Library Collections: Document: Full Text

In spite of being blind and deaf, Miss Keller is one of the greatest women of the present age.

By Helen Keller

THE beginning of the new year seems the right moment to give thought to a problem that concerns the whole world. The responsibility of a great choice rests with us women.

We can build up a world of beauty and humanity or we can let the politicians and profiteers plunge us into another world cataclysm. Let all of us reflect earnestly on this choice. If we decide that we will have peace, permanent peace, the next thing is to consider how to work most effectively for it.

The most fundamental way to work for peace is to begin with our children. We can see to it that hatred is not fostered between them and the children of other lands in the teaching of history and literature. Military heroes must not be held up for their admiration, but rather the common adventures of men in all lands who have won victories over darkness within and the forces of nature without.

We cannot start too early to develop world friendship in children. Their reading is a very important factor in cultivating universal good-will. From books that give a vivid description of life in other nations they catch the spirit and humanity of civilizations that would otherwise seem to them strange and hostile. More than a century ago George Washington said that extremes of antipathy and attachment towards particular nations are inimical to progress and must be eliminated.

Our children must be made to feel that heroes in the work of peace exist and that the heroism of peace is the highest courage. We have war medals and decorations. Why not have medals and decorations for those who show talent, imagination and initiative in peace promotion?

We must have peace organizations that do more than talk. We have pacts, leagues and protocols of peace which spend their time swapping old troubles for new ones or scrapping only armaments that will not be needed in the next war.

Any intelligent person can see that peace cannot be left to governments. Governments are founded on force, and in order to defend and extend their power they inevitably resort to militarism.

One of the most effective methods against war is to refuse to have anything to do with the production of munitions and armaments. Let us insist that the building of submarines and the manufacture of gas be stopped, also the establishment of air forces intended to destroy human life.

Our greatest need at present is a peace formula that means something. This formula must be short, a flash in darkness. It must have in it the spirit of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill."

Permanent peace and prosperity will come only when we realize and incorporate into our lives the truth that we live by each other and for each other and not unto ourselves. We must work all together for a world organized for peace. Never was there a better end to strive for. The alternative is the most appalling catastrophe mankind has ever faced. Never did the possibility of war in the future hold such horror as it does today to those who realize the type of munitions and weapons of warfare being gathered through research and manufacture throughout the world.

Then let us women throw our weight in the scale on the side of peace. Women can be a greater power for world peace than they realize. We not only can teach our children ideals of peace, but we can influence others around us. We shall thus contribute most of the enduring glory of our country. Let us turn our backs upon the blood-soaked path by which we came and face towards peace, for thus alone can our feet be lighted along the roadway of the future.