[From the Dewsbury Reporter, Yorkshire, England]

President Coolidge has announced that in the event of another war the American Government would institute universal conscription—not only of men, but of wealth. "To expose some men to the perils of the battlefields while others are left to reap large gains, to make a sacrifice of one and a profiteer of another, is not in harmony with our ideals of equity." The feeling in favor of some such policy has grown in this country since the war, for everyone has seen the inequality and the inequity of conscripting life and not conscripting property. A realization that war would mean the conscription of wealth would prove one of the greatest deterrents of war.

[From an editorial in the Christian Herald, New York, New York]

How are the great reforms of the world brought about? Not the spasmodic uprisings that are started by visionary cranks, but the reforms that register real progress for mankind? They are brought about by the creation of that subtle thing known as public opinion. A lone cry in the wilderness may be the beginning—some prophet's voice proclaiming liberty. It may be some single courageous pulpit speaking for the first time against some human wrong in which all the world is indulging. The cry goes far. The voice of the prophet in the pulpit is gradually heard by the multitude. Or some writer, burning over some injustice, makes his pen speak the feeling of right, and the words begin to live in the conscience of the people. Public opinion may be a subtle thing, but there is nothing more real in the making. When human slavery was a part of this country's everyday business, a few brave souls began to cry out against it. The cries increased. The voice of justice and humanity began to be heard by the people. Gradually the thing became an issue for civilization. And the slave was freed. When the saloon was at its height, politically and commercially, and seemed to be impregnable, a few voices of women began to be raised against it. The voices increased. Public sentiment was gradually built up, until a whole nation voted to put out of business a thing that, less than a century ago, was declared to be so firmly established that it could not be moved.

The same thing will be true in the case of bringing about a warless world. It will come through the making of sentiment against militarism. It will be made as clearly as any piece of goods is made, and as certainly. Voices against war are now being raised as never before in history. Organizations are being formed to educate the people. Churches are taking their stand against it. Editors and lecturers in increasing numbers speak through the platform and the printed page. Sentiment is being created, and that creation cannot be dwarfed. The first sentiment that creates reforms and human progress is born in the soul of some brave man or woman who believes that the reform is not only needed, but also possible. No reform ever came to fruition until the possibility of it was first announced in the sentiment that is created by those who have no doubt in their souls that it can come to pass.

[From the Frederick Leader, Oklahoma]

As statesmen debate and devise the machinery of diplomacy and international agreements which shall result in world peace, it is well to know that this is a subject which has been considered for many centuries, and that it was given earnest consideration by the Biblical writers long before the Prince of Peace made his appearance in this flesh, proclaimed at his birth with the angels' song, "On earth peace, good will toward men." The writer of the forty-sixth psalm looked to God as the One who should bring an end to wars on earth. He said, "He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire." And then, as speaking for the God of whom he sang, he recorded these words and method of attaining peace, either for the world or the individual, "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."

The divine command does not indicate idleness nor inactivity. There is no inertia in God's teeming universe, but an orderly process of work under the operations of His beneficent laws. The command is, "Be still, and know that I am God." To understand how obedience to this command will bring peace, we must first come to a realization of what such a knowledge comprehends, which naturally includes an understanding of the nature of God and His relation to His creation. When we turn to the Bible for this information, we learn that God is the creator and ruler of the universe, that He is all-present and ever present, that He has all power and that He possesses and comprehends all true knowledge or intelligence. Such a conception is so vast, however, that it sometimes seems hard to grasp. Most people who acknowledge God's being are willing to admit these attributes, but they hesitate to reduce this understanding to a workable knowledge, because to do so includes a sacrifice of many personal desires, habits, fears—the doing away with other gods. To meet this tendency, New Testament writers and teachers sought to make understanding easier. Jesus spoke of God as "a Spirit," and that He was all goodness. John referred to Him as Love; James speaks of Him as "the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." One might go on quoting almost innumerable references to show how these sacred messengers of God sought to bring to the minds of the people that God, who rules, is not a grim ogre but a loving Father. The clearest expression, however, came from the Master, Christ Jesus, when he explained, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;" and, "I and my Father are one." His life was an absolute exposition of God.

Now, to get back to the subject of wars—what is it that causes war? Undoubtedly, at the bottom of every war is the belief on the part of some individual or some people that by the use of violence they are going to attain something good. There is as an impelling motive the wrong thought that one person or one nation can attain happiness through despoiling or making unhappy some other person or nation. Included in this belief, and associated inevitably as an elemental part of it, is the thought that there is not enough goodness, enough happiness, enough blessings to go around, and that there must be war to get a share of these essentials of joyful living. But if one will get down to the heart of the teachings of the Man of Galilee, if he will ponder his feeding of the thousands from a few loaves and fishes, if he will consider the daily supply of manna in the desert for the faithful in Moses' time, if he will contemplate the old prophet of God, fed by the ravens—if he will "search the scriptures" to find the truth and not to prove some disputed theological theory, he will find that God's goodness, His happiness, His love, and His joy are as infinite as is God Himself. Let the world once know this, and the cause of war would be obliterated, for the reason that men would realize that it did not exist. So, while the world should rejoice at every step that any nation takes, which causes men to seek understandings and fair treatment of each other as the means of settling disputes, rather than wars, the great truth remains, as Isaiah pictured it when he said that there would be absolute peace when "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." This world-wide knowledge, of course, must come as the individual learns to have such a faith in God's presence, power, and love, in His all-sufficiency, that he is able to trust in obedience to the divine laws to bring him all he wants of goodness and of joy, and to still every impulse to do otherwise. And one may do this with the full knowledge that he thus may have peace within himself, even if there be war all about him.

[The Hon. Hiram Bingham, United States Senator from Connecticut, in the Chronicle, San Francisco, California]

In these days there are thousands of people who are interested in promoting peace and preventing war. Many panaceas and remedies have been suggested. Some of them are Utopian. Others would only tend to remove or conceal the symptoms of a deep-seated organic disease. There is a great demand for more laws to promote peace and to do away with crime. Laws do not prevent crime. Laws will never prevent war. What we do need is to promote good will and loving-kindness. The real remedy for war and crime is to follow the Golden Rule. We must begin by instilling the teachings of religion in the hearts and minds of the boys and girls who are ours to train. We must get away from the sentimental foolishness of "letting yourself go." War, anarchy, and crime are promoted when we raise children to do as they please, and encourage or permit them to carry out without restraint those inherent desires which have been planted in their hearts by thousands of years of the struggle for existence.

The best way to overcome those inherent animal passions which lead to war and crime is by teaching our children the lessons of self-control, unselfishness, and good will to others, which are a part of all religious teaching. Regular church attendance, the ability of the churches to promote the Golden Rule, and the lessons taught by our religion will do more than all the laws and panaceas toward creating a nation which will not go to war merely because it feels annoyed or angry or envious of another nation. A nation of churchgoers will not tolerate a war of aggression, or one caused by vanity or cupidity. In the words of President Coolidge, "We do not need more laws; we need more religion."

[From the Cheshire Daily Echo, Stockport, Cheshire, England]

The Rev. Dr. F. W. Norwood, of the City Temple, London, addressed a largely attended meeting at the Centenary Hall, Stockport.... Dr. Norwood said we talked a great deal too much about peace. It was like the people who talked about health. They talked about it because they had not got it. Peace should be as normal a human condition as health; and the fact that we had not got it and strained after it so wistfully, and feared lest it would never come, told us that in some part of our corporate life we were diseased. We had not studied the laws of peace. No nation had a peace department, or organized itself or subsidized itself for peace, but every nation had a war department. The best civilization, said Dr. Norwood, was the widening of associations based upon a community of interest and held together by a spirit of good will. That was really what made a town possible. If two Stockport people met on the top of the Andes they would chum up immediately—because they would find a community of interest. It is the same in the wider national relationship.