Vanished Dream Of Peace.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 2, 1912:
Prof. Gottheil Writes to Ask if The Hague Tribunal Really Exists.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    While reading the appalling tales of the destruction of life and property that is going on in the east end of Europe and in the name of religion and civilization, I have a faint recollection of having, at some time or other, heard or read of a place called The Hague.
    Does such a place really exist on the map of Europe, or has some cataclysm wiped it out of existence? It is connected, in some fashion or other, with Peace Congresses and with a permanent Court of Arbitration; at least, in my mind. Or, am I mistaken; perhaps such a place is merely a figment of my imagination or the residue of a vision that I have dreamed?
    Please enlighten a poor and failing mind that imagined it inhabited a body living in the twentieth century, but that has awakened to the almost certain fact that that body is back again in — the days of barbarism.
                RICHARD GOTTHEIL.
                Columbia University, Nov. 1, 1912.