received so
much in its beginnings--and in particular that there might be
opportunity for co-operation in the Far East, where the Dutch East
Indies and the Philippines are next-door neighbors. But the chief thing
that drew me to Holland was the desire to promote the great work of
peace which had been begun by the International Peace Conferences at The
Hague. This indeed was what the President especially charged me to do.

Two conferences had already been held and had accomplished much. But
their work was incomplete. It lacked firm attachments and sanctions. It
was left to a certain extent "hanging in the air." It needed just those
things which the American delegates to the Conference of 1907 had
advocated--the establishment of a Permanent Court of Arbitral Justice;
an International Prize Court; an agreement for the protection of private
property at sea in time of war; the further study and discussion of the
question of the reduction of armaments by the nations; and so on. Most
of these were the things of which Germany had hitherto prevented the
attainment. A third International Peace Conference was necessary to
secure and carry on the work of the first two. The President told me to
do all that I properly could to forward the assembling of that
conference in the Palace of Peace at the earliest possible date.

So I went to Holland as an envoy of the world-peace founded on justice
which is America's great desire. For that cause I worked and strove. Of
that cause I am still a devoted follower and servant. I am working for
it now, but with a difference. It is evident that we cannot maintain
that cause, as the world stands to-day, without fighting for it. And
after it is won, it will need protection. It must be Peace with
Righteousness and Power.

The following chapters narrate some of the experiences--things seen and
heard and studied during my years of service abroad--which have forced
me to this conclusion. To the articles which were published in
Scribner's Magazine for September, October, and November, 1917, I have
added two short chapters on the cause of the war and the kind of peace
America is fighting for.

The third peace conference is more needed, more desirable, than ever.
But we shall never get it until the military forces of Germany are
broken, and the predatory Potsdam gang which rules them is brought low.

Chapter I

FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS

I

It takes a New England farmer to note and inter