Chicago, February 5, 1922.
If peace be a matter of the heart, world peace must be a matter of the composite or collective heart of the world at large.
It follows that permanent world peace will only be in flower when a world brotherhood shall actually obtain and politically prevail.
A world flag, or a flag of all nations, would be happily symbolical of such a state; and the prompt adoption of such a standard by the present Conference must of necessity give a definite and heavy impulse towards the ultimate attainment of its gravely professed and formally admitted ideal. Such action would “sound assembly” and prompt kindred hearts of the entire world to begin the march upon a flag-illumined highway.
The Conference should not end its labors without the widest recognition of the basic principle of world fealty, which alone can nourish this cause of the centuries and must finally gauge the merits of its work and fix its real status and its permanent grade in the long reaches of history.
In the end, it can not but be truly gratifying and also highly creditable to your administration if, tested by the best and future standards, the Conference shall be found not to have missed a paramount opportunity; and, on the other hand, it will be a source of never-ending regret if the verdict shall be that, while having done a great work, it stopped short of formally and consciously recognizing the full scope and meaning of its ideal and purpose.
Surely the Conference can well be held over for a day or two longer to consider the issue of a world fealty and an appropriate symbol of its expression.
The concept of a world fealty is not merely a late idea of Mr. Wells. I have just left a service where over five hundred are now assembled to hear and to approve a message of that import, and where a world flag, though not raised as a political standard, graces the chancel.
In addition to tendering the Conference a flag design, I have further developed this idea in a letter of yesterday to Chairman Hughes and a telegram sent last evening to each of our delegates.
I close this message with a copy of said telegram, viz. (Here follows copy of telegram to the American Delegates. See exhibit 4.)
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