the ends of peace in Cuba shall be assured, the President will proceed without further notice to use the power and authority enjoined and conferred upon him by the said joint resolution to such extent as may be necessary to carry the same into effect.

A new scheme is said to be on foot for the annexation of Hawaii. The project of annexing it by treaty was given up some time ago, and the friends of the movement had little hope of succeeding by a joint resolution. In fact, the subject would probably have passed quietly out of view but for the general upheaval and disarrangement produced by the outbreak of war. The method of securing the annexation of the islands which President McKinley is reported to have in mind is to seize them as a war measure, with the acquiescence, of course, of the government at Honolulu. The reason to be assigned for this "snap judgment" procedure is that the United States will have to have Hawaii as a coaling station for the Eastern fleet, which we believe is nearly three thousand miles away. We shall not believe, until we see the thing done, that President McKinley will be guilty of such a deed as this in order to carry through a cherished plan of his. Opposition to the annexation of Hawaii has steadily developed among the people, and as the war with Spain has come on it has been considered very fortunate that we have not outlying posts to fortify and defend. But "all things are lawful in war"! This may be one of the "all things," whose evil results are to be thrust on the country willy nilly.

An army chaplain, in a letter to the New York Observer, wrote August 21st, 1863:

"I am painfully convinced that, nothwithstanding all that has been done and is doing, the tendency of our men is rapidly, fearfully downward. With some exceptions in regiments where a chaplain of right character has been permitted to labor, vice, in its most flagrant and odious forms, riots unrestrained. Such blatant and incessant profanity as I heard in travelling from Louisville, Kentucky, to Winchester, Tennessee-some 750 miles-I never had supposed possible; intemperance prevails and vice shows itself shamelessly. The causes of this deterioration are patent. War is essentially and almost necessarily a demoralizer, from the absence of all restraint exercised by the presence of mothers, wives and prattling children; from the destitution of strong religious agencies in the army, such as the church throws about men at home, and from the new and violent temptations to which a soldier is exposed-temptations that never reach him till he is thrown into an enemy's country, and against which few are able resolutely to contend."

The chaplain fails to give the real reason for the degeneration which war brings. It is not primarily the absence of restraints, such as are thrown around men at home, which accounts for the demoralization. It is the spirit and the practices of war itself. One who voluntarily enters into this spirit and silences his conscience as to these practices would not be greatly restrained from the evils

attendant upon army life if all the home restraints could be taken along with him.

American Industries, which is actively engaged in the movement for the neutralization of Hawaii, as opposed to annexation, had the following sensible comment in its April number:

popular vote

"If the question of war were put to to-day by the people of the United States, the result would probably be in favor of war. Should there be war -of which there now seems but little question — and a vote were taken, three months from now, or even a shorter period, the result would probably be against war and all its bloody horrors, for these are the only words which adequately describe war- a reign of bloody horrors. Men's passions are inflamed, and they thirst for blood while the Angel of peace stands with folded wings, bitterly weeping at this appalling prospect, just at the threshold of the Twentieth Century."

Congressman Gillett of Massachusetts has introduced in the House of Representatives resolutions declaring merchant ships exempt from capture in time of war. His study of our diplomatic history has led him to introduce these resolutions as embodying the position which the United States has always taken on the subject. Ever since the Revolution, he says, our presidents have endeavored to make the practice on sea correspond to that on land. To take private property on land as booty has long been abandoned as barbarous by all civilized nations. President John Adams, in the last century, endeavored to make the nations agree that free ships make free goods. After the war of 1812, our government endeavored to provide by treaty with European nations that all private property on the sea should be exempt from capture, but it failed.

The United States, in 1856, refused to give its assent to the declaration of Paris, not because we favored privateering, but because the declaration did not go far enough and prohibit the capture of private property at sea. At the outbreak of the civil war, President Lincoln again asserted the position of the United States. Two treaties in this sense have been made by the United States, one with Russia, negotiated by Franklin in 1785, the other with Italy, negotiated in 1871. Mr. Gillett thinks that the purpose for which the United States professes to have begun the present war, as well as our constant historic effort in behalf of this principle, requires that our government at the present time should scrupulously put into practice what it has so long professed.

The current number of the New England Magazine has the following wise and timely word as to the duty of every true American" to do what he can to counteract the evils with which the nation is threatened as the result of the present war:

"The war with Spain, if war with Spain there be, will soon be over; and, necessary or unnecessary, right or wrong, we believe that it will result in only good to Cuba. But the results to our own people of the great flood of bad blood, bad reasoning, base appeal, false assumption and false political philosophy which has been precipitated by the crisis will not be easily counteracted; and be it

in the midst of war, righteous or unrighteous, or when war or the rumors of war have passed, the true American will ask himself what he can do to check those things in the national thought and temper which tend to make America unfaithful to the world and to that great dawn ing political synthesis, that new international imperative that new sense of the obligation and the grandeur of the way of peace, whose development and supremacy are the world's hope. How does what we say and do look in the light of this hope and imperative? How truly does our patriotism point the way to universal justice, to universal order, and eternal peace? Only as we can answer these questions well can we face history and face the day of judgment.

The annual meeting of the Liverpool (England) Peace Society was held on the 8th of March. The annual report of the Society shows a year of earnest and faithful work.

... The twenty-seventh annual meeting of the International Arbitration League (founded by Mr. William Randall Cremer) was held in Holborn Town Hall, London, on the 22d of March.

The Baroness von Suttner, whose well-known book, "Lay Down Your Arms," has made her famous throughout Europe and America, has just published a new story which deals with many of the evils of modern society. The title of the book is "Check to the World's Woes: a Fantasy." The story is being translated into English. ... Mr. Dingley of the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives estimates that the war with Spain will from the very start cost us two million dollars per day. The civil war is still costing us four hundred thousand dollars per day for pensions alone.

In spite of war, arbitration still continues to get in its work. Hayti and San Domingo have made arrangements, so reported, to have their boundary difficulty settled by the arbitration of the Pope.

Columbia University and the University of Chicago recently debated the resolution, "Resolved, that the policy of increasing the United States navy is wise and should be continued." Columbia argued in the negative and won the victory.

The public debt of Spain now amounts to fifteen hundred million dollars, exclusive of four hundred millions incured during the last three years in trying to subdue the Cuban insurrection.

The first official act of the new Postmaster-General, Charles E. Smith, was the issuance on April 26th of an order cutting off all our postal relations with Spain. This order does not affect closed mails between Spain and other countries while in transit through the United States.

Since the voting of the fifty millions war emergency fund the government has added about fifty vessels to its war fleet.

The Pope made many efforts to prevent war between the United States and Spain. He is reported to have said that he wished he might die before hostilities broke out.

Professor Charles Eliot Norton of Cambridge, Mass., says that this is a newspaper war, gotten up by the newspapers and for the newspapers.

Spain has declared her acceptance of the declarations of the treaty of Paris, except as to privateering. She reserves the right to grant letters of marque to privateers.

The new war taxes are to be in harmony with the Democratic theory that taxes should be levied for revenue only. The war-tax bill is exclusively a bill for new or increased internal revenue.

. . . In order to provide for the expenses of the war, beyond what the new revenue tax will bring in, the government is arranging to issue 3 per cent 10-20 bonds to the amount of seven hundred million dollars.

An appeal in behalf of peace has been made to the German nation signed by secretaries of fifty-five sections of the German Peace Society.

The late great Finnish poet said that "War is hatred and murder. War is agony and death. War is falsehood and deceit. War is the exaltation of force; the humiliation of weakness. War mocks at the Divine law and tramples the human. Its banner is violence. In war man becomes a wild beast. War is brutal egotism. War is the negation of all civilization."

The International Peace Bureau at Berne, the French Arbitration Society, the International League of Peace and Liberty, the Peace Society of Palermo, and

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In the matter of Bicycles and Sewing Machines, we call your particular attention to the advertisements of the Victor Manufacturing Co., of Chicago, Ill., appearing elsewhere in this issue. The concern is thoroughly reliable and responsible as can be ascertained by consulting any of the commercial guides. Notice their attractive" ads."

other peace associations in Europe, did commendable service in trying to prevent war between this country and Spain.

Consul-General Lee left Havana on the 9th of April and arrived in Washington on the 12th, and appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs the same day in reference to the destruction of the Maine, which he considered due to Spanish agencies.

The Hon. William Everett of Mass., in a recent address, declared war to be "the silliest and wickedest thing man ever invented."

.. Fourteen members of the House of Representatives and two Senators opposed and voted against the war with Mexico in 1846. Congress did worse this time.

Correspondence.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, MASS., April 12, 1898. My dear Mr. Trueblood: I thank you very much for sending so promptly the pamphlets and for your friendly letter. I am very glad to have the ADVOCATE, which I shall find a great source of strength. In a most delightful conversation with Mr. Howard Brown of King's Chapel last year, he said that he expected the next fifty years to bring about a spiritual development as great as the past fifty years had given us in a material way. I had hoped such a thing, but had not dared to express such a hope.

I cannot believe that we are to be overwhelmed by our sudden acquisition of marvellous material power as the Roman empire was crushed by its own vast machinery. Many evolutionists of high standing regard our times as a period of degeneration, and believe that the human organism will not be able to keep up with material progress, and must therefore suffer a setback of several hundred years (or what would be equivalent to the middle ages-the world lives faster now). It is a grave question and the growth of the military spirit and the mighty monopolies give appalling evidence in support of the dark side.

But the cessation of persecution and a host of kindred utterly new elements have given an unknown freedom to modern thought; and in this lie unknown possibilities. It is only recently that the spiritual centre of gravity has shifted. Evolution has substituted for the Garden of Eden the millennium of Christ. Perfection is in the future, not in the past. Men begin to see that money must be spent for education and not for monuments. Clara Barton's words, "Congress voted fifty millions for defence. Now I don't think it would be a bad thing to vote one million . . for relief," can be accepted gratefully by an increasing number.

Indeed the very fact of our appalling power is to me a proof of our spiritual development. The gentle inherit the earth because the fierce destroy each other and because only the gentle can hear the whispers of God through the laws of nature.

In the very nature of things only the gentle can have mighty power; only the virtuous and noble can take part in the eternal processes of God.

When we know these things as a nation and the impregnable strength of virtue and justice are understood,

NEW YORK, April 1, 1898. The American Peace Society, Boston, Mass.

Gentlemen: Here with I send you two dollars, which I understand are your annual dues for membership, but if I am mistaken kindly inform me and I shall send you any needed additional amount.

May I request you, in return, to enroll me in your list of members as one who detests war and who can be relied on to do all in his power to promote peace and brotherly feeling among men.

To be .counted among those who are not afraid and ashamed to confess that they believe in the principles of your society, I shall esteem as a great honor. Yours respectfully,

J. N. J.

Nothing to Excuse Our Intervention.

BY MOORFIELD STOREY, ESQ.

President's Speech at the Meeting of the Massachusetts Reform Club, April 8.

Gentlemen of the Reform Club :

This Club never met under circumstances more calculated to create the gravest anxiety in every patriotic man than to-night, and by patriotic man I do not mean him who measures his country's greatness by the extent of her territory, the size of her armies, the strength of her fleets, or even by the insolence with which she tramples upon her weaker neighbors, but him who knows that the true greatness of a nation, as of a man, depends upon its character, its sense of justice, its self-restraint, its magnanimity, in a word upon its possession of those qualities which distinguish George Washington from the prizefighter, the highest type of man from the highest type of beast. It is impossible to realize that at the end of nineteen Christian centuries our country, of whose civilization we have been wont to boast, has forsaken the policy of peace with all mankind which was adopted at the formation of the government and under which it has grown great, has turned its back upon its real leaders, upon the President so lately chosen by a great majority of the people, upon the Speaker of the House, upon the experienced veterans of the Senate, upon statesmen like George F. Edmunds and Edward G. Phelps, and has surrendered its conscience and its heart to irresponsible mercenaries like Hearst of the New York Journal, like the conductors of the World, and men like these who for one motive or another are madly shrieking for war.

War is the worst of human calamities. It rarely reaches the guilty, whose acts have brought it on. It never fails to destroy the innocent and to overwhelm with undeserved misfortune men, women and children in no way responsible for the evils which it is ostensibly waged to cure. In the language of our own great general, "War is hell." As Sidney Smith said, "In war God is forgotten." Why is it that of a sudden we stand face to face with so fright

ful a disaster as a war with Spain, involving not merely fearful loss of life and destruction of property, but the disturbance of orderly government, the demoralization of the people, the kindling of national hatred, the widespread corruption, in a word, the return to barbarous standards which war brings in its train? Why must the United States turn back the tide of civilization?

The

There are many influences which make for war. Some represented in high Federal office think that war will improve business and increase the gains of the rich. I cannot refrain from quoting the reply which was made to one of these last week by a Middlesex Yankee of pure blood. He was a manufacturer of woolen goods, and a dealer in wool said to him, "We want war. Just think how it will raise the price of wool, and how it will send your goods up." "Yes," was the answer," but think how much more the dye stuff will cost. I can't afford to dye my goods in American blood. It comes too high." man who will send others, -husbands, fathers, sons, brothers to die, in order that his gains may be greater, must be counted with the wretches who visit the battlefield to plunder the slain. He is beneath the contempt of this Club. In the same class belong the politicians who welcome war in order that it may help their party and themselves to office, to whom men are counters who may be killed or wounded to keep them in place or power. Here also stand the journalists who think only of how they can increase their circulation, reckless of how others suffer if only their daily sales are greater. These men we need only recognize and pass on.

There is a single class who demand war and whom we are bound to treat with respect. I mean those who think that humanity demands our intervention in Cuba. These men, — philanthropists, ministers of God, kindly and conscientious people, are inflamed by the reports of suffering in Cuba which they see in the daily newspapers, until they feel that war to end such conditions is a duty. Yet they will upon a moment's reflection themselves admit that war is not to be entered upon lightly, but only after every effort to prevent it has been tried in vain, and only when it is clear that the evils which the war will cure are greater than those which it will cause. Is a war with Spain necessary, and will it do good? These are the questions which the people must decide and which they should consider deliberately and calmly. To these I would invite your attention for a moment.

Let me first say a word to those who try to obscure the question of to-day by declamation about Alva, the Inquisition, and the Spanish cruelties of three or four centuries ago. These men speak as if Spain was an individual, who had lived a thousand years, and was to-day murdering Cubans as three hundred years ago he had slaughtered Dutchmen. If this view is sound, then we who sit around this table have burned witches, have held four millions of people in slavery, have within a year or two shot down Indian women and children, have within a month murdered a negro postmaster. It is not the Spain of Philip the Second that confronts us, but the Spaniards of to-day. We cannot punish Alva or the men who burned heretics. We are asked to kill men as little responsible for their crimes, as we are for the burning of Catholics by our English ancestors.

What then is the exact position? Close to our shores is the island of Cuba, which has belonged to Spain longer

than English-speaking men have dwelt in America. Its population is wholly Spanish or of Spanish introduction. It has a population of some 1,600,000 people. Of these at the outside some thirty thousand are in armed insurrection. They have no government that we can recognize. Recognition is seeing what exists, and the government must exist, or we cannot see it. Every one admits that the insurgents have not got what by well-established law is necessary to constitute a government that can be recognized. There is only one government on the island and that the government of Spain. It controls all but a very small part of the population, and it is the only force which makes life and property reasonably safe, which stands between civilization and anarchy in Cuba.

A war has been going on there for three years in the attempt to crush the insurrection, and as a consequence of the destruction which war causes, as a consequence of measures taken in its prosecution, there has been and is much suffering. The insurgents began by destroying crops and laying waste the country, the government followed their example, and as a measure of war ordered a part of the country people into the towns. It is probable that what we see and hear of their sufferings is grossly exaggerated. This has been a campaign of lies waged by the Cubans in the United States through the newspapers. It is impossible to believe implicitly anything that we see in the newspapers about Cuba. But let us assume that the suffering exists.

Shall we help it by bombarding Havana or Mantanzas and depriving innocent people of their homes and their means of livelihood? If the Spaniards are willing to kill these reconcentrados, will they let them live in their rear while we in their front are attacking them? If they are starving, shall we feed them with bombs and bayonets? Will our supplies reach them more easily over the bodies of the Spanish troops? We can add vastly to the sufferings of Cuba. We can starve the Spaniards and Cubans alike perhaps. We can sink transports crowded with Spanish peasants. We can sacrifice thousands of our own young men and desolate thousands of our own homes. We can turn what is left of Cuba into a desert, but we shall not feed one starving Cuban. We can with our fleets and armies enormously increase the woes of Cuba, but by war we can never relieve them. Our diplomatic efforts have accomplished much. Weyler is recalled, the reconcentrados are returned to their homes, provision is made for their relief, free government is promised. Is this a time to abandon the Christian methods which have been so successful, and to revive the barbarous practices of war? It seems an impossible crime.

Thirty-three years ago to-morrow our last war ended, and we have not yet recovered from its effects. Our disordered currency, our system of taxation, our heavy debt, our enormous pension list, our corrupt politicians and political methods, and the strong party spirit which prevents men who agree from uniting in political action, are among the fruits of that struggle. Shall we bring upon ourselves fresh troubles of the same kind, and demoralize our whole political system, simply that we may add to the sum of human misery?

But if Cuba were surrendered to us without a blow; if the Spanish troops retired, and its officers abdicated, if we won a bloodless victory, what then? We should find ourselves at the threshold of countless troubles. We

must replace the government which we destroy. We cannot leave the civilization of Cuba at the mercy of men like Gomez. We cannot stand responsible before the world for another Hayti, another Soulouque or Baez. If we step into the shoes of Spain, shall we find ourselves charged with the task of suppressing the insurrection against which Spain has battled so long? The insurgents do not want our government or any government established by our bayonets. They desire the power for which they have struggled so long. Are we sure that in a few years after as many of our young men have succumbed to disease and wounds as Spain has buried in Cuba, our methods of warfare will be more humane? Or if this seems improbable shall we establish in Cuba a carpet-bag government, like those upon which we look back with such pride? Remember that when our government was at its best, fresh from the influence of Lincoln and with Sumner and his associates in the Senate, we could not give our Southern fellow-citizens, speaking our language and close at our doors, a reasonably honest government. Can we hope to succeed better with Cuba now? Shall we undertake to govern a people wholly unfitted by race and by education for self government, when we cannot govern our own great cities?

If all these imaginings are vain, and our success is as rapid and bloodless as the most sanguine can hope, such a victory is more dangerous than defeat. In the intoxi

cation of such a success, we should reach out for fresh territory, and to our present difficulties would be added an agitation for the annexation of new regions which, unfit to govern themselves, would be admitted to govern us. We should be fairly launched upon a policy of military aggression, of territorial expansion, of standing armies. and growing navies, which is inconsistent with the continuance of our institutions. God grant that such calamities are not in store for us.

In my judgment there is nothing in the situation which excuses our intervention. Every consideration of patriotism and of humanity is against it. It will increase every evil in Cuba and in our own country of which we complain, while it will remedy none. If we are, as we pretend to be, a civilized and Christian people, let us insist that there be no war.

Why Should We Interfere?

BY GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY.

As a long-time reader of The Times, and one greatly interested in its responsibility as a leader of public opinion, I must ask space formally to protest against its present position of endeavoring to justify a war upon Spain by this country. The principal ground urged for the intervention of this country in the affairs of Cuba and Spain is that of humanity. Will not a true conception of humanity lead us to include under its broad banner Europeans and Asiatics as well as Cubans, Spaniards no less, and surely our own citizens? Are not the true relations of the United States of America to humanity ignored by this one-sided plea for an effort to abolish a temporary condition of suffering and misery which is, alas, not too far removed from many others even nearer home? Doubtless the conditions in Cuba are horrible and painful and a sad reproach on the efficiency of the government there, but are not the conditions which enabled lynching parties in Ohio and South Carolina and other States to go un

punished even more of a reflection upon our self-governing communities? The many crimes and atrocities in Turkey and other lands are strong appeals to our love of humanity, but, as I believe, very properly this Government has so far acted on the sound principle of attending to its own most serious problems and not wasting its energies on more distant ones.

The country is aroused to a supposed responsibility for the righting of wrongs in Cuba. Is it not time that there were held up to the mind and conscience of our people the true mission which for a century and more this Republic has measurably accomplished, and of which it will make sad wreck if it now undertakes to shed the innocent blood of its own citizens to endeavor to right another's hideous wrong? I believe it would be a grievous wrong to its highest mission.

The plain peoples of the world have during the life of this Republic come to look upon her as the true leader in the cause of humanity. Why? Mainly because of her unexampled career of progress, and because of the possibilities for material prosperity and advancement which her avoidance of war complications made so manifest. Millions of the working masses have looked, and should still look, to this country for the accomplishment of the universal hope in humanity's advance. Has not one of the most notable movements of recent years been the widespread activity of labor organizations throughout the world in behalf of arbitration as a substitute for war? They realize that war is always waged finally at the expense of the toiling millions, who not only pay the taxes, but who also give of their sons' and brothers' blood, which they rightly think too sacred to shed. Can a nation's honor be more sacred than that of the individual who once fought duels to maintain it? And we have abandoned the practice. Is it not a monstrous thing to have the struggle for freedom from military despotism espoused by this country with a prompt threat of war, and not one suggestion made of enlisting the moral sentiment of the world by a proposal to have a peaceful adjustment of the issues involved made by submission to disinterested parties?

We boast that a people should be allowed of their own free will to decide by a majority vote as to the form of government they prefer, and yet instead of proposing that a plebiscite be had in Cuba under the supervision of neutral officials to be by agreement designated by various nations it is proposed that the insurgent port on of the population be recognized, without any consideration for the views of the other and probably more numerous as well as more influential residents of the island of Cuba. Surely some voice should be lifted now to protest against such a course as contrary to every sound principle of

government.

Is it not

It is urged that the conduct of the war on the part of Spain is brutal; but all war is brutal, necessarily so, and one of the important elements in all successful war is the forced suffering of non combatants. What do sieges and blockades mean but the enforced suffering, even to death, of non-combatants as well as the fighting forces? proposed that the United States shall promptly blockade Cuba in case of war? Will not the suffering caused be in essence the same as that of the reconcentrados? And, again, are not our own people to be considered? Will not our soldiers and sailors suffer and die, and their relations and friends? Is only physical suffering to be considered? Is it not in fact an essential element of the