restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith
that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and
it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply
our merchant ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and
with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities
or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and
our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas. I
request also that you will grant me at the same time, along with the
powers I ask, a sufficient credit to enable me to provide adequate means
of protection where they are lacking, including adequate insurance
against the present war risks.
I have spoken of our commerce and of the legitimate errands of our
people on the seas, but you will not be misled as to my main
thought--the thought that lies beneath these phrases and gives them
dignity and weight. It is not of material interest merely that we are
thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the
rights of life itself.
[Sidenote: To protect the lives of noncombatants.]
I am thinking not only of the right of Americans to go and come about
their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much
deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights
of humanity without which there is no civilization. My theme is of those
great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has
sought to throw about human lives, the lives of noncombatants, the lives
of men who are peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes of
the world quick and vital, the lives of women and children and of those
who supply the labor which ministers to their sustenance. We are
speaking of no selfish material rights, but of rights which our hearts
support and whose foundation is that righteous passion for justice upon
which all law, all structures alike of family, of State, and of mankind
must rest, as upon the ultimate base of our existence and our liberty.
I cannot imagine any man with American principles at his heart
hesitating to defend these things.
HOW THE WAR CAME TO AMERICA
OFFICIAL ACCOUNT
[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine a warning to the old world.]
In the years when the Republic was still struggling for existence, in
the face of threatened encroachments by hostile monarchies over the sea,
in order to make the New World safe for democracy our forefathers
established here the policy that soon came to be known as the Monroe
Doctrine. Warning the Old World not to interfere in the political life
of the New, our Government pledged itself in return to abstain from
interference in the political conflicts of Europe; and history has
vindicated the wisdom of this course. We were then too weak to influence
the destinies of Europe, and it was vital to mankind that this first
great experiment in government of and by the people should not be
disturbed by foreign attack.
[Sidenote: Our isolation fast becoming imaginary.]
Reenforced by the experience of our expanding national life, this
doctrine has been ever since the dominating element in the growth of our
foreign policy. Whether or not we could have maintained it in case of
concerted attack from abroad, it has seemed of such importance to us
that we were at all times ready to go to war in its defense. And though
since it was first enunciated our strength has grown by leaps and
bounds, although in that time the vast increase in our foreign trade and
of travel abroad, modern transport, modern mails, the cables, and the
wireless have brought us close to Europe and have made our isolation
more and more imaginary, there has been until the outbreak of the
present conflict small desire on our part to abrogate, or even amend,
the old familiar tradition which has for so long given us peace.
[Sidenote: American statement in the minutes of The Hague.]
In both conferences at The Hague, in 1899 and 1907, we reaffirmed this
policy. As our delegates signed the First Convention in regard to
arbitration, they read into the minutes this statement:
"Nothing contained in this convention shall be so construed as to
require the United States of America to depart from its traditional
policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself in
the political questions or policy or internal administration of any
foreign State; nor shall anything contained in the said convention be
construed to imply a relinquishment by the United States of America of
its traditional attitude toward purely American questions."
On the eve of the war our position toward other nations might have been
summarized under three heads:
[Sidenote: The Monroe Doctrine.]
I. The Monroe Doctrine.--We had pledged ourselves to defend the New
World from European aggression, and we had by word and deed made it
clear that we would not intervene in any European dispute.
[Sidenote: The Freedom of the Seas.]
II. The Freedom of the Seas.--In every naval conference our influence
had been given in support of the principle that sea law to be just and
worthy of general respect must be based on the consent of the governed.
[Sidenote: Settlement of disputes by arbitration.]
III. Arbitration.--As we had secured peace at home by referring
interstate disputes to a Federal tribunal, we urged a similar settlement
of international controversies. Our ideal was a permanent world court.
We had already signed arbitration treaties not only with great powers
which might conceivably attack us, but even more freely with weaker
neighbors in order to show our good faith in recognizing the equality of
all nations both great and small. We had made plain to the nations our
purpose to forestall by every means in our power the recurrence of wars
in the world.
The outbreak of war in 1914 caught this nation by surprise. The peoples
of Europe had had at least some warnings of the coming storm, but to us
such a blind, savage onslaught on the ideals of civilization had
appeared impossible.
[Sidenote: The war incomprehensible.]
The war was incomprehensible. Either side was championed here by
millions living among us who were of European birth. Their contradictory
accusations threw our thought into disarray, and in the first chaotic
days we could see no clear issue that affected our national policy.
There was not direct assault on our rights. It seemed at first to most
of us a purely European dispute, and our minds were not prepared to take
sides in such a conflict. The President's proclamation of neutrality was
received by us as natural and inevitable. It was quickly followed by his
appeal to "the citizens of the Republic."
[Sidenote: American neutrality natural.]
"Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true
spirit of neutrality," he said, "which is the spirit of impartiality and
fairness and friendliness to all concerned. * * * It will be easy to
excite passion and difficult to allay it." He expressed the fear that
our nation might become divided in camps of hostile opinion. "Such
divisions among us * * * might seriously stand in the way of the proper
performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people
holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak
counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a
friend."
[Sidenote: The United States must be the mediator.]
This purpose--the preservation of a strict neutrality in order that
later we might be of use in the great task of mediation--dominated all
the President's early speeches.
[Sidenote: Invasion of Belgium stirs American opinion.]
The spirit of neutrality was not easy to maintain. Public opinion was
deeply stirred by the German invasion of Belgium and by reports of
atrocities there. The Royal Belgian Commission, which came in September,
1914, to lay their country's cause for complaint before our National
Government, was received with sympathy and respect. The President in his
reply reserved our decision in the affair. It was the only course he
could take without an abrupt departure from our most treasured
traditions of non-interference in Old World disputes. But the sympathy
of America went out to the Belgians in the heroic tragedy, and from
every section of our land money contributions and supplies of food and
clothing poured over to the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was
under the able management of our fellow-countrymen abroad.
Still, the thought of taking an active part in this European war was
very far from most of our minds. The nation shared with the President
the belief that by maintaining a strict neutrality we could best serve
Europe at the end as impartial mediators.
[Sidenote: Complication on the seas imperils American neutrality.]
But in the very first days of the war our Government foresaw that
complications on the seas might put us in grave risk of being drawn into
the conflict. No neutral nation could foretell what violations of its
vital interests at sea might be attempted by the belligerents. And so,
on August 6, 1914, our Secretary of State dispatched an identical note
to all the powers then at war, calling attention to the risk of serious
trouble arising out of this uncertainty of neutrals as to their maritime
rights, and proposing that the Declaration of London be accepted by all
nations for the duration of the war.
[Sidenote: German Government stirs opinion hostile to United States.]
[Sidenote: American policy not inconsistent with American traditions.]
In the first year of the war the Government of Germany stirred up among
its people a feeling of resentment against the United States on account
of our insistence upon our right as a neutral nation to trade in
munitions with the belligerent powers. Our legal right in the matter was
not seriously questioned by Germany. She could not have done so
consistently, for as recently as the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 both
Germany and Austria sold munitions to the belligerents. Their appeals to
us in the present war were not to observe international law, but to
revise it in their interest. And these appeals they tried to make on
moral and humanitarian grounds. But upon "the moral issue" involved, the
stand taken by the United States was consistent with its traditional
policy and with obvious common sense.
For, if, with all other neutrals, we refused to sell munitions to
belligerents, we could never in time of a war of our own obtain
munitions from neutrals, and the nation which had accumulated the
largest reserves of war supplies in time of peace would be assured of
victory.
The militarist State that invested its money in arsenals would be at a
fatal advantage over the free people who invested their wealth in
schools. To write into international law that neutrals should not trade
in munitions would be to hand over the world to the rule of the nation
with the largest armament factories. Such a policy the United States of
America could not accept.
[Sidenote: Controversy about German submarine war zone.]
[Sidenote: The sinking of the _Lusitania_.]
But our principal controversy with the German Government, and the one
which rendered the situation at once acute, rose out of their
announcement of a sea zone where their submarines would operate in
violation of all accepted principles of international law. Our
indignation at such a threat was soon rendered passionate by the sinking
of the _Lusitania_. This attack upon our rights was not only grossly
illegal; it defied the fundamental concepts of humanity.
[Sidenote: Murder of noncombatants not to be settled by litigation.]
Aggravating restraints on our trade were grievances which could be
settled by litigation after the war, but the wanton murder of peaceable
men and of innocent women and children, citizens of a nation with which
Germany was at peace, was a crime against the civilized world which
could never be settled in any court.
Our Government, however, inspired still by a desire to preserve peace if
possible, used every resource of diplomacy to force the German
Government to abandon such attacks. This diplomatic correspondence,
which has already been published, proves beyond doubt that our
Government sought by every honorable means to preserve faith in that
mutual sincerity between nations which is the only basis of sound
diplomatic interchange.
[Sidenote: Bad faith of the Imperial German Government.]
But evidence of the bad faith of the Imperial German Government soon
piled up on every hand. Honest efforts on our part to establish a firm
basis of good neighborliness with the German people were met by their
Government with quibbles, misrepresentations, and counter-accusations
against their enemies abroad.
And meanwhile in this country official agents of the Central
Powers--protected from criminal prosecution by diplomatic
immunity--conspired against our internal peace and placed spies and
agents provocateurs throughout the length and breadth of our land, and
even in high positions of trust in departments of our Government.
[Sidenote: German agents in Latin America, in Japan and the West
Indies.]
While expressing a cordial friendship for the people of the United
States, the Government of Germany had its agents at work both in Latin
America and Japan. They bought or subsidized papers and supported
speakers there to rouse feelings of bitterness and distrust against us
in those friendly nations, in order to embroil us in war. They were
inciting to insurrection in Cuba, in Haiti, and in Santo Domingo; their
hostile hand was stretched out to take the Danish Islands; and
everywhere in South America they were abroad sowing the seeds of
dissension, trying to stir up one nation against another and all against
the United States.
[Sidenote: Assaults on the Monroe Doctrine.]
In their sum these various operations amounted to direct assault upon
the Monroe Doctrine. And even if we had given up our right to travel on
the sea, even if we had surrendered to German threats and abandoned our
legitimate trade in munitions, the German offensive in the New World, in
our own land and among our neighbors, was becoming too serious to be
ignored.
[Sidenote: Recall of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.]
So long as it was possible, the Government of the United States tried to
believe that such activities, the evidence of which was already in a
large measure at hand, were the work of irresponsible and misguided
individuals. It was only reluctantly, in the face of overwhelming proof,
that the recall of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador and of the German
Military and Naval Attaches was demanded.
Proof of their criminal violations of our hospitality was presented to
their Governments. But these Governments in reply offered no apologies
nor did they issue reprimands. It became clear that such intrigue was
their settled policy.
In the meantime the attacks of the German submarines upon the lives and
property of American citizens had gone on; the protests of our
Government were now sharp and ominous, and this nation was rapidly
being drawn into a state of war.
The break would have come sooner if our Government had not been
restrained by the vain hope that saner counsels might still prevail in
Germany. For it was well known to us that the German people had to a
very large extent been kept in ignorance of many of the secret crimes of
their Government against us.
[Sidenote: Tension relieved by _Sussex_ agreement.]
And the presence of a faction of German public opinion less hostile to
this country was shown when their Government acquiesced to some degree
in our demands at the time of the _Sussex_ outrage, and for nearly a
year maintained at least a pretense of observing the pledge they had
made to us. The tension was abated.
While the war spirit was growing in some sections of our nation, there
was still no widespread desire to take part in the conflict abroad; for
the tradition of non-interference in Europe's political affairs was too
deeply rooted in our national life to be easily overthrown.
Moreover, two other considerations strengthened our Government in its
efforts to remain neutral in this war. The first was our traditional
sense of responsibility toward all the republics of the New World.
Throughout the crisis our Government was in constant communication with
the countries of Central and South America.
[Sidenote: Opinion in Central and South America.]
They, too, preferred the ways of peace. And there was a very obvious
obligation upon us to safeguard their interests with our own.
The second consideration, which had been so often developed in the
President's speeches, was the hope that by keeping aloof from the bitter
passions abroad, by preserving untroubled here the holy ideals of
civilized intercourse between nations, we might be free at the end of
this war to bind up the wounds of the conflict, to be the restorers and
rebuilders of the wrecked structure of the world.
[Sidenote: German compliance not in good faith.]
All these motives held us back, but it was not long until we were beset
by further complications. We soon had reason to believe that the recent
compliance of the German Government had not been made to us in good
faith, and was only temporary, and by the end of 1916 it was plain that
our neutral status had again been made unsafe through the
ever-increasing aggressiveness of the German autocracy. There was a
general agreement here with the statement of our President on October
26, 1916, that this conflict was the last great war involving the world
in which we would remain neutral.
[Sidenote: Peace move on behalf of the Central powers.]
It was in this frame of mind, fearing we might be drawn into the war if
it did not soon come to an end, that the President began the preparation
of his note, asking the belligerent powers to define their war aims. But
before he had completed it the world was surprised by the peace move of
the German Government--an identical note on behalf of the German Empire,
Austro-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey, sent through neutral powers on
December 12, 1916, to the Governments of the Allies proposing
negotiations for peace.
While expressing the wish to end this war--"a catastrophe which
thousands of years of common civilization was unable to prevent and
which injures the most precious achievements of humanity"--the greater
portion of the note was couched in terms that gave small hope of a
lasting peace.
Boasting of German conquests, "the glorious deeds of our armies," the
note implanted in neutral minds the belief that it was the purpose of
the Imperial German Government to insist upon such conditions as would
leave all Central Europe under German dominance and so build up an
empire which would menace the whole liberal world.
[Sidenote: A veiled threat to neutral nations.]
Moreover, the German proposal was accompanied by a thinly veiled threat
to all neutral nations; and from a thousand sources, official and
unofficial, the word came to Washington that unless the neutrals use
their influence to bring the war to an end on terms dictated from
Berlin, Germany and her allies would consider themselves henceforth free
from any obligations to respect the rights of neutrals.
The Kaiser ordered the neutrals to exert pressure on the Entente to
bring the war to an abrupt end, or to beware of the consequences. Clear
warnings were brought to our Government that if the German peace move
should not be successful, the submarines would be unleashed for a more
intense and ruthless war upon all commerce.
[Sidenote: The President's note to the belligerents.]
On the 18th of December the President dispatched his note to all the
belligerent powers, asking them to define their war aims. There was
still hope in our minds that the mutual suspicions between the warring
powers might be decreased, and the menace of future German aggression
and dominance be removed, by finding a guaranty of good faith in a
league of nations.
There was a chance that by the creation of such a league as part of the
peace negotiations the war could now be brought to an end before our
nation was involved. Two statements issued to the press by our Secretary
of State, upon the day the note was dispatched, threw a clear light on
the seriousness with which our Government viewed the crisis.
From this point events moved rapidly. The powers of the Entente replied
to the German peace note. Neutral nations took action on the note of
the President, and from both belligerents replies to this note were soon
in our hands.
[Sidenote: The German reply evasive.]
The German reply was evasive--in accord with their traditional
preference for diplomacy behind closed doors. Refusing to state to the
world their terms, Germany and her allies merely proposed a conference.
They adjourned all discussion of any plan for a league of peace until
after hostilities should end.
[Sidenote: Our concern the lasting restoration of peace.]
The response of the Entente Powers was frank and in harmony with our
principal purpose. Many questions raised in the statement of their aims
were so purely European in character as to have small interest for us;
but our great concern in Europe was the lasting restoration of peace,
and it was clear that this was also the chief interest of the Entente
nations.
As to the wisdom of some of the measures they proposed toward this end,
we might differ in opinion, but the trend of their proposals was the
establishment of just frontiers based on the rights of all nations, the
small as well as the great, to decide their own destinies.
The aims of the belligerents were now becoming clear. From the outbreak
of hostilities the German Government had claimed that it was fighting a
war of defense. But the tone of its recent proposals had been that of a
conqueror. It sought a peace based on victory.
[Sidenote: Central Empires desire domination over other races.]
The Central Empires aspired to extend their domination over other races.
They were willing to make liberal terms to any one of their enemies, in
a separate peace which would free their hands to crush other opponents.
But they were not willing to accept any peace which did not, all fronts
considered, leave them victors and the dominating imperial power of
Europe.
The war aims of the Entente showed a determination to thwart this
ambition of the Imperial German Government. Against the German peace to
further German growth and aggression the Entente Powers offered a plan
for a European peace that should make the whole Continent secure.
[Sidenote: The kind of peace America desires.]
At this juncture the President read his address to the Senate, on
January 22, 1917, in which he outlined the kind of peace the United
States of America could join in guaranteeing. His words were addressed
not only to the Senate and this nation, but to people of all countries:
"May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for
liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of
liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of
mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak
their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have
come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear."
[Sidenote: The peace of the people.]
The address was a rebuke to those who still cherished dreams of a world
dominated by one nation. For the peace he outlined was not that of a
victorious Emperor, it was not the peace of Caesar. It was in behalf of
all the world, and it was a peace of the people:
"No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and
accept the principle that Governments derive all their just powers from
the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand
people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property.
[Sidenote: Each people should determine its own polity.]
"I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord
adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world;
that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or
people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own
polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid,
the little along with the great and powerful.
"I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances
which would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of
intrigue and selfish rivalry and disturb their own affairs with
influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a
concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the
same purpose, all act in the common interest and are free to live their
own lives under a common protection.
[Sidenote: Seas must be free.]