The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1909-05-03

al paclncaC1On is not a dream, not an
ideal from cloudland, but a progressive
fact observable in every civilized
country"
LET me sketch in the l%rest out
lines what has already been accomp
lished. The Interpretation will take
care of itself
First. The men and women, now
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 differ
ences, are now thoroughly organized.
A hundred years ago there was not
a society in existence organized to pro-
mote appeal to the forum of reason
and right in the adjustment of inter-
national controversies. Today there
are more than five hundred, nearly
every important nation having its
group of peace organizations. Their
constituents are numbered by tens
of thousands, from every rank and
class in -philanthropists, men
Of trade and commerce, educators and
jurists, workingmen, statesmen, rul-
ers even. The organized peace party
has its international peace bureau at
Berne Switzerland, binding all its
sections into one world body 1t has
its international peace congress,
which has held II meetings in 20 years
congresses over which statesmen
now feel it an honor to preside and
which are welcomed by kings ana
presidents with a warmth of interest
and a generousness of hospitality
scarcely accorded to any other organ
ization. 1t has it's great national
congresses in many countries, like this
present one. and that in Carnegie hall,
New York, two years ago; and its
special conferences like that at Hohonk
lake. 1t has it's unsurpassed banquets
and festivals, like that given to the
Seventeenth International Peace con-
gress by the British government IN
London last July and those recently
given by the peace society OF the city
of New York 1t has it's score and
more of special organs of propaganda
published in no less than nine different
languages. 1t has it's literature, abund-
ant in quantity, and high grade in
quality, which is now much sought at-
ter by intelligent men and women OF
many callings. In another direction 1t
has it's interparliamentary peace unlon'
an organization of statesmen, OF legls-
lators. two thousand five hundred OF
them, many of them among the 1ore-
most public men of the time, pandeo
together. not for any political purpose,
but nurely to promote international
understanding. good feeling, and the
pacific settlement of international con-
troversieS.
Second. The position which the
peace movement has reached is no less
distinctly determined by the practical
attachments of arbitration. We are
this year celebrating what is really
the Tooth anniversary of the birth OF
our movement. for it was in 1909 that
David L. Dodge, Christian merchant
of New York city, wrote the phamplet
which brought the movement into pc
ing and led six years later to the Or
ganization in his parlor in New YORK
of the first peace society in the Worio.
There had then been no arDltratlohs
between nations in our modern sense
of the word nations" In the hundred
years since 1909 more than two nun
dred and fifty important controver-
sizes have been settled by this means
not to mention an even greater NUN
Der of less important cases, the settie-
ment of which involved the prlnclple
of arbitration. Within the past ~
years SO rapid has been the triumph OF
arbitration that more than one num-
dred international differences nave
been disposed of by this means, or pc
tween five and six year Tor the
whole 20 years. Arbitration is no
longer an experiment. 1t is the settieo
practice of the nations. A score OF dis
putes today go naturally to arpitratioil
where one gives rise even TO taih u
war
"The first Hague conference, ten
years ago, gave us the permanent m
ternational court of arbitration, Wnich
has now been in successful operation
for about eight years and disposed OF
several important controversies. Inis