Page:Mead - The Overthrow of the War System.pdf/19

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to abolish all force but to diminish it to the minimum that gives sanction to law. World peace means no flaccid, monotonous, tame existence, as military visionaries conceive. It means all the superb energy of the engineer, the inventor, the scientist, the explorer and the statesman made a thousand times more fruitful. It means, not merely no war, but a new conception of economics, politics and world relationships, which, nevertheless, in every nation will leave varieties of government, custom and religion untouched. The scoffer who flatters himself that he understands the new peace movement, which he imagines is still typified by the antiquated dove and olive leaf and is advocated by “peace at any price” weaklings, has yet to learn the alphabet of the subject.

All but one of the chapters in this book have been written by women who are active in the Woman's Peace Party, four of whom were on its platform committee and two of whom took a leading part in the Woman's Congress at The Hague. The valuable contribution from Professor Balch of Wellesley College was unfortunately unavailable until the book was already in type and was therefore of necessity placed in the appendix. Those who have written these pages are aiming primarily at international jus-