p. 10 | Peace Promoters Disappointed

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 28, 1912

Peace Promoters Disappointed

The failure of the Senate on March 7 to ratify the treaties of arbitration between the United States and England and France has brought great disappointment to the advocates of world peace. Concerning the fate of these two arbitration treaties the Washington Post of March 9, says:—

Summing up the action of the Senate Thursday in stripping the treaties of their vital features, government officials who followed the negotiation of the two pacts agreed yesterday that participation by the United States in general arbitration of international difficulties was a dead issue, so far as this session of Congress was concerned, and probably for many years to come. There is little thought that President Taft will submit the treaties in their mangled form to either of the powers for possible approval.

President Taft and his immediate advisers were strongly in favor of the ratification of the treaties. Whether politics or a real fear of the consequences inspired the Senate to reject the pacts, the incident demonstrates that the world is not ready for peace. Those who have been giving the “peace and safety” cry, and prophesying the dawn of an era when swords, cannons, and war-ships will be converted into the implements of husbandry, and war give place to peace and universal brotherhood, see in this merely a postponing of the hour of that dawn. The prophesying and the cry go on, and the world that will not recognize God’s plan and program will go on paving with its own prophecy a road leading to its own ruin. He who proclaims “peace and safety” now or soon to be is spreading a snare for his own feet as well as for the feet of others.