MN Vets for Peace ask you to join us Weds, 8/27 at 5pm Lake Street/Marshall Ave Bridge.
Wednesday, August 27, the focus at the peace vigil on the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue Bridge will be on the Kellogg Briand Pact. We are doing this at the request of Veterans for Peace Chapter 27.
August 27th is the 86th anniversary of the signing of the Kellogg Briand Pact, the law to end war; a law which is still binding on the U.S. today. The Pact was named after the only Minnesotan to win the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, who won the prize in 1927. In 1932, with thousands of people in attendance, Kellogg was honored by having one of the busiest streets in St Paul named after him.
The Pact, excluding formalities and procedural matters, reads in full,
"The High Contracting Parties solemly [sic] declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means."
There are 62 light poles on the Lake Street/Marshall Avenue bridge which stretches across the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and St Paul. VFP Chapter 27 would like, with your help, to have a presence at each pole during the 5:00 to 6:00 pm weekly peace vigil.
VFP member, Steve McKeown, says “The Peace Vigil is a fitting place to commemorate and act on the words written on the Pact itself by the former U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, "SPEAK OUT...HOLD NOT YOUR PEACE!"
Members of Veterans for Peace Chapter 27 will be handing out copies of this document at the bridge on Wednesday.
We hope you will join us in calling for an end to war.