THE PEACE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
“Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed
For honor lost and dear ones wasted,
But proud, to meet a people proud,
With eyes that tell o’ triumph tasted!
Come, with han’ gripping on the hilt,
An’ step that proves ye Victory’s daughter!
Longin’ for you, our sperits wilt
Like shipwrecked men’s on raf’s for water.
“Come, while our country feels the lift
Of a great instinct shouting ‘Forwards!’
An’ knows that freedom ain’t a gift
Thet tarries long in han’s of cowards!
Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when
They kissed their cross with lips that quivered,
An’ bring fair wages for brave men,
A nation saved, a race delivered!”
These are the noble lines of a noble poet, written in the sternest days
of the great Civil War, when the writer, Lowell, was one among the
millions of men who mourned the death in battle of kinsfolk dear to
him. No man ever lived who hated an unjust war more than Lowell or who
loved with more passionate fervor the peace of righteousness. Yet, like
the other great poets of his day and country, like Holmes, who sent
his own son to the war, like gentle Longfellow and the Quaker Whittier,
he abhorred unrighteousness and ignoble peace more than war. These men
had lofty souls. They possessed the fighting edge, without which no man
is really great; for in the really great man there must be both the
heart of gold and the temper of steel.
In 1864 there were in the North some hundreds of thousands of men who
praised peace as the supreme end, as a good more important than all
other goods, and who denounced war as the worst of all evils. These
men one and all assailed and denounced Abraham Lincoln, and all voted
against him for President. Moreover, at that time there were many
individuals in England and France who said it was the duty of those
two nations to mediate between the North and the South, so as to stop
the terrible loss of life and destruction of property which attended
our Civil War; and they asserted that any Americans who in such event
refused to accept their mediation and to stop the war would thereby
show themselves the enemies of peace. Nevertheless, Abraham Lincoln
and the men back of him by their attitude prevented all such effort at
mediation, declaring that they would regard it as an unfriendly act to
the United States. Looking back from a distance of fifty years, we can
now see clearly that Abraham Lincoln and his supporters were right.
Such mediation would have been a hostile act, not only to the United
States but to humanity. The men who clamored for unrighteous peace
fifty years ago this fall were the enemies of mankind.
These facts should be pondered by the well-meaning men who always
clamor for peace without regard to whether peace brings justice or
injustice. Very many of the men and women who are at times misled into
demanding peace, as if it were itself an end instead of being a means
of righteousness, are men of good intelligence and sound heart who only
need seriously to consider the facts, and who can then be trusted to
think aright and act aright. There is, however, an element of a certain
numerical importance among our people, including the members of the
ultrapacificist group, who by their teachings do some real, although
limited, mischief. They are a feeble folk, these ultrapacificists,
morally and physically; but in a country where voice and vote are
alike free, they may, if their teachings are not disregarded, create
a condition of things where the crop they have sowed in folly and
weakness will be reaped with blood and bitter tears by the brave men
and high-hearted women of the nation.
The folly preached by some of these individuals is somewhat startling,
and if it were translated from words into deeds it would constitute a
crime against the nation. One professed teacher of morality made the
plea in so many words that we ought to follow the example of China and
deprive ourselves of all power to repel foreign attack. Surely this
writer must have possessed the exceedingly small amount of information
necessary in order to know that nearly half of China was under foreign
dominion and that while he was writing the Germans and Japanese were
battling on Chinese territory and domineering as conquerors over the
Chinese in that territory. Think of the abject soul of a man capable
of holding up to the admiration of free-born American citizens such a
condition of serfage under alien rule!
Nor is the folly confined only to the male sex. A number of women
teachers in Chicago are credited with having proposed, in view of the
war, hereafter to prohibit in the teaching of history any reference
to war and battles. Intellectually, of course, such persons show
themselves unfit to be retained as teachers a single day, and indeed
unfit to be pupils in any school more advanced than a kindergarten. But
it is not their intellectual, it is also their moral shortcomings which
are striking. The suppression of the truth is, of course, as grave an
offense against morals as is the suggestion of the false or even the
lie direct; and these teachers actually propose to teach untruths to
their pupils.
True teachers of history must tell the facts of history; and if they
do not tell the facts both about the wars that were righteous and the
wars that were unrighteous, and about the causes that led to these wars
and to success or defeat in them, they show themselves morally unfit to
train the minds of boys and girls. If in addition to telling the facts
they draw the lessons that should be drawn from the facts, they will
give their pupils a horror of all wars that are entered into wantonly
or with levity or in a spirit of mere brutal aggression or save under
dire necessity. But they will also teach that among the noblest deeds
of mankind are those that have been done in great wars for liberty, in
wars of self-defense, in wars for the relief of oppressed peoples, in
wars for putting an end to wrong-doing in the dark places of the globe.
Any teachers, in school or college, who occupied the position that
these foolish, foolish teachers have sought to take, would be forever
estopped from so much as mentioning Washington and Lincoln; because
their lives are forever associated with great wars for righteousness.
These teachers would be forever estopped from so much as mentioning
the shining names of Marathon and Salamis. They would seek to blind
their pupils’ eyes to the glory held in the deeds and deaths of Joan of
Arc, of Andreas Hofer, of Alfred the Great, of Arnold von Winkelried,
of Kosciusko and Rákóczy. They would be obliged to warn their pupils
against ever reading Schiller’s “William Tell” or the poetry of
Koerner. Such men are deaf to the lament running:
“Oh, why, Patrick Sarsfield, did we let your ships sail,
Across the dark waters from green Innisfail?”
To them Holmes’s ballad of Bunker Hill and Whittier’s “Laus Deo,”
MacMaster’s “Ode to the Old Continentals” and O’Hara’s “Bivouac of the
Dead” are meaningless. Their cold and timid hearts are not stirred by
the surge of the tremendous “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” On them
lessons of careers like those of Timoleon and John Hampden are lost;
in their eyes the lofty self-abnegation of Robert Lee and Stonewall
Jackson was folly; their dull senses do not thrill to the deathless
deaths of the men who died at Thermopylæ and at the Alamo--the fight of
those grim Texans of which it was truthfully said that Thermopylæ had
its messengers of death but the Alamo had none.
It has actually been proposed by some of these shivering apostles of
the gospel of national abjectness that, in view of the destruction that
has fallen on certain peaceful powers of Europe, we should abandon all
efforts at self-defense, should stop building battle-ships, and cease
to take any measures to defend ourselves if attacked. It is difficult
seriously to consider such a proposition. It is precisely and exactly
as if the inhabitants of a village in whose neighborhood highway
robberies had occurred should propose to meet the crisis by depriving
the local policeman of his revolver and club.
There are, however, many high-minded people who do not agree with
these extremists, but who nevertheless need to be enlightened as to
the actual facts. These good people, who are busy people and not able
to devote much time to thoughts about international affairs, are often
confused by men whose business it is to know better. For example, a
few weeks ago these good people were stirred to a moment’s belief
that something had been accomplished by the enactment at Washington
of a score or two of all-inclusive arbitration treaties; being not
unnaturally misled by the fact that those responsible for the passage
of the treaties indulged in some not wholly harmless bleating as
to the good effects they would produce. As a matter of fact, they
_probably_ will not produce the smallest effect of any kind or sort.
Yet it is _possible_ they may have a mischievous effect, inasmuch
as under certain circumstances to fulfil them would cause frightful
disaster to the United States, while to break them, even although under
compulsion and because it was absolutely necessary, would be fruitful
of keen humiliation to every right-thinking man who is jealous of our
international good name.
If for example, whatever the outcome of the present war, a great
triumphant military despotism declared that it would not recognize
the Monroe Doctrine or seized Magdalena Bay, or one of the Dutch West
Indies, or the Island of St. Thomas, and fortified it; or if--as would
be quite possible--it announced that we had no right to fortify the
Isthmus of Panama, and itself landed on adjacent territory to erect
similar fortifications; then, under these absurd treaties, we would
be obliged, if we happened to have made one of them with one of the
countries involved, to go into an interminable discussion of the
subject before a joint commission, while the hostile nation proceeded
to make its position impregnable. It seems incredible that the United
States government could have made such treaties; but it has just done
so, with the warm approval of the professional pacificists.
These treaties were entered into when the administration had before
its eyes at that very moment the examples of Belgium and Luxembourg,
which showed beyond possibility of doubt, especially when taken in
connection with other similar incidents that have occurred during the
last couple of decades, that there are various great military empires
in the Old World who will pay not one moment’s heed to the most solemn
and binding treaty, if it is to their interest to break it. If any
one of these empires, as the result of the present contest, obtains
something approaching to a position of complete predominance in the
Old World, it is absolutely certain that it would pay no heed whatever
to these treaties, if it desired to better its position in the New
World by taking possession of the Dutch or Danish West Indies or of the
territory of some weak American state on the mainland of the continent.
In such event we would be obliged either instantly ourselves to
repudiate the scandalous treaties by which the government at Washington
has just sought to tie our hands--and thereby expose ourselves in our
turn to the charge of bad faith--or else we should have to abdicate our
position as a great power and submit to abject humiliation.
Since these articles of mine were written and published, I am glad to
see that James Bryce, a lifelong advocate of peace and the stanchest
possible friend of the United States, has taken precisely the position
herein taken. He dwells, as I have dwelt, upon the absolute need of
protecting small states that behave themselves from absorption in
great military empires. He insists, as I have insisted, upon the need
of the reduction of armaments, the quenching of the baleful spirit of
militarism, and the admission of the peoples everywhere to a fuller
share in the control of foreign policy--all to be accomplished by
some kind of international league of peace. He adds, however, as the
culminating and most important portion of his article:
“But no scheme for preventing future wars will have any chance of
success unless it rests upon the assurance that the states which enter
it will loyally and steadfastly abide by it and that each and all of
them will join in coercing by their overwhelming united strength any
state which may disregard the obligations it has undertaken.”
This is almost exactly what I have said. Indeed, it is almost word for
word what I have said--an agreement which is all the more striking
because when he wrote it Lord Bryce could not have known what I
had written. We must insist on righteousness first and foremost.
We must strive for peace always; but we must never hesitate to put
righteousness above peace. In order to do this, we must put force back
of righteousness, for, as the world now is, national righteousness
without force back of it speedily becomes a matter of derision. To the
doctrine that might makes right, it is utterly useless to oppose the
doctrine of right unbacked by might.
It is not even true that what the pacificists desire is right. The
leaders of the pacificists of this country who for five months now have
been crying, “Peace, peace,” have been too timid even to say that
they want the peace to be a righteous one. We needlessly dignify such
outcries when we speak of them as well-meaning. The weaklings who raise
their shrill piping for a peace that shall consecrate successful wrong
occupy a position quite as immoral as and infinitely more contemptible
than the position of the wrong-doers themselves. The ruthless strength
of the great absolutist leaders--Elizabeth of England, Catherine of
Russia, Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Bismarck--is
certainly infinitely better for their own nations and is probably
better for mankind at large than the loquacious impotence, ultimately
trouble-breeding, which has recently marked our own international
policy. A policy of blood and iron is sometimes very wicked; but it
rarely does as much harm, and never excites as much derision, as a
policy of milk and water--and it comes dangerously near flattery to
call the foreign policy of the United States under President Wilson
and Mr. Bryan merely one of milk and water. Strength at least commands
respect; whereas the prattling feebleness that dares not rebuke any
concrete wrong, and whose proposals for right are marked by sheer
fatuity, is fit only to excite weeping among angels and among men the
bitter laughter of scorn.
At this moment any peace which leaves unredressed the wrongs of
Belgium, and which does not effectively guarantee Belgium and all other
small nations that behave themselves, against the repetition of such
wrongs would be a well-nigh unmixed evil. As far as we personally are
concerned, such a peace would inevitably mean that we should at once
and in haste have to begin to arm ourselves or be exposed in our turn
to the most frightful risk of disaster. Let our people take thought
for the future. What Germany did to Belgium because her need was great
and because she possessed the ruthless force with which to meet her
need she would, of course, do to us if her need demanded it; and in
such event what her representatives now say as to her intentions toward
America would trouble her as little as her signature to the neutrality
treaties troubled her when she subjugated Belgium. Nor does she stand
alone in her views of international morality. More than one of the
great powers engaged in this war has shown by her conduct in the past
that if it profited her she would without the smallest scruple treat
any land in the two Americas as Belgium has been treated. What has
recently happened in the Old World should be pondered deeply by the
nations of the New World; by Chile, Argentina, and Brazil no less than
by the United States. The world war has proved beyond peradventure that
the principle underlying the Monroe Doctrine is of vast moment to the
welfare of all America, and that neither this nor any other principle
can be made effective save as power is put behind it.
Belgium was absolutely innocent of offense. Her cities have been laid
waste or held to ransom for gigantic sums of money; her fruitful
fields have been trampled into mire; her sons have died on the field
of battle; her daughters are broken-hearted fugitives; a million of
her people have fled to foreign lands. Entirely disregarding all
accusations as to outrages on individuals, it yet remains true that
disaster terrible beyond belief has befallen this peaceful nation
of six million people who themselves had been guilty of not even
the smallest wrong-doing. Louvain and Dinant are smoke-grimed and
blood-stained ruins. Brussels has been held to enormous ransom,
although it did not even strive to defend itself. Antwerp did strive
to defend itself. Because soldiers in the forts attempted to repulse
the enemy, hundreds of houses in the undefended city were wrecked with
bombs from air-ships, and throngs of peaceful men, women, and children
were driven from their homes by the sharp terror of death. Be it
remembered always that not one man in Brussels, not one man in Antwerp,
had even the smallest responsibility for the disaster inflicted upon
them. Innocence has proved not even the smallest safeguard against
such woe and suffering as we in this land can at present hardly imagine.
What befell Antwerp and Brussels will surely some day befall New York
or San Francisco, and may happen to many an inland city also, if we
do not shake off our supine folly, if we trust for safety to peace
treaties unbacked by force. At the beginning of last month, by the
appointment of the President, peace services were held in the churches
of this land. As far as these services consisted of sermons and prayers
of good and wise people who wished peace only if it represented
righteousness, who did not desire that peace should come unless it
came to consecrate justice and not wrong-doing, good and not evil,
the movement represented good. In so far, however, as the movement
was understood to be one for immediate peace without any regard to
righteousness or justice, without any regard for righting the wrongs of
those who have been crushed by unmerited disaster, then the movement
represented mischief, precisely as fifty years ago, in 1864, in our own
country a similar movement for peace, to be obtained by acknowledgment
of disunion and by the perpetuation of slavery, would have represented
mischief. In the present case, however, the mischief was confined
purely to those taking part in the movement in an unworthy spirit; for
(like the peace parades and newspaper peace petitions) it was a merely
subjective phenomenon; it had not the slightest effect of any kind,
sort, or description upon any of the combatants abroad and could not
possibly have any effect upon them. It is well for our own sakes that
we should pray sincerely and humbly for the peace of righteousness; but
we must guard ourselves from any illusion as to the news of our having
thus prayed producing the least effect upon those engaged in the war.
There is just one way in which to meet the upholders of the doctrine
that might makes right. To do so we must prove that right will make
might, by backing right with might.
In his second inaugural address Andrew Jackson laid down the rule by
which every national American administration ought to guide itself,
saying: “The foreign policy adopted by our government is to do justice
to all, and to submit to wrong by none.”
The statement of the dauntless old fighter of New Orleans is as true
now as when he wrote it. We must stand absolutely for righteousness.
But to do so is utterly without avail unless we possess the strength
and the loftiness of spirit which will back righteousness with deeds
and not mere words. We must clear the rubbish from off our souls and
admit that everything that has been done in passing peace treaties,
arbitration treaties, neutrality treaties, Hague treaties, and the
like, with no sanction of force behind them, amounts to literally and
absolutely zero, to literally and absolutely nothing, in any time of
serious crisis. We must recognize that to enter into foolish treaties
which cannot be kept is as wicked as to break treaties which can and
ought to be kept. We must labor for an international agreement among
the great civilized nations which shall put the full force of all of
them back of any one of them, and of any well-behaved weak nation,
which is wronged by any other power. Until we have completed this
purpose, we must keep ourselves ready, high of heart and undaunted of
soul, to back our rights with our strength.