All movements in the interest of peace have back of them the idea of brotherhood. If peace is to come in this world, it will come because people more and more clearly recognize the indissoluble tie that binds each human being to every other. If we are to build permanent peace it must be on the foundation of the brotherhood of men. A poet has described how in the Civil War that divided our country into two hostile camps a generation ago--in one battle a soldier in one line thrust his bayonet through a soldier in the opposing line, and how, when he stooped to draw it out, he recognized in the face of the fallen one the face of his own brother. And then the poet describes the feeling of horror that overwhelmed the survivor when he realized that he had taken the life of one who was the child of the same parents and the companion of his boyhood. It was a pathetic story, but is it too much to hope that as years go by we will begin to understand that the whole human race is but a larger family?
It is not too much to hope that as years go by human sympathy will expand until this feeling of unity will not be confined to the members of a family or to the members of a clan or of a community or state, but shall be world-wide. It is not too much to hope that we, in this assembly, possibly by this resolution, may hasten the day when we shall feel so appalled at the thought of the taking of any human life that we shall strive to raise all questions to a level where the settlement will be by reason and not by force.
The following extracts are from an address delivered by George W. Norris, United States senator from Nebraska, at Chautauquas and on lecture courses throughout the country for several years. It is one of the most logical and practical plans for universal peace ever proposed. It was prepared when the civilized world was at peace immediately following the peace treaty between Russia and Japan. David Starr Jordan declares that "military efficiency" is the principal cause of the present European war. A serious and honest study of how to preserve peace and how to avoid war cannot help but bring good results. This is the purpose of Senator Norris's lecture. For a further study of this most important subject, the reader is referred to Sumner's great oration on "The True Grandeur of Nations," to various speeches and monographs by Andrew Carnegie, and to numerous other publications, recently issued, regarding the patriotism of peace.