Chapter XVIII: Part SIX (2)

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.

XXXI
THE CONGRESS IN ROME
Frame of mind · Life together in the Hotel Quirinal · General Türr and
his career · Little revolution against Bonghi · Alsace-Lorraine · The
Grelix couple · Baron Pirquet · Opening festival on the Capitol ·
Ruggero Bonghi as chairman · Weighty words · Founding of the Bern
Central Bureau · Echoes · The monthly _Die Waffen nieder_ is launched ·
A. H. Fried · “The Important Thing”

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:

Noble and highly honored Baroness:

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

Your wholly devoted
Dr. Haase

Vienna, October 9, 1891

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:

_Echoes of the Peace Congress_

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:

A WOE TO HIM WHO CANNOT LOVE
A DOUBLE WOE TO HIM WHO WOULD PROHIBIT LOVE.

Then the thought thrilled through me:

O ye who would hinder us from working at the weaving of the band that
is to gird all nations together in concord, ye who scoff at us because
we would choke out hereditary hate, because we would fan the flame of
the love of humanity—“a double woe to you!”

The monthly from which the above extract is taken was published for eight years until the end of the century, when it was replaced by the _Friedenswarte_. The idea of issuing a periodical did not come from me. After the newspapers had spread the tidings of the founding of a Peace Society in Vienna and the part which it was to take in the approaching Congress, a young publisher in Berlin wrote me an enthusiastic letter in which he suggested the establishment of an organ for the new movement; he would publish it, I was asked to be editor in chief and to put my name on it as such. An eager devotee of the idea of peace since his earliest years, since he had for the first time seen the Vereshchágin pictures, he now desired to dedicate all his powers as a publicist to the cause of peace. His letter was burningly written, and I consented. From that day to this A. H. Fried has been my most zealous fellow-combatant.

So then I stood in the midst of the young movement; I had a new Union to preside over, a review to edit, a regular correspondence to carry on with the colleagues whom I had gained in Rome, and once more my life and activities were filled with something which I recognized as “the one important thing.”