the sole dictatorship of the President as Commanderin-chief of the army and navy. This is military government pure and simple. There is not the least pretense of civil organization about it. What of civil administration exists in Hawaii is the old government living on, but without any legal status under our laws. The President could change it all any moment if he chose to do so. It is well understood that for the present the President, for one reason or another, wishes this state of things to continue, except in the case of Hawaii which he apparently meant should have an organized territorial government. Congress seems amazingly willing for this condition to continue, for its members went home with seemingly no concern to perform an imperative duty which the situation lays upon them. If there was ever a condition requiring the immediate and most careful attention of Congress it is the one in which the country now finds itself. No question of tariff or money ever approached it in seriousness. But no pressure is brought upon the President to call, and he shows no disposition to call, a special session of Congress to deal with the subject. The people, moreover, seem to have lost all sense of responsibility for the control of the government, and are supinely allowing all this wide-reaching dictatorship to go on in their name. The whole situation is one to awaken alarm in the mind of every true citizen. It means that the nation is much farther gone in militarization, or in the moral and political weakness which will make militarization easy, than appears on the surface. The military party, which did so much a year ago to rush the country into war, and whose "constituents" are hovering in thousands about the Capitol for "places", is having things its own way. The professional military men are the men chiefly in evidence in Washington, in the newspapers, in all these outlying dependencies. This is all to go on until next December, as things now appear. Do the people realize what three quarters of a year of military government will have wrought? By that time the President and his "advisers" and subordinates in this military régime can, and probably will, have so shaped things in the conquered territories as to have carried out beyond recall their annexation schemes, and to have made the further development of military and naval power inevitable, and the subordination of the civil interests and civil government to the domination of the military much more complete than it is to-day. The excuse offered for acquiescing in this state of things and even wishing it to continue for a long time in the future is that so much better a government of the dependencies can be had in this way. If this is true, it is a sad commentary on the state of the nation. It is a confession that civil law and its administration has either broken down or is hopelessly weak. Congress is a failure. Civil administration is a failure. There is not brains enough in the nation to formulate and put into successful operation a civil system suitable to the needs of the new territories. No effort, therefore, must be made in this direction. The whole matter must be left indefinitely to the dictatorship of the President and his military "friends." If this is true, then the republic is a failure, and "government of the people, by the people and for the people" has already begun, so far as we are concerned, to "perish from off the earth." nent. We have entered upon the course which in France has put the army on the throne and made everything else its helpless slave; which in the rest of Europe is making of militarism "the most conspicuous tyrant of the age" and bleeding the people to death. The temporary increase of the army will be made permaCongress will be lobbied into furnishing all the money needed for armor-plate for the navy. More of the sixty thousand young men who recently applied for officers' positions in the army when barely two hundred were wanted, will get places "pulled" in for them. Militarism is the same diabolical thing in this country as in any other country. It has no scruples about constitutions, about liberties, about taxes. It will relentlessly push its demands in season, out of season. After six or eight months of its supremacy, the nation will find next winter that it will be no easy task to pull the tyrant's fingers from its throat. A condition, not a theory, confronts to-day seventy-five millions of people who suppose themselves to be freemen. There are no freemen where and so far as military dictatorship exists. Military government, no matter how good in specific cases, is the negation of civil liberty and civil law. It is the dangerous substitution of the will of one man, or of a clique of men, for constitution and laws. It matters not whether the man usurps the authority, or the constituted guardians of the constitution and representatives of the people ignorantly and ignominiously resign it into his hands. The results will be the same in the end, as history abundantly demonstrates. The toleration of extended military government in these outlying regions, and the attempt at the same time to save the nation at home from its malign influences will be found utterly impracticable. English imperialistic militarism is eating its way from the colonies back into the very heart of the nation. It will be so here. Give it its way for a few months or a few years in the far away lands, and militarism will make a place for itself at home. There is no safe way but to put an end to it at once. Whatever territory is to be a permanent part of the national domain should at once have a civil administration to which the military, so far as it is used at all, should be completely subject. The question of to promote the purposes for which the Conference is to what territories should be in this category is an entirely different one, which we have discussed elsewhere. Annual Meeting. Editorial Notes. The Seventy-first Annual Business Meeting of the American Peace Society will be held in Room A, Tremont Temple, Boston, on Monday, May 8th, at 2 o'clock P. M. The annual reports of the Treasurer and of the Board of Directors will be presented, officers will be elected and such other business transacted as may be brought forward. It is hoped that there may be a large attendance of the members. We are glad to announce in this connection that, while there has been a considerable loss by death during the past year, the membership of the Society has been much more than sustained by additions from different parts of the country. The increase has been larger than during any other recent year. The following have recently become members, though their names have not heretofore been published in these columns: R. Jennie Lindley, Avilla, Missouri; Mrs. Edith W. Wait, Medford, Massachusetts; Mrs. Ruth H. Spray, Salida, Colorado; George G. Mercer, Esq., Philadelphia; J. B. Upham, Youth's Companion, Boston; Sarah J. Swift, Worcester, Massachusetts; Edwin D. Mead, Boston; Lucia Ames Mead, Boston; C. E. Harrington, D.D., Waltham, Massachusetts; Mrs. Emma H. Unthank, Wilmington, Ohio; Mrs. Henry D. Swift, Worcester, Massachusetts; Francis White, Baltimore, Maryland; Mrs. Richard H. Thomas, Baltimore; Professor A. M. Elliott, Baltimore; Miss Anna B. Eckstein, Boston; Miss Alice Cheever, Boston; Miss Lena L. Carpenter, Boston; Mrs. Albert I. Croll Boston; Mrs. William G. Preston, Boston; Mrs. Edward W. Dale, Brookline, Massachusetts; Miss Martha Thacher, Boston; Miss Beatrice Haines, Boston; Miss E. D. Swaim, Boston; Mrs. G. F. Butler, Watertown, Massachusetts; Mrs. A. G. Browne, Boston; N. H. Henchman, Boston. Besides this, all of those who have recently contributed two dollars or more in response to the special circular sent out by the Society are entitled to membership. We shall be glad to enroll them as such, if they will let us know their wishes in the matter. meet. The Secretary has also been asked to serve as a member of a small delegation for this purpose representing the peace organizations of this country, England and the continent of Europe, who shall keep in touch with the proceedings of the Conference and render such services as may at any time seem timely and prudent. He will sail from New York on the steamer Paris on the 10th of May, and will expect to arrive at The Hague on the morning of the 18th, the day of the opening of the Conference. The readers of the ADVOCATE OF PEACE will be kept informed, through editorial correspondence, what the Secretary sees and hears as to the progress of events at this most momentous international gathering ever held. Delegates to The Hague. The President has appointed as the United States delegates to the Conference at The Hague Andrew D. White, Seth Low and Stanford Newell. To these have been added, in line with what is being done with other governments, a naval and a military expert, A. T. Mahan, U. S. N., and William Crozier, U. S. A. The Commission as a whole is a strong one. Andrew D. White, who has from the first been talked of in connection with the Commission, is at the present time Ambassador to Germany, where he also represented the United States once before. He has also represented our government at the Russian court, and is thoroughly acquainted with conditions prevailing in Europe. Mr. White is an able and conscientious historian, and is well known as one of our foremost educaHe is in thorough sympathy with the movement for the settlement of international differences by arbitration, as shown by his strong public utterances on the subject. No better chairman of the American Commission could have been chosen. Seth Low, President of Columbia University, is one of our most distinguished and conscientious private citizens. He is well known for his brave efforts for the renovation of New York and Brook tors. lyn politics, having been twice Mayor of the latter city. His influence at The Hague will certainly be for the best attainable results. Mr. Stanford Newell is our present Minister to Holland, and has for this reason been named a member of the Commission, as the other Ministers at The Hague have been named on the Commissions from their respective countries. He is a member of the St. Paul Bar, and is considered an accomplished student of international law. Captain A. T. Mahan and Captain William Crozier are both accomplished experts in their departments, and have been appointed for counsel because so many questions touching the armies and navies are to be considered by the Conference. The Secretary of the Commission is Mr. Frederick W. Holb, senior member of the law firm of Holb, Wagner and Burghardt, of New York City. The instructions given to the Commission have of course not been made public. It is understood, however, that they have been instructed to lay particular stress in the Conference on the subject of arbitration and the necessity of some agreement among the nations there represented for the establishment of some general arbitration system. The greatest result from the Conference is, in our judgment, likely to be along this line, and it is in every way fitting that the United States, because of the leading share which it has had in building up the practice of arbitration, should make its influence strongly felt at The Hague in this direction. Naturally our Commission would also have been foremost in pressing the necessity and the feasibility of a reduction of armaments, and we shall hope that, in spite of the present drift of the country away from our historic and natural policy in this regard, Mr. White and his fellow Commissioners will take the strongest and most advanced grounds in favor of what the Czar has so earnestly insisted ought to be done in this direction. The House in the Wood. Queen Wilhelmina of Holland has placed at the disposal of the Conference which is to convene at The Hague on the 18th inst. her palace known as the "Huis ten Bosch." It is about two miles out from The Hague and is separated from it by a beautiful wood. It was built in 1647 by Amalia van Solms, after the death of her husband, Stadhouder Frederick Hendrik, son of William the Silent. It has been used by the Kings of Holland as a summer resort. Queen Wilhelmina herself learned to skate in its gardens, and the late King's first wife, Queen Sophie, spent a great deal of the year there. The palace has many rooms of great artistic attraction. The Octagonal room and Orange room are decorated with paintings by Jordaens, Houthorst, Levens, Van Thulden and Zuntman. disappointment to me not to come to to-night's meeting. The movement, in which I take the meeting to be a closing demonstration, has been a striking attempt to proposals to effective account. In no country are such organize serious opinion in favor of turning the Czar's demonstrations more needed than in Great Britain, and in no part of Great Britain more than London. The recent language of the First Lord of the Admiralty would seem to show that Ministers are hopeful, with the energetic sympathy of the nation at their back, of securing something more solid from the Conference than a mere registration of pious opinions. This at least is certain, that if the Conference does not make international conditions much better, it will leave them much worse. Failure must mean the awakening of new elements of jealousy, soreness and confusion, and this is a reason the more, in addition to a hundred others, why England should bend the whole of her immense strength to render the Conference a practical success. No more glorious aim could inspire a statesman or animate a nation." English Crusade The English Peace Crusade has been most extraordinary. Within the short space of two months and a half over two hundred towns' meetings-meetings called by the mayors-were held. In addition to these, thousands of public meetings were held all over the country, attended by interested and thoughtful people of all classes. The Crusade Committee published every week many thousands of the sheet War against War, which was edited by W. T. Stead. All the English peace organizations, which have labored so faithfully and untiringly for many years, often in the face of contempt and ridicule, entered most heartily into the Crusade, and, in fact, furnished its chief points of support and rallying in many parts of the country. It is difficult to speak critically of such a movement from our distance. But it is safe to say that however superficial the movement may have been in places and even contradictory in its methods and utterances, it was a pronounced success in the one thing it aimed to accomplish. It gave Russia and the world to understand that the sober masses of the British people are in most intelligent sympathy with the purpose of Nicholas II. It enabled the British Cabinet to feel, as Mr. Goschen showed in his speech on the estimates, that its representatives at The Hague can talk reduction of armaments, even of the British fleet, with the certainty that they will have strong support from the British nation. It also impressed upon multitudes of people, who had hitherto not thought seriously of the matter, the idea of the practicability of universal peace, by international agreement. The Crusade, therefore, will take its place among the successful peace efforts, whose fruitage is after awhile to appear in ripeness. It came to a close in a remarkable National Convention held in St. Martin's Town Hall, London, on the 21st of March, at which gathered the hundreds of "My Dear Lord Bishop of London: It is a sincere delegates which had been sent from all parts of the na There is a Chinese room decorated with rice paper tapestry of the beginning of last century. There is a Japanese room in which are found rare works of art from the Mikado's country. The walls of the dining room are decorated with mythological scenes by De Wit. The Orange room, which is one of the principal features of the palace, is an enormous round room whose ceiling is forty-five feet high and surmounted by a huge glass dome by which it is lighted. The sittings of the Conference will probably be held in this room. Crusade Letter. John Morley, whose recent arraignment of John Morley's British imperialism aroused so much attention, sent the following letter to the great meeting held in London on the 21st of March at the close of the Peace Crusade: tion, and at which a Committee was appointed to present to the Czar and to the British government the numerously signed memorials. The convention was presided over by Lord Aberdeen. In the evening a great public demonstration was held in Queen's Hall, which was presided over by the Bishop of London. The speeches were by Right Hon. Leonard Courtney, M. P., Hon. Philip Stanhope, M. P., Rev. D. M'Ewan, D. D., President of the London Free Church Council, Mr. G. N. Barnes, Secretary of the Society of Engineers, Mr. W. T. Stead, and Mr. Herbert Burrows. The Committee appointed at the Convention will continue its work until the close of the Conference at The Hague. Closely connected with the close of the crusade was the visit of a large Deputation on the 29th of March to Mr. Balfour, the First Lord of the Treasury, at the Foreign Office. The Bishop of London spoke for the Deputation. Mr. Balfour in his reply stated that the sentiments put forward by the Deputation had the heartiest sympathy of Her Majesty's government. Dr. Abbott's At the third of the Monday noon peace Boston Address, meetings held in Tremont Temple, Boston, on March 27th, Dr. Lyman Abbott spoke on "International Brotherhood." The first part of the address was given to an able and interesting exposition of the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, which Dr. Abbott maintains carries with it the abolition of national lines in one great organization of the nations. It is easy to see in recent years a striking tendency toward unification. Intercommunication is swift and easy. Commercial highways have been opened and commercial barriers are breaking down. Piracy and privateering have disappeared. A great industrial unification is bringing together the laborers of all nations. The great religious forces of the world are now forces of unification. The world is beginning to get itself organized. We must make international brotherhood distinctly our ideal. We must abandon the provincialism that sneers at other nations. Bitterness and wrath between nations must be put away as they have been put away between our homes. The power of law must be established throughout the globe, by the ministry of reason, by the adjudication of legal, recognized tribunals,—and by compulsion! With scarcely a reference to the great Rescript of the Czar, and the possibilities which it opens for the peaceful establishment of the reign of reason and law throughout the world, Dr. Abbott here turned to a criticism of those who hold all war to be wrong, and to a somewhat impassioned justification of the present policy of subjugating the Philippines. His treatment of both subjects His treatment of both subjects seemed to many of those who heard him strangely specious and one-sided. He classed all the absolute opponents of war on moral grounds as "philosophical anarchists", though he must know that "anarchism" can be applied only to those who discard all government. This only a few non-resistants do. He assumed that there can be no government except such as is founded in force, and maintained on occasion by force, which of course is wide of the mark. In the case of the Philippines, he ignored completely in his discussion the causes which had been working for months to exasperate the Filipinos and bring on the conflict, the responsibility of our own government at Washington in unceremoniously proclaiming sovereignty over them, and placing himself in General Otis's place on the night when the conflict began said that he would have done just as General Otis did. This is not to treat the Philippine problem at all, but to conceal it, dodge it, pervert it. Nobody charges Dr. Abbott with believing in war for war's sake. sounded much like "cursing and blessing proceeding out of the same mouth" to hear him advocating so eloquently the great unselfish principle of international brotherhood, and in the next breath assuming without compunction that the Philippine inhabitants are not bound by honor, are incapable of being reached by rational methods, and that there was no alternative but to drive them to reason and honor by the bloody horrors of violence, though our government he well knows had not for a single instant tried any other course with them. Fifth Tremont Temple Meeting. But it The fifth in the series of Boston Peace Meetings was held in Tremont Temple, Monday noon, April 10th. The speakers were Dr. William Cunningham of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and Dr. George C. Lorimer, pastor of the Tremont Temple Church. Hon. Robert Treat Paine, president of the American Peace Society, presided. After uttering a word of the strongest disapproval of the Philippine war, he spoke of the duty of America to give the heartiest and strongest support to the proposals of the Czar, because of the leading part which this country has had in the development of the principle of arbitration. The Czar's Manifesto he ranked, as a historic document, with Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation. Dr. Cunningham spoke interestingly of the decline of some of the old causes of war, and of the strength of new causes. Wars for religion and commerce have largely passed. He did not believe that England would go to war again for either of these reasons, citing in proof her restraint in reference to Armenia and her recent concessions in regard to China. The causes of war now most to be guarded against are national vanity, and what he termed "government by newspapers." Democratic institutions are not alone a guarantee of peace. Nations must come to understand better the ideas and aspirations of their neighbors. If the Czar's Conference results, he said, in nothing more than setting us all to watching ourselves to see how we may diminish the dangers of war, it will have accomplished immense good. Dr. Lorimer spoke eloquently of the terrible cost of war and war preparations, as brought out in Mr. Bliokh's recent book in Russia, of the recrudescence of the military spirit, and of the falseness of the assumption that war is the chief school of the manly virtues. "Bloody war is not necessary to make heroes out of men." The type of manhood which we have developed in this country by the strenuous arts of peace, in subduing the continent, in "driving the ploughshare right through from Massachusetts to the Pacific" is as noble as any ever produced. The Crusade in Baltimore. The public meeting held in the McCoy Hall, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, on the evening of April 6th, in the interest of the Peace Conference at The Hague was a great success. More than a thousand people were present, crowding every foot of the hall space. The Baltimore American says it was "one of the largest, most cultured and most representative audiences which ever gathered together in Baltimore." The chief address was by Dr. Edward Everett Hale, whom the Baltimoreans had caught on his way home from the south. Dr. Hale, as we see from the reports of the meeting, was in his best mood, and aroused great enthusiasm by his address. The meeting was presided over by Dr. M. D. Babcock of the Brown Memorial Church, who with Dr. R. H. Thomas had been instrumental in making the meeting so signal a success. The call for the meeting had been signed by Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Paret, President Gilman of Johns Hopkins, the president of the Board of Trade, and many prominent clergymen and citizens. The following resolutions were unanimously adopted: Resolved, That we are heartily in favor of the policy announced by the Congress of the United States in 1890, of concluding treaties with other nations which shall contain distinct provisions for arbitration. Resolved, That we rejoice in the great opportunity given by the approaching International Peace Conference at The Hague for more practical and definite measures for the establishment of permanent peace among nations. the Resolved, That after the advance made toward universal peace in the treaties and conferences of the nations in the last century, this is a fitting time for putting into practical form the best suggestions which have been made in that direction. Resolved, That the establishment of a permanent court, to whose decision might be referred all questions incapable of diplomatic solution arising between countries, seems to us to be both desirable and feasible. The moral force of such a court, increasing with every year, would carry authority among nations, and its very existence would calm the storm of passion. Resolved, That we petition the President to instruct those whom he appoints to represent the United States in the conference at The Hague to use their best endeavors to secure the establishment of such a court, and to further every wise plan which, in their judgment, would tend to insure permanent peace among the nations. Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the President of the United States and also that a copy be sent to the proposed conference in the care of our delegates. Protest Against A meeting to voice protest against the Philippine Policy. present subjugation policy toward the Philippines was held in Tremont Temple, Boston, on the evening of April 4th. The meeting, which the Boston Advertiser declares will take its place among the most memorable historic meetings of Boston, was attended by two thousand people, of all parties, many of whom are eminent in their callings, in church and state. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed as the Administration and its advisers were arraigned for the course which has been taken resulting in war and the devastation of the Philippines by fire and sword, in the name of liberty and humanity! Hon. A. E. Pillsbury, ex-attorney general of the state, presided, and the chief address of the evening was made by ex-Governor Boutwell, whose eminent services in the state and nation are so well known. For more than an hour this distinguished Republican, in an earnest though calm and judicial manner, analyzed the four great events for which he declared the President to be responsible-the Protocol of August 12th, the treaty of Paris of December 10th, the Proclamation to the Philippines of January 5th, and the Philippine war of subjugation. Mr. Boutwell maintained that the proclamation of January 5th was a virtual declaration of war, that the President abandons the Declaration of Independence, that he openly avows the purpose to enforce submission against all resistance and to govern and tax without reference to the wishes of the inhabitants, or, in other words, "to use all the powers ever claimed by any despot." The venerable statesman condemned, in the plainest terms, this whole policy and asserted, with prolonged cheers from the great audience, that "there is no middle ground, in principle, between the republicanism of the Declaration of American Independence and the broadest claims that were ever put forth by a Czar of Russia." The following resolutions were enthusiastically adopted, without one dissenting voice: First. That our government should take immediate steps towards a suspension of hostilities in the Philippines and a conference with the Philippine leaders, with a view to preventing further bloodshed, upon the basis of a recognition of their freedom and independence as soon as proper guarantees can be had of order and protection to property. Second. That the government of the United States should tender an official assurance to the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands that they will encourage and assist |