PUBLISHED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF PEACE
GINN AND COMPANY, BOSTON AND LONDON
1910
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY GINN AND COMPANY
ENTERED AT STATIONERS’ HALL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
=The Athnæum Press=
GINN AND COMPANY · PROPRIETORS BOSTON · U.S.A.
PREFACE
TO MY ENGLISH AND AMERICAN READERS
It is a great gratification to me that the story of my life—which I
cannot suppose to be of general interest except in so far as it is
linked with the story of a world-wide movement—is now put before the
great community of the English-speaking nations; for it is in these very
nations that the origin of that movement is to be sought, and by them
its final victory is being most efficiently hastened. I have been
brought to a clear recognition of this fact especially by the days I
have spent in the United States and in England in recent years. There I
perceived with astonishment and admiration how in these two countries
(especially in America) the peace problem, still largely antagonized or
ignored on the continent of Europe, has not only met with widespread
comprehension but also received already a positive and practical working
out. Little of this is told in the present book; yet in it I have set
down the fact that the reading of English scholars and thinkers (Herbert
Spencer, Henry Thomas Buckle, etc.) was what opened my mind to take in
the peace cause, and furthermore that a tract of the London Peace
Association presided over by Hodgson Pratt, accidentally coming to my
knowledge, gave the initial occasion for all that I have endeavored to
do as a helper in the peace movement.
In the year 1904 I came to America on the occasion of the Boston
Congress. Of the sublime impressions that I there received I give a
brief and fragmentary account in the supplementary chapter appended to
this edition. In the year 1907 I attended the Interparliamentary
Conference in London, and there had opportunity to hear
Campbell-Bannerman speak; his proposals for the limitation of armaments,
and for a League of Peace among states, bore renewed witness to the
pacifist disposition of British statesmen. A year later, while the Peace
Congress was being held in London, it was my privilege to meet the King
and Queen of England; and in words that I heard from the mouth of Edward
VII, and in those which he caused to be written to me by his private
secretary, Lord Knollys, I have confirmation of the fact that the name
by which he has passed into history, Edward the Peacemaker, is in full
measure his due.
At the last moment, just as I am writing these lines, the question of
the peace of the world has led to the taking of remarkable steps in
America. The most prominent men in the Union—Taft, Roosevelt, Elihu
Root, Knox, etc.—are coming forward with positive proposals for the
organization of the world, and the House of Representatives has accepted
a most significant law. Of this one of the greatest American workers for
peace writes me as follows in a letter dated from Skibo Castle, June 30,
1910:
... The greatest news received lately is the passing of a bill by the
House and Senate of the United States, establishing a commission to
take measures to bring about a League of Peace among nations. Mr.
Roosevelt is to be chairman. This means business. America is now in
earnest. We hope she will no longer be dragd into enormous armaments.
The good work goes bravely on.
Always yours
Andrew Carnegie
Yes, indeed: our brothers of the English-speaking race—especially those
in the young New World—“mean business” when they undertake anything. And
their enterprises are not (as an old prejudice assumes) limited to the
commercial and financial domain, but embrace the region of the highest
human thought, and rest upon the deepest ethical foundations.