(Prolonged Applause) I am sure it is most kind on the part of my fellow citizens -- and I can begin my speech with "fellow citizens" in Illinois in quite a different meaning from the way I used it in New York; fellow citizens in Chicago connotes a different thing for the women, does it not? (applause)
I should like very much, Mr. Chairman, if the ladies present who went with me to The Hague, who formed part of the pilgrimage, if you please, -- whether futile or not remains to be seen -- would rise for a moment, because I think they ought to share in whatever pleasure or honor this meeting affords. (applause) * * * * * *
I find it difficult to formulate in any way the experiences of the past few weeks, partly because one grows afraid to generalize, and partly because one has the sense, after being in the countries which are at war, of the great sadness and sensitiveness which prevails everywhere. For instance, I was quite unable to talk peace in any of the warring nations. It is too much as if one went into a family in which there had been a death and reproached that family for something they had done or had not done which might have averted the calamity. It cannot be done. Your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth, [page 2] and something of the same is true in America, and in this city of ours, made up of so many citizens from all the countries of Europe; you do not wish to say anything which sounds like blame for anyone -- and I assure you, one does not feel like blaming anyone. You also know -- I am sure everyone in the audience has had that experience -- that when people have been through a great sorrow, when they are much exalted out of their usual manner of life, they are curiously sensitive, they are curiously irritable at anything which differs from the object of their supreme devotion at the moment. It is part, I suppose, of the law of compensation. And so there are many reasons why it is difficult to formulate those very vivid impressions which we received as we went from one country to another. Then one because almost afraid of saying too much. You feel that you do not want to let loose any more emotion on to the world, so to speak, in regard to this great war. Words acquire a terrible significance, as it were, after you see them used in connection with the very issues of life and death itself. And you wonder what it is which adheres in certain words that men should be willing to give up their lives for the content of those words. And so one comes back somewhat bewildered, and yet most anxious to give as accurately as possible, as dispassionately as one may, and certainly without adding thereunto or subtracting therefrom, the impressions Europe makes upon one in this moment of high exaltation, of tremendous patriotic fervor, on the part of one country after another.
Perhaps you will first permit me to tell you some of the things we found in every country. And before I begin, I want to [page 3] guard myself in one or two particulars. First, we did not see the military people nor any of the military operations, [although] of course we did see the hospitals, the trains of wounded soldiers, all the great traffic which war involves. We talked to no military men. That of course makes a difference in the outlook one has. On the other hand, the papers are filled with the reports of war correspondents, and it is perhaps legitimate that the other side be represented. And I should like in passing to pay my respects to the Chicago war correspondents we met in every capital. They seemed to me an unusually fine set of men compared with the other war correspondents even, and they got into the situation in a remarkable way, especially two brothers, if I dare mention them, -- perhaps some of you know them, -- whom we met in Germany and Italy and who had the equipment unusual for Americans, of speaking several languages with great fluency.
Another thing I want to guard against -- our mission not [centered only] in the civil governments -- we received our commission from the Congress at The Hague to visit the ministers of foreign affairs and the prime ministers in the various countries, and they of course represent the civil side of government, the government as carried on from day to day, year after year, when there is no war. In every country we were received by a committee of women who had been connected with the Congress at The Hague. They always gave us some sort of reception. We almost always spoke in public ↑of The Hague Congress↓ to larger or smaller audiences, according to the courage, if you please, of the women who arranged the meeting, -- and in every country we naturally met their friends. We met nurses who were in the hospitals, the mothers of men who were (page 4) at the front, and, if you please, not only the civilian side of life but the feminine side, [although] we by no means confined our talks to women, but met in every country men associated with government, members of parliament, and ↑those↓ who had much to do with all the events which led up to the war.
But I wish to guard myself on these two points. I do not speak for the military in any sense, nor can we report general public opinion, [although] I am sure we report with great clearness and unmistakably the opinion of many people in every country. I do not wish to imply that in any country we found division among the people. They are tremendously united. It is a very imposing thing to go into a city and find everybody in the city working towards the same end -- men, women and children united in a common cause and in a belief not only that they are defending the national ideals and those standards of life and conduct which they have inaugurated for generations, but also brought together in ↑that↓ close community which the belief in self defense has employed since the trouble started. ↑engenders.↓ It is as if the consciousness of one person overflowed into the consciousness of another, so that one scarcely knew what belonged to himself and what to his fellow citizens. I think of course war is too high a price to pay for it, but I am almost ready to say that anything less is not too high a price to pay for it, so amazing was it in one country after another to find this spirit.
Then in the various countries we were surprised to find the use of much the same phrases in regard to the good [page 5] qualities of the citizens within the country, and alas, very much the same phrases in regard to the enemy whom they were fighting. At first it was astonishing, and afterwards we were surprised if we heard new formulizations for the causes of the war. We did not discuss with any of the people we met, officially at least, the causes for the war. We listened, because each country has the right to its own opinion. We never found the country who started the war, and I assure you no country in Europe has started this war! (laughter) We always found the highest officials ready to indict war. I have never heard war indicted with more enthusiasm or earnestness than by these representatives of the foreign offices. Of course they all deprecated the loss of their [young] men -- splendid men, upon whom they depended to carry forward the existence of the nation; and they all deprecated the tremendous debts saddled upon the government and the tax on the humblest people. But they were all of opinion that while it was necessary and inevitable, in the end it would make for the progress of each nation and for the progress of all Europe. It sounds incredible, does it not, to say these things in regard to all countries, but it is what we encountered in one country after another. All the more striking because we traveled so quickly from one to another country.
Among all the civil groups we also found this -- a fear that in the country itself, if the war went on too long, the military would become established almost in the place of the civil government itself. You know of course in all the countries at war there has been established a censorship of the press, a [page 6] censorship, so far as military matters are concerned, which is absolutely complete. The press can print only what the military authorities send in as the result of an engagement. There is also a subtle censorship of the press, [absolute] in some countries, in regard to opinions which shall be expressed about the war, and many good citizens would not for the world say anything which would seem to bear against the war because they feel in the end it would make for confusion and it would be an unpatriotic act, [although] they say to a private individual many things which the papers could not print and which they would not be willing to print under their own names. Now this censorship of the press is a very powerful influence so far as the civil government is concerned. Even in the most autocratic countries governments respond to public opinion -- slowly, to be sure, but they do respond to public opinion; and government changes, and policies are modified, as public opinion gathers into groups, as it is clearly stated, as it is promoted from a small group to a large group. Now that entire process of modification is absolutely brought to a standstill in the warring nations, and in every nation we found men who deprecated that, who said that while they were willing it should occur, if the war went on too long it would cause a very serious condition; that war was breaking down certain civil rights and safeguards, which had been fought for in some instances, and that these rights and safeguards were being broken down from the very nature of the case, simply because the country was under military rule for the time being. That was not said in one country, it was said I recall distinctly, in six different capitals in which it was clearly put [page 7] forth by men who were no less patriotic than the military, no less in favor of the war than the military, who felt they were sacrificing a great deal when this war went on month after month and these civil rights were being put down, submerged.
There is another thing. There is a belief on the part of the young men that this war was not a legitimate way to carry out the phases of life at the present moment. I find it difficult to put that, perhaps because it is undeveloped, because it is not clearly worked out in the various countries; but perhaps I can take what some men said in England (I am going to be very careful, I assure you, and I shall take something the next minute from Germany, so do not be alarmed!) -- when you are in a country you take color and feel very much as that country feels, -- and in the end, it is war as an institution which you indict. Now in England the men said this. The older men, the men whom they call the product of the Victorian age, had talked a great deal about the federation of the world, and they had a lot of international sentiment; but it was purely intellectual, it had little foundation in experience. They believed the world was going to be federated when wise men met and federated it together. The young men did not talk so much about internationalism, but they had lived in an international world; because of the needs of business, of travel, they believed it had to be international. If a man were selling shoes, was he not likely to sell them in France, in South Africa, in Germany, if the house had a large business? We met men of science who had gone from one country to another in the pursuance of scientific [subjects]. They had not gone because they believed the world ought to be [page 8] internationalized, but because in fact science was an international matter. A good scientist does not ask what country has gathered the knowledge, but he goes to any country to obtain what he requires. And of course we know the same thing is true in literature. We know that never before in the history of the world have so many kinds of people [read] so many kinds of books as is true at the present moment, and our minds have become more or less internationalized, so far as we live in the kingdom of the mind. That is true of the man who reads the daily papers. They have become the repository of international news. These young men said this -- one young Englishman told me that he worked in an office in Paris. In that office the day war was declared he went out of the door with a Frenchman and a German -- dear friends. They shook hands, locked the doors, and each man went to fight for his country, and each man said, "I only hope I shall never be brought up against you in the line of battle." They had no theory about loving each other, but in point of fact they knew each other and they had an international bond. That is what the younger men said -- the world has become internationalized tremendously during the last twenty-five years. The men of the older generation have not shared so largely as the younger men in the type of business, in the kinds of study which this new internationalism implies, and therefore when bidden to go to war on a purely national issue these younger men go, in many instances, with a divided mind, they go with a tendency to find out whether the thing which they are bid to do is the thing which they want to do or ought to do.
I have in my possession the copy of a letter from a [page 9] young soldier, sent to the Woman's Congress at The Hague. He said: -- "Ever since I have been in the trenches I have been wondering what is the matter with the women. The women would not be called cowards if they came out on an international platform. They need not be afraid. Why are they holding back? It is clear why men are holding back, why they do not make the statement which so many are feeling."
We heard from women everywhere the same kind of things said by their men. Now these men have no notion of not doing their duty; they have no notion of not standing up for war if it is at their country's demand. I am only speaking for a few when I say this divided mind is found among them, but I am sure it is so of the few. What is tragedy? It is not a conflict between good and evil. Tragedy from the time of Aeschylus has been the conflict between one good and another, between two kinds of good, so that the mind of the victim is torn as to which he ought to follow, which should possess his entire allegiance. That sort of tragedy, I am sure, is in the minds of many young men -- let me say a few young men, because I am very sure of a few -- who are fighting upon every side of this conflict. I met one young German who said: "I happen to live near the line of Schleswig Holstein. I am told the men of Schleswig Holstein are my brothers, but my grandfather before me fought them. I do not know whether they are my brothers or my grandfather's enemies; I only know I have no feelings against them or no more for them than for the men who live farther north in Denmark itself." He was a fine young fellow, wounded and sent home to be cured, and in those solemn days he was trying to think [page 10] the thing out. He asked himself what it was he was doing with this life of his. What impresses one on the part of these young men is that it is so desperately irrevocable that they should give their lives. The older men who have had honor and fullness of life and have been put in high places in the state, who are they to deprive even one of these young men of that which should lie before him?
Again I wish to guard myself and say that [although] I met this type of man in these countries, I do not know how many there are.
Another thing we found in every country was a certain horror against war that had never been felt before. A Russian said to me: "Why, men have always fought from the history of time; but no history, no professor, nobody who talked about it ever told us that so many men lost their minds, were driven mad by war. Do you suppose it was true always, or is it only true in this generation?" I talked to a Hungarian who said: "I do not mind fighting, but I mind very much freezing men to death." He then told about the fighting in the Carpathian Mountains. Only a few days before his daughter had given a concert to a little group of 69 men, and there were only 55 feet among those 69 men because their feet had been frozen in the long winter in the mountains. He said he hoped something would happen to bring the war to a close before another winter.
I suppose there are two reasons for this. Perhaps one reason is that for a long time war has not been fought right in the middle of Europe. Perhaps never before has the human race [page 11] been quite so highly sensitized as at this present moment, and I also suppose that the nervous system has never been so unequal to cope with it as now. No one knows the reason, but certain it is, in every train of wounded there is almost always a closed van in which are kept the men who have lost their minds. Sometimes they recover after due care, and sometimes they prove to be hopelessly insane.
Now what we said, and the only thing we ventured to say as we went about, to these various men who, after all, are responsible: -- "Fifteen hundred women met in The Hague. They came in smaller or larger numbers from 12 different countries. These women submit that whatever the cause of the war -- however necessary it may have been to continue the war for the past ten months, -- has not the time come for beginning some sort of negotiation? Is it not true that in the end some negotiation must take place? This war cannot go on forever -- it is not conceivable that year after year it shall continue until exhaustion, financial and otherwise, shall end it. That moment will come at the end, and why cannot some sort of negotiation begin now? If Europe is in disorder because of deep-rooted injustices, because certain countries are not having the chance they ought to have, commercial, political or maritime, or whatever it is, cannot that be discovered better by a set of men who begin now rather than after the war has gone on and on and the whole question becomes confused with military victory or loss?" In every country the foreign office said practically the same thing: -- "A country at war can only go on fighting. It may not ask for negotiations. But if propositions come to us which it seems we could consider with honor, of course they would [page 12] be considered." That seems a simple matter, but to the men in Europe it seems the most complex matter possible. It is incredible that war should go on when the beginnings of negotiation might so speedily be inaugurated.
I do not quite know what side to emphasize. There is the side of the women who send their sons into the war realizing that war is not the best way to adjudicate difficulties in this complicated civilization of ours. I remember one mother who said: "Yes, I lost my son in the first three months of the war, and I am thankful he died early because I believe he had no chance to do any real harm to the enemy." Think of a woman being driven to say that!
Another woman who was a pacifist and whose husband is one of the leading pacifists of Europe, had lost her son. I said to her, -- "It must be hard for you and your husband to have lost a son in battle," -- and she said quickly, "He did not die in battle, I am happy to say he never engaged in battle. He died of blood poisoning in one of the trenches, but we have reason to believe there was never an active engagement where he was stationed." And with that thought they were much more content to give up their son than under any other circumstances.
We met one woman whose husband had gone to the front, telling her that under no circumstances would he be driven to kill another man. He stumbled into another line and met a sentry. She believes he might had defended himself from the sentry, but he would not and would rather lose his life than put another man out of existence. (applause) [page 13]
These may be exceptional stories, but they happen to come from three different countries, -- and my general experience in human nature is that nobody is altogether unlike anybody else. (applause)
Now of course we often felt rather foolish as we went about from one country to another talking about things which certainly in the minds of some countries did not belong to women -- yet I assure you that in almost every one of these palaces (the ministers there live in palaces, not offices, -- the minister in one country showed us Bismarck's palace in which he had offices, and in another country the minister lived in an old royal palace and was most kind about showing us the garden) -- this is what they all said: it seemed to them quite preeminently a woman's part. One said he had wondered many times why women had kept silent so long, because, as he said, women are not expected to fight and why could not they long ago have made some protest against war, which is denied to men? Saying almost the same thing the young soldier said who wrote from the trenches.
After all, women are concerned in the lives of those countries tremendously. Those women have often worked in the fields, but always with men. Now it is mostly women who are putting in the crops, gathering the crops, doing what they can to sustain the lives of the nation; and you have the feeling that from every point of view, from that of the women who are left at home to bear the burden of life with this tremendous burden of breaking hearts, that they have the right to send representatives not only to register a protest but to register their hope, their belief, that some method could be found that could be substituted (page 14) for the method of warfare which seems at the moment so obsolete. It does not seem obsolete to the people engaged, but to the people who talked with the ministry, who heard the complicated things which they hope this war will bring about and which we know cannot be brought about that way.
Broadly speaking, this war is a conflict between democracy and militarism; and yet, what do you hear? You hear the Englishman talking against the Prussian militarism, and yet all over England men are beginning to talk about conscription. And now the papers in England which most nearly represent the government are beginning to talk about the balance of power, and Belgium talks about extending their frontier to the Rhine. What does it all mean? It means of course the military ideal will be established not only in Germany and Russia, but it will have to fasten itself upon all the other countries of Europe if boundaries are to be maintained, as the result of the conflict. And that of course is what no one who is against militarism ought to consider. And they are not willing to consider it when you put it to them.
Many people in Europe believe that the longer the war goes on the more difficult adjudication will be. We found people in Germany who said, we fought first for self defense, -- then of course we must have something to show for it. Italy came in. Nobody knows how many treaties were made with Italy in regard to the unredeemed territory which belongs to Italy. It is becoming more complicated every day! [Lowes] Dickinson [page 15] in England, -- Schultze in Germany, believe the more radical the settlement, the more international the settlement, the easier it will be. It will be quite impossible to settle the claims of all countries; but if something can be done toward internationalizing the issues, giving ports to countries like Serbia, considering the commercial needs of Europe from the point of view of the needs of the individual countries, a settlement can be reached easily. Why not come to it early as well as late? That kind of settlement must be accomplished by men of international mind, men without guile. That is the settlement talk, more or less, in all the warring nations. But all said to wait until more men were killed. We were told that along the battle line from near the coast of Belgium to Switzerland -- that long battle line of the West -- that on an average day when there was nothing doing, no special engagement, there were about two thousand men killed from the general firing from one line into another -- not an inch of territory lost or gained! From the pure military standpoint the situation exactly the same as the day before, and yet two thousand young men had been killed, had been sent out of life! I was reminded today when I got back to Hull-House of what one of my neighbors had said at the beginning of the Bulgarian-Turkish war several years ago. About 200 young Greeks marched past Hull-House -- they had had some ceremonies in our gymnasium, and were marching to the train and feeling very patriotic. Only a few hours afterwards about the same number of Bulgarians from the 18th ward, Alderman Murray's ward, came by, and this neighbor woman of mine, who was very [page 16] shrewd and able, said: -- "I look at these young men here, and at the young men before, every one fine upstanding young fellows that some mother has brought up through the measles, and here they are going to kill each other. Why not stand up and pair off as they do in parliament -- and it's a strange thing for me to be recommending the English parliament as a model for anyone!" (laughter)
To one who has lived in a big city like this it does not make much difference whether those fine young fellows are two thousand Germans or two thousand Frenchmen. They are part of the citizenship, part of the world, part of the assets in which civilization adheres, in which it belongs, and there, without change from the military standpoint, they have sacrificed their lives. That sort of thought I believe is coming into the minds of many people, even in the midst of patriotism. Of course they think their country is right. Of course they believe they must go on to the end. But they are beginning to ask, is this the way to attain the end? Is there not some other method, better fitted to the ends we seek than this method of warfare? It seems impossible that the wave of patriotism has held high so long. We know that sooner or later the reaction will come, and as an old man in England said to me, "Some day people will stop thinking about countries and will begin to think about children and grandchildren." (applause) And there you are. Possibly they are right. Possibly the future of their children and grandchildren adheres in this war. But many people are beginning to doubt whether that is true. [page 17]
Now I did not come home to advise the President. [Although] a voter, I do not aspire to any such role as that. But in Europe there is a natural turning to the United States, and that in spite of the fact that we are not exactly popular there. Nevertheless the United States is the largest neutral country, the farthest away, and, in the minds of many people, the nearest approach to a fair minded judge. There is one thing more I should like to say, now that I am talking about America, and that is, there is a certain hardness in our attitude toward the war which you do not find in the countries at war. They are under the great sorrow of the war itself. They have been humanized. I do not mean to say that we are not humanized here, but they are not as abstract about it. They are not sure that everything done is absolutely right, but they are more ready to see the difficulties of the situation, ↑and↓ they are softened by the suffering which they bear together. I believe that is true in every country. I remember once talking suffrage in Wisconsin to a group of Norwegians. I could not get a man to hold up his hand and say he would vote for suffrage. Finally I said, -- "If you were living in Norway now, your wives and daughters would be voting; why not in Wisconsin?" And one man said, "We like to think of the old country as the way we left it." There is something of that I think in the American adherence to the warring countries. You do not realize how they have changed during this war, and you feel here more as they felt during the first months. Not that they are less patriotic, but they are under [page 18] the impulse of great sorrow and distress, which, try as we may, we do not feel in the same way. It is like hearing of a death by letter, which may stun you, but does not bring the same horror, the same poignancy, as [though] you stood by the bedside.
I should like to make an explanation about the bayonet charge, -- we heard in many countries that men who were willing to shoot, that many who with great good will fired shells and did their share in the artillery corps, found a bayonet charge very loathsome. I do not mean to say that many soldiers voice that feeling. But Olive [Schreiner], whom I saw often in England, said that during the Boer War in Africa -- she lived there [throughout] the war and she was often used by the English to protect the troops because they would place her on the engine, and the Boers would not shoot at a woman, -- she said that in the South African War there were certain types of men who said of the bayonet charge: That is fighting where the primitive man lets himself go and does the sort of fighting that amounts to something. But there were always other men who said: "I will not be reduced to the level of the savage with a spear." I am sure there are men in all countries who feel that way. I had a letter today from my traveling companion who reminded me exactly what was said to her by three different persons in different countries, that certain men under certain conditions -- especially where they had been for a long time opposite each other -- would not make a charge until stimulants had been provided. One Frenchman said to me -- "Since poisonous gas has been used, of course we won't need to use [page 19] any more [absinthe] for a bayonet charge!" I can't give chapter and verse and number for these statements. I can only say these things were said to me. I did not go to the front; I did not see a bayonet charge, nor see the men before they went into action.
Now if there is a yearning on the part of even a few people for some sort of reasonable adjudication, is it not the part of a great neutral nation such as we are, to make an effort to that end? Efforts are being made in Sweden, in Switzerland -- it may be possible that Switzerland will be the neutral nation to undertake this high task, -- but is it not the part of the neutral nation to say, -- "Standing outside as we do, not judging your cause, leaving that to the people who get together and hear and investigate the statements," -- is it not our part to say that, "in general, as life is being lived at this moment on this planet, difficult and complicated situations must in the end be decided and adjudicated by the best minds and good will that can be brought to bear?" Is it not the part of the neutral nations to say, -- "We are outside of this fury of fighting, and looking at it from the outside, we can see you have all proven your valor, your willingness to put the matter to the touch of life and death, you have all shown your patriotism; can you not now allow us to bring in some other method for ending the conflict?" (applause)
One thing more. I have said very little about the Congress of Women which met at The Hague, because I am so sure there are many members of it here, with the well known faculty of women to talk. I am reminded of the old story of [Tolstoy] told [page 20] me years ago. In Russia there is a sect of [Doukhobors], a religious sect who do not believe in going to war. They are like the Quakers. When the young men become of military age and refuse to serve, they are arrested, punished, sometimes exiled and ↑or↓ executed. One of the young men was brought before a humane judge, a Russian judge, who felt sorry for him. The Judge told him that he was very foolish to put himself up against a powerful government. The young man gave the Judge a homily upon the teachings of Jesus in regard to [nonresistance], and the Judge, being orthodox, said: "Of course, we all believe in that but the time has not come to put it into practice." The young men answered, "The time may not have come for you, Your Honor, but the time has come for me." Something of that is what the women felt when they went to The Hague. They did not wish to reproach the nations for the conduct of the war, but they said, the time has come for us to get together and make some protest, and the time has come to find some other method for settling the difficulties of Europe; and then they voted to take those resolutions as far as they could and deposit them with the civil governments who remained at home and who in the long run must conduct the negotiations that will end the war unless the peace of Europe is to be made so that war will come quickly again.
My last impression is perhaps the saddest. The war is being conducted so that the animosities are being largely increased. I talked with a young man in France. He said: "The next thing we try, we are going to squirt petroleum into the trenches on the other side so that everything will catch fire." [page 21] I said, "That seems very terrible." "Yes," he said, "but think of the gas!" And then if you say something about the submarines in Germany, you are told about the blockade ↑carried on by↓ England, which would starve women and children.
But, after all, great nations cannot conduct their operations from the standpoint of reprisals. That is not an admissible method of human life even among small groups, even among children. But so far are nations now from realizing what they are doing that when we would make our very simple statement in gentle tones -- and I assure you, you learn to be gentle, -- they would look up at you in blank amazement. Occasionally a man wakes up and says: "Of course it must be adjudicated from the point of view of the cause of the war, but we are getting further away from the causes every day and more and more lost in the conduct of the war." Now perhaps the neutral nations can see that more plainly than the warring nations.
I have quoted the Pope once or twice, because he was very kind to us. He gave us an audience of half an hour and unfolded his great sorrow over the way the war is throwing back not civilization alone, but the great things for which the international church has labored for so many years. And of course the modern world is international, and must go back to that basis. Without challenging anybody's patriotism, without saying to anybody -- You are carrying your part too far; -- without saying to anyone that the army is a precious part of government; -- you are willing to concede any of those things -- you are willing to say, if you loved France and its soil were invaded, you would see [page 22] nothing else to do but to resist; but you are not willing to say that after this has gone on for ten months, after the armies have shown that they are so built in that they cannot be moved out 25 miles in 20 years, that you would continue the conflict in that way. You can only say: We beg you in the name of the human values of life, in the name of the things you used to regard, we beg of you to meet through somebody or through some power, or to give some power of negotiation to the humblest people until a start shall be made. I believe that only by some body of men -- without guile, without personal ambition -- as strikes are sometimes settled in this city, -- I believe that only with some such spirit as that, will negotiations begin; that only through such help as that from the outside, will thus curious spell be broken. Great and wonderful as it is in certain aspects, it cannot commend itself to the people outside who are striving to look at life rationally. (applause)
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