Fo_ur llJghts "Then he showed four lights when he wished them to set full sail and follow in his wake."

From "Firat Voyage 'Round the World by MaJellaa."

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APRIL 21, 1917 ADVENTURE IN INTERNATIONALISM IssUB VII.

, "And now that lhis fate has come upon me, I

cannot cast away the reasons which I gave in former times; for they still appear to )'lle as good as ever; and I honor and reverence them just as r did before."

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"No order of a President or a Governor will per­

~uade 'me or force me to this b~siness of killing .. on

this issue-for me at least-there is no compromise.

Once war is here the churches will be called \lpon to

enlist, as will every other social institution. Therefore

would I make it plain that so long as I am your minis­

ter the Church of the Messiah will answer no military

summons. Other clergymen may pray to God for

victory f<>'r our arms ; I will not. In this church, if ·

nowhere else in all America, the Germans will still be

included in the family of God's children. No word of

hatred shall be spoken against them, no evil fate shall

be desired upon them.

"I will remember without distinction the peoples of

all lands who bear this day the agonies laid upon them

by the Governments which deceive and lJSe them."

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES.

/ SOCRATES.

-What our blood-soaked earth needs is a new con­science. The moral conscience of mankind must be educated to brand war-all -wars~as stupid, futile, wrong. In indirect ways which we do not foresee, this war may be creating in millions of men and women and childr~n, on both sides of national boundaries, hatred of war. It is our privilege and duty to create this moral ~onscience, directly and consciously. The moralization of our race is a slow process, so slow that we are tempted to despair when our ideals uttc;rly fail. But we must believe that as the savage came out of the brute, in the evolution of our race, so the civilized man will ultimately result f,rom the savage. The .natural man, governed by vengeance and making use of a club, will in time-in God'~ good-time-give way to the spiritual man, governed by love and making use of persuation and conference. For that day we must work now and in that hope sustain our souls.

J ()HN HOWARD MELISH:-

Wh~t We May Do To-day War has been declared against Germany by the

Uruted States. Flags are flung from houses and stores, from factories and chm;ches. Boys and young men are parading the streets in khaki, and children, too small to go to battle,.are drilling with sticks and toy pistols. We hear the Star Spangled Banner at every place of amusement and our daily press rings with the cry of "America first." We have an enemy, and our boys of eighteen and nineteen, too young to vote but not too young to execute-the wlll of the voter, are going out to shoo.t an'd maim ami perhaps to die. What can the Woman's Peace Party do at- this time? Its battle against war bas been lost. Is there work for it in the new days of international conflict?

It will have a greater task than ever, since it must undertake the well-nigh insuperable task of preserving in time of war the liberties won in time of peace.

The first great task will be the battle against com­pulsory military training and compulsory military service. The continent of Europe is one huge camp of sUffering surrounded by leagues of graves. That we may not meet the same fate our Government plans to adopt the ante-bellum methods of the belligerents. Such is its logic, and we are striving to combat it.

A second battle will be against the attack upon every advance that has been made by organized labor. Here as in England at the beginniQ.g of the war we shall hear the call to women to work in munition factories receiving lower wages than the men. In the name of patriotism the working day will be lengthened and children of school age will be encouraged to become wage earners. The laborer's hire may sink to a soldier's wage.

A third will be the defense of freedom of speech. This is fast being curtailed. Meetings at which the government is criticized are broken up and speakers are arrested. For two years England has exercised a severe censership upon all our news; and for some months we have been unable· to get any German news­papers. Protests against this from our state depart­ment have been ignored. Quite recently we have been refused the Nation, England's great radical paper, and the Labour Leader. Proposed legislation in Wash­ington points to as complete a loss of freedom of speech at home. We may find our ra<Ucal papers stopped, our speakers arrested, and propaganda un­favorable to ' the militarist pronounced· treasonable. Our task in standing for the right to sane, intelligent criticism will not be inconsiderable.

And last4', the Woman's Peace Party must continue to take the long view,,not to suffer from the illusion of the near. Shall our people come out of the war filled with a blind patriotism that demands that America be first, that sjnce she is the greatest and richest

_ country she shall dominate; or shall they stand ready to lay down their arms and, turning to the international ideal, work for a world state? It would not be strange if they chose the former course. Since the extinct men of the old stone age, whose marvellous drawings still shine fresh on the cavern walls of Spain, down to the present day, beauty and intelligence have been beaten down by force. But if we Americans choose another course, if we strive to preserve the best in all civiliza­tions, if we really enter upon the path of fraternity, it will be in part be_cause a new constructive power is moving through our national life. The influence of intelligent women of independent thought was never before so great. And women hate war, they hate the destruction of life with such an intensity that they will never permit 1ts continuance. That was what Miss Rankin's vote said to the women of America and to millions of women in the warring states. A substitute for the lifted sword and an overwhelming resolution to secure that substitute, surely the Woman's Pea'ce Party will have much to do in the coming years.

' M. W. o.

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Gretchen Talks To Her Doll It must be a comfort, my dear, to be stuffed full of sawdust. You don' t mind going without butter on your bread-And such nasty bread, too. And no meat or pudding, not even on Sunday. And waking up. at night to think of fre$h milk and sausages, With your knees to your chin to keep the ache away. You are just as fat as when the war began. But feel of my arm, isn't it skinny? I'm as skinny as farmer Max's cow, I'm as thin as my kitten they killed last week. If Otto had been here he would never ~ave let them. You remember Otto, my brother Otto? . He sent you his love in th.e very last letter he wrote me. But Otto is dead and now they have taken my kitten. Do you know when the war will stop? I do. Mother told me herself:- )

When all o~ the children are hungry, bfngrier than I am; When the httle French boys, you reme ber them, don't you, they wear such

funny long capes; And the Russian babies they wrap up ti hb from the cold ; And those girls in bright petticoats way. off in Flanders; And all of the children in wicked and c~uel old England; When they all are as hungry, as hungry, So their knees shake each time tbey go walking­The way Granny Thekla shakes and stumbles-When they dream, as I did last night, df giants and ogres; When the babies cry all night long, not once in a while, but each minute; Then, Mother says, the war will be done. and all our foes win be conquered.

My throat aches down to my waist. 1

I · wish I were like you and stuffed full of sawdust. MARY WHITE OVINGTON.

A Study in Evolution We Are the Sick and Spent From Mr. Asquith and the British Government

And for your service and your sacrifice, Your herQism, self-denial, skill, Endurance, strength, Your nimble fingers shaping things that kill, We grant you votes. You speak the language that we understand, In these, our days of war. You have defended us From death, England will honor thus Her warrior women and herself, And grant them votes.

We bad no eyes to see The patient service of the days of peace, The ste'iidy building of each human life. The clash of steel, The trenches and the fumes Taught us to feel Your worth, And so we grant yo.u votes. You have translated thus Yourselves to us, And for your service and your sacrifice, Your heroism, self-denial, skill, Endurance, streng~, your nimble fingers soaping things that kill, We grant you votes.

A. B. CURTIS.

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We are the sick and spent. We will lie down And sleep, though we must make a bloody bed.

We will lie down beneath God'S tattered tent.

This is enough to know: we will put down Our guns and we will bury all our dead.

We will put down our- guns before the foe,

For they are foe no more. We will not kill, Though all the lords of earth be sacrificed.

We will not kill, who have run red with war.

Lo! we have risen from sleep, made whole again This is the clean white victory of Christ:­

Made whole again, we will sow see<;} and reap. LESLIE NELSON JENNINGS.

The Gods One after one, men worshipped them: The rock, the tree, the serpent,-sun, and storm. One after one they fell ; and then? The King! "The Nation!". . . . What at last?­The "still, small voice" within the soul of Man.

ANNE THROOP CRAIG.

Some of Our Congressmen Jeannette Rankin, Montana: "I want to stand by

my country-but I cannot vote for war.''

George W. Norris, Utah: "I charge no man here with a wrong motive but it seems to me that this war craze has robbed us of our-judgment. I wish wemight delay our action until reason could again be enthroned in the brain of man."

W. F. Kirby, Arkansas: "I have seen the war sen­timent cultured. I have seen it manipulated. I have seen the people's sentiment lashed into fury by the eastern papers yonder."

H. E. Hull, Iowa: "I believe when I vote against this resolution I will vote the sentiment of the great majority of the common people. One reason 1 must oppose this resolution is because of the unseemly way it is being railroaded through this Congress." ·

Edward Keating, Colorado: "When you vote for this resolution you vote to give the President of the United States the authority to send American boys to Europe.. . . Why, my friends, Woodrow Wilson running on that kind of a platform could not have carried a single state in this Unio_n."

A. J. Gronna, North Dakota: "Let me remind the Senate that we are not the government,_ let me remind you that Congress is not the government; let me re­mind you that the President of the United States is not the government, but the Ioo,ooo,ooo of people are the sovereign power of this country. Why do we re­fuse to ~ubmit for their decision a question so im­

•portant to the future welfare of our people? Why do we ignore their petitions, which we have by the hun­dreds of thousands, asking us to avert war? The Euro­pean countries are today regretting that they pre­cipitated a war. Their people are sick to death and are wishing that they could find a way to end i_t. Selfish­ness was the cause of beginning this cruel, bloody war in Europe; false national pride prevents the ending of it."

From St. Louis, Mo. Telegram to Hon. A. J. Gronna: " Unless an embargo is promptly placed on grain and foodstuffs, it is more than likely there will

- be riots in n~arly every ·large city." (John M. Blessing.)

E. J. King, Illinois: "Germany has told us in so many wQrds that when we attempt to sail our boats to Liverpool she will, when they reach the prohibited zone, sink them without warning, with all on board, with her submarines. England has told us nothing, but if we attempt to sail our same boats to Hamburg a planted English mine says to us if we approach nearer it will sink them without warning with all on board." ,

Meyer London. New York: "Why bas not the President now again asked that the nations of the world make an effort to get together? Why should not we suggest a truce? Why should we not suggest a three or four months' stoppage of this slaughter so that the rep~esentatives of the free people of the free democracies of which he speaks, should have an op­portunity to get together and take up the question of peace against war. But 1 fear that the average mem­ber of Congress will, against his own convictions and against his ow,n judgment, vote as the President asks him to vote . . . . The elected Representatives of the people should speak their;, mind freely. Our news­papers have not always reported the facts, but in the French Chamber of Deputies, in the English Parlia­ment, in the German Reicbstag, in the Austrian Reicbsrath and in the Russian Douma there have been minorities all the time during the war. Here an at­tempt is being made to suppress every free expression of opinion before a declaration of war."

COMPULSORY MILITARY TRAINING ~ It is evident that for . the mas~es the d~y of the old

American ideal has gone, the day of the initiative, self­government, individual freedom, which made America what it is. America is no longer the ,young, undevel­oped land with plenty for all. It is taking ov the marks of the older, congested, fixed civilization against which

~ it revolted i)l 1776. Wha~ is wanted now is an America subservient, made docile in the name of efficiency, sub­missive in the name of preparedness, drilled into auto­matic obedience to an upper class in the name of patriotism.

Listen to Colonel Coit, Chairman of the Board of .. T~ustees of the American Defence Society :

"Most of our citizens, possessed of good old- 1

fashioned common sense, would grasp in short order the truths . of unpreparedness if those truths were brought home to them in the right fashion. Intensive preparedness education will do this. For the youth of the land, part of this education should be a strong uncompromising system of universal military service. Legislate this system into being and the youth of the

Mary K. Reely ,

116 s . Bvray .

country will be lined up for preparedness by the #me he reaches the voting age." That is, stamp the mind· With the military ideal while

the boy is young. Read the Colonel's next paragraph and ask;, before it is too late, if this ne the direction for . American education:

"Our great weakness in this country-a weaknes th·at stands out like the spines on a cactus plant-is that we argue too much. · Instead of telling the tl=aitorous and un-American pacifist to shut up or get out of the country, we try to make him eome around to our way of thinking. This cannot be done. The pacifist will remain disloyal to the end." Disloyal-1 ane Addams, President 1 ordan! Disloyal

-when President Wilson himself has declared that he wants to heat from all the people first befpre he acts in their name! If this outburst of military rigor is what has happened in only the last few weeks, what else, when this spirit is reinforced as it will be, by war, is likely to overtake liberties vastly more prec-ious than the freedom of our-expot ters to shz'p their goods in war-time where they please ? HENRY NEUMANN.

White Plains , N ~ Y.

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I went to· Washington, the capitol of the nation, on the birthday of the Emancipator. There I saw the congressmen in their legislative chambers or talked with them if\ their offices. North and South, East and West, all were present, a great gathering representing a multitude of conflicting opinions upon the one topic, war.

Now I am back at home looking across the river at the richest city on the earth. The sun has set and thousands of lights are twinkling in the tall, beautiful office buildings. Here is the commerce anc~. tl!e industry of the world. In those myriad rooms with their twinkling light~ men determfne our life. They decide upon our food, our clothing, our light, our warmth. It rests with 'them where we shall dwell and how we shall travel to.

·and from our homes. In them we live and breathe or gasp and die. "Silly!" the offi~e lights blink at me. _ . "Why go away? Where wealth is, there power is also. The seat

of the government is here." And down the bay Liberty holds up her torch.

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Published by the Woman's Peace Party of New York City, 70 Fifth Ave., who are glad to have contents reprinted, with due acknowledgment.

This issue of Four Lights is edited by:­

FLORA DUNLAP MARY WHITE OVINGTON.

Additional individual copies, 5 Cents. Bundles of 100 Copies, $2.50.

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