The Road To a Durable Peace

Abstract

The world has become convinced that might is not right, but it has yet to learn that right is not might-at least, right is not mighty enough to insure its automatic triumph. Most of us are convinced that miracles do not happen in the affairs of men and nations, or that if they do they are no more the exclusive property of right than they are the exclusive property of might. If we read history in the light of facts rather than our wishes, we are forced to see that when left to themselves in an unregulated contest might triumphs over right more times than right triumphs over might, but right will always prevail, provided as much straight thinking is put into it and as much power put behind it as is given to the designs of might. These principles are fundamental to any discussion of the forces of war and the forces of peace. This war is a dramatic illustration of what can happen when the force of the world is used to break law instead of to maintain it. History will probably regard the present war as essentially a conflict of social ideals. Two hundred years from now, this war will probably be referred to as the Great Social War. I take it that most of us here believe that in this conflict of social ideals democracy with all of its shortcomings more nearly represents the right than does any other social or national ideal. And this war, to my mind, is proving that, so long as autocratic nations support their claims with force, the more democratic nations dare not trust for protection merely to their superior ideals. If democratic ideals are superior, we have no right to run any risk of their safety. We have not yet reached the time when an ideal will stop a bullet. Force without ideals is dangerous, but ideals without force are too often powerless. We have worked out the ideal of peace with clearness. The problem of our generation is to work out the machinery of peace with efficiency. I conceive it, therefore, to be the duty of every democratic nation to be, prepared adequately to defend its ideals against the 44