceful arbitraments can be measured by 
 the stupendous fact that in the wars of the nineteenth century 
 over fifteen thousand millions of dollars have been spent and 
 over five millions of men killed. The mind cannot grasp the mag- 
 nitude of the figures. The largest single aggregation of human 
 beings is the city of London, and when we reflect that a num- 
 ber of people exceeding the teeming population of the English 
 metropolis have fallen beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of 
 
IO 
 
 war, we can appreciate the belief of every thoughtful man 
 that the ordeal of battle is both a crime against humanity and 
 a relic of primitive barbarism. The questions sought to be 
 decided by war have rarely remained adjusted, notwithstanding 
 the imposing and awful demonstration of brute force. Take, 
 for example, the unhappy Rhine provinces. Torn from Ger- 
 many by France nearly two centuries ago, and entirely galli- 
 cized in that time, yet no statute of limitations availed France 
 when, humiliated and well-nigh annihilated by the armies of 
 Germany, it was obliged to again yield Alsace and Lorraine. 
 Nor is their ownership determined to-day. In the event of a 
 French triumph in the next war, it is safe to assume that 
 the first and imperative condition of peace would be the re- 
 covery of Alsace and Lorraine. In the meantime, as if charged 
 with the curse of God, these little provinces are making of 
 Europe an armed camp, compelling twenty-seven millions of 
 men to be ready for a possible death, and driving the nations 
 of Europe to inevitable bankruptcy. What the armies of 
 France and Germany, the grandest in organization and equip- 
 ment that the world has ever known, have thus signally failed 
 to do, namely, to definitely decide a single question — and 
 that in itself a comparatively unimportant one — the moral 
 power of a " decent respect to the opinions of mankind" has 
 done without shedding a drop of blood, for in the seventy- 
 five instances of peaceful mediation heretofore alluded to there 
 was, with but one exception, a loyal and lasting submission 
 to the results of the arbitrament of peace. This power of 
 moral sentiment, sneered at by the unthinking and superficial, 
 can be measured in yet another way. England and America 
 are to-day arbitrating the question of territorial rights and 
 alleged unlawful seizures, both formerly fruitful subjects of 
 war, and are thus affording an impressive object lesson to 
 humanity which is worth a dozen naval reviews or army 
 mobilizations. Let us suppose that the international court at 
 Paris should decide in favor of Great Britain. England, in- 
 deed all the world, could not enforce that judgment if the 
 United States refused to obey it. Guarded as we are by two 
 mighty oceans, and with our inexhaustible resources, the 
 combined armies and navies of the world could not conquer 
 
II 
 
 us. We are to-day invincible. The power, therefore, that 
 would compel us to loyally accept the decision would be the 
 " decent respect to the opinions of mankind," which would 
 condemn as iniquitous and shameful bad faith in such arbitra- 
 tion. 
 
 Herein lies the possibility of a period of perpetual peace. 
 Notwithstanding the fact that today men are making prepa- 
 rations in Europe for war on a scale unprecedentedly vast, and, 
 paradoxical as it may therefore seem, I believe that the time 
 will come when men will "beat their swords into plow- 
 shares and their spears into pruning-hooks." How many 
 deluges of blood lie between I know not, but I clearly see 
 His bow in the cloud, as a covenant of peace. This may 
 seem the wild dream of a visionary, but we are celebrating in 
 this Columbian year the triumph of a dreamer, and that the 
 greatest civic achievement in history. In existing conditions 
 of thought it is indeed hard to accept the possibility of a 
 day when the mutual hatreds of nations, which exist inde- 
 pendent of disputed questions, and are the baneful heritage of 
 the centuries, can be determined otherwise than by war. 
 Apparently they do not admit of arbitration. But may not 
 this apparent impossibility disappear with the growing senti- 
 ment of fraternity in men ? Nor am I alone in this opinion. 
 A learned French philosopher, Michel Revon, whose work 
 has recently received the medal of the French Academy, 
 states that unless a general war takes place in Europe within 
 the next ten years the spirit of militarism will lose its 
 power. It is true that the great battle-thinker of our time, 
 Von Moltke, who has carried the organization of armies 
 to a perfection not reached by even Napoleon, has said 
 that " Peace is only a dream, and not even a beautiful 
 dream. War," he adds, "is ordained by God." Neverthe- 
 less, even as the power of the Roman Empire was doomed 
 in its hour of unchallenged supremacy when the Prince of 
 Peace lay in his manger at Bethlehem, so I believe the spirit 
 of militarism, now apparently at its highest development, is in 
 reality losing its iron sway on the minds of men. As our 
 own great commander has well said, "Arbitration may not 
 satisfy either nation at the time, but it satisfies the conscience 
 
12 
 
 of mankind and must commend itself more and more as a 
 means of adjusting disputes." Indeed, General Grant, better 
 than Bismarck with his "blood and iron," caught the spirit of 
 his time in those words, remembered above his every other 
 utterance, " Let us have peace." However comparatively 
 unnoticed it may have been the English Parliament has rarely 
 done a nobler or better act than when it unanimously passed, 
 on June 16th, 1893, a resolution, authorizing Her Majesty's 
 Government to conclude a general treaty with the United 
 States to submit all future questions between the countries to 
 arbitration. 
 
 The trouble with our and preceding ages has been that 
 man has still sufficient of the original barbarian to approve 
 and applaud war. We have not yet learned to take a hori- 
 zontal view of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." The 
 current belief is that "Thou shalt not kill " means "Thou 
 shalt kill " — under given circumstances. We do not content 
 ourselves with applauding a defensive war, which is often in- 
 evitable and morally defensible, but we regard as of paramount 
 glory a war of aggression and conquest. That which is a 
 crime between individuals we defend between nations. A 
 single murder we consider the gravest of all offenses and 
 punish accordingly, whether done in the heat of passion or 
 not ; but murder by the hundred thousand, cruelly and 
 deliberately planned months in advance, in which the vic- 
 tims are generally the involuntary result of forced drafts, this 
 we enthusiastically applaud. If we were but honest with 
 ourselves we would admit that we regard it as the most 
 glorious of all pastimes. By the very toys and books we give 
 our children we instil in them the martial ardor. Men go to 
 the tented field, not robed in the,black of mourning or the 
 scarlet of the executioner, but gaily attired as for a ball- 
 room. Indeed, as in the night before Waterloo, they 
 have gone in the same habiliments from the dance of life 
 to the dance of death. The strains of music which pre- 
 cede it are not funereal in character but have the festal and 
 triumphant strain of a bridal chorus. Men of generous and 
 Christian instincts rejoice in it as in a profession. The 
 women of our day, rivaling the stern Roman matrons, who 
 
13 
 
 awarded life or death to the gladiators with their " habet or 
 Hon habet" or emulating the queen of beauty who awarded 
 the wreath to the victorious in the mediaeval tournaments, 
 sit in this greater tourney of the nations and reward the victors 
 with their smiles and approbation. They indeed must accept 
 a share of the moral responsibility. It has been well and 
 truthfully stated by that great ethical teacher, Mr. Ruskin, 
 that the prevention of war is within the power of women. 
 He says : " Let but every Christian lady who has conscience 
 toward God, vow that she will mourn, at least outwardly, for 
 His killed creatures. Your praying is useless, and your 
 church-going mere mockery of God, if you have not plain 
 obedience in you enough for this. Let every lady in the up- 
 per classes of civilized Europe simply vow that, while any 
 cruel war proceeds she will wear black — a mute's black — with 
 no jewel, no ornament, no excuse for or evasion into pretti- 
 ness — I tell you again no war would last a week." This 
 may at first impress the hearer as the wild enthusiasm 
 of a visionary, but who could measure the effect upon the 
 human mind of universal mourning while any war proceeds. 
 The real possibility of zvar lies in our callous indifference to 
 it. The whole world was recently thrilled by the loss 
 of Her Majesty's ship Victoria, with four hundred of her 
 officers and crew, due to an accidental blow of the ram 
 of the Camperdown. Strange paradox ! We lament as an 
 accident what we would applaud if done by design. Such a 
 loss of life in war would be so insignificant as hardly to receive 
 notice. For every life lost by this accident a hundred fell at 
 Gettysburg, while in that frightful holacaust of human life, the 
 Russian campaign of 1812, it is estimated that one hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand men perished in battle, one hundred 
 and twenty-three thousand died of hunger and cold, and one 
 hundred and ninety thousand were taken prisoners. The mind 
 cannot grasp the dimensions of such a disaster, and blunted 
 and deadened as our sensibilities are by the alleged necessity of 
 war, this frightful tragedy on the stage of the world has called 
 forth less tears than the ending of Hamlet on the stage of the 
 theatre. 
 
 As the nineteenth century draws to its close, the signs are 
 
multiplying that humanity is awakening from this nightmare 
 and that the twentieth century will bring the dawn of a better 
 day. Nothing can be more striking to the thoughtful ob- 
 server than the progress that has been made in the crusade 
 against war. The opinion of mankind is slowly but surely 
 condemning it. It would be interesting, indeed, to trace this 
 gradual development of this peace sentiment. Sporadic 
 attempts at peaceful mediation could be mentioned by the 
 Popes in the Middle Ages, by Henry IV. of France, who 
 proposed a universal league of peace in the early part 
 of the seventeenth century, but the first practical attempt 
 to substitute the power of love for that of force was made 
 by William Penn upon the banks of the Delaware, and, 
 curiously enough, the contracting parties were seemingly 
 the most divergent, namely, the peaceful Quakers and the ab- 
 original savages. Meeting on that delightful shore "that is 
 washed by the Delaware's waters," the illustrious Quaker, to 
 whom be eternal honor, said to the Indian chiefs: " The great 
 God has written His law in our hearts by which we are told 
 and commanded to love and to help and to do good to one 
 another. It is not our custom to use hostile weapons against 
 our fellow creatures. For which reason we have come un- 
 armed. Our object is not to do injury but to do good. We 
 have met them in the broad pathway of good faith and good 
 will, so that no advantage can be taken on either side, but all 
 is to be openness, brotherhood, and love, and all are to be 
 treated as of the same flesh and blood." To that those 
 whom we in our arrogance have called savages replied, 
 " While the sun shines and the river runs, we will keep peace 
 with William Penn and his children." This treaty, of which 
 it has been said that it was inscribed not on parchment but 
 on human hearts, was observed with scrupulous fidelity for 
 over seventy years, and Pennsylvania and the City of 
 Brotherly Love (noblest title of any city in the whole world) 
 never heard during that golden period the war-whoop of the 
 savage or the clangor of clashing arms. In that coming day 
 of perpetual peace, the founder of Pennsylvania will be justly 
 regarded as its morning star, heralding in a night of bar- 
 barism the approaching dawn. In the eighteenth cen- 
 
*5 
 
 tury Voltaire launched his curse against war in his noble 
 sentiment, "Every European war is a civil war;" while on 
 August 25th, 1790, the orator of the Revolution, Mirabeau, 
 made this prediction as to the influence of democracy 
 upon war: "Perhaps the hour is not far distant when 
 Freedom as absolute sovereign of both worlds will ful- 
 fill the wish of the philosophers and relieve mankind from 
 the crime of war, and proclaim eternal peace." These 
 peaceful utterances of men, who, treading the mountain 
 ranges of prophetic observation, descried the dawn, were 
 soon lost sight of in that fearful cataclysm, the French 
 Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, and it was not until 
 the latter was sent to St. Helena, "the mighty somnambulist 
 of a shattered dream " of universal empire, that the still 
 small voice of peace was again heard. The sovereigns of 
 Austria, Russia, Prussia, and France entered into the Holy 
 Alliance, by which they bound themselves "to aid one' an- 
 other in conformity with Holy Scriptures on every occasion." 
 The primary purpose of the alliance was to compel and main- 
 tain peace, but, unfortunately for humanity, it was soon per- 
 verted to choke the growing democracy of Europe and throt- 
 tle freedom. But the idea was in the minds of men, and 
 was compelling nations, perhaps from the sheer exhaustion 
 of previous wars, to determine their disputes by peaceful 
 'methods. At first this was accomplished by the mediation 
 of a friendly sovereign, and dispute after dispute was submit- 
 mitted to a ruler of a neutral State and by them decided. 
 This mediation could not long answer the purposes of peace, 
 for it possessed the obvious objections that it was not always 
 easy to secure a mediator who was disinterested and unbiased 
 or one with sufficient capacity to interpret treaties and na- 
 tional laws. At the Paris congress which put an end to the 
 Crimean war, the first important step was taken to insure 
 peace when, at the instance of the International Peace Society, 
 a clause was inserted in that treaty by which the powers 
 pledged themselves to consider conditions of peace before be- 
 ginning war; but the method of adjusting the differences, 
 whether by mediation of a friendly sovereign or a court of 
 arbitration, was not mentioned. 
 
i6 
 
 A nobler and better course was suggested, and it is to 
 a Philadelphian that the credit is due, and as usual such 
 credit is conspicuously wanting. In March, 1865, Thomas 
 Willing Balch suggested by a public letter that the pending 
 Alabama claims, which seemed incapable of adjustment, and 
 were a source of intense irritation between our country 
 and England, should be decided by a court of arbitration to 
 be composed of one representative of each country and three 
 representatives to be appointed by foreign powers. One can 
 appreciate the advance of public sentiment in the last quarter 
 of a century when I state that Mr. Balch could not for a time 
 persuade a newspaper to even publish his letter, until finally 
 it found a place in the columns of the New York Tribune. 
 Mr. Balch also submitted his idea to President Lincoln, who, 
 however, rejected it on the ground that it savored too much 
 of the millennium. Mr. Lincoln added, however, in his quaint 
 way, that " the idea was worth airing." It was not until 1871 
 that the commissioners from England and the United States 
 signed the treaty at Washington, by which they agreed to 
 submit their cause of quarrel to an international court of ar- 
 bitration. The appointment of said court, their meeting at 
 Geneva, their subsequent award in favor of the United States, 
 and the loyal submission to it of Great Britain, constitute a 
 milestone in the march of human progress. 
 
 The trend of thought can often be determined by care- 
 fully observing the tendencies and purposes of the novels at 
 present attracting public interest. Thus, three novels have 
 appeared in recent years, each of which has the same moral 
 purpose. The fact that these writers differ in nationality, 
 the one a Frenchman, the second a Russian, the third an 
 Austrian, and that the success of each of their works has 
 been pronounced, not only in their own countries but all 
 over the world, would seem to indicate that their high pur- 
 pose has found a responsive echo in the minds of men. I 
 refer to Tolstoi's " War and Peace," Suttner's " Ground Arms," 
 and Zola's " The Downfall." Each with a most powerful 
 realism, which is one of the characteristics of current fiction, 
 depicts war as it is. Theirs are not the pictures of conflict to 
 which we have been accustomed — not the battle as the general 
 
*7 
 
 sees it, from the safe vantage ground of a remote hillock, but 
 the red sea of carnage, into which men plunge in the mad 
 frenzy of the nations. War has no glamour for these writers. 
 The dismembered bodies, the mad passions, the hideous ex- 
 cesses, the disregard of the sanctity of life, the pathos of the 
 hospital with its attendant scourge of cholera and typhus, 
 the martyrdom of the battle-field, in which thousands of the 
 innocent expiate the sins of others, the destruction of prop- 
 erty, the injury to the advance of the peaceful arts, the fearful 
 aftermath of international prejudices and hatreds thereby 
 sown, are the aspects of war which they describe with a terror 
 of description as though their pens were dipped in blood. 
 Their argument is for the universal disarmament of nations, 
 as the only method of inaugurating the period of peace. 
 
 It is an interesting fact, and more than a mere coincidence, 
 that contemporary art reveals the same protest against the 
 war spirit. Its tendency is to make war repulsive rather than 
 glorious. It treats it in a cosmopolitan rather than a selfishly 
 national spirit. Between the French battle painters of the 
 beginning and end of our century there is a vast difference in 
 the spirit with which the subject is treated. One who gazes 
 upon the acres of canvas in the Palace of Versailles will 
 notice that battles are always pictured in a manner to 
 captivate the spectator with the idea of war, and to inflame 
 the martial spirit. The French are always victorious, and 
 the enemy always in retreat. Even in the battle of York- 
 town, as depicted in this series, an American will notice with 
 considerable amusement that the foremost figures are Rocham- 
 beau and De Grasse, while Washington is crowded into the 
 obscure background. The paintings, however, of Detaille and 
 De Neuville are entirely different in conception and treatment. 
 They not merely represent the ghastly horrors of war, but 
 they treat their countrymen and their enemies with equal 
 fairness. Take, for example, De Neuville's noble picture, 
 " A Parley " (Un Parliamentaire). It represents a shell- 
 stormed French village, into which some German officers 
 have entered blindfolded and under the protection of a flag of 
 truce. The German officers are depicted in a manner with 
 which their compatriots could not possibly quarrel. Yet the 
 
i8 
 
 wicked folly of the war is indicated in a simple peasant 
 woman, who, with her house shattered by the shells and in 
 ruins before her, shakes her clenched fist in maniacal frenzy 
 at these representatives of the invaders. One feels that the 
 painter means no reflection upon the German officers. They 
 are pawns moved upon the chess-board of war by higher 
 powers, but the protest of the shrieking woman is the welt- 
 schmerz — the groan of the world at this colossal iniquity. 
 
 The Russian painter, Verestschagin, has given the subject 
 the same repulsive character. His- picture of the battle of 
 Plevna, in which the Czar is leisurely seated at a table watch- 
 ing the battle from a distance, gave great offense in Russia. 
 His pictures of the dying and the slain are marked by a 
 terrible fidelity to nature, which some have thought beyond 
 the proper limits of art. Yet the painter should hold the 
 " mirror up to nature," and Verestschagin has served his day 
 and generation well by awakening with his brush the indigna- 
 tion of men at the frightful results of the battle. 
 
 Let me finally and very briefly state a few of the many con- 
 siderations which, in my judgment, inevitably tend to peace. 
 Each is deserving of far more careful treatment than is possible 
 at present, and opens a vista of indefinite and glorious possi- 
 bilities which it will repay any one to consider. Be it my 
 task simply to summarize them in the shortest way. 
 
 I . The spirit of democracy will lessen the possibility of war. 
 Nothing can be more sure than its rising tide. Its stride is 
 that of a seven -leagued giant. The masses of the people, who 
 are the real sufferers from war, ordinarily do not cause it, 
 while, on the contrary, the greatest number of armed conflicts 
 have been due to the arrogance and pride or personal selfish- 
 ness of rulers. Take, for example, the Franco-Prussian war. 
 It is well known that Napoleon the Third, sick both in mind 
 and body, did not desire the conflict, but, on the contrary, 
 was seriously meditating but twelve months before it opened 
 a proposal looking to the mutual disarmament of Europe and 
 the constitution of an international court of arbitration. Un- 
 happily for France, his self-willed and headstrong Empress 
 desired the war in the interests of the Napoleonic dynasty, 
 
and at her instigation, added to the self-confessed alteration 
 of dispatches by Bismarck, there was precipitated that short 
 but terrible conflict which terminated in the "terrible year" 
 and the partial destruction of Paris. Undoubtedly this war 
 could not have been commenced had it not received a popular 
 support from the French people, but the bad counsel of the 
 Empress and her immediate advisers was the stick that 
 started the avalanche. The unhappy queen of fashion, when 
 her only son fell beneath a Zulu spear, must have keenly felt 
 the immeasurable sorrow that her foolish ambition had in part 
 inflicted upon France. With the advance of parliamentary 
 government the day is not far distant when no ruler can de- 
 clare war without the consent of the people, and that will 
 materially lessen such conflicts. 
 
 2. The advance of civilization has increased the sense of 
 brotherhood of men by facilitating the communication of ideas, 
 and has made possible a public opinion strong enough to repress 
 these and other evils. The newspaper which we each morning 
 pick from our door-steps, acquaints us with the happenings of 
 the world during the last twenty-four hours, and creates an 
 interest on our part in the general welfare of humanity that 
 was impossible a century ago. The telegraph has brought all 
 men as under one roof, and the cable enables Gresham and 
 Gladstone to discuss questions of mutual interest almost as 
 freely as if they were sitting at the same table. The steam- 
 ship which can cross the Atlantic in five days and seventeen 
 hours, and the railroad train which can carry passengers from 
 New York to San Francisco in five days, cause the mingling 
 of men and their mutual intercourse until by friendly contact 
 and the realization of their mutual helpfulness their national 
 prejudices and hatreds have been forgotten. Hence have 
 arisen the great international expositions, commencing with 
 the one in London in 185 I and terminating with the present 
 at Chicago. Had the Prince Consort done nothing more for 
 humanity than instituting these friendly competitions of brain 
 and muscle he would have deserved his beautiful monument at 
 Hyde Park. These peaceful Olympiads of industry cannot 
 help but weaken the inborn hatreds of different races, which 
 
2Q 
 
 are in the least analysis the profound and underlying causes 
 of war. 
 
 3. The development of means of destruction will serve to 
 prevent war. Speaking on the army bill a few years ago, 
 Prince Bismarck stated that to the next war between France 
 and Germany the last would be but child's play. He further 
 added that it would be a war of exceptional ferocity, and, fit- 
 tingly borrowing a figure from the shambles, he said that on 
 the part of the victor it would be a case of " bleeding white." 
 This metaphor relates to the habit of butchers drawing the 
 last drop of blood from certain kinds of cattle to make their 
 flesh white. It is undoubtedly true that since the last war 
 cannon and rifles have been so developed that unless some 
 sufficient armor can be found for the human body the mortal- 
 ity would be unexampled. I believe it was General Sheridan 
 who, commenting on this fact in an address at West Point, 
 said that the next war would be one of annihilation. Un- 
 doubtedly this fact contributes materially to the present 
 peace of Europe. Europe is to-day afraid to engage in war, 
 while the democratic masses are sullenly refusing to be " food 
 for powder" in the interest of their rulers. 
 
 4. The United States, I firmly believe, will compel peace at 
 no distant day, and it will do this without any intention on 
 her part. Here is a fact whose importance has been almost 
 overlooked. The governments of Europe are to-day bank- 
 rupt under great debts, whose payment is impossible. Mili- 
 tary service is well-nigh universal, and out of every five men one 
 is constantly in arms. It has been estimated that it takes the 
 work of one farmer or manual laborer to sustain each soldier 
 in the army, and thus two men out of every five are unnec- 
 essarily drawn from the productive forces of the nations. 
 The military burdens, together with past debts, are so 
 crushing that economic forces are paralyzed and the masses 
 are in a state of revolt. With land enhanced in price, with 
 raw materials difficult of access, weighed down by the 
 burdens of a military and civil list, the time is not far distant 
 when these nations cannot compete with the United States 
 unless they throw off such burdens. With our own debt re- 
 
21 
 
 duced by marvelous recuperation to but little over $500,000,- 
 000, with the certainty that in the next quarter of a century 
 both it and our pension list will be practically obliterated, with 
 an abundance of cheap land, with unrivaled and inexhaustible 
 natural resources, with the most inventive, intelligent, and 
 productive labor in the world, the economic primacy of the 
 world will be ours. The desire of America is now to enter 
 the markets of the world and challenge all comers. It re- 
 quires no knowledge of political economy to state that in 
 such competition the decrepit and bankrupt nations of the 
 continent, staggering and groaning under the most frightful 
 burden of military power the world has ever known, must in- 
 evitably be driven to the wall unless they disarm. It is my 
 firm belief, therefore, that America is destined to be not sim- 
 ply the liberator but the pacificator of civilization. 
 
 5. To this last consideration perhaps should be added the 
 thought, not of an Anglo-American reunion, advocated by Mr. 
 Andrew Carnegie in the North American Review for June, 
 1893, but of an Anglo-American alliance in the interests of 
 peace. They are the only two countries upon which the sun 
 does not set, and which are beyond question unconquerable by 
 any power that could be sent against them. Together they unite, 
 without counting their colonial dependencies, an English- 
 speaking nation numbering to-day over one hundred millions 
 of people, and destined within fifty years to number two hun- 
 dred millions. While each is an amalgam of other races — 
 and happily so, as mixed races have ever been the strongest — 
 yet the main stock of each nation is Teutonic in origin. They 
 have in common the same language, literature, and law- 
 Should these two nations join hands in the interests of peace 
 and say — 
 
 " For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl. 
 He that stirs next to carve for his own rage 
 Holds his soul light. He dies upon his motion," 
 
 their influence must be a great and beneficent one. These 
 two are the greatest competitors for the world's industrial 
 supremacy, and they will compel by their own comparative 
 freedom from governmental burdens a like exemption on the 
 part of other countries. 
 
22 
 
 6. We would omit the greatest consideration that justifies 
 the hope of peace did we not mention Christianity. I mean 
 by that no ecclesiastical organization, but the impulse of for- 
 bearance, self-sacrifice, and love that the world owes to the 
 great Martyr, and which to-day animates all religions, Jew 
 or Gentile, Protestant or Catholic. It is this that gives force 
 and effect to the " decent respect to the opinions of mankind." 
 We who are here assembled have this day unanimously re- 
 solved, at the instance of the Carpenters' Company, and qn 
 motion of the honored " Father of the Centennials," Colonel 
 Peyton, that " we deem it both proper and appropriate that 
 the citizens of the United States, regardless of nationality, 
 religious sect or denomination, should, in the interest of peace, 
 fraternity, and future prosperity, suggest and commend a 
 meeting of the human family in the city of Jerusalem, to give 
 thanks and praise to God, the Father of all, and so appropri- 
 ately celebrate the closing of the nineteenth and the opening 
 of the twentieth century of the Christian era." 
 
 Let us pray God that this noble and beneficent purpose, so 
 fraught with good for humanity, may be carried out. Where 
 He walked, proclaiming " Peace on earth, goodwill to man," 
 there let the nations meet and take a high resolve to obey 
 His imperative mandate, uttered in hour of supremest need, 
 when Peter unsheathed his sword in the holiest cause that 
 ever inspired a man to action, "Put up again thy sword into his 
 place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." 
 
 I know no fitter place in which to inaugurate this move- 
 ment than Philadelphia, where Penn, by precept and example, 
 taught the power of love, and none in which with greater 
 propriety it can be consummated than in Jerusalem, where 
 died the Prince of Peace. In such holy convocation of the 
 human family, perhaps the first step towards a realization of 
 the " parliament of man and the federation of the world," let 
 His voice, still and small, yet mightier than the tempest or 
 the earthquake, rise above the passionate quarrels of men ! 
 
 " Down the dark future, through long generations, 
 The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease ; 
 And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, 
 
 I hear once more the voice of Christ say, " Peace ! "