The Colorado statesman. [volume] (Denver, Colo.) 1895-1961, 1909-05-08
ENEMIES OF WAR
HOLD A CONGRESS
SECOND NATIONAL PEACE CON-
! FERENCE IN CHICAGO.
EMINENT MEN ARE PRESENT
Statesmen, Diplomats and Political
Economists Assemble and Discuss
the Final Elimination of
Armed Conflicts.

CnlCaSO.-1ne sessions OF the sec
ond National Peace Congress, which
opened in Orchestra hall Monday aft
ernoon, attracted to Chicago many
thousand earnest enemies of war,
among them being many distinguished
statesmen, diplomats and political
economists. President Taft is the
honorary president of the congress,
and Secretary of War Jacob NJ. Dick
inson is its active president, but Meth
er of these gentlemen was able to
be present, owing to their official du-
ties. However, there was no lack of
eminent men to preside over the ses-
sions.
AS a preliminary to the congress.
special peace services were held in
many Chicago churches Sunday morn
ing, peace meetings arranged by labor
and socialist organizations were held
in the afternoon and in the evening
there was big mass meeting, at
which addresses were delivered by
Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones and Rev.
Emil G. Hirsch, both of Chicago, and
President Jacob Gould Schurman of
Cornell university.
Welcome to the Congress.
Orchestra hall was filled to the
limit Monday when the first session
was called to order by Robert Treat
Paine of Boston, the presiding officer,
for governors, mayors and hundreds of
clubs had been asked to appoint dele
gates, and most of them had re-
sponded. President Decisions ad-
dress, the same he delivered several
weeks ago before the Hamilton club,
was read, and the congress was then
formally welcomed by Gov. Charles S.
Deneen for the state, Mayor Fred A.
Busse for the city and Rev. A. Eugene
Bartlett, chairman of the reception
committee. The secretary then read
a brief letter from President Taft, in
which the chief executive heartily
commended the aims of the congress.
Miss Anna B. Eckstein of Boston
next was introduced to the meeting
and read World Petition to the
Third Hague Conference" This was
followed by an address by DIR. Benja-
min F. Trueblood, secretary of the
American Peace society, on 1.-THE
Present Position of the Peace Move
msnt."
What Has Been Accomplished.
DR.. Trueblood said in part:
Let me sketch in the barest out
lines what has already been accom-
plished The Interpretation will take
care of itself.
II. The men and women, now a
great host, who believe that the day
is past when blind brute force should
direct the policies of nations and pre-
side at the settlement of their diff
ferences, are now thoroughly organ
lied. A hundred years ago there was
not a society in existence organized
to promote appeal to the forum of
reason and right in the adjustment of
international controversies To-day
there are more than 500, nearly
every important nation having
its group of peace organizations. Their
constituents are numbered by tens of
thousands, from every rank and class
in y-philanthropists, men of
trade and commerce, educators and
jurists, workingmen, statesmen, rulers
even.
Triumph of Arbitration.
I'll. The position which the peace
movement has reached is no less dis
tinctly determined by the practical at
tainments of arbitration. We are this
year celebrating what is really the
one hundredth anniversary of the birth
of our movement, for it was in 1909
that David l.. Dodge, Christian mer-
chant of New York city, wrote the
pamphlet which brought the move.
ment into being, and led six years
later to the organization in his parlor
in New York of the first Peace society
IN the world. There had then been
no arbitrations between nations in our
modern sense of the word nations In
the 100 years since 1909 more
than $50 important controversies have
been settled by this means, not to
mention an even greater number of
less important cases, the settlement
of which involved the principle of ar
bitration. Within the past 20 years so
rapid has been the triumph of arbi-
tration that more than 100 interna-
tional differences have been disposed
of by this means, or between five and
six a year for the whole 20 years.
Arbitration is no longer an expert
ment. 1t is the settled practice of the
nations. A score of disputes to-day go
naturally to arbitration where one
gives rise even to talk of war.
The Hague Conferences.
I'll In order to determine further
the advanced position which the
peace movement has attained on its
practical side, the two Hague confer
ences and what they have ac-
complished must be taken into ac-
count 1t is still the habit of some per-
sons to speak disparagingly of these
hnrinnc moi