Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
I have been requested to write a contribution to these pageswith the above title. The subject of Universal Peace occupiesmy thoughts and actions so completely, and the opportunity ofaddressing myself to a circle of American readers is so welcome tome, that I was most willing to comply with the wish of the Editor,although I should certainly have chosen another title. For althoughit is self-evident that everything that a woman writes mustbe written from a woman’s standpoint, it does not agree with myprinciples to treat the problem of peace and war exclusively, oreven principally, in its relations to the feelings and lives ofwomen. Such relations certainly exist, and it will be of greatservice to the progress of the peace movement if women, as such,will oppose the institution hateful to mothers, and if women’sassociations (as daily occurs more often) will place the questionsof peace and arbitration on the order of the day at their meetings.But I believe that more and more women, who reflect upon thisimportant subject, will leave the specifically feminine standpoint,to judge of this, so eminently the universal concern of humanity,from a more general point of view. It is only too natural thatwomen should hate war, which robs them of the support and thejoys of their existence, and for that very reason until to-day thishatred has done nothing towards the struggle against war; on thecontrary, only such women as could triumph over their naturalfeelings of abhorrence, who, putting aside their own grief, couldincite to war, or even themselves perform warlike deeds, only suchwomen were brought into prominence by history; only thesewere praised, because, overcoming their egoism, they had performedtheir duty by performing brave deeds of sacrifice.
51Women who cry, “War must cease because we suffer from it,because we may lose our dearest by it,” these, so long as war waslooked upon as natural and serviceable to the fatherland, certainlystood morally lower than those who said: “What mattersour misery, the common weal comes first;” or those who badetheir sons: “Return home victorious or dead.”
Any opposition arising from particular interests, whether it bethe interest of rank, class or sex, is deficient in ethical causes, andhas therefore also no ethical efficacy. The great influence thatwomen are beginning to exert to-day on questions of socialprogress, arises from the fact that they have stepped out fromtheir limited sphere of sex, and have learned to judge these questionsin their importance to universal humanity. The womanwho was capable of becoming an enthusiast for war and joyfullysacrificing to it the supporter of her home and her beloved sons,certainly stood higher than she who was wanting in such powersof sacrifice; but on a far higher level stands the woman who opposeswar, not because it threatens her home, but because she hascomprehended that it is an evil for the whole human race. Notbecause they are daughters, wives, and mothers, do modern womenwish to undermine the institution called war, but they do it becausethey are the rational moiety of a humanity that is becomingrational, and comprehend that war represents a check t