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He said, “War between nations” is “out of date”  .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

Ferdinand Buisson was the oldest to take the prize, by chance,

Achieving it for his history of tireless efforts to bring

Peace and right settlements between Germany and France.

He was influenced early by Kant, that reason was the thing

To decide what was best, based on universal principles,

And that peace could be brought only then to the fore

By a public educated in rights, democracy, and example.

His life involved work to achieve education for girls,

The vote for women, separation of church and state,

His “League of the Rights of Man” in French circles

Helped reduce anti-Semitism there and ‘called out’ hate.

In the National Assembly, he promoted teaching history

Less nationalistic and more balanced, teaching peace-loving mores.

And led the French to Germany and Germans to France in peace forays.

Stresemann, German, was born into a culture

Convinced it was clearly superior to all others.

His areas were economics, business and politics.

He supported a pre-war build-up of the German war fleet,

And that Germany should wage unrelenting war on its enemies,

Then found himself in 1919 having to admit

That a negotiated peace might be necessary.

Yet, Germany, shocked, sought to dodge and tarry.

He stressed cooperation with the Allies was due,

Was elected Chancellor, worked to reduce inflation,

Helped settle border disputes – and German expectations,

And routed Hitler’s 1923 ‘Beer Hall’ coup.

Aristide Briand was French, a Socialist. Popular

Issues were class struggle, strikes and workers’ rights.

When he became Prime Minister, his karma came full circle,

As he forced workers off strike, sent in military, fired many, a fright.

He became PM again after the War had begun:

He felt France should negotiate peace but did not get it done.

Forced to step down (again), he argued at Versailles against harsh

Conditions on Germany for fear of revenge, so much blood spilt.

“The cannons scrapped yesterday could be rebuilt

Tomorrow,” he said. Then was PM again and sent (on march)

Thousands of French troops to occupy their debtor –

To force reparations, and thus found himself at Locarno.

He later worked hard for a ‘protection treaty’ with the U.S.,

Conceiving a “United States of Europe” – before his sudden death.