THE UNITED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE
International, lasting peace is the third great ideal sought by the
Republic of the United States of America, and it is for the enforcement
of that kind of peace that the United States is fighting. For, unless
such peace is assured by a decisive victory, the menace of German
imperialism will so overshadow the world that all civilization will be
flung back into one long effort to keep armed to repel the invader.
Although other nations have struggled toward a standard of
international and permanent peace, the United States was one of the
first great nations to put the theory into practice. One of the first
instances of this practice came at the close of the war between the
States, when the question of the _Alabama_ Claims arose.
During the war the Confederate States had caused to be built in
English ports, with the knowledge of the British Government, cruisers
to damage Federal commerce on the high seas. The cruiser _Alabama_ was
most active of these, and from its prominence gave name to the claim
which the United States brought against Great Britain for the offense
against international law, particularly since the independence of the
Confederate States had not been recognized. Great Britain had paid no
attention to American remonstrance during the war, but at its close
requested settlement of the difficulty.
The United States was equipped for war, with a victorious army at
command, and with a record of two victorious wars over England. It
was a chance to launch another, had our nation been inclined toward
militarism. Instead, our country did its part in appointing members of
a joint high commission, of five British and five American statesmen,
who met in Washington in 1871 and adjusted the difficulty. These
commissioners made a treaty, known as the Treaty of Washington, by
which it was agreed that the claims of either nation against the
other should be submitted to a board of arbitration to be appointed
by friendly nations. In 1872 this board met at Geneva, Switzerland,
and decided the claims in favor of the United States. Great Britain
paid fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars for the damage done
by the cruisers built in her ports; but even more important was the
precedent established by two great nations.
Through a period in which the world was singularly free from great wars
the peace ideal grew among those countries where the democratic form
of government was progressing. The other nations, striving to maintain
that elusive standard of political and trade domination known as the
balance of power, juggled with the peace idea, but from a different
point of view. And it was, strangely enough, the Czar of Russia who
proposed the establishment of an international court for the settling
of international disputes. His idea and that of the nations who
accepted the plan was to keep peace by a settlement of the causes of
war, and also to reduce the military and naval armaments of the great
Powers. He also brought forward the idea that, if war should come, the
conditions of warfare should be made less terrible for the men who were
fighting. He invited the delegates of the nations of the world to a
conference at The Hague, in the Netherlands, in May, 1899.
The first conference promoted--to all appearances--a general good
feeling, but did not formulate actual rules. The second, called by the
Czar in 1907, at the request of the government of the United States,
and extending from June to October of that year, promulgated certain
rules that were regarded until the beginning of the war by Germany in
1914 as those which would hold all civilized nations.
The articles of this conference, known as The Hague Conventions,
provided for:
I.--The pacific settling of international disputes;
II.--The recovery of debts contracted;
III.--Rules for the opening of hostilities;
IV.--Laws and customs of war on land;
V.--Rights and duties of neutral states and individuals in warfare on
land;
VI.--Treatment of enemy’s merchant ships at the opening of hostilities;
VII.--Transformation of merchant ships into war vessels;
VIII.--Placing of submarine mines;
IX.--Bombardment of undefended towns by naval forces;
X.--Adoption of humane standards authorized by the Geneva Convention to
maritime warfare;
XI.--Restrictions on right of capture in maritime war;
XII.--Establishment of an international prize court;
XIII.--Rights and duties of neutral states in maritime war.
In addition to the adoption of these thirteen articles, which were
designed to keep peace or to make war less terrible, if it came, the
conference established a permanent court of arbitration which has had
its place at The Hague, and which is known as The Hague Tribunal. This
court is really a number of judges from whom some are selected to try
cases of international dispute. It is noteworthy that the first case
laid before The Hague Tribunal for settlement was the Pius Fund matter
between the United States and Mexico. The government of the United
States took the dispute to The Hague, the first time in history when a
great nation had appealed to an international court for settlement of a
claim against a small nation.
Since The Hague Conference the United States has concluded about thirty
peace treaties with as many nations. They are all modelled on one
general idea which is expressed in the opening article of each in this
way:
“The high contracting parties agree that all disputes between them, of
every nature whatsoever, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjustment
have failed, be referred for investigation and report to a permanent
international commission to be constituted” (by the contracting
parties) “... and agree not to declare war nor to begin hostilities
during such investigation and before the report be submitted.”
Thirty-five nations had accepted this plan “in principle” before
Germany flung war upon the world, and thirty treaties had been signed.
France, Russia, Great Britain, and Italy had signed the treaties.
Germany professed approval of the plan, but avoided all definite
arrangements, her attitude apparently growing out of her dislike of
arbitration.
This opposition to arbitration on Germany’s part was due to the fact
that for many years she was actually preparing for war, and believed
that her best chance of winning it was in the unpreparedness of the
nations against which she intended to wage it. The utterances of her
statesmen, philosophers, and editors revealed the German official
attitude of mind. There can be no doubt but that Germany desired to
keep the world lulled in a false security until she had made ready to
strike the blow against world peace. Nothing else explains her refusal
to bind herself with the terms that other nations accepted in the hope
that wars were becoming things of the past.
Just before the United States was forced into the breaking off of
diplomatic relations with Germany the President of the country went
before the Senate to set forth the principles which should govern
our nation in the making of any peace with which we would associate
ourselves. The principles which he set forth were:
I.--An equality of rights between nations, to be based on justice and
not on the old principle of balance of power;
II.--Recognition of the principle that governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed;
III.--The right of all great peoples to have a direct outlet to the
sea, either by territorial acquisition or by neutralization;
IV.--The freedom of the seas;
V.--The limitations of armaments on land and sea;
VI.--Refusal to permit any nation to extend its policy over any other
nation or people;
VII.--A concert of nations to guarantee peace and the rights of all
nations, no entangling alliances creating a competition for power, but
a league for the enforcement of international peace.
“These are American principles, American policies,” the President
stated. “They are also the principles of forward-looking men and women
everywhere, of every modern nation, and of every enlightened community.”
To the very last, until the action of Germany in restricting the
freedom of the seas for which the United States had fought and won a
war in days when she was ill-prepared for any conflict, our country had
stood out for peace. Only when our vital rights were threatened, our
vital principles violated, did war come. And, when it came the United
States entered into the conflict, not in hot passion, but with the
high purpose of establishing a real peace that cannot be broken by any
one vandal nation.
The kind of peace which is the ideal of the United States, and the one
toward which we are now fighting, is not to be the sort which may be
patched up over a council-table for a brief space. There is only one
way of curing a cancer of the human body. It must be cut out. And so it
is with the world. The only way to cure the world of war is to cut out
the cancer of militarism. The only way to cut it out is to defeat the
armies of militarism.
The United States and the Allies are not fighting to impose on Germany
and her fellow fighters any particular form of government; but they are
fighting to defeat that form of government which has precipitated the
war, the so-called Junker policy of the German Empire. The Junker, who
is a member of the Prussian nobility and a man devoted to militarism,
has been the instrument of war, forcing it on the world that Germany,
which for him means only a certain small class of rulers in Prussia
headed by the Kaiser, shall be rich and powerful over all the earth.
It is to end his reign upon earth that hundreds of thousands of men
are dying on the fields of France and Flanders. It is to end that
policy of Germany which aims to keep men always at war that we are
warring. For, if Germany is not totally defeated, every country in the
world will have to build up a military machine of the same kind as
Germany’s in order to be ready to fight her when she makes up her mind
to invade their territories; and no one will know when she might do
that. The policy of Germany will threaten every democracy in the world;
for democracies cannot exist while military establishments continue.
Nothing but a total, annihilating defeat of Germany in this war will
make the world “safe for democracy” and sure for peace.
When the war is won the United States will, it is sure, insist upon
a just peace that will insure these ideals, a peace that will make
impossible another such outrage as the invasion of Belgium, another
_Lusitania_ outrage, another defiance of all civilized standards, a
peace that will remove militarism, make free the seas, and give to the
individual that freedom that has made the United States the haven of
the whole world.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.