Article August 24, 1899 Issue

The Dream of Universal Peace

World-Herald

THE eyes of the civilized world are upon The Hague today. In that historic city are gathered together representatives of all the civilized nations of the earth, and their talk is all for peace. There are those in this world who declare that universal peace is a dream that will never come true; that universal peace can never be obtained until human nature undergoes a change; that the dawn of universal peace means the dawn of the millennium. No one believes that universal peace can be secured for many years, perhaps hundreds of years, to come; but no close student of human affairs will have the temerity to deny that the tendency of nations is toward peace. War was once universal, and all nations were at war all the time. To-day war is spasmodic, grows less frequent as the years go by, and each succeeding war is shorter and less disastrous in point of human sacrifice. The decisive battle of to-day would have been classed as a mere skirmish in the war of fifty years ago. Human nature may not be changing to any appreciable degree—indeed, we do not believe that it is—but the era of common sense seems to be dawning, and common sense urges us to do away with war if possible. It may take many weary years to entirely do away with war as a means of settling international misunderstandings, but the time when wars "will be no more" is as sure to come as the sun is to rise upon the morrow.

The conference at The Hague is a long step toward the coveted goal. Fifty years ago such a conference would have been impossible, and ten years ago the suggestion of such a conference would have been greeted with laughter and the suggester suspected of being a dreamer. To-day the Peace Conference is an assured fact. Every lover of humanity hopes that the conference will accomplish a great work.—World-Herald, Omaha, Neb.

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