THE CONFERENCE OF WOMEN AT ZURICH (JUNE, 1919)
The Women’s International League for Permanent Peace came into
existence during the war. It was founded by that section of the
National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies which withdrew from the
parent organization because it felt that the attitude of the Union to
the war was compromising too seriously the reputation of its members
for clear and calm thinking and constructive enterprise. Neutrality for
an individual on questions related to the war was very difficult; for
an organization it proved impossible. The educated women of the great
women’s Union were quite unable to agree to differ on such matters as
the causes and conduct and remedy for this and all wars. Some had to
resign. The pacifists did so and formed their own organization. They
included many of the best and most devoted workers for women’s causes
in the country, such as Councillor Margaret Ashton and Miss Maude
Royden. The broad line of division between these two sets of equally
able women, now happily friends again, was nationalistic. “My country,
right or wrong,” and “Let us get down to root causes,” are probably the
phrases that represented fairly the different lines of action. Although
in the Women’s International League there were many who believed with
the others that right in this conflict lay wholly with this country,
they differed in believing that the war should not be pursued to the
knock-out blow, but should be ended as speedily as possible by the
peaceful method of negotiation, if that were possible. But it is only
fair to say that in their ultimate hopes and desires for permanent
peace the two organizations do not differ by so much as a hair’s
breadth.
The Women’s International League held its first Conference at the
Hague in April of 1915. Immense difficulties blocked the way to the
holding of this Conference. The British Government obstinately withheld
passports till the last moment. These were finally granted with extreme
reluctance, and more than a hundred women from Great Britain prepared
to attend. Many of them actually reached Tilbury, bag in hand, ready
to step on board, when the news came that the Channel had been closed
and the ship would not sail. Many women to this hour are convinced
that the closing of the Channel was a deliberate act on the part of
the Government to prevent those women attending the Conference. I am
inclined to think that the reason given was the correct one, that there
were naval engagements actually begun or feared, which absolutely
necessitated the stoppage of ordinary traffic. It would be altogether
too encouraging to believe that the activities of a few women had such
power to determine the conduct of the Government at such a time; and
too flattering to imagine that our influence was of such consequence
that this indirect method of achieving its will must in wisdom be
adopted by the Government.
Only two British women were present at the Conference, the two who had
gone to the Hague some weeks before to help with the organization.
Forty American women, including the chairman, Miss Jane Addams, crossed
the Atlantic to attend. Both German and Belgian women were present,
and women from several other European countries contrived to attend in
spite of the difficulties of travel which beset them. The Conference
accomplished nothing of a material character, but it gave moral courage
to those who were there, and directed the thought and activity of
thousands of women throughout the world at a time when most people were
feeling too intensely to be able to think clearly.
Miss Jane Addams, the President of the Women’s International League,
is a very remarkable international figure. She is a tiny woman of
sweet Quaker aspect, with her hair parted in the middle and brushed
smoothly back from her ears. She has large sad eyes which look as
though the pain of living were too great to be borne, so acutely does
her sensitive spirit react to the suffering and injustice in the world.
Her dress is simple. Her manner is calm and dignified, but tender to
the young and needy, inviting confidence but not frivolity. She is,
notwithstanding the general seriousness of her manner, full of humour,
and can laugh with the best at a piece of genuine fun. The first time
I visited America I sought her at Hull House, Chicago, the chief
monument to her life’s labours. “You must go and see the greatest man
in America,” said John Burns to me just before I sailed. “You mean
President Roosevelt?” I queried. “I mean Jane Addams,” he replied. “The
greatest man in America is a woman.” There are those who think they pay
the highest compliment to a woman who speak of her greatness as of that
of a man. My friend Dr. Anna Shaw told me that she was once introduced
to an audience as a “very great woman--a woman with the brain of a
man.” The Rev. Anna rose with a mischievous smile twitching the corners
of her mouth, and in a drawling voice began: “Before I can take that as
a compliment, Mr. Chairman, I want to _see_ the man whose brain I’ve
got!”
Jane Addams is indeed great with her own woman’s greatness, great with
the greatness of pure goodness and intense and loving sympathies joined
to more than ordinary powers of organization. Hull House was the first
great Settlement House in Chicago. It was meant primarily to minister
to the social and intellectual needs of the crowds of immigrant
citizens flowing continually into the city. It comprises club houses
for both sexes and all ages, a restaurant, a hospital, a gymnasium,
baths, workrooms, library--everything, in short, which is necessary
to make life tolerable in a dreary neighbourhood devoid of any of the
amenities and most of the decencies of ordinary civilization.
The district round Hull House is filled with Greeks, Italians,
Bulgarians, Czechs, Poles, Russians, Lithuanians--a little Europe.
Most of these people speak no English when they arrive. The young ones
learn it quickly; the old ones slowly, or not at all. The young ones
adopt American clothes, American manners, American slang; the old folk,
particularly the women, keep as long as they can to their picturesque
native dress. The young people turn up their noses at the old folk; the
old people are lonely and miserable. Family life becomes threatened
in many a home. Miss Addams noticed this. She established a workroom
with primitive spinning wheels and weaving frames. She gathered the
old people into this room to work at their native craft. She praised
their work. She sold it for good prices. She brought rich citizens of
Chicago to look at the work and admire it. The old people recovered
their self-respect. The young people became subdued. Good feeling was
restored and many a family made happy again. By such simple devices did
Jane Addams make herself beloved of the poor and her international work
of real account.
Miss Addams is, I am told, of Quaker ancestry, highly educated, and the
friend of the élite of America. During the war she shared with others
the pain of misunderstanding and abuse. I caught a glimpse of her
suffering at the Kingsway Hall when she told of her work in Chicago in
the early days of the war--five hundred bright Italian boys marching
past Hull House to entrain for the war, followed by an equal number
of young Bulgarians on the same errand, friends and brothers of the
Settlement, soon to fall before one another’s fire in a war for which
they were in no way responsible, and for reasons which they could not
understand. Jane Addams’s mission of peace to many of the Courts of
Europe was the outcome of a deep compassion for the young victims of
war based upon experiences like this.
Her association with the peace ship was unfortunate, and her general
attitude to the war caused her to suffer the unpopularity which all
nonconformists must endure. But history will right her and them.
* * * * *
It was felt desirable after the Armistice to hold a second conference
of the League in order to gather up the broken strands of international
friendship and activity. During the League of Nations Conference in
Berne a joint meeting of the women delegates and the officers of the
Swiss branch of the Women’s International League was held to discuss
the possibility of holding the Conference in Switzerland. The Swiss
women were willing if the Swiss authorities would permit it and if help
could be given them with the organization. I wired to Mrs. Swanwick,
the British President, and satisfactory promises of help having been
received, it was agreed that the Conference should be held in Zurich
in June of 1919. All Europe was despairing of the Peace Treaty not yet
published, and the delays were felt increasingly to be full of bad
omen. Our Conference opened in brilliant sunshine amidst the gloomiest
of fears.
Zurich is, like all Swiss cities, a model of bright cleanliness, its
streets filled with flowers in the summer, its surroundings of wood
and mountains a physical glory and a spiritual delight. And to add to
it all there is the wonderful lake--truly a city for inspiration, if
inspiration is anywhere to be felt in times like these.
I travelled in advance of my fellow-delegates, having preliminary
business in Berne. During the previous Conference many lonely people,
unable to reach their friends, had given me commissions in Paris
and London, and I felt obliged to return to report the results. For
example: I was writing a letter in the lounge of the Belle Vue Hotel
when a beautiful little girl of twelve, with long fair hair and pink
cheeks, came and spoke to me in perfect English. I was informed that
she was a German child and that she enjoyed a distinguished name--von
Kleist. I discovered later that she had a beautiful American mother,
which accounted for her English, and that her father, Major von Kleist,
was a prisoner of war in England. In reply to a wistful question I
offered to see the father and convey greetings from the mother and
child. The British authorities at home were as reasonable and generous
as I have usually found them in all personal relationships, and I
received permission to visit Major von Kleist in Skipton internment
camp. He was glad to see someone who had so recently seen his wife
and daughter, and who could testify from sight to their health and
well-being.
On another occasion came two cultivated Jews from Czernowitz who had
a mission to the Jewish Commissioners to the Paris Peace Conference.
They could not get their visa and were in great trouble. The Zionist
case would suffer if its supporters could not be heard. Would I help
them by conveying their written statement to Paris? I knew Rabbi Wise,
the Chief Commissioner, and engaged to take these papers to him. On
reaching Paris I discovered that Rabbi Wise had returned to America,
but delivered the document to his able substitute.
Then there were those who were working for the Siberian prisoners.
Terrible stories were told of the sufferings of these wretched
men--become nobody’s concern with the withdrawal of Russia from the
war and the anarchy consequent upon the Revolution there. No fewer
than a quarter of a million, chiefly Austrians and Hungarians, were
left to starve and die in internment camps in conditions which beggar
description. Some joined the Bolsheviks. Some escaped and died on the
way home. Some were told to go, and fought, begged, stole their way to
the Polish frontier, only to be told they could go no farther. A few,
of a stronger breed, reached home in rags, to tell harrowing stories
of incredible suffering. The Allies were petitioned to help with money
and ships. They were begged to intercede with the Poles to allow the
wretched men under proper control to cross the frontier. It was sought
to get ships at Vladivostock to take them round the other way. The
Hungarian Red Cross had a petition for President Wilson. Would I take
it? I agreed to do so, and placed it in the hands of Colonel House. The
men left alive have since been repatriated by the League of Nations,
through the efforts of Dr. Nansen.
There were other and less important matters to report: The delivery
of letters from Baron Szilassy and his sister to their friends in
Huddersfield. Baron Szilassy was the newly appointed Hungarian Minister
in Berne, and his sister is a fresh, good-natured girl, English in
type. Both spoke excellent English.
So I travelled by Berne _en route_ for Zurich, happy to be the bearer
of many kind messages to lonely and miserable people. When I arrived in
Zurich most of the British delegates had not arrived owing to passport
troubles; but they appeared before the Conference began.
* * * * *
Mrs. Swanwick, the President of the British branch of the Women’s
International League, is one of the most commanding personalities
of the women’s movement. She is slender and fair, with a delightful
boyish mop of pale gold hair which curls up at the ends, and sky blue
eyes. She is a person of quite extraordinary intellectual power, a
little lacking in tenderness to those of lesser calibre. She finds it
extremely difficult to obey the scriptural injunction to “suffer fools
gladly.” She is apt to take strong prejudices against people, which is
annoying to herself, since it is inconsistent with her own standard
of intellect and the conduct she demands of other people; but she has
very good judgment in most affairs, and I should not be surprised to
discover that in her prejudices she is generally right. Her courage,
both physical and moral, is of the very first order and beyond all
praise. She is very delicate and yet contrives to do the work of
three people. And like many another, she staked everything except her
self-respect when she took a public stand against the ignorant hatreds
of the war. She is full of artistic appreciation, hates cant and
humbug, and is devoted to practical things and persons. She is a very
consistent and intrepid feminist, but happily devoid of the anti-man
bias which is the mark of the feminist fool!
At the first session of the Conference, tender-hearted Isabella Ford
flitted from one woman to another, busying herself in particular with
the frail and underfed women from the ex-enemy lands, saying here
and there the comforting helpful word to lonely souls inclined to a
half-bitterness. There was one pathetic little creature from Vienna,
since dead from privation, whose poor hands and face were a mass of
festering sores left by the cold and under-nourishment of the previous
winter. She was so happy to be there, and, like a little bird, hopped
cheerily about the room, revelling in her reunion with old friends; but
I heard privately that even in Switzerland, where food abounded, she
was not getting enough to eat. The exchange told so heavily against
her that practically all her money went to pay for her room and the
morning coffee, and she was sitting all day without food. I engaged the
interest of some of the more prosperous women, and believe that they
were able by the exercise of tact to improve the circumstances of this
brave little woman.
Isabella came to me the second morning with her eyes full of tears.
“Dear Isabella, what is the matter?” I inquired. She showed me a
telegram just received by her German neighbour announcing the death
of her only daughter. “She is heart-broken,” said my friend. “She was
an only child. And it was through hunger that the decline set in. She
cannot speak to us this morning. And I do not wonder.”
Two ladies from Munich were the most vigorous speakers on the German
side, and were immensely popular. One was Dr. Anita Augspurg, the
other Fräulein L. G. Hyman. They live together in Munich, and were
as inseparable at the Conference as the Siamese twins. Dr. Augspurg
suggests a Franciscan monk in appearance. She wears her grey hair
short. Her strong pleasant face has the expression of the religious
fanatic whose conviction is founded upon reason, a rare phenomenon
in any country, but a type frequently met in the Russian Socialist
Movement. In addition, to help the illusion, she wears a severe and
loose style of dress suggestive of the robe of a priest. She is kind
austerity embodied, simple and dignified. Her intimate friend is
more emotional, full of quick passion and, I should imagine, quicker
prejudices. Like Dr. Augspurg she is a pacifist and an excellent
advocate. Her voice is of masculine timbre, and she has a vigorous and
compelling gesture. Both these ladies are extravagant anti-Prussians
eager to secure for Bavaria its independence of Berlin. Their account
of the revolution in Bavaria was intensely interesting and amusing, and
perhaps a few words may be told here quite appropriately.
* * * * *
I have already mentioned Kurt Eisner, the long-haired delegate who
met us at Berne railway station on our way to the International.
Kurt Eisner was the leader of the Bavarian Revolution, and until his
assassination was President-Prime Minister of the Bavarian Republic.
For many years this very able Prussian Jew had been the dramatic
critic of the German Socialist newspaper _Vorwärts_. He was a witty
and brilliant writer, and was considered by æsthetic Berlin one of her
greatest living authorities. Up to the time of the outbreak of war he
had barely touched practical politics. His Socialism was the idealistic
theorizing of the café habitué, or at best the philosophic conclusion
of the amiable and able dreamer of dreams which ought to come true,
but do not in a lifetime. When the war broke out he violently opposed
the war policy of the German Government. His articles were censored;
he was thrown into prison. He was living in Munich at this time. The
downfall of the military power in Germany set him free. Having suffered
for his faith, he was acclaimed by the leaderless Socialist Movement of
Munich one of the martyrs of militarism and the predestined chief of
the pacifist Socialist Movement of Bavaria.
The young intellectuals of Munich were yelling all the time “Down with
militarism,” but nobody quite knew how it was to be “downed.” The idea
occurred to Eisner to march to the palace with a dozen men and demand
the abdication of the king. They carried with them a strongly worded
manifesto expressing in beautiful language their fine ideals, and
marched up to the door of the palace in truculent mood prepared for the
worst, hoping for the best. The best was realized. The royal forces
offered no resistance. All they asked was that the king might retire
unmolested. This was granted. Eisner was set up in the king’s place,
head of the new Republic. In a quarter of an hour, without the firing
of a shot, the dynasty which had ruled for centuries was suspended,
and a member of the despised race, a Jew, and a hated Prussian, was
elevated in its stead.
It was a revolution made inevitable by the defeat of the militarists
of Germany; but it might have been lasting if the militarists of
the Allies had gone the same way. As it is, the peace has made that
impossible. The present reaction in Bavaria, the general restoration
in Central Europe of a belief in the power of the sword, is due to the
revelation of the fact contained in the various Peace Treaties that
the power of the sword is the power in which the Allies also trust. It
would have been better for the revolution in Bavaria if Kurt Eisner had
declined to be the symbol of the new order, for a Prime Minister of
the race of the Jews was intolerable to aristocrat and peasant alike.
Kurt Eisner was not a politician, as I have already said. He was an
artist in words. He was a Bohemian in habits. He loved to frequent
the cafés. He could not in his new office drop at once the habits and
interests of a lifetime. Infinitely illuminating of the man’s tastes
and political judgment is his first act after taking office. It was
the reorganization of the theatre of Munich! He was not able to keep
separate the two sides of his life, the social and the political, as
wiser men would have done. He mixed the beer and tobacco and gossip
of the café with the work, organization and government of the council
chamber. Many of his followers and helpers copied his ways. The young
men who served him ought to have been allowed to continue playing
billiards in the Café Stéfanie. Most of them were unfit for the
great responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon them. Similar to the
experience of Lenin and of most of the other Socialist leaders who had
power suddenly thrust upon them was that of Kurt Eisner, who became the
prey of revolution-profiteers, place-hunters, adventurers, insincere
men and women who professed the new political creed as eagerly as they
held the old. “This sort of thing,” said the great Lincoln solemnly,
“will ultimately test the strength of our democratic institutions.” It
has tainted their reputation already.
At the International Kurt Eisner was prime favourite with the French
delegates because he was so bitter and unsparing in his attacks on
Imperial Germany. He was not a great orator, but he impressed his
audience with the passionate sincerity of every word he spoke. It was
one of his speeches in Berne which was said to have determined his
murderer, the young Count Arco, to kill him. It concerned the German
prisoners of war who were then, four months after the war, still held
back in France. Eisner tried to explain the French point of view in
the matter. He was represented in Germany as having approved of it.
It was felt to be intolerable. He was shot dead. And the shot made a
martyr of a man, amiable, kind, gifted, slovenly in dress and habit,
who had already outlived his usefulness to the Revolution and was about
to resign, and who might have retired to some café and talked and
smoked his life away to its happy and unimportant end. For me he is an
interesting memory; but I have to confess to the faint lingering of a
feeling of resentment, the feeling I have always been unable to conquer
for that type of pacifist, to be found in every country, who tries to
absorb for his own government the entire responsibility for the war.
* * * * *
It is impossible to name all the brilliant and capable women who
attended this Conference. Amongst them was Miss Crystal Macmillan,
tall and “bonny” and Scottish, the lawyer of the Conference, born to
confound the illogical male; Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, vivacious, eloquent
and warm; Frau Herzka of the mischievous smile and the everlasting
cigarette; Mademoiselle Gobat, the gifted daughter of the renowned
Swiss pacifist; Mademoiselle Melan from France, whose wonderful speech
electrified the assembly and melted to tears the hardest pro-Ally
and to softness the bitterest pro-German; and a host of others from
the four corners of the earth, women whose names are household words
in their respective countries. It was a good Conference, and gave
direction to the thoughts and impulses of many who would otherwise have
struggled in vain against the national psychology, and beaten their
idealism to death against the almost indestructible barbed wires of
national hates and prejudices.
During the sitting of the women’s Conference the Treaty of Versailles
was published. The outrage upon the conscience of mankind which it
revealed, and the stain upon the reputation of the Allies which it
was, pledged to build upon fourteen fundamentals, every one of which
was violated or ignored, stunned and stung the Conference into misery
first and indignant protest afterwards. On the morning after the
publication of the Treaty a unanimous declaration was made, proposed by
myself, against the Treaty of Versailles. Lest the cynic should smile
at the speed with which the Conference arrived at its conclusion on a
matter which had occupied the Conference in Paris for seven months,
I should like to point out two things. First, we had a clear idea in
our minds of the essentials which the peace should contain. President
Wilson and the British Prime Minister had helped us there. As for the
elaborate clauses and fine details of the Treaty: more than one of the
delegates had spent the best part of a day and the whole of a summer
night digesting these for the morrow’s debate. As a matter of historic
interest I insert the first public declaration against the Treaty by
any body of people in the world.
“This International Congress of Women expresses its deep regret that
the terms of peace proposed at Versailles should so seriously violate
the principles upon which alone a just and lasting peace can be secured
and which the democracies of the world had come to accept.
“By guaranteeing the fruits of the secret treaties to the conquerors,
the terms of peace tacitly sanction secret diplomacy, deny the
principle of self-determination, recognize the right of the victors to
the spoils of war, and create all over Europe discords and animosities
which can only lead to future wars.
“By the demand for the disarmament of one set of belligerents only the
principle of justice is violated, and the rule of force is continued.
By the financial and economic proposals a hundred million people of
this generation in the heart of Europe are condemned to poverty,
disease and despair which must result in the spread of hatred and
anarchy within each nation.
“With a deep sense of responsibility this Congress strongly urges the
Allied and Associated Governments to accept such amendments of the
terms as shall bring the Peace into harmony with the principles first
enumerated by President Wilson, upon the faithful carrying out of which
the honour of the Allied peoples depends.”
* * * * *
I left the Conference that day in the company of one of the most
brilliant of living Germans. He had never been optimistic about the
Peace. He was more than half in sympathy with the militarist point
of view although a sincere internationalist. It was not any fighting
proclivity which had shaped his opinion. He hated violence for the
vulgar, futile thing it is. But an inherited capacity for facing
realities, and a cultivated habit of looking squarely at facts, led him
to severe criticism of those he contemptuously spoke of as idealists.
He was an idealist himself after a fashion; but his ideal was not of
the complexion of that exemplified in the conference of women. He
had no use for democracy. He spoke openly of the stupid, ignorant
thing which, he alleged, most people really believe it to be if they
were honest with themselves and the rest of the world. He differed
from those who acknowledge frankly the weaknesses of democracy, but
who, recognizing its inevitability, hope that with education and
organization it need not to all eternity be the victim of the cunning
and the corrupt. He believed democracy to be the predestined victim of
power till the end of time. His ideal was the domination of mankind by
a few great empires, commonwealths, call them what you will, British,
German, Russian and American. The small nationalities he regarded as
a nuisance. He was bitterly hostile to those British delegates who
contemplated complacently the break-up of the British Empire. He would
have applauded the dissertations of Dean Inge on “the squalid anarchy
of democracy,” laughed to scorn the idea of an entirely independent
India, Egypt, Ireland, and through all his pain at the destruction
of the German Empire, pleaded for the preservation of that of Great
Britain.
For the “strong men” of England he had the warmest admiration. To my
astonishment, before I knew him properly, he expressed an equal regard
for M. Clemenceau. “What!” I exclaimed, “the man who is doing his best
to ruin Germany? Or, at least, to benefit France in such a way that
only the ruin of Germany can result? You astonish me!”
“But why not?” he replied. “In Clemenceau there is a man who knows
what he wants and means to get it; who looks for the attainable and
means to attain it. When did you read from Clemenceau a speech full
of delightful and impossible pledges and promises? Has Clemenceau
disguised the real objects of this war under a cover of fine and
deceptive phrases? All he cares about is France. He would stop at
nothing to advance the interests of France. One can understand a point
of view like that. It is cruel. It hurts Germany. Very well. That is
sad for Germany; but, at least, with such a man we know where we are
and what to expect. If that is nothing, it is better to expect nothing
and get it than to expect much and be disappointed. Clemenceau knows
that in strangling Germany he will satisfy the immediate demands of
France. That is all he cares about. This is the present. The future is
far away, indefinite. New events will shape and govern that. For the
present it is France, only France, all the time France; and for the
rest? _N’importe!_ It is an intelligible point of view.”
There was a long pause during which I marvelled for the hundredth time
at the amazing facility for languages of the cultivated European.
“It is not the Clemenceaus and the Ludendorffs of the world, but your
Wilsons, your Lloyd Georges, your idiotic idealists who are bringing it
to ruin.” He glanced at me to see if I were offended. “Please go on,” I
murmured. “You interest me deeply.”
“Your idealists have promised the people impossible things, Wilson’s
Fourteen Points, for instance, Lloyd George’s wonderful phrases,
Asquith’s war-time speeches, the Russian manifestoes, numberless
ministers of religion with no more knowledge of international politics
than the Bibles they thump. They have told the stupid masses that this
is a holy war; that the peace will be based upon justice: that nothing
but good is intended the German people, if they will only get rid of
their blood-stained Kaiser. The same sort of amiable idiots in Germany
believe this sort of thing. All Germans, with the exception of a few
so-called pan-Germans, are intoxicating themselves with the thought
that liberty is born anew; that militarism is dead for ever; that with
the new German democracy the Allied democracies will make a fair and
democratic peace. Pathetically relying on the Fourteen Points, they are
pre-figuring a glorious future for free Germany, its place in the sun
assured according to plan, a member of the great Society of Nations
which shall maintain the peace of the world. Poor deluded wretches!
What an awakening there will be!”
All this was in Berne during the International.
We left the Zurich conference hall together and discovered a little
café famous for its good tea and delicious pastries. Not a word did
we speak for many minutes. I was filled with awe at the spectacle of
his misery. The ordinarily smiling brown eyes were black with pain,
the pain of a suffering dumb animal. He lit a cigarette. The silence
continued. I felt like an intruder gazing in at the windows of a man’s
stricken soul; but to retire would have been unsympathetic. So I stayed
and poured out the tea and waited in silence for the speech that I
hoped might come.
“How can you sit there looking so fresh and beautiful? How can the sun
go on shining and the birds continue to sing when the world is really
dark and black and sunk in rottenness?” was the beginning.
“You feel it more than you expected?” I asked, reminding him of the
Berne conversation.
“It is so much worse than I expected. I did not expect much, God knows.
But this thing--it means famine, anarchy, war in Europe for twenty,
thirty, forty years!” I waited patiently.
“Germany is to pay the uttermost farthing for the damage she did to
civilians, which is not unreasonable; an enormous amount of the war
damage, of which I do not complain; but also incalculable sums for the
mischief for which she is not responsible, or only in part, which is
wrong. At the same time practically all the means by which she is to
make the money are to be taken from her--ships, minerals, colonies.
She is to be disarmed and her deadly enemy is to remain fully armed.
Any fool can see where that will lead. And the worst is not told. The
slow starvation of Germany, the lynch-pin of European civilization,
will mean incredible moral decline and spiritual degradation. Millions
of people will think food, talk food, dream food, steal food, lie for
food, bribe, corrupt and even murder for food. What man would see his
wife and children die of hunger whilst food was to be had? Masses of
disbanded soldiers, for whom there will be no work, will enlist for
adventures, will quarrel, fight and kill, either for subsistence or in
the service of the enemies of their country, having no choice, if they
are to live. The new states will be insolent, ambitious, tyrannical,
unscrupulous. Instead of one big war there will be twenty little
ones--war never ceasing, war for crude material things. Art, music,
literature, the drama--these will decay. First class artists will go
to America where they can be paid. Grass will grow in decayed cities
and ignorant peasants will instal themselves in the seats of power.
We shall have restored the age of bigotry and superstition. Central
Europe will not merely be Balkanized; it will be atomized. Our horizon
will decline to the level of each man’s immediate family, if he has a
conscience. He will have no horizon but himself if he has none. And as
for your ideals”--here he paused--“the failure of Wilson has made faith
in them impossible to revive for decades, if ever again. Faith in the
pledged word of public men, faith in idealism, faith in religion--this
is dying or dead. And our idealists have killed it, not the men who
never professed more than the crudest material objectives in this war.
Wilson and Lloyd George between them have damaged the world’s moral
currency infinitely more than the Treaty of Peace has damaged the
financial currency of Germany; and the world is poorer by the loss of
the one than of the other, grave though that is.”
As the passionate words fell from his lips I felt humiliated to the
very dust for the failure that I felt myself to embody. Weeping in a
public place is not a habit of mine or I might have wept. But if my
friend saw no tears, he must have felt the sympathy, for as we rose to
go to the University he said:
“But justice and sanity owe much to you. I am grateful for your speech
of this morning. It will have no effect. It will accomplish nothing.
But it is good to know there are some with the courage to speak what
they believe even when it is on behalf of a beaten foe. And the German
women will be grateful for your protest against the blockade.”
* * * * *
One of the most interesting of the public meetings in connexion with
this Conference was held in an immense church, like a great cathedral
for size and proportions. One of the speakers on this occasion was a
mulatto woman who addressed the gathering in excellent German. Very
suitably she pleaded the cause of her race and the importance of a
world at peace for the development along right lines of the black man
and woman.
At the foot of the pulpit from which we spoke was an invalid chair
in which was seated a pale, scholarly looking man with a refined and
earnest face. He listened with the keenest attention to the speeches
and obviously understood all the languages employed on this occasion.
Nobody could fail to be arrested by the personality of this intense
listener. The question as to who he was flew from one to another. He
was Prince Alexander Hohenlohe, often spoken of as the “Red Prince” on
account of his radical views on many subjects. The next day I received
a complimentary letter from him and an invitation to tea, which I
accepted. I found him seated under the trees in his chair in the
garden of the Hôtel Baur au Lac, and we had an interesting talk on the
condition of European politics at the time. He spoke in the friendliest
way of England. Amongst his dreams for the future is that of a real
friendship between France and Germany. His father was for some years
German Ambassador to France. His uncle was the German Chancellor. He
himself lived in Paris for years. And this close acquaintance with
the French people had evidently had a happy result. His invalidism
restricts his physical activities; but he is a prolific and able
writer, whose writings invariably aim at the establishment of pacific
relations amongst the nations of the world.
A speaker who proved most acceptable at the public meetings was Mrs.
Despard. Not only was her speaking liked, but she made an extraordinary
impression upon the Swiss people by the immense dignity, I might almost
say majesty, of her appearance. A walk with Mrs. Despard along the main
street of Zurich stands out in my memory. She was entirely unaware of
the sensation she made; but it is a simple fact that this beautiful
old lady with her aristocratic bearing and fine features, her snowy
hair tucked under a black Spanish lace mantilla, her old-fashioned long
dress and sandalled feet caused everybody who passed her to stop and
stare and stop and stare again, wonder all over his face. There was
respect in every look; no vulgar curiosity. Some men, entirely unknown
to either of us, raised their hats as they passed us, saluting her as
if she were a queen.
Mrs. Despard is more than seventy years of age, yet she shames us all
by the strenuousness of her life. She is Irish, with an Irishwoman’s
quick imagination and warm heart. When visiting an English town to make
a speech, she is usually advertised as the sister of Viscount (now
Earl) French. Whether this is done to attract an audience by taking
the edge off her Socialism through her connexion with titled folk, or
whether it is thought that otherwise she would interest nobody because
unknown to most, I cannot say; but Mrs. Despard can stand entirely on
her own feet for the richness of her personality and the quality and
variety of her work, always on behalf of the poor and the oppressed.
The only value to be attached to the advertised connexion with Lord
French lies in its demonstration of the possibility of there being
varied opinions without alienated affections in one family. Lord French
and his sister differ as far as the poles in political opinions. She
is a democrat, a Socialist, a pacifist. Nobody knows his politics. She
is in favour of self-determination for Ireland. He has been Ireland’s
Governor-General under the Terror. Yet I understand there exists a
very tender affection the one for the other; and nothing could shake
Mrs. Despard’s belief that, in all his actions, whether as a soldier
or a statesman, her beloved brother has been actuated by the finest
motives that can govern any man in a position of grave responsibility
for the lives and welfare of the people in his charge. In England we
have christened her the “grandmother of the revolution,” because when
many of us were babes in arms, Mrs. Despard was carrying the flag of
freedom in the cause which we hope will ultimately secure the material
happiness of mankind. But in spirit she is the youngest of us all.