The Peace Celebration.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 7, 1913:
    The note of all the speeches made by the delegates to the conference for the celebration of a century of Anglo-American peace has been, it seems to us, a little sentimental. It is certainly a fact of striking significance that after two bitter wars there should have followed a hundred years of unbroken peace. But the significance does not lie in the affection the two people have had for each other. Indeed, that affection, such as it is, is a thing of late growth and may be said hardly to have reached its majority. Twenty years ago, when the Venezuela question was dealt with by Mr. Cleveland a little brusquely, but very intelligibly, there was a good deal of bitterness between us and the British. There was still some, not pleasantly manifested, during and succeeding the war with Spain. And, of course, if we go back to the time of our civil war, the bitterness was intense.
    And yet we have kept the peace, often amid great difficulties growing out of this bitterness. Why? Largely, we think, because the essential and enduring interests of the two peoples have imperatively demanded it. However angry we may have been at times with each other, there has never been a moment when our responsible statesmen and the mass of thinking people in each country have not seen plainly that war would in a myriad ways cost infinitely more than even a victory for either side would be worth. It has been plain also that neither nation could hope to conquer the other, or to make any partial conquest of lasting importance. This may not be a situation to be so eloquent over, but it is clearly one that warrants unlimited rejoicing. And there is no reason why, since we really are safe from one another, that we should not strive for the cultivation of friendship passing beyond our material interests. That is the end to which the celebration now planning should tend.