WANTS PEACE CONSIDERED
WANTS PEACE CONSIDERED THE Review of Reviews for the month of September has a strong editorial on the war situation with some obervations on the outlook' for peace. Mr. Shaw seems to be of the...
...Moreover, somebody gets the billions of dollars that officialdom is spending...
...They are all thinking in terms of national rivalry, and scheming to see how many of their own chestnuts can be pulled out of the fire by the war settlement...
...The military and political castes have their professional games to play, and these are deadly to the common people...
...Statesmanship iti Europe thinks and acts in certain grooves...
...and the American people have been placed under such bonds of patient self-restraint, and have become so much the victims of misleading news from Europe, that they of all peoples in the world are now perhaps least well-informed about what is going on...
...The newspapers, and the great business and financial interests, are in the main committed to the war logic, and to the practical war projects of officialdom...
...The individuals who through more or less accidental modes of selection have come together to form what the newspapers call 'official circles," are playing with vast forces and powers in ways that commit them to the prosecution of war with an instinctive prejudice against the mention of peace...
...These games tax the people oppressively for foolish schemes of empire that demand great armies and navies, and slaughter their sons...
...The intensity of the peaoe-longing of hundreds of millions of suffering people in Europe and elsewhere is only equalled by the discipline they show...
...The interests of the plain people who live in these European countries are not served by their ruling classes...
...Those just and moderate counsels that must prevail if peace is to be made do not find response in the minds of the war enthusiasts...
...Russia and the United States are ready for disarmament, a league of nations, arbitration, freedom of the ocean, respect for the rights of all peoples and races...
...Shaw seems to be of the opinion that "official circles" and the newspapers are thinking along an entirely different line than are the rank and file of the common people...
...But it is to be feared that no other great nations, on either side of the war—except China—are ready to stand on the platform of President Wilson and Pope Benedict in so far as the real aims of their ruling classes are concerned...
...The trouble is that the great governments of Europe do not really want or believe in disarmament, arbitration, freedom of seas, and the wise devolution of menacing empires...
...Excerpts from the editorial follow: "The time has arrived when the question of peace should be considered openly and frankly...
...The personal fame and fortune of hosts of influential men in America, as in the other belligerent countries, are now bound up with the playing of the stupendous war game 'to a finish.' The rights, interests, and desire3 of the plain people are all on the side of peace, provided the terms be reasonable and the prospect of permanence be good...
...After all, the world cannot be made 'safe for democracy' until democracy comes into its own in the leading nations...
...They are participating in the 'great game,' and resent interruption...
...The long-suffering people who make up what we call 'the public,' in Germany, Austria, France, and England, have not hitherto discussed their war problems freely...
Vol. 9 • September 1917 • No. 9
