Address of Miss Jane Addams, Delivered at Carnegie Hall, July 9, 1915

Address of Miss Jane Addams, Delivered at Carnegie Hall,

Friday July 9, 1915

MISS ADDAMS: I am sure we would call all of this a tribute to the cause of peace. It is very fine that peace can be as rousing almost as war. It is very difficult to try to formulate one's experiences when one has been brought face to face with so much genuine emotion and high patriotism as Europe exhibits at the present moment, and one becomes very much afraid of generalizing. In the first place, the situation is so confused, so many wild and weird things are said about it, that one is afraid to add one word that is not founded upon absolutely first-hand impressions and careful experience, because for the world one would not add a bit to this already overwhelming confusion. And one does not come back -- at least I do not -- from these various warring countries with any desire to let loose any more emotion upon the world. I feel that what is needed above all else is some careful understanding, some human touch, if you please, in this over-involved and over-talked-up situation in which so much of the world finds itself in dire confusion and bloodshed. One gets afraid of tall talk; and one does not know where words may lead the people to whom one is speaking. They seem to have acquired such fearful significance and to have power over the very issues of life and death itself. And so I should like, if I might, for a few moments, to tell as simply as I can the experiences which we had at The Hague.

People are much too kind who call me the leader of that movement, for I was not that in any sense of the word. The meeting was convened and called together by a group of European women, and only after all the arrangements had been made did we know about it in America, and consent to go. They were anxious to have a woman from a neutral country to serve as president, and it was safer to have the neutral country as far away as possible, and America was the furthest away. Therefore, I think, America was chosen. But I beg of you to look at it, if we may, for a few moments together, in its simplest terms. After all, the women who called the Congress were sure that, although during this last year none of the great international congresses, in science or arts or the most abstract subjects, have dared to meet, yet the women who had been meeting during many years in such conventions as Dr. Shaw has described, at least a few of them, could come together and in all sobriety and in all friendliness discuss their common aims and the terrible stake which they all had together in this war. And, of course, that faith, as you know, was well grounded, and for three days and a half, with much less friction than is usual in the ordinary meetings of men or women, so far as I know them, the women met there at The Hague and formulated their series of resolutions. I will confess that the first day we were a little cautious. We skated, as it were, more or less on thin ice, because we did not know how far we dared venture in freedom of expression. One of the Dutch Committee came to me and whispered almost in a stage whisper, "I think you ought to know that the hall is full of police, not only those supplied by The Hague, but some of them supplied by the Government itself, because they feared disorder." I said, "Very well, we will be very happy indeed to have the police hear our declarations, and if we need their services, we will be very glad to call upon them." It seemed as if every one were nervous, and I will admit that there was an element of risk, if you please, in asking these women to come, but they did come from twelve different countries, in the midst of the strain under which Europe is now laboring.

On the last day of that conference it was suggested that the resolutions be carried by committees to the various governments of Europe, and to the President of the United States. Some of us felt that the congress was ending very happily, that we had proceeded day by day in good will and understanding, and that it was perhaps unfortunate to venture further. But the resolution was passed, and two committees set forth. One committee, consisting of a woman from the side of the Allies, a woman from the side of the Germans, and two women from the neutral nations, went to the north, to visit the Scandinavian countries and Russia. We have had cables from them from time to time. They were received by the prime ministers and by members of the Parliaments in all the countries, as well as by the ministers of foreign affairs. In Norway they were received in addition by the King himself. They have been reported in Italy and Holland, and will arrive in America, we hope, within a week or two. One cannot tell how long it takes to cross the ocean now, because one may quite easily be held up in the English Channel or some other crucial trade route for ten or twelve days. The other committee, I hope, will make a report, and I am sure they will have a most interesting one to make. This second committee, consisting of the vice-president and the president of the congress, women from the two neutral nations, Holland and America, set forth to visit the other countries.

I should like, if I may, to reproduce in the minds of this audience, or in the minds of some of you -- for, of course, it is too much to hope to reach the minds of [everyone] in a huge audience like this -- I should like to reproduce some of the impressions made by this pilgrimage of ours, if you choose to call it so, going from one government to another, to nine governments in all, as we did in the space of five weeks.

The first thing which is striking is this, that everywhere one heard the same phrases, the identical phrases, given as the causes and as the reasons for the war. Each of the warring nations, I solemnly assure you, is fighting under the impulse of self-defense. Each of the warring nations, I assure you, is fighting to preserve its own traditions and its own ideals from those who would come in to disturb and destroy those high traditions and those ideals. And from one tongue or another it was translated -- as most of the men in the foreign offices had to speak English, they translated it into English -- and one heard the identical phrases, and going as rapidly as we did from one country to another, it was to me always a striking experience. I almost knew what to expect, what phrases were coming next, after a foreign minister had begun. We were received in each of the capitals, in London, in Berlin, in Vienna, in Budapest, in Rome, in Havre, where the Belgium government is now established, and we also took in Switzerland, although it was neutral, and Holland, although that was neutral, we were received in each of those countries in each case by the minister of foreign affairs, and by the chancellor or prime minister, and in all of the countries we saw members of Parliament and other men who are responsible for governmental policies.

It is, of course, difficult in any wise to sum up these experiences, but I will try to tell you another thing which we found very striking. In practically all of the foreign offices and especially in two of the foreign offices which I supposed to be leading, one on one side, and one on the other side of this conflict, the men said, again in very similar phrases, that a nation at war cannot make negotiations, that a nation at war cannot even express a willingness to receive negotiations, for if it does either, the enemy will at once construe it as a symptom of weakness, and under the terms which are made the side which first suggested negotiations will suffer as being considered the side that was weaker and was suing for peace. But they said in all of these different foreign offices that if some other power will present propositions, if neutral peoples, however they may be gotten together, peoples who will command the respect of the foreign offices to whom their propositions are represented, if a small group is willing to get together to study the situation seriously and to make propositions, one, two, three, even though they are turned down over and over again -- they do not say turned down in diplomatic circles, but perhaps you will permit that free phraseology -- I say, giving them all over and over again, even if it goes up to ten, until some basis is found upon which negotiations might commence, there is none of the warring nations that would not be glad to receive such service. That came to us unequivocally. We presented to each of the chancelleries our resolutions, but we talked for the most part about the possibility of substituting negotiations for military processes. It is very easy for a minister to say, "This country will never receive negotiations. We are going to drive the enemy out inch by inch." But it is pretty hard for him to say that to one or two or three or four women who are sitting there, and who ask, "If a proposition were presented to you, which seemed to you feasible, if something were presented to you which might mean the beginning of further negotiations between yourselves and your enemies, would you decline such a proposition, would you feel justified to go on sacrificing the young men of your country in order to obtain through bloodshed what might be obtained through negotiations, the very thing for which your foreign office was established?" No minister, of course, is willing to say that he would, and no minister would be willing, of course, to commit himself for a moment to such a policy. That we found true everywhere.

Then there was another thing that was impressed upon us all the time, and this was that in all of the great countries which we visited, although the people are tremendously united within the countries at the present moment, although there is no break that can be seen or heard anywhere on the part of the people fighting together, still they wish the war to cease, or they are going to divide into parties, one party to oppose the other. While they are united in this tremendous national consciousness, there are in every single country two general lines of approach. One is through the military party, which believes that the matter can be settled only upon a military basis, and the other is through a civil party, which very much deprecates this exaltation of militarism, which says that the longer the war goes on, the more the military authorities will be established, as censors of the press are established in all [page 2] sorts of places which they ordinarily did not occupy; the longer the war goes on, the more the military power is breaking down all the safeguards of civil life and of civil government, and that consequently it will be harder for civil life and for the rights of civil life to resuscitate themselves and regain their place over the rights and power of the military. And that goes on through the mere continuation of the war, and the military becomes more strongly [entrenched] in these countries every month, and the longer the war goes on, and the more desperately the people cling to their armies for their salvation, the more absolute are the power and the glory of that army. And the people, who represent the civil view of life, in the midst of their patriotic fervor, in the midst of their devotion to the army see that, and long for some other form of settlement, for some other form of approach to this terribly confused situation, long for it in each succeeding month more than they did in the month before.

And one can only say as one goes from one country to another, one can only say for oneself and say it to the citizens as one has opportunity, that if this war is ever to be settled through negotiations, and some time it must be -- heaven knows when, but some time men must stop fighting and return to their normal existence -- one says to those men, Why not begin now before the military becomes even further entrenched? Why not begin now when you still have enough power to hold them to their own statements, to hold them to their own purposes, and not allow them to rule and control the absolute destinies of the nation.

I am quite aware that in every country we met, broadly speaking, the civil people and not the military people. I am quite aware that it was natural for us to see the [pacifists], if you please -- although they are hardly known under that name -- it was more natural for us to meet and know the people who were on that side of life, instead of those on the military side of life. But because we did meet dozens of them, I am willing to believe that there must be many more of the same type of mind in every country, quite as loyal as the military people, quite as eager for the growth and development of their own ideals and their own standard of living, but believing with all their hearts that the military message is a wrong message and cannot in the end establish those things which are so dear to their hearts.

That is something to work upon, and when peace comes it must come through the people within those countries having some sort of claim upon the same type of mind and the same type of people in other countries. At present they have no communication. They say under the censorship of the press one man cannot tell how many other men are feeling as he does or believing as he does. Although he is a comrade in mind, and may be living in the next town, may be living in the next street, he does not know how many there are; he cannot get them together because, as you know, in our large cities with their huge agglomerations of human beings, we can communicate largely only through the daily press. We cannot find out the public opinion in any other way. Poor method as it seems, it is all that we have worked out as yet -- and in the warring countries nothing goes into the press excepting those things which the military censor deems fit and proper.

So, as we went about, people would say to us, in regard to the press, "If you see so and so, say a word about lessening the censorship of the press." And we said, "No, we can talk about but this one thing. We cannot carry messages from the citizens to their governments." But over and over again this request was made. And as we got back to one country they would say, "Are people talking like that there? That is just the way we are talking here." But they do not know each other from one country to another, and the individuals cannot find each other within the country itself.

Another thing which seems to me very striking is this: in each of the warring nations there is this point of similarity; generally speaking, we heard it everywhere -- this was not universal, but we heard it everywhere -- that this was an old man's war; that the young men who were dying, the young men who were doing the fighting, were not the men who wanted the war, and were not the men who believed in the war; that somewhere, in Church and State, somewhere in the high places of society, elderly people, the middle aged people, had established themselves and had convinced themselves that this was a righteous war, that this war must be fought out, and, as a young man put it, in a certain country, "and we young fellows have to do the fighting."

This is a terrible indictment, and I admit that I cannot substantiate it, I can only give it to you as an impression, but I should like to bring one or two details before you to back it up, so to speak. I thought when I got up I should not mention the word "German" or the word "Allies," but perhaps if I give an example from Germany and then an example from the Allies, I will not get into trouble.

We met a young German in Switzerland. He had been in the trenches for three months and a half. He had been wounded in the lungs and had been sent to Switzerland to be cured. A physician, I think, would hardly say that he was going to be cured. I think a careful physician would say he had tuberculosis and would die. But he thought he was being cured, and he was speaking his mind before he went back to the trenches. He was, I suppose, what one would call a fine young man, but not an exceptional young man. He had had a gymnasium education. He had been in business with his father, had traveled in South Africa, had traveled in France, England and Holland, in the line of business, and had come to know men, as he said, as "menschen." Good "menschen" might be found in every land. And now here he was, at twenty-eight, facing death, because he was quite sure when he went back to the trenches death awaited him. But this is what he said: never during that three months and a half had he once shot his gun in a way that could possibly hit another man; nothing in the world could make him kill another man. He could be ordered into the trenches; he could be ordered to go through the motions, but the final act was in his own hands and with his own conscience. And he said, "My brother is an officer" -- he gave the name of his brother; he gave the name of his rank; he wasn't concealing anything; he was quite too near death's door to have any shifting and concealing -- "he never shoots anything; he never shoots in a way that will kill. And I know dozens and dozens of young men who do not."

We had a list given to us by the woman at the head of a hospital in one German city of five young Germans who had been cured and were ready to be sent back to the trenches who had committed suicide, not because they were afraid of being killed, but because they were afraid they might be put into a position where they would have to kill [someone] else.

We heard stories of that sort from France, while we talked with nurses in hospitals, with convalescent soldiers, with the mothers of soldiers who had come back on furlough and had gone again into the trenches; and in all of those countries there are surprising numbers of young men and older men who will not do any fatal shooting, because they think that no one has the right to command them to do that thing.

Now I would like to give my testimony from England, in order to be quite fair and square. This was published in the Cambridge Magazine at Cambridge University. It was written by a young man who had gone from Cambridge. I didn't go to Cambridge, but I did go to Oxford. The Universities are almost depleted of young men. The great majority of them have gone into the war. Here is what this young man wrote: "The greatest trial that this war has brought is that it has released the old men from all restraining influences, and has let them loose upon the world. The city editors, the retired majors, the amazons" -- women are included, you see -- "and last but not least, the venerable archdeacons have never been so free from restraint. Just when the younger generation was beginning to take its share in the affairs of the world this war has come to silence us, permanently or temporarily as the case may be. Meanwhile the old men are having field days of their own. In our name and for our sakes, as they imagine, they are doing their very utmost, it would seem, to perpetuate by their appeals to hate, to intolerance and revenge, those very follies which have produced the present conflict."

I am not going to tell of many things that were said, because I think there have been for the present too many things said, but the mothers said to us repeatedly, "It was hard to see that boy go, because he did not believe in war. He did not belong to the generation that believes in war."

One of the leading men of Europe, whose name you would instantly recognize if I felt at liberty to give it, said, "If this war could have been postponed for ten years, perhaps," he said, "I will be safe and say, twenty years, war would have been impossible in Europe, because of the tremendous revolt against it in the schools and the universities."

I am quite sure when I say that, that it is a partial view. I am quite sure that there are thousands of young men in the trenches feeling that they are performing the highest possible duties. I am quite sure that the spirit of righteousness is in the hearts of most of them, at least of many of them. But I am also sure that throughout there are to be found these other men who are doing violence to the highest teachings they know. It seemed to me at times as if the difference between the older generation and the new was something which was apprehended dimly in each country; that the older men believed more in abstractions, shall I say, that when they talked of patriotism, when they used certain words, certain theological or nationalistic words, these meant more to them than they did to the young men; that the young men took life much more from the point of view of experience. They were much more pragmatic I suppose I could have said in Boston, I don't know how well it will go in New York; they took life much more empirically, and when they went to the trenches and tested it out, they concluded that it did not pay, that it was not what they wanted to do with their lives.

I saw an old Quaker in England who said, "My sons are not fighting, they are sweeping mines." They allow themselves to sweep mines, but they do not allow themselves to fire mines. "My sons are doing this, that and the other thing. It is strange to me, because they never went to Quaker meetings, but they are awfully keen now on being consistent." Now, there you are. I think it was the older generation, the difference again between the older and the new. This again may be a superficial impression, but such as it is, we had it in every single country, one after the other.

I would like to say just a word about the women in the various countries. The belief that a woman is against war simply and [page 3] only because she is a woman and not a man, of course, does not hold. In every country there are many, many women who believe that the war is inevitable and righteous, and that the highest possible service is being performed by their sons who go into the army, just as there are thousands of men believing that in every country. The majority of women and men doubtless believe that. But the women do have a sort of pang about it. Let us take the case of an artist, an artist who was in an artillery corps, let us say, and was commanded to fire upon a wonderful thing, say St. Mark's at Venice, or the Dome at Florence, or any other great architectural and beautiful thing. I am sure he would have just a little more compunction than the man who had never given himself to creating beauty and did not know the cost of it. And there is certainly that deterrent on the part of the women who have nurtured these soldiers from the time they were little things, who brought them into the world, and brought them up to the age of fighting, and then see them destroyed. That curious revolt comes out again and again, even in the women who are most patriotic, and who say, "I have five sons, and a son-in-law, in the trenches. I wish I had more sons to give." Even those women when they are taken off their guard, give a certain protest, a certain plaint against the whole situation which very few men, I think, are able to formulate.

Now, what is it that these women do in the hospitals? They nurse the men back to health and send them to the trenches, and the soldiers say to them, "You are so good to us when we are wounded; you do everything in the world to make life possible and to restore us; why do you not have a little pity for us when we are in the trenches; why do you not put forth a little of this same effort and this same tenderness to see what might be done to pull us out of those miserable places?" That testimony came to us, not from the nurses of one country, and not from the nurses who were taking care of the soldiers on one side, but from those who were taking care of them upon every side. And it seems to make it quite clear that whether we are able to recognize it or not, there has grown up a generation in Europe, as there has doubtless grown up a generation in America, who have revolted against war. It is a God they know not of, and they are not willing to serve him, because all of their inmost sensibilities and the training upon which their highest ideals depend, revolt against the whole situation. Now, it seems to me this is true -- and I have no plan and the papers were much too kind when they said that I was going to advise the President. I never dreamed of going to advise the President, and I never dreamed of coming home with any plan, for if any plans are to be formulated, it will have to be when the others have returned. I should never venture alone to do anything of the sort. But this, it seems to me, broadly speaking, might be true, that if some set of people could be gotten together who were international out of their own experience -- you know, of course, that the law is the least international thing we have. We have an international body of science. A man takes the knowledge of the science to which he is devoted, and deals with that knowledge, and he doesn't ask whether it was gathered together by Englishmen or Germans. We have an international postal system, a tremendous international commerce, and a tremendous international finance -- internationalism in all sorts of fields. But the law lags behind, and perhaps will lag behind for a long time, just as many of our most settled customs have never been embodied in law at all. If men could be brought together who had international experience, who had had it so long and so unconsciously that they had come to think not in nationalistic terms, but in the terms of the generation in which they were living, whether concerning business or labor or any other thing which has become so tremendously international, if they could be brought together and could be asked to try to put the very best mind they had, not as they represented one country or another, but as they represented human life and human experience as it has been lived during the last ten years in Europe, upon the question of what has really brought about this situation -- Does [Serbia] need a seaport? Is that what is the matter with [Serbia]? I won't mention any of the other warring countries because I might get into difficulties, but is this thing or that thing needed? What is it from the human standpoint, from the social standpoint? Is it necessary to feed the people of Europe who are, as you know, so underfed in all of the southern portions of Europe. Is it necessary in order to feed them to get the wheat out of Russia? In Heaven's name then, let us have more harbors in order to get that wheat out of Russia. Let us not consider it from the point of view of the claims of Russia, or the counterclaims of [someone] else, but let us consider it from the point of view of the needs of Europe -- I believe if men with that temper, and that experience, and that sort of understanding of life were to begin to make propositions to the various governments which would not placate the claims of one government and set it over against the claims of another government, but would look at the situation from a humane standpoint, I am quite sure, I say from the knowledge of dozens of men in all of the countries who talk about the situation, that that sort of negotiation would be received. That does not seem an impossible thing, does it?

Perhaps the most shocking impression left upon one's mind is this, that in the various countries the temper necessary for continuing the war is worked up and fed largely by the things which have occurred in the war itself. Germany has done this, the Allies have done that, somebody else tried to do this, and we foiled them by doing that, and what awful people they are, and they must therefore be crushed. Now I submit that any, shall I say plain mother, any peasant woman who found two children fighting, not for any cause which they stated, but because he did that and I did this, and therefore he did that to me, that such a woman would say: That can't go on; that leads to nothing but continued hatred and quarreling. Let us say that there are two gangs of boys in a boys' club who are fighting. Yes, we did this because the other fellows did that. You would simply have to say: "I won't go into the rights and wrongs of this; this thing must stop, because it leads nowhere and gets you nowhere." And let us go on with larger groups. We all know the strikes that have gone on for weeks with the original cause quite lost sight of. I submit that something of the same sort is happening in Europe now. They are going on because of the things which have been done in the war, and that certainly is a very curious reason for continuing the war. And what it needs, it seems to many of us, is a certain touch of human nature. The human nature in the trenches would be healed over, the kindly people in the various countries would not support the war longer, and foreign officers themselves would resume their own business, that of negotiation versus that of military affairs, if the thing could be released instead of being fed and kept at the boiling pitch as it is all the time by outrages here and there and somewhere else.

I do not know how that could be brought about, but I will submit it is a very simple analysis of a very complex situation. But when you go about you see the same sort of sorrow, the tremendous loss of life in these countries, and you can't talk to a woman on any subject, not on the subject of peace and war, not on the subject of the last time she traveled here or there, if you please, without finding at once that she is in the deepest perplexity, that she is carrying herself bravely, and going on with her accustomed activities because she thinks thereby she is serving her country. But her heart is being torn all the time. At last human nature must revolt. This fanatic feeling which is so high in every country, and which is so fine in every country, cannot last. The wave will come down of course. The crest cannot be held indefinitely, and then they will soberly see the horrible things which have happened, and they will have to soberly count up the loss of life and the debt they have settled upon themselves for years to come.

I could go on and tell you many things which we saw. We spoke with Cardinals. The Pope himself gave us an audience of half an hour. Those are men of religious responsibility, men who feel keenly what has happened in Europe. And yet there they all are apparently powerless to do the one thing which might end it. We did not talk peace as we went about; it would merely confuse the issue, but isn't it hideous that whole nations find the word peace intolerable. We said, why not see what can be done to arrive at some way of coming together to discover what might be done in place of the settlement which is now being fought out by military processes. And that was as far as we were able to go with clearness and safety, and upon that platform we were met with the greatest -- [someone] said courtesy -- it was to my mind more than courtesy, it was indeed as though we brought a breath of fresh air, [someone] coming in at last to talk of something that was not of war. We went into the room of one of the prime ministers of Europe -- and I never have a great deal of self-confidence, I am never so dead sure I am doing the right thing, and I said to him, "This probably seems to you very foolish, to have women going about in this way," and he said: "Foolish? Not at all. These are the first sensible words that have been uttered in this room for ten months." He said "That door opens from time to time, and people come in and say, 'Mr. Minister, we must have more men, we must have more ammunition, we must have more money. We cannot go on with this war without more of something else,'" and he continued: "At last that door opens and two people walk in and say, 'Mr. Minister, could not negotiations be begun.'" After all I may not represent his country very worthily, but he is an officer of the government in a high place, and that is what he said. I give it to you for what it is worth. And there are other testimonials of the same sort from all kinds of people in office, and they are part of the peoples who are at war and unable to speak for themselves.

There is one more thing I should like to say and I will close: that is, that one feels that the talk against militarism, and the belief that it can be crushed by a counter-militarism is, as has been uttered so many times, one of the greatest illusions which can possibly seize the human mind. England likes to talk and does talk sharply against what it calls militarism, but if they have conscription in England, the militarism which they think they are fighting will, at least for the moment, have conquered England itself, which had always been so proud that it had a free army, not a conscriptive army. All of the young men of France between certain ages come to their deaths in their effort to move people out of trenches from which they cannot be moved, because they are absolutely built in of concrete on both sides -- and even military men say that you cannot budge these without tremendous loss of life -- if these young men are convinced that France must arm as [page 4] never before, that she must turn herself into a military nation, then, of course, the militaristic idea has conquered in France; and the old belief that you can drive a belief into a man at the point of a bayonet is in force once more. And yet it seems almost as foolish to think that, if militarism is an idea and an ideal, it can be changed and crushed by counter-militarism or by a bayonet charge. And the young men in these various countries say of the bayonet charges: "That is what we cannot think of." We heard in all countries similar statements in regard to the necessity for the use of stimulants before men would engage in certain bayonet charges, that they have a regular formula in Germany, that they give them rum in England, and absinthe in France. They all have to give them the "dope" before the bayonet charge is possible. Think of that. No one knows who is responsible. All the nations are responsible, and they indict themselves. But in the end human nature must reassert itself. The old elements of human understanding and human kindliness must come to the fore, and then it may well be that they will reproach the neutral nations and will say: "What was the matter with the rest of the world that they kept quiet while this horrible thing was happening, that men for a moment had lost their senses in this fanaticism of national feeling all over Europe." They may well say, "You were far enough away from it not to share in it, and yet you wavered until we had lost the flower of the youth of all Europe." That is what they said in various tongues and according to their various temperaments, and that is what enables them to fight for their countries when they are at war, believing as they did in the causes for which they were fighting. The women who came to the congress were women who were impelled by a genuine feeling of life itself, which compelled them to come and see if it could hold for three days and a half composed of women. Now they say: "Oh, yes, we see it can be done; we thought it could not be done." Three or four scientific societies who saw it said, "Perhaps we can do it. We were not at all sure that, if we tried to do it, we could do it." But we women got there, and there it is standing for what it is worth. Now, please do not think we are overestimating a very slight achievement, or taking too seriously the kindness with which we were received abroad, but we do wish to record ourselves as being quite sure that the peoples in these various countries were grateful for the effort, trifling as it was. The people say, "We do not want this war." They say that the governments are making this war, and the governments say, "We do not want this war. We will be grateful to anybody who will help us stop it." We did not reach the military offices, but we did talk to a few military men, and we talked to some of them who said that they were sick to death of this war, and I have no doubt there were many others who, if they spoke freely, would say the same thing. And without abandoning their causes, and without lowering, if you please, the real quality of their patriotism, whatever it is which these various nations want, the women's resolutions said to them, and we said it to them as long as they permitted us to talk, "Whatever it is you want, and whatever it is you feel you ought to have with honor, why in the world can't you submit your case to a tribunal of fair minded men. If your cause is as good as you say it is, or you are sure it is, certainly those men will find the righteousness which adheres within it." And they all say that if the right medium can be found the case will be submitted.