Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/416

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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY

step in this splendid advance. We grudge not the honor and glory that have fallen to them therefrom, though in our hearts we may feel that this might more appropriately have been the work of the race that abolished slavery, both branches participating, and also abolished the duel. What our race should now do is to follow the example set and conclude such a treaty, operative within the wide boundaries of English-speakers, empire and republic. Less than this were derogatory to our past as pioneers of progress. We can not long permit these small nations to march in advance. We should at least get abreast of them. We have noted that honor or vital interests have hitherto been excepted from submission by arbitration treaties. We exclaim, 'Oh, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!'—but these are trifling compared with those committed in the name of 'honor,' the most dishonored word in our language. Never did man or nation dishonor another man or nation. This is impossible. All honor's wounds are self-inflicted. All stains upon honor come from within, never from without. Innocence seeks no revenge; there is nothing to be revenged—guilt can never be. Man or nation whose honor needs vindication beyond a statement of the truth, which puts calumny to shame, is to be pitied. Innocence rests with that, truth has a quiet breast, for the guiltless find that

So dear to heaven is saintly innocence,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her
To keep her from all sense of sin and shame.

Innocent honor, assailed, discards bloody revenge and seeks the halls of justice and of arbitration. It has been held in the past that, a man's honor assailed, vindication lay only through the sword. To-day it is sometimes still held that a nation's honor, assailed, can in like manner be vindicated only through war; but it is not open to a member of our race to hold this doctrine, for within its wide boundaries no dispute between men can be lawfully adjusted outside the courts of law. Instead of vindicating his honor, the English-speaking man who violated the law by seeking redress by personal violence would dishonor himself. Under our law, no wrong against man can be committed that justifies the crime of private vengeance after its commission.

The man of our race who holds that his country would be dishonored by agreeing to unrestricted arbitration forgets that according to this standard he is personally dishonored by doing that very thing. Individually he has become civilized, nationally he remains barbaric, refusing peaceful settlement and insisting upon national revenge—all for injured honor.

Which of us would not rejoice to have Britain and America share with Denmark and Holland, Chili and Argentina, the 'dishonor' they have recently incurred, and esteem it a proud possession?