we think can be done and the things that we think cannot be done in
making a league of nations. In the first place, we ought to realize
that the population of the world clearly understands that in this
war they have been involved to a degree never hitherto known. In
consequence the horror of the war is very real, and people are at
least thinking of the need of coöperation with much greater fixity of
purpose and of understanding than ever before. Of course, fundamentally
war and peace are matters of the heart rather than of organization,
and any declaration or peace league which represents the high-flown
sentimentality of pacifists and doctrinaires will be worse than
useless; but if, without in the smallest degree sacrificing our belief
in a sound and intense national aim, we all join with the people of
England, France, and Italy and with the people in smaller states who
in practice show themselves able to steer equally clear of Bolshevism
and of Kaiserism, we may be able to make a real and much-needed advance
in the international organization. The United States cannot again
completely withdraw into its shell. We need not mix in all European
quarrels nor assume all spheres of interest everywhere to be ours,
but we ought to join with the other civilized nations of the world in
some scheme that in a time of great stress would offer a likelihood of
obtaining just settlements that will avert war.
Therefore, in my judgment, the United States at the peace conference
ought to be able to coöperate effectively with the British and French
and Italian Governments to support a practical and effective plan
which won’t attempt the impossible, but which will represent a real
step forward.
Probably the first essential would be to limit the league at the outset
to the Allies, to the peoples with whom we have been operating and with
whom we are certain we can coöperate in the future. Neither Turkey nor
Austria need now be considered as regards such a league, and we should
clearly understand that Bolshevist Russia is, and that Bolshevist
Germany would be, as undesirable in such a league as the Germany and
Russia of the Hohenzollerns and Romanoffs. Bolshevism is just as much
an international menace as Kaiserism. Until Germany and Russia have
proved by a course of conduct extending over years that they are
capable of entering such a league in good faith, so that we can count
upon their fulfilling their duties in it, it would be merely foolish to
take them in.
The league, therefore, would have to be based on the combination
among the Allies of the present war--together with any peoples like
the Czecho-Slovaks, who have shown that they are fully entitled to
enter into such a league if they desire to do so. Each nation should
absolutely reserve to itself its right to establish its own tariff and
general economic policy, and absolutely ought to control such vital
questions as immigration and citizenship and the form of government it
prefers. Then it would probably be best for certain spheres of interest
to be reserved to each nation or a group of nations.
The northernmost portion of South America and Mexico and Central
America, all of them fronting on the Panama Canal, have a special
interest to the United States, more interest than they can have for
any European or Asiatic power. The general conduct of Eastern Asiatic
policy bears a most close relationship to Japan. The same thing is
true as regards other nations and certain of the peculiarly African
and European questions. Everything outside of what is thus reserved,
which affects any two members of the league or affects one member of
the league and outsiders, should be decided by some species of court,
and all the people of the league should guarantee to use their whole
strength in enforcing the decision.
This, of course, means that all the free peoples must keep reasonably
prepared for defense and for helping well-behaved nations against the
nations or hordes which represent despotism, barbarism, and anarchy.
As far as the United States is concerned, I believe we should keep our
navy to the highest possible point of efficiency and have it second in
size to that of Great Britain alone, and we should then have universal
obligatory military training for all our young men for a period of,
say, nine months during some one year between the ages of nineteen and
twenty-three inclusive. This would not represent militarism, but an
antidote against militarism. It would not represent a great expense. On
the contrary, it would mean to give to every citizen of our country an
education which would fit him to do his work as a citizen as no other
type of education could.
There are some nations with which there would not be the slightest
difficulty in going much further than this. The time has now come when
it would be perfectly safe to enter into universal arbitration treaties
with the British Empire, for example, reserving such rights only as
Australia and Canada themselves would reserve inside the British
Empire; but there are a number of outside peoples with whom it would
not be safe to go much further than above outlined. If we only made
this one kind of agreement, we could keep it, and we should make no
agreement that we would not and could not keep. More essential than
anything else is it for us to remember that in matters of this kind
an ounce of practical performance is worth a ton of windy rhetorical
promises.
AN AMERICAN CONGRESS
NOVEMBER 18, 1918
The election of a Republican Congress a fortnight ago was first and
foremost a victory for straight Americanism. To the Republican Party
it represents not so much a victory as an opportunity. To the American
people, including not only Republicans and independents, but all
patriotic Democrats who put loyalty to the Nation above servility to
a political leader, the victory was primarily won for straight-out
Americanism. A very important feature to remember is that this victory
was won in the West. On the whole, the East also showed gains, but
the greatest gains were in the West. The South, of course, and most
unfortunately, never permits its political or patriotic convictions to
alter the result at the ballot box.
Now the Westerners, the strong, masterful, self-reliant men who won
such exacting victories in Kansas, Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, and
South Dakota, are just as opposed to what may be called Kaiserism in
our political and industrial life as they are to Bolshevism. I firmly
believe that this is true of the rank and file of the Republican Party
everywhere. They haven’t the slightest patience with Townleyism in
agricultural districts or I.W.W.-ism in labor circles. But resolutely
they intend to shape our internal policy for the real substantial
benefit of the average man, of the ninety per cent of our people
who are farmers, working-men, small shopkeepers, doctors, and the
like. They haven’t the slightest patience with the Bolshevist desire
to establish proletariat class tyranny, which is just as odious as
aristocratic class tyranny. They haven’t the slightest patience in
persecution of, or failure generously to reward, the man who by nature
or by training is a leader in industrial matters. They want to see
farming, for instance, offer a chance to the man of ability to become a
scientific farmer on a large scale. They wish to see the young business
man whose leadership in manufactures or commerce is of incalculable
worth to everybody receive in generous fashion the big reward to which
he is entitled.
But they wish to do all this as an incident to securing not only
this right to, but a much better chance for, the average man. They
wish the tenant farmer class to be made a diminishing instead of an
increasing class so that tenant farming itself may not be a permanent
status, but a step toward farm ownership by the hired man or the
son of the small farm owner. They wish to see the working-man, and
especially the working-man in such huge businesses as those connected
with transportation, steel production, mining, and the like, become
not a mere cog in an industrial machine, but a man whose self-respect
and reasonable prosperity are guaranteed if the business succeeds,
and he is entitled through representation on the directory to have
his voice heard at the council board of the business, even although
at first and until the ability to use power is slowly developed by
the habit of using it, the control may have to do primarily with the
things of which he has special knowledge and in which he has special
interest. Moreover, there are plenty of great natural resources, such
as water power, where small ownership cannot provide capital for the
development, but where the outright ownership of the people should not
be disposed of. The happy line must be struck between the all-pervading
straight regimentation, which would be as deadening as paralysis, and
the regimentation of mere individualism. The Government must exercise
control in a spirit of justice to all concerned and with a stern
readiness to check injustice by any of those concerned.
The Republican leadership in Congress has on the whole been singularly
patriotic and singularly free from the vice of mere partisanship during
the lifetime of the present Congress. We can be certain that it will
continue to be so in the new Congress. In the future as in the past
the President can count on the hearty and ungrudging support of the
Republican Party at every point where he is endeavoring efficiently
and in good faith to serve the interests of the Nation. But he can
also rest assured that the Republican Party will judge its duty by
the standard of loyalty to the country and will scornfully refuse
to adopt that extreme baseness of attitude, worthy only of slaves,
which shrieks that we must stand by the Administration whether the
Administration is right or wrong. Moreover, the Republican Party will
certainly demand to have an accounting of some of the enormous sums of
money that have been expended and will in due time doubtless demand
to know what explanation there is of the Administration’s persistence
in hidden and secret diplomacy in so many important matters. Every
question will be approached from the standpoint of a generous desire,
without any higgling or dealing on small points, to do whatever the
Administration demands that is proper and to give it a full chance to
declare, and perhaps develop, its policy; but the Republican Congress
will understand how to show that it is not a rubber-stamp body, but an
integral and self-respecting part of the American governmental system,
wholly and solely responsible to the American people.
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AND THE ENSLAVEMENT OF MANKIND
NOVEMBER 22, 1918
The surest way to kill a great cause is to reduce it to a hard-and-fast
formula and insist upon the application of the formula without regard
to actual existing conditions.
It is announced in the press that the President is going to the Peace
Conference especially to insist, among other things, on that one of his
fourteen points dealing with the so-called “freedom of the seas.” The
President’s position in the matter is, of course, eagerly championed by
Germany, as it has been Germany’s special position throughout the war.
It is, of course, eagerly championed by the New York World, the Hearst
papers, and all the rubber-stamp gentry. It is antagonized by England
and France and by every anti-German in America who understands the
situation.
It is utterly impossible, in view of the immense rapidity of the change
in modern war conditions, to formulate abstract policies about such
matters as contraband and blockades. These policies must be actually
tested in order to see how they work. Both England and the United
States have reversed themselves in this matter on several different
occasions. This is interesting as a matter of history, but from no
other standpoint. If we are honorable and intelligent we will follow
the course in this matter which, under existing conditions at this
time, seems most likely to work justice in the immediate future.
Germany’s position was that England had no right to blockade her so as
to cut off her supplies from the outside world. President Wilson at
the time accepted this view and talked a good deal about the freedom
of the seas. Meanwhile Germany, through her submarines, began an
unprecedented course of wholesale murder on the seas. President Wilson
protested against this in language much more apologetic and tender than
he had used in protesting against Great Britain blockading Germany in
what was essentially the same manner in which we blockaded the South
during the Civil War. He put the dollar above the man and incidentally
above the women and the children. He protested more vigorously upon the
interference with American goods than against the taking of American
lives.
Then we finally went to war with Germany ourselves. We instantly
adopted toward Germany and toward neutrals like Holland exactly the
position which President Wilson had been denouncing England for
adopting toward Germany and toward us. Our action in this case was
quite right, whereas our protest against England’s action had been
entirely wrong.
President Wilson now proposes to accept the German view and provide a
system which, if it had been in existence in 1914, would have meant
the inevitable and rapid triumph of Germany.
If this particular one of the proposed fourteen points had been in
treaty form and had been lived up to in 1914, Germany would have had
free access to the outside world. England’s fleet would not have
enabled her to bring economic pressure to bear upon Germany and
doubtless Germany would have won an overwhelming victory within a
couple of years. Therefore Mr. Wilson’s proposal is that now, when
no human being can foretell whether Germany will feel chastened and
morally changed, we shall take steps which will mean that if the war
has to be fought over again, Germany’s triumph will have been secured
in advance so far as we are able to secure it. All such conditions, all
merely academic questions as to the attitude of America or of England
before the outbreak of the Great War, are insignificant. Whatever our
views prior to the Great War, we are fools, indeed, if we have not
learned the lessons these last four and a half terrible years have
taught. The freedom of the seas in the sense used by Germany and Mr.
Wilson would have meant the enslavement of mankind to Germany. It
would have meant that this country would at this time either be lying
prostrate under the feet of German invaders or be purchasing peace by
ransoms heavier than were paid by Belgium. No patriotic American has
the right to stand quiet and see the President of the country, without
any warrant from the country, try to bring upon us such outrageous
potentiality and disaster as would be implied in the general
international adoption of the so-called “freedom of the seas.” Such
freedom of the seas means the enslavement of mankind.
PRESIDENT WILSON AND THE PEACE CONFERENCE
NOVEMBER 26, 1918
No public end of any kind will be served by President Wilson’s going
with Mr. Creel, Mr. House, and his other personal friends to the
Peace Conference. Inasmuch as the circumstances of his going are so
extraordinary, and as there is some possibility of mischief to this
country as a result, there are certain facts which should be set forth
so clearly that there can be no possibility of misunderstanding either
by our own people, by our allies, or by our beaten enemies, or by Mr.
Wilson himself.
Ten days before election Mr. Wilson issued an appeal to the American
people in which he frankly abandoned the position of President of the
whole people; assumed the position, not merely of party leader, but
of party dictator, and appealed to the voters as such. Most of Mr.
Wilson’s utterances on public questions have been susceptible to at
least two conflicting interpretations. But on this question he made the
issue absolutely clear. He asked that the people return a Democratic
majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He
stated that the Republican leaders were pro-war, but that they were
anti-Administration. His appeal was not merely against any Republican
being elected, but against any Democrat who wished to retain his
conscience in his own keeping. He declared himself explicitly
against the pro-war Republicans. He declared explicitly for all
pro-Administration Democrats, without any reference as to whether
they were pro-war or anti-war. He said that if the people approved of
his leadership and wished him to continue to be their “unembarrassed
spokesman in affairs at home and abroad, they must return a Democratic
majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives.” He
explicitly stated that on the other side of the water the return of a
Republican majority to either House of Congress would be interpreted
as a repudiation of his leadership, and informed his fellow countrymen
that to elect a Democratic majority in Congress was the only way to
sustain him, Mr. Wilson.
The issue was perfectly, clearly drawn. The Republican Party was
pro-war and anti-Administration, the Democratic Party was officially
pro-Administration without any mind or conscience of its own and
pro-war or anti-war according to the way in which Mr. Wilson changed
his mind overnight or between dawn and sunset. The Americans refused to
sustain Mr. Wilson. They elected a heavily Republican House and to the
surprise of every one carried a majority in the Senate. On Mr. Wilson’s
own say-so they repudiated his leadership. In no other free country in
the world to-day would Mr. Wilson be in office. He would simply be a
private citizen like the rest of us.
Under these circumstances our allies and our enemies, and Mr. Wilson
himself, should all understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority
whatever to speak for the American people at this time. His leadership
has just been emphatically repudiated by them. The newly elected
Congress comes far nearer than Mr. Wilson to having a right to speak
the purposes of the American people at this moment. Mr. Wilson and
his fourteen points and his four supplementary points and his five
complementary points and all his utterances every which way have ceased
to have any shadow of right to be accepted as expressive of the will
of the American people. He is President of the United States, he is
part of the treaty-making power, but he is only part. If he acts in
good faith to the American people, he will not claim on the other
side of the water any representative capacity in himself to speak for
the American people. He will say frankly that his personal leadership
has been repudiated and that he now has merely the divided official
leadership which he shares with the Senate. If he will in good faith
act in this way all good citizens in good faith will support him, just
as they will support the Senate under similar circumstances.
But there isn’t the slightest indication that he intends so to act.
The most striking manifestation of his purpose is that he sent over
Mr. Creel and sixteen of his employees who are officially announced
as “the United States official press mission to the Peace Conference,”
and, with more self-satisfaction, the committee announces, “to
interpret the work of the Peace Conference by keeping up world-wide
propaganda to disseminate American accomplishments and American
ideals.” At the same time Mr. Burleson seized the cables after the war
is over and when there can be no possible object except to control
the news in the interest of President Wilson as Mr. Burleson and Mr.
Creel see that interest. The action of the Creel “official press” would
really seem more like an excessively bad joke if it weren’t so serious.
But during the war the Administration, often incompetent to the verge
of impudence in dealing with war problems and with the Hun within our
gates, showed itself a past-master in bullying, browbeating, deceiving,
and puzzling our own people. It is utterly impossible that the Creel
“official press” and the Burleson-owned cables can have any other real
purpose than to make the news sent out from the Peace Conference, both
to ourselves, our allies, and our enemies, what they desire to have
told from their own standpoint and nothing more.
This is a very grave offense against our own people, but it may be a
worse offense against both our allies and ourselves. America played
in the closing months of the war a gallant part, but not in any way
the leading part, and she played this part only by acting in strictest
agreement with our allies and under the joint high command. She should
take precisely the same attitude at the Peace Conference. We have lost
in this war about two hundred and thirty-six thousand men killed and
wounded. England and France have lost about seven million. Italy and
Belgium and the other Allies have doubtless lost three million more.
Of the terrible sacrifice which has enabled the Allies to win the
victory, America has contributed just about two per cent. At the end,
I personally believe that our intervention was decisive because the
combatants were so equally matched and were so weakened by the terrible
strain that our money and our enthusiasm and the million fighting
men whom we got to the front, even although armed substantially with
nothing but French field cannon, tanks, machine guns, and airplanes,
was decisive in the scale. But we could render this decisive aid only
because for four years the Allies, in keeping Germany from conquering
their own countries, had incidentally kept her from conquering ours.
It is our business to act with our allies and to show an undivided
front with them against any move of our late enemies. I am no Utopian.
I understand entirely that there can be shifting alliances, I
understand entirely that twenty years hence or thirty years hence we
don’t know what combination we may have to face, and for this reason
I wish to see us preparing our own strength in advance and trust to
nothing but our own strength for our own self-defense as our permanent
policy. But in the present war we have won only by standing shoulder
to shoulder with our allies and presenting an undivided front to the
enemy. It is our business to show the same loyalty and good faith at
the Peace Conference. Let it be clearly understood that the American
people absolutely stand behind France, England, Italy, Belgium, and the
other Allies at the Peace Conference, just as she has stood with them
during the last eighteen months of war. Let every difference of opinion
be settled among the Allies themselves and then let them impose their
common will on the nations responsible for the hideous disaster which
has almost wrecked mankind.
THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE
DECEMBER 2, 1918
Ex-Ambassador Harry White is a capital appointee for the Peace
Commission. He is not a Republican, but an independent in politics who
has worked as closely with Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney as with Mr.
McKinley and Mr. Root.
It is a good thing to have him on in view of the exceedingly loose talk
about the League of Nations or League to Enforce Peace. Fortunately
Mr. Taft has set forth the proposal for such a league under existing
conditions with such wisdom in refusing to let adherence to the
principle be clouded by insistence upon improper or unimportant methods
of enforcement that we can speak of the League as a practical matter.
I think that most of our people are in favor of the establishment of
the principle of such a league under common-sense conditions which will
not attempt too much and thereby expose the movement to the absolute
certainty of ridicule and failure. There must be an honest effort
to eliminate some of the causes that may produce future wars and to
minimize the area of such wars.