ABSTRACT
The late Speaker of the House Thomas 'Tip' O'Neill once observed that 'all politics are local', that is, that democratic policies emerge from the grass roots and filter up to regional and even national levels. In the 1920s, peace was a popular sentiment. It was an ideal promoted by mainstream Protestantism, which made room for liberal internationalism. There were regional and local rallies for Peace, often held on church grounds. Both liberal internationalists and conservative noninterventionists failed to produce effective peace policies. As the Cold War developed, critical opposition from the small band of Taft Republicans merged with similar critiques from equally small bands of the left. However sincere their motives and well-developed their ideas, these peace strategists did not create peace in the twentieth century, the world's bloodiest.
