ers of the nation's wealth, forward into the carnage; burn the
homes of thrift and industry, for commerce will be enriched thereby;
ravage the fields and despoil the cities, for this will insure
vigorous national life; impoverish happy peoples, spread famine and
pestilence through fertile valleys, mark the sites of contented
villages with smoldering ruins, defy your Christian God, and kindle
the fires of hell in human breasts; commit violence, treachery,
rapine, ay, murder,--for the eternal glory of the Stars and Stripes.
Yet commerce and industry--the glittering prizes which every nation
covets when it builds a dreadnought or enlarges its army--demand that
the creative forces of peace supplant the destructive wastes of war.

To-day the financial relationships of nations are inextricably
entangled. The big banks in the capitals of the world are in
communication with each other every second of the day. During the
American crisis in 1907 the bank rate in England went up to seven per
cent, forcing many British concerns to suspend operations. Because of
the Balkan War the bank rate in Berlin, Paris, and Vienna is the
highest in twenty years, and European securities have depreciated over
six billion dollars. Foreign investments are raising insuperable
barriers to war. Should the French bombard Hamburg to-day they would
destroy the property of Frenchmen. Let Emperor William capture London,
loot the Bank of England, and he will return to find German industry
paralyzed, the banks closed, and a panic sweeping the land. Let
English regiments again move to invade the United States, English
warships draw up in battle line to attack our seaports, and four
billions of the earnings of the English people would bar the way. To
the victor of the present the spoils of war are valueless. Japan,
victor over the great Russian Empire, staggers under a colossal debt.
The Italian government hears rumbles of discontent, because the cost
of winning a victory has been too great. What better proof do we need
that war is profitless, that it means financial suicide? It has been
transformed from a gainful occupation into economic folly, and war
will cease because the price is becoming prohibitive.

In this movement for peace, capital's strongest ally is her most
active enemy. Raised to a position of independence and power by the
Industrial Revolution, labor is wielding an effective influence. The
complexity of modern business has aroused workingmen i