LETTERS OF REGRET

The following letters expressing sympathy with the objects of the Conference were received from persons unable to attend:

FROM REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE.

MY DEAR SIR:

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 9th, 1908.

I regret extremely that I cannot be present in person at your Conference.

I agree with you in the belief that the last twelve months have been worthy of remembrance in all future history. No year since the world began has shown so many visible signs in the pacification of the world.

This is not the average view of the writers for the press. It is as true, as it always was, that the grasshoppers in the sunshine make more noise than the silent cattle ruminating in the shade. But in truth, every message, by wire or without wire, every mailbag, every cargo, is making the world one world, instead of a great scrap-bag of a thousand tribes or nations.

Such meetings as yours, such treaties as the last year has ratified, such a Conference as that at The Hague, are simply so many proclamations to the men and women of to-day that the world has already become one world. The circulation of its life blood, through all the arteries and all the veins, is no longer a matter of speculation. The demonstration is complete, and we know that God has made of one blood all nations of mankind. Truly yours,

EDWARD E. Hale.

FROM HON. ELIHU ROOT.

May 14th, 1908.

STANLEY R. YARNALL, Chairman:

Dear Sir: I regret my inability to be present at the meeting of the Pennsylvania Arbitration and Peace Conference, to be held

in Philadelphia from the 16th to the 19th of May, and at the banquet on the evening of the 19th.

am very sure that the results following your admirable program will be most useful. The true work of promoting peace is not so much a matter of diplomacy as it is a matter of education. The great obstacle to the peaceful settlement of most international disputes is to be found in popular intolerance of concession. Peaceable settlement usually involves mutual concession, yet when two international negotiators are called upon to make the concessions necessary to settlement, they both have to face the probability of popular condemnation if they give up anything. It is ordinarily much more popular to bring on a war than it is to avert one. When the people of civilized countries have been educated up to the spirit of fairness and just consideration for the rights of others, so that the situation is reversed, the danger of war will be, in a great measure, ended.

Very sincerely yours,

ELIHU ROOT,

Secretary of State.

FROM MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE.

NEW YORK, April 30th, 1908.

STANLEY R. YARNALL, Chairman :

Dear Sir: I have yours of April 22d, and deeply regret that I shall be unable to attend your forthcoming Conference.

Never have the friends of peace received a louder call to protest against the departure from the policy of the fathers of the republic. The republic has achieved her greatest victories of peace when she was weakest in military and naval power. She had no enemies, nor has she enemies to-day. No nation has anything to gain by attacking us. No nation can do so without bringing serious loss upon itself.

I think we men of peace should endeavor to bind our govern

ment to offer to any adversary peaceful settlement by arbitration. If declined, it would make our cause holy, and were we attacked, we should rise as one man in defense to repel attack.

Very truly yours,

ANDREW Carnegie.

FROM HON. GEORGE GRAY.

WILMINGTON, Delaware, May 18th, 1908.

STANLEY R. YARNALL, ESQ., Chairman:

My Dear Sir: I have just returned from Washington, and find yours of the 13th inst. I regret very much my inability to be present at the Pennsylvania Arbitration and Peace Conference, but, as I have already told you, my engagements are such as to make it impossible.

The interest taken in your Conference is an inspiring evidence of the progress of the cause of international arbitration, and of the steady growth of a wholesome public opinion in its favor, upon which its ultimate success must depend. There must be no intermission in our efforts, but we must restrain our expectations as to results, within bounds, as disappointment always reacts injuriously upon hopes that are too sanguine. The real progress of civilization has never been by leaps and bounds, and human endeavor must rely upon the slower processes of time, to overcome the habits and prejudices that have been ingrained in human character since the dawn of history. We have every reason to be encouraged with the proceedings of the last Hague Conference. Other conferences must soon follow, to record the advancement of the great thought that international arbitration may be brought into the realm of legality, and in time become as much a matter of course as are the settlement of controversies between the states by the arbitral tribunal of the Supreme Court.

Wishing abundant success to the deliberations of the Conference, I remain yours very truly,

GEORGE GRAY.

MY DEAR SIR:

FROM HON. JAMES BRYCE.

BRITISH EMBASSY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

I much regret that my duties in Washington render it impossible for me to have the pleasure of being with you in Philadelphia during the forthcoming meeting of your Pennsylvania Peace and Arbitration Association. Though I should gladly have borne my part in commending the excellent cause which brings you together, I cannot but feel that it is now not upon governments or their representatives that the progress of that cause depends nearly so much as it does upon popular sentiment. It is for the people to indicate their resolve to see peace maintained and disputes amicably settled. It is for the people to visit with their displeasure the attempts that are too frequently made to turn some cause of difference, perhaps in itself trivial, into a source of bitterness and exasperation. This will, I trust, be the future attitude both of the people of the United States and of the people of Britain and Canada towards one another. Needless to tell you that both your government and my own have been doing their part as the record of the treaties signed within the last six weeks indicates; and I gladly bear witness to the cordial good-will your President has displayed, and to the admirable spirit in which the negotiations on your side have been conducted by your distinguished Secretary of State.

Believe me, with all good wishes for a successful meeting, which shall rouse and influence public opinion still further, faithfully yours,

JAMES BRYCE.

FROM BARON KOGORO TAKAHIRA, AMBASSADOR FROM JAPAN. (Telegram.)

WASHINGTON, D. C., May 18th, 1908.

DIMNER BEEBER, ESQ., Chairman Banquet Committee:

I regret exceedingly that certain official duties which I am unexpectedly called upon to attend personally for these few days will prevent my presence at your banquet to-morrow evening. I

am sure you will be convinced of unavoidableness of my absence when I tell you some day how imperatively my presence here was required. My regret is all the more unbounded because of cordiality of invitations from many friends of the Conference, as well as from yourself. I wish you great success for your banquet.

TAKAHIRA.

FROM HON. SHELBY M. CULLOM.

United States Senator from Illinois; Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.

May 18th, 1908.

DR. L. S. ROWE, American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia:

MY DEAR DR. ROWE: I regret exceedingly that it will be impossible for me to attend the banquet given by the Pennsylvania Peace Society to-morrow evening. Congress is about to adjourn, and I cannot very well leave here, even for a very short time, during the few closing days of the session.

Your society and the advocates of peace have reason for very great satisfaction over the progress which has attended the peace movement during the past few years. This movement in the direction of arbitration has been a most important event of the beginning of this twentieth century. The United States has ratified, during the present session, a greater number of treaties, and treaties of greater importance in the interest of peace, than during any previous session in our history.

The President of this Republic suggested the second Peace Conference, and it was peculiarly fitting that we should be the first among all the nations of the world to ratify the treaties negotiated at that conference.

I regard the second Conference of Peace, held at The Hague, one of the most important events in the world's history. It was one of the most important events, because for the first time the representatives of all the nations gathered together and for months discussed problems of international law and questions of mutual interest to all, and the result of the conference, embodied