By William Howard Taft, ex-President of the United States.
President Wilson on June 15 denied the statement, cabled
from Europe, that the United States was the only great
neutral Government that had not encouraged the movement
among neutral nations looking to a conference of neutrals to
end the European conflict. To this Government, said the
President, answering a direct inquiry, had been given no
more opportunity than everybody knew in furthering a neutral
movement for peace. He stated that this Government had
supported everything of the sort as far as it could
legitimately. It had done everything that was for peace and
accommodation, he added. But the great drawback has been
that none of the warring Governments has directly, that is
officially, indicated that it would respond sympathetically
to any suggestion that it become a party to a movement to
end the war. The idea of a league of neutral nations, having
for its object a concerted effort to bring about peace, is
reported to be in the back of the President's mind, and
members of the Cabinet have given some thought to the
suggestion, which might contemplate the firm maintenance of
neutral rights if peace could not be obtained, but the
situation has not developed to a point where the American
Government is ready to make a definite move.
Meanwhile, as the outgrowth of a series of meetings held in
the Century Club, New York, terminating in a call for a
conference signed by a National Provisional Committee of 109
members headed by ex-President Taft, an organization known
as the League to Enforce Peace, American Branch, was formed
on June 17, 1915, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The
purpose of the conference was explained by Mr. Taft in his
address as President, which appears in full below.
My fellow-seekers after peace, we thank you for your cordial greeting.
In calling this meeting my associates and I have not been unaware that
we might be likened to the tailors of Tooley Street, who mistook
themselves for the people of England. We wish first to say that we do
not represent anybody but ourselves. We are not national legislators,
nor do we control the foreign policy of this Government. A number of
us were invited to dinner at the Century Club (New York) by four
generous hosts, who were deeply interested in devising a plan for an
international agreement by which, when this present war shall cease, a
recurrence of such a war will be made less probable.
We are not here to suggest a means of bringing this war to an end;
much as that is to be desired and much as we would be willing to do to
obtain peace, that is not within the project of the present meeting.
We hope and pray for peace, and our hope of its coming in the near
future is sufficient to make us think that the present is a good time
to discuss and formulate a series of proposals to which the assent of
a number of the great powers could be secured. _We think a League of
Peace could be formed that would enable nations to avoid war by
furnishing a practical means of settling international quarrels, or
suspending them until the blinding heat of passion had cooled._
When the World Conference is held our country will have its official
representatives to speak for us. "We, Tailors of Tooley Street," will
not be there, but if, in our sartorial leisure, we shall have
discussed and framed a practical plan for a league of peace, our
official representatives will be aided and may in their discretion
accept it and present it to the conference as their own.
There are Tooley Streets in every nation today and the minds of
earnest men are being stirred with the same thought and the same
purpose. We have heard from them through various channels. The
denizens of those Tooley Streets will have their influence upon their
respective official representatives. No man can measure the effect
upon the peoples of the belligerent countries and upon the peoples of
the neutral countries--the horrors and exhaustion that this
unprecedented war is going to have. It is certain they all will look
with much more favorable eye to leagues for the preservation of peace
than ever before.
_In no war has the direct interest that neutrals have in preventing a
war between neighbors been so closely made known._
This interest of neutrals has been so forced upon them that it would
require only a slight development and growth in the law of
international relations to develop that interest into a right to be
consulted before such a war among neighbors can be begun. This step we
hope to have taken by the formation of a Peace League of the Great
Powers, whose primary and fundamental principle shall be that no war
can take place between any two members of the league until they have
resorted to the machinery that the league proposes to furnish to
settle the controversy likely to lead to war.
If any member refuses to use this machinery and attacks another member
of the league in breach of his league obligation, all members of the
league agree to defend the members attacked by force.
We do not think the ultimate resort to force can be safely omitted
from an effective League of Peace. We sincerely hope that it may never
become necessary, and that the deterrent effect of its inevitable use
in case of a breach of the league obligation will help materially to
give sanction to the laws of the league and to render a resort to
force avoidable.
We are not peace-at-any-price men, because we do not think we have
reached the time when a plan based on the complete abolition of war is
impracticable. So long as nations partake of the frailties of men who
compose them, war is a possibility, and that possibility should not be
ignored in any League of Peace that is to be useful. We do not think
it necessary to call peace-at-any-price men cowards or apply other
epithets to them. We have known in history the most noble characters
who adhered to such a view and yet whose physical and moral courage is
a heritage of mankind.
To those who differ with us in our view of the necessity for this
feature of possible force in our plan, we say we respect your
attitude. We admit your claim to sincere patriotism to be as just as
ours. We do not ascribe your desire to avoid war to be a fear of death
to yourselves or your sons; but rather to your sense of the horrors,
injustice, and ineffectiveness of settling any international issue by
such a brutal arbitrament. Nevertheless, we differ with you in
judgment that, in the world of nations as they are, war can be
completely avoided.
_We believe it is still necessary to use a threat of overwhelming
force of a great league with a willingness to make the threat good in
order to frighten nations into a use of rational and peaceful means to
settle their issues with their associates of the league._ Nor are we
militarists or jingoes. We are trying to follow a middle path.
Now what is the machinery, a resort to which we wish to force an
intending belligerent of the league--it consists of two tribunals, to
one of which every issue must be submitted. Issues between nations are
of two classes:
First--Issues that can be decided on principles of international law
and equity, called justiciable.
Second--Issues that cannot be decided on such principles of law and
equity, but which might be quite as irritating and provocative of war,
called non-justiciable.
The questions of the Alaskan boundary, of the Bering Sea seal fishing,
and of the Alabama Claims were justiciable issues that could be
settled by a court, exactly as the Supreme Court would settle claims
between States. The questions whether the Japanese should be
naturalized, whether all American citizens should be admitted to
Russia as merchants without regard to religious faith, are capable of
causing great irritation against the nation denying the privilege, and
yet such nations, in the absence of a treaty on the subject, are
completely within their international right, and the real essence of
the trouble cannot be aided by a resort to a court. The trouble is
non-justiciable.
_We propose that for justiciable questions we shall have an impartial
court to which all questions arising between members of the league
shall be submitted._ If the court finds the question justiciable, it
shall decide it. If it does not, it shall refer it to a Commission of
Conciliation to investigate, confer, hear argument, and recommend a
compromise.
We do not propose to enforce compliance either with the court's
judgment or the Conciliation Commission's recommendations. We feel
that we ought not to attempt too much--we believe that the forced
submission and the truce taken to investigate the judicial decision or
the conciliatory compromise recommended will form a material
inducement to peace. It will cool the heat of passion, and will give
the men of peace in each nation time to still the jingoes.
The League of Peace will furnish a great opportunity for more definite
formulation of the principles of international law. The arbitral court
will amplify it and enrich it in their application of its general
principles to particular cases. They will create a body of Judge-made
law of the highest value. Then the existence of the league will lead
to ever-recurring congresses of the league, which, acting in a
quasi-legislative capacity, may widen the scope of international law
in a way that a court may not feel able or competent to do.
This is our plan. It is not so complicated--at least, in statement. In
its practical application difficulties now unforeseen may arise, but
we believe it offers a working hypothesis upon which a successful
arrangement can be made.
We are greeted first by the objection that no treaties can prevent
war. We are not called upon to deny this in order to justify or
vindicate our proposals as useful. We realize that nations sometimes
are utterly immoral in breaking treaties and shamelessly bold in
avowing their right to do so on the ground of necessity; but this is
not always the case. We cannot give up treaties because sometimes they
are broken any more than we can give up commercial contracts because
men sometimes dishonor themselves in breaking them. We decline to
assume that all nations always are dishonorable, or that a solemn
treaty obligation will not have some deterrent effect upon a nation
that has plighted its faith to prevent its breach. _When we add to
this the sanction of an agreement by a number of powerful nations to
enforce the obligation of the recalcitrant and faithless member, we
think we have a treaty that is much more than a "scrap of paper"--and
we base our faith in this on a common-sense view of human nature._
It is objected that we propose only to include the more powerful
nations. We'll gladly include them all. But we don't propose to have
the constitution of our court complicated by a demand for equal
representation of the many smaller nations. We believe that when we
have a league of larger powers the smaller powers will be glad to come
in and enjoy the protection that the league will afford against the
unjust aggression of the strong against the weak.
It is suggested that we invite a conference of neutral nations to
bring about measures for present peace and to formulate demands as to
the protection of neutral rights. This may be a good plan, but, as
Kipling says, that is another story.