From the report of the Executive Council to the American Federation of Labor convention held in Philadelphia, Pa., November, 1914.
A stupendous conflict is shaking to its foundations the structure of world civilization. The normal relations of commerce and interchange have been disrupted. In Europe values placed upon the interests and purposes of human activity have been reversed.
Before the war, the thought and effort of civilization were centered upon the development and the glorification of human life. One life was counted of infinite value. The end of progress, development, and work was that each individual might have life more abundantly. Indefatigable minds have forced understanding of the unknown that human life might be protected and conserved, and that all the forces and resources of the universe might be put under the control of the will of man. Hearts that were great with love and understanding of the yearnings and aspirations that lie in every life sought to bring beauty and joy into the common life of all. Over all the world was felt the stir of that great ideal—the fellowship of men.
But since the cataclysm that brought war between nations, all the skill, the inventions, the knowledge of civilization have been perverted to purposes of destruction of human life and devastation of the products of human labor. Men are treated as only military pawns to obey implicitly the command of the general. They are targets for the most perfect guns and destructive ammunition human minds have invented. Things are valued for their life-destroying power. Guns are worth more than men. The value of military position is estimated in terms of human lives. The life and the property of the individual are ruthlessly sacrificed to ends of war. The cruelty and butchery of the war are appalling. The waste and the suffering in its wake are heart-rending. The blackened homes, the ruined lives, the long procession of homeless, seeking food and shelter from the hands of strangers—all these are the products of war. There are nations that are sending the flower of their manhood to meet almost certain death. The strong, the healthy, the fit leave the work of the nation to the old and the very young, to women and to children. For centuries the nations will suffer from this mad stupid waste—for the fathers of the next generations will be the unfit physically and mentally, those whose vision or hearing is imperfect, those of undersize and subnormal development.
Yet this war with its terrific toll of human lives is the product of artificial conditions and policies and is repugnant to the thought and political progress of the age. The big things of life and civilization are international. But so far we have made little effort or progress in providing agencies for organizing international relations to maintain peace and justice. We realize intellectually that peace and justice! should obtain among nations, but we have not yet instituted permanent means adequate to make that conviction a reality.
A time when we are confronted by the effects and the appalling realities of a most terrible war is a peculiarly appropriate opportunity for the people to think out methods and agencies for the maintenance of peace. The terrible consequences of war which are forced upon us everywhere envelop peace plans with an unusual atmosphere of practicability and urgency. The appeal for peace is getting very close to the American people, the only great nation not directly involved in the war and consequently the nation that holds in its hands the power of mediation and use of its good offices. This opportunity constitutes a duty if we really believe in the fellowship of men and the sacredness of human life.
For years peace societies and organizations have presented arguments for peace, have adopted peace resolutions, and have declared for various international sentiments, but they have made little effort to give these visions reality in the organization of society and the relations among nations. But the war has shown that war can not be stopped by paper resolutions and that war can not put an end to itself. Wars will cease only when society is convinced that human life is really sacred and when society establishes agencies, international as well as national, for protecting lives.
We profess to believe that all men have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but we do not see to it that these rights are secured to each individual. Industry is conducted upon the supposition that human life is cheap. Profits are held to be the ultimate end of business. Therefore business managers must get profits and in furthering the getting sacrifice the workers in the process. Employers cold-bloodedly calculate in money terms the relative expensiveness of machinery and workers; of the eight-hour day and the twelve-hour day; of child labor and adult labor; of compensation for loss of life and limb and preventive measures. In coal mines, steel works and in transportation, human life is risked and sacrificed with cynical disregard. We profess to believe in democratic freedom yet domination of power so ruthlessly prevails in industry.
Consider the statistics of industrial accidents, injuries and deaths. In harmony with this waste of human life in industry is waste of human life in a crude effort to decide political issues on the battlefield.
When we realize the wonderful possibilities in permitting each individual to develop his abilities and do his work with a sound mind and body, then shall we appreciate the sanctity of living and we shall not dare to hamper development in any way. When this ideal becomes a part of our daily thinking and doing and working then fellow-beings will not be robbed of that which no one has the power to restore—life. The establishment of this ideal of the sacredness of life is a problem of education. It must be drilled into people, made a part of their very being, and must saturate every mental fiber.
It is not only that we are shocked at the waste of human life, but that we have not yet adjusted ourselves to this particular kind of waste—waste in war. We must realize the awful responsibility for the loss of human life so that with clearness and with understanding of the meaning of that waste nothing will prevent our putting an end to all preventable waste. When conviction is sufficiently compelling practical results will follow. Education and agitation are necessary to create that conviction. Those who wish to abolish war must lose no opportunity to implant the ethics of humanity, to make the sacredness of human life a part of the thought and action of the nations. The power to declare war must be put in the hands of the people or their chosen representatives.
In addition to establishing a sentiment and a conviction for peace there must be agencies established for the maintenance of peaceful relations among nations and for dealing with international issues. Militarism and competitive armament must be abolished and tribunals for awarding justice and agencies for enforcing determinations must be instituted. International interests and issues exist. Political institutions should be established, corresponding to political developments.
Those most interested should lead in the demands for world federation and the rule of reason between nations. The working people of all lands bear the brunt of war. They do the fighting, pay the war taxes, suffer most from the disorganization of industry and commerce which results from war.
In accord with the action of the Seattle Convention upon the resolution endorsing the Naval Holiday plan proposed by the First Lord of Admiralty of Great Britain, that the nations cease from making additions to their navies for the period of one year, and that the plan be urged upon all the labor movements and governments of the civilized world, the President of the American Federation of Labor wrote to President Legien of the International Federation of Trade Unions advising him of this action and requesting that it be conveyed to the various affiliated national centers, for presentation to their respective governments.
President Legien replied that under the laws of Germany as a representative of a trade union he would not be allowed to forward such a document to the officers of the national trade union centers of the different countries. He stated that in Germany the difference between political and economic organizations was carefully distinguished, and that discussion of the A. F. of L. resolution would entail consequences limiting their activities. President Legien also stated that it would be inexpedient to circulate the manifesto through the medium of the International Federation. However, the international office was helpful in having the manifesto translated into several different languages and forwarded to A. F. of L. headquarters. The translations were sent out from the A. F. of L. headquarters with the exhortation that the National Centers take action similar to the declaration of the Seattle Convention.
Replies to the communication were received from France, Denmark, Great Britain, Austria, Sweden, Holland, South Africa, and Switzerland. The Federation of South Africa did not endorse the resolution.
The national labor movements can promote the cause of international peace by two complementary lines of action: by creating and stimulating with their own nations a public sentiment that will not tolerate waste of life, and by establishing international relations, understanding and agencies that will constitute an insuperable barrier to policies of force and destruction. With humanization, education, cultivation, the establishment of the rule of reason, occasions for wars and wars themselves will cease. The working people, the masses of the world's population, can end wars if they but have the independence to think and to give their convictions reality by daring to do.
This convention should, aye, must, adopt some constructive suggestion and take some tangible action upon this world problem which so intimately affects the workers of all countries.
From the report of the Committee on International Relations to the American Federation of Labor convention held in Philadelphia, Pa., November, 1914.
Upon that portion of the report of the Executive Council under the above caption, pages 48 and 49, the committee reported as follows:
Your committee is in full accord with the presentation of fundamental principles, the sentiment of which appeals to the higher instincts and ennobling human attributes of mankind and clearly represents labor's declaration that independence, liberty and justice for all mankind are paramount under all circumstances. Your committee holds and desires to give expression to the following summaries as our interpretation of the statesmanlike expression of labor's attitude upon this important question: Back of all wars of conquest is the spirit of brutality, greed and commercialism. Back of all revolutionary wars for redress of wrongs is the spirit of independence, liberty, justice and democracy. We declare against the former under all circumstances. In the second instance we emphasize the vast difference between the two kinds of wars and affirm that in the case of oppression, if the people have constitutional means of redress of wrongs and for obtaining liberty, justice and a fuller democracy, such means should be exhausted before resort to arms is justifiable. Where there are no constitutional means of redress available for the people and their destinies are governed and controlled by despotic or hereditary rulers who subordinate the interest and welfare of the toiling masses to the further enrichment of those in control of agencies of power, if the people resort to arms as the last means to obtain the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, justice and freedom, we have no words of condemnation.