America and the World War. Theodore Roosevelt

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СКАЧАТЬ there is willingness to take efficient action under them. There could be no better illustration of how extremely complicated and difficult a thing it is in practice instead of in theory to make even a small advance in the cause of peace.

      I believe that international opinion can do something to arrest wrong; but only if it is aroused and finds some method of clear and forceful expression. For example, I hope that it has been aroused to the point of preventing any repetition at the expense of Brussels of the destruction which has befallen Louvain. The peaceful people of Brussels now live in dread of what may happen to them if the Germans should evacuate the city. In such an event it is possible that half a dozen fanatics, or half a dozen young roughs of the “Apache” type, in spite of everything that good citizens may do, will from some building fire on the retiring soldiers. In such case the offenders ought to be and must be treated with instant and unsparing rigor, and those clearly guilty of aiding or shielding them should also be so treated. But if in such case Brussels is in whole or in part destroyed as Louvain was destroyed, those destroying it will be guilty of a capital crime against civilization; and it is heartily to be regretted that civilized nations have not devised some method by which the collective power of civilization can be used to prevent or punish such crimes. In every great city there are plenty of reckless or fanatical or downright evil men eagerly ready to do some act which is abhorrent to the vast majority of their fellows; and it is wicked to punish with cruel severity immense multitudes of innocent men, women, and children for the misdeeds of a few rascals or fanatics. Of course, it is eminently right to punish by death these rascals or fanatics themselves.

      Kindly people who know little of life and nothing whatever of the great forces of international rivalry have exposed the cause of peace to ridicule by believing that serious wars could be avoided through arbitration treaties, peace treaties, neutrality treaties, and the action of the Hague court, without putting force behind such treaties and such action. The simple fact is that none of these existing treaties and no function of the Hague court hitherto planned and exercised have exerted or could exert the very smallest influence in maintaining peace when great conflicting international passions are aroused and great conflicting national interests are at stake. It happens that wars have been more numerous in the fifteen years since the first Hague conference than in the fifteen years prior to it. It was Russia that called the first and second Hague conferences, and in the interval she fought the war with Japan and is now fighting a far greater war. We bore a prominent part at the Hague conferences; but if the Hague court had been in existence in 1898 it could not have had the smallest effect upon our war with Spain; and neither would any possible arbitration treaty or peace treaty have had any effect. At the present moment Great Britain owes its immunity from invasion purely to its navy and to the fact that that navy has been sedulously exercised in time of peace so as to prepare it for war. Great Britain has always been willing to enter into any reasonable—and into some unreasonable—peace and arbitration treaties; but her fate now would have been the fate of Belgium and would not have been hindered in the smallest degree by these treaties, if she had not possessed a first-class navy. The navy has done a thousand times more for her peace than all the arbitration treaties and peace treaties of the type now existing that the wit of man could invent. I believe that national agreement in the future can do much toward minimizing the chance for war; but it must be by proceeding along different lines from those hitherto followed and in an entirely different spirit from the ultrapacificist or professional peace-at-any-price spirit.

      The Hague court has served a very limited, but a useful, purpose. Some, although only a small number, of the existing peace and arbitration treaties have served a useful purpose. But the purpose and the service have been strictly limited. Issues often arise between nations which are not of first-class importance, which do not affect their vital honor and interest, but which, if left unsettled, may eventually cause irritation that will have the worst possible results. The Hague court and the different treaties in question provide instrumentalities for settling such disputes, where the nations involved really wish to settle them but might be unable to do so if means were not supplied. This is a real service and one well worth rendering. These treaties and the Hague court have rendered such service again and again in time past. It has been a misfortune that some worthy people have anticipated too much and claimed too much in reference to them, for the failure of the excessive claims has blinded men to what they really have accomplished. To expect from them what they cannot give is merely short-sighted. To assert that they will give what they cannot give is mischievous. To promise that they will give what they cannot give is not only mischievous but hypocritical; and it is for this reason that such treaties as the thirty or forty all-inclusive arbitration or peace treaties recently negotiated at Washington, although unimportant, are slightly harmful.

      The Hague court has proved worthless in the present gigantic crisis. There is hardly a Hague treaty which in the present crisis has not in some respect been violated. However, a step toward the peaceful settlement of questions at issue between nations which are not vital and which do not mark a serious crisis has been accomplished on certain occasions in the past by the action of the Hague court and by rational and limited peace or arbitration treaties. Our business is to try to make this court of more effect and to enlarge the class of cases where its actions will be valuable. In order to do this, we must endeavor to put an international police force behind this international judiciary. At the same time we must refuse to do or say anything insincere. Above all, we must refuse to be misled into abandoning the policy of efficient self-defense, by any unfounded trust that the Hague court, as now constituted, and peace or arbitration treaties of the existing type, can in the smallest degree accomplish what they never have accomplished and never can accomplish. Neither the existing Hague court nor any peace treaties of the existing type will exert even the slightest influence in saving from disaster any nation that does not preserve the virile virtues and the long-sightedness that will enable it by its own might to guard its own honor, interest, and national life.

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