Notes for WWI research: Louis Sheehan 27

Notes for WWI research: Louis Sheehan 27

But let us turn to Russia, which represents the deepest need of all—the nation which has undergone the greatest suffering, both within and without its borders, of any of the belligerents. Think of its vast area, greater than all North America, or one seventh of the land area of the entire globe. Think of its population, almost twice our own, and more than one tenth of the entire world. Think of these people, who have the greatest capacity for suffering of any nation on earth, suddenly released, like their own prisoners, with steps unsteady and eyes unaccustomed to the blinding light of freedom. Think of what such a movement of hope and cheer and re-creation may mean to troops hard pressed or demoralized, facing another winter in the trenches.

Add to all these the suffering prisoners of war, and we have over 24,000,000 men who deeply need the ministry of this Movement, and need it now. Here are millions who have already suffered or who are going forward ready to make the great sacrifice for us. What sacrifice shall we make for them?

[1] See World Almanac 1916, p. 488.

[2] The cost of the war has been calculated by various writers on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. Wm. Rossiter writes on "The Statistical Side of the Economic Costs of the War," in theAmerican Economic Review for March, 1916. Mr. Edmund Crammond's paper in The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Sir George Paish in the various issues of the London Statist, and others, have given careful estimates of the direct cost of the war to nations and individuals. During the first and cheapest year, according to Mr. Rossiter, the total cost of the war, not including the economic value of the lives lost, rose to forty billion dollars. That is equal to all the national debts of the world.

[3] See Appendix II on "The Treatment of Armenians," by Viscount Bryce.

[4] Publishers' Note: The whole problem of the meaning of suffering and its relation to the present war, especially for those who have suffered bereavement, is dealt with by the author in his book, "Suffering and the War."

[5] "For France and the Faith," Letters of Alfred Eugène Casalis, Association Press.

APPENDIX I

EXTRACTS FROM "ETERNAL PEACE"

BY

IMMANUEL KANT

"No conclusion of peace shall be held to be valid as such when it has been made with the secret reservation of the material for a future war. No State having an existence by itself—whether it be small or large—shall be acquired by another State through inheritance, exchange, purchase, or donation. A State is not to be regarded as property or patrimony, like the soil on which it may be settled. Standing armies shall be entirely abolished in the course of time. For they threaten other States incessantly with war by their appearing to be always equipped to enter upon it. No State shall intermeddle by force with the constitution or government of another State.

"No State at war with another shall adopt such modes of hostility as would necessarily render mutual confidence impossible in a future peace—such as the employment of assassins or poisoners, the violation of a capitulation, the instigation of treason, and such like. These are dishonorable stratagems. For there must be some trust in the habit and disposition even of an enemy in war.

"The civil constitution in every State shall be republican. The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free States. People or nations regarded as States may be judged like individual men. If it is a duty to realize a state of public law, and if at the same time there is a well-grounded hope of its being realized—although it may be only by approximation to it that advances ad infinitum—then perpetual peace is a fact that is destined historically to follow the falsely so-called treaties of peace which have been but cessations of hostilities. Perpetual peace is, therefore, no empty idea, but a practical thing which, through its gradual solution, is coming always nearer its final realization; and it may well be hoped that progress toward it will be made at more rapid rates of advance in the times to come." [1]

[1] English Edition—Pages 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 81, 127.