UNITED STATES SENATE
FUNDAMENTAL PEACE IDEAS
including
THE WESTPHALIAN PEACE TREATY
(1648)
and
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
(1919)
in connection with
International Psychology and Revolutions
By ARTHUR MAC DONALD
Anthropologist: Washington, D. C.
(Reprinted from the Congressional Record July 1, 1919,
United States Senate)
WASHINGTON
1919
125746—19572
The Westphalian Peace Treaty (1648) and the League ofNations (1919) in Connection With International Psychologyand Revolutions.
BY ARTHUR MAC DONALD,
Anthropologist, Washington, D. C, and Honorary President
of the International Congress of Criminal
Anthropology of Europe.
INTRODUCTION.
The League of Nations may only be a first step in the direction ofpermanent peace, yet not a few persons seem doubtful of its utility.However, the league may be the lesser evil as compared with the oldrégime, which appears to have resulted in total failure after a very longand fair trial.
Whatever be the ultimate outcome of the league and of the problemsto be solved, the one encouraging thing is that all the people are thinkingseriously on the subject and longing for some way to stop war. It maybe true that lasting peace can only be secured when both people andleaders (sometimes the people lead the leaders) realize the necessity ofpeace and the senselessness of war. But to reach such a happy realizationof the truth what are we, the people, to do now? Already the discussionsof the league (pro and con) have fertilized the soil; the mindsof the people are open as never before; and now is the supreme momentto sow peace seeds. The sooner, more thoroughly, and wider they arescattered, the better. In this way we may be able to so impress peaceideas upon everyone, as to avoid the terrible necessity of a future war, inwhich both sides become exhausted, as in the Thirty Years' War, whichwould be a much more horrible war than the present war.
To escape such a catastrophe and make a league of nations or anykind of peace arrangements endure is preeminently an educationalproblem, and consists mainly in repeatedly filling the minds of thepeople, old and young, everywhere with fundamental peace conceptions.Shall we not begin at once and persist in doing this until political warsbecome as impossible in the future as religious wars are now?
SUGGESTIONS OF THE PEACE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA FOR THE LEAGUE OFNATIONS.[1]
The conference of nations that has taken place around the peacetable at Paris is doubtless the most important of any in history. Onereason is the fact that the plan the conference has decided to carry outwill necessarily concern most all countries of the world. For railroads,steamships, aeroplanes, telegraphs, telephones, and wireless telegraphy,as never before, have made communication between nations so easy,quick, and direct that distance is almost eliminated, enabling the wholeworld to think, reason, and act at the same time, and to be influenced asone human solidarity.
There seems to be a strong desire in all lands that the peace conference