"THE REAL ISSUE."
Washington, June 10, 1915.
To the American people:
You now have before you the text of the note to Germany--the note
which it would have been my official duty to sign had I remained
Secretary of State. I ask you to sit in judgment upon my decision to
resign rather than to share responsibility for it.
I am sure you will credit me with honorable motives, but that is not
enough. Good intentions could not atone for a mistake at such a time,
on such a subject, and under such circumstances. If your verdict is
against me, I ask no mercy; I desire none if I have acted unwisely.
A man in public life must act according to his conscience, but,
however conscientiously he acts, he must be prepared to accept without
complaint any condemnation which his own errors may bring upon him; he
must be willing to bear any deserved punishment, from ostracism to
execution. But hear me before you pass sentence.
The President and I agree in purpose; we desire a peaceful solution of
the dispute which has arisen between the United States and Germany. We
not only desire it, but, with equal fervor, we pray for it; but we
differ irreconcilably as to the means of securing it.
If it were merely a personal difference, it would be a matter of
little moment, for all the presumptions are on his side--the
presumptions that go with power and authority. He is your President, I
am a private citizen without office or title--but one of the one
hundred million of inhabitants.
But the real issue is not between persons, it is between systems, and
I rely for vindication wholly upon the strength of the position taken.
Among the influences which Governments employ in dealing with each
other there are two which are pre-eminent and antagonistic--force and
persuasion. Force speaks with firmness and acts through the ultimatum;
persuasion employs argument, courts investigation, and depends upon
negotiation. Force represents the old system--the system that must
pass away; persuasion represents the new system--the system that has
been growing, all too slowly, it is true, but growing for 1,900 years.
In the old system war is the chief cornerstone--war, which at its best
is little better than war at its worst; the new system contemplates a
universal brotherhood established through the uplifting power of
example.
If I correctly interpret the note to Germany, it conforms to the
standards of the old system rather than to the rules of the new, and I
cheerfully admit that it is abundantly supported by precedents--precedents
written in characters of blood upon almost every page of human
history. Austria furnishes the most recent precedent; it was Austria's
firmness that dictated the ultimatum against Serbia, which set the
world at war.
Every ruler now participating in this unparalleled conflict has
proclaimed his desire for peace and denied responsibility for the war,
and it is only charitable that we should credit all of them with good
faith. They desired peace, but they sought it according to the rules
of the old system. They believed that firmness would give the best
assurance of the maintenance of peace, and, faithfully following
precedent, they went so near the fire that they were, one after
another, sucked into the contest.
Never before have the frightful follies of this fatal system been so
clearly revealed as now. The most civilized and enlightened--aye, the
most Christian--of the nations of Europe are grappling with each other
as if in a death struggle. They are sacrificing the best and bravest
of their sons on the battlefield; they are converting their gardens
into cemeteries and their homes into houses of mourning; they are
taxing the wealth of today and laying a burden of debt on the toil of
the future; they have filled the air with thunderbolts more deadly
than those of Jove, and they have multiplied the perils of the deep.
Adding fresh fuel to the flame of hate, they have daily devised new
horrors, until one side is endeavoring to drown noncombatant men,
women, and children at sea, while the other side seeks to starve
noncombatant men, women, and children on land. And they are so
absorbed in alternate retaliations and in competitive cruelties that
they seem, for the time being, blind to the rights of neutrals and
deaf to the appeals of humanity. A tree is known by its fruit. The war
in Europe is the ripened fruit of the old system.
This is what firmness, supported by force, has done in the Old World;
shall we invite it to cross the Atlantic? Already the jingoes of our
own country have caught the rabies from the dogs of war; shall the
opponents of organized slaughter be silent while the disease spreads?
As an humble follower of the Prince of Peace, as a devoted believer in
the prophecy that "they that take the sword shall perish with the
sword," I beg to be counted among those who earnestly urge the
adoption of a course in this matter which will leave no doubt of our
Government's willingness to continue negotiations with Germany until
an amicable understanding is reached, or at least until, the stress of
war over, we can appeal from Philip drunk with carnage to Philip
sobered by the memories of a historic friendship and by a recollection
of the innumerable ties of kinship that bind the Fatherland to the
United States.
Some nation must lead the world out of the black night of war into the
light of that day when "swords shall be beaten into plowshares." Why
not make that honor ours? Some day--why not now?--the nations will
learn that enduring peace cannot be built upon fear--that good-will
does not grow upon the stalks of violence. Some day the nations will
place their trust in love, the weapon for which there is no shield; in
love, that suffereth long and is kind; in love, that is not easily
provoked, that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all
things, endureth all things; in love, which, though despised as
weakness by the worshippers of Mars, abideth when all else fails.