I trust my telegram of greeting to the Austrian Peace Union reached the meeting in time.

Our League, founded at Geneva in the year 1867 under the chairmanship of Garibaldi and Victor Hugo, was the first peace society, I think, that elected a woman to its committee. This will show you, gracious lady, how deeply we wish you well in your noble initiative. With all our hearts we extend to the newly founded society our sympathy and devotion.

Your name is mentioned among the promoters of a movement which is to lead humanity “upward,” Christianity toward its fulfillment.

I regard it as my duty to approach you respectfully and to beg you to regard me as one of those who join in the loftiest efforts with all their might. Every fiber of my being belongs to the “upbuilding of a kingdom of God on earth,” to the “coming of Christianity.” This comprehends all the efforts of good men. I am all on fire with idealism, and yet I am no fancymonger. You have to do with “a man among men.” Undismayed, but also unbefooled, I shall go on in the paths that are marked out for me. The more comprehensive our action is, the more effective; the more resolute, the more beneficent; the more simultaneous along the whole line, the more thorough the success.

“Now, then, something must come.” I live in the firm conviction (to me the word “belief” would not be enough for this) that we stand before the gate that at once parts us from and admits us to the age of completion. To grasp the latch with a vigorous hand seems to me the duty of all those to whom God has granted the ability to do so.

... From the inmost conviction I declare myself in accord with the aims of every peace union, in obedient veneration of our sublime Master from Nazareth. Here his disciple, our dear Leo Tolstoi, is incontrovertibly in the right.

Only I believe that we of our profession can accomplish even more for the good and great cause through our slowly but certainly infiltrating books than through associated activities—of this you yourself have given a shining example—though of course the latter also have their value.

I do not believe there can be a thinking and feeling man who does not inwardly belong to the League of Peace; and if our states were “Christian” not merely on paper but in the deep meaning of the word, there would be no need of a League of Peace.

I hope that these lines, with the assurance that I thoroughly approve the aims of the International Peace and Arbitration Association and am ready and willing to become a member, will reach you while you are still in Vienna.

Although I believe with Heraclitus that battle is the father of all things, yet I hope and wish with all my heart that the better stock of competition for the higher blessings of civilization may displace the savage and cruel conflict of races and the bloody warfare between nations, which at present still, as in the Middle Ages, brings the greatest wretchedness to the “highly civilized” nations of the present day.

May the Peace Congress in Rome on the ninth of November be attended by the best results!

Before I write of the congress in Rome I want to go back a bit. In the spring of 1891—consequently before the founding of the Interparliamentary Group and the Peace Association in Vienna—my husband had also brought into existence an association of which I wish to tell.

We were still in the Caucasus when, at the beginning of the eighties, we were informed of the Anti-Semitic movement started in Prussia, and propagated by Court Chaplain Stöcker. This phenomenon, I need hardly say, aroused lively disgust in us. We set forth the arguments against this reversion to the Middle Ages in various articles written for the Vienna papers on which we were regular collaborators, but the articles were returned to us on the ground that in Austria there was no Anti-Semitism, and if any of it should spread from Prussia to us the only proper attitude toward it would be contemptuous silence. Later events showed that this attitude was not the proper one. Wrong must be withstood if it is recognized as such; there is no other way. In such cases silence, though professing to express contempt, is itself contemptible. Not only must the victims react against it, it is also for those who are not personally concerned to antagonize a wrong wherever they see it. Their silence is complicity, and generally springs from the same motives as the silence of the victims,—that is, from timidity. Only not to come into any collision, only not to subject one’s self to annoyances,—that is the motive at bottom, even if it does outwardly bear itself as genteel reserve.

After we came home the Anti-Semitic movement in Vienna had taken on especially brutal forms. In the year 1891 it had even gone as far as violence. The indignation which my husband felt boiled over.

“Something must be done!” was his decision.

And he sat down and wrote a constitution and a plan of action and an appeal. And now what he had to do was to find some prominent men who would go hand in hand with him. That same evening—we were just then in Vienna—he went to look up Count Hoyos in his residence on the Kolowratring. “The gentleman is not in,” said the servant; “he is downstairs in the club.” My husband immediately betook himself to the lower floor, where the clubrooms were situated, and sent for the count, who was sitting at a whist table.

“What is it, dear Suttner, anything very urgent?”

“Yes, justice for the persecuted—”

“Out with it!”

Count Hoyos took hold of the matter enthusiastically, and proposed to invite his whist partner, Baron Leitenberger, the well-known Liberal manufacturer, to join the provisory committee. So he also was called out, and a few moments later the formation of the league was a settled thing among these three. The next day Professor Nothnagel, so highly regarded both as a man and as a savant, came in with them; and a short time afterwards the constituting assembly met, with these four men at the speakers’ table. After the appeal had been printed in the papers, several hundred, including personages prominent in Viennese society and politics, had joined. On the day after the first meeting the Neue Freie Presse published the following article, which will give the best explanation of the author’s ideas and purposes:

THE UNION FOR RESISTANCE TO ANTI-SEMITISM

By A. Gundaccar von Suttner

Yesterday our Union came into existence as a legally recognized society, to begin action against that hostile movement which is aimed directly against a portion of our fellow-citizens. This is the object stated in section 2 of the constitution: in plain terms, to combat the Anti-Semitic movement, and to do this by public lectures, the dissemination of informatory literature, discussions, and, if necessary, the founding of an organ to represent the Union.

Politics is excluded: primarily because our Union is not political, and in the next place because the matter in question is social in the strict sense of the word and has nothing to do with the conduct of state business. The proof of this lies in the fact that we reckon among our members persons of every shade of belief, that we welcome without exception every one who is in full enjoyment of his civic rights.

A certain order of opponents who are never at a loss for false and mendacious allegations have already made the attempt to represent our Union as one that purposes to take the field against Christianity in favor of the Jews. Hostile attacks of this kind carry their own condemnation. As a proof of the falsity of their assertions stands the fact that we already number among our members priests of the two chief Christian denominations, and that we announce the distinct expectation of gradually enlisting all those who are first and foremost called to preach the word of peace, of love to our neighbors, of humanity.

In a time when men are founding societies to protect dumb animals from cruelty—and that with absolute justification—it is, I think, only logical that we should at last take a stand also against cruelty to our fellow-men, all the more as the attacks have not been confined to assaults upon honor, but have taken the form of acts of violence which have given our Jewish fellow-citizens every reason to fear for the safety of their existence. I will mention only those suburban heroes who smashed the windows of Jewish women and shouted threats of murder at them; those soldiers who struck down an old man on the street; that schoolboy who thrust a knife into the eye of one of his Semitic comrades. These are individual cases out of many; a single one would have been enough to stir all right-thinking men to a great cry of indignation.

The party against which we are arraying ourselves seems to have contemplated nothing less than to decree for Austria a sort of moral state of siege, and thereby to bring a pressure to bear on the timorous souls of whom there are more than enough, whereby many of these will allow themselves to be enrolled in order not to call down upon their heads the wrath of that association, which is always ready with the appellative Judenknecht. Special laws directed against the Jews, like those that have reached such a magnificent development in Russia, would naturally not have been long in making their appearance, and ultimately, as a logical consequence, special laws against all who do not think as do those gentlemen of the persecuting party.

Well, to-day, by good fortune, it appears that there are still Austrians who will not submit to such a reign of terror, and who answer such demands with the cry, “Browbeating won’t work.”

In the bosom of the opposing party, on the other hand, the reign of terror has broken out; every one who there believes himself called to be a leader takes the proverb “Bend or break” to heart; every one collects his troops around him and forms a detachment which snarls at every other. Skirmishes also have already been fought, with fists and words, and the lawsuits growing out of them show us clearly and distinctly what is going on behind the scenes of that stage. This ought to open the eyes of many an objective observer who has supposed that he was falling in with the demands of the times if he joined that troop.

Originally, when Herr Stöcker was still having his day, Anti-Semitism attempted to put itself on the ground of Christianity, and of threatened Christianity at that, and to conjure up a religious question. This plan was a lamentable failure, for there were enough honorable religious teachers who opposed it. Then the attempt was made to lay emphasis on race differences and to make these the basis of up-to-date persecution. Here also the results were meager, and so they ultimately hit upon the method of rousing human passion, of heating up the hatred and envy of all those, bringing all those to the burning-point, who had little or nothing to lose but hoped to gain much. Of course the matter could not be allowed to pass as mere commercial or competitive jealousy; a scientific whitewash had to be applied to the whole thing, and so they got footing on the social question: accumulated capital is the destroyer of the little man; the Jew has accumulated capital in his hands, therefore the Jew is the destroyer of the little man. That there are among the Jews themselves whole masses of little men who have scarcely a crust to nibble was entirely lost from sight—such a thing simply does not count with logicians of that stamp; they have in sight only the Christian little man and the Jewish big man.

It is a recognized fact that you can fool the heedless masses with certain catchwords as much as you please. It is the children’s game, Schneider, leih’ mir die Scher (“Puss in the Corner”), arranged for the use of grown-up people: the one who tries to find a place knows perfectly well that the place to which the other directs him is not empty, but he runs toward it obediently, and meanwhile the wily fox swaps his place for a better and snaps his finger laughingly at the one dispossessed. This is the game played by those men who sin at the phrase “social question”: “The Jew has an empty place”—and the dupe makes for the Jew. Since he knows incidentally that his “friends” are not well disposed toward the Jew, he means at least to get this much advantage from the game, that he will vent his temper on the man; he can do this without any expenditure of great courage and without peril, for he has behind him a superior power which springs to his aid—if the aid costs nothing more than a few fisticuffs.

As far as this dragging in of the social question is concerned, these florid speakers only commit the trifling error of adopting for their science absolutely faulty premises, so that their whole edifice is shaky at its foundation. No social reformer, no economist of the present time will look for the evil in accumulated capital as such. The man who should keep his millions locked up in his strong box in the form of packages of bank notes—for so the common throng imagines it—would ultimately perish of starvation, for it is a law of nature that what is not renewed is at last used up. Accumulated capital, then, is not in itself the cause but only the result. The evil has its roots elsewhere; and if once these roots are radically extirpated, then capital will of necessity circulate in such a way as to pass through all hands.

A few representatives of the people have already indicated the solution of the social enigma—if I am not mistaken, Dr. Menger recently. It is not our affair, however, to go into this in detail here, for our aim is simply to bring out the fact that the Anti-Semitic movement on the basis of social science stands on feet of clay, and that the men who to bolster their cause trespass on this ground have only an utterly superficial acquaintance with the question, most of them none at all. But the average man allows himself to be persuaded easily, for he has learned a deal at school—but not logical thinking. Now if he sees that another is (or rather seems to be) doing this business for him, then so much the better; then he gladly lets the other take the trouble and believes that he has done his part when he joins in the hue and cry.

A few days ago an Anti-Semitic member of the Reichsrat took the floor with an interpellation; it related to our Union and to the accession of a man whose name is spoken with reverence and gratitude throughout all Austria. The speech may receive a suitable rejoinder in a proper place; I wish only to mention here that the said deputy used words to this effect: that it appeared by our appeal that the Union intended to wage battle in a “hostile,” extremely “acrimonious,” and “unscrupulous” manner against the Anti-Semitic party as such and also against all those citizens who cherish an Anti-Semitic spirit.

Hostile? Acrimonious? Unscrupulous? I should hope not! Those who think that they have to see in Anti-Semitism a movement serviceable to the general good we pity because they are on the wrong track, and we hope that we shall be able by convincing proofs to bring them back to the right path. Those that have found in Anti-Semitism personal means for personal ends we despise, as every honorably-thinking man despises him who uses unfair means to promote his own interests. Hostility and acrimony, therefore, are not the right words. And as for unscrupulousness, it depends on what the word is taken to mean. If our opponents expect that we are going to take the tone that they are pleased to use,—in which, for instance, they give their readers in the Unverfälschte Deutsche Worte the news about the formation of our Union,—they, are mistaken. Such co-workers we would never accept into our membership, for decency is above all things to be preserved in our camp. We are of the opinion that no cause can ever be helped toward good repute by abusive words. Some hundreds of years ago they would indeed have had their effect, for then behind such strong expressions came knock-down arguments with the fist, and the stronger fist prevailed. But really to-day the great majority is better bred, and rowdy attack with word and deed is not to the taste of the cultured inhabitants of Austria.

Among our objects is also that of stirring our fellow-citizens to independent thinking. We do not wish to dictate, we wish to lead and to point out the way which it would be wise to take. Our two weapons are to be reason and the sense of justice; with these, we are fit to meet all attacks. We cannot be put down with pseudo-science, with juggled statistics, with distortion of truth and justice, and other such approved weapons; for we have in our ranks men who are preeminently qualified to annihilate such arguments with strictly scientific and expert methods, and to floor their antagonists coram publico. In a word, we feel that we are strong, we feel that we are equal to the work which we have undertaken.

Their opponents proved to be stronger. I shall have occasion hereafter to tell something of the course that matters subsequently took. But now I will return to the point where I broke off—to the Peace Congress at Rome.

To Rome! No one can undertake the journey to the Eternal City without being overcome by a certain feeling of awe. There vibrates in the soul a diapason of historic and æsthetic tones, of memories of antiquity and the Renaissance; pictures rise of Forum and Vatican, of gladiators and cardinals, of palaces and churches, of entrancing gardens and dazzling treasures of art. We also, both of us, quivered with this peculiar frisson of joyous expectation when we found ourselves in the train that bore us Romewards. My Own naturally felt it with especial force, for he was to see the Eternal City for the first time. And this frame of mind was still more intensified by the object of our journey,—a congress, a Peace Congress. That was history too, only not ancient history, but the most modern; strictly speaking, the history of a future at whose gates one could as yet only knock; but what a new and beautiful world lay behind these gates!—And was I actually on my way thither as the delegate of a society which I myself had called into existence, and should I there—in the Capitol—meet and take counsel with statesmen from all climes? Was it not an unheard-of temerity, or, in simpler terms, a piece of impudence? It had all come about so quickly; I had acted under such an irresistible impulse, under the compulsion of an eager will, but also under the protection of that naïveté which consists in ignorance of difficulties and hindrances, and which helps forward every hazardous undertaking better than deliberation and experience.

When we arrived at our destination the Interparliamentary Conference was still in session; our Congress was not to begin till two days later. Almost all the participants in the two events had taken up their quarters in the Hotel Quirinal; and so this whole international society of pacifists—at that time, to be sure, the expression “pacifism” had not been coined—was brought together in constant intercourse,—in the large dining-room at meals, in the halls at all hours of the day in conferring groups, in the drawing-rooms in social intercourse. Here I found all the old friends and colleagues with whom I had so long been in correspondence, and many new friends besides. I remember that at my first arrival there was standing in the vestibule a tall, martial figure, with a white mustache a quarter of a yard long, and an acquaintance who was present introduced “General Türr.” Happy omen, that the first antagonist of war whom we met at the place of the Congress was a general, “a grizzled warrior”! His life’s history comprises a whole chronicle of wars: in 1848 as lieutenant under Radetzky in Italy; in 1849 with Kossuth in the Hungarian Revolution. Banished from Hungary, he was one of the English army in the Crimean War; in 1855 arrested in traveling through Hungary, condemned to death—pardoned through the efforts of the Queen of England. In 1859, on Garibaldi’s general staff, he takes part with the thousand, in the expedition to Marsala; fights at the Volturno with his division; in 1860 is military governor of Naples; in 1861, general-adjutant to King Victor Emmanuel. And how he, the battle-tried veteran, was here, to take part in the peace campaign. Not as a new convert; even when serving with Garibaldi he had been taught the misfortune of war and the hope that a European peace organization might be possible, for he was the inspirer of the famous manifesto sent out by Garibaldi to the princes of Europe inviting them to union; and ever since 1867 he had been a member of the French Peace Society founded by Frédéric Passy.

As the Interparliamentary Conference was still in session when we reached Rome, we had the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the representatives of the fourteen different parliaments who were here assembled under the presidency of Minister Biancheri. It was originally intended that Ruggero Bonghi should preside, but he had withdrawn, for a whole little revolution had broken out, and the German and Austrian parliamentarians would not have gone to Rome if Bonghi had not waived the chairmanship. What had occurred? The famous savant and former Minister of Public Instruction had published in some review an article which contained language expressing sympathy with the French conception of the Alsace-Lorraine question. I find among my letters an echo of the feeling that was aroused at that time in both the parliaments of Central Europe. Superintendent Haase, member of the Austrian Reichsrat, wrote me:

After a three weeks’ absence I came to Vienna yesterday by way of Teschen, where I gave hasty attention to only the most important official papers and packed into my trunk the private letters that had arrived for me. I am sincerely distressed to find now that your letter of the twenty-third of last month has remained unanswered, and that you must be having a very curious idea of my politeness. So, in the first place, I crave your pardon.

As regards the business, I must make a distinction between the general and the specific. Whatever service I can perform in the cause of human charity will always be gladly done; and if you should ever be in want of my commonplace services, call upon me. It will be a double pleasure to me to help forward a good work if at the same time I can be of service to an ideal woman, so worthy of deference for her high-mindedness. Do not, I beg of you, take this as banal flattery. But the special case with which we are concerned to-day has become different since you wrote to me. To take part in the Interparliamentary Conference this year, and in the Peace Congress at Rome, as I had intended, is no longer possible for me.

For, even though Signor Bonghi does at a later time give out that Alsace-Lorraine will not be spoken of at the Congress, yet in consideration of what he has already said he is not the man under whose leadership the friends of peace can meet in conference.

War is not merely a misfortune, it is a crime, committed by the person who calls it forth. But in the statement that a demand which can be made effective only through the force of arms is justifiable there is surely involved a sort of “summons to the dance,” and whoever issues it, even indirectly, becomes an accessory and responsible for the bloody consequences. Signor Bonghi’s utterances about the position of France toward Alsace-Lorraine would, in case France declared war upon Germany, compel him to approve of this war at least. This involves a logical impossibility of his condemning war altogether; and if he nevertheless does so, he comes into contradiction with himself: Bonghi versus Bonghi.

This contradiction would be bad enough in all conscience if it related to a war of Peru against Chile; but, since the point of Bonghi’s well-known utterance is directed against Germany, those among the friends of peace who are friends of Germany can least of all participate in an assembly over which Bonghi presides and to which he in a sense gives character. I do not know how you feel about this matter. But I should wish that all of us who unite with our hereditary love and fidelity to our Austrian imperial dynasty and fatherland the warmest sympathies for our ally, the German Empire, should not part company in our feelings about this situation.

And now, highly honored Baroness, accept the expression of my most distinguished consideration, with which I sign myself

The days before the opening of our Congress were devoted to preparatory labors and to confidential communications. The French, English, and Italians wanted to bring before the Congress a discussion of the Alsace-Lorraine affair, which had been tabooed by the Interparliamentarians; but we Austrians succeeded in persuading our foreign colleagues not to touch upon this ticklish theme. It would make the Germans too shy to be handled; they would be afraid of being regarded at home as guilty of high treason should they permit the result of the Frankfurt treaty to be treated as a “question” in their presence. The peace movement was as yet a very tender plant; it must be kept away from any over-chilly draft. In the confidential session there was utterance of various views, but not the slightest discord. All alike felt themselves comrades, fellow-combatants for a great object which promised a blessing equally to all nations. The two great peace veterans Frédéric Passy and Hodgson Pratt had the gift of spreading around them an atmosphere of confidence and devotion; it was felt that the fundamental trait in their nature was greatness of soul. And Ruggero Bonghi made a third. The chairmanship of the Congress was put into his hands.

We also met the Grelix couple—that is, Grete and Felix Moscheles. Grete looked as if she were Felix’s daughter, a dainty little Sèvres figure; blond hair, done up with the touch of genius and framing her face as with a mist of gold; a delicately cut and amusing visage—amusing because it was animated by mischievous dimples and sparkling eyes, and because the mouth, opening a trifle awry in speaking, disclosed among her white teeth an especially comical, conical eye-tooth. At the same time this little woman with the scintillating wit always wore, in opulent variety, toilets in the height of style and yet arranged to suit her own artistic taste—Grete is a painter. Always costly ornaments suited to her gown; but an enthusiastic socialist—the two things are quite compatible, it seems.

Baron Pirquet, who had taken part in the Conference as a member of the Reichsrat, now came into the Congress in his quality as a director of the Austrian Peace Society. This man of peace had, like General Türr, begun his career in the military service. The son of an Austrian general of Belgian extraction, he had been in the campaign of 1859 against Sardinia as a lieutenant of dragoons; and then for many long years was connected with the diplomatic service. Very distinguished in his appearance, with a classically handsome head and most delightful manners—such was the man outwardly. The inner man I learned to value in after years as a true friend and as a zealous worker in the cause of peace. He remained at the head of the Austrian group of the Interparliamentary Union until he was taken ill; and he prepared the way for, and brilliantly organized, the Conference of 1903, which was held in Vienna.

Great and deep were the impressions which I brought away from those meetings in Rome. In later times I have been present at many other Peace Congresses which were not less magnificent; but that one was the first I had attended, and we know how everything which is experienced for the first time is felt as a tenfold intensified experience.

First the opening session on the Capitol. The very approach of the delegates was spectacular. When they got out of their carriages on the square before the Capitol, a military band played the march from Lohengrin, and a double lane of guards in gala uniform stood on the terrace, on the steps, and before the entrance of the great hall where the meeting was to be held. In the hall itself, the walls of which were decorated with the flags of all the nations represented, stood the president’s table, in the background on a platform; on the right and left, in seats arranged like those in an amphitheater, a numerous public; and in front of these seats, on each side, a row of curule chairs reserved for the leaders of the various delegations (just imagine with what pride I took my place there: sella curulis—once the seat of honor for the kings, and later for the magistrates); at the directors’ table Minister-President Biancheri, who delivered the address of welcome. After he had finished, the delegates of the peace societies were to speak, one for each country. They were called up in alphabetical order: “Angleterre” was the first. Hodgson Pratt left his curule chair and mounted the platform. When he had ended his words, “Autriche” was called, and, as I was the presiding officer of the Austrian group, I as their spokesman had now to repair to the chairman’s table.

Stage fright ... that was a condition from which I had suffered distressfully all my life. When I was to sing at the Duprez recitals, or later at concerts, or even before two or three expert critics, the demon trac would always, even after long familiarity with the experience, clutch me by the throat and deprive me of half my powers amid unspeakable moral anguish. And here, for the first time in my life, at a world’s congress, in the presence of statesmen, in such a solemn assembly, in such a place—the Capitol!—I was to deliver a public address, the words of which would be taken down stenographically and sent off by telegraph by the newspaper correspondents of all countries. One would have supposed that the aforesaid demon must now pounce upon me and throttle me lamentably. Nothing of the sort. Quite calmly, unconcernedly, in glad exaltation, I said what I had to say, and a storm of applause followed my words. This is the way I explain the matter: stage fright is an accompaniment of vanity, a trembling question addressed to Fate: How shall I please? with the whole accent on the word “I.” Here at the Capitol, among the servants and interpreters of a world cause, I was an incidental! I had something to say which seemed to me important, and which I knew would be a welcome and joyous message to the like-minded persons who surrounded me. Who was going to say it, and what personal impression my insignificant person would produce, was a thought that did not come to my consciousness at all; and so I spoke without any uneasiness, with the assurance of an ambassador who has definite and good tidings to communicate. I could tell them that in a country of Central Europe where no Peace Society existed till six weeks ago, to-day, at the first summons of a powerless woman who had no other claim than having written an honest book, two thousand people had already banded together that they might be represented in Rome; and if in a few days two thousand fellow-combatants had offered themselves, then at the next Congress there would be twenty thousand members of the Austrian group to be represented. In conclusion I laid on the chairman’s table some of the most enthusiastic letters of approval, signed by illustrious names—Tolstoi, Haeckel, the Duke of Oldenburg, and others.

I was mistaken in my prophecy that during the following year the membership of the Union would be increased tenfold. The New does not march forward so rapidly. When it first makes its appearance it powerfully attracts all who were already quietly cherishing similar ideas. The rest of the world now gives ear in surprise, but means to wait and see if the New is successful; and if that does not come to pass immediately, then they turn away again and decide that the matter has no vitality. Meantime it germinates and sprouts and ramifies quietly until it reveals itself once more to the contemporary world with a new impulse.

So my début as a Peace-Congresswoman came off with great success, and I confess I was rather proud that I had spoken—think of it! on the Capitol; the only woman in history to whom such a thing had happened. But this pride was somewhat taken down when there came to my notice a newspaper item which told of the occurrence and added that “it was not the first time that one of the sisterhood had quacked on this spot, and this time it was not even a matter of saving the Capitol—”

On the next day the deliberations began. Ruggero Bonghi presided. The vivacious little man acquitted himself of that duty with humor and rigor, to the delight of all. He was easily enraged, and then he pounded heavily on the table with his fist; and universal applause followed this gesture, for it always emphasized an energetic preservation of order. Famous savant and philanthropist that he was, he enjoyed Queen Margherita’s especial confidence. She intrusted him with the management of her charities, and frequently enjoyed his gift of conversation.

I jotted down at that time some weighty passages of his introductory discourse:

The question is often raised whether these unions are working toward a goal that can be attained; but this question comes from men who have incorrectly understood the teachings of history and do not see that the progressive development which lies behind us is a guaranty for what is going to be.

The system of arbitration has already been repeatedly put in operation for the settlement of controversies; and what we demand is nothing further than that this principle should unfurl its banner and call to humanity, “Here I am. Change your course and I will give you peace.”

It is said that the armies and fleets, that this monstrous expenditure of men and money, is for the purpose of preserving peace. It would follow that our opponents pursue the same object as we do—with the difference that we pursue that end with means corresponding to the cause, while they proceed in a manner diametrically contrary to it.

It is certain that we have before us a lofty ideal; and those that ridicule the ideal and its adherents are like men who should maintain that it were idle to take a torch when one had to go through a dark passageway.

Every nation should contribute its quota to the general good of humanity. In this way the human race would move toward an increasing perfection, which, sustained by intelligence and philanthropy, will awaken the energy for greater and greater performances.

At this Congress it was determined to found a central bureau at Bern. The plan for this was suggested by Frédéric Bajer, and he and Hodgson Pratt made the proposal. Although attacked in certain quarters—is not every positive new thing always attacked?—the motion was carried, and Élie Ducommun, the Swiss delegate, was commissioned to take charge of the preliminary arrangements. The privilege of starting the first fund in the treasury of the Bern bureau was mine by virtue of the circumstance that the proprietor of the Roman daily Fanfulla, the Marquis Alfieri, asked my authorization to publish an Italian translation of my novel Die Waffen nieder in the feuilleton of his paper, to which I agreed on condition that the honorarium—fifteen hundred francs—should be paid over to the treasury of the Bern bureau when it should be founded.

In order to give a picture of those days and of the impression that they made on my mind at that time, I insert here what I wrote about them in the first number of my monthly, Die Waffen nieder, in January, 1892:

So, then, the beautiful days at Rome and Naples have now rushed past us like the rest!...

But this does not mean that all that filled those days has vanished—that is to say, that the words are stilled, the thoughts dispelled, the pictures obliterated.... We know that every slight motion of the hand, by disturbing the surrounding air, operates to immeasurable distances, and in the same way we know also how through unreckonable time the movement of spirits sets the surrounding and succeeding world of spirit in vibration.

“Never-to-be-forgotten” is the word ordinarily employed for days so richly filled. But it is not the correct word, for ultimately everything is forgotten; even should all those who shared the experience preserve to the end of life their recollections of what they experienced, yet there comes the time in which they themselves are forgotten, in which their ashes are scattered to the winds, their archives buried in ruins. So we will not call the contents of these days of the Congress never-to-be-forgotten, but rather ineradicable.

And be it said that this event cannot be compared with a slight motion. The echo which the Congress and Conference this time awakened in the public could hardly have been wished louder. When it is realized how the Peace Congresses of 1889 and 1890 passed almost unnoticed, and what general attention was attracted to the one this year, it is fair to hope that in like progression one of the next will become an event that stirs the world. And to bring this to pass would take nothing more than either an avalanche-like spread of the announced will of the nations for peace, or the resolve of the governments themselves to come together in a High Council of Peace to plan the bases of arbitration treaties.

Such confidence in the simple and probable realization (most likely within our lifetime) of the ideal set before us should fill the hearts of those that are fighting for this. Let the skepticism that wisely balances difficulties be left to those that stand aside. “Let us keep ever before our eyes the sacred purpose which we have set before us,” said Bonghi in his concluding address; “let us work with such fiery zeal as if the attainment of this depended wholly on us and as if we could attain it even to-morrow. If others hinder us, then it is not our fault. Let us scorn those that jeer at us and pity those that do not understand us. What we desire is the noble, the just, the beneficent; and if there be any one who believes that these things are forever denied to men, then for God’s sake and for man’s let him hold his tongue, for life would be altogether too sad if we all had to think as he does.”

“Words, words!” say our opponents in derisive tones. This objection also Bonghi meets with that genial humor which frequently flashes through his style. “You reproach us for putting forth nothing but words; did we ever claim to be cannon?” And in saying this he gave that short chuckle of his which stimulated his hearers to irresistible laughter.

Truly it would be nothing to deplore if the purpose of these congresses and conferences—the international reign of law—received valid realization by their pronouncements; rather, it is to be deplored that doubters and scoffers exert themselves to retard such realizations, and that those who have the power of decision are not already coming together for united work, but are contenting themselves—each in isolation—with avowing their own peace purposes in words—words—meanwhile augmenting the preparation for war by their uninterrupted action.

It is only mutual mistrust that keeps up this inner contradiction. But fair dealing will put this mistrust to rout; the lust for war perpetually attributed to “the others” will prove itself to be a phantom; the suspicion that the governments are not willing to renounce war, that the peoples are not willing, will disappear, and thereby the renunciation will have become a reality, the word an act.

What accelerative effect the congresses are producing in this respect, cannot be determined by any measurement. The opponents of the movement, indeed,—the indifferent or the so-called “practical,”—stick at the lack of immediate validity in the resolutions, at the difficulties, misunderstandings, and blunders which must inevitably come up in the deliberations of a multitudinous (and also polyglot) body of men.

“That such an unwonted instrument of will must work imperfectly for a time is obvious,” remarked a member of the German Reichstag, Dr. Barth, in speaking of the Conference, “and it takes just about the intellectual superiority of Frau Wilhelmine Buchholz and her (very widely scattered) kin to see nothing more behind this natural imperfection. On the other hand, whoever has any understanding for the imponderable things in the life of nations, and can separate the appearance from the actuality, will recognize in this as yet clumsily working Conference a very notable stir of the humanitarian sense of solidarity.”

It is to be desired that Congress and Conference may in future be held simultaneously, that is to say in alternate sessions, so that the participants of the one may be able to attend the other; for the representatives who meet in the Interparliamentary Conference are for the most part also members of the peace societies of their respective countries; their voices should therefore not be wanting in the deliberations of the Congress. And especially should all share unitedly in the festivities, the receptions, the gala performances and excursions which the city where the Congress is held offers to its peace guests. Too much is demanded of the people when they are expected to divide their enthusiasm between two successive occasions dedicated to the same object. Two opening ceremonies on the Capitol, two gala representations of Amico Fritz, two special trains to Naples and Pompeii, two illuminations of the Forum and the Colosseum in the course of a fortnight; it was a serious tax. And yet the Roman Committee, the authorities, and the generous-hearted southern populace managed to entertain in equally brilliant fashion first the Parliamentarians and immediately afterwards the delegates of the Peace Unions.

The two bodies are really at bottom only two different forms of the same movement, closely connected, the one an outgrowth of the other; the upper and lower house of the same parliament, so to speak. The unconstrained intercourse in an exalted frame of mind, plus the joyous acclamations of the populace, the waving of banners, the bands of music,—all this brings on fraternization and mutual understanding more, almost, than the deliberative work that precedes it. Besides, what can be produced by the congresses does not consist in effective paragraphs of law; it is only a fundamental thought that is to be championed—a great, shining, heart-warming fundamental thought—the principle of the solidarity of nations, the fellowship^[34] of all the civilized peoples. Of such a fellowship void of enmity we surely have a joyous foretaste when we—the representatives of seventeen different nations—banquet around a flower-decorated table (the word PAX in white camellias on a green background) or take a jolly excursion in a special train furnished by the government, are greeted on our arrival by a crowd shouting evviva and received with official manifestations of respect, and take our places in the waiting landaus or banner-hung boats—and all this under the gracious ensign of harmony; they were intoxicating moments full of blessed inspiration. We forgot that what we had come to battle for there is not yet attained, that the world outside is still in the sign of Hate; at all events the world that we were just then in the midst of was unanimously inspired by the same faith, the same ideal. Yes, they were—I had almost said—“never-to-be-forgotten” hours!

There such images and impressions were imprinted on our minds as could be received only in such circumstances. It is one thing for a solitary tourist to wander through the streets of Pompeii, another thing for a happy pair on their wedding journey; still another for the assembled participants in a Peace Congress. All thoughts converge to the same paramount center. The view of Vesuvius, for example, whose summit was enveloped in clouds of smoke, could only on this occasion have suggested to a traveling politician the following observation which I heard from the lips of our Austrian delegate, Baron von Pirquet:

“How the old volcano hides his face in a veil of fog—apparently he is ashamed, in presence of us friends of peace, of the destruction which he has poured out upon the poor city and its wretched inhabitants. And yet what is the petty mischief that he has on his conscience compared to the devastation and scenes of horror that were spread over this very same region by the martial legions!... How infinitesimal are the crimes of such a mountain against mankind in comparison with the crimes against mankind which men perpetrate; it is for us to be ashamed.”

And when we all stood in the great arena listening to the explanations of the professor who was detailed by the government to guide us, that the gladiatorial contests were counted “the indispensable” for the Romans, we could not but say to each other, “And yet people have learned to dispense with them and to abhor them.” So if to-day many still count war indispensable, what does that prove? Or, again, many of us might make this observation: at bottom it was an innocent gratification to look on and see how a few dozen wrestlers—criminals at that, condemned to death—stretch each other on the sand or are killed by wild beasts, compared to that other custom of drilling millions of innocent men for the giant arena in which they are to be mangled and dashed to pieces not by lions and tigers but by artificial murdermachines....

In one of the little Pompeian houses an ancient inscription was still perceptible on the wall; our professor of archæology read it off: