Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-22

tIce OF war, he knew whereof he spoke
through bitter personal experience
From his boyhood days to 1915 David
Dodge passed through years which
held much fullness and activity for
him. He founded a number of private
schools in his early manhood in which
he taught. but shortly left this profess
sion for business. His copartnership
with New York firm caused him to
move to the metropolis and from this
period of his life dates his activity as
an advocate of peace.
In 1905 he wrote in his autobiography
the following words, which indicate
the trend of his thoughts: Il entreat
that children be not given military
for nothing takes SO strong hold upon
their young and tender minds as mar
tial music and the gaudy trappings Of
military service"
in the subject of the antiChristianism
of war, which was receiving its first
impulse then through the spirited es-
say of DR.. Noah Worcester, The Sol
cmn Review of War"
An early conflict took place in David
Dodge's mind when he attempted to
reconcile his newly gained abstract
theories of opposition to war with his
instructive justification of the Ameri-
can revolution But he persevered in
his new convictions, and. as he states,
"quickened my interviews with pious
friends who had given listening ear
TO the SUBJECT, with the result tndC IN
1910 he united with twenty leading
members of the new doctrines Of peace
and stoutly repudiated the maxims of
war.
X
Early in 1872 the friends of peace in
New York deliberated under his leader
ship on the eXpediency of founding a
peace society to diffuse the new prin-
njy,la hol aIo U,,x -;
juncture war was threatened against
Great Britain, and it was judged un-
wise to form a society at the time.
Upon the restoration of peace be-
tween the United States and Great
Britain, this same circle of men be-
came active once again and had two or
three meetings relative to the organi-
cation of peace society.
One night in August, 1915, in the par
Tor of David Dodge's New York home,
might have been found thirty or forty
men who We're gathered together for
the first time in the worlds history
for this specific reason. Among them
were included some of the best stock
We're bound up in the principles upon
which the country had been founded.
Noah Worcester. noted preacher;
army and later founded the Massachu-
sets Peace Society. was in that par
lor William Claiming, the most dis
tlnSuished Unitarian minister ana
writer in the United States, was also
present, and among others were Will
liam Ladd. later the founder of the
American Peace Society; Josiah Quincy,
the Massachusetts statesman who be-
came the second mayor Of Boston and
president. of Harvard University, and
Samuel ]. May, strong-minded reform
er and Unitarian minister, well known
as an ardent and enlightened philan-
thropist Men of prominence in every
r1l a IaQISIAfOTS.
college professors. clergymen. lawyers
and other men of affairs soon partici-
pated and the first great wave Of peace
effort spread over the whole Atlantic
seaboard.
Monthly meetings of the New York
Peace Society were arranged, and at
the first of these Mr.. Dodge read an
address on the kingdom of peace, of
which a thousand copies were at once
printed and circulated. The articles of
association were of the strictest kind
and were against all carnal warfare,
whether offensive or defensive. Within
two years the society's membership in