Soldan High School - Scrip Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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The League to Enforce Peace present day hate and greed so says Mr Britlmg ' But let us read more closely There was a time when ' 4'A' people looked upon war as the business of a considerable part of the population. No one bothered if children starved and mothers' hearts were broken. It has been computed that, in the 3,412 years of recorded history, there have been only two hundred and twenty-seven years of peace. It should be the sacred duty of this gen- eration to guarantee to the future that peace, hereafter, should be the normal condition of civilized nations. g algj lp p AR is the killing off of the young, the massacre of boys! It is the spending of all the live material of the future upon What is our attitude toward this world war? Is the stake worth the lives, the suffering, the privation? At the end, do we expect merely to resume the exact status quo ante? But let us consider. If, at the end of this war, a new kind of peace is not made, a peace that shall be generous, genuine, guaranteed, war will follow war until such a peace is made. To attain this end many plans have been put forth, but among them all the most practical appears to be that advanced by the League to Enforce Peace. On june 17, 1915, in Independence Hall such a league was organized. It purposed to adopt a program of action to follow the present war. This plan looked towards the prevention of future wars. Four proposals were adopted: According to Articles I and II of the platform, two international bodies would be set up: a judicial Court to hear and decide those ques- tions based on accepted rules of international lawg second, a Council of Conciliation to dispose, by compromise, of all other questions which, unless settled, would be likely to lead to other wars. According to Article III, if any nation refuses to submit its claim to one of these tribunals, the other nations of the league will at once bring diplomatic and economic pressure to bear on the offender. If still that nation persists, the other nations will iight in defense of the nation attacked. Article IV proposes to have conferences from time to time between the Powers. These conferences will formulate and codify rules of inter- national law. These rules shall then govern in the decisions of the Judicial Tribunal. It is no part of the purpose of the league to separate the present combatants. It hopes to establish and maintain peace at the close of the war. It proposes to abolish secret diplomacy, that evil which has caused more wars than any other single exciting force. The league purposes to bring about delay through public discussions. The longer 8

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,- -it 'Lp-nsGfgf- -- X- -A .. ,.ff s,'?,: i vf.,f --Pt.. 4111 1 Y 15?-2' 5, is too great to secure the end for which all are fighting-democracy. But with this sacrifice alone they cannot, they do not, they dare not stop. Who is it, in the main, that feeds and clothes and nurses the great armies of the world? Behind. each man in the trenches is a woman. It was she who raised the grain for the bread, it was she who tended the Hocks that provided the meat for his rations. A woman made the boots and the uniform in which the man stands. She makes the shells with which his gun is loaded. When the man is wounded, a woman's ambu- lance, at risk of her own life, may even pick up the man on the battle- field, and it is a woman who will nurse him back to health. In the hour of stress, she cheers, she inspires, she comforts him. At the very beginning of the great world war, many noble women of both France and England gave over to the cause their beautiful and costly homes. The red cross above the doorway let it be known that there the wounded might be cared for. Did these women desire glory for themselves? Nog they would through service win democracy for the world. When these places were opened, nurses from all countries found their way to Europe. Not only have they served nobly, but in that service many of them have laid down their lives. As the sons of women fight, the daughters of men make that fighting possible. Out of the very battle smoke of this war has emerged the woman in khaki. She it is who responds when a call is made for service that is difiicult and dangerous. She, the giver and conserver of life, would give her own life that she may fulfill her mission. So truly have women responded to the call for service that in every country they have entered nearly every trade and occupation, no matter how arduous or how dangerous. It is one of the compensations of the war that, at a critical time in feminine history, war should have revealed to the whole world the full splendor and strength of womanhood. As has been said, in the great world war the women are filling men's places. They are standing behind their men and even with their men, as in Russia's famous Battalion of Death. Indeed, all women everywhere are answering the great call for active service. But in this momentous struggle it is, more than ever, necessary that women everywhere continue to realize the importance of the home and the school. The home must be kept in readiness for our men when they return. Our schools must keep the boys and girls in training for the peace times that are to come. This work will largely fall into the hands of women. With their energy and intuitive power they must shape the world for the new and lasting peace. The call to the colors has sounded throughout the world. Women are answering-giving their all. Are you ready and am I? --Eunice Marten. 7

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nations talk, the less likely they are to fight. President Wilson, ex-Presi- dent Taft, Viscount Grey, as well as both the great national political parties, endorsed this platform. In the discussions of the league, this great national question came up: Would the United States have the will and power, once the league was formed, to oppose aggression so firmly as to make it unprofitable? The answer came sooner than expected. Is not the United States at the present moment at war with a power that has pursued to its own sinister ends the policy of aggression? In the future, no power will resort to aggression if, by so doing, it will raise against itself invincible odds. When President Wilson addressed the league at Washington, he shattered forever the tradition of American isolation. He offered not only his services to assist Europe in forming such a leagueg he was empowered by the people to offer the united strength of the nation to back its authority. Here was, in fact, an American re-statement of the old motto of the Renaissance, What concerns mankind is inevitably our affair. A new principle now informs world politics. For the first time, a great power is prepared to stake its own peace, not merely to guarantee its own interest or to further the aim of its allies: it is determined to make an end forever to the possibility of profitable aggression. It aims to make the world safe for democracy. As Mr. Bonar Law, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, says, We are preparing for peace, for a peace which will bring back to us in safety those who are fighting our battles, and a peace which will mean that those who will not come back have not laid down their lives in vain. in fl' xx 1 nbygaf at Yff ' .Q if il-,QL N Q. -Harold S. Cook. Literature and the Wat HERE can be no greater change than in our latter day atti- tude toward history. History has, in the past, immortalized the great warriors, the great orators, the great statesmen, and the great teachers. Other things than deeds, however, make our modern history. Literature is, indeed, no act, but it inspires deeds, and the memory of these deeds literature as history makes permanent. Heroes die, acts cease, but literature makes remembrance more real than their own reality. War is the background of history. Whatever arouses the emotions, inspires creation, and nothing so appeals to the emotion as war. Nowhere is this more manifest than in its present effect upon literature. Every war has shown this essential truth. The fall of Troy immortalized Homer. The Roman occupancy of Britain infused some culture into the crude Anglo-Saxon writings. The Norman conquest produced Chaucer, and the Revolution in England under Oliver Cromwell gave us Milton. 9