"_Cur non?_"--"Why not?" The union of the democracies will be the
culmination of the world-wide drama begun by the spirit of Lafayette.
Jesus Christ, nineteen hundred years ago in his Sermon on the Mount,
said to the wondering multitude: "For verily I say unto you, till heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the
law, till all be fulfilled." Since then, as sure and certain as the
evolution of time itself, the evolution of the law has been toward such
a union.
"God's ways seem dark, but soon or late
They touch the shining hills of day;
The evil cannot brook delay,
The good can well afford to wait.
Give ermined kings their hour of crime,
Ye have the future grand and great
The safe appeal of truth to time."
Year has followed year and century has followed century, and through it
all, surely, slowly, often torn and twisted out of shape but always
growing, evolving, moving onward, the law has followed the safe appeal
of truth to time, toward this great goal. One jot or one tittle shall in
no wise pass from it till all be fulfilled. It is the spirit of
Lafayette that leads. It was he who saw "the glory of the coming of the
Lord." He saw fulfilled in fact the union of the separate democracies on
one hemisphere; his spirit sees the vision of their union on two.
Gaze for a moment on what this soldier spirit has looked down upon in
the past and on the vision of what it sees for the future.
Centuries ago individual man settled all his disputes with individual
man by fighting. It was the primitive method. There was no law: might
made right. The spirit saw savage primeval force, unconquered, untaught,
powerful and brutal in the wanton exercise of its strength.
Then, under the safe appeal of truth to time, there gradually evolved,
as between man and man, the method of voluntary submission to a judicial
tribunal. Twisted and gnarled was this growth however, for even under
Anglo-Saxon law the right of trial by battle was jealously guarded, and
lasted for many years. A noble knight charged with an offense could
always demand trial by battle; and if he succeeded in running through
the body or otherwise disabling the man who made the accusation, he
thereby established his own innocence and was acquitted by the court.
This also the spirit saw.
Then gradually force was conquered, tamed, and used; and there evolved
the modern court backed by the harnessed force of the community--backed
by force sufficient to compel individual man to settle his disputes in
court instead of by fighting, and if he refused and chose to fight,
sufficient to compel him to desist and to punish him for his attempt.
Force, a human Niagara, wild from the beginning, now controlled and
directed by a higher law. Imagine the modern courts of our cities and
states without the backing of organized force--courts and judges and
rules of judicial procedure with no force to support them, and each
individual in the community vested with the option in case of a dispute
with a neighbour to settle that dispute by attacking the neighbour! We
should have anarchy within six months.
What about nations? What has the spirit seen there? For nations are
merely large collections of individuals. The same law of evolution
governs both.
The first and primitive method of settling disputes between nations, and
for a long time the only one, was war; and this the spirit beheld. Then
gradually evolved the method of voluntary submission to a judicial
tribunal such as the tribunal now existing at The Hague, each nation
retaining, however, its right of trial by battle. The next method, the
vision of the future, the new internationalism of which the living
Lafayette was the symbol, is the harnessing of the united force of the
peoples of the world, the union of the democracies to enforce the peace
of the world. It is a vision of the union to form a modern court backed
by force trained to obey the higher law, backed by force sufficient to
compel nations to settle their disputes in court instead of by
fighting. It is a vision of the war ogre, who has for centuries ravaged
the world, at last shackled and bound; of the monster who with bloody
claws and fangs has torn, ripped, and murdered his victims by the
million, at last overcome; a vision of this evil brute of war conquered,
and of primeval force trained, civilized, and forging the chains to hold
this devil of hell.