The years of the economic depression have been years of political reaction, and that is why the economic crisis has generated a world peace crisis.
In almost every country there are elements of opinion which would welcome such a conclusion because they wish to return to the politics of the balance of power, unrestricted and unregulated armaments, international anarchy, and preparation for war.
The Disarmament Conference has become the focal point of a great struggle between anarchy and world order... between those who think in terms of inevitable armed conflict and those who seek to build a universal and durable peace.
Another essential to a universal and durable peace is social justice.
The world before 1914 was already a world in which the welfare of each individual nation was inextricably bound up with the prosperity of the whole community of nations.
In short, it may be said that on paper the obligations to settle international disputes peacefully are now so comprehensive and far-reaching that it is almost impossible for a state to resort to war without violating one or more solemn treaty obligations.
We had four years of world war which the peoples endured only because they were told that their sufferings would free humanity forever from the scourge of war.
In our modern world of interdependent nations, hardly any state can wage war successfully without raising loans and buying war materials of every kind in the markets of other nations.
The question is, what are we to do in order to consolidate peace on a universal and durable foundation, and what are the essential elements of such a peace?
The forces that are driving mankind toward unity and peace are deep-seated and powerful. They are material and natural, as well as moral and intellectual.
One of the first essentials is a policy of unreserved political cooperation with all the nations of the world.
The world wants disarmament, the world needs disarmament. We have it in our power to help fashion future history.
As a first step there must be an offer to achieve equality of rights in disarmament by abolishing the weapons forbidden to the Central Powers by the Peace Treaties.
The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations.
Perhaps the grimmest aspect of this great paradox is that the very nations that are chiefly responsible for starting and for maintaining the Disarmament Conference are also the nations that have begun a new arms race.
The drive toward economic nationalism is only part of the general revival of nationalism.
To solve the problem of organizing world peace we must establish world law and order.
This is our world, and we must make the best of it.
It is because I believe that it is in the power of such nations to lead the world back into the paths of peace that I propose to devote myself to explaining what, in my opinion, can and should be done to banish the fear of war that hangs so heavily over the world.
I do not believe that the values which the Western democracies consider essential to civilization can survive in a world rent by the international anarchy of nationalism and the economic anarchy of competitive enterprise.
In some states militant nationalism has gone to the lengths of dictatorship, the cult of the absolute or totalitarian state and the glorification of war.
Thus, the struggle for peace includes the struggle for freedom and justice for the masses of all countries.
The more the history of the World War and what led up to it is studied, the more clearly those tragic years become revealed as a vast collapse of civilization.
Whatever we do or fail to do will influence the course of history.
The vast upheaval of the World War set in motion forces that will either destroy civilization or raise mankind to undreamed of heights of human welfare and prosperity.
Four years of world war, at a cost in human suffering which our minds are mercifully too limited to imagine, led to the very clear realization that international anarchy must be abandoned if civilization was to survive.
