HAVIN

FOREWORD

AVING been for many years in touch with the leading peace workers of America and an assiduous reader of the voluminous supply of pamphlets, books, and articles, which have flooded your country with the discussion of the great subject of the supplanting of the war system of nations by justice and reason, I have concluded that America is far in the forefront in the propaganda of the peace ideal, as in definite plans to bring it into realisation. Its adherents, representing as they do the highest and most influential circles of state, as well as the ablest scholars and religious leaders, have prominently pushed the subject internationally. In literature, in politics, in science, the most prominent men and women of America stand for the world's peace. From out of your beneficent private purses generous provisions have been poured for peace foundations. These several circumstances have awakened among us European pacifists the confident

hope that the New World will lead the definite advance in this greatest movement of the twentieth century.

I crossed the ocean to express this hope to our American co-workers. I have reported to them how imperatively the revival of militarism in Europe makes it important and necessary that we be helped from here. To my astonishment, I find that, while the cause is espoused by your greatsouled leaders everywhere, the mass of the public seems astonishingly uninformed when the peace movement is mentioned. To my great sorrow, I have also observed in certain circles even a strong military tendency and concern for national war-readiness, which has either not wholly died out of some inheritance from your past or is slowly invading your continent. I have asked myself whether its importation has perhaps been prompted by the European jingoes or by continental gun-agents. After reading this book, I confess myself more clear as to the source of this expanding militarism in your midst. I have learned much from its pages that I did not know before. It has made me realise the extent of the advance of militarism in the United States in these last years. The element of hope is in the fact that it is probably a comparatively small number of men who have pulled the strings, that the great body of the public is undoubtedly right-minded, and that right action will surely

follow the fuller education for which American peace workers must pull together. I believe we need not fear for the results here, for there are too many peace forces at work, and their energies are wonderfully increasing. Those who are still apathetic and indifferent to what is going on in this great conflict against war must be informed and helped and urged to take up this most commanding issue of civilisation.

Such books as Mrs. Mead's SWORDS AND PLOUGHSHARES come therefore as a natural response to a pressing demand. I have read the sheets with keenest pleasure. The work is written with earnestness, with knowledge, and with logic, and imparts with breadth of view a vast amount of needed information. Pacifism, which a few decades ago was a mere theory, has of late unfolded into a true science. Mrs. Mead's reputation and ability as an investigator in this science places her contribution of timely, trenchant essays into the list of authentic text-books. Its condensed but illuminating history and development of the movement, its clear statement of the aims. and arguments, and its keen exposure of the fallacies of its opponents and of the obstacles that are being raised to block its progress, give to the volume a high value. SWORDS AND PLOUGHSHARES puts the subjects which it treats into most available and helpful form for students and for lecturers and teachers. It gives instruction as well as

inspiration for peace lovers, and commands for itself a place in the library of the historian, the politician, and the sociologist.

While I came to America at this time to speak to all classes which it was in my power to reach upon the peace cause which lies so close to my heart, it was my central aim and wish to appeal to the women of America, who are far better organised than their sisters in Europe, and whose central organisation has this year for the first time made the definite and persistent study of our cause and devotion to this cause a regular feature of its remarkable and most beneficent work. What may not these millions of thoughtful and earnest American women accomplish for the world! It was the English Ruskin who said that whenever the women of the world really make up their minds to put a period to war, they can do it. I recall the prophetic word of your great Justice Brewer: "Nowhere in the world is woman so potent a force in public life as in this country, and you may be sure that that force will be ere long concentrated in steadfast opposition to war. I do not need to remind you that the reason why your noble Julia Ward Howe threw herself into the work of founding women's clubs, a work which has grown to proportions of which she could not have dreamed, was that she wished thereby to create a powerful weapon for the war against war. Remembering these things, it is