Chapter II (5)

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.

Mr. Taft explicitly admits and insists that the League is to be a supplement to, and in no sense a substitute for, the duty of our Nation to prepare its own strength for its own defense. He also explicitly provides that, among the various peoples who would not be admitted to the League on an equality with the others, there shall be different spheres of interest assumed by the different powers who have entered into the League. For example, the affairs of hither Asia, the Balkan Peninsula, and of North Africa are of prime concern to the powers of Europe, and the United States should be under no covenant to go to war about matters in which its people have no concern and probably no intelligent interest. On the other hand, the Monroe Doctrine--at least for all America between the equator and the southern boundary of the United States--is a vital point of American policy, and must in no shape or way be interfered with. We do not interfere with existing conditions, but aside from these no European or Asiatic power is to have any say-so in the future of Mexico, Central America, and the lands whose coasts are washed by the Caribbean Sea. The Panama Canal must not be internationalized. It is our canal; we built it; we fortified it, and we will protect it, and we will not permit our enemies to use it in war. In time of peace all nations shall use it alike, but in time of war our interest at once becomes dominant.

Most wisely Mr. Taft’s plan reserves for each nation certain matters of such vital national interest that they cannot be put before any international tribunal. This country must settle its own tariff and industrial policies, and the question of admitting immigrants to work or to citizenship, and all similar matters, the exercise of which was claimed as a right when in 1776 we became an independent Nation. We will not surrender our independence to a league of nations any more than to a single nation. Moreover, no international court must be entrusted with the decision of what is and what is not justiciable.

In the articles of agreement the non-justiciable matters should be as sharply defined as possible, and until some better plan can be devised, the Nation itself must reserve to itself the right, as each case arises, to say what these matters are.

But let us steadily remember that before dealing with schemes such as the League of Nations, which are necessarily more or less visionary, we must join in good faith with our allies in securing practical right and justice at the Peace Conference. We should treat as an enemy to this country every man who at this time seeks directly or indirectly to stir up dissension between us and England or France, or any other of our allies. Side by side we have fought against the hideous twin terrors of Bolshevism and Kaiserism and we must stand undivided at the Peace Conference. What the distant future may hold no man can say, and this is the very reason why I insist that America must prepare its own strength for its own defense. But our duty at the moment is clear. We have fought the war through beside the Allies and we must stand with them with hearty loyalty throughout the peace negotiations. There must be no division in the face of our enemies. At the very close of the war we played an honorable and probably decisive part, but we were enabled to do so only because for the four preceding years England and France and their associates in defending their own rights had also saved us from destruction. Our sacrifice is infinitesimal compared to theirs. We have had a quarter of a million men killed and wounded; England has had over three million, France nearly four million, and the other Allies during their time of warfare against the common foe suffered in proportion. Our loss has been no more than one or two per cent of the entire loss suffered by the Allied armies and navies.

The immediate cause of bringing the war to an end was the forcing of unconditional surrender upon Bulgaria and Turkey, with whom we had shamefully refused to go to war at all. The English navy protected us exactly as it protected Britain. Under such circumstances it behooves us to remember that while we at the very end did our duty, yet that our comrades in arms for over four years performed incalculable feats and suffered incalculable losses and won the right of gratitude of all mankind. The American envoys must not sit at the peace table as umpires between the Allies and the conquered Central Powers, but as loyal brothers of the Allies, as loyal members of the league of free peoples, which has brought about peace by overthrowing Turkey, Bulgaria, and Austria, and beating Germany to her knees.

THE MEN WHOSE LOT HAS BEEN HARDEST

DECEMBER 8, 1918

There recently died of pneumonia in France Major Willard Straight, of the American army. He was above the draft age, he was a man of large and many interests, he had a wife and three children. There was every excuse for him not to have gone to the front, but both he and his wife had in their souls that touch of heroism which makes it impossible for generous natures to see others pay with their bodies and not to wish to do so themselves. The one regret that Major Straight felt--and he felt it most bitterly--was that he had not been able in spite of all his efforts to get to the actual firing front. This failure was really a cause of great anguish of soul to him. In the same way I know of the four sons of an ex-Cabinet officer, all of whom instantly went into the army at the outbreak of the war. Two were at the fighting front, one was in the navy, and the other, because of the special excellence as an instructor, was kept here, and the gallant young fellow who left his wife and baby to enlist really feels as if the refusal of the War Department to permit him to go where he could be shot at had caused a blight in his life. I know three other men who, because of their excellence, were kept as instructors at one of our camps, whose feelings of regret are so bitter that they can hardly bear to look at their uniforms and the sight of wounded soldiers causes them agonies of thwarted longing.

All this is most natural, and just what we should expect from high-minded, gallant fellows. But it is entirely unwarranted. I utterly abhor the swivel-chair slacker who got some safe job in order to avoid doing his duty at the front. But for the hundreds of thousands of young Americans in the ranks or with commissions who did everything they could to get in the firing lines, and who through no fault of theirs failed, I have precisely the same feeling that I have for the men who took part in the most dangerous work. General Leonard Wood, in his recent capital address, has taught the right lesson to these men. He was dismissing to their homes the men whom he had trained with his usual, extraordinary capacity to fit them for work overseas, and he dwelt to them upon the fact that the all-important point was that they should remember that it was not the position they achieved, but the eager readiness to do duty in whatever position they were given that really counted. General Wood has himself been treated with the most cruel injustice in this war, yet he has rendered signal service in bringing before Congress our military needs, and, above all, in training scores of thousands of our best fighting men. When he was denied, from the very meanest motives, the chance to fill a distinguished position, instead of sulking he devoted all of his energy to doing the best he could in the positions to which he was assigned. In consequence he comes out of the war as one of those who most materially helped to win it. What is true of him in a big place is true of every other soldier, whether in a big or little place. The hardest task was for the men who were denied the chance of glory, and if they did this hard task well and served faithfully wherever they were assigned, they have exactly the same right for pride in their participation in the Great War as any of the gallant fellows who have come back maimed or crippled from the front. All alike have made the rest of us forever their debtors, and to all alike we pay the same meed of loyal admiration and respect.

THE BRITISH NAVY, THE FRENCH ARMY, AND AMERICAN COMMON SENSE

DECEMBER 17, 1918

The first essential in an alliance is loyalty. The first effort of an enemy to an alliance is to produce disloyalty to one another among the Allies. To any man who knows anything of history these facts are of bromidic triteness. But the Administration, as usual, stands in urgent need of learning the elements of fair play and common sense.

It was announced from the peace ship that President Wilson was going to work for the reduction of naval armaments and for a form of naval agreement which, if it had existed four years ago, would have meant Germany’s victory and the subjugation of not only Germany’s foes, but of all neutrals like ourselves. At the same time over here the representatives of the Administration are demanding a navy bigger than that of Great Britain. The only possible interpretation of these facts is that the Administration proposes to threaten Great Britain with having to get in a neck-and-neck competition with America to build the greatest navy in the world, and to do this as a bluff so as to make for Great Britain’s adherence to Mr. Wilson’s exceedingly nebulous ideas.

Under these conditions the American people should, with common sense, look at what their own needs are and at what the needs of their allies are. Sooner or later any programme will have to be tested by its results, and even if the United States started to emulate Great Britain’s navy, the enthusiasm to do so would vanish when it appeared that there was no earthly interest of ours to be served by the action.

In winning the present war very many instrumentalities have been necessary. On the whole the four most important in their order have been: (1) the French army; (2) the British navy; (3) the British army; (4) the Italian army. Our own gallant army and navy did exceedingly well, but came in so late that the part they played, taking the four and a half years as a whole, does not entitle them to rank with the instrumentalities given above.

Great Britain is an island, separated from the huge military commonwealths of Europe by very narrow seas, and separated from her own greatest colonies by all the greatest oceans. To her, supremacy in the navy is a matter of life and death. America ought to have a first-class navy, but if she did not have a ship she might yet secure herself from any invasion. But Great Britain’s empire would not last one week, and she could not make herself safe at home one week if her navy lost its supremacy. Incidentally to saving herself, the British navy has rendered incalculable service to us during the last four and one-half years, and for the last thirty years has been a shield to the United States. Great Britain is not a military power in the sense that any of the nations of continental Europe, or indeed of Asia, are military powers. She had almost as much difficulty in developing her army in this war as we had in developing our army. Her army is no more of a threat to other peoples than ours is. Therefore, we Americans find ourselves, as regards the British navy, in this position, that it is of vital consequence to Great Britain to have the greatest navy in the world; it is emphatically not of any consequence to us to have as big a navy as Great Britain, for we are not in the slightest danger from Great Britain, and under all ordinary circumstances the British navy can be counted upon as a help to the United States and never as a menace. Under such circumstances to set ourselves to work to build a navy in rivalry to Great Britain’s, and above all to do this as a political bluff, is worse than silly.

Our own navy should be ample to protect our own coasts and to maintain the Monroe Doctrine. There are in Europe and Asia several great military commonwealths, each one of which will in all probability always possess a far more formidable army than ours, even though, as I earnestly hope, we adopt some development of universal military training on the lines of the Swiss system. Therefore, it is of the highest consequence that our navy should be second to that of Great Britain.

The analogy with the case of the French army is complete. If the French army had not been able to hold the German army and be the chief factor in the German military overthrow, the British navy could not have averted Germany’s complete victory. Great Britain is separated by the narrow seas from the military powers of continental Europe. We are separated from them by the width of the ocean. Under the circumstances, it is sheer impertinence for either American or English statesmen to tell France, or, for that matter Italy, what ought to be done in abolishing armaments or abandoning universal service or anything of the kind. The interest of France and Italy in the matter is vital. The interest of England and America is partly secondary. If we have well-thought-out arguments to put before the French, put them before them, but treat France as having the vital interest in the matter, and therefore the final say-so as far as we are concerned. And when France has determined what the needs of the future demand, so far as her military preparedness is concerned, and when Italy has made a similar determination, and our other allies likewise, back them up. It is not the business of America to tell Great Britain what she should do with her navy. It is not the business of either America or England to tell France what she should do with her army. The plain American common sense of the situation is that we should recognize our immense debt to the British navy and the French army, and stand by Britain in what she decides her vital needs demand so far as her navy is concerned, and stand by France in the position she takes as to what the situation demands so far as her army is concerned.

LET US HAVE STRAIGHTFORWARD SPEAKING

DECEMBER 24, 1918

Senator Lodge in his admirable speech has given the reasons why at least five of the famous fourteen points should not be considered in the peace negotiations proper. But the special merit of Senator Lodge’s statement lies in the fact that it is straightforward and clear. There is no need of a key to find out what he means. The men who represent, or assume to represent, the United States at the Peace Conference, should be equally clear with our allies and our enemies and also with the American people. Above all things we need some straightforward statement as to just what is proposed and as to just why it is proposed.

Take, for example, the very extraordinary conflict between that one of the fourteen points in which the Administration has demanded practically complete disarmament and the action of the Administration at the same moment demanding that we shall build the biggest navy in the world. Either one course or the other must necessarily be improper. In such a matter we especially need a straightforward statement of reasons and principles.

The worst thing we could do would be to build a spite navy, a navy built not to meet our own needs, but to spite some one else. I am speaking purely as an American. No man in this country who is both intelligent or informed has the slightest fear that Great Britain will ever invade us or try to go to war with us. The British navy is not in the slightest degree a menace to us. I can go a little further than this. There is in Great Britain a large pacifist and defeatist party which behaves exactly like our own pacifists, pro-Germans, Germanized Socialists, defeatists, and Bolsheviki. If this party had its way and Great Britain abandoned its fleet, I should feel, so far from the United States being freed from the necessity of building up a fleet, that it behooved us to build a much stronger one than is at present necessary. Our need is not as great as that of the vast scattered British Empire, for our domains are pretty much in a ring fence. We ought not to undertake the task of policing Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. Neither ought we to permit any interference with the Monroe Doctrine or any attempt by Europe or Asia to police America. Mexico is our Balkan Peninsula. Some day we will have to deal with it. All the coasts and islands which in any way approach the Panama Canal must be dealt with by this Nation, and by this Nation alone, in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine. With this object in view our navy should be second to that of Great Britain and superior to that of any other power--and if Great Britain chooses to abolish its navy it would mean that we ought to build a larger navy than is now necessary.

A SQUARE DEAL FOR THE MEN AT THE FRONT

DECEMBER 25, 1918

We should show our respect for the men at the front by more than mere adulation. They are the Americans who have done most and suffered most for this country. It was announced in the press that in many cases they and the families they have left behind have not for months received their full pay. This is an outrage. All civil officials are paid. The Secretary of War is paid, and he ought not to touch a dollar of his salary and no high official should touch a dollar of his salary until the enlisted men and junior officers are paid every cent that is owing to them, and this payment should be prompt. There is literally no excuse for even so much as three days’ delay in the payment.

Moreover, these men, at great cost to themselves in paying everything including, in fifty or sixty thousand cases, their lives, have gone to the front at a wage from one half to one fifth as great as that their companions who stayed behind have received during the same period. They enlisted to do a specific job. They made the sacrifice in order to do that job. We on our side should see that just as soon as the job is done the men are taken home, allowed to leave the army, and begin earning their livelihood and take care of the wives and children that the married ones among them have left behind.

Recently in the public press there have appeared various artless and chatty statements from the State, War, and Navy departments that our men might be kept in Europe to do general police work and might not be brought back here until the summer of 1920. There are three types of soldiers on the other side. There are the Regular Army men, who have entered the Regular Army as a profession, and to whom it is a matter of indifference whether they stay in Europe, come back here, go to the Philippines, or do anything else. That is a small proportion of our force on the other side. The bulk are divided between volunteers, who enlisted in the National Guard or sometimes in the regular regiments to fight this war through, and the drafted men who were put into the army under a law designed to meet this war and this war only. Not one in ten of the volunteers would have dreamed of volunteering to do police work in European squabbles. Not ten Congressmen would have voted for the Draft Law if it was to force selective men to do police duty after the war was over. All these men went in to fight this war through to a finish and then to come home. It is not a square deal to follow any other course as regards them. The minute that peace comes every American soldier on the other side should be brought home as speedily as possible save, of course, the regulars who make the Regular Army their life profession, and any other man who chose to volunteer to go over, or who can with entire propriety be used for gathering up the loose ends. The American fighting man at the front has given this country a square deal during the war. Now let the country give him a square deal by letting him get out of the army and go to his home as soon as the war is finished. The Red Cross has done wonderful work in taking care of the dependents of these men pending settlement by the Government, but the Government should not be content to rely on any outside organization to make up its own shortcomings.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS[2]

JANUARY 13, 1919

It is, of course, a serious misfortune that our people are not getting a clear idea of what is happening on the other side. For the moment the point as to which we are foggy is the League of Nations. We all of us earnestly desire such a league, only we wish to be sure that it will help and not hinder the cause of world peace and justice. There is not a young man in this country who has fought, or an old man who has seen those dear to him fight, who does not wish to minimize the chance of future war. But there is not a man of sense who does not know that in any such movement if too much is attempted the result is either failure or worse than failure.

The trouble with Mr. Wilson’s utterances, so far as they are reported, and the utterances of acquiescence in them by European statesmen, is that they are still absolutely in the stage of rhetoric precisely like the “fourteen points.” Some of the fourteen points will probably have to be construed as having a mischievous significance, a smaller number might be construed as being harmless, and one or two even as beneficial, but nobody knows what Mr. Wilson really means by them, and so all talk of adopting them as basis for a peace or a league is nonsense and, if the talker is intelligent, it is insincere nonsense to boot. So Mr. Wilson’s recent utterances give us absolutely no clue as to whether he really intends that at this moment we shall admit Germany, Russia,--with which, incidentally, we are still waging war,--Turkey, China, and Mexico into the League on full equality with ourselves. Mr. Taft has recently defined the purposes of the League and the limitations under which it would act, in a way that enables most of us to say we very heartily agree in principle with his theory and can, without doubt, come to an agreement on specific details.

Would it not be well to begin with the League which we actually have in existence, the League of the Allies who have fought through this great war? Let us at the peace table see that real justice is done as among these Allies, and that while the sternest reparation is demanded from our foes for such horrors as those committed in Belgium, Northern France, Armenia, and the sinking of the Lusitania, nothing should be done in the spirit of mere vengeance. Then let us agree to extend the privileges of the League, as rapidly as their conduct warrants it, to other nations, doubtless discriminating between those who would have a guiding part in the League and the weak nations who would be entitled to the privileges of membership, but who would not be entitled to a guiding voice in the councils. Let each nation reserve to itself and for its own decision, and let it clearly set forth questions which are non-justiciable. Let nothing be done that will interfere with our preparing for our own defense by introducing a system of universal obligatory military training modeled on the Swiss plan.

Finally make it perfectly clear that we do not intend to take a position of international Meddlesome Matty. The American people do not wish to go into an overseas war unless for a very great cause and where the issue is absolutely plain. Therefore, we do not wish to undertake the responsibility of sending our gallant young men to die in obscure fights in the Balkans or in Central Europe, or in a war we do not approve of. Moreover, the American people do not intend to give up the Monroe Doctrine. Let civilized Europe and Asia introduce some kind of police system in the weak and disorderly countries at their thresholds. But let the United States treat Mexico as our Balkan Peninsula and refuse to allow European or Asiatic powers to interfere on this continent in any way that implies permanent or semi-permanent possession. Every one of our allies will with delight grant this request if President Wilson chooses to make it, and it will be a great misfortune if it is not made.

I believe that such an effort made moderately and sanely, but sincerely and with utter scorn for words that are not made good by deeds, will be productive of real and lasting international good.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[2] This article on “The League of Nations” is the last contribution that Colonel Roosevelt prepared for The Star. It was dictated at his home in Oyster Bay, January 3, the Friday before his death. His secretary expected to take the typed copy to him for correction Monday. Instead she was called on the telephone early Monday morning and told of his death. A delay of several days naturally ensued, before the editorial reached the office of The Star.

In view of the immense moment of the issues before the Peace Conference, The Star had asked Colonel Roosevelt to give his countrymen the benefit of his discussion of the possibilities of a League of Nations as a preventive of war. He consented, although, as he wrote, he expected to follow this editorial with one “on what I regard as infinitely more important, namely, our business to prepare for our own self-defense.” That article, however, was never written.

This article, then, his final contribution to The Star, represents his matured judgment based on protracted discussion and correspondence. It is of peculiar importance as the last message of a man who, above every other American of his generation, combined high patriotism, practical sense, and a positive genius for international relations.

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Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious errors in punctuation have been fixed.

In the table of contents, “The Landsdowne Letter” changed to “The Lansdowne Letter”

Page 49: “which his precedessor” changed to “which his predecessor”

Page 54: “seeking a black animal” changed to “seeing a black animal”

Page 136: “New York Herold” changed to “New York Herald”