The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-09-26
TIE LONDON CONFERENCE.
A Strihing Coincidcnce-The Discuss sion of War and Pence-The English
 Fellow Mourners With the People of

Fellow Iourners With the People q l the United States
 To the Editor of the Journal and Courier;
 London, Sept. 1S.-It is a striking an sad coincidence that at the time, twen ty years ago, when the first conferenc
 of world Methodism was held il this city, the news came that Presiden
 Garfield had passed away, the resul being that one of the sessions was con | verted into a memorial service It wa
 such service as those of us who were
 present are not likely to ever forget | England and America sat as mourner!
 in the same building, and the voices O
 the two nations blended in an eloquen | tribute of grief and appreciation. Side l by side, too, sat the representatives ol l both northern and southern Methodism and though at that time only sixteer years had elapsed since the civil war 1 the voice of the south was as true an6 tender, and it's tears as much in evi- l dence, as were any expressions from the more republican church of the north. And now, with even added i'm
 pressiveness, all this has just happened again. Americans at home have had tc
 take England's sympathy at second
 hand; we have been eye witnesses of it.
 and no less have we been privileged
 beyond others in getting near view,
 as in the former case, of the warm,
 loyal heart of the reconstructed south.
 It was happy circumstance that
 hn Nrt t,,tN -t ta,, Eh
 tween these two conferences, marking the exact time between Garfield's death and the attempt to assassinate William Mckinley, had brought into closer union. not only the two sections of our land, but the peoples of the two coun- tries. No American can be long in England without feeling in his bones and in every fibre of his life that Eng fish sentiment toward the American re- public has changed of late, very greatly for the better. This it was which gave such peculiar inpressiveness to what was said on the English side when the conference, upon bearing the sad news from Buffalo, transformed itself at once into Lodge of Sorrow. For a cordial appreciation of our stricken president, the conference had been pre- pared somewhat by the debates of the day before. The subject was 'Interna- tional Peace" but when the discussion ended it was everybody's opinion that what had been really considered was, not peace, but war; in particular, Eng lands war in South Africa and wheth- CT from Methodist point of view it was justifable.
 This discussion of war and peace was marked by two features. It brought from the American side strong expression of hope that England would soon compete her South African conquests and would proceed then to govern these new colonies in her usual spirit of justice tempered by mercy, and 1t also brought out into clear view, in unwilling anticipation of the service of the following day, the noble peacea ble character of President Mckinley. Whether the English expected such things or not they have certainly had m this conference no end of compli ments from speakers on the American side. The Stars and Stripes have been pressed for the present into a new kind 1f service, that of dipping to the Union Tack, and one of the effects of these American obesences has been to height en the English feeling of goodwill to- ward us.
 Safely may it be said that on that morning when the English section of he conference was called suddenly to express it's sympathy with our nation, md to pay a tribute to our president, it approached this mournful and brother y duty with sense of brotherliness hat was altogether unusual. This had ,een rendered inevitable by what took ,lace in the debate on the war. Ger ain 1t is, too, that the British contin- rent of the conference had been pre- ,ared by what took place in that same lebate, as they could scarcely have ,een in any other way, to put proper stimate upon the life and services of | William Mckinley.
 The opening address was by Dr. c. | W. Smith, of Pittsburg, who said that | fethodism was not a political power l nd could not employ political agencies | n furtherance of either war or peace. he could only influence national poll l
  CT of her adherents. President Me <inley, he said, was one of the pro- ucts of the Methodist church, and al- hough there had been war during his he himself was man f peace. He was always hopeful that he trouble with Spain might be set tied y diplomacy In the preliminary Lages of that trouble he held back the ogs of war, as represented in congres nd popular clamor, until he could do
 no longer. When the Maine was lown up it was too much to expect lat even President Mckinley should 2 for peace. This was how our strick- l president was held up at the open lg of that debate and in the closing of
 he was still in view and still kept be- sace, for 1t was at this point that pr.
 M. King, of Philadelphia, got the DOT and proceeded to read from a orning paper McKinleys speech of le previous day at Buffalo, in which } deprecated commercial antagonisms Id pleaded for reciprocity and inter- ltional good will. But appreciative references to the merican president, frequent though ley were in that debate, didn't mono )lize it. There were other features, ,tably, as I have said the many ref ences to the war in South Africa, the forts made to justify war and the l