The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1919-06-22
TO EXTIRPATE STRIFE

Whatever strife there has been at the peace
table, and there has been much, the covenant,
imperfect as it is, is the broadcast and comes
nearer to approaching an unselfish reform than
any other covenant ever promulgated. All things
must have beginning, and the covenant of the
League of Nations is the first step towards that
broader reform, of which James Allen says: Eve
live in world, universe, Astounding with all
good things. So great is the abundance Of spir-
itual mental and material blessings that every
man and woman on this globe could not only be
provided with every necessary good but could
live in the midst of Astounding plenty, and yet
have much to spare. Yet, in spite of this what
a spectacle do we see! We see on one hand mil
lions of men and women chained to a ceaseless
slavery, unfortunately toiling in order to obtain
a poor and scanty meal and garment to cover
their nakedness; and, on the other hand we see
thousands who already have more than they re-
quire and can well manage, depriving themselves
of all the blessings of true life and of the vast
opportunities which their possessions place with
in their reach, in order to accumulate more of
those material things for which they have no
legitimate use.''
These words of Allen, written years before the
war, might have been written today. But the
thing that gives emphasis to these prophetic
words is not that they are true, but THAT THE
WORLD IS AT LAST LEARNING THE LES
SON THEY TEACH, and to which it has been
slowly sensing since the first Declaration of In
dependence was made and all men were declared
free and equal-indeed long before that time
since the first democrat, Jesus Christ, died for
the principle that all men should be free and
equal.
In one of the remarkable be Of Alien, EN-
tering the Kingdom" he makes the following
statement: cit is not scarcity that produces
competition, 1T is ABUNDANCE; so that the
richer and more luxurious a nation becomes, the
keener and fiercer becomes the competition for
securing the necessaries and luxuries of life Let
famine overtake nation, and at once compass
sion and sympathy take the place of competitive
strife''
These words were written long before the
world war, and so gain emphasis from that fact.
Allen continues: 'Innumerable economic sys-
TENS have failed, and must fail, to extirpate the
strife of the world. They are the outcome of
the delusion that outward systems of govern
ment are the causes of strife, whereas they are
but the visible and transient effects of the IN
WARD STRIFE, the channels through which
it must necessarily manifest itself. To destroy
the channel is, and must ever be- Intellectual, as
the inward energy will Immediately make for
itself another, and still another and another.
Strife cannot cease and the competitive laws
must prevail so LONG AS SELFISHNESS Is
FOSTERED IN THE HEART. All reforms will
fail where this element is IGNORED OR UN-
ACCOUNTED FOR; ALL REFORMS WILL
SUCCEED WHERE TT IS RECOGNIZED"
Whatever may be said of the covenant of the
League of Nations, however it may differ from
the fourteen points laid down by President VIII
son, we know that it does closer to the ideal
OF which Allen wrote than any other covenant
between nations has ever come.