A PRACTICAL INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM
international agreement opinions affected by the acceptance and application of the previous agreements. Each conference will inevitably make further progress and, by successive steps, results may be accomplished which have formerly appeared impossible. … The most valuable result of the Conference of 1899 was that it made the work of the Conference of 1907 possible. The achievements of the two conferences justify the belief that the world has entered upon an orderly process through which, step by step, in successive conferences, each taking the work of its predecessor as its point of departure, there may be continual progress toward making the practice of civilized nations conform to their peaceful professions."
Let the next great assembly of the powers be held at The Hague. Through the munificence and far-seeing vision of a noted American, a great building, the Peace Palace, has already been erected for this very purpose, and its portals are ready to open in welcome to the deliberations of all nations and all races. Some humorists, with more regard for humor than the deeper significance of historic events, have amused themselves and a certain section of the public by picturing the Palace at The Hague as being "To Let," thus suggesting that the whole conception of such an edifice has been proved a failure. Well, let it go at that: the Peace Palace at The Hague is "To Let"; and after the present war the nations of the world ought to be glad enough of this fact to draw up an everlasting lease of it, so that it may be henceforth used for the peaceful and constructive discussions of those international problems which heretofore nations have attempted to settle by force, but which henceforth they shall settle by reason. No one had more to do with persuading Mr. Carnegie to build The Hague Palace than did Andrew Dickson White, formerly president of
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