Dear Friend:
May the new year prove prosperous to you and to the noble campaign
which you are carrying on with so much power against human ignorance
and ferocity.
I should like to dispose of a part of my fortune by founding a prize
to be granted every five years—say six times, for if in thirty years
they have not succeeded in reforming the present system they will
infallibly relapse into barbarism.
The prize would be awarded to him or her who had caused Europe to make
the longest strides toward ideas of general pacification.
I am not speaking to you of disarmament, which can be achieved only
very slowly; I am not even speaking to you of obligatory arbitration
between nations. But this result ought to be reached soon—and it can
be attained—to wit, that all states shall with solidarity agree to
turn against the first aggressor. Then wars will become impossible.
And the result would be to force even the most quarrelsome state to
have recourse to a tribunal or else remain tranquil. If the Triple
Alliance, instead of comprising only three states, should enlist all
states, the peace of the centuries would be assured.
XXXIX
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GERMAN PEACE SOCIETY IN BERLIN
When we came home from Bern much work was waiting for us. The editing of
the review, the duties of the presidency in our two Unions, and at the
same time uninterrupted literary activity,—all this gave us much to do.
My correspondence had greatly increased. It was my ardent wish that a
peace society should be established also in Berlin. During my visit
there the matter had indeed been broached, but had not come to anything.
Now once more I began correspondence with prominent persons in Berlin in
order to take further steps in this matter. Even at the beginning of the
year I had written letters with this object in view, and now I resumed
these connections with redoubled zeal.
Passages from my own letters give some precise basal facts about the
course of events connected with the founding of that society. I will put
down these passages. The material lying before me consists of the
letters that I wrote in those years to my publisher, A. H. Fried, who
zealously coöperated with me in this matter—who indeed had really given
the first impulse to it. He preserved all my letters, and has, at my
request, put at my service the package containing those of 1892, from
which there clearly appear, authentically and in chronological sequence,
certain data which I should otherwise have forgotten long since,
relating to that enterprise which lay so close to my heart.