Part 12 (1/2)
It was during those long, weary years coupled with the horrible crimes of the Thirty Years' War that the science of International Law began to take form, the result of that notable work, ”De Jure Belli ac Pacis,” by Grotius. It is ours to see that out of this more intense and thereby even more horrible conflict a new epoch in human and international relations be born.
As the higher powers of mind and spirit are realised and used, great primal instincts impelling men to expression and action that find their outlet many times in war, will be trans.m.u.ted and turned from destruction into powerful engines of construction. When a moral equivalent for war of sufficient impelling power is placed before men, those same virile qualities and powers that are now marshalled so easily for purposes of fighting, will, under the guidance and in the service of the spirit, be used for the conserving of human life, and for the advancement and the increase of everything that administers to life, that makes it more abundant, more mutual, and more happy. And G.o.d knows that the call for such service is very great.
And even now comes the significant word that the long, the too long awaited world's Bill of Rights has taken form. The intelligence and the will of righteous men, duly appointed as the representatives of fourteen sovereign nations, has a.s.serted itself, and the beginning has been made, without which there can be neither growth nor advancement. The Const.i.tution of the World League has taken form. It is not a perfect instrument; but it will grow into as perfect an instrument as need be for its purpose. Changes and additions to it will be made as times and conditions indicate. Partisans.h.i.+p even with us may seek to defeat it.
There is no question, however, but that the sober sense of the American people is behind it.
One of the most fundamental results, we might say purposes of the great world war, was to end war. It means now that the world's unity and mutuality and its community of interests must be realised and that we build accordingly. It means that the world's peace must be fostered and preserved by the use of brains and guided by the heart; or that every brute force made ghastly and deadly to the n_th_ degree that modern science can devise, be periodically called in to settle the disputes or curb the ambitions that will disrupt the peace of the world.
The common people the world over are desiring as near as can be arrived at, some surety as to the preservation of the world's peace; and they will brook no interference with a plan that seems the most feasible way to that end. The whole world is in that temper that gives significance to the words of President Wilson when a day or two ago he said: ”Any man who resists the present tides that run in the world will find himself thrown upon a sh.o.r.e so high and barren that it will seem as if he had been separated from his human kind forever.” Unless, he might have added--he has and can demonstrate a better plan. The two chief arguments against it, that it will take away from our individual rights and that it will lead us into entangling alliances, no longer hold--for we are entangled already. We are a part of the great world force and it were futile longer to seek to escape our duties as such. They are as essential as ”our rights.”
It is with us now as a nation as it was with that immortal group that gathered to sign our Declaration of Independence, to whom Franklin said: ”We must all hang together, or a.s.suredly we shall all hang separately.”
It is well for Americans to recall that the first League of Nations was when thirteen distinct nationalities one day awoke to the fact that it were better to forget their differences and to a great extent their boundaries, and come together in a common union. They had their thirteen distinct armies to keep up, in order to defend themselves each against the other or against any combination of the others, to say nothing of any outside power that might move against them. Jealousies arose and misunderstandings were frequent. So zealous was each of its own rights that when the Const.i.tutional Convention had completed its work, and the Const.i.tution was ready for adoption, there were those who actually left the hall rather than sign it. They were good men but they were looking at stern facts and they wanted no idealism in theirs. Good men, some animated by the partisan spirit, it is true, earnest in their beliefs--but unequipped with the long vision. Their names are now recalled only through the search of the antiquarian.
Infinitely better it has been found for the thirteen and eventually the forty-eight to stand together than to stand separately. The thirteen separate states were farther separated so far as means of communication and actual knowledge of one another were concerned, than are the nations of the world today.
It took men of great insight as well as vision to formulate our own Const.i.tution which made thirteen distinct and sovereign states the United States of America. The formulation of the Const.i.tution of the World League has required such men. As a nation we may be proud that two representative Americans have had so large a share in its accomplishment--President Wilson, good Democrat, and Ex-President Taft, good Republican.
The greatest international and therefore world doc.u.ment ever produced has been forged--it awaits the coming days, years, and even generations for its completion. And we accord great honour also to those statesmen of other nations who have combined keen insight born of experience, with a lofty idealism; for out of these in any realm of human activities and relations, whatever eventually becomes the practical, is born.
XIV
THE WORLD'S BALANCE-WHEEL
It was Lincoln who gave us a wonderful summary when he said: ”After all the one meaning of life is to be kind.”
Love, sympathy, fellows.h.i.+p is the very foundation of all civilised, happy, ideal life. It is the very balance-wheel of life itself. It gives that genuineness and simplicity in voice, in look, in spirit that is so instinctively felt by all, and to which all so universally respond. It is like the fragrance of the flower--the emanation of its soul.
Interesting and containing a most vital truth is this little memoir by Christine Rossetti: ”One whom I knew intimately, and whose memory I revere, once in my hearing remarked that, 'unless we love people, we cannot understand them.' This was a new light to me.” It contains indeed a profound truth.
Love, sympathy, fellows.h.i.+p, is what makes human life truly human.
Cooperation, mutual service, is its fruitage. A clear-cut realisation of this and a resolute acting upon it would remove much of the cloudiness and the barrenness from many a life; and its mutual recognition--and action based upon it--would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain in vast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. It would solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relations and human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nigh impossible. It is the telling oil that will start to running smoothly and effectively many an otherwise clogged and grating system of human machinery.
When men on both sides are long-headed enough, are sensible enough to see its practical element and make it the fundamental basis of all relations.h.i.+ps, of all negotiations, and all following activities in the relations between capital and labour, employer and employee, literally a new era in the industrial world will spring into being. Both sides will be the gainer--the dividends flowing to each will be even surprising.
There is really no labour problem outside of sympathy, mutuality, good-will, cooperation, brotherhood.
Injustice always has been and always will be the cause of all labour troubles. But we must not forget that it is sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. Misunderstanding is not infrequently its accompaniment. Imagination, sympathy, mutuality, cooperation, brotherhood are the hand-maidens of justice. No man is intelligent enough, is big enough to be the representative or the manager of capital, who is not intelligent enough to realise this. No man is fit to be the representative of, or fit to have anything to do with the councils of labour who has not brains, intelligence enough to realise this. These qualities are not synonyms of or in any way related to sentimentality or any weak-kneed ethics. They underlie the soundest business sense. In this day and age they are synonyms of the word practical. There was a time and it was not so many years ago, when heads and executives of large enterprises did not realise this as fully as they realise it today. A great change has already taken place. A new era has already begun, and the greater the ability and the genius the more eager is its possessor to make these his guiding principles, and to hasten the time when they will be universally recognised and built upon.
The same is true of the more intelligent in the rank and file of labour, as also of the more intelligent and those who are bringing the best results as leaders of labour. There is no intelligent man or woman today who does not believe in organised labour. There is no intelligent employer who does not believe in it and who does not welcome it.
The bane of organised labour in the past has too often been the unscrupulous, the self-seeking, or the bull-headed labour leader.
Organised labour must be constantly diligent to purge itself of these its worst enemies. Labour is ent.i.tled to the very highest wage, or to the best returns in cooperative management that it can get, and that are consistent with sound business management, as also to the best labour conditions that a sympathetic and wise management can bring about. It must not, however, be unreasonable in its demands, neither bull-headed, nor seek to travel too fast--otherwise it may lose more than it will gain.
It must not allow itself to act as a s.h.i.+eld for the ineffective worker, or the one without a sense of mutuality, whose aim is to get all he can get without any thought as to what he gives in return, or even with the deliberate purpose of giving the least that he can give and get away with it. Where there is a good and a full return, there should be not only the desire but an eagerness to give a full and honest service. Less than this is indicative of a lack of honest and staunch manhood or womanhood.
It is inc.u.mbent upon organised labour also to remember that it represents but eight per cent of the actual working people of this nation. Whether one works with his brains, or his hands, or both, is immaterial. Nor does organised labour represent the great farming interests of the country--even more fundamentally the backbone of the nation.