Page:The New England Magazine 1891, 5.1.djvu/12

Copies of Mr. McDowell's letter were sent to every member of the Order of the American Eagle; to the President and Vice-Presidents, Generals of the Sons of the American Revolution, and to the president of each State Society; to the members of the late Pan-American Congress, and to the President of each Republic in the world; to the press, and to representative men everywhere in sympathy with democratic institutions.

This was the inauguration of the present scheme to bring the nineteenth century to a white heat of enthusiasm as it passes over its work to the twentieth. Hundreds of replies came from all over the world favoring the suggested Congress. The movement, after a few preliminary gatherings, took the form of a committee of two hundred representative citizens of the United States, acting under the name of the Pan-Republic General Committee. Its first meeting was held in New York City in December of 1890, for the purpose of planning its work and dividing the same among sub-committees.

The outline of the work accomplished was to settle upon a name, and to define the object of the Congress; also to suggest in more specific form the work to be attempted. The general scope of the proposed Assembly was defined to be "the consideration of the welfare of free institutions, and the best means of promoting the same." In the consideration of questions civil and political, the Congress will discuss Constitutional and administrative reform; the establishment of legalized arbitration among all civilized peoples; the amelioration of severities, and the extinguishment of injustice in administering government; the dissolution of standing armies, and the substitution of the reign of intelligence and morals in place of brute force international intercourse on the basis of common and universal justice; the general distribution of knowledge without hindrance, thus creating international intelligence; the moral welfare of all peoples, and none the less the sanitary and general physical well-being of mankind.

Mr. McDowell has published a valuable epitome of the work that is possible. Much of this is borrowed from the final recommendations of the Pan-American Congress. (1) Measures that pertain to universal peace. (2) The formation of a customs union for all governments. (3) The union of all the great ports of Republics by closer commercial ties. (4) The establishment of uniform customs regulations. (5) The adoption of uniform weights, measures, and copyrights. (6) A common system of coinage. (7) A definite plan of arbitration. He would have discussed questions of human brotherhood, of labor and capital, of sanitation and health, of machinery and corporations, of banking, of stimulants and narcotics as effecting human degeneration, of economy and taxation, of education, of universal disarmament. "I desire that the flag of every Republic, wherever seen upon the face of the earth, shall be looked upon and welcomed by mankind as a pledge, promise and hope of a brighter future for all people." Dr. Porrifor Fazer says, "The Congress might organize an international Bureau as distant from governments as are the trade federations of capitalists, to which all grievances of the oppressed in all nations should be addressed when not righted at home. It might provide for triennial sessions in the different republican countries, and make itself the organ and mouthpiece of the victims of injustice everywhere, entirely independent of the diplomatic complications which frequently prevent governments, even in the settled conviction and desire to do right, from speaking frankly to their fellow powers. The Siberian outrages of Russia, the evictions in Ireland, the Jewish wrongs in Russia and Austria, the penalties of free speech in Germany, could be sternly rebuked by a voice—the voice of the people—which would command universal attention." Another suggestion is that the people can thus be educated to peaceful revolution. It is not improbable that such an international concourse might, in time, become a legally constituted Court of Inquiry into such popular questions as are suggested above, with certain powers to arbitrate.

It is clear that such a Congress as is proposed will have before it work enough of a characteristic sort. Nor will it have