The daily Alaskan., 1915-01-20
THE GRDDEST JEST IN ALL
 HISTORY

David Starr Jordan in the San Francisco Star of Jan. 9th:
 IT. a recent number of a popular magazine q well-knowp writer uses Jlese words:
 Towering over the Carnegie Plei glitters the Peace Palace, htstory's grimmest jest and the worlds great est monument to failure"
 Let us look at the facts:
 Those people who have struggled b prevent this war and who have worked for the supremacy of law and decency over intrigue and greed in international affairs have found .0 Holland for the last twenty years a hospitable reception. Holland lies outside the currents of militarism aud Of rival explorations, which in m accelerating degree have threat eued to ruin Europe The courtesy Uf the capital city of Holland has found place for the meeting of those conferences and tribunals devoted 10 the extension of security and law. The friends of peace have also met in other capitals, notably in Brussels, Berne and Stockholm, but of all available cities The Hague has been usually the most convenient.
 Ia recognition of these needs, NIT. Carnegie gave to the government of Holland something over a million dollars, to be used for the erection et halls adequate for the varied purposes of international activity. The people of Holland have put up d building in the Dutch style of red and white brick, and they have sur rounded it by beautiful garden.
 The building does not glitter, y nor is it in any sense a palace, " though it's Dutch name, "Vreden- palast," translates itself as peace palace"
 No one expected that hall of meet iug would of itself bring peace to careless, greedy world which srent half It's earrings on the culti- yatjou of hate. It was simply meeting place for those who be- ueyed in the future rule of sanity and who served a cause that must ultimately triumph, a cause which must outlast armies and navies and kings and empires. Not to believe Tat civilization can be made law abiding would be to despair of hu- nan destiny.
 Just now we cannot meet in these halls, for the laW-oreakers of Flu rope have brought chaos in all in teruational relations. It is under stood that one of the faithful, Pro- lessor Ludwig Quidde, of Munich, finds his place there, and when che channels of travel are opened We shall find a thousand men ready tor the war against war to where there was one in the careless and cynical days before 1914.
 Shall we ever need these halls again? Is the riot of murder and robbery for which no man nor nation dare stand sponsor the last word in history? Is all human achievement to go the way of Ma lines and Louvain and Rheims? Is there no power higher than the armed state? Is there no public opinion. no voice of God, above the voice Of the howitzer? Is the crush cf rival military efficiency the end of our Christian civilization?
 We do not believe this. We have faith in man and therefore, in the God within him. We have been head ing straight toward war, gathering our weapons in the sacred name of peace. We shall fill the halls again when the pirates are swept from the lanes of traffic. There are < hundred, maybe a thousand, who see war today for what 1t is, where there was one a year ago.
 When We have buried our dead and fed the starving millions that war has robbed, we shall come to The Hague again, and this hall of Peace will be only one of ten thou sand we shall need and find all over the world.
 What, then, Is the grimmest 1est' the costliest failure In all history? rs name Is Military Efficiency. It