Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/292

268 business again. Would not that be as wise and moral as a proposition to burn down our cities for the purpose of giving the masons and carpenters something to do? Nay, we are even told that there are persons who would have a foreign war on any pretext, no matter with whom, to the end of bringing on a certain change in our monetary policy. But the thought of plotting in cold blood to break the peace of the country and to send thousands of our youths to slaughter and to desolate thousands of American homes for an object of internal policy, whatever it may be, is so abominable, so ghastly, so appalling, that I dismiss it as impossible of belief.

I say this not as a so-called Anglo-maniac bowing down before everything English. While I admire the magnificent qualities and achievements of that great nation, I am not blind to its faults. I suppose Englishmen candidly expressing their sentiments speak in a similar strain of us. But I believe that an arbitration agreement between just these two countries would not only be of immense importance to themselves, but also serve as an example to invite imitation in wider circles. In this respect I do not think that the so-called blood-relationship of the two nations, which would make such an arbitration agreement between them appear more natural, furnishes the strongest reason for it. It is indeed true that the ties binding the two peoples sentimentally together would give to a war between them an especially wicked and heinous aspect. But were their arbitration agreement placed mainly on this ground, it would lose much of its important significance for the world at large.

In truth, however, the common ancestry, the common origin of institutions and laws, the common traditions, the common literature and so on, have not prevented conflicts between the Americans and English before, and they would not alone be sufficient to prevent them in the