Republics among the great powers of the world. The ancient friendship
between France and the United States has been, on the whole, a sincere
and disinterested friendship. A calamity to you would be a sorrow to
us. But it would be more than that. In the seething turmoil of the
history of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar
power or charm, some special gift of beauty or wisdom or strength,
which puts them among the immortals, which makes them rank forever
with the leaders of mankind. France is one of these nations. For her
to sink would be a loss to all the world. There are certain lessons of
brilliance and of generous gallantry that she can teach better than
any of her sister nations. When the French peasantry sang of
Malbrook, it was to tell how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight
upward through the laurels he had won. Nearly seven centuries ago,
Froissart, writing of a time of dire disaster, said that the realm of
France was never so stricken that there were not left men who would
valiantly fight for it. You have had a great past. I believe that you
will have a great future. Long may you carry yourselves proudly as
citizens of a nation which bears a leading part in the teaching and
uplifting of mankind.
* * * * *
INTERNATIONAL PEACE
An Address before the Nobel Prize Committee Delivered at Christiania,
Norway, May 5, 1910
It is with peculiar pleasure that I stand here to-day to express the
deep appreciation I feel of the high honor conferred upon me by the
presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize.[7] The gold medal which formed
part of the prize I shall always keep, and I shall hand it on to my
children as a precious heirloom. The sum of money provided as part of
the prize by the wise generosity of the illustrious founder of this
world-famous prize system I did not, under the peculiar circumstances
of the case, feel at liberty to keep. I think it eminently just and
proper that in most cases the recipient of the prize should keep for
his own use the prize in its entirety. But in this case, while I did
not act officially as President of the United States, it was
nevertheless only because I was President that I was enabled to act at
all; and I felt that the money must be considered as having been given
me in trust for the United States. I therefore used it as a nucleus
for a foundation to forward the cause of industrial peace, as being
well within the general purpose of your Committee; for in our complex
industrial civilization of to-day the peace of righteousness and
justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary
in the industrial world as it is among nations. There is at least as
much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world
of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world
of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in
international relationships.
[7] Awarded to Mr. Roosevelt for his acts as mediator between
Russia and Japan which resulted in the Treaty of Portsmouth and
the ending of the Russo-Japanese war.--L.F.A.
We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness,
justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead
our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of
brotherly good-will one for another. Peace is generally good in
itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the
handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it
serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument
to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the
bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life;
but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth
calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see
those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist
if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this
without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless
and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and
soft effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted
sentimentality.
Moreover, and above all, let us remember that words count only when
they give expression to deeds or are to be translated into them. The
leaders of the Red Terror prattled of peace while they steeped their
hands in the blood of the innocent; and many a tyrant has called it
peace when he has scourged honest protest into silence. Our words must
be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use
practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must
advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do
actually make some progress in the right direction.
Now, having freely admitted the limitations to our work, and the
qualifications to be borne in mind, I feel that I have the right to
have my words taken seriously when I point out where, in my judgment,
great advance can be made in the cause of international peace. I speak
as a practical man, and whatever I now advocate I actually tried to do
when I was for the time being the head of a great nation, and keenly
jealous of its honor and interest. I ask other nations to do only what
I should be glad to see my own nation do.
The advance can be made along several lines. First of all, there can
be treaties of arbitration. There are, of course, states so backward
that a civilized community ought not to enter into an arbitration
treaty with them, at least until we have gone much further than at
present in securing some kind of international police action. But all
really civilized communities should have effective arbitration
treaties among themselves. I believe that these treaties can cover
almost all questions liable to arise between such nations, if they are
drawn with the explicit agreement that each contracting party will
respect the other's territory and its absolute sovereignty within
that territory, and the equally explicit agreement that (aside from
the very rare cases where the nation's honor is vitally concerned) all
other possible subjects of controversy will be submitted to
arbitration. Such a treaty would insure peace unless one party
deliberately violated it. Of course, as yet there is no adequate
safeguard against such deliberate violation, but the establishment of
a sufficient number of these treaties would go a long way towards
creating a world opinion which would finally find expression in the
provision of methods to forbid or punish any such violation.
Secondly, there is the further development of The Hague Tribunal, of
the work of the conferences and courts at The Hague. It has been well
said that the first Hague Conference framed a Magna Charta for the
nations; it set before us an ideal which has already to some extent
been realized, and towards the full realization of which we can all
steadily strive. The second Conference made further progress; the
third should do yet more. Meanwhile the American Government has more
than once tentatively suggested methods for completing the Court of
Arbitral Justice, constituted at the second Hague Conference, and for
rendering it effective. It is earnestly to be hoped that the various
Governments of Europe, working with those of America and of Asia,
shall set themselves seriously to the task of devising some method
which shall accomplish this result. If I may venture the suggestion,
it would be well for the statesmen of the world in planning for the
erection of this world court, to study what has been done in the
United States by the Supreme Court. I cannot help thinking that the
Constitution of the United States, notably in the establishment of the
Supreme Court and in the methods adopted for securing peace and good
relations among and between the different States, offers certain
valuable analogies to what should be striven for in order to secure,
through The Hague courts and conferences, a species of world
federation for international peace and justice. There are, of course,
fundamental differences between what the United States Constitution
does and what we should even attempt at this time to secure at The
Hague; but the methods adopted in the American Constitution to prevent
hostilities between the States, and to secure the supremacy of the
Federal Court in certain classes of cases, are well worth the study
of those who seek at The Hague to obtain the same results on a world
scale.
In the third place, something should be done as soon as possible to
check the growth of armaments, especially naval armaments, by
international agreement. No one Power could or should act by itself;
for it is eminently undesirable, from the standpoint of the peace of
righteousness, that a Power which really does believe in peace should
place itself at the mercy of some rival which may at bottom have no
such belief and no intention of acting on it. But, granted sincerity
of purpose, the great Powers of the world should find no
insurmountable difficulty in reaching an agreement which would put an
end to the present costly and growing extravagance of expenditure on
naval armaments. An agreement merely to limit the size of ships would
have been very useful a few years ago, and would still be of use; but
the agreement should go much further.
Finally, it would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly
bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace
among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being
broken by others. The supreme difficulty in connection with developing
the peace work of The Hague arises from the lack of any executive
power, of any police power, to enforce the decrees of the court. In
any community of any size the authority of the courts rests upon
actual or potential force; on the existence of a police, or on the
knowledge that the able-bodied men of the country are both ready and
willing to see that the decrees of judicial and legislative bodies are
put into effect. In new and wild communities where there is violence,
an honest man must protect himself; and until other means of securing
his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to persuade him
to surrender his arms while the men who are dangerous to the community
retain theirs. He should not renounce the right to protect himself by
his own efforts until the community is so organized that it can
effectively relieve the individual of the duty of putting down
violence. So it is with nations. Each nation must keep well prepared
to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international
police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between
nations. As things are now, such power to command peace throughout the
world could best be assured by some combination between those great
nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought themselves
of committing aggressions. The combination might at first be only to
secure peace within certain definite limits and certain definite
conditions; but the ruler or statesman who should bring about such a
combination would have earned his place in history for all time and
his title to the gratitude of all mankind.
* * * * *
THE COLONIAL POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES
An Address Delivered at Christiania, Norway, on the Evening of May 5,
1910
When I first heard that I was to speak again this evening, my heart
failed me. But directly after hearing Mr. Bratlie[8] I feel that it is
a pleasure to say one or two things; and before saying them, let me
express my profound acknowledgment for your words. You have been not
only more than just but more than generous. Because I have been so
kindly treated, I am going to trespass on your kindness still further,
and say a word or two about my own actions while I was President. I do
not speak of them, my friends, save to illustrate the thesis that I
especially uphold, that the man who has the power to act is to be
judged not by his words but by his acts--by his words in so far as
they agree with his acts. All that I say about peace I wish to have
judged and measured by what I actually did as President.
[8] See the Introduction.--L.F.A.
I was particularly pleased by what you said about our course, the
course of the American people, in connection with the Philippines and
Cuba. I believe that we have the Cuban Minister here with us to-night?
[A voice: "Yes."] Well, then, we have a friend who can check off what
I am going to say. At the close of the war of '98 we found our army in
possession of Cuba, and man after man among the European diplomats of
the old school said to me: "Oh, you will never go out of Cuba. You
said you would, of course, but that is quite understood; nations don't
expect promises like that to be kept." As soon as I became President,
I said, "Now you will see that the promise will be kept." We appointed
a day when we would leave Cuba. On that day Cuba began its existence
as an independent republic. Later there came a disaster, there came a
revolution, and we were obliged to land troops again, while I was
President, and then the same gentlemen with whom I had conversed
before said: "Now you are relieved from your promise; your promise has
been kept, and now you will stay in Cuba." I answered: "No, we shall
not. We will keep the promise not only in the letter but in the
spirit. We will stay in Cuba to help it on its feet, and then we will
leave the island in better shape to maintain its permanent independent
existence." And before I left the Presidency Cuba resumed its career
as a separate republic, holding its head erect as a sovereign state
among the other nations of the earth. All that our people want is just
exactly what the Cuban people themselves want--that is, a continuance
of order within the island, and peace and prosperity, so that there
shall be no shadow of an excuse for any outside intervention.
We acted along the same general lines in the case of San Domingo. We
intervened only so far as to prevent the need of taking possession of
the island. None of you will know of this, so I will just tell you
briefly what it was that we did. The Republic of San Domingo, in the
West Indies, had suffered from a good many revolutions. In one
particular period when I had to deal with the island, while I was
President, it was a little difficult to know what to do, because there
were two separate governments in the island, and a revolution going on
against each. A number of dictators, under the title of President, had
seized power at different times, had borrowed money at exorbitant
rates of interest from Europeans and Americans, and had pledged the
custom-houses of the different towns to different countries; and the
chief object of each revolutionary was to get hold of the
custom-houses. Things got to such a pass that it became evident that
certain European Powers would land and take possession of parts of the
island. We then began negotiations with the Government of the island.
We sent down ships to keep within limits various preposterous little
manifestations of the revolutionary habit, and, after some
negotiations, we concluded an agreement. It was agreed that we should
put a man in as head of the custom-houses, that the collection of
customs should be entirely under the management of that man, and that
no one should be allowed to interfere with the custom-houses.
Revolutions could go on outside them without interference from us; but
the custom-houses were not to be touched. We agreed to turn over to
the San Domingo Government forty-five per cent. of the revenue,
keeping fifty-five per cent. as a fund to be applied to a settlement
with the creditors. The creditors also acquiesced in what we had done,
and we started the new arrangement. I found considerable difficulty
in getting the United States Senate to ratify the treaty, but I went
ahead anyhow and executed it until it was ratified. Finally it was
ratified, for the opposition was a purely factious opposition,
representing the smallest kind of politics with a leaven of even baser
motive. Under the treaty we have turned over to the San Domingo
Government forty-five per cent. of the revenues collected, and yet we
have turned over nearly double as much as they ever got when they
collected it _all_ themselves. In addition, we have collected
sufficient to make it certain that the creditors will receive every
cent to which they are entitled. It is self-evident, therefore, that
in this affair we gave a proof of our good faith. We might have taken
possession of San Domingo. Instead of thus taking possession, we put
into the custom-houses one head man and half a dozen assistants, to
see that the revenues were honestly collected, and at the same time
served notice that they should not be forcibly taken away; and the
result has been an extraordinary growth of the tranquillity and
prosperity of the islands, while at the same time the creditors are
equally satisfied, and all danger of outside interference has ceased.
That incident illustrates two things: First, if a nation acts in good
faith, it can often bring about peace without abridging the liberties
of another nation. Second, our experience emphasizes the fact (which
every Peace Association should remember) that the hysterical
sentimentalist for peace is a mighty poor person to follow. I was
actually assailed, right and left, by the more extreme members of the
peace propaganda in the United States for what I did in San Domingo;
most of the other professional peace advocates took no interest in the
matter, or were tepidly hostile; however, I went straight ahead and
did the job. The ultra-peace people attacked me on the ground that I
had "declared war" against San Domingo, the "war" taking the shape of
the one man put in charge of the custom-houses! This will seem to you
incredible, but I am giving you an absolutely accurate account of what
occurred. I disregarded those foolish people, as I shall always
disregard sentimentalists of that type when they are guilty of folly.
At the present we have comparative peace and prosperity in the island,
in consequence of my action, and of my disregard of these self-styled
advocates of peace.
The same reasoning applies in connection with what we did at the
Isthmus of Panama, and what we are doing in the Philippines. Our
colonial problems in the Philippines are not the same as the colonial
problems of other Powers. We have in the Philippines a people mainly
Asiatic in blood, but with a streak of European blood and with the
traditions of European culture, so that their ideals are largely the
ideals of Europe. At the moment when we entered the islands the people
were hopelessly unable to stand alone. If we had abandoned the
islands, we should have left them a prey to anarchy for some months,
and then they would have been seized by some other Power ready to
perform the task that we had not been able to perform. Now I hold that
it is not worth while being a big nation if you cannot do a big task;
I care not whether that task is digging the Panama Canal or handling
the Philippines. In the Philippines I feel that the day will
ultimately come when the Philippine people must settle for themselves
whether they wish to be entirely independent, or in some shape to keep
up a connection with us. The day has not yet come; it may not come for
a generation or two. One of the greatest friends that liberty has ever
had, the great British statesman Burke, said on one occasion that
there must always be government, and that if there is not government
from within, then it must be supplied from without. A child has to be
governed from without, because it has not yet grown to a point when it
can govern itself from within; and a people that shows itself totally
unable to govern itself from within must expect to submit to more or
less of government from without, because it cannot continue to exist
on other terms--indeed, it cannot be permitted permanently to exist as
a source of danger to other nations. Our aim in the Philippines is to
train the people so that they may govern themselves from within. Until
they have reached this point they cannot have self-government. I will
never advocate self-government for a people so long as their
self-government means crime, violence, and extortion, corruption
within, lawlessness among themselves and towards others. If that is
what self-government means to any people then they ought to be
governed by others until they can do better.
What I have related represents a measure of practical achievement in
the way of helping forward the cause of peace and justice, and of
giving to different peoples freedom of action according to the
capacities of each. It is not possible, as the world is now
constituted, to treat every nation as one private individual can treat
all other private individuals, because as yet there is no way of
enforcing obedience to law among nations as there is among private
individuals. If in the streets of this city a man walks about with the
intent to kill somebody, if he manages his house so that it becomes a
source of infection to the neighborhood, the community, with its law
officers, deals with him forthwith. That is just what happened at
Panama, and, as nobody else was able to deal with the matter, I dealt
with it myself, on behalf of the United States Government, and now the
Canal is being dug, and the people of Panama have their independence
and a prosperity hitherto unknown in that country.
In the end, I firmly believe that some method will be devised by which
the people of the world, as a whole, will be able to insure peace, as
it cannot now be insured. How soon that end will come I do not know;
it may be far distant; and until it does come I think that, while we
should give all the support that we can to any possible feasible
scheme for quickly bringing about such a state of affairs, yet we
should meanwhile do the more practicable, though less sensational,
things. Let us advance step by step; let us, for example, endeavor to
increase the number of arbitration treaties and enlarge the methods
for obtaining peaceful settlements. Above all, let us strive to awaken
the public international conscience, so that it shall be expected, and
expected efficiently, of the public men responsible for the management
of any nation's affairs that those affairs shall be conducted with all
proper regard for the interests and well-being of other Powers, great
or small.
* * * * *
THE WORLD MOVEMENT
An Address Delivered at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910
I very highly appreciate the chance to address the University of
Berlin in the year that closes its first centenary of existence. It is
difficult for you in the Old World fully to appreciate the feelings of
a man who comes from a nation still in the making, to a country with
an immemorial historic past; and especially is this the case when that
country, with its ancient past behind it, yet looks with proud
confidence into the future, and in the present shows all the abounding
vigor of lusty youth. Such is the case with Germany. More than a
thousand years have passed since the Roman Empire of the West became
in fact a German Empire. Throughout mediæval times the Empire and the
Papacy were the two central features in the history of the Occident.
With the Ottos and the Henrys began the slow rise of that Western
life which has shaped modern Europe, and therefore ultimately the
whole modern world. Their task was to organize society and to keep it
from crumbling to pieces. They were castle-builders, city-founders,
road-makers; they battled to bring order out of the seething
turbulence around them; and at the same time they first beat back
heathendom and then slowly wrested from it its possessions.
After the downfall of Rome and the breaking in sunder of the Roman
Empire, the first real crystallization of the forces that were working
for a new uplift of civilization in Western Europe was round the
Karling House, and, above all, round the great Emperor, Karl the
Great, the seat of whose Empire was at Aachen. Under the Karlings the
Arab and the Moor were driven back beyond the Pyrenees; the last of
the old heathen Germans were forced into Christianity, and the Avars,
wild horsemen from the Asian steppes, who had long held tented
dominion in Middle Europe, were utterly destroyed. With the break-up
of the Karling Empire came chaos once more, and a fresh inrush of
savagery: Vikings from the frozen North, and new hordes of outlandish
riders from Asia. It was the early Emperors of Germany proper who
quelled these barbarians; in their time Dane and Norseman and Magyar
became Christians, and most of the Slav peoples as well, so that
Europe began to take on a shape which we can recognize to-day. Since
then the centuries have rolled by, with strange alternations of
fortune, now well-nigh barren, and again great with German achievement
in arms and in government, in science and the arts. The centre of
power shifted hither and thither within German lands; the great house
of Hohenzollern rose, the house which has at last seen Germany spring
into a commanding position in the very forefront among the nations of
mankind.