--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Hayward, Ira N. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 20 number: 11 published: 1917-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Ira N. Hayward, "A League to Enforce Peace," *Improvement Era* 20, no. 11 (September 1917): 998–1001.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera20011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera20011unse start_page: 998 end_page: 1001 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1917-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera20011unse publication_year: 1917 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1917, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # A League to Enforce Peace IMPROVEMENT ERA A League to* Enforce Peace* By Ira N. Hayward The proposal for a League to Enforce Universal Peace is an outgrowth of the present world war. For some time before 1914, many thinking men and women saw the desirability of bringing about a state of in- ternational amity, but for the most part they regarded this as a state of affairs to be achieved by some future gen- eration, whose ideals might be higher and whose morals better than those of the pres- ent day. The awful cata- clysm which began with that year, and which has contin- ued with increasing frightful- ness up to the present time, has opened the eyes of these people to the pressing neces- sity of hastening the day of Universal Peace as rapidly as possible, in order to pre- serve our civilization from the devastating effects of a similar occurrence. This awakening has Ira N. Hayward turned the attention of many of the world's greatest think- ers to the task of evolving definite machinery for insuring world peace, and perhaps the plan that has received the most general endorsement is that of a League to Enforce Universal Peace. This league would involve a two-fold mechanism First, it is proposed to establish an international court to determine the right in disputes between nations ; and, Second, it is proposed to merge the military organizations of the various nations, forming an international police force. The last of these two proposals may present very few prac- tical difficulties. It is not unreasonable to assume that when this *The speech which took first place in the Grand Finals, M. I. A. Public Speaking contest, June, 1917 A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 999 war is over the important nations of the world, debt-ridden and war-weary, will be willing, and perhaps eager, to relieve them- selves of the burdens of supporting powerful individual armies and navies in competition with other nations. Regarding the proposal for an international court, however, it must be said frankly that this phase of the problem is by no means so simple, for an international court, in order in any way to be satisfactory must base its decisions upon a commonly accepted code of inter- — national law a code satisfactory, in the main, to all of the nations comprising the organization. Since no code actually exists today, it would have to be enacted ; and right here I think it can be seen, from a brief investigation, that this point presents some very practicable obstacles to the consummation of a League to Enforce Universal Peace. The laws of any society are merely a crystallization of those principles which experience has taught society to regard as necessary to its well-being. They are based on that society's conception of moral right. In other words, the question of whether or not a common code of laws may be successfully applied to peoples widely sep- arated geographically, and having a great variety of material in- terests, depends upon whether or not the sense of morality ex- isting among the peoples is fundamentally the same; and also — — equally important upon their willingness to abandon their minor, selfish or individual ambitions for the sake of the com- mon good. Here it is that practical difficulties in the way of a Universal Peace League make their appearance. For proof, consider the conditions that led up to the beginning of the Great War. Back of the events of the summer of 1914, the true student of history sees a deeper and more fundamental cause than the assassination of the Austrian heir-apparent. He sees ancient grievances and hereditary hatreds, he sees egoism, and the selfish ambitions of — individuals and nations aye, he sees life philosophies so funda- mentally divergent as to make conflicts of a terrible nature in- — evitable; and in these conditions, factors that go to make up — the foreign policies of nations he sees not only the causes of the present war but the 6eeds which, unless entirely uprooted, must inevitably produce a terrible harvest of future wars. Such, my friends, are the actual conditions. In view of their fundamental nature we can readily appreciate the difficulties that must be encountered in the task of establishing for the League to Enforce Peace a code of international laws satisfactory to all the nations concerned. Today, in spite of our development and progress, in spite of our boasted civilization, the only code of international law that has been evolved is entirely subject to the principle that might makes right, and there is absolutely no provision for protecting IMPROVEMENT ERA the weak from the strong, which any powerful nation feels ob- ligated to respect. And these conditions, my friends, are not the result of mere chance; they have their bases in the life philosophies of the people who make up the various nations: "As a man thinketh," says the Scripture, "so is he," and, "Out of the heart are the issues of life." For centuries the peoples of the world have imbued their systems of national thought with the principles of individual- ism; the result is the present awful holocaust of the world's manhood. There can be no such thing as a common code of laws, based on a common sense of moral right, until the world at large, or at least a determinant part of the world at large, has imbued its philosophy of life, aye the whole thought of its peo- ple, with the idea that under no circumstances must the ambi- tions of individuals or of nations be allowed to interfere with the welfare of humanity at large. This, then, is the situation with which the world must cope before it may realize its noble desires for a League to Enforce Universal Peace. In what way may this be done more satisfac- torily than through the medium of religion? A desire for some form of religious experience seems to be almost universal; it seems to be inherent in the vast majority of men. And a man's religion is his philosophy of life ; or, as a modern writer has said, "a man is changed into a semblance of the God he worships." If, then, a majority of the men and women of the world can be per- suaded to embrace a religion based upon the highest principles of human welfare and correct conduct, it will be possible then to establish that satisfactory code of international law upon which the Peace League so largely depends. It must be remembered, however, that the only religion that can be recommended safely, for such a purpose, must be a re- ligion of such a nature as to admit absolutely of no reasonable exceptions to its principles. It must be an absolute and unfail- ing guide to proper moral conduct, and it must be based on prin- ciple so eternally right as to meet all of the changing conditions of human progress. This world knows but one such religion, and that is the religion that came to earth nearly two thousand years ago, hav- ing for its author the Son of God, the Prince of Peace. Christi- anity, my friends, is the religion that bears the hope of universal peace. It is the perfect system, for it had its origin in the mind of God. Christianity is the religion of Universal Peace, because it teaches the only doctrine upon which such a condition may be achieved: the doctrine of the Brotherhood of Man under the universal Fatherhood of God. Christianity justifies the hope that its principles will ulti- A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE 1001 mately bring about universal peace, because its whole history has been marked by the breakdown of one after the other of the old oppressions and injustices, and by the gradual progress of humanity toward a more ideal state. It must indeed be admitted that much of this progress has resulted in almost unbearable suf- fering. Indeed, Christ himself said that for a time, at least, he brought "not peace but the sword," yet it cannot be denied that wherever Christianity has been taught and acknowledged, hu- manity has been without exception elevated to a state nearer the ideal. — But let us not ignore another fundamental fact the Chris- tianity that is capable of insuring Universal Peace must be wholly free from the man-made inconsistencies that have turned so many thinking men and women away from the most common of the so-called Christian religions of today. It must embody the teachings of Christ in their original purity and completeness. It must, in short, be the true gospel of Christ. That gospel is on the earth today, a living witness of God's goodness to man, as manifested through Joseph Smith, the Lat- ter-day prophet. Our parents, yours and mine, braved hardships and persecution; aye, and in many instances gave up their lives in order to preserve that precious boon for us. Let us, no mat- ter what temptations may arise, stand steadfastly true to the traditions of such ancestry. Today men are struggling like beasts in blood-drenched trenches, simply because, with all the efforts of the so-called teachers of Christ men have not yet learned of "His ways that they might walk in His paths." Today on every hand starvation and misery stand side by side with opulence and luxury, simply because men have not yet learned fully the principle of service "even unto the least of these my brethren." Today crime and lust stalk abroad in the land, destroying innocence and virtue. The Latter-day Saints are in possession of that living light which the world in darkness needs so sorely. The gospel of Jesus Christ, born of the travail of hardship and persecution, has been granted to us as a sacred trust. By living lives worthy of it, and of the noble men and women who trudged barefoot across the desert wastes to found a sanctuary for its truths in these mountain fastnesses, we and our descendants may be found worthy to impart to the world those principles that herald in very deed, "Peace on earth, good will toward men." Paris, Idaho.