The public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1913-1968, 1916-05-27

Mr.. Taft is President of the League
to Enforce Peace, which was formed at
Philadelphia, in Independence Hall
last June, when platform was adopt
ed which proposed the establishment
of an international court and council
of Cancellation by league of nations,
which should pledge its joints econo-
mic and military forces to prevent any
from beginning hostilities or
declaring war, over any question until
it had first tried judicial methods.
Ministers in Maysville to whom let
ters were sent are Rev. A. f. Stahl, of
the Christian Church and Rev. J. NJ.
Literal of the Third Street NJ. f.
Church.
Enclosed with the letter from Mr..
Taft and others, was an open Letter
to the Ministers of America on the
Moral Challenge of the War" which
reads in part as follows:
The present war has challenged the
moral ingenuity of the world. For
years we have preached the ideals OF
peace and have hurled indictments
against war While the world was al
peace it was easy to feel that we had
done our duty and discharged our re-
sponsiblity when we had lifted our
voice against war in pulpit, in univer-
sity, and in the market place. A long
period of peace had lulled the world
into a false security. We did not feel
a driving urgency about our work for
international peace We were going
along quietly doing what we could to
educate public opinion against war,
but we did not feel an immediate re-
sponsibility for devising actual ma
chinery of international organization
that would make war less probaDH.
Then there burst upon the world
overnight the most brutal. the most
ruthless, and the most gigantic war of
history. The flower of human brother
hood that the Christian forces of the
world had been watering and nurtur-
ing for centuries was withered by the
hot breath of hate. The results OF
years OF struggle for social justice, for
democracy, and for larger opportunity
for the common man, were thrown on
the scrap heap and all the energies of
mind and heart we're ,harnessed TO the
machinery of war.
This war has taught us that the
most urgent, the most necessary the.
most fundamentally religious duty now
before us is the devising and adopting
of some method other than war for
settling the disputes that are bound to
arise between nations.
The best thinking Of the world as
we'll as all the lessons of history in
dictate that the only method by which
the dangers of war can be practically
eliminated, is by substituting law for
war among nations just as we have
substituted law for among individuals
within the nations.
There is no reasonable ground to
hope that the nations of the world will
at this stage go so far as to disarm
and create an international army and
navy TO police the world. We have not
got that far in International affairs.
But we have got to the point where
there is ground to hope that at the end
Of this war the community of nations
will do what every primitive commun
ity sooner or later does, namely; In
primitive community when the honor
Of the women and the property of the
town are no longer safe from outlaws,
all men, even the most peace loving,
unite in forming a Vigilance Commit
tee, in which they agree to use their
combine force to see that outlawry is
kept down and the peace of the town
uluiAtulhNu'
The United States is today in exactly
the position of a man of peace in
frontier town. 1t is our duty TO sug-
gest and stand ready to join as Inter
national Vigilance Committee, in
which the nations of the world shall
join in saying that they will use their
combined power IL necessary to force
any nation with a grievance to submit
its difficulty TO an International Court
or Council of Cancellation before de-
claring war,
II seems practically possible that at
the end of this war the nations will be-
willing 10 enter a League to enforce
the submission OF all disputes TO an in
ternatlonal court or council OF con
for a complete examination