Swollen Fortunes Are Not So Dangerous As A Swollen Navy

( Originally Published 1908 )

A Peace Precedent

THE coast line between Canada and the United States, from the St. Lawrence River to Lake Superior, is about two thousand miles.

In the year Eighteen Hundred and Twelve, there were forty-six forts, big and little, on the

United States side, and about the same number frowned at us from Canada.

At Fort Niagara alone there were at one time six thousand troops. Altogether we had on the Great Lakes over a hundred craft devoted to the art of fighting—this in the interest of peace.

In one little battle we had with our British cousins, on Lake Erie, Commodore Perry, a rash youth of twenty-seven, captured six British ships and killed three hundred men. A little before this the British destroyed ten ships for us and killed two hundred Americans.

After the War of Eighteen Hundred and Twelve was ended and peace was declared, both sides got busy, very busy, strengthening the forts and building war ships.

At Watertown, Conneaut, Erie, Port Huron, Cleveland and Detroit were shipyards where hundreds of men were working night and day building war ships. Not that war was imminent but the statesmen of the time said there was nothing like " preparedness." In Canada things were much the same, and there were threats that Perry's famous message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours, " would soon be reversed.

Suddenly, but very quietly, two men in Washington got together and made an agreement.

One man was acting Secretary of State,Richard Rush of Philadelphia. The other was Charles Bagot, Minister to the United States from England Rush was of Quaker parentage, and naturally, was opposed to the business of war.

Bagot had seen enough of fighting to know it was neither glorious nor amusing.

Rush wrote out a memorandum of agreement which he headed AN ARRANGEMENT.

The document is written on one side of a single sheet of paper and is dated April Twenty-eight, Eighteen Hundred and Seventeen. Here is a copy:

"1.—The Naval Forces henceforth to be maintained upon the Great Lakes shall be confined to the following vessels on each side :

"2.—On Lake Ontario one vessel, not to exceed one hundred tons burden, carrying not more than twenty men and one eighteen - pound cannon.

"3.—On the Upper Lakes two vessels, of same burden, and armed in a like way.

"4.—On Lake Champlain one vessel of like size and armament.

"5.—All other armed vessels to be at once dismantled, and no other vessel of war shall be built or armed along the St. Lawrence River or on the Great Lakes."

This agreement has been religiously kept for ninety-one years. Its effect was to stop work at once on the fortifications, and cause disarmament along the Great Lakes.

So far as we know the agreement will continue for all time. Both parties are satisfied, and in fact, so naturally has it been accepted, very few people know of its existence.

Here is an example that our friends at The Hague might well emphasize. If those forts on the frontier had been maintained, and had the ships of war continued to sail up and down, it would have been a positive miracle if there had not been fighting.

Probably they would have forced us into a war with England before this. We have had several disputes with Canada when it would have been very easy to open hostilities if the tools had been handy. Men who tote pistols find reasons for using them, and the nations that have big armies will test their use when excuse offers.

Thecivilized earth is practically parceled out among nine Great Nations. These nations are The United States of America, England, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Austria, Spain and Turkey.

Each of these nations keeps a large standing army. The United States has the smallest army and Russia the largest. We also have more food and Russia the least. Twice in ten years we have fed her.

In round numbers these nine great powers take and constantly keep four million men from useful production. Including those who are working in shops and factories, employed in the creation of army supplies there are five million people, of the very flower and pick of the world, engaged in military duty.

Let the further fact be noted that where a man is taken from useful production, some one has to work to support him.

The worst of war or war service is that the soldier is a ruined man. William T. Stead says,

"Four out of five of all English soldiers who serve for two years or more are tainted by venereal disease."

To a great degree population is reproduced by the weak, the old and the unfittest.

The most awful feature of war is not the loss of life on the field of battle or death in the hospitals, but it is that the men who return, come back demoralized by disease and transmit disease and the tendencies of degeneration to the unborn.

Fear, greed and vanity are the three things which stand in the way of disarmament. But the thinking people of the world are beginning to see that the perpetuity of the race demands the abolition of war.

If individuals cannot agree we do not allow them to get out in the street and battle with each other.

That might prove which was the stronger man but it would not prove who was right in the question at issue. Justice is not to be reached through violence.

We elect supervisors to look after the affairs of each county, and if counties disagree they find their remedy in the state courts.

If states disagree they carry the case to the United States Court.

But if countries disagree we return to violence and straightway destroy life and property in order that equity may reign.

Among all savage tribes there is a goodly degree of consideration for the individual members of the tribe, a certain standard of justice and ethics. The American Indians do not maltreat their women, nor abuse their children. In fact corporal punishment is looked upon with great disfavor. Savages have a Golden Rule, too.

But it applies only to members of the family or tribe, just as our Golden Rule does not apply to outside nations. My plea is for a Golden Rule that will apply not only to our own country, not only to Christendom, but to all the world.

The absurdity of avowed violence between nations that clamorously proclaim themselves " Christians" is too evident to discuss.

If two countries can make an " arrangement" limiting the matter of armament and this arrangement holds for a hundred years, cannot nine countries do the same ? All that is then needed is a few soldiers to do police duty.

Nations cannot afford to be savages any more than individuals.