He joined the German Peace Society but, too, enlisted

In World War I, an engineer on the Western Front,

Where Germans with long range artillery did their damnedest

To take Paris, then stalled out in France, and shunted

All efforts to dislodge them. Ossietzky, after the war,

Became a full-time writer and peace activist.

He felt the foundation for lasting peace must draw

On gaining control of the arms industry. His gist

Was to focus writing articles as editor for Die Weltbuhne

Against anti-Semitism, and when political leaders were found

To have had opponents murdered, the paper reported them,

Which lead to libel charges and trial for treason.

Shortly after his jailing and release, he was sent to a camp

Where, forced into hard labor, he began to lose his reason.

Henderson was British, raised in a poor family.

Whose future seemed linked to the Ironfounders’ industry,

He became a Member of Parliament and later Foreign Secretary,

And was known as the chief architect of disarmament activity:

At the League of Nation’s Disarmament Conference he excelled,

Until told that his party’s position at home had been lost.

Then he stayed at the Conference continuing to work, to sell

Disarmament forward, but by the end, the cost

Was a standstill. The Nobel Committee felt:

“The feeling of unease and desolation increases,

While rumors that Germany is arming are broadcast

To millions of anxious listeners,” not appeasing.

He preached disarming – and sanctions, with great haste.

They called him “the lonely man,” his “faculty” a quest.

Angell was British, educated in England and France,

Who moved to the U.S. and then back to Europe, to advance

As a journalist.  From correspondent to Paris editor,

And from many contacts, he became a writer.

Publishing The Great Illusion made him globally famous.

He detailed that war is a losing economic quantity

For both aggressors and defenders, without justifiable aims.

His analysis of reparations, called “indemnity futility,”

Suggested its uselessness in ‘levelling the field,’

And that free trade and education would cause men to yield

To Peace, and war could by social process become extinct. 

He lectured and travelled for years, supporting such thinking.

He urged his own nomination on many for the prize –

And got it this year – for his economics on war analysis.

During these years, the Nobel Committee had its eyes

On the world’s unfolding recession, and the effects

Of hesitation, aggression, artifice, sophistry and surprise

On the lives of millions, dejected, lambasted, unchecked.

The League held a disarmament conference in 1932-

While Hitler came to power. He demanded recision  

Of Versailles’ treaty points of 1920:  they were through

With reparations. Re-arming, Germany, from the League withdrew.

Japan invaded Manchuria and China primarily for territory.

Germany began by invading Czech and Poland for land.

Because Britain and America had guaranteed Poland’s security,

They were drawn in – to stand up to the brawling European theater,

While under cover of war, Hitler’s secret impurity began,

Proceeded, the extermination of the Jews, by their predator.

Born in 1862, Butler’s life was long and busy.

He taught and became the President of Columbia University.

He participated in the pre-WW I Hague Peace Conferences,

And helped start the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He was a trusted advisor to Theodore Roosevelt, President,

And believed that all wars would eventually cease.

He felt that persons with influence and explicit intelligence

Were needed – or peace work could not succeed,

Yet dismissed anti-war professors from their work

For objecting to America’s WWI participation.

Knowing France and Briand, he helped to set the groundwork

For the Briand-Kellogg Pact, designed for mutual protection.

For years, Carnegie Endowment leader and a global publicist,

He said, “War between nations” is “out of date”  . . . in 1946.

Addams’ life was a long one and was filled

With actively speaking and engendering participation.

She travelled the world to set up the clubs that were gristmill

For her Women’s International Peace and Freedom association.

In person and in her writings, she beseeched the President, Wilson,

To stop using democracy as an excuse for foreign aggression,

And to embrace the League of Nations – in other words, relent –

To compulsory arbitration, and for foreign policy, consent

To controls. She sought to stop all future wars.

When Russian immigrants came streaming to the U.S.,

She welcomed them, treating them with respect,

Which got her labelled a Communist ‘sympathizer.’

Called the “Mother of Peace” and “Queen of America,”

She publicly held to her spirit’s smart, peace-loving nature.

Born in 1860, she lost her parents who died young,

Leaving her money, so she travelled – to London’s East End,

Exposing herself to a center educating the poor, a key,

She felt, to social integration, reducing misery.

She began Hull House to address these needs in Chicago,

And fought against child labor and for education.

She criticized deeply America’s participation in WWI and so

Was branded a traitor. So she created an organization

Of women for peace, which held meetings during Versailles,

Sending resolutions, demanding an end to a food blockade

Starving families, and seeking Germany’s reparations be modified.

Her position, voters’ rights for women, she felt, would best aid

The cause of Peace in the world, since they would moderate

Men’s natural tendencies to fight and to hate.

Kellogg’s prize was so contentious it was not awarded until ’30,

When Nathan Soderblom, a man of the Church, received his.

“Many are the roads that must be followed,” said the Committee,

 To attain the great goal, “peace among the nations.” This

Was Soderblom’s work for much of his church-based life,

Which began as a pastor for the Swedish church in Paris.

As Archbishop of Sweden in 1914, ‘17 and ‘25,

He drew the international community towards this message:

The church abhors war and urges all toward Peace.

He worked across Christian faiths for unity while,

During conferences, he helped pass resolutions – to cease

War as a means of solving international disputes,

Arguing that those who rejected arbitration as too facile

Be labelled aggressors, their justifications mute.

Frank Billings Kellogg was a farm boy turned lawyer,

Who rose to work for Theodore Roosevelt in the White House where

He was charged with busting up monopoly corporations,

And became the President of the American Bar Association.

He supported war against Germany and eventually

Became U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom,

And Secretary of State, where he did, well, nothing

To engage the U.S. in the new League of Nations.

When Briand sought a France-U.S. security pact,

Kellogg sought to let all nations join.

The Briand-Kellogg pact was to guarantee that

Aggressors’ (Germany, it was feared) advances would thus be enjoined.

Kellogg’s ‘devotion’ to peace was arguable, was vague,

But he supported the International Court – as a judge – at the Hague.

Quidde, a German active in political life,

Exemplified the reasons he should receive the prize.

He was President of the German Peace Society when rife

Anti-Semitism and hatred were on a rampant rise.

Early, he stood a pistol-duel against anti-Jewish hate,

Wrote against German armament build-ups. He dared

To write what others would not – those too scared.

“Let them hate, as long as they fear,” he cited Caligula’s state

In Rome – to point to Germany’s dangerously increasing malice.

In the Reichstad when war broke out, he immediately sought Peace.

Later, he lost his citizenship after describing the Nazis as

“A gang of robbers, murderers, arsonists and torturers.”

Forced into exile in Switzerland when Hitler’s time came to be,

He donated some of his prize money to others forced to flee.