Jacob H. Schiff, Esq.
Mr. Schiff to Dr. Eliot.
NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 1914.
Dear Dr. Eliot:
I have delayed replying to your valued letter of the 8th inst. until
after the appearance of your further letter to THE NEW YORK TIMES, to
which you had made reference, and, like everything emanating from you,
the contents of your last TIMES letter have evoked my deepest interest.
Had our recent correspondence not already become more extended than you
likely had intended it to become when you first wrote me on the subject
of my TIMES interview of some weeks ago, I should go into your latest
arguments at greater length. As it is, I shall only reiterate that I
find myself unable to follow you in your belief and hope, that world
empire and world leadership, as this now exists, is likely to cease as a
consequence of the present war, much as we all may desire this.
England has taken up arms to retain her world dominion and leadership;
and to gain it, Germany is fighting. How can you, then, expect that
England, if victorious, would be willing to surrender her control of the
oceans and the dominion over the trade of the world she possesses in
consequence, and where is there, then, room for the hope you express
that world leadership may become a thing of the past with the
termination of the present conflict?
I repeat, with all my attachment for my native land and its people, I
have no inimical feeling toward England, have warm sentiments for
France, and the greatest compassion for brave, stricken Belgium.
Thus, "with malice toward none," and with the highest respect for your
expressed views, I am still of the opinion that there can be no greater
service rendered to mankind than to make the effort, either through the
force of public opinion of the two Americas, or otherwise, to bring
these warring Governments together at an early moment, even if this can
only be done without stopping their conflict, so that they may make the
endeavor, whether--with their costly experience of the last five months,
with the probability that they now know better what need be done to make
the extreme armaments on land and sea as unnecessary as they are
undesirable in the future--a basis cannot be found upon which
disarmament can be effectively and permanently brought about.
This, at some time, they will have come to, in any event, and must there
first more human lives be sacrificed into the hundreds and hundreds of
thousands, and still greater havoc be wrought, before passions can be
made to cease and reason be made to return?
If, as you seem to think, the war need go on until one country is beaten
into a condition where it must accept the terms the victor chooses to
impose, because it can no longer help itself to do else, the peace thus
obtained will only be the harbinger of another war in the near or
distant future, bloodier probably than the present sanguinary conflict,
and through no compact which might be entered into will it be possible
to actually prevent this.
Twenty centuries ago Christianity came into the world with its lofty
message of "peace on earth and good-will to men," and now, after two
thousand years, and at the near approach of the season when Christianity
celebrates the birth of its founder, it is insisted that the merciless
slaughter of man by man we have been witnessing these last months must
be permitted to be continued into the infinite. Most faithfully yours,