race, and are changing the very face of nature itself. Our world
is a world unified beyond all possible conception a century ago, and
the world unity is a certain stepping stone to world peace.

The world never offered grander opportunity to the nations for
leadership--not for leadership in military splendor, but for
leadership in the sublime paths of peace. For the United States this
call means not only opportunity but even obligation. Already this
country has performed well her duty in fostering international
arbitration. She has been a party to half of the cases where disputes
between nations have been referred to the Hague Tribunal. Arbitration
is performing its mission with more and more efficiency, yet each year
the war budgets of the nations are increasing. The peace sentiment now
demands a decrease of armaments, a conversion of the waste of war into
the wealth of peace. To demonstrate that this is practicable is the
immediate opportunity before us, our present obligation. What is our
waste of war expressed in terms of the wealth of peace? Notice! Two
thirds of the cost of one dreadnought, like the mammoth _Florida_
launched but yesterday, would erect and furnish a veritable palace for
every foreign ambassador and minister of the United States, thus
solving a perplexing problem of our diplomatic service. One
twenty-second of the cost of one dreadnought would support for one
year the entire force of the American Board of Foreign Missions in
their work of proclaiming our gospel of peace. One half the cost of
one dreadnought would erect and equip twenty-five manual-training
schools, teaching the rudiments of a trade to forty thousand young
people each year. The cost of two dreadnoughts would provide every
state in the Union with a half-million dollars with which to save the
juvenile delinquents from criminal courts and schools of vice behind
prison bars. The cost of one dreadnought, wisely spent each year in
the fight against tuberculosis, would make the white plague in a
single generation a disease as rare as smallpox is to-day.

Where now we are erecting battleships and forts, it is for us to build
libraries and schools. Where now we drain our treasuries in equipping
men to fight their fellow men, it is for us to arm against the common
enemy, disease. Where now we pour out our wealth before the pagan
Mars, it is for us to devote our treasure to supporting the works of
the Prince of Peace.

Such a victory for pe