The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-15

We have already spoken of the es-
sential triumph of American diplom-
acy and the addition to American pres
tige involved in the acceptance by
Great Britain of our own proposition
for settling the Venezuela controversy.
This would be enough to confer a last
ing glory upon the American name and
upon the present federal administra-
ton; but the scope of this agreement
Is broader, and it's meaning greater
even than that The Venezuelan affair
is only an incident in a mighty policy
which, for the first time in the history
of the human race has been fixed
upon by two great nations that have
been heretofore. intensely jealous of
each other, when not actually hostile.
The settlement Of international dis
putes without recourse to armed force
has been the dream of the religionist
and the philanthropist ever since the
proclamation of the gospel of the
Prince of Peace. The horrors of war.
the cruelty, the wickedness of it have
burned themselves into every human
soul. The poets pen n the histori-
ans eloquence have expended them
elves upon this frightful negation in
the concrete of all hat we hold to be
excellent in humanity in the alb
stract. Men are patriotic, valorous,
generous, true; but an aggregation of
men known as a nation has had no
other recourse, when differences arose
betWeen it and another aggregation.
than the calling together of millions
of human beings, each one without in
terest in or care for the cause of quar-
rel, to blow each other into bits, to
wiring millions of other human hearts,
to cover the land with a deluge of
blood and a tornado of awful human
suffering; and then, in the end, to de-
eide nothing at all as to the right or
wrong of it, but to learn that, in the
cynical words of the old commander,
God is on the sid of the heaviest
battalion"
This is the history and the philosophy
of war. Wal to redress an abuse, war
to destroy a savage race or to bring
1T within the bounds of civilization,
war to avenge and prevent for the flu
ture such atrocities as have lately
occurred in Armenia and in Cuba, is
an Ineligible, an honorable, a glori-
Gus thing. War between two peoples
approximately equal in mental and
moral force, simply because their opin-
0 do not fit with one another, is a
horrible anomaly. It is precisely on
a plane with the old method be-
tween individuals of adjusting affairs
by private quarrel. Long ago the in
dividual set up an outside tribunal to
decide between him and his neighbor.
He saw the comical side of the as
sumption hat the man with the big
gest biceps must be the man with the
best cause. Yet nations have from
time immemorial continued to act on
hat principle, because they were un-
willing to surrender the royal preroga-
tive of power.
II las OCCh IC1L IOI I1c great Ill
visions of the race which speaks the
English tongue to tax this step, to
mark this glorious contamination. Be-
hind the agreement reached on the
Venezuelan question stands the might
fer agreement to arbitrate all differ
enceS that arise in the future between
Great Britain and the United States. 1t
has been definitely agreed upon, with
the unanimous approval and at the
instigation Of the common people Of
both these great nations, that war be-
tween them, under any conceivable
circumstances, woul be an interna-
tional crime 1t would pass all the
bounds of Individual ill-doing, or of
treason against high authority, and
become an offense against the world
and humanity itself. That it must
never again occur has beer decreed.
This exhibition to the rest of the
world of our appreciation and accept
ancc of the moral obligation which men
and women long ago recognized can
rot all TO be Of enormous erect. These
are the twotanations1svhjeIl 1pfeAersf4
nently feel and need to feel no fear of