The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-11-12
DIR. ELIOT'S "ROADS
TOWARDS PEACE"

New York Post: DR.. Charles w.
Eliot's full report of his Investigations
in the far east for the Carnegie En-
downment for International peace, now
printed, is a stimulating document. AS
against many recent warnings that the
fruition of the peace movement. be
longs to the Indefinite future, President
Eliot does a, service in ~picturing the
prospect In a new and encouraging
light. The common conception of the
ending of war has been through inter-
national agreements, the cooperation
or anti-militarists, the Strengthening
of commercial bonds-in a word, by
agencies working directly upon the re-
lations Of one country to another. But
to DR.. Eliot world-peace is tantamount
to a high civilization, and is to come
through development within each ma
ton. The present letter OF treaties
may hold; but when public sentiment
Gn each countrynis sufficiently educat-
e1, wars will have automatically ceas-
ed.
In DR.. Eliot's report, in other words,
the cause of peace is restated as a doc
trine Of mellorism. He believes that
when mankind has attained q certain
advance, war will have fallen into
it's final decline. His specific recommen-
dations to the Carnegie trustees are Of
a general sort. One is a hospital in
TOXIC; ANOTHER is a secondary school
for the children Of foreign residents in
the same city; a third is the establish
ment of travelling fellowships for Chi
nese youth; another a free public lib
rary in Peking. All have the same
waite w~ell-being are to be q~uickened,
without present reference to wal or
world-relations. He advises that the
Carnegie fund be used to foster re-
mic, industrial, and political principles
that purify and strengthen family life
and secure liberty, domestic joys, and
necessity of c%ultivating ain all nations
trusteeship,- public spirit, n the APP
plication of private money to public
uses" His one emphatic reference to
an international topic is commenda-
ton of all efforts to teach peoples to
understand each other and their own
position in the family of nations. DR..
Eliot remarks that wars for dynastic
or religious aims are past; the causes
OF war in the future are likely to be
national distrusts, dislikes, and appre-
tensions, which nave been nursed in
ignorance, n fed on rumors, suspic-
ions, and conjectures pr~opagated by
INSCRIPTIONS ~newsmongers, until sud-
denly developed by some untoward
event into active hatred, or widespread
alarm" To correct this Ignorance or
selfshness he would have institutions
planted.
This hopeful theory Of working
against war is not new. That the grow
tn of liberalism within a nation makes
for peace is q truism alike to those
who oppose wal simply for its soul
less dark butchery," and to those who
stand on DR.. Eliot's broader plane. AS
man with an uncomfortable mind in an
uncomfortable body, SO the factious
nation is often one full of inward dis
satisfactions. Yet we cannot forget
that, in addition to moral forces, inter-
national peace is also thought Of in
terms of treaties; of the Hague Tri-
bunal and it's eleven adjudications; OF
Churchills holiday year, and Bryan's
4 4-~@ - 20 ~ 1.@r nNo n1VVA
not merely as symbols of progress
war amity, but as progress itself.
But it is the reflection that the sub
version of the work of such agencies is
easy which has impelled many to utter
warnings against too rash hopes for
peace. Looking abroad at the ming
ling of sincerity and ~chicanery in
diplomacy, the evasion of formal in
struments and moral obligations, the
recurrence of bullying n injustice,
they have seen reason for their belief
that to break an occasional claw or
tooth Of wal is all that can now be
hoped for. From too great discourage
ment DR.. Eliot rescues them. Treaties
| will suffer abrogation until the spirit
back Of them is elevated. The funda-
mental ask is to develop standard
view is optimistic in that 1t links the
peace movement to the sturdier human
impulses, and gives it the assistance
1 of a hundre other forces seeking a
common achievement. . #s +"
Another corrective and common
sense implication Of his report is his
attitude towards reducing the differ
ences between nations. What is the
duty of friends Of peace?' we read
from another college professor. "To
act constantly on the basis that all
men are brothers.; to strive to reduce
the differences between nations" DR..
Eliot's beneVolence is not too sweep
ing. Except in ethics, education, and
economic efficiency, he does not carry
the Tennysonian world-federation to an
extreme. He would condemn direct
antipathies,. while pricing national col
or and individuality. President Eliot
does not pirate of the brotherhood of
man, but he talks downrightly OF the
need of racial purity in the east, the
inevitableness of national pride and
national distinctiveness, and the grow
ing evidences that the government of
large masses by an alien race is be-
coming impracticable. There is an in
grained diversity Of. people. which is
to remain unchanged beneath the new
aud universal regard for ideals OF
peace. With all his hopes for raising