Category Archives: Noble

Albert Schweitzer – Noble Peace Prize 1952

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Albert Schweitzer

Born: 14 January 1875, Kaysersberg, Germany (now France)

Died: 4 September 1965, Lambaréné, Gabon

Residence at the time of the award: France

Role: Founder of Lambaréné (République de Gabon), Missionary surgeon

Field: Humanitarian work

Albert Schweitzer received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1953.

Biography

Albert Schweitzer (January 14, 1875-September 4,

1965) was born into an Alsatian family which for generations had

been devoted to religion, music, and education. His father and

maternal grandfather were ministers; both of his grandfathers

were talented organists; many of his relatives were persons of

scholarly attainments.

Schweitzer entered into his intensive theological studies in 1893

at the University of Strasbourg where he obtained a doctorate in

philosophy in 1899, with a dissertation on the religious

philosophy of Kant, and received his licentiate in theology in

1900. He began preac

via Albert Schweitzer – Biography.

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Woodrow Wilson – Noble Peace Prize 1919

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Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Born: 28 December 1856, Staunton, VA, USA

Died: 3 February 1924, Washington, DC, USA

Residence at the time of the award: USA

Role: Founder of the League of Nations, President of United States of America

Field: World organizing

Woodrow Wilson received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1920.

Biography

Thomas

Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856-February 3, 1924) was born

in Staunton, Virginia, to parents of a predominantly Scottish

heritage. Since his father was a Presbyterian minister and his

mother the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Woodrow was

raised in a pious and academic household. He spent a year at

Davidson

College in North Carolina and three at Princeton

University where he received a baccalaureate degree in

1879.

After graduating from the Law School of the University of

Virginia*, he practiced law for a year in Atlanta, Georgia,

but it was a feeble practice. He entered graduate studies at

Johns Hopkins

University in 1883 and three years later received the

doctorate. In 1885 he published Congressional Government,

a splendid piece of scholarship which analyzes the difficulties

arising from the separation of the legislative and executive

powers in the American Constitution.

Before joining the faculty of Princeton University as a professor

of jurisprudence and political economy, Wilson taught for three

years at Bryn

Mawr College and for two years at Wesleyan College.

He was enormously successful as a lecturer and productive as a

scholar.

As president of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, Wilson

became widely known for his ideas on reforming education. In

pursuit of his idealized intellectual life for democratically

chosen students, he wanted to change the admission system, the

pedagogical system, the social system, even the architectural

layout of the campus. But Wilson was a thinker who needed to act.

So he entered politics and as governor of the State of New Jersey

from 1911 to 1913 distinguished himself once again as a

reformer.

Wilson won the presidential election of 1912 when William

Howard Taft and Theodore

Roosevelt split the Republican vote. Upon taking office he

set about instituting the reforms he had outlined in his book

The New Freedom, including the changing of the tariff, the

revising of the banking sy

via Woodrow Wilson – Biography.

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Theodore Roosevelt – Noble Peace Prize 1906

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Theodore Roosevelt

Born: 27 October 1858, New York, NY, USA

Died: 6 January 1919, Oyster Bay, NY, USA

Residence at the time of the award: USA

Role: Collaborator of various peace treaties, President of United States of America

Field: Negotiation

Biography

Theodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858–January 6,

1919) was born in New York into one of the old Dutch families

which had settled in America in the seventeenth century. At

eighteen he entered Harvard College and spent four years there,

dividing his time between books and sport and excelling at both.

After leaving Harvard he studied in Germany for almost a year and

then immediately entered politics. He was elected to the Assembly

of New York State, holding office for three years and

distinguishing himself as an ardent reformer.

In 1884, because of ill health and the death of his wife,

Roosevelt abandoned his political work for some time. He invested

part of the fortune he had inherited from his father in a cattle

ranch in the Badlands of Dakota Territory, expecting to remain in

the West for many years. He became a passionate hunter,

especially of big game, and an ardent believer in the wild

outdoor life which brought him health and strength. In 1886

Roosevelt returned to New York, married again, and once more

plunged into politics.

President Harrison, after his election in

1889, appointed Roosevelt as a member of the Civil Service

Commission of which he later became president. This office he

retained until 1895 when he undertook the direction of the Police

Department of New York City. In 1897 he joined President McKinley‘s administration as assistant

secretary of the Navy. While in this office he actively prepared

for the Cuban War, which he saw was coming, and when it broke out

in 1898, went to Cuba as lieutenant colonel of a regiment of

volunteer cavalry, which he himself had raised among the hunters

and cowboys of the West. He won great fame as leader of these

«Rough-Riders», whose story he told in one of his most

popular books.

Elected governor of the state of New York in 1898, he invested

his two-year administration with the vigorous and businesslike

characteristics which were his hallmark. He wou

via Theodore Roosevelt – Biography.

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Albert Gobat – Noble Peace Prize 1902 (Permanent Peace Bureau)

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Charles Albert Gobat (May 21, 1843-March 16, 1914) was born at Tramelan, Switzerland, the son of a Protestant pastor and the nephew of Samuel Gobat, a missionary who became bishop of Jerusalem. A brilliant student, he studied at the Universities of Basel, Heidelberg, Bern, and Paris, taking his doctorate in law, summa cum laude, from Heidelberg in 1867.

For the next fifteen years, Gobat devoted his time and energy to the law. He began his practice in Bern and, at the same time, lectured on French civil law at Bern University. He then opened an office in Delémont in the canton of Bern, which soon became the leading legal firm of the district.

After 1882, however, he became increasingly absorbed in politics and education. In that year he was appointed superintendent of public instruction for the canton of Bern, a position he held for thirty years. A progressive in educational philosophy, he reformed the system of primary training, obtained increased budgetary support to improve the teacher-pupil ratio, supported the study of living languages, provided pupils with an alternative to the traditionally narrow classical education by establishing curricula in vocational and professional training.

His personal scholarship was concerned with history. He won acclaim for his erudite République de Berne et la France pendant les guerres de religion (1891) and widespread recognition (as well as large sales) for his more popularly conceived Histoire de la Suisse racontée au peuple [A People's History of Switzerland] (1900).

Meanwhile, he was pursuing a career in politics. In 1882 he was elected to the Grand Council of Bern, becoming president of the cantonal government for the 1886-1887 term. From 1884 to 1890 he was a member of the Council of States of Switzerland and from 1890 until his death a member of the National Council, the other chamber of the central Swiss legislative body. In politics as in education, Gobat was a liberal, a moderate reformer. A major piece of legislation he sponsored in 1902 applied the principle of arbitration to commercial treaties. By its terms, Switzerland agreed to insert in all commercial treaties such as customs agreements, a clause requiring the parties to submit to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague any dispute that might arise from the day-to-day operation of the treaty.

The Interparliamentary Union, which held its first major international conference in 1889, provided Gobat with an appealing outlet for his advocacy of arbitration and peace. Founded largely through the efforts of the English parliamentarian Cremer, a Nobel Peace Prizewinner in 1903, and the French Deputy Passy, a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1901, the Interparliamentary Union, then as now, brought together interested members of the parliaments of all countries to discuss international issues and to explore ways to improve collaboration among nations via parliamentary and democratic institutions; at this time, however, its primary objective was to promote international arbitration.

Gobat presided over the fourth conference of the Union convened in 1892 at Bern. This conference officially established a central headquarters at Bern to be called the Interparliamentary Bureau and entrusted its direction to Albert Gobat. As director of the Bureau, a position he filled without remuneration for the next seventeen years, Gobat supervised the details of setting up the annual conferences, prepared the agenda, arranged for the publication of the proceedings (beginning in 1896), edited a monthly publication to which he frequently made personal contributions, encouraged members to sponsor within their own legislatures proposals to improve relations among nations. After the twelfth Interparliamentary Conference of 1904 in St. Louis passed a resolution calling for a second Hague Peace Conference, it was Gobat who acted as the Union’s spokesman in asking U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt to appeal to all nations to participate in such conference.1

When Élie Ducommun, co-laureate for 1902, died in 1906, Gobat took over the direction of the International Peace Bureau, performing duties for that office during the next eight years analogous to those he had discharged for the Interparliamentary Bureau.

Gobat died with his boots on. On March 16, 1914, while attending meeting of the peace conference at Bern, he arose as if to speak but collapsed, dying about an hour later.

via Albert Gobat – Biography.

Élie Ducommun – Noble Prize 1902 (Permanent Peace Bureau)

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Élie Ducommun (February 19, 1833-December 7, 1906), Swiss journalist, eloquent lecturer, business executive, steadfast advocate of peace, was born in Geneva, the son of a clock maker whose original home was in Neuchâtel. Early in his boyhood he gave evidence of his capacity to make the most of his remarkable talent and intelligence by intense application.

Having completed his early studies in Geneva at the age of seventeen, he obtained a post as tutor for a wealthy family in Saxony, remaining there for three years and becoming expert in the German language. Upon returning to Geneva, he taught in the public schools for two years and then in 1855 at the age of twenty-two, began his journalistic career with the editorship of a political journal, the Revue de Genève. In one way or another he was connected with journalistic enterprises for the rest of his life. In 1865 he moved to Bern where he founded the radical journal, Der Fortschritt [Progress], which was also published in French under the title Progrès; in 1871-1872, he edited Helvétie; beginning in 1868, he edited the news sheet, Les États-Unis d’Europe, published by the Ligue internationale de la paix et de la liberté [International League for Peace and Freedom]; and after 1891, as head of the Permanent Peace Bureau, he prepared or edited innumerable appeals, pamphlets, reports, news sheets, and the like for the peace societies and the international peace congresses.

He was, indeed, a «literary» man, absorbed for the most part in journalism but finding time, also, to publish poetry and to perform his duties as official translator for the National Council. August Schou, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, points out that Ducommun’s writing often showed «striking acuity of thought», citing a dialogue he wrote in 1901 in which he refutes the notion current in that day that a war between major powers would be short because of the destructiveness of modern weapons, and predicts, in its stead, a long «war of attrition with alternating advances and retreats, and with operations bound up with a system of trenches and strongpoints»1.

Ducommun was also a political figure of some consequence. In Bern he was a member of the Grand Council for ten years; in Geneva, prior to his leaving in 1865, he was a member of the Grand Council for nine years, becoming vice-chancellor in 1857 and chancellor of state of Geneva in 1862.

He was a business executive as well. For thirty years, beginning in 1875, he was secretary-general of the Jura-Bern-Lucerne railroad, or as it was later called after a merger, the Jura-Simplon line. This position required, according to Frédéric Passy, «the rarest qualities of exactitude, order, activity, and firmness»2. When the line was purchased by the state in 1903, Ducommun resigned.

Ducommun, meanwhile, gave virtually every spare moment at his disposal to his work for peace, most notably after 1890 when he consented to organize and to direct the International Bureau of Peace. From the inception of the Bureau until his death, Ducommun devoted himself, at his own insistence without remuneration, to carrying out its purposes of uniting the many different peace societies throughout the world, preserving archives, preparing for the congresses, implementing their decisions, and acting as a clearinghouse for all kinds of information about peace and the activities on its behalf.

Élie Ducommun died at the age of seventy-three of a disease of the heart and lungs.

via Élie Ducommun – Biography.

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Frédéric Passy – Founder Red Cross Joint Noble prize winner 1901

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Frédéric Passy (May 20, 1822-June 12, 1912) was born in Paris and lived there his entire life of ninety years. The tradition of the French civil service was strong in Passy’s family, his uncle, Hippolyte Passy (1793-1880), rising to become a cabinet minister under both Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon. Educated as a lawyer, Frédéric Passy entered the civil service at the age of twenty-two as an accountant in the State Council, but left after three years to devote himself to systematic study of economics. He emerged as a theoretical economist in 1857 with his Mélanges économiques, a collection of essays he had published in the course of his research, and he secured his scholarly reputation with a series of lectures delivered in 1860-1861 at the University of Montpellier and later published in two volumes under the title Leçons d’économie politique. An admirer of Richard Cobden, he became an ardent free trader, believing that free trade would draw nations together as partners in a common enterprise, result in disarmament, and lead to the abandonment of war. Passy lectured on economic subjects in virtually every city and university of any consequence in France and continued a stream of publications on economic subjects, some of the more important being Les Machines et leur influence sur le développement de l’humanité (1866), Malthus et sa doctrine (1868), L’Histoire du travail (1873). Passy’s passionate belief in education found expression in De la propriété intellectuelle (1859) end La Démocratie et l’instruction (1864). For these contributions, among others, he was elected in 1877 to membership in the Académie de sciences morales et politiques, a unit of the Institut de France.

Passy was not, however, a cloistered scholar; he was a man of action. In 1867, encouraged by his leadership of public opinion in trying to avert possible war between France and Prussia over the Luxembourg question, he founded the «Ligue internationale et permanente de la paix». When the Ligue became a casualty of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, he reorganized it under the title «Société française des amis de la paix» which in turn gave way to the more specifically oriented «Société française pour l’arbitrage entre nations», established in 1889.

Passy carried on his efforts within the government as well. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1881, again in 1885, and defeated in 1889. In the Chamber he supported legislation favorable to labor, especially an act relating to industrial accidents, opposed the colonial policy of the government, drafted a proposal for disarmament, and presented a resolution calling for arbitration of international disputes.

His parliamentary interest in arbitration was whetted by Randal Cremer‘s success in guiding through the British Parliament a resolution stipulating that England and the United States should refer to arbitration any disputes between them not settled by the normal methods of diplomacy. In 1888 Cremer headed a delegation of nine British members of Parliament who met in Paris with a delegation of twenty-four French deputies, headed by Passy, to discuss arbitration and to lay the groundwork for an organization to advance its acceptance. The next year, fifty-six French parliamentarians, twenty-eight British, and scattered representatives from the parliaments of Italy, Spain, Denmark, Hungary, Belgium, and the United States formed the Interparliamentary Union, with Passy as one of its three presidents. The Union, still in existence, established a headquarters to serve as a clearinghouse of ideas, and encouraged the formation of informal individual national parliamentary groups willing to support legislation leading to peace, especially through arbitration.

Passy’s thought and action had unity. International peace was the goal, arbitration of disputes in international politics and free trade in goods the means, the national units making up the Interparliamentary Union the initiating agents, the people the sovereign constituency.

Through his prodigious labors over a period of half a century in the peace movement, Passy became known as the «apostle of peace». He wrote unceasingly and vividly. His Pour la paix (1909), which came out when he was eighty-seven years old, is a personalized account – in lieu of an autobiography which he deplored – of his work for international peace, noting especially the founding of the Ligue, the «période décisive» when the Interparliamentary Union was established, the development of peace congresses, and the value of the Hague Conferences.

Passy was a renowned speaker, noted for the intellectual demands he made on his audiences, as well as for his powerful voice, his ample gestures, and his majestic and dignified manner.

via Frédéric Passy – Biography.

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