arms youth is trained to skilled butchery and religion becomes a mere orgy of emotion whereby ignorant men are helped not only not to fear death but to murder with lust, dispatch, and technique under the suggestion that God is with them.

Nations should refuse to go to war because no matter how palliated, how excused is the motive, what really takes place is that the conviction and passions of human minds are shaped by the demands of materialism and imperialism. War is not nowadays the natural spontaneous behavior of an enraged people, but that appalling and sad psychologic law by which every stimulus to an emotion breaks down the inhibition to that emotion. Nations because of this fact should refuse any longer to maintain and instruct in arms or help to send forward a science that shall be reared upon the shambles, academy of goldstarred mothers, unknown heroes, and flimsy journalese, but a life science which shall indorse honestly that Christian civilization it professes, whereby its children are begotten, born, nourished, and educated.

Finally, nations should refuse to go to war in order that they may insure to youth the validity of its own creative dream. Such youth of to-day as dimly recalls and frankly investigates the great war, has no dream. It has joined in revolt against an idealism by which it could be fooled once more into murdering. Those who indorse war must never be censorious at the apathy of such youth, its disdain, its cynicism-nor the more pitiful and vulgar arrogance of that oncoming youth which, debauched of its instinctive gentleness and nobilities is being taught by senior military propagandists that competitive armament is the highest expression of civilized worlds. Gentlemen, as American citizens, we demand leadership away from the spirit of war in this country. We demand it by the complete abolition of the armed forces of the United States under the high spiritual implications of our Constitution and by orderly and deliberate methods, but we ask it with fire, fearlessness, and that larger, more profound sense of ultimate human values than is offered within the narrow fields of constitutions.

We ask it so that our country may be freed to rise to its genuine obligations, so that this measure and all subsequent similar measures shall free the intelligence and thought of those who work strenuously in this and other countries for this object; and for those who lack the energy and hope so to work until their path shall be made easier for them. We ask that all these shall have their hands held up, their risks and penalties less bitter, their work the more effective, and their goal honored and struggled toward by the peoples of the world.

Gentlemen, the time grows late. Let us use such time as remains. In this country the net of war has been spread subtly, scientifically, mechanically, and financially; we are tightly held in this net by those of our countrymen who still see progress and profit in the war game. We e represent at this moment a Nation which at the pressure of the button by one man can be in 24 turned into a sinister and civilizationsmashing force. And it is in this guise and not by our protestations that other countries see us. But there are other forces than that of machines, and you and we have still the strength to defy this war beast. And not only in our own country.

We appeal to you for leadership here and in the world. We appeal by all the blood, tragedy, and corruption of the last war; by its

engendered hates and jealousies, its fostered lies and contempts. We appeal by the shame of the old, whose heads were made to bow to the crime and by the glory of youth that still longs for a new fight, a clean fight, which shall mean the pitting of brains and spirit against greed, guns, and gas.

Gentlemen, we must have leadership. It must come through a document such as this amendment. When it comes, if you lead, those who know the nature of your fight will rally to you; the clear eyes, the high adventure of the youth of the world will follow you.

Miss BYRNS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point with pride to the fact that we have stayed precisely within the limit of two hours. Senator GILLETT. It is very unusual, I will say, Miss Bryns. Miss BYRNS. That is the reason I have pointed with pride. But I would like, now that we have finished, to ask you if I may introduce one man speaker.

Senator GILLETT. Certainly.

Miss BYRNS. This is a woman's organization, but we realize that we can not do what we want to do without the help and cooperation of men. We have come to you to-day with only women speakers because we have felt that our point of view was a new one. We have felt sustained during this hearing by the help which we knew we would get from the husband of one of our number.

I would like to introduce Col. Charles Erskin Wood, of California, who, as you know, has given much of his fine legal talent to protecting civil liberties. I might say that his father, I believe, was the first surgeon general of our Navy. Is that true, Colonel Wood? Colonel WOOD. Yes.

Miss BYRNS. May I introduce Colonel Wood?

STATEMENT OF COL. CHARLES ERSKINE WOOD, OF CALIFORNIA

Colonel WOOD. Mr. Chairman, I am a victim of the draft, in a way. This organization is composed exclusively of women, therefore I am not eligible, but Mr. Wilson, during the late war, in one of his fine phrases, said it was not a draft; it was rather a volunteering en masse. So I suppose I am a volunteer.

I am very glad, though, to express my sympathy with this movement, and with respect to the allusion to my military ancestry, I may say that I myself graduated from West Point in 1874 and saw 10 years of active service, fighting Indians, and I believe that war is a great human stupidity. My charge against it is not that it is unchristian, because the most bloodthirsty and war-like nations in history, and at the present time, are the Christian nations. It may be unchristly, but it is not unchristian.

I would not attack war on the ground that it is immoral, because morals are customs, and so long as it is customary to make war it will be moral, and when the custom ceases and war is out of custom, then it is immoral, and it will never arise after that until the sentiment of society has so declared, and that sentiment will never be arrived at except by education.

Therefore, if I may take the liberty of saying it, my view is that this amendment should be passed, because it is in the nature of a referendum to the people. It is not asking Congress to pass a law without the consent of the people, but these very earnest women, who

represent a sentiment, I am sure, wider than most people think, are asking that they have a chance to have it go before the people as a referendum.

I said I do not consider war is unchristian. My own view of it is that it indicates herd stupidity, mass stupidity. If a man who was breeding cattle in California slaughtered all his best animals. and left them to rot and preserved the herd from the third grade, if he burned down all his buildings, dammed up and opened up all his irrigation ditches, took all his money and invested it in bonds and burned the bonds, he would be considered a stupid man. That is exactly what every nation is doing that goes to war, and it makes no difference whether it is victor or vanquished, the result is the same. It makes no difference if it acquires more territory, the result is the same, and always the same. The only two ways to end war are either to remove the motive, that is the bone that lies between the two dogs, because Aristotle said all wars are for gain and greed, and it has not changed a particle since.

There never was a strictly defensive war, and there never was any war that was not strictly defensive if you let each nation speak for itself. There was a time not so long ago when kings made war by their own proclamations, and the reasons for those wars were determined by little bodies of lordly persons. The king consulted nobody. The people were his people, and the people went out shouting the glory of dying for their sovereign. That was patriotism. Now there is not a particle of change to-day-there is not one particle of difference. There never was a defensive war-never. War comes from the desire to grow, the desire for gain, from greed, and the people do not have it. They always lose by war. England never expects to pay her war debts. In fact it can not be done in history. Every debt is a mortgage on every man in the nation without his consent.

So I say that you will cease to have war when you debunk patriotism and debunk loyalty and find out what is real patriotism, what is real loyalty, what is nobility. You will have these gold-star mothers laying their sons on what they think is the altar, just as the women thrust their sons into the Ganges, just as a woman lays her son on the altar of the archaic creed of human sacrifices. But she will not do it when she finds out that that altar is a bank counter. You have got to have some education. The people do not want war. What was Wilson elected on? Was he elected on "He is going to take us into war"? And yet within three months the poor, ignorant herd were howling for war. And why? Because the executives sworn to represent those people were filling the country with lies, because they knew they could not get the people into war on the truth and because they had to arouse hatred."

Now, the art of war, if it is an art, has changed very greatly since I left West Point and was engaged in slaughtering Indians. Then we really had to stand up hand to hand and fight, and almost every fight ended in a charge. Now you kill your man without seeing him, 5 miles off. We did not have such things as poison gas, and my instruction in the use of the bayonet was always to spare your man if he was down and wanted quarter, and we were not told to seek out his kidneys if he lay on his belly and seek out his heart if he lay on

his back. So it has advanced, and it has advanced considerably, with the result that we had 20,000,000 people killed in this last war. And what for?

Grant said at the end of the Civil War, "Nothing has ever been decided by war that could not be decided without it; and if decided after the war, why not before?"

So I come finally to the conclusion with which I began. You have got to have education which debunks this thing called patriotism, which is used as a lure and a blind by the same sovereign class, the same war-making class, for their own benefit, leading young men, through lies, on to slaughter, and it is perfectly true that the only real success of a nation lies in peace. Rome fought itself out. Greece fought itself out. The Empire of Charlemagne fought itself out. It won't take very long for the United States to fight itself out. So it is self-preservation not to enter war, but to have peace. It is sense. It is common sense. It is education. It

is progress. And, finally, I want to say that the only Nation that can end war is the United States.

The way to end war? Somebody said, "Find a practical method to end war." It was the Senator from West Virginia. He said he had not been shown any practical method to end war. He never will be. It will never come. The way to end war is to end it, and the only nation to end it is the nation that is powerful enough to do it and has got the moral courage to do it.

Let me just say, for a moment, that the strongest nation in its collection of debt is a country that has no law whatever for the collection of debt. I represented, as a lawyer, all of Chinatown, and I know the Chinese and the Chinese law, and there is no Chinese law for the collection of debt, with the result, there being no law to resort to, with court judgment and sheriff, every man has to be given his credit as his honor deserves. So if on his Chinese New Year the Chinese debtor does not pay his debts, his family pays them, and if the family can not pay them his tong pays them, because not to have that debt paid brands him with dishonor, and as far as he can travel in China, it robs him and his family and his relatives of any chance of ever getting any credit again. They might just as well commit suicide.

Now, there is a method of collecting debts that depends on no attack, no force, nor law.

Let me put it to you in this way: Suppose England and the United States to-morrow said: "We are going to scrap every battleship, every submarine, every cruiser; we are going to disband every soldier, we are going to turn the money to roads and improvements, and there is to be no more preparation for war." Why, the whole world would be at peace, because there is not a nation that could live under that example that did not also disband. Do you suppose that France, across the channel, could live under the attack of those shrewd people with the whole world declared at peace by these two powerful nations? Do you suppose Italy or the Italian people would stand their dictatorship for a minute with that example set before them? The way to end war is to end it, and the United States is the one to take the lead.

Miss BYRNS. We have all thanked Senator Frazier, and people all over the world have thanked him. He has received letters, cables,

telegrams, from people in China, in India, all of the countries of Europe, because of his introduction of this amendment. It has seemed to them the first hopeful sign coming from the United States. We are more than grateful to Colonel Wood for taking the position he has taken, and I know you will all join with me in thanking Senator Gillett for this most courteous hearing. It has been much finer than anything we could have imagined, and we most heartily thank Senator Gillett for having given it to us.

Senator GILLETT. Is that all?

Miss BYRNS. Yes.

Senator GILLETT. I think, perhaps, it is only fair for me to thank you for the most excellent way in which you have organized this hearing. I have never attended one that was more admirably arranged or more efficiently presented.

(The following documents were submitted and ordered incorporated in the hearings:)

WHAT IS THE WOMEN'S PEACE UNION?

The fundamental principle of the Women's Peace Union is that violence and bloodshed are always wrong in principle and disastrous in practice.

The union was formed in 1921 by a group of women who keenly felt the obligation of accomplishing some immediate and effective resistance to the most formidable of evils, which is war.

The following affirmation was adopted as an essential to membership:

"I wish to join the Women's Peace Union. I affirm it is my intention never to aid in or sanction war, offensive or defensive, international or civil, in any way whether by making or handling munitions, subscribing to war loans, using my labor for the purpose of setting others free for war service, helping by money or work any relief organization which supports or condones war."

Among the founders and earliest members of the Women's Peace Union were women who had been pacifists and nonresistants before and during the period 1914-19. Any woman 21 years of age or older who signs the membership affirmation is welcomed as a fellow member. Opportunity to sign this statement is offered to all women who express an interest in the organization, but the Union has striven rather to emphasize the seriousness of this step than to urge women to sign. It naturally follows that our organization, while nation-wide in its scope, is not large. It should be added that it is financed by voluntary contributions and that it has no salaried officers.

Upon organizing, members of the Women's Peace Union immediately devoted themselves to the consideration of such questions as the causes of war, the failure of hitherto suggested " peace plans," the philosophy and history of nonresistance. Narrowing their studies at last to the history of their own country, they arrived at a careful consideration of the Constitution of the United States as the source of the war powers of Congress.

This research brought to light one fact of signal importance: No groups of nonresistants had made any effort to interpret their philosophy in terms of the political life of their own country. And it seemed to the Women's Peace Union that this fact was the reason why the peace movement has not made greater progress. As enfranchised citizens, members of this organization are responsible for the constitution under which they live, and the Constitution of the United States in its present form contains certain provisions which absolute pacifists can not countenance. It was for this reason that the Women's Peace Union drafted the amendment to the Constitution now known as Senate Joint Resolution 100, which is before your committee.

It is important to note, also, that the Women's Peace Union is affiliated with the War Resisters' International, men and women organized in 20 different countries on four continents, membership in which is determined by an affirmation substantially the same as that used by the union.

Attached is a letterhead giving the address of the organization and the membership of the standing committees; also a complete file of all publications with the exception of a few which are out of print but may be consulted at the office.