If an absolute agreement among leading nations of the world never to
resort to war could be obtained at the outset all other questions could
be settled more justly and with fewer difficulties, for the
consciousness that the supreme question was out of the way would relieve
the psychological tension and afford opportunity for a more calm and
careful consideration and adjudication of all other matters in dispute.
It would be like the consciousness of the lawyer, when having lost his
case in all other courts is content to let the United States Supreme
Court settle it forever. This is due to the psychological power of the
radiation of justice from the top downward.
Such an absolute and final agreement never to resort to war can be best
accomplished right after the war, when all are sick of war and the very
thought of it causes the suffering, wounded, and bleeding people to turn
their heads significantly away with a profound instinctive feeling,
crying out that anything is better than to go back to the old regime. In
such a state of mind mutual concessions are much easier to make than
later on.
The psychological moment to prevent such suffering of the masses from
ever occurring again is soon after the war. It is a sad comment that the
number and untold suffering of millions of human beings seem to have
been required for the nationalistic spirit of Europe to be willing to
follow international humanitarian ideas toward establishing permanent
peace in the world.