PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY / MESSAGES, ADDRESSES, PAPERS EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY JAMES BROWN SCOTT , Author of " A Survey of International Relations between the United States and Germany, August 1, 1914-April 6, 1917," Editor of "Diplomatic Correspond ence between the United States and Germany, August 1, 1914- April 6, 1917 " Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, July 4, -H76. The law of nations is founded upon reason and justice, and the rules of conduct governing individual relations between citizens or subjects of a civilized state are equally applicable as between enlightened nations. President Cleveland s Special Message to Congress, December 18, 1893. The world must be made safe for democracy. President Wilson s War Address to Congress, April 2, 1911. NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 WEST 82xo STRERT LONDON. TORONTO. MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY 1918 COPYRIGHT 1918 BT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH 3, THE OUINN 10DEN CO. PRESS PUBLISHERS PREFACE The publishers announce, separate and distinct from, but to be used in connection with the present volume, the Diplomatic Cor respondence Between the United States and Germany, from August 1, 1914, to April 6, 1917, the date of the declaration of a state of war by the Congress of the United States against the Imperial German Government, and a Survey of International Relations Between the United States and Germany, during the same period. These volumes are of the same format as President Wilson s Foreign Policy. President Wilson s views upon foreign policy were important during the neutrality of the United States, and it is even more important to understand them now, inasmuch as they are the views of the United States at war and indicate in no uncertain way the attitude which the United States under President Wilson s guidance may be expected to assume in the negotiations which must one day bring about peace to a long-suffering and war-ridden world. This volume is of interest to Mr. Wilson s countrymen; it is of interest to the belligerents; it is of interest to the neutrals, whose cause Mr. Wilson has championed. The differences of opinion, crystallizing into opposition, and resulting eventually in war between the United States and Germany, are stated clearly, unmistakably, and officially in the Diplomatic Correspondence between the two Governments since the outbreak of the European War in 1914, and up to the declaration of war by the United States because of the controversies between the two countries. The Diplomatic Correspondence makes the case of the United States, just as the Diplomatic Correspondence is the defense of Germany. Upon this Correspondence each country rests its case, and upon this Correspondence each is to be judged. It is thought best to present it in a volume by itself, disconnected from narrative iv PUBLISHERS PREFACE or from correspondence with other belligerent nations, which would indeed have been interesting but not material to the present case. The Survey of International Relations Between the United States and Germany aims to give an authentic account of the conduct of the United States during the period of its neutrality, and the attitude of the Imperial Government towards the United States. An extended introduction is prefixed, setting forth the views of monarchs, states- re 3n, and publicists of that country, showing the German conception o. the State, International Policy and International Law. The narrative giving the views of both Governments is based upon the pocuments contained in the volume of Diplomatic Correspondence Between the United States and Germany. The publishers have pleasure in announcing that Mr. Scott has directed that the royalties due him for these volumes be presented to the Department of State War Relief Work Committee, of which Mrs. Robert Lansing is President. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS. American Branch. April 16, 1918. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGES Introduction xi-xiv Address on Mexican Affairs, to the Congress, August 27, 1913 1-10 Address at rededication of Congress Hall, Philadelphia, October 25, 1913 11-18 Address before Southern Commercial Congress, Mobile, October 27, 1913 19-26 First Annual Address to the Congress, December 2, 1913 . 27-30 Address to the Congress on. Panama Tolls, March 5, 1914 . 31-32 Address to the Congress on Mexican Affairs, April 20, 1914 33-37 ^Address at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, May 11, 1914 . . 38^2 Address at unveiling of statue to memory of Commodore Barry, Washington, May 16, 1914 43-47 Address to the Graduating Class of the United States Naval Academy, June 5, 1914 48-54 Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1914 . 55-65 American Neutrality, Appeal to Citizens of the Republic, August 18, 1914 66-68 Address before American Bar Association, Washington, October 20, 1914 69-70 ^Second Annual Address to the Congress, December 8, 1914 71-83 Address at the Associated Press Luncheon, New York, April 20, 1915 ... . 84-91 Address to newly naturalized American citizens, Philadel phia, May 10, 1915 92-97 Address at Luncheon tendered the President by the Mayor s Committee, New York, May 17, 1915 . . 98-101 Address at the Pan-American Financial Conference, Wash ington, May 24, 1915 102-105 Address to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Washington, October 11, 1915 .... . 106-114 VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Address at fiftieth anniversary dinner of the Manhattan Club, New York, November 4, 1915 ..... Third Annual Address to the Congress, December 7, 1915 . Address before the Pan American Scientific Congress, Washington, January 6, 1916 ...... Address delivered at Cleveland, Ohio, January 29, 1916 . Letter to Senator Stone, February 24, 1916 . . . . Letter to Representative Pou, February 29, 1916 . . . Address delivered before the Congress, April 19, 1916 . . Address at first annual assemblage of the League to Enforce Peace, May 27, 1916 ........ Address on Memorial Day, Arlington, May 30, 1916 . . Address to the Graduating Class at the United States Mili tary Academy, June 13, 1916 ...... X" Address on Flag Day, Washington, June 14, 1916 . . Address before Salesmanship Congress, Detroit, July 10, 1916 ......... . Address at Toledo, July 10, 1916 ...... Address on accepting renomination for the Presidency, September 2, 1916 ........ r" Peace Notes to the Belligerent Governments, dated Decem ber 18, 1916 ..... ..... Address to the Senate, January 22, 1917 .... Address to the Congress, announcing the severance of diplo matic relations with Germany, February 3, 1917 . . Address on Armed Neutrality, before the Congress, February 26, 1917 . . . . . . . . Second Inaugural Address, Washington, March 5, 1917 . Address to the Congress recommending declaration of a state of war with Germany, April 2, 1917 . . . Address to his fellow-countrymen concerning the war with Germany, April 15, 1917 ...... ".- Address at the dedication of the Eed Cross Building, Wash ington, May 12, 1917 . . . . , . ... Address on Memorial Day at Arlington, May 30, 1917 . Address at the Confederate Reunion, Washington, June 6, 1917 115-125 126-153 154-162 163-175 176-178 179-180 181-188 189-195 196-202 203-211 212-217 218-224 225-226 227-234 235-244 245-254 255-260 261-267 268-273 274-287 288-294 295-299 300-302 303-307 Address on Flag Day; Washington, June 14, 1917 Communication t6 the Provisional Government of Russia, June 9, 1917 Reply to the Peace appeal of the Pope, August 27, 1917 . Address before the American Federation of Labor, Buffalo, November 12, 1917 Telegram to the Northwest Loyalty Meetings, St. Paul, November 16, 1917 Telegram to the King of the Belgians, November 17, 1917 . Address to the Congress, recommending the declaration of a state of war between the United States and Austria- Hungary, December 4, 1917 Address to the Congress on the conditions of peace, Jan uary 8, 1918 . Address to the Congress on the Addresses of the German Chancellor and the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, February 11, 1918 . . Address at opening of Third Liberty Loan campaign, Baltimore, April 6, 1918 vii PAGES 308-317 318-321 322-325 326-336 337 338 339-353 354-363 364-373 374-380 APPENDIX 1 Mexico. The record of a conversation with President Wilson. By Samuel G. Blythe . . . . / . 383-391 2 The President s Mexican Policy Presented in an authorized interview by Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane, July 16, 1916 ..... 392-406 3 Article on Mexican question, in Ladies Home Journal, October, 1916 . . ....... 407-410 \/4 Memorandum on the right of American citizens to travel upon armed merchant ships, transmitted to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Rep resentatives, March 4, 1916 411-424 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION President Wilson s messages and addresses, delivered during his first term of office and within the first few months of his second inauguration, cover a wide range of subjects, as was natural, given the international situation and the measures necessary to be taken in order to cope with it. They fall, logically, into two classes: those dealing with foreign and those dealing with domestic affairs. The first category is susceptible of a threefold division: those dealing with themutrality of the United St.at.pa in the war which may be said to have begun by Germany s declaration of a state of war against Russia on the 1st day of August, 1914; those delivered when war between the United States and Germany loomed large upon the horizon and seemed, unless the unexpected should happen, to be but a mere question of time; and those delivered after the outbreak of war, when the ship of state, so to speak, had cast off its neutral moorings, and had put out to sea with its allies in the contest of democracy against autocratic rulers apparently bound on world domination. And yet, if we analyze President Wilson s messages and addresses on foreign policy for his views on domestic questions may be omitted, except in so far as they relate to foreign policy -we find that, whether delivered before the war of 1914, during the period of American neutrality, or after the outbreak of the war between Germany and the United States, when President Wilson was speaking as the chiefV executive of a belligerent country, they are but the varying expres sions of a singie; definite, conscious purpose, namely, the strengthening of constitutional government where it existed, leavened with democ racy, and the introduction of constitutional government where it did not exist, of a democratic nature or tendency. The future, in President Wilson s conception, belongs to democracy the world must be made safe_for democracy; and, although he does not say it in express terms, democracy must be made safe for the world by instruction in its duties as well as in its rights and by the performance of its duties in the same degree as the insistence upon its rights. The, strain of democracy runs through all of his messages and addresses as a golden thread, and the means to bring about constitutional government xi xii INTRODUCTION which, in the President s mind, is apparently synonymous with democratic government is from within, not from without, is by moral, not by physical force. Thus, in an address delivered on June 30, JL916, before the Press Club in New York City, President Wilson said7~~ I have not read history without observing that the greatest forces in the world and the only permanent forces are the moral forces. We have the evidence of a very competent witness, namely, the first Napoleon, who said that as he looked back in the last days of his life upon so much as he knew of human history he had to record the judgment that force had never accomplished anything that was permanent. Force will not accomplish anything that is permanent, I venture to say, in the great struggle which is now going on on the other side of the sea. The permanent things will be accomplished after wards, when the opinion of mankind is brought, to bear upon the issues, and the only thing that will hold the world steady is this same silent, insistent, all-powerful opinion of mankind. Force can sometimes hold things steady until opinion has time to form, but no force that was ever exerted, except in response to that opinion, was ever a conquering and predominant force. I think the sentence in American history that I myself am proudest of is that in the introductory sentences of the Declaration of Inde pendence, where the writers say that a due respect for the opinion of mankind demands that they state the reasons for what they are about to do. President Wilson believes and therefore states, as will be apparent even to the casual reader of his messages and addresses on foreign .policy, that there is but one standard of justice for the individual L#- v * -i ri i -. i^ .. | . jfes well as for the state; that what is wrong for the individual cannot be right for the state, and what is right for the state should not be wrong for the individual. Thus, in the fateful address to the Congress of the United States on April 2, 1917, advocating the declaration of war against the Imperial German Government, he said, after referring to his addresses of the 22d of January, of the 3d of February, and of the 26th of February to the Congress: Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles. . . . We are at the begin ning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed INTRODUCTION xiii among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states. This standard which he set for others he has exacted of the United States; and to public opinion, which he asserts to be the greatest of forces, both he and the nation whereof he is the chief executive, have bowed. Thus, President Wilson urged the Congress to repeal the provision of the Panama Canal Act of August 24, 1912, exempting vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States from the payment of tolls, on the ground that the exemption of American vessels for it is only American vessels that can engage in the coastwise trade of the United States if not contrary in fact to the provisions of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of November 18, 1901, between the United States and Great Britain, came nevertheless in conflict with the public opinion of the world and was inconsistent with the provisions of that treaty and therefore with the plighted word of the United States. In his address to the Congress on March 5, 1914, he said: Whatever may be our own differences of opinion concerning this much debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but one interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the exemption I am asking you to repeal. We consented to the treaty; its language we accepted, if we did not originate it ; and we are too big, too powerful, too self-respecting a nation to interpret with a too strained or refined reading the words of our own promises just because we have power enough to give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing to do is the only thing we can afford to do, a voluntary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned and misunderstood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for generosity and for the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesitation. It will be observed that, in this, statement of the case, a strained or even a defensible interpretation was not to be made in order to profit the United States, for morality and justice go hand in hand. An_ N y^cquisition at the expense of morality and of justice and the posses- Xr siohs of nations are not to beHseizeoTTjy physical-fore^any more than the property of the individual is to be taken by the strong hand. This conception, axiomatic with President Wilson, has been repeatedly stated by him in his public addresses, and never more solemnly than in his address of April 2, 1917, to the Congress, advocating the war with Germany : xiv INTRODUCTION We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material com pensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. Planting himself squarely upon the fqundatio.ns of right,. interna tional as well as national, advocating for nations the standard of justice prevailing among individuals, disclaiming any acquisitions for his country which the law, even of his own country, as interpreted by the public opinion of mankind, did not permit, President Wilson might well say, as he did in his address of June 30, 1916, before the . Press Club in the City of New York : So, gentlemen, I am willing, no matter what my personal fortunes may be, to play for the verdict of mankind. JAMES BROWN SCOTT. WASHINGTON, D. C. January 11, 1918. PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY MESSAGES, ADDRESSES, PAPERS ADDRESS ON MEXICAN AFFAIRS DELIV ERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, AUGUST 27, 1913 A sympathetic yet discriminating critic of Mexico, the late John W. Foster, formerly Secretary of State of the United States, was accustomed to say that the one great and fundamental mistake of the late Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico from 1876-1880, 1884-1911, was that he did not educate his fellow- countrymen in the practice and the responsibilities of constitutional government, and that, because of his failure so to do, he was leaving his countrymen without training in government and without a leader to succeed him trained in a con stitutional regime. From time to time rebellions broke out, which were speedily crushed. In 19-11, however, a serious insurrection, under the leader ship of Francisco I. Madero, caused President Diaz, his Vice-President and the members of his cabinet to resign; whereupon Francisco de la Barra, who had been appointed Secretary of State, succeeded to the presidency ad interim until an election could be held. At this election, held on October 15, 1911, Mr. Madero was chosen President of Mexico. A rebellion under the leadership of Felix Diaz, nephew of the late President, broke out, and as a consequence Madero and his Vice-President, yielding to the pressure of General Victoriano Huerta, resigned under duress and Huerta, Secretary of War, became by the resignation of Madero, the President, Vice-President and the Minister of Foreign. Affairs, President ad interim. His authority as such was not recognized by his countrymen as a whole, although it might have been had not Madero and the Vice-President, on their way from the palace to the prison, been assas sinated, in which assassination, rightly or wrongly, Huerta was implicated. Carranza, under Madero, Governor of the State of Chihuahua, opposed Huerta, and, gathering around him a strong body of partisans under the title of Con stitutionalists, he was eventually recognized by the United States as President de facto on October 19, 1915. He was elected President on March 11, 1917; an American Ambassador had in the meantime been appointed, on February 25, 1916, and had repaired to Mexico, and on February 17, 1917, Carranza s govern ment was recognized by the United States not merely as the de facto but as the duly constituted government of Mexico. GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: It is clearly my duty to lay before you, very fully and without reservation, the facts concerning our present relations with the Republic of Mexico. The deplorable posture of affairs in Mexico I need not describe, but I i 2 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY deem it my duty to speak very frankly of what this Government has done and should seek to do in f ulfillment of its obligation to Mexico herself, as a friend and neigh bor, and to American citizens whose lives and vital inter ests are daily affected by the distressing conditions which now obtain beyond our southern border. Those conditions touch us very nearly. Not merely because they lie at our very doors. That of course makes us more vividly and more constantly conscious of them, and every instinct of neighborly interest and sympathy is aroused and quickened by them; but that is only one element in the determination of our duty. We are glad to call ourselves the friends of Mexico, and we shall, I hope, have many an occasion, in happier times as well as in these days of trouble and confusion, to show that our friendship is genuine and disinterested, capable of sacri fice and every generous manifestation. The peace, pros perity, and contentment of Mexico mean more, much more, to us than merely an enlarged field for our com merce and enterprise. They mean an enlargement of the field of self-government and the realization of the hopes and rights of a nation with whose best aspirations, so long suppressed and disappointed, we deeply sympathize. We shall yet prove to the Mexican people that we know how to serve them without first thinking how we shall serve ourselves. But we are not the only friends of Mexico. The whole world desires her peace and progress; and the whole world is interested as never before. Mexico lies at last where all the world looks on. Central America is about to be touched by the great routes of the world s trade MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 3 and intercourse running free from ocean to ocean at the Isthmus. The future has much in store for Mexico, as for all the States of Central America ; but the best gifts can come to her only if she be ready and free to receive them and to enjoy them honorably. America in particu lar America north and south and upon both continents waits upon the development of Mexico; and that devel opment can be sound and lasting only if it be the product of a genuine freedom, a just and ordered government founded upon law. Only so can it be peaceful or fruitful of the benefits of peace. Mexico has a great and enviable future before her, if only she choose and attain the paths of honest constitutional government. The present circumstances of the Republic, I deeply regret to say, do not seem to promise even the foundations of such a peace. We have waited many months, months full of peril and anxiety, for the conditions there to improve, and they have not improved. They have grown worse, rather. The territory in some sort controlled by the provisional authorities at Mexico City has grown smaller, not larger. The prospect of the pacification of the country, even by arms, has seemed to grow more and more remote; and its pacification by the authorities at the capital is evidently impossible by any other means than force. Difficulties more and more entangle those who claim to constitute the legitimate government of the Republic. They have not made good their claim in fact. Their successes in the field have proved only temporary. War and disorder, devastation and confusion, seem to threaten to become the settled fortune of the distracted country. As friends we could wait no longer for a solu- 4 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY tion which every week seemed further away. It was our duty at least to volunteer our good offices to offer to assist, if we might, in effecting some arrangement which would bring relief and peace and set up a univer sally acknowledged political authority there. Accordingly, I took the liberty of sending the Hon. John Lind, formerly governor of Minnesota, as my per sonal spokesman and representative, to the City of Mexico, with the following instructions: 1 Press very earnestly upon the attention of those who are now exercising authority or wielding influ ence in Mexico the following considerations and advice : "The Government of the United States does not feel at liberty any longer to stand inactively by while it becomes daily more and more evident that no real prog ress is being made towards the establishment of a govern ment at the City of Mexico which the country will obey and respect. "The Government of the United States does not stand in the same case with the other great Govern ments of the world in respect of what is happening or what is likely to happen in Mexico. We offer our good offices, not only because of our genuine desire to play the part of a friend, but also because we are expected by the powers of the world to act as Mexico s nearest friend. "We wish to act in these circumstances in the spirit of the most earnest and disinterested friendship. It is our purpose in whatever we do or propose in this per plexing and distressing situation not only to pay the most scrupulous regard to the sovereignty and inde pendence of Mexico that we take as a matter of course to which we are bound by every obligation of right and MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 5 honor but also to give every possible evidence that we act in the interest of Mexico alone, and not in the inter est of any person or body of persons who may have per sonal or property claims in Mexico which they may feel that they have the right to press. We are seeking to counsel Mexico for her own good and in the interest of her own peace, and not for any other purpose whatever. The Government of the United States would deem itself discredited if it had any selfish or ulterior purpose in transactions where the peace, happiness, and prosperity of a whole people are involved. It is acting as its friendship for Mexico, not as any selfish interest, dictates. "The present situation in Mexico is incompatible with the fulfillment of international obligations on the part of Mexico, with the civilized development of Mexico herself, and with the maintenance of tolerable political and economic conditions in Central America. * It is upon no common occasion, therefore, that the United States offers her counsel and assistance. All America cries out for a settlement. "A satisfactory settlement seems to us to be condi tioned on , " (a) An immediate cessation of fighting throughout Mexico, a definite armistice solemnly entered into and scrupulously observed; "(&) Security given for an early and free election in which all will agree to take part ; " (c) The consent of Gen. Huerta to bind himself not to be a candidate for election as President of the Republic at this election; and " (d) The agreement of all parties to abide by the results of the election and co-operate in the most loyal way in organizing and supporting the new administra tion. 6 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY "The Government of the United States will be glad to play any part in this settlement or in its carrying out which it can play honorably and consistently with international right. It pledges itself to recognize and in every way possible and proper to assist the adminis tration chosen and set up in Mexico in the way and on the conditions suggested. "Taking all the existing conditions into considera tion, the Government of the United States can conceive of no reasons sufficient to justify those who are now at tempting to shape the policy or exercise the authority of Mexico in declining the offices of friendship thus offered. Can Mexico give the civilized world a satis factory reason for rejecting our good offices? If Mexico can suggest any better way in which to show our friend ship, serve the people of Mexico, and meet our inter national obligations, we are more than willing to con sider the suggestion.- Mr. Lind executed his delicate and difficult mission with singular tact, firmness, and good judgment, and made clear to the authorities at the City of Mexico not only the purpose of his visit but also the spirit in which it had been undertaken. But the proposals he submitted were rejected, in a note the full text of which I take the liberty of laying before you. I am led to believe that they were rejected partly because the authorities at Mexico City had been grossly misinformed and misled upon two points. They did not realize the spirit of the American people in this mat ter, their earnest friendliness and yet sober determina tion that some just solution be found for the Mexican difficulties; and they did not believe that the present MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 7 administration spoke, through Mr. Lind, for the people of the United States. The effect of this unfortunate misunderstanding on their part is to leave them singu larly isolated and without friends who can effectually aid them. So long as the misunderstanding continues we can only await the time of their awakening to a realization of the actual facts. We cannot thrust our good offices upon them. The situation must be given a little more time to work itself out in the new circum stances; and I believe that only a little while will be necessary. For the circumstances are new. The rejec tion of our friendship makes them new and will inevi tably bring its own alterations in the whole aspect of affairs. The actual situation of the authorities at Mexico City will presently be revealed. Meanwhile, what is it our duty to do ? Clearly, every thing thai we do must be rooted in patience and done with calm and disinterested deliberation. Impatience on our part would be childish, and would be fraught with every risk of wrong and folly. We can afford to exercise the self-restraint of a really great nation which realizes its own strength and scorns to misuse it. It was our duty to offer our active assistance. It is now our duty to show what true neutrality will do to enable the people of Mexico to set their affairs in order again and wait for a further opportunity to offer our friendly counsels. The door is not closed against the resumption, either upon the initiative of Mexico or upon our own, of the effort to bring order out of the confusion by friendly co-operative action, should fortunate occasion offer. 8 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY While we wait the contest of the rival forces will undoubtedly for a little while be sharper than ever, just because it will be plain that an end must be made of the existing situation, and that very promptly ; and with the increased activity of the contending factions will come, it is to be feared, increased danger to the noncombatants in Mexico as well as to those actually in the field of battle. The position of outsiders is always particularly trying and full of hazard where there is civil strife and a whole country is upset. We should earnestly urge all Americans to leave Mexico at once, and should assist them to get away in every way possible not because we would mean to slacken in the least our efforts to safeguard their lives and their interests, but because it is imperative that they should take no unnecessary risks when it is physically possible for them to leave the coun try. We should let everyone who assumes to exercise authority in any part of Mexico know in the most unequivocal way that we shall vigilantly watch the for tunes of those Americans who cannot get away, and shall hold those responsible for their sufferings and losses to a definite reckoning. That can be and will be made plain beyond the possibility of a misunder standing. For the rest, I deem it my duty to exercise the authority conferred upon me by the law of March 14, 1912, to see to it that neither side to the struggle now going on in Mexico receive any assistance from this side the border. I shall follow the best practice of nations in the matter of neutrality by forbidding the exportation of arms or munitions of war of any kind MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 9 from the United States to any part of the Republic of Mexico a policy suggested by several interesting prece dents and certainly dictated by many manifest con siderations of practical expediency. We cannot in the circumstances be the partisans of either party to the contest that now distracts Mexico, or constitute our selves the virtual umpire between them. 1 1 am happy to say that several of the great Govern ments of the world have given this Government their generous moral support in urging upon the provisional authorities at the City of Mexico the acceptance of our proffered good offices in the spirit in which they were made. We have not acted in this matter under the ordinary principles of international obligation. All the world expects us in such circumstances to act as Mexico s nearest friend and intimate adviser. This is our immemorial relation towards her. There is nowhere any serious question that we have the moral right in the case or that we are acting in the interest of a fair settle ment and of good government, not for the promotion of some selfish interest of our own. If further motive were necessary than our own good will towards a sister Republic and our own deep concern to see peace and order prevail in Central America, this consent of man kind to what we are attempting, this attitude of the great nations of the world towards what we may attempt in dealing with this distressed people at our doors, should make us feel the more solemnly bound to go to the utmost length of patience and forbearance in this painful and anxious business. The steady pressure of moral force will before many days break the barriers 10 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY of pride and prejudice down, and we shall triumph as Mexico s friends sooner than we could triumph as her enemies and how much more handsomely, with how much higher and finer satisfactions of conscience and of honor ! ADDRESS AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE REDEDICATION OF CONGRESS HALL, PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER 25, 1913 An American reader does not need to be informed that the independence of the United States was proclaimed in Philadelphia July 4, 1776, and that the building in which the Continental Congress then met is called Independence Hall because of this Declaration. In that building the Congress regularly sat in the early and stormy days of the Revolution, and in that building the Congress of the United States held its sessions from 1790 to 1800, when the seat of government was transferred from Philadelphia to Washington in the District of Columbia. The rooms occupied by the Continental Congress have been preserved in their original condition and opened to the public. Not so the building connected with Independence Hall, in which the Congress of Washington s and Adams adminis trations assembled. The Congress that met in Philadelphia during the first two administra tions of the Republic has claims upon our remembrance, and the good people of Philadelphia were happily inspired when they decided to restore the original form and condition of these quarters. This was speedily, successfully, and admirably done, and the building known as Congress Hall was dedicated on October 25, 1913, in the presence of a distinguished gathering, on which occa sion President Wilson, on behalf of the Government, delivered the following address. YOUR HONOR, MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: No American could stand in this place to-day and think of the circumstances which we are come together to celebrate without being most profoundly stirred. There has come over me since I sat down here a sense of deep solemnity, because it has seemed to me that I saw ghosts crowding a great assemblage of spirits, no longer visible, but whose influence we still feel as we feel the molding power of history itself. The men who sat in this hall, to whom we now look back with a touch of deep sentiment, were men of flesh and blood, face to face with extremely difficult problems. The popu lation of the United States then was hardly three times 11 12 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the present population of the city of Philadelphia, and yet that was a Nation as this is a Nation, and the men who spoke for it were setting their hands to a work which was to last, not only that their people might be happy, but that an example might be lifted up for the instruction of the rest of the world. I like to read the quaint old accounts such as Mr. Day has read to us this afternoon. Strangers came then to America to see what the young people that had sprung up here were like, and they found men in coun sel who knew how to construct governments. They found men deliberating here who had none of the appearance of novices, none of the hesitation of men who did not know whether the work they were doing was going to last or not ; men who addressed themselves to a problem of construction as familiarly as we attempt to carry out the traditions of a Government established these 137 years. I feel to-day the compulsion of these men, the com pulsion of examples which were set up in this place. And of what do their examples remind us? They re mind us not merely of public service but of public service shot through with principle and honor. They were not histrionic men. They did not say Look upon us as upon those who shall hereafter be illustrious. They said: "Look upon us who are doing the first free work of constitutional liberty in the world, and who must do it in soberness and truth, or it will not last." MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 13 Politics, ladies and gentlemen, is made up in just about equal parts of comprehension and sympathy. No man ought to go into politics who does not comprehend the task that he is going to attack. He may compre hend it so completely that it daunts him, that he doubts whether his own spirit is stout enough and his own mind able enough to attempt its great undertakings, but un less he comprehend it he ought not to enter it. After he has comprehended it, there should come into his mind those profound impulses of sympathy which con nect him with the rest of mankind, for politics is a business of interpretation, and no men are fit for it who do not see and seek more than their own advantage and interest. We have stumbled upon many unhappy circum stances in the hundred years that have gone by since the event that we are celebrating. Almost all of them have come from self-centered men, men who saw in their own interest the interest of the country, and who did not have vision enough to read it in wider terms, in the universal terms of equity and justice and the rights of mankind. I hear a great many people at Fourth of July celebrations laud the Declaration of Independence who in between Julys shiver at the plain language of our bills of rights. The Declaration of Independence was, indeed, the first audible breath of liberty, but the substance of liberty is written in such documents as the declaration of rights attached, for example, to the first constitution of Virginia which was a model for the similar documents read elsewhere into our great funda mental charters. That document speaks in very plain 14 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY terms. The men of that generation did not hesitate to say that every people has a right to choose its own forms of government not once, but as often as it pleases and to accommodate those forms of govern ment to its existing interests and circumstances. Not only to establish but to alter is the fundamental prin ciple of self-government. We are just as much under compulsion to study the particular circumstances of our own day as the gentle men were who sat in this hall and set us precedents, not of what to do but of how to do it. Liberty inheres in the circumstances of the day. Human happiness con sists in the life which human beings are leading at the time that they live. I can feed my memory as hap pily upon the circumstances of the revolutionary and constitutional period as you can, but I cannot feed all my purposes with them in Washington now. Every day problems arise which wear some new phase and aspect, and I must fall back, if I would serve my con science, upon those things which are fundamental rather than upon those things which are superficial, and ask myself this question, How are you going to assist in some small part to give the American people and, by example, the peoples of the world more liberty, more happiness, more substantial prosperity; and how are you going to make that prosperity a common heritage instead of a selfish possession? I came here to-day partly in order to feed my own spirit. I did not come in compliment. When I was asked to come I knew immediately upon the utterance of the invitation that I had to come, that to be absent would be as if I refused MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 15 to drink once more at the original fountains of inspira tion for our own Government. The men of the day which we now celebrate had a very great advantage over us, ladies and gentlemen, in this one particular: Life was simple in America then. All men shared the same circumstances in almost equal degree. We think of Washington, for example, as an aristocrat, as a man separated by training, separated by family and neighborhood tradition, from the ordinary people of the rank and file of the country. Have you forgotten the personal history of George Washington? Do you not know that he struggled as poor boys now struggle for a meager and imperfect education; that he worked at his surveyor s tasks in the lonely forests; that he knew all the roughness, all the hardships, all the adventure, all the variety of the common life of that day; and that if he stood a little stiffly in this place, if he looked a little aloof, it was because life had dealt hardly with him? All his sinews had been stiffened by the rough work of making America. He was a man of the people, whose touch had been with them since the day he saw the light first in the old Dominion of Virginia. And the men who came after him, men, some of whom had drunk deep at the sources of philosophy and of study, were, nevertheless, also men who on this side of the water knew no complicated life but the simple life of primitive neighborhoods. Our task is very much more difficult. That sympathy which alone interprets public duty is more difficult for a public man to acquire now than it was then, because we live in the midst of circumstances and conditions infinitely complex. 16 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY No man can boast that he understands America. No man can boast that he has lived the life of America, as almost every man who sat in this hall in those days could boast. No man can pretend that except by com mon counsel he can gather into }iis consciousness what the varied life of this people is. The duty that we have to keep open eyes and open hearts and accessible under standings is a very much more difficult duty to perform than it was in their day. Yet how much more impor tant that it should be performed, for fear we make infinite and irreparable blunders. The city of Wash ington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac and then out into Virginia and on to the heavens themselves, and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States. Not that I would intimate that all of the United States lies south of Washington, but there is a serious thing back of my thought. If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing. You are so apt to forget that the comparatively small number of persons, numerous as they seem to be when they swarm, who come to Wash ington to ask for things, do not constitute an important proportion of the population of the country, that it is constantly necessary to come away from Washington and renew one s contact with the people who do not swarm there, who do not ask for anything, but who do MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 17 trust you without their personal counsel to do your duty. Unless a man gets these contacts he grows weaker and weaker. He needs them as Hercules needed the touch of mother earth. If you lift him up too high or he lifts himself too high, he loses the contact and there fore loses the inspiration. I love to think of those plain men, however far from plain their dress sometimes was, who assembled in this hall. One is startled to think of the variety of cos tume and color which would now occur if we were let loose upon the fashions of that age. Men s lack of taste is largely concealed now by the limitations of fashion. Yet these men, who sometimes dressed like the peacock, were, nevertheless, of the ordinary flight of their time. They were birds of a feather; they were birds come from a very simple breeding; they were much in the open heaven. They were beginning, when there was so little to distract their attention, to show that they could live upon fundamental principles of government. We talk those principles, but we have not time to absorb them. We have not time to let them into our blood, and thence have them translated into the plain mandates of action. The very smallness of this room, the very simplicity of it all, all the suggestions which come from its restora tion, are reassuring things things which it becomes a man to realize. Therefore my theme here to-day, my only thought, is a very simple one. Do not let us go back to the annals of those sessions of Congress to find out what to do, because we live in another age and the circumstances are absolutely different; but let us be 18 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY men of that kind; let us feel at every turn the com pulsions of principle and of honor which they felt; let us free our vision from temporary circumstances and look abroad at the horizon and take into our lungs the great air of freedom which has blown through this country and stolen across the seas and blessed people everywhere; and, looking east and west and north and south, let us remind ourselves that we are the custodians, in some degree, of the principles which have made men free and governments just. ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE SOUTH ERN COMMERCIAL CONGRESS HELD AT MOBILE, ALA., OCTOBER 27, 1913 The Southern Commercial Congress was organized December 8, 1908, in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, primarily, as its name indicates, for the interests of the South which are, however, inextricably bound up with the interests of all the States of the Union. Its annual meetings are notable occasions, and not the least notable was the meeting at Mobile, Alabama, in October, 1913, where President Wilson delivered an address largely dealing with the relations which should exist between the United States and the other Repub lics of the New World, an address which the peoples of those Republics considered memorable. YOUR EXCELLENCY, MR. CHAIRMAN: It is with unaffected pleasure that I find myself here to-day. I once before had the pleasure, in another southern city, of addressing the Southern Commercial Congress. I then spoke of what the future seemed to hold in store for this region, which so many of us love and toward the future of which we all look forward with so much confidence and hope. But another theme directed me here this time. I do not need to speak of the South. She has, perhaps, acquired the gift of speak ing for herself. I come because I want to speak of our present and prospective relations with our neighbors to the south. I deemed it a public duty, as well as a personal pleasure, to be here to express for myself and for the Government I represent the welcome we all feel to those who represent the Latin American States. The future, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be very different for this hemisphere from the past. These 19 20 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY States lying to the south of us, which have always been our neighbors, will now be drawn closer to us by in numerable ties, and, I hope, chief of all, by the tie of a common understanding of each other. Interest does not tie nations together; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them, and I believe that by the new route that is just about to be opened, while we physically cut two continents asunder, we spiritually unite them. It is a spiritual union which we seek. I wonder if you realize, I wonder if your imagina tions have been filled with the significance of the tides of commerce. Tour governor alluded in very fit and striking terms to the voyage of Columbus, but Columbus took his voyage under compulsion of circumstances. Constantinople had been captured by the Turks and all the routes of trade with the East had been suddenly closed. If there was not a way across the Atlantic to open those routes again, they were closed forever, and Columbus set out not to discover America, for he did not know that it existed, but to discover the eastern shores of Asia. He set sail for Cathay and stumbled upon America. With that change in the outlook of the world, what happened? England, that had been at the back of Europe with an unknown sea behind her, found that all things had turned as if upon a pivot and she was at the front of Europe ; and since then all the tides of energy and enterprise that have issued out of Europe have seemed to be turned westward across the Atlantic. But you will notice that they have turned westward chiefly north of the Equator and that it is the northern MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 21 half of the globe that has seemed to be filled with the media of intercourse and of sympathy and of common understanding. Do you not see now what is about to happen ? These great tides which have been running along parallels of latitude will now swing southward athwart parallels of latitude, and that opening gate at the Isthmus of Panama will open the world to a commerce that she has not known before, a commerce of intelligence, of thought and sympathy between North and South. The Latin American States, which, to their disadvantage, have been off the main lines, will now be on the main lines. I feel that these gentlemen honoring us with their pres ence to-day will presently find that some part, at any rate, of the center of gravity of the world has shifted. Do you realize that New York, for example, will be nearer the western coast of South America than she is now to the eastern coast of South America? Do you realize that a line drawn northward parallel with the greater part of the western coast of South America will run only about 150 miles west of New York ? The great bulk of South America, if you will look at your globes (not at your Mercator s projection), lies eastward of the continent of North America. You will realize that when you realize that the canal will run southeast, not southwest, and that when you get into the Pacific you will be farther east than you were when you left the Gulf of Mexico. These things are significant, there fore, of this, that we are closing one chapter in the history of the world and are opening another, of great, unimaginable significance. 22 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY v There is one peculiarity about the history of the Latin American States which I am sure they are keenly aware of. You hear of " concessions" to foreign capi talists in Latin America. You do not hear of conces sions to foreign capitalists in the United States. They are not granted concessions. They are invited to make investments. The work is ours, though they are wel come to invest in it. We do not ask them to supply the capital and do the work. It is an invitation, not a privilege; and States that are obliged, because their territory does not lie within the main field of modern enterprise and action, to grant concessions are in this condition, that foreign interests are apt to dominate their domestic affairs, a condition of affairs always dan gerous and apt to become intolerable. What these States are going to see, therefore, is an emancipation from the subordination, which has been inevitable, to foreign enterprise and an assertion of the splendid character which, in spite of these difficulties, they have again and again been able to demonstrate. The dig nity, the courage, the self-possession, the self-respect of the Latin American States, their achievements in the face of all these adverse circumstances, deserve nothing but the admiration and applause of the world. They have had harder bargains driven with them in the matter of loans than any other peoples in the world. Interest has been exacted of them that was not exacted of anybody else, because the risk was said to be greater ; and then securities were taken that destroyed the risk an admirable arrangement for those who were forcing the terms! I rejoice in nothing so much as in the pros- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 23 pect that they will now be emancipated from these conditions, and we ought to be the first to take part in assisting in that emancipation. I think some of these gentlemen have already had occasion to bear witness that the Department of State in recent months has tried to serve them in that wise. In the future they will draw closer and closer to us because of circumstances of which I wish to speak with moderation and, I hope, without indiscretion. We must prove ourselves their friends and cham pions upon terms of equality and honor. You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality. You cannot be friends at all except upon the terms of honor. We must show ourselves friends by comprehending their interest whether it squares with our own interest or not. It is a very perilous thing to determine the foreign policy of a nation in the terms of material interest. It not only is unfair to those with whom you are dealing, but it is degrading as regards your own actions. Comprehension must be the soil in which shall grow N all the fruits of friendship, and there is a reason and a compulsion lying behind all this which is dearer than anything else to the thoughtful men of America. I mean the development of constitutional liberty in the world. Human rights, national integrity, and oppor tunity as against material interests that, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue which we now have to face. I want to take this occasion to say that the United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest. She will devote herself to showing that she 24 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY knows how to make honorable and fruitful use of the territory she has, and she must regard it as one of the duties of friendship to see that from no quarter are material interests made superior to human liberty and national opportunity. I say this, not with a single thought that anyone will gainsay it, but merely to fix T in our consciousness what our real relationship with the rest of America is. It is the relationship of a family of mankind devoted to the development of true con stitutional liberty. We know that that is the soil out of which the best enterprise springs. We know that this is a cause which we are making in common with our neighbors, because we have had to make it for ourselves. Reference has been made here to-day to some of the national problems which confront us as a nation. What is at the heart of all our national problems ? It is that we have seen the hand of material interest some times about to close upon our dearest rights and posses sions. We have seen material interests threaten con stitutional freedom in the United States. Therefore we will now know how to sympathize with those in the rest of America who have to contend with such powers, not only within their borders but from outside their borders also. I know what the response of the thought and heart of America will be to the program I have outlined, because America was created to realize a program like that. This is not America because it is rich. This is not America because it has set up for a great popula tion great opportunities of material prosperity. Amer- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 25 ica is a name which sounds in the ears of men every where as a synonym with individual opportunity because a synonym of individual liberty. I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. But we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because the nation that loves liberty truly sets every man free to do his best and be his best, and that means the release of all the splendid energies of a great people who think for themselves. A nation of employees cannot be free any more than a nation of employers can be. In emphasizing the points which must unite us in sympathy and in spiritual interest with the Latin Amer ican peoples we are only emphasizing the points of our own life, and we should prove ourselves untrue to our own traditions if we proved ourselves untrue friends to them. Do not think, therefore, gentlemen, that the questions of the day are mere questions of policy and diplomacy. They are shot through with the principles of life. We^ dare not turn from the principle that morality and not expediency is the thing that must guide us and that we will never condone iniquity be cause it is most convenient to do so. It seems to me that this is a day of infinite hope, of confidence in a future greater than the past has been, for I am fain to believe that in spite of all the things that we wish to correct the nineteenth century that now lies behind us has brought us a long stage toward the time when, slowly ascending the tedious climb that leads to the final uplands, we shall get our ultimate view of the 26 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY duties of mankind. "We have breasted a considerable part of that climb and shall presently it may be in a generation or two come out upon those great heights where there shines unobstructed the light of the justice of God. FIRST ANNUAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, DECEMBER 2, 1913 x ME. SPEAKEE, ME. PEESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGEESS : In pursuance of my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the Union," I take the liberty of addressing you on several matters which ought, as it seems to me, particularly to engage the attention of your honorable bodies, as of all who study the welfare and progress of the Nation. I shall ask your indulgence if I venture to depart in some degree from the usual custom of setting before you in formal review the many matters which have engaged the attention and called for the action of the several departments of the Government or which look to them for early treatment in the future, because the list is long, very long, and would suffer in the abbrevi ation to which I should have to subject it. I shall sub mit to you the reports of the heads of the several departments, in which these subjects are set forth in careful detail, and beg that they may receive the thoughtful attention of your committees and of all Members of the Congress who may have the leisure to study them. Their obvious importance, as constituting the very substance of the business of the Government, makes comment and emphasis on my part unnecessary. 1 Only that part of the address is given which concerns international rela tions. 27 28 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY The country, I am thankful to say, is at peace with all the world, and many happy manifestations multiply about us of a growing cordiality and sense of com munity of interest among the nations, foreshadowing an age of settled peace and good will. More and more readily each decade do the nations manifest their will ingness to bind themselves by solemn treaty to the processes of peace, the processes of frankness and fair concession. So far the United States has stood at the front of such negotiations. She will, I earnestly hope and confidently believe, give fresh proof of her sincere adherence to the cause of international friendship by ratifying the several treaties of arbitration awaiting renewal by the Senate. In addition to these, it has been the privilege of the Department of State to gain the assent, in principle, of no less than 31 nations, rep resenting four-fifths of the population of the world, to the negotiation of treaties by which it shall be agreed that whenever differences of interest or of policy arise which cannot be resolved by the ordinary processes of diplomacy they shall be publicly analyzed, discussed, and reported upon by a tribunal chosen by the parties before either nation determines its course of action. There is only one possible standard by which to, determine controversies between the United States and other nations, and that is compounded of these two elements: Our own honor and our obligations to the peace of the world. A test so compounded ought easily to be made to govern both the establishment of new treaty obligations and the interpretation of those already assumed. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 29 There is but one cloud upon our horizon. That has shown itself to the south of us, and hangs over Mexico. There can be no certain prospect of peace in America until Gen. Huerta has surrendered his usurped author ity in Mexico; until it is understood on all hands, indeed, that such pretended governments will not be countenanced or dealt with by the Government of the United States. We are the friends of constitutional government in America; we are more than its friends, we are its champions; because in no other way can our neighbors, to whom we would wish in every way to make proof of our friendship, work out their own development in peace and liberty. Mexico has no Gov ernment. \The attempt to maintain one at the City of Mexico has broken down, and a mere military des potism has been set up which has hardly more than the semblance of national authority. It originated in the usurpation of Victoriano Huerta, who, after a brief attempt to play the part of constitutional President, has at last cast aside even the pretense of legal right and declared himself dictator. As a consequence, a condition of affairs now exists in Mexico which has made it doubtful whether even the most elementary and fundamental rights either of her own people or of the citizens of other countries resident within her territory can long be successfully safeguarded, and which threatens, if long continued, to imperil the inter ests of peace, order, and tolerable life in the lands immediately to the south of us. Even if the usurper had succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the con stitution of the Eepublic and the rights of its people, 30 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY he would have set up nothing but a precarious and hateful power, which could have lasted but a little while, and whose eventual downfall would have left the country in a more deplorable condition than ever. But he has not succeeded. He has forfeited the respect and the moral support even of those who were at one time willing to see him succeed. Little by little he has been completely isolated. By a little every day his power and prestige are crumbling and the collapse is not far away. We shall not, I believe, be obliged to alter our policy of watchful waiting. And then, when the end comes, we shall hope to see constitutional order restored in distressed Mexico by the concert and energy of such of her leaders as prefer the liberty of their people to their own ambitions. ADDRESS URGING REPEAL OF PANAMA TOLLS DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, MARCH 5, 1914 On August 24, 1912, a bill was approved by President Taft, entitled, "An Act to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection, and operation of the Panama Canal and the sanitation and government of the Canal Zone." This bill contained a provision that American ships engaged in the coastwise trade should be exempt from the payment of tolls. Great Britain claimed that the ex emption of American coast-wise shipping from the payment of tolls was a viola tion of the terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty between Great Britain and the United States signed November 18, 1901, and proclaimed February 18, 1902. Largely through the energy of Senator Root, a sentiment was created in favor of the repeal of this section of the Act, which gained irresistible momentum by President Wilson s advocacy of this measure. A bill to this effect was passed by both Houses and approved by him June 15, 1914. In the interval, on March 5, 1914, he appeared in person before the Congress and delivered the following address. GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: I have come to you upon an errand which can be very briefly performed, but I beg that you will not measure its importance by the number of sentences in which I state it. No communication I have addressed to the Congress carried with it graver or more far- reaching implications as to the interest of the country, and I come now to speak upon a matter with regard to which I am charged in a peculiar degree, by the Constitution itself, with personal responsibility. I have come to ask you for the repeal of that pro vision of the Panama Canal Act of August 24, 1912, which exempts vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States from payment of tolls, and to urge upon you the justice, the wisdom, and the large policy of such a repeal with the utmost earnestness of which I am capable. 31 32 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY In my own judgment, very fully considered and maturely formed, that exemption constitutes a mistaken economic policy from every point of view, and is, more over, in plain contravention of the treaty with Great Britain concerning the canal concluded on November 18, 1901. But I have not come to urge upon you my personal views. I have come to state to you a fact and a situation. Whatever may be our own differ ences of opinion concerning this much debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but one interpretation, and that interpretation pre cludes the exemption I am asking you to repeal. We consented to the treaty; its language we accepted, if we did not originate it; and we are too big, too power ful, too self-respecting a nation to interpret with a too strained or refined reading the words of our own promises just because we have power enough to give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing to do is the only thing we can afford to do, a volun tary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned and misunderstood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for generosity and for the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesitation. I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the administration. I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure. ADDRESS ON MEXICAN AFFAIRS DELIV ERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, APRIL 20, 1914 x GENTLEMEN or THE CONGRESS : It is my duty to call your attention to a situation which has arisen in our dealings with General Victoriano Huerta at Mexico City which calls for action, and to ask your advice and co-operation in acting upon it. On the 9th of April a paymaster of the IT. S. S. Dol phin landed at the Iturbide Bridge landing at Tampico with a whaleboat and boat s crew to take off. certain supplies needed by his ship, and while engaged in loading the boat was arrested by an officer and squad of men of the army of General Huerta. Neither the paymaster nor anyone of the boat s crew was armed. Two of the men were in the boat when the arrest took place and were obliged to leave it and submit to be taken into custody, notwithstanding the fact that the boat carried, both at her bow and at her stern, the flag of the United States. The officer who made the arrest was proceeding up one of the streets of the town with his prisoners when met by an officer of higher authority, who ordered him to return to the landing and await orders; and within an hour and a half from the time of the arrest orders were received from the commander 1 For an elaborate and sympathetic statement of President Wilson s Mex ican policy see an interview with the Honorable Franklin R. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, contained in the Appendix to this volume, pp. 392-406. 33 34 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY of the Huertista forces at Tampico for the release of the paymaster and his men. The release was followed by apologies from the commander and later by an expression of regret by General Huerta himself. Gen eral Huerta urged that martial law obtained at the time at Tampico; that orders had been issued that no one should be allowed to land at the Iturbide Bridge; and that our sailors had no right to land there. Our naval commanders at the port had not been notified of any such prohibition; and, even if they had been, the only justifiable course open to the local authorities would have been to request the paymaster and his crew to withdraw and to lodge a protest with the command ing officer of the fleet. Admiral Mayo regarded the arrest as so serious an affront that he was not satis fied with the apologies offered, but demanded that the flag of the United States be saluted with special cere mony by the military commander of the port. The incident cannot be regarded as a trivial one, especially as two of the men arrested were taken from the boat itself that is to say, from the territory of the United States but had it stood by itself it might have been attributed to the ignorance or arrogance of a single officer. Unfortunately, it was not an isolated case. A series of incidents have recently occurred which cannot but create the impression that the repre sentatives of General Huerta were willing to go out of their way to show disregard for the dignity and rights of this Government and felt perfectly safe in doing what they pleased, making free to show in many ways their irritation and contempt. A few days after MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 35 the incident at Tampico an orderly from the U. S. S. Minnesota was arrested at Vera Cruz while ashore in uniform to obtain the ship s mail, and was for a time thrown into jail. An official dispatch from this Gov ernment to its embassy at Mexico City was withheld by the authorities of the telegraphic service until per emptorily demanded by our charge d affaires in person. So far as I can learn, such wrongs and annoyances have been suffered to occur only against representatives of the United States. I have heard of no complaints from other Governments of similar treatment. Subsequent explanations and formal apologies did not and could not alter the popular impression, which it is possible it had been the object of the Huertista authorities to create, that the Government of the United States was being singled out, and might be singled out with im punity, for slights and affronts in retaliation for its refusal to recognize the pretensions of General Huerta to be regarded as the constitutional provisional Presi dent of the Republic of Mexico. The manifest danger of such a situation was that such offenses might grow from bad to worse until some thing happened of so gross and intolerable a sort as to lead directly and inevitably to armed conflict. It was necessary that the apologies of General Huerta and his representatives should go much further, that they should be such as to attract the attention of the whole population to their significance, and such as to impress upon General Huerta himself the necessity of seeing to it that no further occasion for explanations and pro fessed regrets should arise. I, therefore, felt it my duty 36 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY to sustain Admiral Mayo in the whole of his demand and to insist that the flag of the United States should be saluted in such a way as to indicate a new spirit and attitude on the part of the Huertistas. Such a salute General Huerta has refused, and I have come to ask your approval and support in the course I now purpose to pursue. This Government can, I earnestly hope, in no cir cumstances be forced into war with the people of Mexico. Mexico is torn by civil strife. If we are to accept the tests of its own constitution, it has no gov ernment. General Huerta has set his power up in the City of Mexico, such as it is, without right and by methods for which there can be no justification. Only part of the country is under his control. If armed conflict should unhappily come as a result of his atti tude of personal resentment toward this Government, we should be fighting only General Huerta and those who adhere to him and give him their support, and our object would be only to restore to the people of the distracted Republic the opportunity to set up again their own laws and their own government. But I earnestly hope that war is not now in ques tion. I believe that I speak for the American people when I say that we do not desire to control in any degree the affairs of our sister Republic. Our feeling for the people of Mexico is one of deep and genuine friendship, and everything that we have so far done or refrained from doing has proceeded from our desire to help them, not to hinder or embarrass them. We would not wish even to exercise the good offices of MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 37 friendship without their welcome and consent. The people of Mexico are entitled to settle their own do mestic affairs in their own way, and we sincerely desire to respect their right. The present situation need have none of the grave implications of interference if we deal with it promptly, firmly, and wisely. No doubt I could do what is necessary in the cir cumstances to enforce respect for our Government without recourse to the Congress, and yet not exceed my constitutional powers as President; but I do not wish to act in a matter possibly of so grave consequence except in close conference and co-operation with both the Senate and House. I, therefore, come to ask your approval that I should use the armed forces of the United States in such ways and to such an extent as may be necessary to obtain from General Huerta and his adherents the fullest recognition of the rights and dignity of the United States, even amidst the distress ing conditions now unhappily obtaining in Mexico. There can in what we do be no thought of aggres- , sion or of selfish aggrandizement. We seek to main tain the dignity and authority of the United States only because we wish always to keep our great influ ence unimpaired for the uses of liberty, both in the United States and wherever else it may be employed for the benefit of mankind. A WAR OF SERVICE ADDRESS IN MEMORY OF THE AMERICANS KILLED AT VERA CRUZ, DELIVERED AT THE BROOKLYN NAVY YARD, MAY 11, 1914 In order to prevent the delivery to General Huerta s Government of a cargo of supplies and ammunition, brought from Europe by the German steamer Ypringa, President Wilson, on April 21, 1914, ordered a detachment of American marines on board the U.S.S. Prairie and the U.S.S. Florida to land at Vera Cruz and to seize the Custom House in that city. This they did at the loss of nineteen killed and seventy wounded. The bodies of the marines were brought to the United States for burial, and at their memorial service President Wilson delivered the following address. MR. SECRETARY: I know that the feelings which characterize all who stand about me and the whole Nation at this hour are not feelings which can be suitably expressed in terms of attempted oratory or eloquence. They are things too deep for ordinary speech. For my own part, I have a singular mixture of feelings. The feeling that is upper most is one of profound grief that these lads should have had to go to their death; and yet there is mixed with that grief a profound pride that they should have gone as they did, and, if I may say it out of my heart, a touch of envy of those who were permitted so quietly, so nobly, to do their duty. Have you thought of it, men? Here is the roster of the Navy the list of the men, officers and enlisted men and marines and suddenly there swim nineteen stars out of the list men who have suddenly been lifted into a firmament of memory where we shall 38 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 39 always see their names shine, not because they called upon us to admire them, but because they served us, without asking any questions and in the performance of a duty which is laid upon us as well as upon them. Duty is not an uncommon thing, gentlemen. Men are performing it in the ordinary walks of life all around us all the time, and they are making great sacrifices to per form it. What gives men like these peculiar distinction is not merely that they did their duty, but that their duty had nothing to do with them or their own personal and peculiar interests. They did not give their lives for themselves. They gave their lives for us, because we called upon them as a Nation to perform an unexpected duty. That is the way in which men grow distinguished, and that is the only way, by serving somebody else than themselves. And what greater thing could you serve than a Nation such as this we love and are proud of? Are you sorry for these lads? Are you sorry for the way they will be remembered ? Does it not quicken your pulses to think of the list of them *? I hope to God none of you may join the. list, but if you do you will join an immortal company. So, while we are profoundly sorrowful, and while there goes out of our hearts a very deep and affectionate sympathy for the friends and relatives of these lads who for the rest of their lives shall mourn them, though with a touch of pride, we know why we do not go away from this occasion cast down, but with our heads lifted and our eyes on the future of this country, with absolute confidence of how it will be worked out. Not only upon the mere vague future of this country, but upon the 40 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY y immediate future. We have gone down to Mexico to serve mankind if we can find out the way. We do not want to fight the Mexicans. We want to serve the Mexicans if we can, because we know how we would like to be free, and how we would like to be served if there were friends standing by in such case ready to serve us. A war of aggression is not a war in which it is a proud thing to die, but a war of service is a thing in which it is a proud thing to die. Notice how truly these men were of our blood. I mean of our American blood, which is not drawn from any one country, which is not drawn from any one stock, which is not drawn from any one language of the modern world; but free men everywhere have sent their sons and their brothers and their daughters to this country in order to make that great compounded Nation which consists of all the sturdy elements and of all the best elements of the whole globe. I listened again to this list of the dead with a profound interest because of the mixture of the names, for the names bear the marks of the several national stocks from which these men came. But they are not Irishmen or Germans or Frenchmen or Hebrews or Italians any more. They were not when they went to Vera Cruz; they were Americans, every one of them, and with no difference in their Americanism because of the stock from which they came. They were in a peculiar sense of our blood, and they proved it by showing that they were of our spirit that no matter what their deriva tion, no matter where their people came from, they thought and wished and did the things that were Ameri- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 41 can; and the flag under which they served was a flag in which all the blood of mankind is united to make a free Nation. War, gentlemen, is only a sort of dramatic represen tation, a sort of dramatic symbol, of a thousand forms of duty. I never went into battle; I never was under fire; but I fancy that there are some things just as hard to do as to go under fire. I fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you. When they shoot at you, they can only take your natural life; when they sneer at you, they can wound your living heart, and men who are brave enough, steadfast enough, steady in their principles enough, to go about their duty with regard to their fellow-men, no matter whether there are hisses or cheers, men who can do what Rudyard Kipling in one of his poems wrote, "Meet with tri umph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same," are men for a nation to be proud of. Mor ally speaking, disaster and triumph are impostors. The cheers of the moment are not what a man ought to think about, but the verdict of his conscience and of the consciences of mankind. When I look at you, I feel as if I also and we all were enlisted men. Not enlisted in your particular brancn of the service, but enlisted to serve the country, no matter what may come, even though we may sacri fice our lives in the arduous endeavor. We are expected to put the utmost energy of every power that we have into the service of our fellow-men, never sparing our selves, not condescending to think of what is going to 42 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY happen to ourselves, but ready, if need be, to go to the utter length of complete self-sacrifice. As I stand and look at you to-day and think of these spirits that have gone from us, I know that the road is clearer for the future. These boys have shown us the way, and it is easier to walk on it because they have gone before and shown us how. May God grant to all of us that vision of patriotic service which here in solemnity and grief and pride is borne in upon our hearts and consciences! ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE STATUE TO THE MEMORY OF COMMO DORE JOHN BARRY, WASHINGTON, MAY 16, 1914 John Barry, the first senior officer to be given the rank of Commodore after the reorganization of the Navy during Washington s administration in 1794, was born in Ireland in 1745 and died in the United States in 1803. He emi grated to the colonies about 1760 and settled in Philadelphia, where he acquired wealth as the master of a merchantman. Upon the declaration of independence, he was appointed to the command of a brig appropriately named the Lexington, in 1776, and, while in command of this vessel, captured the tender Edward, said to be the first ship ever taken by a commissioned officer of the United States Navy. MR. SECRETARY, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: I esteem it a privilege to be present on this inter esting occasion, and I am very much tempted to antici pate some part of what the orators of the day will say about the character of the great man whose memory we celebrate. If I were to attempt an historical address, I might, however, be led too far afield. I am going to take the liberty, therefore, of drawing a few inferences from the significance of this occasion. I think that we can never be present at a ceremony of this kind, which carries our thought back to the great Revolution, by means of which our Government was set up, without feeling that it is an occasion of reminder, of renewal, of refreshment, when we turn our thoughts again to the great issues which were pre sented to the little Nation which then asserted its independence to the world; to which it spoke both in eloquent representations of its cause and in the sound of arms, and ask ourselves what it was that these men 43 44 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY fought for. No one can turn to the career of Com modore Barry without feeling a touch of the enthusi asm with which he devoted an originating mind to the great cause which he intended to serve, and it behooves us, living in this age when no man can question the power of the Nation, when no man would dare to doubt its right and its determination to act for itself, to ask what it was that filled the hearts of these men when they set the Nation up. For patriotism, ladies and gentlemen, is in my mind not merely a sentiment. There is a certain efferves cence, I suppose, which ought to be permitted to those who allow their hearts to speak in the celebration of the glory and majesty of their country, but the country can have no glory and no majesty unless there be a deep principle and conviction back of the enthusiasm. Patriotism is a principle, not a mere sentiment. No man can be a true patriot who does not feel himself shot through and through with a deep ardor for what his country stands for, what its existence means, what its purpose is declared to be in its history and in its policy. I recall those solemn lines of the poet Tenny son in which he tries to give voice to his conception of what it is that stirs within a nation: "Some sense of duty, something of a faith, some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, some patient force to change them when we will, some civic manhood firm against the crowd;" steadfastness, clearness of purpose, cour age, persistency, and that uprightness which comes from the clear thinking of men who wish to serve not themselves but their fellow-men. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 45 What does the United States stand for, then, that our hearts should be stirred by the memory of the men who set her Constitution up ? John Barry fought, like L every other man in the Eevolution, in order that Amer ica might be free to make her own life without inter ruption or disturbance from any other quarter. You can sum the whole thing up in that, that America had a right to her own self-determined life; and what are our corollaries from that? You do not have to go back to stir your thoughts again with the issues of the Revo lution. Some of the issues of the Eevolution were not the cause of it, but merely the occasion for it. There are just as vital things stirring now that concern the existence of the Nation as were stirring then, and every man who worthily stands in this presence should exam ine himself and see whether he has the full conception of what it means that America should live her own life. Washington saw it when he wrote his farewell address. It was not merely because of passing and transient cir cumstances that Washington said that we must keep free from entangling alliances. It was because he saw that no country had yet set its face in the same direc tion in which America had set her face. We cannot form alliances with those who are not going our way; and in our might and majesty and in the confidence and definiteness of our own purpose we need not and we should not form alliances with any nation in the world. Those who are right, those who study their consciences > in determining their policies, those who hold their honor higher than their advantage, do not need alliances. You need alliances when you are not strong, and you 46 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY are weak only when you are not true to yourself. You are weak only when you are in the wrong ; you are weak only when you are afraid to do the right ; you are weak only when you doubt your cause and the majesty of a nation s might asserted. There is another corollary. John Barry was an Irishman, but his heart crossed the Atlantic with him. He did not leave it in Ireland. And the test of all of us for all of us had our origins on the other side of the sea is whether we will assist in enabling Amer ica to live her separate and independent life, retaining our ancient affections, indeed, but determining every thing that we do by the interests that exist on this side of the sea. Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name. This man was not an Irish- American ; he was an Irishman who became an American. I venture to say if he voted he voted with regard to the questions as they looked on this side of the water and not as they affected the other side; and that is my infallible test of a genuine American, that when he votes or when he acts or when he fights his heart and his thought are centered nowhere but in the emotions and the purposes and the policies of the United States. This man illustrates for me all the splendid strength which we brought into this country by the magnet of freedom. Men have been drawn to this country by the same thing that has made us love this country by the opportunity to live their own lives and to think MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 47 their own thoughts and to let their whole natures ex pand with the expansion of a free and mighty Nation. We have brought out of the stocks of all the world all the best impulses and have appropriated them and Americanized them and translated them into the glory and majesty of a great country. So, ladies and gentlemen, when we go out from this presence we ought to take this idea with us that we, too, are devoted to the purpose of enabling America to live her own life, to be the justest, the most progressive, the most honorable, the most enlightened Nation in the world. Any man that touches our honor is our enemy. Any man who stands in the way of the kind of prog ress which makes for human freedom cannot call him self our friend. Any man who does not feel behind him the whole push and rush and compulsion that filled men s hearts in the time of the Revolution is no Ameri can. No man who thinks first of himself and after wards of his country can call himself an American. America must be enriched by us. We must not live upon her; she must live by means of us. I, for one, come to this shrine to renew the impulses of American democracy. I would be ashamed of myself if I went away from this place without realizing again that every bit of selfishness must be purged from our policy, that every bit of self-seeking must be purged from our individual consciences, and that we must be great, if we would be great at all, in the light and illumination of the example of men who gave every thing that they were and everything that they had to the glory and honor of America. ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY, JUNE 5, 1914 The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis renders to the Navy the services which the Military Academy established at West Point renders the Army of the United States. The midshipmen, as the students of this institution are called, are appointed, seventeen by the President, twenty-five by the Secre tary of the Navy and three by each Senator and Member of Congress. Upon mental and physical examination they are admitted and pursue a course of four years of technical study at the expense of the United States. The total number allowed by the law is 3,128; the actual number of midshipmen in regular course in the fall of 1917 is 1,442. It is interesting to recall that the Naval Academy was established on October 10, 1845, without act of Congress, by the distinguished American his torian, George Bancroft, then Secretary of the Navy in President Polk s adminis tration, by the simple device of removing the instructors from the men-of-war, who accompanied and instructed the midshipmen, and locating instructors and midshipmen at Annapolis in Fort Severn, assigned to the enterprising Secretary of the Navy by the then Secretary of War. MK. SUPERINTENDENT, YOUNG GENTLEMEN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : During the greater part of my life I have been associated with young men, and on occasions it seems to me without number have faced bodies of youngsters going out to take part in the activities of the world, but I have a consciousness of a different significance in this occasion from that which I have felt on other similar occasions. When I have faced the graduating classes at universities I have felt that I was facing a great conjecture. They were going out into all sorts of pursuits and with every degree of preparation for the particular thing they were expecting to do; some 48 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 49 without any preparation at all, for they did not know what they expected to do. But in facing you I am facing men who are trained for a special thing. You know what you are going to do, and you are under the eye of the whole Nation in doing it. For you, gentle men, are to be part of the power of the Government of the United States. There is a very deep and solemn significance in that fact, and I am sure that every one of .you feels it. The moral is perfectly obvious. Be ready and fit for anything that you have to do. And keep ready and fit. Do not grow slack. Do not sup pose that your education is over because you have re ceived your diplomas from the academy. Your educa tion has just begun. Moreover, you are to have a very peculiar privilege which not many of your predecessors have had. You are yourselves going to become teachers. You are going to teach those 50,000 fellow countrymen of yours who are the enlisted men of the Navy. You are going to make them fitter to obey your orders and to serve the country. You are going to make them fitter to see what the orders mean in their outlook upon life and upon the service ; and that is a great privilege, for out of you are going the energy and intelligence which are going to quicken the whole body of the United States Navy. I congratulate you upon that prospect, but I want to ask you not to get the professional point of view. I would ask it of you if you were lawyers; I would ask it of you if you were merchants ; I would ask it of you whatever you expected to be. Do not get the profes sional point of view. There is nothing narrower or 50 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY more unserviceable than the professional point of view, to have the attitude toward life that it centers in your profession. It does not. Your profession is only one of the many activities which are meant to keep the world straight, and to keep the energy in its blood and in its muscle. We are all of us in this world, as I under stand it, to set forward the affairs of the whole world, though we play a special part in that great function. The Navy goes all over the world, and I think it is to be congratulated upon having that sort of illustration of what the world is and what it contains; and inas much as you are going all over the world you ought to be the better able to see the relation that your country bears to the rest of the world. It ought to be one of your thoughts all the time that you are sample Americans not merely sample Navy men, not merely sample soldiers, but sample Ameri cans and that you have the point of view of America with regard to her Navy and her Army; that she is using them as the instruments of civilization, not as the instruments of aggression. The idea of America is to serve humanity, and every time you let the Stars and Stripes free to the wind you ought to realize that that is in itself a message that you are on an errand which other navies have sometimes forgotten; not an errand of conquest, but an errand of service. I always have the same thought when I look at the flag of the United States, for I know something of the history of the struggle of mankind for liberty. When I look at that flag it seems to me as if the white stripes were strips of parchment upon which are written the rights MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 51 of man, and the red stripes the streams of blood by which those rights have been made good. Then in the little blue firmament in the corner have swung out the stars of the States of the American Union. So it is, as it were, a sort of floating charter that has come down to us from Runnymede, when men said, "We will not have masters; we will be a people, and we will seek our own liberty." You are not serving a government, gentlemen; you are serving a people. For we who for the time being constitute the Government are merely instruments for a little while in the hands of a great Nation which chooses whom it will to carry out its decrees and who invariably rejects the man who forgets the ideals which it intended him to serve. So that I hope that wherever you go you will have a generous, comprehending love of the people you come into contact with, and will come back and tell us, if you can, what service the United States can render to the remotest parts of the world; tell us where you see men suffering; tell us where you think advice will lift them up; tell us where you think that the counsel of statesmen may better the fortunes of unfortunate men; always having it in mind that you are champions of what is right and fair all round for the public welfare, no matter where you are, and that it is that you are ready to fight for and not merely on the drop of a hat or upon some slight punctilio, but that you are champions of your fel low-men, particularly of that great body one hun dred million strong whom you represent in the United States. 52 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY What do you think is the most lasting impression that those boys down at Vera Cruz are going to leave? They have had to use some force I pray God it may not be necessary for them to use any more but do you think that the way they fought is going to be the most lasting impression 1 ? Have men not fought ever since the world began? Is there anything new in using force? The new things in the world are the things that are divorced from force. The things that show the moral compulsions of the human conscience, those are the things by which we have been building up civiliza tion, not by force. And the lasting impression that those boys are going to leave is this, that they exercise self-control; that they are ready and diligent to make the place where they went fitter to live in than they found it; that they regarded other people s rights; that they did not strut and bluster, but went quietly, like self-respecting gentlemen, about their legitimate work. And the people of Yera Cruz, who feared the Ameri cans and despised the Americans, are going to get a very different taste in their mouths about the whole thing when the boys of the Navy and the Army come away. Is that not something to be proud of, that you know how to use force like men of conscience and like gentlemen, serving your fellow-men and not trying to overcome them? Like that gallant gentleman who has so long borne the heats and perplexities and distresses of the situation in Vera Cruz Admiral Fletcher. I mention him, because his service there has been longer and so much of the early perplexities fell upon him. I have been in almost daily communication with Ad- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 53 miral Fletcher, and I have tested his temper. I have tested his discretion. I know that he is a man with a touch of statesmanship about him, and he has grown bigger in my eye each day as I have read his dispatches, for he has sought always to serve the thing he was trying to do in the temper that we all recognize and love to believe is typically American. I challenge you youngsters to go out with these con ceptions, knowing that you are part of the Government and force of the United States and that men will judge us by you. I am not afraid of the verdict. I cannot look in your faces and doubt what it will be, but I want you to take these great engines of force out onto the seas like adventurers enlisted for the elevation of the spirit of the human race. For that is the only distinc tion that America has. Other nations have been strong, other nations have piled wealth as high as the sky, but they have come into disgrace because they used their force and their wealth for the oppression of man kind and their own aggrandizement; and America will not bring glory to herself, but disgrace, by following the beaten paths of history. We must strike out upon new paths, and we must count upon you gentlemen to be the explorers who will carry this spirit and spread this message all over the seas and in every port of the civilized world. You see, therefore, why I said that when I faced you I felt there was a special significance. I am not present on an occasion when you are about to scatter on various errands. You are all going on the same errand, and I like to feel bound with you in one common organiza- 54 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY tion for the glory of America. And her glory goes deeper than all the tinsel, goes deeper than the sound of guns and the clash of sabers; it goes down to the very foundations of those things that have made the spirit of men free and happy and content. ADDRESS AT INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1914 MR. CHAIRMAN AND FELLOW CITIZENS : We are assembled to celebrate the one hundred and thirty-eighth anniversary of the birth of the United States. I suppose that we can more vividly realize the circumstances of that birth standing on this historic spot than it would be possible to realize them anywhere else. The Declaration of Independence was written in Phila delphia; it was adopted in this historic building by which we stand. I have just had the privilege of sit ting in the chair of the great man who presided over the deliberations of those who gave the declaration to the world. My hand rests at this moment upon the table upon which the declaration was signed. We can feel that we are almost in the visible and tangible pres ence of a great historic transaction. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence or attended with close comprehension to the real char acter of it when you have heard it read I If you have, you will know that it is not a Fourth of July oration. The Declaration of Independence was a document pre liminary to war. It was a vital piece of practical busi ness, not a piece of rhetoric ; and if you will pass beyond those preliminary passages which we are accustomed to quote about the rights of men and read into the heart of the document you will see that it is very express and detailed, that it consists of a series of definite specifica- 55 56 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY tions concerning actual public business of the day. Not the business of our day, for the matter with which it deals is past, but the business of that first revolution by which the Nation was set up, the business of 1776. Its general statements, its general declarations cannot mean anything to us unless we append to it a similar specific body of particulars as to what we consider the essential business of our own day. Liberty does not consist, my fellow citizens, in mere general declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action. Therefore, standing here where the declaration was adopted, reading its business-like sentences, we ought to ask ourselves what there is in it for us. There is nothing in it for us unless we can translate it into the terms of our own conditions and of our own lives. We must reduce it to what the lawyers call a bill of particulars. It contains a bill of particulars, but the bill of particulars of 1776. If we would keep it alive, we must fill it with a bill of particulars of the year 1914. The task to which we have constantly to readdress ourselves is the task of proving that we are worthy of the men who drew this great declaration and know what they would have done in our circumstances. Patriotism consists in some very practical things practical in that they belong to the life of every day, that they wear no extraordinary distinction about them, that they are con nected with commonplace duty. The way to be patriotic in America is not only to love America, but to love the duty that lies nearest to our hand and know that in MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 57 performing it we are serving our country. There are some gentlemen in Washington, for example, at this very moment who are showing themselves very patriotic in a way which does not attract wide attention but seems to belong to mere everyday obligations. The Members of the House and Senate who stay in hot Washington to maintain a quorum of the Houses and transact the all- important business of the Nation are doing an act of patriotism. I honor them for it, and I am glad to stay there and stick by them until the work is done. It is patriotic, also, to learn what the facts of our national life are and to face them with candor. I have heard a great many facts stated about the present busi ness condition of this country, for example a great many allegations of fact, at any rate, but the allegations do not tally with one another. And yet I know that truth always matches with truth; and when I find some insisting that everything is going wrong and others insisting that everything is going right, and when I know from a wide observation of the general circum stances of the country taken as a whole that things are going extremely well, I wonder what those who are cry ing out that things are wrong are trying to do. Are they trying to serve the country, or are they trying to serve something smaller than the country? Are they trying to put hope into the hearts of the men who work and toil every day, or are they trying to plant discour agement and despair in those hearts ? And why do they cry that everything is wrong and yet do nothing to set it right? If they love America and anything is wrong amongst us, it is their business to put their hand with 58 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY ours to the task of setting it right. When the facts are known and acknowledged, the duty of all patriotic men is to accept them in candor and to address themselves hopefully and confidently to the common counsel which is necessary to act upon them wisely and in universal concert. I have had some experiences in the last 14 months which have not been entirely reassuring. It was uni versally admitted, for example, my fellow citizens, that the banking system of this country needed reorganiza tion. We set the best minds that we could find to the task of discovering the best method of reorganization. But we met with hardly anything but criticism from the bankers of the country; we met with hardly anything but resistance from the majority of those at least who spoke at all concerning the matter. And yet so soon as that act was passed there was a universal chorus of applause, and the very men who had opposed the meas ure joined in that applause. If it was wrong the day before it was passed, why was it right the day after it was passed? Where had been the candor of criticism not only, but the concert of counsel which makes legis lative action vigorous and safe and successful? It is not patriotic to concert measures against one another; it is patriotic to concert measures for one another. In one sense the Declaration of Independence has lost its significance. It has lost its significance as a declaration of national independence. Nobody outside of America believed when it was uttered that we could make good our independence; now nobody anywhere MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 59 would dare to doubt that we are independent and can maintain our independence. As a declaration of inde pendence, therefore, it is a mere historic document. Our independence is a fact so stupendous that it can be measured only by the size and energy and variety and wealth and power of one of the greatest nations in the world. But it is one thing to be independent and it is another thing to know what to do with your independ ence. It is one thing to come to your majority and another thing to know what you are going to do with your lif e and your energies ; and one of the most serious questions for sober-minded men to address themselves to in the United States is this: What are we going to do with the influence and power of this great Nation? Are we going to play the old role of using that power for our aggrandizement and material benefit only ? You know what that may mean. It may upon occasion mean that we shall use it to make the peoples of other nations suffer in the way in which we said it was intolerable to suffer when we uttered our Declaration of Independence. The Department of State at Washington is constantly called upon to back up the commercial enterprises and the industrial enterprises of the United States in foreign countries, and it at one time went so far in that direc tion that all its diplomacy came to be designated as " dollar diplomacy." It was called upon to support every man who wanted to earn anything anywhere if he was an American. But there ought to be a limit to that. There is no man who is more interested than I am in carrying the enterprise of American business men to every quarter of the globe. I was interested in it long 60 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY before I was suspected of being a politician. I have been preaching it year after year as the great thing that lay in the future for the United States, to show her wit and skill and enterprise and influence in every country in the world. But observe the limit to all that which is laid upon us perhaps more than upon any other nation in the world. We set this Nation up, at any rate we professed to set it up, to vindicate the rights of men. We did not name any differences between one race and another. We did not set up any barriers against any particular people. We opened our gates to all the world and said, "Let all men who wish to be free come to us and they will be welcome. " We said, "This independ ence of ours is not a selfish thing for our own exclusive private use. It is for everybody to whom we can find the means of extending it." We cannot with that oath taken in our youth, we cannot with that great ideal set before us when we were a young people and numbered only a scant 3,000,000, take upon ourselves, now that we are 100,000,000 strong, any other conception of duty than we then entertained. If American enterprise in foreign countries, particularly in those foreign countries which are not strong enough to resist us, takes the shape of imposing upon and exploiting the mass of the people of that country it ought to be checked and not encour aged. I am willing to get anything for an American that money and enterprise can obtain except the sup pression of the rights of other men. I will not help any man buy a power which he ought not to exercise over his fellow beings. You know, my fellow countrymen, what a big ques- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 61 tion there is in Mexico. Eighty-five per cent of the Mexican people have never been allowed to have any genuine participation in their own Government or to exercise any substantial rights with regard to the very land they live upon. All the rights that men most desire have been exercised by the other 15 per cent. Do you suppose that that circumstance is not sometimes in my thought ? I know that the American people have a heart that will beat just as strong for those millions in Mexico as it will beat, or has beaten, for any other millions elsewhere in the world, and that when once they conceive what is at stake in Mexico they will know what ought to be done in Mexico. I hear a great deal said about the loss of property in Mexico and the loss of the lives of foreigners, and I deplore these things with all my heart. Undoubtedly, upon the conclusion of the present disturbed conditions in Mexico those who have been unjustly deprived of their property or in any wise unjustly put upon ought to be compensated. Men s individual rights have no doubt been invaded, and the invasion of those rights has been attended by many deplorable circumstances which ought some time, in the proper way, to be accounted for. But back of it all is the struggle of a people to come into its own, and while we look upon the incidents in the foreground let us not forget the great tragic reality in the back ground which towers above the whole picture. A patriotic American is a man who is not niggardly and selfish in the things that he enjoys that make for human liberty and the rights of man. He wants to share them with the whole world, and he is never so proud of 62 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the great flag under which he lives as when it comes to mean to other people as well as to himself a symbol of hope and liberty. I would be ashamed of this flag if it ever did anything outside America that we would not permit it to do inside of America. The world is becoming more complicated every day, my fellow citizens. No man ought to be foolish enough to think that he understands it all. And, therefore, I am glad that there are some simple things in the world. One of the simple things is principle. Honesty is a per fectly simple thing. It is hard for me to believe that in most circumstances when a man has a choice of ways he does not know which is the right way and which is the wrong way. No man who has chosen the wrong way ought even to come into Independence Square ; it is holy ground which he ought not to tread upon. He ought not to come where immortal voices have uttered the great sentences of such a document as this Declara tion of Independence upon which rests the liberty of a whole nation. And so I say that it is patriotic sometimes to prefer the honor of the country to its material interest. Would you rather be deemed by all the nations of the world incapable of keeping your treaty obligations in order that you might have free tolls for American ships ? The treaty under which we gave up that right may have been a mistaken treaty, but there was no mistake about its meaning. When I have made a promise as a man I try to keep it, and I know of no other rule permissible to a nation. The most distinguished nation in the world is the nation MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 63 that can and will keep its promises even to its own hurt. And I want to say parenthetically that I do not think anybody was hurt. I cannot be enthusiastic for subsi dies to a monopoly, but let those who are enthusiastic for subsidies ask themselves whether they prefer subsi dies to unsullied honor. The most patriotic man, ladies and gentlemen, is sometimes the man who goes in the direction that he thinks right even when he sees half the world against him. It is the dictate of patriotism to sacrifice your self if you think that that is the path of honor and of duty. Do not blame others if they do not agree with you. Do not die with bitterness in your heart because you did not convince the rest of the world, but die happy because you believe that you tried to serve your country by not selling your soul. Those were grim days, the days of 1776. Those gentlemen did not attach their names to the Declaration of Independence on this table expect ing a holiday on the next day, and that 4th of July was not itself a holiday. They attached their signatures to that significant document knowing that if they failed it was certain that every one of them would hang for the failure. They were committing treason in the interest of the liberty of 3,000,000 people in America. All the rest of the world was against them and smiled with cynical incredulity at the audacious undertaking. Do you think that if they could see this great Nation now they would regret anything that they then did to draw the gaze of a hostile world upon them ? Every idea must be started by somebody, and it is a lonely thing to start anything. Yet if it is in you, you must start it if you- 64 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY have a man s blood in you and if you love the country that you profess to be working for. I am sometimes very much interested when I see gentlemen supposing that popularity is the way to suc cess in America. The way to success in this great coun try, with its fair judgments, is to show that you are not afraid of anybody except God and His final verdict. If ^ I did not believe that, I would not believe in democracy. If I did not believe that, I would not believe that people can govern themselves. If I did not believe that the moral judgment would be the last judgment, the final judgment, in the minds of men as well as the tribunal j)f God, I could not believe in popular government. But I do believe these things, and, therefore, I earnestly believe in the democracy not only of America but of every awakened people that wishes and intends to gov ern and control its own affairs. It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this that may be called the original fountain of independence and liberty in America and here drink draughts of patriotic feeling which seem to renew the very blood in one s veins. Down in Washington sometimes when the days are hot and the business presses intolerably and there are so many things to do that it does not seem possible to do anything in the way it ought to be done, it is always possible to lift one s thought above the task of the moment and, as it were, to realize that great thing of which we are all parts, the great body of American feel ing and American principle. No man could do the work that has to be done in Washington if he allowed him self to be separated from that body of principle. He MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 65 must make himself feel that he is a part of the people of the United States, that he is trying to think not only for them, but with them, and then he cannot feel lonely. He not only cannot feel lonely but he cannot feel afraid of anything. My dream is that as the years go on and the world ^ knows more and more of America it will also drink at these fountains of youth and renewal; that it also will turn to America for those moral inspirations which lie at the basis of all freedom; that the world will never fear America unless it feels that it is engaged in some enterprise which is inconsistent with the rights of humanity; and that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity. What other great people has devoted itself to this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the world can all eyes look for an instant sympathy that thrills the whole body politic when men anywhere are fighting for their rights? I do not know that there will ever be a declaration of independence and of grievances for man kind, but I believe that if any such document is ever drawn it will be drawn in the spirit of the American Declaration of Independence, and that America has lifted high the light which will shine unto all genera tions and guide the feet of mankind to the goal of jus tice and liberty and peace. AMERICAN NEUTRALITY AN APPEAL TO THE CITIZENS OF THE REPUBLIC, REQUESTING THEIR AS SISTANCE IN MAINTAINING A STATE OF NEUTRALITY DURING THE PRESENT EUROPEAN WAR, AUGUST 18, 1914 In the manual entitled Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege, 1 issued in 1902 by the Great General Staff of the German Army, the nature of neutrality is thus stated : " It is here assumed that neutrality is not to be regarded as synonymous with indifference and impartiality toward the belligerents and the continuance of the war. As regards the expression of partisanship all that is required of neutral States is the observance of international courtesy; so long as these are observed, there is no occasion for interference." President Wilson s conception of neutrality, as laid down in the following appeal, was something more than impartiality based upon an observance of international courtesies. It was neu trality in thought, in word, in deed, which he besought his countrymen to observe. MY FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: I suppose that every thoughtful man in America has asked himself, during these last troubled weeks, what influence the European war may exert upon the United States, and I take the liberty of addressing a few words to you in order to point out that it is entirely within our own choice what its effects upon us will be and to urge very earnestly upon you the sort of speech and con duct which will best safeguard the Nation against dis tress and disaster. The effect of the war upon the United States will depend upon what American citizens say and do. Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the 1 Translated by J. H. Morgan under the title The War Book of the German General Staff (New York, 1915). 66 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 67 true spirit of neutrality, which is the spirit of impar tiality and fairness and friendliness to all concerned. The spirit of the Nation in this critical matter will be determined largely by what individuals and society and those gathered in public meetings do and say, upon what newspapers and magazines contain, upon what ministers utter in their pulpits, and men proclaim as their opinions on the street. The people of the United States are drawn from many nations, and chiefly from the nations now at war. It is natural and "inevitable that there should be the utmost variety of sympathy and desire among them with regard to the issues and circumstances of the con flict. Some will wish one nation, others another, to succeed in the momentous struggle. It will be easy to excite passion and difficult to allay it. Those respon sible for exciting it will assume a heavy responsibility, responsibility for no less a thing than that the people of the United States, whose love of their country and whose loyalty to its Government should unite them as Americans all, bound in honor and affection to think first of her and her interests, may be divided in camps of hostile opinion, hot against each other, involved in the war itself in impulse and opinion if not in action. Such divisions among us would be fatal to our peace of mind and might seriously stand in the way of the proper performance of our duty as the one great nation at peace, the one people holding itself ready to play a part of impartial mediation and speak the counsels of peace and accommodation, not as a partisan, but as a friend. 68 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY I venture, therefore, my fellow countrymen, to speak a solemn word of warning to you against that deepest, most subtle, most essential breach of neutrality which may spring out of partisanship, out of passionately tak ing sides. The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men s souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another. My thought is of America. I am speaking, I feel sure, the earnest wish and purpose of every thoughtful American that this great country of ours, which is, of course, the first in our thoughts and in our hearts, should show herself in this time of peculiar trial a Nation fit beyond others to exhibit the fine poise of undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the efficiency of dispassionate action; a Nation that neither sits in judg ment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world. Shall we not resolve to put upon ourselves the re straints which will bring to our people the happiness and the great and lasting influence for peace we covet for them? PUBLIC OPINION AND INTERNATIONAL LAW ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, CONTINENTAL HALL, WASHINGTON, OCTOBER 20, 1914 x MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE AMERICAN BAB ASSOCIATION : I am very deeply gratified by the greeting that your president has given me and by your response to it. My only strength lies in your confidence. We stand now in a peculiar case. Our first thought, I suppose, as lawyers, is of international law, of those bonds of right and principle which draw the nations together and hold the community of the world to some standards of action. We know that we see in inter national law, as it were, the moral processes by which law itself came into existence. I know that as a lawyer I have myself at times felt that there was no real com parison between the law of a nation and the law of nations, because the latter lacked the sanction that gave the former strength and validity. And yet, if you look into the matter more closely, you will find that the two have the same foundations, and that those foundations are more evident and conspicuous in our day than they have ever been before. 1 Only that part of the address is given which concerns public opinion and international relations. 70 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY The opinion of the world is the mistress of the world; and the processes of international law are the slow processes by which opinion works its will. What impresses me is the constant thought that that is the tribunal at the bar of which we all sit. I would call your attention, incidentally, to the circumstance that it does not observe the ordinary rules of evidence; which has sometimes suggested to me that the ordinary rules of evidence had shown some signs of growing antique. Everything, rumor included, is heard in this court, and the standard of judgment is not so much the character of the testimony as the character of the witness. The motives are disclosed, the purposes are conjectured, and that opinion is finally accepted which seems to be, not the best founded in law, perhaps, but the best founded in integrity 6f character and of morals. That is the process which; is slowly working its will upon the world ; and what we should be watchful of is not so much jealous interests as sound principles of action. The dis interested course is always the biggest course to pursue not only, but it is in the long run the most profitable course to pursue. If you can establish your character, you can establish your credit. . . . SECOND ANNUAL ADDRESS TO CONGRESS, DECEMBER 8, 1914 l GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS : The session upon which you are now entering will be the closing session of the Sixty-third Congress, a Con gress, I venture to say, which will long be remembered for the great body of thoughtful and constructive work which it has done, in loyal response to the thought and needs of the country. I should like in this address to review the notable record and try to make adequate assessment of it; but no doubt we stand too near the work that has been done and are ourselves too much part of it to play the part of historians toward it. Our program of legislation with regard to the regu lation of business is now virtually complete. It has been put forth, as we intended, as a whole, and leaves no conjecture as to what is to follow. The road at last lies clear and firm before business. It is a road which it can travel without fear or embarrassment. It is the road to ungrudged, unclouded success. In it every honest man, every man who believes that the public interest is part of his own interest, may walk with perfect confidence. Moreover, our thoughts are now more of the future than of the past. While we have worked at our tasks 1 Only that part of the address is given which concerns international relations. 71 72 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY of peace the circumstances of the whole age have been altered by war. What we have done for our own land and our own people we did with the best that was in us, whether of character or of intelligence, with sober enthusiasm and a confidence in the principles upon which we were acting which sustained us at every step of the difficult undertaking; but it is done. It has passed from our hands. It is now an established part of the legislation of the country. Its usefulness, its effects will disclose themselves in experience. What chiefly strikes us now, as we look about us during these closing days of a year which will be forever memorable in the history of the world, is that we face new tasks, have been facing them these six months, must face them in the months to come, face them without partisan feeling, like men who have forgotten everything but a common duty and the fact that we are representatives of a great people whose thought is not of us but of what America owes to herself and to all mankind in such circumstances as these upon which we look amazed and anxious. War has interrupted the means of trade not only but also the processes of production. In Europe it is de stroying men and resources wholesale and upon a scale unprecedented and appalling. There is reason to fear that the time is near, if it be not already at hand, when several of the countries of Europe will find it difficult to do for their people what they have hitherto been always easily able to do, many essential and funda mental things. At any rate, they will need our help and our manifold services as they have never needed MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 73 them before; and we should be ready, more fit and ready than we have ever been. It is of equal consequence that the nations whom Europe has usually supplied with innumerable articles of manufacture and commerce of which they are in constant need and without which their economic de velopment halts and stands still can now get only a small part of what they formerly imported and eagerly look to us to supply their all but empty markets. This is particularly true of our own neighbors, the States, great and small, of Central and South America. Their lines of trade have hitherto run chiefly athwart the seas, not to our ports but to the ports of Great Britain and of the older continent of Europe. I do not stop to in quire why, or to make any comment on probable causes. What interests us just now is not the explanation but the fact, and our duty and opportunity in the presence of it. Here are markets which we must supply, and we must find the means of action. The United States, this great people for whom we speak and act, should be ready, as never before, to serve itself and to serve man kind; ready with its resources, its energies, its forces of production, and its means of distribution. It is a very practical matter, a matter of ways and means. We have the resources, but are we fully ready to use them ? And, if we can make ready what we have, have we the means at hand to distribute it? We are not fully ready; neither have we the means of distribu tion. We are willing, but we are not fully able. We have the wish to serve and to serve greatly, generously; but we are not prepared as we should be. We are not 74 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY ready to mobilize our resources at once. We are not prepared to use them immediately and at their best, without delay and without waste. To speak plainly, we have grossly erred in the way in which we have stunted and hindered the develop ment of our merchant marine. And now, when we need ships, we have not got them. We have year after year debated, without end or conclusion, the best policy to pursue with regard to the use of the ores and forests and water powers of our national domain in the rich States of the West, when we should have acted; and they are still locked up. The key is still turned upon them, the door shut fast at which thousands of vigorous men, full of initiative, knock clamorously for admit tance. The water power of our navigable streams out side the national domain also, even in the eastern States, where we have worked and planned for generations, is still not used as it might be, because we will and we won t; because the laws we have made do not intelli gently balance encouragement against restraint. We withhold by regulation. I have come to ask you to remedy and correct these mistakes and omissions, even at this short session of a Congress which would certainly seem to have done all the work that could reasonably be expected of it. The time and the circumstances are extraordinary, and so must our efforts be also. Fortunately, two great measures, finely conceived, the one to unlock, with proper safeguards, the resources of the national domain, the other to encourage the use of the navigable waters outside that domain for the MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 75 generation of power, have already passed the House of Eepresentatives and are ready for immediate con sideration and action by the Senate. With the deepest earnestness I urge their prompt passage. In them both we turn our backs upon hesitation and makeshift and formulate a genuine policy of use and conserva tion, in the best sense of those words. We owe the one measure not only to the people of that great western country for whose free and systematic development, as it seems to me, our legislation has done so little, but also to the people of the Nation as a whole ; and we as clearly owe the other in fulfillment of our repeated promises that the water power of the country should in fact as well as in name be put at the disposal of great industries which can make economical and profit able use of it, the rights of the public being adequately guarded the while, and monopoly in the use prevented. To have begun such measures and not completed them would indeed mar the record of this great Congress very seriously. I hope and confidently believe that they will be completed. And there is another great piece of legislation which awaits and should receive the sanction of the Senate: I mean the bill which gives a larger measure of self- \ government to the people of the Philippines. How better, in this time of anxious questioning and per plexed policy, could we show our confidence in the principles of liberty, as the source as well as the ex pression of life, how better could we demonstrate our own self-possession and steadfastness in the courses of justice and disinterestedness than by thus going 76 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY calmly forward to fulfill our promises to a dependent people, who will now look more anxiously than ever to see whether we have indeed the liberality, the un selfishness, the courage, the faith we have boasted and professed? I cannot believe that the Senate will let this great measure of constructive justice await the action of another Congress. Its passage would nobly crown the record of these two years of memorable labor. But I think that you will agree with me that this does not complete the toll of our duty. How are we to carry our goods to the empty markets of which I have spoken if we have not the ships? How are we to build up a great trade if we have not the certain and constant means of transportation upon which all profitable and useful commerce depends? And how are we to get the ships if we wait for the trade to develop without them? To correct the many mistakes by which we have discouraged and all but destroyed the merchant marine of the country, to retrace the steps by which we have, it seems almost deliberately, withdrawn our flag from the seas, except where, here and there, a ship of war is bidden carry it or some wandering yacht displays it, would take a long time and involve many detailed items of legislation, and the trade which we ought immediately to handle would disappear or find other channels while we debated the items. The case is not unlike that which confronted us when our own continent was to be opened up to settle ment and industry, and we needed long lines of rail- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 77 way, extended means of transportation prepared before hand, if development was not to lag intolerably and wait interminably. We lavishly subsidized the build ing of transcontinental railroads. We look back upon that with regret now, because the subsidies led to many scandals of which we are ashamed; but we know that the railroads had to be built, and if we had it to do over again we should of course build them, but in an other way. Therefore I propose another way of pro viding the means of transportation, which must precede, not tardily follow, the development of our trade with our neighbor states of America. It may seem a reversal of the natural order of things, but it is true, that the routes of trade must be actually opened by many ships and regular sailings and moderate charges be fore streams of merchandise will flow freely and profit ably through them. Hence the pending shipping bill, discussed at the last session but as yet passed by neither House. In my judgment such legislation is imperatively needed and can not wisely be postponed. The Government must open these gates of trade, and open them wide; open them before it is altogether profitable to open them, or altogether reasonable to ask private capital to open them at a venture. It is not a question of the Government monopolizing the field. It should take action to make it certain that transportation at reason able rates will be promptly provided, even where the carriage is not at first profitable; and then, when the carriage has become sufficiently profitable to attract and engage private capital, and engage it in abundance, 78 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the Government ought to withdraw. I very earnestly hope that the Congress will be of this opinion, and that both Houses will adopt this exceedingly important bill. . . . The other topic I shall take leave to mention goes deeper into the principles of our national life and policy. It is the subject of national defense. It cannot be discussed without first answering some very searching questions. It is said in some quarters that we are not prepared for war. What is meant by being prepared? Is it meant that we are not ready upon brief notice to put a nation in the field, a nation of men trained to arms? Of course we are not ready to do that; and we shall never be in time of peace so long as we retain our present political principles and institutions. And what is it that it is suggested we should be prepared to do? To defend ourselves against attack ? We have always found means to do that, and shall find them whenever it is necessary without calling our people away from their necessary tasks to render compulsory military service in times of peace. Allow me to speak with great plainness and direct ness upon this great matter and to avow my convictions with deep earnestness. I have tried to kno^ what America is, what her people think, what they are, what they most cherish and hold dear. I hope that some of their finer passions are in my own heart, some of the great conceptions and desires which gave birth to this Government and which have made the voice of this people a voice of peace and hope and liberty MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 79 among the peoples of the world, and that, speaking my own thoughts, I shall, at least in part, speak theirs also, however faintly and inadequately, upon this vital matter. We are at peace with all the world. No one who speaks counsel based on fact or drawn from a just and candid interpretation of realities can say that there is reason to fear that fiom any quarter our inde pendence or the integrity of our territory is threatened. Dread of the power of any other nation we are in capable of. We are not jealous of rivalry in the fields of commerce or of any other peaceful achievement. We mean to live our own lives as we will; but we mean also to let live. We are, indeed, a true friend to all the nations of the world, because we threaten none, covet the possessions of none, desire the over throw of none. Our friendship can be accepted and is accepted without reservation, because it is offered in a spirit and for a purpose which no one need ever question or suspect. Therein lies our greatness. We are the champions of peace and of concord. And we should be very jealous of this distinction which we have sought to earn. Just now we should be particularly jealous of it, because it is our dearest present hope that this character and reputation may presently, in God s providence, bring us an opportunity such as has seldom been vouchsafed any nation, the opportunity to counsel and obtain peace in the world and recon ciliation and a healing settlement of many a matter that has cooled and interrupted the friendship of nations. This is the time above all others when we 80 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY should wish and resolve to keep our strength by self- possession, our influence by preserving our ancient principles of action. From the first we have had a clear and settled policy with regard to military establishments. We never have had, and while we retain our present prin ciples and ideals we never shall have, a large standing army. If asked, Are you ready to defend yourselves ? we reply, Most assuredly, to the utmost; and yet we shall not turn America into a military camp. We will not ask our young men to spend the best years of their lives making soldiers of themselves. There is another sort of energy in us. It will know how to declare itself and make itself effective should occasion arise. And especially when half the world is on fire we shall be careful to make our moral insurance against the spread of the conflagration very definite and certain and adequate indeed. Let us remind ourselves, therefore, of the only thing we can do or will do. We must depend in every time of national peril, in the future as in the past, not upon a standing army, nor yet upon a reserve army, but upon a citizenry trained and accustomed to arms. It will be right enough, right American policy, based upon our accustomed principles and practices, to pro vide a system by which every citizen who will volunteer for the training may be made familiar with the use of modern arms, the rudiments of drill and maneuver, and the maintenance and sanitation of camps. We should encourage such training and make it a means of discipline which our young men will learn to value. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 81 It is right that we should provide it not only, but that we should make it as attractive as possible, and so induce our young men to undergo it at such times as they can command a little freedom and can seek the physical development they need, for mere health s sake, if for nothing more. Every means by which such things can be stimulated is legitimate, and such a method smacks of true American ideas. It is right, too, that the National Guard of the States should be developed and strengthened by every means which is not inconsistent with our obligations to our own people or with the established policy of our Government. And this, also, not because the time or occasion specially calls for such measures, but because it should be our constant policy to make these provisions for our na tional peace and safety. More than this carries with it a reversal of the whole history and character of our polity. More than this, proposed at this time, permit me to say, would mean merely that we had lost our self-possession, that we had been thrown off our balance by a war with which we have nothing to do, whose causes can not touch us, whose very existence affords us opportunities of friendship and disinterested service which should make us ashamed of any thought of hostility or fearful preparation for trouble. This is assuredly the oppor tunity for which a people and a government like ours were raised up, the opportunity not only to speak but actually to embody and exemplify the counsels of peace and amity and the lasting concord which is based on justice and fair and generous dealing. 82 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY A powerful navy we have always regarded as our proper and natural means of defense ; and it has always been of defense that we have thought, never of ag gression or of conquest. But who shall tell us now what sort of a navy to build? We shall take leave to be strong upon the seas, in the future as in the past; and there will be no thought of offense or of provocation in that. Our ships are our natural bul warks. When will the experts tell us just what kind we should construct and when will they be right for ten years together, if the relative efficiency of craft of different kinds and uses continues to change as we have seen it change under our very eyes in these last few months? But I turn away from the subject. It is not new. There is no new need to discuss it. We shall not alter our attitude toward it because some amongst us are nervous and excited. We shall easily and sensibly agree upon a policy of defense. The question has not changed its aspect because the times are not normal. Our policy will not be for an occasion. It will be conceived as a permanent and settled thing, which we will pursue at all seasons, without haste and after a fashion perfectly consistent with the peace of the world, the abiding friendship of States, and the un hampered freedom of all with whom we deal. Let there be no misconception. The country has been mis informed. We have not been negligent of national defense. We are not unmindful of the great responsi bility resting upon us. We shall learn and profit by the lesson of every experience and every new cir- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 83 cumstance; and what is needed will be adequately done. I close, as I began, by reminding you of the great tasks and duties of peace which challenge our best powers and invite us to build what will last, the tasks to which we can address ourselves now and at all times with free-hearted zest and with all the finest gifts of constructive wisdom we possess. To develop our life and our resources; to supply our own people, and the people of the world as their need arises, from the abundant plenty of our fields and our marts of trade; to enrich the commerce of our own States and of the world with the products of our mines, our farms, and our factories, with the creations of our thought and the fruits of our character, this is what will hold our attention and our enthusiasm steadily, now and in the years to come, as we strive to show in our life as a nation what liberty and the inspirations of an emanci pated spirit may do for men and for societies, for individuals, for states, and for mankind. AMERICA FIRST ADDRESS AT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LUNCHEON, NEW YORK, APRIL 20, 1915 ME. PKESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: I am deeply gratified by the generous reception you have accorded me. It makes me look back with a touch of regret to former occasions when I have stood in this place and enjoyed a greater liberty than is granted me to-day. There have been times when I stood in this spot and said what I really thought, and I cannot help praying that those days of indulgence may be accorded me again. I have come here to-day, of course, some what restrained by a sense of responsibility which I cannot escape. For I take the Associated Press very seriously. I know the enormous part that you play in the affairs not only of this country but of the world. You deal in the raw material of opinion and, if my con victions have any validity, opinion ultimately governs the world. It is, therefore, of very serious things that I think as I face this body of men. I do not think of you, how ever, as members of the Associated Press. I do not think of you as men of different parties or of different racial derivations or of different religious denomina tions. I want to talk to you as to my fellow citizens of the United States, for there are serious things which 84 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 85 as fellow citizens we ought to consider. The times be hind us, gentlemen, have been difficult enough ; the times before us are likely to be more difficult still, because, whatever may be said about the present condition of the world s affairs, it is clear that they are drawing rapidly to a climax, and at the climax the test will come, not only for the nations engaged in the present colossal struggle it will come to them, of course but the test will come for us particularly. Do you realize that, roughly speaking, we are the only great Nation at present disengaged? I am not speaking, of course, with disparagement of the greatness of those nations in Europe which are not parties to the present war, but I am thinking of their close neighbor hood to it. I am thinking how their lives much more than ours touch the very heart and stuff of the business, whereas we have rolling between us and those bitter days across the water 3,000 miles of cool and silent ocean. Our atmosphere is not yet charged with those disturbing elements which must permeate every nation of Europe. Therefore, is it not likely that the nations of the world will some day turn to us for the cooler assessment of the elements engaged? I am not now thinking so preposterous a thought as that we should sit in judgment upon them no nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation but that we shall some day have to assist in reconstructing the processes of peace. Our resources are untouched; we are more and more becoming by the force of circumstances the medi ating Nation of the world in respect of its finance. We must make up our minds what are the best things to do 86 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY and what are the best ways to do them. We must put our money, our energy, our enthusiasm, our sympathy into these things, and we must have our judgments pre pared and our spirits chastened against the coming of that day. So that I am not speaking in a selfish spirit when I say that our whole duty, for the present at any rate, is summed up in this motto, " America first." Let us think of America before we think of Europe, in order that America may be fit to be Europe s friend when the day of tested friendship comes. The test of friendship is not now sympathy with the one side or the other, but getting ready to help both sides when the struggle is over. The basis of neutrality, gentlemen, is not indif ference; it is not self-interest. The basis of neutrality is sympathy for mankind. It is fairness, it is good will, at bottom. It is impartiality of spirit and of judgment. I wish that all of our fellow citizens could realize that. There is in some quarters a disposition to create dis tempers in this body politic. Men are even uttering slanders against the United States, as if to excite her. Men are saying that if we should go to war upon either side there would be a divided America an abominable libel of ignorance! America is not all of it vocal just now. It is vocal in spots, but I, for one, have a complete and abiding faith in that great silent body of Ameri cans who are not standing up and shouting and express ing their opinions just now, but are waiting to find out and support the duty of America. I am just as sure of their solidity and of their loyalty and of their una nimity, if we act justly, as I am that the history of this MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 87 country has at every crisis and turning-point illustrated this great lesson. We are the mediating Nation of the world. I do not mean that we undertake not to mind our own business and to mediate where other people are quarreling. I mean the word in a broader sense. We are compounded of the nations of the world; we mediate their blood, we mediate their traditions, we mediate their sentiments, their tastes, their passions ; we are ourselves compounded of those things. We are, therefore, able to understand all nations ; we are able to understand them in the com pound, not separately, as partisans, but unitedly as knowing and comprehending and embodying them all. It is in that sense that I mean that America is a medi ating Nation. The opinion of America, the action of America, is ready to turn, and free to turn, in any direction. Did you ever reflect upon how almost every other nation has through long centuries been headed in one direction? That is not true of the United States. The United States has no racial momentum. It has no history back of it which makes it run all its energies and all its ambitions in one particular direction. And America is particularly free in this, that she has no hampering ambitions as a world power. We do not want a foot of anybody s territory. If we have been obliged by circumstances, or have considered ourselves to be obliged by circumstances, in the past, to take terri tory which we otherwise would not have thought of taking, I believe I am right in saying that we have considered it our duty to administer that territory, not for ourselves but for the people living in it, and to put 88 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY this burden upon our consciences not to think that this thing is ours for our use, but to regard ourselves as trustees of the great business for those to whom it does really belong, trustees ready to hand it over to the cestui que trust at any time when the business seems to make that possible and feasible. That is what I mean by saying we have no hampering ambitions. We do not want anything that does not belong to us. Is not a nation in that position free to serve other nations, and is not a nation like that ready to form some part of the assessing opinion of the world? My interest in the neutrality of the United States is not the petty desire to keep out of trouble. To judge by my experience, I have never been able to keep out of trouble. I have never looked for it, but I have always found it. I do not want to walk around trouble. If any man wants a scrap that is an interesting scrap and worth while, I am his man. I warn him that he is not going to draw me into the scrap for his advertise ment, but if he is looking for trouble that is the trouble of men in general and I can help a little, why, then, I am in for it. But I am interested in neutrality because there is something so much greater to do than fight; there is a distinction waiting for this Nation that no nation has ever yet got. That is the distinction of abso lute self-control and self-mastery. Whom do you ad mire most among your friends? The irritable man? The man out of whom you can get a "rise" without trying ? The man who will fight at the drop of the hat, whether he knows what the hat is dropped for or not? Don t you admire and don t you fear, if you have to MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 89 contest with him, the self-mastered man who watches you with calm eye and comes in only when you have carried the thing so far that you must be disposed of? That is the man you respect. That is the man who, you know, has at bottom a much more fundamental and ter rible courage than the irritable, fighting man. Now, I covet for America this splendid courage of reserve moral force, and I wanted to point out to you gentlemen sim ply this: There is news and news. There is what is called news from Turtle Bay that turns out to be falsehood, at any rate in what it is said to signify, but which, if you could get the Nation to believe it true, might dis turb our equilibrium and our self-possession. We ought not to deal in stuff of that kind. We ought not to per mit that sort of thing to use up the electrical energy of the wires, because its energy is malign, its energy is not of the truth, its energy is of mischief. It is possible to sift truth. I have known some things to go out on the wires as true when there was only one man or one group of men who could have told the originators of that report whether it was true or not, and they were not asked whether it was true or not for fear it might not be true. That sort of report ought not to go out over the wires. There is generally, if not always, somebody who knows whether the thing is so or not, and in these days, above all other days, we ought to take particular pains to resort to the one small group of men, or to the one man if there be but one, who knows whether those things are true or not. The world ought to know the truth; the world ought not at this period of unstable equilibrium 90 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY to be disturbed by rumor, ought not to be disturbed by imaginative combinations of circumstances, or, rather, by circumstances stated in combination which do not belong in combination. You gentlemen, and gentlemen engaged like you, are holding the balances in your hand. This unstable equilibrium rests upon scales that are in your hands. For the food of opinion, as I began by saying, is the news of the day. I have known many a man to go off at a tangent on information that was not reliable. Indeed, that describes the majority of men. The world is held stable by the man who waits for the next day to find out whether the report was true or not. We cannot afford, therefore, to let the rumors of irresponsible persons and origins get into the atmos phere of the United States. We are trustees for what I venture to say is the greatest heritage that any nation ever had, the love of justice and righteousness and human liberty. For, fundamentally, those are the things to which America is addicted and to which she is devoted. There are groups of selfish men in the United States, there are coteries, where sinister things are purposed, but the great heart of the American people is just as sound and true as it ever was. And it is a single heart ; it is the heart of America. It is not a heart made up of sections selected out of other countries. What I try to remind myself of every day when I am almost overcome by perplexities, what I try to remem ber, is what the people at home are thinking about. I try to put myself in the place of the man who does not know all the things that I know and ask myself what he would like the policy of this country to be. Not the MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 91 talkative man, not the partisan man, not the man who remembers first that he is a Republican or a Democrat, or that his parents were German or English, but the man who remembers first that the whole destiny of modern affairs centers largely upon his being an Ameri can first of all. If I permitted myself to be a partisan in this present struggle, I would be unworthy to repre sent you. If I permitted myself to forget the people who are not partisans, I would be unworthy to be your spokesman. I am not sure that I am worthy to repre sent you, but I do claim this degree of worthiness that before everything else I love America. ADDRESS TO NEWLY NATURALIZED AMER ICAN CITIZENS, CONVENTION HALL, PHILADELPHIA, MAY 10, 1915 MR. MAYOR, FELLOW CITIZENS: It warms my heart that you should give me such a reception; but it is not of myself that I wish to think to-night, but of those who have just become citizens of the United States. This is the only country in the world which experi ences this constant and repeated rebirth. Other coun tries depend upon the multiplication of their own native people. This country is constantly drinking strength out of new sources by the voluntary association with it of great bodies of strong men and forward-looking women out of other lands. And so by the gift of the free will of independent people it is being constantly renewed from generation to generation by the same process by which it was originally created. It is as if humanity had determined to see to it that this great Nation, founded for the benefit of humanity, should not lack for the allegiance of the people of the world. You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be God certainly not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this great Govern ment. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to a great body of principles, to a great hope of 92 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 93 the human race. You have said, "We are going to America not only to earn a living, not only to seek the things which it was more difficult to obtain where we were born, but to help forward the great enterprises of the human spirit to let men know that everywhere in the world there are men who will cross strange oceans and go where a speech is spoken which is alien to them if they can but satisfy their quest for what their spirits crave; knowing that whatever the speech there is but one longing and utterance of the human heart, and that is for liberty and justice." And while you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other countries behind you bringing what is best of their spirit, but not looking over your shoul ders and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to leave behind in them. I certainly would not be one even to suggest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation of his origin these things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of our hearts but it is one thing to love the place where you were born and it is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you go. You cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every respect and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes. 94 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY My urgent advice to you would be, not only always to think first of America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. You do not love humanity if you seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can be welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice, not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for the man who seeks to make personal capital out of the passions of his fellow-men. He has lost the touch and ideal of America, for America was created to unite mankind by those passions which lift and not by the passions which separate and debase. We came to America, either our selves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite. It was but an historical accident no doubt that this great country was called the " United States"; yet I am very thankful that it has that word " United" in its title, and the man who seeks to divide man from man, group from group, interest from interest in this great Union is striking at its very heart. It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in think ing of those of you who have just sworn allegiance to this great Government, that you were drawn across the ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief, by some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expec tation of a better kind of life. No doubt you have been disappointed in some of us. Some of us are very dis appointing. No doubt you have found that justice in the United States goes only with a pure heart and a right purpose as it does everywhere else in the world. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 95 No doubt what you found here did not seem touched for you, after all, with the complete beauty of the ideal which you had conceived beforehand. But remember this: If we had grown at all poor in the ideal, you brought some of it with you. A man does not go out to seek the thing that is not in him. A man does not hope for the thing that he does not believe in, and if some of us have forgotten what America believed in, you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal of the belief. That is the reason that I, for one, make you welcome. If I have in any degree forgotten what America was intended for, I will thank God if you will remind me. I was born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise. Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more likely to realize dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you came expect ing us to be better than we are. See, my friends, what that means. It means that Americans must have a consciousness different from the consciousness of every other nation in the world. I am not saying this with even the slightest thought of criti cism of other nations. You know how it is with a family. A family gets centered on itself if it is not careful and is less interested in the neighbors than it is in its own members. So a nation that is not con stantly renewed out of new sources is apt to have the narrowness and prejudice of a family; whereas, America must have this consciousness, that on all sides it touches 96 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY elbows and touches hearts with all the nations of man kind. The exampls of America must be a special ex ample. The example of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right. You have come into this great Nation voluntarily seeking something that we have to give, and all that we have to give is this: We cannot exempt you from work. No man is exempt from work anywhere in the world. We cannot exempt you from the strife and the heart breaking burden of the struggle of the day that is common to mankind everywhere ; we cannot exempt you from the loads that you must carry. We can only make them light by the spirit in which they are carried. That is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty, it is the spirit of justice. When I was asked, therefore, by the Mayor and the committee that accompanied him to come up from Washington to meet this great company of newly ad mitted citizens, I could not decline the invitation. I ought not to be away from Washington, and yet I feel that it has renewed my spirit as an American to be here. In Washington men tell you so many things every day that are not so, and I like to come and stand in the presence of a great body of my fellow-citizens, whether they have been my fellow-citizens a long time or a short time, and drink, as it were, out of the common fountains MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 97 with them and go back feeling what you have so gen erously given me the sense of your support and of the living vitality in your hearts of the great ideals which have made America the hope of the world. THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES ADDRESS AT THE LUNCHEON TENDERED THE PRESIDENT BY THE MAYOR S COM MITTEE, NEW YORK CITY, MAY 17, 1915 ME. MAYOR, MR. SECRETARY, ADMIRAL FLETCHER, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE FLEET: This is not an occasion upon which, it seems to me, it would be wise for me to make many remarks, but I would deprive myself of a great gratification if I did not express my pleasure in being here, my gratitude for the splendid reception which has been accorded me as the representative of the Nation, and my profound interest in the Navy of the United States. That is an interest with which I was apparently born, for it began when I was a youngster and has ripened with my knowl edge of the affairs and policies of the United States. I think it is a natural, instinctive judgment of the people of the United States that they express their power most appropriately in an efficient navy, and their interest in their ships is partly, I believe, because that Navy is expected to express their character, not within our own borders where that character is understood, but outside our borders where it is hoped we may occasion ally touch others with some slight vision of what Amer ica stands for. Before I speak of the Navy of the United States, I want to take advantage of the first public opportunity I MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 99 have had to speak of the Secretary of the Navy, to ex press my confidence and my admiration, and to say that he has my unqualified support. For I have counseled with him in intimate fashion; I know how sincerely he has it at heart that everything that the Navy does and handles should be done and handled as the people of the United States wish it handled. Efficiency is something more than organization. Efficiency runs to the extent of lifting the ideals of a service above every personal interest. So when I speak my support of the Secretary of the Navy I am merely speaking my support of what I know every true lover of the Navy to desire and to purpose; for the Navy of the United States is, as I have said, a body specially intrusted with the ideals of America. I like to image in my thought this idea : These quiet ships lying in the river have no suggestion of bluster about them, no intimation of aggression. They are com manded by men thoughtful of the duty of citizens as well as the duty of officers, men acquainted with the traditions of the great service to which they belong, men who know by touch with the people of the United States what sort of purposes they ought to entertain and what sort of discretion they ought to exercise in order to use those engines of force as engines to promote the interests of humanity. The interesting and inspiring thing about America, gentlemen, is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself. We want no nation s property. We mean to question no nation s honor. We do not wish to stand selfishly in 100 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the way of the development of any nation. We want nothing that we cannot get by our own legitimate enter prise and by the inspiration of our own example; and, standing for these things, it is not pretension on our part to say that we are privileged to stand for what every nation would wish to stand for, and speak for those things which all humanity must desire. When I think of the flag which those ships carry, the only touch of color about them, the only thing that moves as if it had a subtle spirit in it in their solid structure, it seems to me that I see alternate strips of parchment upon which are written the rights of liberty and justice, and stripes of blood spilt to vindicate those rights ; and, then, in the corner a prediction of the blue serene into which every nation may swim which stands for these things. The mission of America is the only thing that a sailor or a soldier should think about. He has nothing to do with the formulation of her policy. He is to sup port her policy whatever it is; but he is to support her policy in the spirit of herself, and the strength of our polity is that we who for the time being administer the affairs of this Nation do not originate her spirit. We attempt to embody it ; we attempt to realize it in action ; we are dominated by it, we do not dictate it. So with every man in arms who serves the Nation; he stands and waits to do the thing which the Nation desires. Those who represent America sometimes seem to forget her programs, but the people never forget them. It is as startling as it is touching to see how whenever you touch a principle you touch the hearts of MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 101 the people of the United States. They listen to your debates of policy, they determine which party they will prefer to power, they choose and prefer as between men, but their real affection, their real force, their real irre sistible momentum is for the ideas which men embody. I never go on the streets of a great city without feeling that somehow I do not confer elsewhere than on the streets with the great spirit of the people themselves, going about their business, attending to the things which immediately concern them, and yet carrying a treasure at their hearts all the while, ready to be stirred not only as individuals but as members of a great union of hearts that constitutes a patriotic people. This sight in the river touches me merely as a symbol of all this; and it quickens the pulse of every man who realizes these things to have anything to do with them. When a crisis occurs in this country, gentlemen, it is as if you put your hand on the pulse of a dynamo, it is as if the things that you were in connection with were spiritually bred, as if you had nothing to do with them except, if you listen truly, to speak the things that you hear. These things now brood over the river; this spirit now moves with the men who represent the Nation in the Navy ; these things will move upon the waters in the maneuvers no threat lifted against any man, against any nation, against any interest, but just a great solemn evidence that the force of America is the force of moral principle, that there is nothing else that she loves, and that there is nothing else for which she will contend. ADDRESS AT THE PAN AMERICAN FINAN CIAL CONFERENCE, PAN AMERICAN BUILDING, WASHINGTON, MAY 24, 1915 The diplomatic and consular appropriations bill, approved by President Wil son March 4, 1915, contained a provision for a financial conference of the Americas : " The President is hereby authorized to extend to the Governments of Cen tral and South America an invitation to be represented by their ministers of finance and leading bankers, not exceeding three in number in each case, to attend a conference with the Secretary of the Treasury in the City of Washington, at such date as shall be determined by the President, with a view to establishing closer and more satisfactory financial relations between their countries and the United States of America, and authority is hereby given to the Secretary of the Treasury to invite, in his discretion, representative bankers of the United States to participate in the said conference, and for the purpose of meeting such actual and necessary expenses as may be incidental to the meeting of said conference and for the entertainment of the foreign conferees the sum of $50,000 is hereby ap propriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury." In pursuance of this act the Secretary of State extended invitations, on behalf of the President, to the countries of Latin America, all of which were represented by delegates of their choice at a meeting held in Washington, May 24-29, 1915. Of this conference, the Honorable William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, was president, and at the opening session of the conference, President Wilson delivered the following address. MR. CHAIRMAN, GENTLEMEN OF THE AMERICAN REPUB LICS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The part that falls to me this morning is a very simple one, but a very delightful one. It is to bid you a very hearty welcome indeed to this conference. The welcome is the more hearty because we are convinced that a conference like this will result in the things that we most desire. I am sure that those who have this conference in charge have already made plain to you its purpose and its spirit. Its purpose is to draw the 102 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 103 American Republics together by bonds of common inter est and of mutual understanding; and we comprehend, I hope, just what the meaning of that is. There can be no sort of union of interest if there is a purpose of exploitation by any one of the parties to a great con ference of this sort. The basis of successful commer cial intercourse is Common interest, not selfish interest. It is an actual interchange of services and of values: it is based upon reciprocal relations and not selfish rela tions. It is based upon those things upon which all suc cessful economic intercourse must be based, because selfishness breeds suspicion; suspicion, hostility; and hostility, failure. We are not, therefore, trying to make use of each other, but we are trying to be of use to one another. It is very surprising to me, it is even a source of mortification, that a conference like this should have been so long delayed, that it should never have occurred before, that it should have required a crisis of the world to show the Americas how truly they were neighbors to one another. If there is any one happy circumstance, gentlemen, arising out of the present distressing condi tion of the world, it is that it has revealed us to one another : it has shown us what it means to be neighbors. And I cannot help harboring the hope, the very high hope, that by this commerce of minds with one another, as well as commerce in goods, we may show the world in part the path to peace. It would be a very great thing if the Americas could add to the distinction which they already wear this of showing the way to peace, to per manent peace. 104 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY The way to peace for us, at any rate, is manifest. It is the kind of rivalry which does not involve aggres sion. It is the knowledge that men can be of the greatest service to one another, and nations of the greatest serv ice to one another, when the jealousy between them is merely a jealousy of excellence, and when the basis of their intercourse is friendship. There is only one way in which we wish to take advantage of you and that is by making better goods, by doing the things that we seek to do for each other better, if we can, than you do them, and so spurring you on, if we might, by so hand some a jealousy as that to excel us. I am so keenly aware that the basis of personal friendship is this com petition in excellence, that I am perfectly certain that this is the only basis for the friendship of nations, this handsome rivalry, this rivalry in which there is no dis like, this rivalry in which there is nothing but the hope of a common elevation in great enterprises which we can undertake in common. There is one thing that stands in our way among others for you are more conversant with the circum stances than I am; the thing I have chiefly in mind is the physical lack of means of communication, the lack of vehicles, the lack of ships, the lack of established routes of trade, the lack of those things which are absolutely necessary if we are to have true commercial and intimate commercial relations with one another; and I am perfectly clear in my judgment that if private capital cannot soon enter upon the adventure of estab lishing these physical means of communication, the government must undertake to do so. We cannot in- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 105 definitely stand apart and need each other for the lack of what can easily be supplied, and if one instrumen tality cannot supply it, then another must be found which will supply it. We cannot know each other unless we see each other ; we cannot deal with each other unless we communicate with each other. So soon as we com municate and are upon a familiar footing of intercourse, we shall understand one another, and the bonds between the Americas will be such bonds that no influence that the world may produce in the future will ever break them. If I am selfish for America, I at least hope that my selfishness is enlightened. The selfishness that hurts the other party is not enlightened selfishness. If I were acting upon a mere ground of selfishness, I would seek to benefit the other party and so tie him to myself; so that even if you were to suspect me of selfishness, I hope you will also suspect me of intelligence and of knowing the only safe way for the establishment of the things which we covet, as well as the establishment of the things which we desire and which we would feel honored if we could earn and win. I have said these things because they will perhaps enable you to understand how far from formal my wel come to this body is. It is a welcome from the heart, it is a welcome from the head; it is a welcome inspired by what I hope are the highest ambitions of those who live in these two great continents, who seek to set an example to the world in freedom of institutions, free dom of trade, and intelligence of mutual service. ADDRESS TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, CONTINEN TAL HALL, WASHINGTON, OCTO BER 11, 1915 The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, at whose meeting in the City of Washington on October 11, 1915, the following address was delivered, was organized in Washington, October 11, 1890. The objects of the Society, as stated by Article 2 of its Constitution, are: " 1. To perpetuate the memory of the spirit of the men and women who achieved American Independence, by the acquisition and protection of historical spots, and the erection of monuments; by the encouragement of historical re search in relation to the Revolution and the publication of its results; by the preservation of monuments and relics, and of the records of the individual serv ices of Revolutionary soldiers and patriots, and by the promotion of celebrations of all patriotic anniversaries. " 2. To carry out the injunction of Washington in his farewell address to the American people, to promote, as an object of primary importance, institu tions for the general diffusion of knowledge, thus developing an enlightened public opinion, and afford to young and old such advantages as shall develop in them the largest capacity for performing the duties of American citizens. "3. To cherish, maintain, and extend the institution of American freedom, to foster true patriotism and love of country, and to aid in securing for man kind all the blessings of liberty." MADAM PRESIDENT AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: Again it is my very great privilege to welcome you to the City of Washington and to the hospitalities of the Capital. May I admit a point of ignorance ? I was surprised to learn that this association is so young, and that an association so young should devote itself wholly to memory I cannot believe. For to me the duties to which you are consecrated are more than the duties and the pride of memory. There is a very great thrill to be had from the memories of the American Revolution, but the Ameri- 106 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 107 can Eevolution was a beginning, not a consummation, and the duty laid upon us by that beginning is the duty of bringing the things then begun to a noble triumph of completion. For it seems to me that the peculiarity of patriotism in America is that it is not a mere senti ment. It is an active principle of conduct. It is some thing that was born into the world, not to please it but to regenerate it. It is something that was born into the world to replace systems that had preceded it and to bring men out upon a new plane of privilege. The glory of the men whose memories you honor and per petuate is that they saw this vision, and it was a vision of the future. It was a vision of great days to come when a little handful of three million people upon the borders of a single sea should have become a great mul titude of free men and women spreading across a great continent, dominating the shores of two oceans, and sending West as well as East the influences of individual freedom. These things were consciously in their minds as they framed the great Government which was born out of the American Revolution; and every time we gather to perpetuate their memories it is incumbent upon us that we should be worthy of recalling them and that we should endeavor by every means in our power to emulate their example. The American Revolution was the birth of a nation; it was the creation of a great free republic based upon traditions of personal liberty which theretofore had been confined to a single little island, but which it was pur posed should spread to all mankind. And the singular fascination of American history is that it has been a 108 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY process of constant re-creation, of making over again in each generation the thing which was conceived at first. You know how peculiarly necessary that has been in our case, because America has not grown by the mere multiplication of the original stock. It is easy to pre serve tradition with continuity of blood; it is easy in a single family to remember the origins of the race and the purposes of its organization; but it is not so easy when that race is constantly being renewed and aug mented from other sources, from stocks that did not carry or originate the same principles. So from generation to generation strangers have had to be indoctrinated with the principles of the American family, and the wonder and the beauty of it all has been that the infection has been so generously easy. For the principles of liberty are united with the principles of hope. Every individual, as well as every Nation, wishes to realize the best thing that is in him, the best thing that can be conceived out of the materials of which his spirit is constructed. It has happened in a way that fascinates the imagination that we have not only been augmented by additions from outside, but that we have been greatly stimulated by those additions. Living in the easy prosperity of a free people, knowing that the sun had always been free to shine upon us and prosper our undertakings, we did not realize how hard the task of liberty is and how rare the privilege of liberty is; but men were drawn out of every climate and out of every race because of an irresistible attraction of their spirits to the American ideal. They thought of America as lifting, like that great statue in the harbor of New MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 109 York, a torch to light the pathway of men to the things that they desire, and men of all sorts and conditions struggled toward that light and came to our shores with an eager desire to realize it, and a hunger for it such as some of us no longer felt, for we were as if satiated and satisfied and were indulging ourselves after a fashion that did not belong to the ascetic devotion of the early devotees of those great principles. Strangers came to remind us of what we had promised ourselves and through ourselves had promised mankind. All men came to us and said, " Where is the bread of life with which you promised to feed us, and have you partaken of it yourselves ?" For my part, I believe that the con stant renewal of this people out of foreign stocks has been a constant source of reminder to this people of what the inducement was that was offered to men who would come and be of our number. Now we have come to a time of special stress and test. There never was a time when we needed more clearly to conserve the principles of our own patriotism than this present time. The rest of the world from which our polities were drawn seems for the time in the crucible and no man can predict what will come out of that crucible. We stand apart, unembroiied, conscious of our own principles, conscious of what we hope and purpose, so far as our powers permit, for the world at large, and it is necessary that we should consolidate the American principle. Every political action, every social action, should have for its object in America at this time to challenge the spirit of America; to ask that every man and woman who thinks first of America 110 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY should rally to the standards of our life. There have been some among us who have not thought first of America, who have thought to use the might of America in some matter not of America s origination. They have forgotten that the first duty of a nation is to express its own individual principles in the action of the family of nations and not to seek to aid and abet any rival or contrary ideal. Neutrality is a negative word. It is a word that does not express what America ought to feel. America has a heart and that heart throbs with all sorts of intense sympathies, but America has schooled its heart to love the things that America believes in and it ought to devote itself only to the things that America believes in ; and, believing that America stands apart in its ideals, it ought not to allow itself to be drawn, so far as its heart is concerned, into anybody s quarrel. Not because it does not understand the quarrel, not because it does not in its head assess the merits of the controversy, but because America has promised the world to stand apart and maintain certain principles of action which are grounded in law and in justice. We are not trying to keep out of trouble ; we are trying to preserve the foun dations upon which peace can be rebuilt. Peace can be rebuilt only upon the ancient and accepted principles of international law, only upon those things which re mind nations of their duties to each other, and, deeper than that, of their duties to mankind and to humanity. America has a great cause which is not confined to the American continent. It is the cause of humanity itself. I do not mean in anything that I say even to MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 111 imply a judgment upon any nation or upon any policy, for my object here this afternoon is not to sit in judg ment upon anybody but ourselves and to challenge you to assist all of us who are trying to make America more than ever conscious of her own principles and her own duty. I look forward to the necessity in every political agitation in the years which are immediately at hand of calling upon every man to declare himself, where he stands. Is it America first or is it not? We ought to be very careful about some of the im pressions that we are forming just now. There is too general an impression, I fear, that very large numbers of our fellow-citizens born in other lands have not enter tained with sufficient intensity and affection the Ameri can ideal. But the number of such is, I am sure, not large. Those who would seek to represent them are very vocal, but they are not very influential. Some of the best stuff of America has come out of foreign lands, and some of the best stuff in America is in the men who are naturalized citizens of the United States. I would not be afraid upon the test of "America first" to take a census of all the foreign-born citizens of the United States, for I know that the vast majority of them came here because they believed in America ; and their belief in America has made them better citizens than some people who were born in America. They can say that they have bought this privilege with a great price. They have left their homes, they have left their kindred, they have broken all the nearest and dearest ties of human life in order to come to a new land, take a new rootage, begin a new life, and so by self-sacrifice express their PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY confidence in a new principle; whereas, it cost us none of these things. We were born into this privilege; we were rocked and cradled in it ; we did nothing to create it; and it is, therefore, the greater duty on our part to do a great deal to enhance it and preserve it. I am not deceived as to the balance of opinion among the foreign- born citizens of the United States, but I am in a hurry for an opportunity to have a line-up and let the men who are thinking first of other countries stand on one side and all those that are for America first, last, and all the time on the other side. Now, you can do a great deal in this direction. When I was a college officer I used to be very much opposed to hazing; not because hazing is not wholesome, but because sophomores are poor judges. I remember a very dear friend of mine, a professor of ethics on the other side of the water, was asked if he thought it was ever justifiable to tell a lie. He said Yes, he thought it was sometimes justifiable to lie; "but," he said, "it is so difficult to judge of the justification that I usually tell the truth." I think that ought to be the motto of the sophomore. There are freshmen who need to be hazed, but the need is to be judged by such nice tests that a sophomore is hardly old enough to determine them. But the world can determine them. We are not freshmen at college, but we are constantly hazed. I would a great deal rather be obliged to draw pepper up my nose than to observe the hostile glances of my neighbors. I would a great deal rather be beaten than ostracized. I would a great deal rather endure any sort of physical hard ship if I might have the affection of my fellow-men. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 113 constantly discipline our fellow-citizens by having an opinion about them. That is the sort of discipline we ought now to administer to everybody who is not to the very core of his heart an American. Just have an opinion about him and let him experience the atmos pheric effects of that opinion! And I know of no body of persons comparable to a body of ladies for creating an atmosphere of opinion ! I have myself in part yielded to the influence of that atmosphere, though it took me a long time to determine how I was going to vote in New Jersey. So it has seemed to me that my privilege this after noon was not merely a privilege of courtesy, but the real privilege of reminding you for I am sure I am doing nothing more of the great principles which we stand associated to promote. I for my part rejoice that we belong to a country in which the whole business of government is so difficult. We do not take orders from anybody ; it is a universal communication of conviction, the most subtle, delicate, and difficult of processes. There is not a single individual s opinion that is not of some consequence in making up the grand total, and to be in this great co-operative effort is the most stimu lating thing in the world. A man standing alone may well misdoubt his own judgment. He may mistrust his own intellectual processes; he may even wonder if his own heart leads him right in matters of public conduct ; but if he finds his heart part of the great throb of a national life, there can be no doubt about it. If that is his happy circumstance, then he may know that he is part of one of the great forces of the world. 114 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY I would not feel any exhilaration in belonging to America if I did not feel that she was something more than a rich and powerful nation. I should not feel proud to he in some respects and for a little while her spokesman if I did not believe that there was some thing else than physical force behind her. I believe that the glory of America is that she is a great spiritual con ception and that in the spirit of her institutions dwells not only her distinction but her power. The one thing that the world cannot permanently resist is the moral force of great and triumphant convictions. ADDRESS ON POLITICAL RELATIONS AT THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY DIN NER OF THE MANHATTAN CLUB, NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 4, 1915 ME. TOASTMASTER AND GENTLEMEN: I warmly felicitate the club upon the completion of fifty years of successful and interesting life. Club life may be made to mean a great deal to those who know how to use it. I have no doubt that to a great many of you has come genuine stimulation in the associations of this place and that as the years have multiplied you have seen more and more the useful ends which may be served by organizations of this sort. But I have not come to speak wholly of that, for there are others of your own members who can speak of the club with a knowledge and an intelligence which no one can have who has not been intimately associated with it. Men band themselves together for the sake of the association no doubt, but also for something greater and deeper than that, because they are conscious of common interests lying outside their business occupa tions, because they are members of the same community and in frequent intercourse find mutual stimulation and a real maximum of vitality and power. I shall assume that here around the dinner table on this memorable occasion our talk should properly turn to the wide and common interests which are most in our thoughts, 115 116 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY whether they be the interests of the community or of the nation. A year and a half ago our thought would have been almost altogether of great domestic questions. They are many and of vital consequence. We must and shall address ourselves to their solution with diligence, firm ness, and self-possession, notwithstanding we find our selves in the midst of a world disturbed by great dis aster and ablaze with terrible war; but our thought is now inevitably of new things about which formerly we gave ourselves little concern. We are thinking now chiefly of our relations with the rest of the world, not our commercial relations, about those we have thought and planned always, but about our political relations, our duties as an individual and independent force in the world to ourselves, our neighbors, and the world itself. Our principles are well known. It is not necessary to avow them again. We believe in political liberty and founded our great government to obtain it, the liberty of men and of peoples, of men to choose their own lives and of peoples to choose their own allegiance. Our ambition, also, all the world has knowledge of. It is not only to be free and prosperous ourselves, but also to be the friend and thoughtful partisan of those who are free or who desire freedom the world over. If we have had aggressive purposes and covetous ambitions, they were the fruit of our thoughtless youth as a nation and we have put them aside. We shall, I confidently believe, never again take another foot of territory by conquest. We shall never in any circumstances seek to MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 117 make an independent people subject to our dominion; because we believe, we passionately believe, in the right of every people to choose their own allegiance and be free of masters altogether. For ourselves we wish noth ing but the full liberty of self-development; and with ourselves in this great matter we associate all the peo ples of our own hemisphere. We wish not only for the United States but for them the fullest freedom of inde pendent growth and of action, for we know that through out this hemisphere the same aspirations are everywhere being worked out, under diverse conditions but with the same impulse and ultimate object. All this is very clear to us and will, I confidently predict, become more and more clear to the whole world as the great processes of the future unfold themselves. It is with a full consciousness of such principles and such ambitions that we are asking ourselves at the pres ent time what our duty is with regard to the armed force of the nation. Within a year we have witnessed what we did not believe possible, a great European con flict involving many of the greatest nations of the world. The influences of a great war are everywhere in the air. All Europe is embattled. Force everywhere speaks out with a loud and imperious voice in a titanic struggle of governments, and from one end of our own dear country to the other men are asking one another what our own force is, how far we are prepared to maintain ourselves against any interference with our national action or development. In no man s mind, I am sure, is there even raised the question of the willful use of force on our part 118 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY against any nation or any people. No matter what military or naval force the United States might develop, statesmen throughout the whole world might rest assured that we were gathering that force, not for attack in any quarter, not for aggression of any kind, not for the satisfaction of any political or international ambition, but merely to make sure of our own security. We have it in mind to be prepared, not for war, but only for defense; and with the thought constantly in our minds that the principles we hold most dear can be achieved by the slow processes of history only in the kindly and wholesome atmosphere of peace, and not by the use of hostile force. The mission of America in the world is essentially a mission of peace and good will among men. She has become the home and asylum of men of all creeds and races. Within her hospitable borders they have found homes and congenial associations and free dom and a wide and cordial welcome, and they have become part of the bone and sinew and spirit of America itself. America has been made up out of the nations of the world and is the friend of the nations of the world. But we feel justified in preparing ourselves to vindi cate our right to independent and unmolested action by making the force that is in us ready for asser tion. And we know that we can do this in a way that will be itself an illustration of the American spirit. In accordance with our American traditions we want and shall work for only an army adequate to the constant and legitimate uses of times of international peace. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 119 But we do want to feel that there is a great body of citizens who have received at least the most rudimentary and necessary forms of military training ; that they will be ready to form themselves into a fighting force at the call of the nation; and that the nation has the muni tions and supplies with which to equip them without delay should it be necessary to call them into action. We wish to supply them with the training they need, and we think we can do so without calling them at any time too long away from their civilian pur suits. It is with this idea, with this conception, in mind that v the plans have been made which it will be my privilege to lay before the Congress at its next session. That plan calls for only such an increase in the regular Army of the United States as experience has proved to be re quired for the performance of the necessary duties of the Army in the Philippines, in Hawaii, in Porto Rico, upon the borders of the United States, at the coast forti fications, and at the military posts of the interior. For the rest, it calls for the training within the next three years of a force of 400,000 citizen soldiers to be raised in annual contingents of 133,000, who would be asked to enlist for three years with the colors and three years on furlough, but who during their three years of enlist ment with the colors would not be organized as a stand ing force but would be expected merely to undergo inten sive training for a very brief period of each year. Their training would take place in immediate association with the organized units of the regular Army. It would have no touch of the amateur about it, neither would it exact 120 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY of the volunteers more than they could give in any one year from their civilian pursuits. And none of this would be done in such a way as in the slightest degree to supersede or subordinate our present serviceable and efficient National Guard. On the contrary, the National Guard itself would be used as part of the instrumentality by which training would be given the citizens who enlisted under the new conditions, and I should hope and expect that the legislation by which all this would be accomplished would put the National Guard itself upon a better and more perma nent footing than it has ever been before, giving it not only the recognition which it deserves, but a more definite support from the national government and a more definite connection with the military organization of the nation. What we all wish to accomplish is that the forces of the nation should indeed be part of the nation and not a separate professional force, and the chief cost of the system would not be in the enlistment or in the training of the men, but in the providing of ample equipment in case it should be necessary to call all forces into the field. Moreover, it has been American policy time out of mind to look to the Navy as the first and chief line of defense. The Navy of the United States is already a very great and efficient force. Not rapidly, but slowly, with careful attention, our naval force has been devel oped until the Navy of the United States stands recog nized as one of the most efficient and notable of the modern time. All that is needed in order to bring it MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 121 to a point of extraordinary force and efficiency as com pared with the other navies of the world is that we should hasten our pace in the policy we have long been pursuing, and that chief of all we should have a definite policy of development, not made from year to year but looking well into the future and planning for a definite consummation. We can and should profit in all that we do by the experience and example that have been made obvious to us by the military and naval events of the actual present. It is not merely a matter of building battleships and cruisers and submarines, but also a mat ter of making sure that we shall have the adequate equipment of men and munitions and supplies for the vessels we build and intend to build. Part of our prob lem is the problem of what I may call the mobilization of the resources of the nation at the proper time if it should ever be necessary to mobilize them for national defense. We shall study efficiency and adequate equip ment as carefully as we shall study the number and size of our ships, and I believe that the plans already in part made public by the Navy Department are plans which the whole nation can approve with rational en thusiasm. No thoughtful man feels any panic haste in this mat ter. The country is not threatened from any quarter. She stands in friendly relations with all the world. Her resources are known and her self-respect and her capac ity to care for her own citizens and her own rights. There is no fear amongst us. Under the new-world conditions we have become thoughtful of the things which all reasonable men consider necessary for secur- 122 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY ity and self-defense on the part of every nation con fronted with the great enterprise of human liberty and independence. That is all. Is the plan we propose sane and reasonable and suited to the needs of the hour? Does it not conform to the ancient traditions of America? Has any better plan been proposed than this program that we now place before the country? In it there is no pride of opinion. It represents the best professional and expert judgment of the country. But I am not so much inter ested in programs as I am in safeguarding at every cost the good faith and honor of the country. If men differ with me in this vital matter, I shall ask them to make it clear how far and in what way they are inter ested in making the permanent interests of the country safe against disturbance. In the fulfillment of the program I propose I shall ask for the hearty support of the country, of the rank and file of America, of men of all shades of politi cal opinion. For my position in this important matter is different from that of the private individual who is free to speak his own thoughts and to risk his own opinions in this matter. We are here dealing with things that are vital to the life of America itself. In doing this I have tried to purge my heart of all per sonal and selfish motives. For the time being, I speak as the trustee and guardian of a nation s rights, charged with the duty of speaking for that nation in matters involving her sovereignty, a nation too big and gener ous to be exacting and yet courageous enough to defend its rights and the liberties of its people wherever MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 123 assailed or invaded. I would not feel that I was dis charging the solemn obligation I owe the country were I not to speak in terms of the deepest solemnity of the urgency and necessity of preparing ourselves to guard and protect the rights and privileges of our people, our sacred heritage of the fathers who struggled to make us an independent nation. The only thing within our own borders that has given us grave concern in recent months has been that voices have been raised in America professing to be the voices of Americans which were not indeed and in truth American, but which spoke alien sympathies, which came from men who loved other countries better than they loved America, men who were partisans of other causes than that of America and had forgotten that their chief and only allegiance was to the great government under which they live. These voices have not been many, but they have been very loud and very clamorous. They have proceeded from a few who were bitter and who were grievously misled. America has not opened its doors in vain to men and women out of other nations. The vast majority of those who have come to take advantage of her hospitality have united their spirits with hers as well as their fortunes. These men who speak alien sympathies are not their spokesmen but are the spokesmen of small groups whom it is high time that the nation should call to a reckoning. The chief thing necessary in America in order that she should let all the world know that she is prepared to maintain her own great position is that the real voice of the nation should sound forth unmistakably and in majestic volume, 124 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY in the deep unison of a common, unhesitating national feeling. I do not doubt that upon the first occasion, upon the first opportunity, upon the first definite chal lenge, that voice will speak forth in tones which no man can doubt and with commands which no man dare gain say or resist. May I not say, while I am speaking of this, that there is another danger that we should guard against? We should rebuke not only manifestations of racial feel ing here in America where there should be none, but also every manifestation of religious and sectarian an tagonism. It does not become America that within her borders, where every man is free to follow the dictates of his conscience and worship God as he pleases, men should raise the cry of church against church. To do that is to strike at the very spirit and heart of America. We are a God-fearing people. We agree to differ about methods of worship, but we are united in believing in Divine Providence and in worshiping the God of Nations. We are the champions of religious right here and everywhere that it may be our privilege to give it our countenance and support. The government is con scious of the obligation and the nation is conscious of the obligation. Let no man create divisions where there are none. Here is the nation God has builded by our hands. What shall we do with it? Who is there who does not stand ready at all times to act in her behalf in a spirit of devoted and disinterested patriotism? We are yet only in the youth and first consciousness of our power. The day of our country s life is still but in its fresh MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 125 morning. Let us lift our eyes to the great tracts of life yet to be conquered in the interests of righteous peace. Come, let us renew our allegiance to America, conserve her strength in its purity, make her chief among those who serve mankind, self-reverenced, self- commanded, mistress of all forces of quiet counsel, strong above all others in good will and the might of invincible justice and right. THIRD ANNUAL ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, DECEMBER 7, 1915 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: Since I last had the privilege of addressing you on the state of the Union the war of nations on the other side of the sea, which had then only begun to disclose its portentous proportions, has extended its threatening and sinister scope until it has swept within its flame some portion of every quarter of the globe, not except ing our own hemisphere, has altered the whole face of international affairs, and now presents a prospect of reorganization and reconstruction such as statesmen and peoples have never been called upon to attempt before. We have stood apart, studiously neutral. It was our manifest duty to do so. Not only did we have no part or interest in the policies which seem to have brought the conflict on; it was necessary, if a universal catas trophe was to be avoided, that a limit should be set to the sweep of destructive war and that some part of the great family of nations should keep the processes of peace alive, if only to prevent collective economic ruin and the breakdown throughout the world of the indus tries by which its populations are fed and sustained. It was manifestly the duty of the self -governed nations of this hemisphere to redress, if possible, the balance of economic loss and confusion in the other, if they could 126 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 127 do nothing more. In the day of readjustment and re cuperation we earnestly hope and believe that they can be of infinite service. In this neutrality, to which they were bidden not only by their separate life and their habitual detach ment from the politics of Europe but also by a clear perception of international duty, the states of America have become conscious of a new and more vital com munity of interest and moral partnership in affairs, more clearly conscious of the many common sympathies and interests and duties which bid them stand together. There was a time in the early days of our own great nation and of the republics fighting their way to inde pendence in Central and South America when the gov ernment of the United States looked upon itself as in some sort the guardian of the republics to the south of her as against any encroachments or efforts at political control from the other side of the water ; felt it its duty to play the part even without invitation from them; and I think that we can claim that the task was under taken with a true and disinterested enthusiasm for the / freedom of the Americas and the unmolested self- government of her independent peoples. But it was always difficult to maintain such a role without offense to the pride of the peoples whose freedom of action we sought to protect, and without provoking serious mis conceptions of our motives, and every thoughtful man of affairs must welcome the altered circumstances of the new day in whose light we now stand, when there is no claim of guardianship or thought of wards but, instead, a full and honorable association as of partners 128 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY between ourselves and our neighbors, in the interest of all America, north and south. Our concern for the inde pendence and prosperity of the states of Central and South America is not altered. We retain unabated the spirit that has inspired us throughout the whole life of our government and which was so frankly put into words by President Monroe. We still mean always to make a common cause of national independence and of political liberty in America. But that purpose is now better understood so far as it -concerns ourselves. It is known not to be a selfish purpose. It is known to have in it no thought of taking advantage of any govern ment in this hemisphere or playing its political fortunes for our own benefit. All the governments of America stand, so far as we are concerned, upon a footing of genuine equality and unquestioned independence. We have been put to the test in the case of Mexico, and we have stood the test. Whether we have benefited Mexico by the course we have pursued remains to be seen. Her fortunes are in her own hands. But we have at least proved that we will not take advantage of her in her distress and undertake to impose upon her an order and government of our own choosing. " Liberty is often a fierce and intractable thing, to which no bounds can be set, and to which no bounds of a few men s choosing ought ever to be set. Every American who has drunk at the true fountains of principle and tradi tion must subscribe without reservation to the high doc trine of the Virginia Bill of Eights, which in the great days in which our government was set up was every where amongst us accepted as the creed of free men. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 129 That doctrine is, "That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the Common benefit, protection, and secur ity of the people, nation, or community;" that "of all the various modes and forms of government, that is the best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration ; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." We have unhesitatingly applied that heroic principle to the case of Mexico, and now hopefully await the rebirth of the troubled Republic, which had so much of which to purge itself and so little sympathy from any outside quarter in the radical but necessary process. We will aid and befriend Mexico, but we will not coerce her; and our course with regard to her ought to be sufficient proof to all America that we seek no political suzerainty or selfish control. The moral is, that the states of America are not hostile rivals but co-operating friends, and that their growing sense of community of interest, alike in matters political and in matters economic, is likely to give them a new significance as factors in international affairs and in the political history of the world. It presents them as in a very deep and true sense a unit in world affairs, spiritual partners, standing together because thinking together, quick with common sympathies and common ideals. Separated they are subject to all the 130 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY cross currents of the confused politics of a world of hostile rivalries; united in spirit and purpose they can not be disappointed of their peaceful destiny. This is Pan- Americanism. It has none of the spirit of empire in it. It is the embodiment, the effectual em bodiment, of the spirit of law and independence and liberty and mutual service. A very notable body of men recently met in the City of Washington, at the invitation and as the guests of this Government, whose deliberations are likely to be looked back to as marking a memorable turning-point in the history of America. They were representative spokesmen of the several independent states of this hemisphere and were assembled to discuss the financial and commercial relations of the republics of the two continents which nature and political fortune have so intimately linked together. I earnestly recommend to your perusal the reports of their proceedings and of the actions of their committees. You will get from them, I think, a fresh conception of the ease and intelli gence and advantage with which Americans of both con tinents may draw together in practical co-operation and of what the material foundations of this hopeful partner ship of interest must consist, of how we should build them and of how necessary it is that we should hasten their building. There is, I venture to point out, an especial sig nificance just now attaching to this whole matter of drawing the Americas together in bonds of honorable partnership and mutual advantage because of the eco nomic readjustments which the world must inevitably MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 131 witness within the next generation, when peace shall have at last resumed its healthful tasks. In the per formance of these tasks I believe the Americas to be destined to play their parts together. I am interested to fix your attention on this prospect now because unless you take it within your view and permit the full sig nificance of it to command your thought I cannot find the right light in which to set forth the particular mat ter that lies at the very front of my whole thought as I address you to-day. I mean national defense. No one who really comprehends the spirit of the great people for whom we are appointed to speak can fail to perceive that their passion is for peace, their genius best displayed in the practice of the arts of peace. Great democracies are not belligerent. They do not seek or desire war. Their thought is of individual liberty and of the free labor that supports life and the uncen- sored thought that quickens it. Conquest and dominion are not in our reckoning, or agreeable to our principles. But just because we demand unmolested development and the undisturbed government of our own lives upon our own principles of right and liberty, we resent, from whatever quarter it may come, the aggression we our selves will not practice. We insist upon security in prosecuting our self-chosen lines of national develop ment. We do more than that. We demand it also for others. We do not confine our enthusiasm for indi vidual liberty and free national development to the incidents and movements of affairs which affect only ourselves. We feel it wherever there is a people that tries to walk in these difficult paths of independence 132 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY and right. From the first we have made common cause with all partisans of liberty on this side the sea, and have deemed it as important that our neighbors should be free from all outside domination as that we ourselves should be; have set America aside as a whole for the uses of independent nations and political freemen. Out of such thoughts grow all our policies. We re gard war merely as a means of asserting the rights of a people against aggression. And we are as fiercely jealous of coercive or dictatorial power within our own nation as of aggression from without. We will not maintain a standing army except for uses which are as necessary in times of peace as in times of war; and we shall always see to it that our military peace establish ment is no larger than is actually and continuously needed for the uses of days in which no enemies move against us. But we do believe in a body of free citizens ready and sufficient to take care of themselves and of the governments which they have set up to serve them. In our constitutions themselves we have commanded that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," and our confidence has been that our safety in times of danger would lie in the rising of the nation to take care of itself, as the farmers rose at Lexington. But war has never been a mere matter of men and guns. It is a thing of disciplined might. If our citi zens are ever to fight effectively upon a sudden sum mons, they must know how modern fighting is done, and what to do when the summons comes to render themselves immediately available and immediately effec- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 133 tive. And the government must be their servant in this matter, must supply them with the training they need to take care of themselves and of it. The military arm of their government, which they will not allow to direct them, they may properly use to serve them and make their independence secure, and not their own inde pendence merely but the rights also of those with whom they have made common cause, should they also be put in jeopardy. They must be fitted to play the great role in the world, and particularly in this hemisphere, which they are qualified by principle and by chastened ambi tion to play. It is with these ideals in mind that the plans of the Department of War for more adequate national defense were conceived which will be laid before you, and which I urge you to sanction and put into effect as soon as they can be properly scrutinized and discussed. They seem to me the essential first steps, and they seem to me for the present sufficient. They contemplate an increase of the standing force of the regular army from its present strength of five thousand and twenty-three officers and one hundred and two thousand nine hundred and eighty-five enlisted men of all services to a strength of seven thousand one hun dred and thirty-six officers and one hundred and thirty- four thousand seven hundred and seven enlisted men, or 141,843, all told, all services, rank and file, by the addition of fifty-two companies of coast artillery, fifteen companies of engineers, ten regiments of infantry, four regiments of field artillery, and four aero squadrons, besides seven hundred and fifty officers required for a 134 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY great variety of extra service, especially the all-impor tant duty of training the citizen force of which I shall presently speak, seven hundred and ninety-two non commissioned officers for service in drill, recruiting and the like, and the necessary quota of enlisted men for the Quartermaster Corps, the Hospital Corps, the Ord nance Department, and other similar auxiliary services. These are the additions necessary to render the army adequate for its present duties, duties which it has to perform not only upon our own continental coasts and borders and at our interior army posts, but also in the Philippines, in the Hawaiian Islands, at the Isthmus, and in Porto Eico. By way of making the country ready to assert some part of its real power promptly and upon a larger scale, should occasion arise, the plan also contemplates supple menting the army by a force of four hundred thousand disciplined citizens, raised in increments of one hundred and thirty-three thousand a year throughout a period of three years. This it is proposed to do by a process of enlistment under which the serviceable men of the coun try would be asked to bind themselves to serve with the colors for purposes of training for short periods throughout three years, and to come to the colors at call at any time throughout an additional " furlough" period of three years. This force of four hundred thou sand men would be provided with personal accoutrements as fast as enlisted and their equipment for the field made ready to be supplied at any time. They would be assembled for training at stated intervals at convenient places in association with suitable units of the regular MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 135 army. Their period of annual training would not neces sarily exceed two months in the year. It would depend upon the patriotic feeling of the younger men of the country whether they responded to such a call to service or not. It would depend upon the patriotic spirit of the employers of the country whether they made it possible for the younger men in their employ to respond under favorable conditions or not. I, for one, do not doubt the patriotic devotion either of our young men or of those who give them employ ment, those for whose benefit and protection they would in fact enlist. I would look forward to the success of such an experiment with entire confidence. At least so much by way of preparation for defense seems to me to be absolutely imperative now. We can not do less. The program which will be laid before you by the Secretary of the Navy is similarly conceived. It in volves only a shortening of the time within which plans long matured shall be carried out; but it does make definite and explicit a program which has heretofore been only implicit, held in the minds of the Commit tees on Naval Affairs and disclosed in the debates of the two Houses but nowhere formulated or formally adopted. It seems to me very clear that it will be to the advantage of the country for the Congress to adopt a comprehensive plan for putting the navy upon a final footing of strength and efficiency and to press that plan to completion within the next five years. We have always looked to the navy of the country as our first and chief line of defense; we have always seen it to be 136 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY our manifest course of prudence to be strong on the seas. Year by year we have been creating a navy which now ranks very high indeed among the navies of the maritime nations. We should now definitely determine how we shall complete what we have begun, and how soon. The program to be laid before you contemplates the construction within five years of ten battleships, six battle cruisers, ten scout cruisers, fifty destroyers, fifteen fleet submarines, eighty-five coast submarines, four gunboats, one hospital ship, two ammunition ships, two fuel oil ships, and one repair ship. It is proposed that of this number we shall the first year provide for the construction of two battleships, two battle cruisers, three scout cruisers, fifteen destroyers, five fleet sub marines, twenty-five coast submarines, two gunboats, and one hospital ship; the second year, two battleships, one scout cruiser, ten destroyers, four fleet submarines, fifteen coast submarines, one gunboat, and one fuel oil ship; the third year, two battleships, one battle cruiser, two scout cruisers, five destroyers, two fleet submarines, and fifteen coast submarines; the fourth year, two bat tleships, two battle cruisers, two scout cruisers, ten destroyers, two fleet submarines, fifteen coast sub marines, one ammunition ship, and one fuel oil ship; and the fifth year, two battleships, one battle cruiser, two scout cruisers, ten destroyers, two fleet submarines, fifteen coast submarines, one gunboat, one ammunition ship, and one repair ship. The Secretary of the Navy is asking also for the immediate addition to the personnel of the navy of MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 137 seven thousand five hundred sailors, twenty-five hun dred apprentice seamen, and fifteen hundred marines. This increase would be sufficient to care for the ships which are to be completed within the fiscal year 1917 and also for the number of men which must be put in training to man the ships which will be completed early in 1918. It is also necessary that the number of mid shipmen at the Naval Academy at Annapolis should be increased by at least three hundred in order that the force of officers should be more rapidly added to; and authority is asked to appoint, for engineering duties only, approved graduates of engineering colleges, and for service in the aviation corps a certain number of men taken from civil life. If this full program should be carried out we should have built or building in 1921, according to the estimates of survival and standards of classification followed by the General Board of the Department, an effective navy consisting of twenty-seven battleships, of the first line, six battle cruisers, twenty-five battleships of the second line, ten armored cruisers, thirteen scout cruisers, five first class cruisers, three second class cruis ers, ten third class cruisers, one hundred and eight destroyers, eighteen fleet submarines, one hundred and fifty-seven coast submarines, six monitors, twenty gun boats, four supply ships, fifteen fuel ships, four trans ports, three tenders to torpedo vessels, eight vessels of special types, and two ammunition ships. This would be a navy fitted to our needs and worthy of our traditions. But armies and instruments of war are only part of what has to be considered if we are to provide for 138 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the supreme matter of national self-sufficiency and se curity in all its aspects. There are other great matters which will be thrust upon our attention whether we will or not. There is, for example, a very pressing question of trade and shipping involved in this great problem of national adequacy. It is necessary for many weighty reasons of national efficiency and development that we should have a great merchant marine. The great mer chant fleet we once used to make us rich, that great body of sturdy sailors who used to carry our flag into every sea, and who were the pride and often the bulwark of the nation, we have almost driven out of existence by inexcusable neglect and indifference and by a hopelessly blind and provincial policy of so-called economic pro tection. It is high time we repaired our mistake and resumed our commercial independence on the seas. For it is a question of independence. If other nations go to war or seek to hamper each other s commerce, our merchants, it seems, are at their mercy, to do with as they please. We must use their ships, and use them as they determine. We have not ships enough of our own. We cannot handle our own com merce on the seas. Our independence is provincial, and is only on land and within our own borders. We are not likely to be permitted to use even the ships of other nations in rivalry of their own trade, and are without means to extend our commerce even where the doors are wide open and our goods desired. Such a situation is not to be endured. It is of capital importance not only that the United States should be its own carrier MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 139 on the seas and enjoy the economic independence which only an adequate merchant marine would give it, but also that the American hemisphere as a whole should enjoy a like independence and self-sufficiency, if it is not to be drawn into the tangle of European affairs. Without such independence the whole question of our political unity and self-determination is very seriously clouded and complicated indeed. Moreover, we can develop no true or effective Ameri can policy without ships of our own, not ships of war, but ships of peace, carrying goods and carrying much more: creating friendships and rendering indispensable services to all interests on this side the water. They must move constantly back and forth between the Amer icas. They are the only shuttles that can weave the delicate fabric of sympathy, comprehension, confidence, and mutual dependence in which we wish to clothe our policy of America for Americans. The task of building up an adequate merchant marine for America, private capital must ultimately undertake and achieve, as it has undertaken and achieved every other like task amongst us in the past, with admirable enterprise, intelligence, and vigor; and it seems to me a manifest dictate of wisdom that we should promptly remove every legal obstacle that may stand in the way of this much to be desired revival of our old independ ence and should facilitate in every possible way the building, purchase, and American registration of ships. But capital cannot accomplish this great task of a sud den. It must embark upon it by degrees, as the oppor tunities of trade develop. Something must be done at 140 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY once; done to open routes and develop opportunities where they are as yet undeveloped; done to open the arteries of trade where the currents have not yet learned to run, especially between the two American conti nents, where they are, singularly enough, yet to be cre ated and quickened; and it is evident that only the government can undertake such beginnings and assume the initial financial risks. When the risk has passed and private capital begins to find its way in sufficient abundance into these new channels, the government may withdraw. But it cannot omit to begin. It should take the first steps, and should take them at once. Our goods must not lie piled up at our ports and stored upon side tracks in freight cars which are daily needed on the roads; must not be left without means of transport to any foreign quarter. We must not await the permis sion of foreign ship-owners and foreign governments to send them where we will. With a view to meeting these pressing necessities of our commerce and availing ourselves at the earliest pos sible moment of the present unparalleled opportunity of linking the two Americas together in bonds of mutual interest and service, an opportunity which may never return again if we miss it now, proposals will be made to the present Congress for the purchase or construc tion of ships to be owned and directed by the govern ment similar to those made to the last Congress, but modified in some essential particulars. I recommend these proposals to you for your prompt acceptance with the more confidence because every month that has elapsed since the former proposals were made has made MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 141 the necessity for such action more and more manifestly imperative. That need was then foreseen; it is now acutely felt and everywhere realized by those for whom trade is waiting but who can find no conveyance for their goods. I am not so much interested in the par ticulars of the program as I am in taking immediate advantage of the great opportunity which awaits us if we will but act in this emergency. In this matter, as in all others, a spirit of common counsel should prevail, and out of it should come an early solution of this pressing problem. There is another matter which seems to me to be very intimately associated with the question of national safety and preparation for defense. That is our policy towards the Philippines and the people of Porto Rico. Our treatment of them and their attitude towards us are manifestly of the first consequence in the development of our duties in the world and in getting a free hand to perform those duties. We must be free from every unnecessary burden or embarrassment; and there is no better way to be clear of embarrassment than to fulfill our promises and promote the interests of those depend ent on us to the utmost. Bills for the alteration and reform of the government of the Philippines and for rendering fuller political justice to the people of Porto Rico were submitted to the sixty-third Congress. They will be submitted also to you. I need not particularize their details. You are most of you already familiar with them. But I do recommend them to your early adop tion with the sincere conviction that there are few measures you could adopt which would more serviceably 142 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY clear the way for the great policies by which we wish to make good, now and always, our right to lead in enterprises of peace and good will and economic and political freedom. The plans for the armed forces of the nation which I have outlined, and for the general policy of adequate preparation for mobilization and defense, involve of course very large additional expenditures of money, expenditures which will considerably exceed the esti mated revenues of the government. It is made my duty by law, whenever the estimates of expenditure exceed the estimates of revenue, to call the attention of the Congress to the fact and suggest any means of meeting the deficiency that it may be wise or possible for me to suggest. I am ready to believe that it would be my duty to do so in any case ; and I feel particularly bound to speak of the matter when it appears that the defi ciency will arise directly out of the adoption by the Congress of measures which I myself urge it to adopt. Allow me, therefore, to speak briefly of the present state of the Treasury and of the fiscal problems which the next year will probably disclose. On the thirtieth of June last there was an available balance in the general fund of the Treasury of $104,- 170,105.78. The total estimated receipts for the year 1916, on the assumption that the emergency revenue measure passed by the last Congress will not be ex tended beyond its present limit, the thirty-first of December, 1915, and that the present duty of one cent per pound on sugar will be discontinued after the first of May, 1916, will be $670,365,500. The balance of MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 143 June last and these estimated revenues come, therefore, to a grand total of $774,535,605.78. The total estimated disbursements for the present fiscal year, including twenty-five millions for the Panama Canal, twelve mil lions for probable deficiency appropriations, and fifty thousand dollars for miscellaneous debt redemptions, will be $753,891,000; and the balance in the general fund of the Treasury will be reduced to $20,644,605.78. The emergency revenue act, if continued beyond its present time limitation, would produce, during the half year then remaining, about forty-one millions. The duty of one cent per pound on sugar, if- continued, would produce during the two months of the fiscal year remain ing after the first of May, about fifteen millions. These two sums, amounting together to fifty-six millions, if added to the revenues of the second half of the fiscal year, would yield the Treasury at the end of the year an available balance of $76,644,605.78. The additional revenues required to carry out the program of military and naval preparation of which I have spoken, would, as at present estimated, be for the fiscal year 1917, $93,800,000. Those figures, taken with the figures for the present fiscal year which I have already given, disclose our financial problem for the year 1917. Assuming that the taxes imposed by the emer gency revenue act and the present duty on sugar are to be discontinued, and that the balance at the close of the present fiscal year will be only $20,644,605.78, that the disbursements for the Panama Canal will again be about twenty-five millions, and that the additional ex penditures for the army and navy are authorized by 144 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the Congress, the deficit in the general fund of the Treasury on the thirtieth of June, 1917, will be nearly two hundred and thirty-five millions. To this sum at least fifty millions should be added to represent a safe working balance for the Treasury, and twelve millions to include the usual deficiency estimates in 1917; and these additions would make a total deficit of some two hundred and ninety-seven millions. If the present taxes should be continued throughout this year and the next, however, there would be a balance in the Treasury of some seventy-six and a half millions at the end of the present fiscal year, and a deficit at the end of the next year of only some fifty millions, or, reckoning in sixty- two millions for deficiency appropriations and a safe Treasury balance at the end of the year, a total deficit of some one hundred and twelve millions. The obvious moral of the figures is that it is a plain counsel of prudence to continue all of the present taxes or their equivalents, and confine ourselves to the problem of providing one hundred and twelve millions of new rev enue rather than two hundred and ninety-seven millions. How shall we obtain the new revenue? We are frequently reminded that there are many millions of bonds which the Treasury is authorized under existing law to sell to reimburse the sums paid out of current revenues for the construction of the Panama Canal; and it is true that bonds to the amount of approxi mately $222,000,000 are now available for that purpose. Prior to 1913, $134,631,980 of these bonds had actually been sold to recoup the expenditures at the Isthmus; and now constitute a considerable item of the public MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 145 debt. But I, for one, do not believe that the people of this country approve of postponing the payment of their bills. Borrowing money is short-sighted finance. It can be justified only when permanent things are to be accom plished which many generations will certainly benefit by and which it seems hardly fair that a single genera tion should pay for. The objects we are now proposing to spend money for cannot be so classified, except in the sense that everything wisely done may be said to be done in the interest of posterity as well as in our own. It seems to me a clear dictate of prudent statesmanship and frank finance that in what we are now, I hope, about to undertake we should pay as we go. The people of the country are entitled to know just what burdens of taxation they are to carry, and to know from the out set, now. The new bills should be paid by internal taxation. To what sources, then, shall we turn? This is so peculiarly a question which the gentlemen of the House of Representatives are expected under the Constitution to propose an answer to that you will hardly expect me to do more than discuss it in very general terms. We should be following an almost universal example of modern governments if we were to draw the greater part or even the whole of the revenues we need from the income taxes. By somewhat lowering the present limits of exemption and the figure at which the surtax shall begin to be imposed, and by increasing, step by step throughout the present graduation, the surtax itself, the income taxes as at present apportioned would yield sums sufficient to balance the books of the Treasury 146 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY at the end of the fiscal year 1917 without anywhere making the burden unreasonably or oppressively heavy. The precise reckonings are fully and accurately set out in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury which will be immediately laid before you. And there are many additional sources of revenue which can justly be resorted to without hampering the industries of the country or putting any too great charge upon individual expenditure. A tax of one cent per gallon on gasoline and naphtha would yield, at the present estimated production, $10,000,000; a tax of fifty cents per horse power on automobiles and internal ex plosion engines, $15,000,000; a stamp tax on bank cheques, probably $18,000,000 ; a tax of twenty-five cents per ton on pig iron, $10,000,000; a tax of twenty-five cents per ton on fabricated iron and steel, probably $10,000,000. In a country of great industries like this it ought to be easy to distribute the burdens of taxa tion without making them anywhere bear too heavily or too exclusively upon any one set of persons or under takings. What is clear is, that the industry of this gen eration should pay the bills of this generation. I have spoken to you to-day, gentlemen, upon a sin gle theme, the thorough preparation of the nation to care for its own security and to make sure of entire freedom to play the impartial role in this hemisphere and in the world which we all believe to have been provi dentially assigned to it. I have had in my mind no thought of any immediate or particular danger arising out of our relations with other nations. We are at peace with all the nations of the world, and there is MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 147 reason to hope that no question in controversy between this and other Governments will lead to any serious breach of amicable relations, grave as some differences of attitude and policy have been and may yet turn out to be. I am sorry to say that the gravest threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within our own borders. There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags but wel comed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into con tempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue. Their number is not great as compared with the whole number of those sturdy hosts by which our nation has been enriched in recent generations out of virile foreign stocks; but it is great enough to have brought deep disgrace upon us and to have made it necessary that we should promptly make use of processes of law by which we may be purged of their corrupt dis tempers. America never witnessed anything like this before. It never dreamed it possible that men sworn into its own citizenship, men drawn out of great free stocks such as supplied some of the best and strongest elements of that little, but how heroic, nation that in a high day of old staked its very life to free itself from every entanglement that had darkened the fortunes of the older nations and set up a new standard here, that 148 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY men of such origins and such free choices of allegiance would ever turn in malign reaction against the Govern ment and people who had welcomed and nurtured them and seek to make this proud country once more a hot bed of European passion. A little while ago such a thing would have seemed incredible. Because it was incredible we made no preparation for it. We would have been almost ashamed to prepare for it, as if we were suspicious of ourselves, our own comrades and neighbors ! But the ugly and incredible thing has actu ally come about and we are without adequate federal laws to deal with it. I urge you to enact such laws at the earliest possible moment and feel that in doing so I am urging you to do nothing less than save the honor and self-respect of the nation. Such creatures of pas sion, disloyalty, and anarchy must be crushed out. They are not many, but they are infinitely malignant, and the hand of our power should close over them at once. They have formed plots to destroy property, they have entered into conspiracies against the neutrality of the Govern ment, they have sought to pry into every confidential transaction of the Government in order to serve interests alien to our own. It is possible to deal with these things very effectually. I need not suggest the terms in which they may be dealt with. I wish that it could be said that only a few men, misled by mistaken sentiments of allegiance to the gov ernments under which they were born, had been guilty of disturbing the self-possession and misrepresenting the temper and principles of the country during these days of terrible war, when it would seem that every man MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 149 who was truly an American would instinctively make it his duty and his pride to keep the scales of judgment even and prove himself a partisan of no nation but his own. But it cannot. There are some men among us, and many resident abroad who, though born and bred in the United States and calling themselves Ameri cans, have so forgotten themselves and their honor as citizens as to put their passionate sympathy with one or the other side in the great European conflict above their regard for the peace and dignity of the United States. They also preach and practice disloyalty. No laws, I suppose, can reach corruptions of the mind and heart; but I should not speak of others without also speaking of these and expressing the even deeper humili ation and scorn which every self-possessed and thought fully patriotic American must feel when he thinks of them and of the discredit they are daily bringing upon us. While we speak of the preparation of the nation to make sure of her security and her effective power we must not fall into the patent error of supposing that her real strength comes from armaments and mere safe guards of written law. It comes, of course, from her people, their energy, their success in their undertakings, their free opportunity to use the natural resources of our great home land and of the lands outside our con tinental borders which look to us for protection, for encouragement, and for assistance in their development ; from the organization and freedom and vitality of our economic life. The domestic questions which engaged the attention of the last Congress are more vital to the 150 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY nation in this its time of test than at any other time. We cannot adequately make ready for any trial of our strength unless we wisely and promptly direct the force of our laws into these all-important fields of domestic action. A matter which it seems to me we should have very much at heart is the creation of the right instru mentalities by which to mobilize our economic resources in any time of national necessity. I take it for granted that I do not need your authority to call into systematic consultation with the directing officers of the army and navy men of recognized leadership and ability from among our citizens who are thoroughly familiar, for example, with the transportation facilities of the coun try and therefore competent to advise how they may be co-ordinated when the need arises, those who can sug gest the best way in which to bring about prompt co operation among the manufacturers of the country, should it be necessary, and those who could assist to bring the technical skill of the country to the aid of the Government in the solution of particular problems of defense. I only hope that if I should find it feasible to constitute such an advisory body the Congress would be willing to vote the small sum of money that would be needed to defray the expenses that would probably be necessary to give it the clerical and administrative ma chinery with which to do serviceable work. What is more important is, that the industries and resources of the country should be available and ready for mobilization. It is the more imperatively necessary, therefore, that we should promptly devise means for doing what we have not yet done: that we should give MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 151 intelligent federal aid and stimulation to industrial and vocational education, as we have long done in the large field of our agricultural industry ; that, at the same time that we safeguard and conserve the natural resources of the country we should put them at the disposal of those who will use them promptly and intelligently, as was sought to be done in the admirable bills submitted to the last Congress from its committees on the public lands, bills which I earnestly recommend in principle to your consideration; that we should put into early operation some provision for rural credits which will add to the extensive borrowing facilities already afforded the farmer by the Reserve Bank Act adequate instru mentalities by which long credits may be obtained on land mortgages; and that we should study more care fully than they have hitherto been studied the right adaptation of our economic arrangements to changing conditions. Many conditions about which we have repeatedly legislated are being altered from decade to decade, it is evident, under our very eyes, and are likely to change even more rapidly and more radically in the days imme diately ahead of us, when peace has returned to the world and the nations of Europe once more take up their tasks of commerce and industry with the energy of those who must bestir themselves to build anew. Just what these changes will be no one can certainly foresee or confidently predict. There are no calculable, because no stable, elements in the problem. The most we can do is to make certain that we have the necessary instrumentalities of information constantly at our serv- 152 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY ice so that we may be sure that we know exactly what we are dealing with when we come to act, if it should be necessary to act at all. We must first certainly know what it is that we are seeking to adapt ourselves to. I may ask the privilege of addressing you more at length on this important matter a little later in your session. In the meantime may I make this suggestion? The transportation problem is an exceedingly serious and pressing one in this country. There has from time to time of late been reason to fear that our railroads would not much longer be able to cope with it successfully, as at present equipped and co-ordinated. I suggest that it would be wise to provide for a commission of inquiry to ascertain by a thorough canvass of the whole ques tion whether our laws as at present framed and admin istered are as serviceable as they might be in the solu tion of the problem. It is obviously a problem that lies at the very foundation of our efficiency as a people. Such an inquiry ought to draw out every circumstance and opinion worth considering and we need to know all sides of the matter if we mean to do anything in the field of federal legislation. No one, I am sure, would wish to take any backward step. The regulation of the railways of the country by federal commission has had admirable results and has fully justified the hopes and expectations of those by whom the policy of regulation was originally pro posed. The question is not what should we undo ? It is, whether there is anything else we can do that would supply us with effective means, in the very process of MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 153 regulation, for bettering the conditions under which the railroads are operated and for making them more useful servants of the country as a whole. It seems to me that it might be the part of wisdom, therefore, before further legislation in this field is attempted, to look at the whole problem of co-ordination and efficiency in the full light of a fresh assessment of circumstance and opinion, as a guide to dealing with the several parts of it. For what we are seeking now, what in my mind is the single thought of this message, is national efficiency and security. We serve a great nation. We should serve it in the spirit of its peculiar genius. It is the genius of common men for self-government, industry, justice, liberty, and peace. We should see to it that it lacks no instrument, no facility or vigor of law, to make it sufficient to play its part with energy, safety, and assured success. In this we are no partisans but heralds and prophets of a new age. ADDRESS BEFORE THE PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, JANUARY 6, 1916 The Second Pan American Scientific Congress met in the City of Washington, December 27, 1915-January 8, 1916, and was composed of official and scientific representatives from all of the American Republics. The First Congress had met at Santiago, Chile, December 25, 1908-January 5, 1909, and a resolution was adopted then and there that the Second should convene in Washington as the guest of the United States. The Congress was divided into nine sections dealing with Anthropology (Section I), Astronomy, Meteorology, and Seismology (Sec tion II ) , Conservation of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Irrigation, and For estry (Section III), Education (Section IV), Engineering (Section V), Inter national Law, Public Law, and Jurisprudence (Section VI), Mining, Metal lurgy, Economic Geology, and Applied Chemistry (Section VII), Public Health and Medical Science ( Section VIII ) , and Transportation, Commerce, Finance, and Taxation ( Section IX ) . The subject-matter of the various divisions was discussed in conference, and the resolutions adopted by the Congress embodied in a Final Act, which, accompanied by an interpretative commentary, was issued in the United States in 1916. ME. AMBASSADOR, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN": It was a matter of sincere regret with me that I was not in the city to extend the greetings of the Gov ernment to this distinguished body, and I am very happy that I have returned in time at least to extend to it my felicitations upon the unusual interest and success of its proceedings. I wish that it might have been my good fortune to be present at the sessions and instructed by the papers that were read. I have some what become inured to scientific papers in the course of a long experience, but I have never ceased to be instructed and to enjoy them. The sessions of this congress have been looked for ward to with the greatest interest throughout this coun- 154 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 155 try, because there is no more certain evidence of intel lectual life than the desire of men of all nations to share their thoughts with one another. I have been told so much about the proceedings of this congress that I feel that I can congratulate you upon the increasing sense of comradeship and intimate intercourse which has marked its sessions from day to day; and it is a very happy circumstance in our view that this, perhaps the most vital and successful of the meetings of this congress, should have occurred in the Capital of our own country, because we should wish to regard this as the universal place where ideas worth while are exchanged and shared. The drawing together of the Americas, ladies and gentlemen, has long been dreamed of and desired. It is a matter of peculiar gratification, therefore, to see this great thing happen; to see the Americas drawing together, and not drawing together upon any insubstantial foundation of mere sentiment. After all, even friendship must be based upon a per ception of common sympathies, of common interests, of common ideals, and of common purposes. Men cannot be friends unless they intend the same things, and the Americas have more and more realized that in all essen tial particulars they intend the same thing with regard to their thought and their life and their activities. To be privileged, therefore, to see this drawing together in friendship and communion based upon these solid foun dations affords everyone who looks on with open eyes peculiar satisfaction and joy; and it has seemed to me that the language of science, the language of impersonal 156 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY thought, the language of those who think, not along the lines of individual interest but along what are intended to be the direct and searching lines of truth itself, was a very fortunate language in which to express this com munity of interest and of sympathy. Science affords an international language just as commerce also affords a universal language, because in each instance there is a universal purpose, a universal general plan of action, and it is a pleasing thought to those who have had something to do with scholarship that scholars have had a great deal to do with sowing the seeds of friendship between nation and nation. Truth recognizes no national boundaries. Truth permits no racial prejudices; and when men come to know each other and to recognize equal intellectual strength and equal intellectual sin cerity and a common intellectual purpose some of the best foundations of friendship are already laid. But, ladies and gentlemen, our thought cannot pause at the artificial boundaries of the fields of science and of commerce. All boundaries that divide life into sec tions and interests are artificial, because life is all of a piece. You cannot treat part of it without by implica tion and indirection treating all of it, and the field of science is not to be distinguished from the field of life any more than the field of commerce is to be distin guished from the general field of life. No one who reflects upon the progress of science or the spread of the arts of peace or the extension and perfection of any of the practical arts of life can fail to see that there is only one atmosphere that these things can breathe, and that is an atmosphere of mutual confidence and of peace MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS and of ordered political life among the nations. Amidst war and revolution even the voice of science must for the most part be silent, and revolution tears up the very roots of everything that makes life go steadily forward and the light grow from generation to generation. For nothing stirs passion like political disturbance, and pas sion is the enemy of truth. These things were realized with peculiar vividness and said with unusual eloquence in a recent confer ence held in this city for the purpose of considering the financial relations between the two continents of America, because it was perceived that financiers can do nothing without the co-operation of governments, and that if merchants would deal with one another, laws must agree with one another that you cannot make laws vary without making them contradict, and that amidst contradictory laws the easy flow of com mercial intercourse is impossible, and that, therefore, a financial congress naturally led to all the inferences of politics. For politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself. I have never in my own mind admitted the distinction between the other departments of life and politics. Some people devote themselves so exclusively to politics that they forget there is any other part of life, and so soon as they do they become that thing which is described as a "mere politician." Statesman ship begins where these connections so unhappily lost are re-established. The statesman stands in the midst of life to interpret life in political action. 158 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY The conference to which I have referred marked the consciousness of the two Americas that economi cally they are very dependent upon one another, that they have a great deal that it is very desirable they should exchange and share with one another, that they have kept unnaturally and unfortunately separated and apart when they had a manifest and obvious community of interest; and the object of that conference was to ascertain the practical means by which the commercial and practical intercourse of the two continents could be quickened and facilitated. And where events move statesmen, if they be not indifferent or be not asleep, must think and act. For my own part I congratulate myself upon living in a time when these things, always susceptible of intellectual demonstration, have begun to be very widely and universally appreciated and when the statesmen of the two American continents have more and more come into candid, trustful, mutual conference, comparing views as to the practical and friendly way of helping one another and of setting forward every handsome enterprise on this side of the Atlantic. But these gentlemen have not conferred without realizing that back of all the material community of interest of which I have spoken there lies and must lie a community of political interest. I have been told a very interesting fact I hope it is true that while this Congress has been discussing science it has been in spite of itself led into the feeling that behind the science there was some inference with regard to politics, and that if the Americas were to be united in thought they MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 159 must in some degree sympathetically be united in action. But these statesmen who have been conferring from month to month in Washington have come to realize that back of the community of material interest there is a community of political interest. I hope I can make clear to you in what sense I use these words. I do not mean a mere partnership in the things that are expedient. I mean what I was trying to indicate a few moments ago, that you cannot separate politics from these things, that you cannot have real intercourse of any kind amidst political jealousies, which is only another way of saying that you cannot commune unless you are friends, and that friendship is based upon your political relations with each other perhaps more than upon any other kind of relationship between nations. If nations are politically suspicious of one another, all their intercourse is embarrassed. That is the reason, I take it, if it be true, as I hope it is, that your thoughts even during this Congress, though the questions you are called upon to consider are appar ently so foreign to politics, have again and again been drawn back to the political inferences. The object of American statesmanship on the two continents is to see to it that American friendship is founded on a rock. The Monroe doctrine was proclaimed by the United States on her own authority. It always has been main tained, and always will be maintained, upon her own responsibility. But the Monroe doctrine demanded merely that European Governments should not attempt to extend their political systems to this side of the 160 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY Atlantic. It did not disclose the use which the United States intended to make of her power on this side of the Atlantic. It was a hand held up in warning, but there was no promise in it of what America was going to do with the implied and partial protectorate which she apparently was trying to set up on this side of the water; and I believe you will sustain me in the state ment that it has been fears and suspicions on this score which have hitherto prevented the greater intimacy and confidence and trust between the Americas. The States of America have not been certain what the United States would do with her power. That doubt must be removed. And latterly there has been a very frank interchange of views between the authorities in Wash ington and those who represented the other States of this hemisphere, an interchange of views charming and hopeful, because based upon an increasingly sure appre ciation of the spirit in which they were undertaken. These gentlemen have seen that if America is to come into her own, into her legitimate own, in a world of peace and order, she must establish the foun dations of amity so that no one will hereafter doubt them. I hope and I believe that this can be accomplished. These conferences have enabled me to foresee how it will be accomplished. It will be accomplished in the first place by the States of America uniting in guar anteeing to each other absolutely political independence and territorial integrity. In the second place, and as a necessary corollary to that, guaranteeing the agree ment to settle all pending boundary disputes as soon MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 161 as possible and by amicable process ; by agreeing that all disputes among themselves, should they unhappily arise, will be handled by patient, impartial investigation, and settled by arbitration; and the agreement necessary to the peace of the Americas, that no State of either con tinent will permit revolutionary expeditions against another State to be fitted out on its territory, and that they will prohibit the exportation of the munitions of war for the purpose of supplying revolutionists against neighboring governments. You see what our thought is, gentlemen, not only the international peace of America but the domestic peace of America. If American States are constantly in ferment, if any of them are constantly in ferment, there will be a standing threat to their relations with one another. It is just as much to our interest to assist each other to the orderly processes within our own borders as it is to orderly processes in our controver sies with one another. These are very practical sugges tions which have sprung up in the minds of thoughtful men, and I, for my part, believe that they are going to lead the way to something that America has prayed for for many a generation. For they are based, in the first place, so far as the stronger States are concerned, upon the handsome principle of self-restraint and respect for the rights of everybody. They are based upon the prin ciples of absolute political equality among the States, equality of right, not equality of indulgence. They are based, in short, upon the solid eternal foundations of justice and humanity. No man can turn away from these things without turning away from the hope of 162 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the world. These are things, ladies and gentlemen, for which the world has hoped and waited with prayerful heart. God grant that it may be granted to America to lift this light on high for the illumination of the world. THE WORLD WAR AND AMERICAN PREPAREDNESS ADDRESS DELIVERED AT CLEVELAND, OHIO, JANUARY 29, 1916 ME. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW CITIZENS: I esteem it a real privilege to be in Cleveland again and to address you upon the serious questions of public policy which now confront us. I have not given my self this sort of pleasure very often since I have been President, for I hope that you have observed what my conception of the office of President is. I do not believe that, ordinarily speaking, it is a speech-making office. I have found the exactions of it such that it was absolutely necessary for me to remain constantly in touch with the daily changes of public business, and you so arranged it that I should be President at a time when there was a great deal of public business to remain in touch with. But the times are such, gentlemen, that it is necessary that we should take common counsel together regarding them. I suppose that this country has never found itself before in so singular a position. The present situa tion of the world would, only a twelvemonth ago, even after the European war had started, have seemed in credible, and yet now the things that no man antici pated have happened. The titanic struggle continues. The difficulties of the world s affairs accumulate. It 163 164 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY was, of course, evident that this was taking place long before the present session of Congress assembled, but only since the Congress assembled has it been possible to consider what we ought to do in the new circum stances of the times. Congress can not know what to ji~ do unless the Nation knows what to do, and it seemed to me not only my privilege but my duty to go out and inform my fellow countrymen just what I under stood the present situation to be. What are the elements of the case? In the first place, and most obviously, two-thirds of the world are at war. It is not merely a European struggle; nations in the Orient have become involved, as well as nations in the west, and everywhere there seems to be creeping even upon the nations disengaged the spirit and the threat of war. All the world outside of America is on fire. Do you wonder that men s imaginations take color from the situation? Do you wonder that there is a great reaction against war? Do you wonder that the passion for peace grows stronger as the spectacle grows more tremendous and more overwhelming? Do you wonder, on the other hand, that men s sympathies be come deeply engaged on the one side or the other? For no small things are happening. This is a struggle which will determine the history of the world, I dare say, for more than a century to come. The world will never be the same again after this war is over. The change may be for weal or it may be for woe, but it \, will be fundamental and tremendous. And in the meantime we, the people of the United MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 165 States, are the one great disengaged power, the one neutral power, finding it exceedingly difficult to be neutral, because, like men everywhere else, we are human; we have the deep passions of mankind in us; we have sympathies that are as easily stirred as the sympathies of any other people ; we have interests which we see being drawn slowly into the maelstrom of this tremendous upheaval. It is very difficult for us to hold off and look with cool judgment upon such stupendous matters. And yet we have held off. It has not been easy for the Government at Washington to avoid the en tanglements which seemed to beset it on every side. It has needed a great deal of watchfulness and an unremitting patience to do so, but all the while no American could fail to be aware that America did not wish to become engaged, that she wished to hold apart; not because she did not perceive the issues of the struggle, but because she thought her duties to be the duties of peace and of separate action. And all the while the nations themselves that were engaged seemed to be looking to us for some sort of action, not hostile in character but sympathetic in character. Hardly a single thing has occurred in Europe which has in any degree shocked the sensibilities of mankind that the Government of the United States has not been called upon by the one side or the other to protest and inter vene with its moral influence, if not with its physical force. It is as if we were the great audience before whom this stupendous drama is being played out, and we are asked to comment upon the turns and crises 166 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY of the plot. And not only are we the audience, and challenged to be the umpire so far as the opinion of the world is concerned, but all the while our own life touches these matters at many points of vital contact. The United States is trying to keep up the processes of peaceful commerce while all the world is at war and while all the world is in need of the essential things which the United States produces, and yet by an oversight for which it is difficult to forgive our selves we did not provide ourselves when there was proper peace and opportunity with a mercantile marine, by means of which we could carry the commerce of the world without the interference of the motives of other nations which might be engaged in controversy not our own; and so the carrying trade of the world is for the most part in the hands of the nations now embroiled in this great struggle. Americans have gone to all quarters of the world, Americans are serving the business of the world in every part of it, and every one of these men when his affairs touch the regions that are on fire is our ward, and we must see to his rights and that they are respected. Do you not see how all the sensitive places of our life touch these great disturbances? Now in the midst of all this, what is it that we are called on to do as a nation? I suppose that from the first America has had one peculiar and particular mission in the world. Other nations have grown rich, my fellow citizens, other nations have been as powerful as we in material resources in comparison with the other nations of the world, other nations have built up MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 167 empires and exercised dominion; we are not peculiar in any of these things, but we are peculiar in this, that from the first we have dedicated our force to the service of justice and righteousness and peace. We have said, "Our chief interest is not in the rights of property but in the rights of men; our chief interest is in the spirits of men that they might be free, that they might enjoy their lives unmolested so long as they observed the just rules of the game, that they might deal with their fellow-men with their heads erect, the subjects and servants of no man; the servants only of the principles upon which their lives rested." And America has done more than care for her own people and think of her own fortunes in these great matters. She has said ever since the time of President Monroe that she was the champion of the freedom and the separate sovereignty of peoples throughout the Western Hemisphere. She is trustee for these ideals and she is pledged, deeply and permanently pledged, to keep these momentous promises. She not only, therefore, must play her part in keeping this conflagration from spreading to the people of the United States; she must also keep this con flagration from spreading on this side of the sea. These are matters in which our very life and our whole pride are embedded and rooted, and we can never draw back from them. And I, my fellow citi zens, because of the extraordinary office with which you have intrusted me, must, whether I will or not, be your responsible spokesman in these great matters. It is my duty, therefore, when impressions are deeply 168 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY borne in upon me with regard to the national welfare to speak to you with the utmost frankness about them, and that is the errand upon which I have come away from Washington. For my own part, I am sorry that these things fall within the year of a national political campaign. They ought to have nothing whatever to do with politics. The man who brings partisan feeling into these matters and seeks partisan advantage by means of them is unworthy of your confidence. I am sorry that upon the eve of a campaign we should be obliged to discuss these things, for fear they might run over into the campaign and seem to constitute a part of it. Let us forget that this is a year of national elections. That is neither here nor there. The thing to do now is for all men of all parties to think along the same lines and do the same things and forget every difference that may have divided them. And what ought they to do? In the first place, they ought to tell the truth. There have been some extraordinary exaggerations both of the military weak ness and the military strength of this country. Some men tell you that we have no means of defense and others tell you that we have sufficient means of defense, and neither statement is true. Take, for example, the matter of our coast defenses. It is obvious to every man that they are of the most vital importance to the country. Such coast defenses as we have are strong and admirable, but we have not got coast defenses in enough places. Their quality is admirable, but their quantity is insufficient. The military authorities of MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 169 this country have not been negligent ; they have sought adequate appropriations from Congress, and in most instances have obtained them, so far as we saw the work in hand that it was necessary to do, and the work that they have done in the use of these appropria tions has been admirable and skillful work. Do not let anybody deceive you into supposing that the Army of the United States, so far as it has had opportunity, is in any degree unworthy of your confidence. And the Navy of the United States. You have been told that it is the second in strength in the world. I am sorry to say that experts do not agree with those who tell you that. Reckoning by its actual strength, I believe it to be one of the most efficient navies in the world, but in strength it ranks fourth, not second. You must reckon with the fact that it is necessary that that should be our first arm of defense, and you ought to insist that everything should be done that it is possible for us to do to bring the Navy /up to an adequate standard of strength and efficiency. Where we are chiefly lacking in preparation is on land and in the number of men who are ready to fight. Not the number of fighting men, but the number of men who are ready to fight. Some men are born troublesome, some men have trouble thrust upon them, and other men acquire trouble. I think I belong to the second class. But the characteristic desire of America is not that she should have a great body of men whose chief business is to fight, but a great body of men who know how to fight and are ready to fight when anything that is dear to the Nation is threatened. 170 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY You might have what we have, millions of men who had never handled arms of war, who are mere material for shot and powder if you put them in the field, and America would be ashamed of the inefficiency of calling such men to defend the Nation. What we want is to associate in training with the Army of the United States men who will volunteer for a sufficient length of time every year to get a rudimentary acquaintance with arms, a rudimentary skill in handling them, a rudimentary acquaintance with camp life, a rudi mentary acquaintance with military drill and discipline ; and we ought to see to it that we have men of that sort in sufficient number to constitute an initial army when we need an army for the defense of the country. I have heard it stated that there are probably sev eral million men in this country who have received a sufficient amount of military drill either here or in the countries in which they were born and from which they have come to us. Perhaps there are, nobody knows, because there is no means of counting them; but if there are so many, they are not obliged to come at our call; we do not know who they are. That is not military preparation. Military preparation consists in the existence of such a body of men known to the Federal authorities, organized provisionally by the Fed eral authorities, and subject by their own choice and will to the immediate call of the Federal authorities. We have no such body of men in the United States except the National Guard. Now, I have a very great respect for the National Guard. I have been asso- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 171 elated with one section of that guard in one of the great States of the Union, and I know the character of the officers and the quality of the men, and I would trust them unhesitatingly both for skill and for effi ciency, but the whole National Guard of the United States falls short of 130,000 men. It is characterized by a very great variety of discipline and efficiency as between State and State, and it is by the Constitution itself put under authority of more than two score State executives. The President of the United States has not the right to call on these men except in the case of actual invasion, and, therefore, no matter how skillful they are, no matter how ready they are, they are not the instruments for immediate National use. I believe that the Congress of the United States ought to do, and that it will do, a great deal more for the National Guard than it ever has done, and everything ought to be done to make it a model military arm. But that is not the arm that we are immediately interested in. We are interested in making certain that there are men all over the United States prepared, equipped, and ready to go out at the call of the National Government upon the shortest possible notice. You will ask me, "Why do you say the shortest possible notice?" Because, gentlemen, let me tell you very solemnly you can not afford to postpone this thing. I do not know what a single day may bring forth. I do not wish to leave you with the impression that I am thinking of some particular danger; I merely want to leave you with this solemn impression, that I know that we are daily treading amidst the most intricate 172 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY dangers, and that the dangers that we are treading amongst are not of our making and are not under our control, and that no man in the United States knows what a single week or a single day or a single hour may bring forth. These are solemn things to say to you but I would be unworthy of my office if I did not come out and tell you with absolute frankness just exactly what I understand the situation to be. I do not wish to hurry the Congress of the United States. These things are too important to be put through without very thorough sifting and debate and I am not in the least jealous of any of the searching processes of discussion. That is what free people are for, to understand what they are about and to do what they wish to do only if the} r understand what they are about. But it is impossible to discuss the details of plans in great bodies, unorganized bodies, of men like this audience, for example. All that I can do in this presence is to tell you what I know of the necessities of the case, and to ask you to stand back of the execu tive authorities of the United States in urging upon those who make our laws as early and effective action as possible. America is not afraid of anybody. I know that I express your feeling and the feeling of all our fellow citizens when I say that the only thing I am afraid of is not being ready to perform my duty. I am afraid of the danger of shame; I am afraid of the danger of inadequacy; I am afraid of the danger of not being able to express the great character of this country with tremendous might and effectiveness when- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 173 ever we are called upon to act in the field of the world s affairs. For it is character we are going to express, not power merely. The United States is not in love with the aggressive use of power. It despises the aggressive use of power. There is not a foot of territory belong ing to any other nation which this Nation covets or desires. There is not a privilege which we ourselves enjoy that we would dream of denying any other na tion in the world. If there is one thing that the American people love and believe in more than another it is peace and all the handsome things that belong to peace. I hope that you will bear me out in saying that I have proved that I am a partisan of peace. I would be ashamed to be belligerent and impatient when the fortunes of my whole country and the happi ness of all my fellow countrymen were involved. But I know that peace is not always within the choice of the Nation, and I want to remind you, and remind you very solemnly, of the double obligation you have laid upon me. I know you have laid it upon me be cause I am constantly reminded of it in conversation, by letter, in editorial, by means of every voice that comes to me out of the body of the Nation. You have laid upon me this double obligation: "We are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep us out of this war, but we are relying upon you, Mr. President, to keep the honor of the Nation unstained." Do you not see that a time may come when it is impossible to do both of these things? Do you not see that if I am to guard the honor of the Nation, 174 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY I am not protecting it against itself, for we are not going to do anything to stain the honor of our own country. I am protecting it against things that I can not control, the action of others. And where the action of others may bring us I can not foretell. You may count upon my heart and resolution to keep you out of the war, but you must be ready if it is necessary that I should maintain your honor. That is the only thing a real man loves about himself. Some men who are not real men love other things about themselves, but the real man believes that his honor is dearer than his life; and a nation is merely all of us put together, and the Nation s honor is dearer than the Nation s comfort and the Nation s peace and the Na tion s life itself. So that we must know what we have thrown into the balance; we must know the infinite issues which are impending every day of the year, and when we go to bed at night and when we rise in the morning, and at every interval of the rush of business, we must remind ourselves that we are part of a great body politic in which are vested some of the highest hopes of the human race. Why is it that all nations turn to us with the in stinctive feeling that if anything touches humanity it touches us? Because it knows that ever since we were born as a Nation we have undertaken to be the cham pions of humanity and of the rights of men. Without that ideal there would be nothing that would distinguish America from her predecessors in the history of nations. Why is it that men who loved liberty have crowded to these shores ? Why is it that we greet them as they MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 175 enter the great harbor at New York with that majestic Statue of Liberty holding up a torch whose visionary beams are meant to spread abroad over the waters of the world, and to say to all men, "Come to America where mankind is free and where we love all the works of righteousness and of peace." LETTER TO SENATOR STONE, FEBRUARY 24, 1916, IN REPLY TO A LETTER OF THE SAME DATE The right of Americans to travel upon British passenger steamers going to and fron? Europe was admitted by the authorities and people of the United States, but the expediency of the exercise of the right was doubted by some in view of the danger to which ships were exposed in that part of the high seas surrounding Great Britain which Germany, on February 4, 1915, had declared to be a war zone, and the waters of which were infested with its submarines attacking indiscriminately enemy or neutral ships, or enemy ships with neutral persons and cargo aboard. Senator William J. Stone, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, addressed a letter to the President on this subject dated February 24, 1916. In reply to this communication, President Wilson wrote the following letter. MY DEAR SENATOR: I very warmly appreciate your kind and frank letter of to-day, and feel that it calls for an equally frank reply. You are right in assuming that I shall do everything in my power to keep the United States out of war. I think the country will feel no uneasiness about my course in that respect. Through many anxious months I have striven for that object, amid difficulties more manifold than can have been apparent upon the sur face, and so far I have succeeded. I do not doubt that I shall continue to succeed. The course which the Cen tral European powers have announced their intention of following in the future with regard to undersea war fare seems for the moment to threaten insuperable ob stacles, but its apparent meaning is so manifestly incon- 176 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 177 sistent with explicit assurances recently given us by those powers with regard to their treatment of mer chant vessels on the high seas that I must believe that explanations will presently ensue which will put a dif ferent aspect upon it. We have had no reason to ques tion their good faith or their fidelity to their promises in the past, and I for one feel confident that we shall have none in the future. But in any event our duty is clear. No nation, no group of nations, has the right, while war is in progress, to alter or disregard the principles which all nations have agreed upon in mitigation of the horrors and suf ferings of war ; and if the clear rights of American citi zens should very unhappily be abridged or denied by any such action, we should, it seems to me, have in honor no choice as to what our own course should be. For my own part, I cannot consent to any abridg ment of the rights of American citizens in any respect. The honor and self-respect of the Nation is involved. We covet peace, and shall preserve it at any cost but the loss of honor. To forbid our people to exercise their rights for fear we might be called upon to vindicate them would be a deep humiliation indeed. It would be an implicit, all but an explicit, acquiescence in the vio lation of the rights of mankind everywhere and of what ever nation or allegiance. It would be a deliberate abdi cation of our hitherto proud position as spokesman, even amid the turmoil of war, for the law and the right. It would make everything this Government has at tempted and everything that it has accomplished during this terrible struggle of nations meaningless and futile. 178 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY It is important to reflect that if in this instance we allowed expediency to take the place of principle the door would inevitably be opened to still further conces sions. Once accept a single abatement of right, and many other humiliations would certainly follow, and the whole fine fabric of international law might crumble under our hands piece by piece. What we are contend ing for in this matter is of the very essence of the things that have made America a sovereign nation. She cannot yield them without conceding her own impotency as a Nation and making virtual surrender of her inde pendent position among the nations of the world. I am speaking, my dear Senator, in deep solemnity, without heat, with a clear consciousness of the high responsibilities of my office and as your sincere and devoted friend. If we should unhappily differ, we shall differ as friends, but where issues so momentous as these are involved we must, just because we are friends, speak our minds without reservation. Faithfully yours, WOODROW WILSON. LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE POU, FEBRUARY 29, 1916 A resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives on February 22, 1916, requesting the President to ask all Americans to refrain from traveling upon belligerent, that is to say British merchant ships, and warning them that they did so at their own peril and that, by doing so, they forfeited the protection of the United States. 1 The passage of such a resolution tvould have embarrassed the Administration in its negotiations with Germany, which denied this right to Americans; and a very considerable vote for this resolution would have shown a division on this subject and would have been unfortunate, as indicating a division of opinion on foreign policy, in which and about which the American people should be a unit. Therefore the President wrote the following letter to bring the matter to the test of a vote in the Congress. MY DEAR MR. Pou: Inasmuch as I learn that Mr. Henry, the chairman of the Committee on Rules, is absent in Texas, I take the liberty of calling your attention, as ranking mem ber of the committee, to a matter of grave concern to the country which can, I believe, be handled, under the rules of the House, only by that committee. The report that there are divided counsels in Con gress in regard to the foreign policy of the Government is being made industrious use of in foreign capitals. I believe that report to be false, but so long as it is any where credited it cannot fail to do the greatest harm and expose the country to the most serious risks. I therefore feel justified in asking that your committee will permit me to urge an early vote upon the resolu tions with regard to travel on armed merchantmen 1 On this subject see the memorandum transmitted to the Committee on For eign Affairs, House of Representatives, March 4, 1916. Appendix, pp. 411-424. 179 180 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY which have recently been so much talked about, in order that there may be afforded an immediate oppor tunity for full public discussion and action upon them and that all doubts and conjectures may be swept away and our foreign relations once more cleared of damag ing misunderstandings. The matter is of so grave importance and lies so clearly within the field of Executive initiative that I venture to hope that your committee will not think that I am taking an unwarranted liberty in making this suggestion as to the business of the House; and I very earnestly commend it to their immediate consideration. Cordially and sincerely, yours, WOODROW WILSON. ADDRESS ON GERMAN SUBMARINE WAR FARE, DELIVERED AT A JOINT SES SION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, APRIL 19, 1916 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: A situation has arisen in the foreign relations of the country of which it is my plain duty to inform you very frankly. It will be recalled that in February, 1915, the Im perial German Government announced its intention to treat the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ire land as embraced within the seat of war and to destroy all merchant ships owned by its enemies that might be found within any part of that portion of the high seas, and that it warned all vessels, of neutral as well as of belligerent ownership, to keep out of the waters it had thus proscribed or else enter them at their peril. The Government of the United States earnestly protested. It took the position that such a policy could not be pursued without the practical certainty of gross and palpable violations of the law of nations, particularly if submarine craft were to be employed as its instruments, inasmuch as the rules prescribed by that law, rules founded upon principles of humanity and established for the protection of the lives of non-combatants at sea, could not in the nature of the case be observed by such vessels. It based its protest on the ground that persons of neutral nationality and vessels of neutral ownership would be exposed to extreme and intolerable risks, and 181 182 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY that no right to close any part of the high seas against their use or to expose them to such risks could law fully be asserted by any belligerent government. The law of nations in these matters, upon which the Gov ernment of the United States based its protest, is not of recent origin or founded upon merely arbitrary prin ciples set up by convention. It is based, on the con trary, upon manifest and imperative principles of humanity and has long been established with the ap proval and by the express assent of all civilized nations. Notwithstanding the earnest protest of our Govern ment, the Imperial German Government at once pro ceeded to carry out the policy it had announced. It ex pressed the hope that the dangers involved, at any rate the dangers to neutral vessels, would be reduced to a minimum by the instructions which it had issued to its submarine commanders, and assured the Government of the United States that it would take every possible pre caution both to respect the rights of neutrals and to safeguard the lives of non-combatants. What has actually happened in the year which has since elapsed has shown that those hopes were not justi fied, those assurances insusceptible of being fulfilled. In pursuance of the policy of submarine warfare against the commerce of its adversaries, thus announced and entered upon by the Imperial German Government in despite of the solemn protest of this Government, the commanders of German undersea vessels have attacked merchant ships with greater and greater activity, not only upon the high seas surrounding Great Britain and Ireland but wherever they could encounter them, in a MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 183 way that has grown more and more ruthless, more ai more indiscriminate as the months have gone by, less and less observant of restraints of any kind; and have delivered their attacks without compunction against vessels of every nationality and bound upon every sort of errand. Vessels of neutral ownership, even vessels of neutral ownership bound from neutral port to neu tral port, have been destroyed along with vessels of bel ligerent ownership in constantly increasing numbers. Sometimes the merchantman attacked has been warned and summoned to surrender before being fired on or torpedoed; sometimes passengers or crews have been vouchsafed the poor security of being allowed to take to the ship s boats before she was sent to the bottom. But again and again no warning has been given, no escape even to the ship s boats allowed to those on board. What this Government foresaw must happen has happened. Tragedy has followed tragedy on the seas in such fashion, with such attendant circumstances, as to make it grossly evident that warfare of such a sort, if warfare it be, cannot be carried on without the most palpable violation of the dictates alike of right and of humanity. Whatever the disposition and intention of the Imperial German Government, it has manifestly proved impossible for it to keep such methods of attack upon the commerce of its enemies within the bounds set by either the reason or the heart of mankind. In February of the present year the Imperial Ger man Government informed this Government and the other neutral governments of the world that it had reason to believe that the Government of Great Britain 184 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY had armed all merchant vessels of British ownership and had given them secret orders to attack any sub marine of the enemy they might encounter upon the seas, and that the Imperial German Government felt justified in the circumstances in treating all armed mer chantmen of belligerent ownership as auxiliary vessels of war, which it would have the right to destroy with out warning. The law of nations has long recognized the right of merchantmen to carry arms for protection and to use them to repel attack, though to use them, in such circumstances, at their own risk; but the Im perial German Government claimed the right to set these understandings aside in circumstances which it deemed extraordinary. Even the terms in which it announced its purpose thus still further to relax the restraints it had previously professed its willingness and desire to put upon the operations of its submarines carried the plain implication that at least vessels which were not armed would still be exempt from destruction without warning and that personal safety would be accorded their passengers and crews; but even that limitation, if it was ever practicable to observe it, has in fact constituted no check at all upon the destruction of ships of every sort. Again and again the Imperial German Government has given this Government its solemn assurances that at least passenger ships would not be thus dealt with, and yet it has again and again permitted its undersea commanders to disregard those assurances with entire impunity. Great liners like the Lusitania and the Arabic and mere ferryboats like the Sussex have been MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 185 attacked without a moment s warning, sometimes before they had even become aware that they were in the presence of an armed vessel of the enemy, and the lives of non-combatants, passengers and crew, have been sac rificed wholesale, in a manner which the Government of the United States cannot but regard as wanton and without the slightest color of justification. No limit of any kind has in fact been set to the indiscriminate pur suit and destruction of merchantmen of all kinds and nationalities within the waters, constantly extending in area, where these operations have been carried on; and the roll of Americans who have lost their lives on ships thus attacked and destroyed has grown month by month until the ominous toll has mounted into the hundreds. One of the latest and most shocking instances of this method of warfare was that of the destruction of the French cross-Channel steamer Sussex. It must stand forth, as the sinking of the steamer Lusitania did, as so singularly tragical and unjustifiable as to constitute a truly terrible example of the inhumanity of submarine warfare as the commanders of German vessels have for the past twelvemonth been conducting it. If this in stance stood alone, some explanation, some disavowal by the German Government, some evidence of criminal mis take or willful disobedience on the part of the com mander of the vessel that fired the torpedo might be sought or entertained; but unhappily it does not stand alone. Recent events make the conclusion inevitable that it is only one instance, even though it be one of the most extreme and distressing instances, of the spirit and method of warfare which the Imperial German 186 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY Government has mistakenly adopted, and which from the first exposed that Government to the reproach of thrusting all neutral rights aside in pursuit of its imme diate objects. The Government of the United States has been very patient. At every stage of this distressing experience of tragedy after tragedy in which its own citizens were involved it has sought to be restrained from any extreme course of action or of protest by a thoughtful consider ation of the extraordinary circumstances of this un precedented war, and actuated in all that it said or did by the sentiments of genuine friendship which the people of the United States have always entertained and continue to entertain towards the German nation. It has of course accepted the successive explanations and assurances of the Imperial German Government as given in entire sincerity and good faith, and has hoped, even against hope, that it would prove to be possible for the German Government so to order and control the acts of its naval commanders as to square its policy with the principles of humanity as embodied in the law of nations. It has been willing to wait until the signifi cance of the facts became absolutely unmistakable and susceptible of but one interpretation. That point has now unhappily been reached. The facts are susceptible of but one interpretation. The Imperial German Government has been unable to put any limits or restraints upon its warfare against either freight or passenger ships. It has therefore become painfully evident that the position which this Govern ment took at the very outset is inevitable, namely, that MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 187 the use of submarines for the destruction of an enemy s commerce is of necessity, because of the very character of the vessels employed and the very methods of attack which their employment of course involves, incompatible with the principles of humanity, the long established and incontrovertible rights of neutrals, and the sacred im munities of non-combatants. I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial German Government that if it is still its pur pose to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines, notwithstanding the now demonstrated impossibility of conducting that warfare in accordance with what the Government of the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity, the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue; and that unless the Imperial German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment of its present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the Gov ernment of the German Empire altogether. This decision I have arrived at with the keenest regret; the possibility of the action contemplated I am sure all thoughtful Americans will look forward to with unaffected reluctance. But we cannot forget that we are in some sort and by the force of circumstances the responsible spokesmen of the rights of humanity, and that we cannot remain silent while those rights seem in 188 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY process of being swept utterly away in the maelstrom of this terrible war. We owe it to a due regard for our own rights as a nation, to our sense of duty as a rep resentative of the rights of neutrals the world over, and to a just conception of the rights of mankind to take this stand now with the utmost solemnity and firmness. I have taken it, and taken it in the confidence that it will meet with your approval and support. All sober- minded men must unite in hoping that the Imperial German Government, which has in other circumstances stood as the champion of all that we are now contending for in the interest of humanity, may recognize the jus tice of our demands and meet them in the spirit in which they are made. ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE FIRST AN NUAL ASSEMBLAGE OF THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE, WASHINGTON, MAY 27, 1916 The League to Enforce Peace was formed at Philadelphia on June 17, 1915, proposing a league of the nations to submit their justiciable disputes to the decision of an international court of justice; their non-justiciable disputes to a council of conciliation for investigation and report, leaving to public opinion the enforcement of the decision of the court and the report of the Council; pledging the combined force of the members of the League to restrain a member thereof from going to war with another member before the submission of the dispute to court or council, at the request of the other disputant; and finally, an agreement of the members of the League to hold conferences from time to time, to agree upon the principles of international law to be applied by the court in the settle ment of disputes submitted to it.- At the banquet of the League held in Wash ington, May 27, 1916, the President delivered the following address. When the invitation to be here to-night came to me, I was glad to accept it, not because it offered me an opportunity to discuss the program of the League, that you will, I am sure, not expect of me, but because the desire of the whole world now turns eagerly, more and more eagerly, towards the hope of peace, and there is just reason why we should take our part in counsel upon this great theme. It is right that I, as spokesman of our Government, should attempt to give expression to what I believe to be the thought and purpose of the people of the United States in this vital matter. This great war that broke so suddenly upon the world 189 190 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY two years ago, and which has swept within its flame so great a part of the civilized world, has affected us very profoundly, and we are not only at liberty, it is perhaps our duty, to speak very frankly of it and of the great interests of civilization which it affects. With its causes and its objects we are not con cerned. The obscure fountains from which its stupen dous flood has burst forth we are not interested to search for or explore. But so great a flood, spread far and wide to every quarter of the globe, has of neces sity engulfed many a fair province of right that lies very near to us. Our own rights as a Nation, the liber ties, the privileges, and the property of our people have been profoundly affected. We are not mere discon nected lookers-on. The longer the war lasts, the more deeply do we become concerned that it should be brought to an end and the world be permitted to resume its normal life and course again. And when it does come to an end we shall be as much concerned as the nations at war to see peace assume an aspect of permanence, *"T" * give promise of days from which the anxiety of uncer tainty shall be lifted, bring some assurance that peace and war shall always hereafter be reckoned part of the common interest of mankind. PWe are participants, whether we would or not, in the life of the world. The interests of all nations are our own also. We are part ners with the rest. What affects mankind is inevitably our affair as well as the affair of the nations of Europe and of Asia. J One observation on the causes of the present war we are at liberty to make, and to make it may throw some MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 191 light forward upon the future, as well as backward upon the past. It is plain that this war could have come only as it did, suddenly and out of secret counsels, with out warning to the world, without discussion, without any of the deliberate movements of counsel with which it would seem natural to approach so stupendous a con test. It is probable that if it had been foreseen just what would happen, just what alliances would be formed, just what forces arrayed against one another, those who brought the great contest on would have been glad to substitute conference for forte. If we ourselves had been afforded some opportunity to apprise the belliger ents of the attitude which it would be our duty to take, of the policies and practices against which we would feel bound to use all our moral and economic strength, and in certain circumstances even our physical strength also, our own contribution to the counsel which might have averted the struggle would have been considered worth weighing and regarding. [And the lesson which the shock of being taken by surprise in a matter so deeply vital to all the nations of the world has made poignantly clear is, that the peace of the world must henceforth depend upon a new and more wholesome diplomacy. Only when the great na tions of the world have reached some sort of agreement as to what they hold to be fundamental to their com mon interest, and as to some feasible method of acting in concert when any nation or group of nations seeks to disturb those fundamental things, can we feel that civilization is at last in a way of justifying its existence and claiming to be finally established. It is clear that 192 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY nations must in the future be governed by the same high code of honor that we demand of individuals,! We must, indeed, in the very same breath with which we avow this conviVt.ion admit that we have ourselves upon occasion in the past been offenders against the law of diplomacy which we thus forecast; but our convic tion is not the less clear, but rather the more clear, on that account. If this war has accomplished nothing else for the benefit of the world, it has at least disclosed a great moral necessity and set forward the thinking of the statesmen of the world by a whole age. Repeated utterances of the leading statesmen of most of the great nations now engaged in war have made it plain that their thought has come to this, (that the principle of public right must henceforth take precedence over the individual interests of particular nations, and that the nations of the world must in some way band themselves together to see that that right prevails as against any sort of selfish aggression; that henceforth alliance must not be set up against alliance, understanding against understanding, but that there must be a common agree ment for a common object, and that at the heart of that common object must lie the inviolable rights of peoples and of mankind. The nations of the world have become each other s neighbors. It is to their interest that they should understand each other. In order that they may understand each other, it is imperative that they should agree to co-operate in a common cause, and that they should so act that the guiding principle of that common cause shall be even-handed and impartial justice. Ji MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 193 This is undoubtedly the thought of America. This is what we ourselves will say when there comes proper occasion to say it. In the dealings of nations with one another arbitrary force must be rejected and we must move forward to the thought of the modern world, the thought of which peace is the very atmosphere. That thought constitutes a chief part of the passionate con- viction of America. j We believe these fundamental things: First, that every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live. Like other nations, we have our selves no doubt once and again offended against that principle when for a little while controlled by selfish passion, as our franker historians have been honorable enough to admit ; but it has become more and more our___^ rule of life and action. Second, that the small states of the world have a right to enjoy the same respect for their sovereignty and for their territorial integrity that great and powerful nations expect and insist upon. And, third, that the world has a right to be free from~~1 every disturbance of its peace that has its origin in aggression and disregard of the rights of peoples and nations. So sincerely do we believe in these things that I am sure that I speak the mind and wish of the people of America when I say that the United States is willing to become a partner in any feasible association of nations formed in order to realize these objects and make them secure against violation. There is nothing that the United States wants for itself that any other nation has. We are willing, on the 194 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY contrary, to limit ourselves along with them to a prescribed course of duty and respect for the rights of others which will check any selfish passion of our own, as it will check any aggressive impulse of theirs. If it should ever be our privilege to suggest or initiate a movement for peace among the nations now at war, I am sure that the people of the United States would wish their Government to move along these lines: First, such a settlement with regard to their own immediate interests as the belligerents may agree upon. We have nothing material of any kind to ask for ourselves, and are quite aware that we are in no sense or degree parties to the present quarrel. Our interest is only in peace and its future guarantees. Second, an universal association of the nations to main tain the inviolate security of the highway of the seas for the common and unhindered use of all the nations of the world, and to prevent any war begun either con trary to treaty covenants or without warning and full submission of the causes to the opinion of the world, a virtual guarantee of territorial integrity and political independence. But I did not come here, let me repeat, to discuss a program. I came only to avow a creed and give expression to the confidence I feel that the world is even now upon the eve of a great consummation, when some common force will be brought into existence which shall safeguard right as the first and most fundamental inter est of all peoples and all governments, when coercion shall be summoned not to the service of political ambi- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 195 tion or selfish hostility, but to the service of a common order, a common justice, and a common peace. God grant that the dawn of that day of frank dealing and of settled peace, concord, and co-operation may be near at hand! ADDRESS ON MEMORIAL DAY AT ARLING TON, MAY 30, 1916 Whenever I seek to interpret the spirit of an occa sion like this, I am led to reflect upon the seas of mem ory. We are here to-day to recall a period of our his tory, which in one sense is so remote that we no longer seem to keep the vital threads of it in our conscious ness, and yet is so near that men who played heroic parts in it are still living, are still about us, are still here to receive the homage of our respect and our honor. They belong to an age which is past, to a period, the vital questions of which no longer vex the nation, to a period of which it may be said that certain things which had been questionable in the affairs of the United States were once for all settled, disposed of, put behind us, and in the course of time have almost been forgotten. It was a singularly complete work that was per formed by the processes of blood and iron at the time of the Civil War, and it is singular how the settlement has ruled our spirits since it was made. I see in this very audience men who fought in the Confederate ranks. I see them taking part in these exercises in the same spirit of sincere patriotism that moves those who fought on the side of the Union, and I reflect how singular and how handsome a thing it is that wounds such as then were opened should be so completely healed, and that the spirit of America should so prevail over the spirit of division. 196 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 197 It is the all-prevailing and triumphant spirit of America, where, by our Common action and consent, Governments are set up and pulled down, where affairs are ruled by common counsel, and where, by the healing processes of peace all men are united in a common enterprise of Liberty and of peace. And yet, ladies and gentlemen, the very object for which we are met together is to renew in our hearts the spirit that made these things possible. The Union was saved by the processes of the Civil War. That was a crisis which could be handled, it seems, in no other way, but I need not tell you that the peculiarity of this singular and beloved country is that its task its human task is apparently never finished; that it is always making and to be made. And there is at present upon us a crisis which seems to threaten to be a new crisis of division. We know that the war which is to ensue will be a war of spirits and not of arms. We know that the spirit of America is invincible and that no man can abate its power, but we know that that spirit must upon occasion be asserted, and that this is one of the occasions. America is made up out of all the nations of the world. Look at the rosters of the Civil War. You will see names there drawn from almost every European stock. Not recently, but from the first, America has drawn her blood and her impulse from all the sources of energy that spring at the fountains of every race, and because she is thus compounded out of the peoples of the world her problem is largely a problem of union 198 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY all the time, a problem of compounding out of many elements a single triumphal force. The war in Europe has done a very natural thing in America. It has stirred the memories of men drawn from many of the belligerent stocks. It has renewed in them a national feeling which had grown faint under the soothing influence of peace, but which now flares up when it looks as if nation had challenged nation to a final reckoning, and they remember the nations from which they were sprung and know that they are in this life- and-death grapple. It is not singular, my fellow citi zens, that this should have occurred, and up to a certain point it is not just that we should criticize it. We have no criticism for men who love the places of their birth and the sources of their origin. We do not wish men to forget their mothers and their fathers, their forbears running back through long, laborious generations which have taken part in the building up of the strength and spirit of other nations. No man quarrels with that. From such springs of sentiment we all draw some of the handsomest inspirations of our lives. But all that we do criticize is that in some instances they are not very numerous but in some instances men have allowed this old ardor of another nationality to over throw their ardor for the nationality to which they have given their new and voluntary allegiance. And so the United States has again to work out by spiritual process a new union, when men shall not think of what divides them but shall recall what unites them; when men shall not allow old loves to take the place of pres ent allegiances ; when men must, on the contrary, trans- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 199 late that very ardor of love for the country of their birth into the ardor of love for the country of their adoption and the principles which it represents. I have no harshness in my heart even for the ex tremists in this thing which I have been trying in moderate words to describe; but I summon them, and I summon them very solemnly, not to set their pur pose against the purpose of America. America must come first in every purpose we entertain, and every man must count upon being cast out of our confidence, cast out even of our tolerance, who does not submit to that great ruling principle. But what are the purposes of America 9 Do you not see that there is another significance in the fact that we are made up out of all the peoples of the world ? The significance of that fact is that we are not going to devote our nationality to the same mistaken aggres sive purposes that some other nationalities have been devoted to; that because we are made up, and con sciously made up, out of all the great family of man kind, we are champions of the rights of mankind. We are not only ready to co-operate, but we are ready to fight against any aggression, whether from without or from within. But we must guard ourselves against the sort of aggression which would be unworthy of America. We are ready to fight for our rights when those rights are coincident with the rights of man and humanity. It was to set those rights up, to vindicate them, to offer a home to every man who believed in them, that America was created and her Government set up. We have kept our doors open because we did not 200 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY think we in conscience could close them against men who wanted to join their force with ours in vindicating the claim of mankind to liberty and justice. America does not want any additional territory. She does not want any selfish advantage over any other nation in the world, but she does wish every nation in the world to understand what she stands for and to respect what she stands for; and I cannot conceive of any man of any blood or origin failing to feel an enthusi asm for the things that America stands for, or failing to see that they are indefinitely elevated above any pur pose of aggression or selfish advantage. I said the other evening in another place that one of the principles which America held dear was that small and weak States had as much right to their sover eignty and independence as large and strong States. She believes that because strength and weakness have nothing to do with her principles. Her principles are for the rights and liberties of mankind, and this is the haven which we have offered to those who believe that sublime and sacred creed of humanity. And I also said that I believed the people of the United States were ready to become partners in any alliance of the nations that would guarantee public right above selfish aggression. Some of the public prints have reminded me, as if I needed to be reminded, of what General Washington warned us against. He warned us against entangling alliances. I shall never myself con sent to an entangling alliance, but I would gladly assent to a disentangling alliance an alliance which would disentangle the peoples of the world from those com- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 201 binations in which they seek their own separate and private interests and unite the people of the world to preserve the peace of the world upon a basis of com mon right and justice. There is liberty there, not limi tation. There is freedom, not entanglement. There is the achievement of the highest things for which the United States has declared its principle. We have been engaged recently, my fellow citizens, in discussing the processes of preparedness. I have been trying to explain to you what we are getting prepared for, and I want to point out to you the only process of preparation which is possible for the United States. It is possible for the United States to get ready only if the men of suitable age and strength will volun teer to get ready. I heard the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce report the other evening on a referendum of 750 of the Chambers of Commerce of the United States upon the question of preparedness, and he re ported that 99 per cent of them had voted in favor of preparedness. Very well, now, we are going to apply the acid test, to those gentlemen, and the acid test is this : Will they give the young men in their employment free dom to volunteer for this thing ? I wish the referendum had included that, because that is of the essence of the matter. It is all very well to say that somebody else must prepare, but are the business men of this country ready themselves to lend a hand and sacrifice an interest in order that we may get ready ? We shall have an answer to that question in the next few months. A bill is lying 202 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY upon my table now, ready to be signed, which bristles all over with that interrogation point, and I want all the business men of the country to see that interroga tion point staring them in the face. I have heard a great many people talk about universal training. Uni versal voluntary training, with all my heart, if you wish it, but America does not wish anything but the compulsion of the spirit of America. I, for my part, do not entertain any serious doubt of the answer to these questions, because I suppose there is no place in the world where the compulsion of public opinion is more imperative than it is in the United States. You know yourself how you behave when you think nobody is watching. And now all the people of the United States are watching each other. There never was such a blazing spotlight upon the conduct and prin ciples of every American as each one of us now walks and blinks in. And as this spotlight sweeps its relentless rays across every square mile of the territory of the United States, I know a great many men, even when they do not want to, are going to stand up and say, "Here." Because America is roused, roused to a self-consciousness and a national self -consciousness such as she has not had in a generation. And this spirit is going out conquering and to con quer until, it may be, in the Providence of God, a new light is lifted up in America which shall throw the rays of liberty and justice far abroad upon every sea, and even upon the lands which now wallow in darkness and refuse to see the light. ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY, JUNE 13, 1916 The United States Military Academy was authorized by an act of Congress of March 16, 1802. West Point, New York, was selected for its location, and, with a class of ten cadets present, it was formally opened on July 4, 1802. The Act of May 4, 1916, provided that the Corps of Cadets at the United States Military Academy shall hereafter consist of two for each congressional district, two from each Territory, four from the District of Columbia, two from natives of Porto Rico, four from each State at large, and eighty from the United States at large twenty of whom shall be selected from among the honor graduates of educational institutions having officers of the Regular Army detailed as pro fessors of military science and tactics under existing law or any law hereafter enacted for the detail of officers of the Regular Army to such institutions, and which institutions are designated as " honor schools " upon the determination of their relative standing at the last preceding annual inspection regularly made by the War Department. They shall be appointed by the President and shall, with the exception of the eighty appointed from the United States at large, be actual residents of the Congressional or Territorial district, or of the District of Columbia, or of the island of Porto Rico, or of the States, respec tively, from which they purport to be appointed. On mental and physical examination they are admitted to the Academy, and upon the successful com pletion of four years of study are appointed second lieutenants of the Regular Army. The number allowed by law is 1336 and the actual number in attendance in 1917 was 898. To the class graduating on June 13, 1916, President Wilson delivered the following address. I look upon this body of men who are graduating today with a peculiar interest. I feel like congratu lating them that they are living in a day not only so interesting, because so fraught with change, but also because so responsible. Days of responsibility are the only days that count in time, because they are the only days that give test of quality. They are the only days when manhood and purpose is tried out as if by fire. I need not tell you young gentlemen that you are not like an ordinary graduating class of one of our uni versities. The men in those classes look forward to the life which they are to lead after graduation with 204 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY a great many questions in their mind. Most of them do not know exactly what their lives are going to develop into. Some of them do not know what occupa tions they are going to follow. All of them are con jecturing what will be the line of duty and advancement and the ultimate goal of success for them. There is no conjecture for you. You have enlisted in something that does not stop when you leave the Academy, for you then only begin to realize it, which then only begins to be fulfilled with the full richness of its meaning, and you can look forward with absolute certainty to the sort of thing that you will be obliged to do. This has always been true of graduating classes at West Point, but the certainty that some of the older classes used to look forward to was a dull certainty. Some of the old days in the army, I fancy, were not very interesting days. Sometimes men like the present Chief of Staff, for example, could fill their lives with the interest of really knowing and understanding the Indians of the Western plains, knowing what was going on inside their minds and being able to be the inter mediary between them and those who dealt with them, by speaking their sign language, could enrich their lives, but the ordinary life of the average officer at a Western post can not have been very exciting, and I think with admiration of those dull years through which officers who had not a great deal to do insisted, nevertheless, upon being efficient and worth while and keeping their men fit at any rate, for the duty to which they were assigned. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 205 But in your case there are many extraordinary possibilities, because, gentlemen, no man can certainly tell you what the immediate future is going to be either in the history of this country or in the history of the world. It is not by accident that the present great war came in Europe. Every element was there, and the contest had to come sooner or later, and it is not going to be by accident that the results are worked out, but by purpose by the purpose of the men who are strong enough to have guiding minds and in domitable wills when the time for decision and settle ment comes. And the part that the United States is to play has this distinction in it, that it is to be in any event a disinterested part. There is nothing that the United States wants that it has to get by war, but there are a great many things that the United States has to do. It has to see that its life is not interfered with by anybody else who wants something. These are days when we are making preparation, when the thing most commonly discussed around every sort of table, in every sort of circle, in the shops and in the streets, is preparedness, and undoubtedly, gentle men, that is the present imperative duty of America, to be prepared. But we ought to know what we are preparing for. I remember hearing a wise man say once that the old maxim that " everything comes to I/ the man who waits" is all very well provided he knows what he is waiting for; and preparedness might be a very hazardous thing if we did not know what we wanted to do with the force that we mean to accumulate and to get into fighting shape. 206 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY America, fortunately, does know what she wants to do with her force. America came into existence for a particular reason. When you look about upon these beautiful hills, and up this stately stream, and then let your imagination run over the whole body of this great country from which you youngsters are drawn, far and wide, you remember that while it had aborigi nal inhabitants, while there were people living here, there was no civilization which we displaced. It was as if in the Providence of God a continent had been kept unused and waiting for a peaceful people who loved liberty and the rights of men more than they loved anything else, to come and set up an unselfish commonwealth. It is a very extraordinary thing. You are so familiar with American history, at any rate in its general character I don t accuse you of knowing the details of it, for I never found the youngster who did, but you are so familiar with the general character of American history that it does not seem strange to you, but it is a very strange history. There is none other like it in the whole annals of mankind of men gathering out of every civilized nation of the world on an unused continent and building up a polity exactly to suit themselves, not under the domination of any ruling dynasty or of the ambitions of any royal family ; doing what they pleased with their own life on a free space of land which God had made rich with every resource which was necessary for the civilization they meant to build up. There is nothing like it. Now, what we are preparing to do is to see that nobody mars that and that, being safe itself against MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 207 interference from the outside, all of its force is going to be behind its moral idea, and mankind is going to know that when America speaks she means what she says. I heard a man say to another, "If you wish me to consider you witty, I must really trouble you to make a joke." We have a right to say to the rest of mankind, "If you don t want to interfere with us, if you are disinterested, we must really trouble you to give the evidence of that fact." We are not in for any thing selfish, and we want the whole mighty power of America thrown into that scale and not into any other. You know that the chief thing that is holding many people back from enthusiasm for what is called pre paredness is the fear of militarism. I want to say a word to you young gentlemen about militarism. You are not militarists because you are military. Militarism does not consist in the existence of an army, not even in the existence of a very great army. Militarism is a spirit. It is a point of view. It is a system. It is a purpose. The purpose of militarism is to use armies for aggression. The spirit of militarism is the opposite of the civilian spirit, the citizen spirit. In a country where militarism prevails the military man looks down upon the civilian, regards him as inferior, thinks of him as intended for his, the military man s, support and use; and just so long as America is America that spirit and point of view is impossible with us. There is as yet in this country, so far as I can discover, no taint of the spirit of militarism. You young gentlemen are not preferred in promotion because of the families you belong to. You are not 208 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY drawn into the Academy because you belong to certain influential circles. You do not come here with a long tradition of military pride back of you. You are picked out from the citizens of the United States to be that part of the force of the United States which makes its polity safe against interference. You are the part of American citizens who say to those who would interfere, "You must not" and "You shall not." But you are American citizens, and the idea I want to leave with you boys today is this: No mat ter what comes, always remember that first of all you are citizens of the United States before you are officers, and that you are officers because you represent in your particular profession what the citizenship of the United States stands for. There is no danger of militarism if you are genuine Americans, and I for one do not doubt that you are. When you begin to have the mili taristic spirit not the military spirit, that is all right then begin to doubt whether you are Americans or not. You know that one thing in which our forefathers took pride was this, that the civil power is superior to the military power in the United States. Once and again the people of the United States have so admired some great military man as to make him President of the United States, when he became commander-in-chief of all the forces of the United States, but he was com mander-in-chief because he was President, not because he had been trained to arms, and his authority was civil, not military. I can teach you nothing of military power, but I am instructed by the Constitution to use you for constitutional and patriotic purposes. And MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 209 that is the only use you care to be put to, and that is the only use you ought to care to be put to, because, after all, what is the use in being an American if you do not know what it is? You have read a great deal in the books about the pride of the old Roman citizen, who always felt like drawing himself to his full height when he said, "I am a Roman," but as compared with the pride that must have risen to his heart, our pride has a new distinction, not the distinction of the mere imperial power of a great empire, not the distinction of being masters of the world, but the distinction of carrying certain lights for the world that the world has never so distinctly seen before, certain guiding lights of liberty and prin ciple and justice. We have drawn our people, as you know, from all parts of the world, and we have been somewhat disturbed recently, gentlemen, because some of those though I believe a very small number whom we have drawn into our citizenship have not taken into their hearts the spirit of America and have loved other countries more than they loved the country of their adoption; and we have talked a great deal about Americanism. It ought to be a matter of pride with us to know what Americanism really consists in. Americanism consists in utterly believing in the principles of America and putting them first as above anything that might by chance come into competition with it. And I, for my part, believe that the American test is a spiritual test. If a man has to make excuses for what he had done as an American, I doubt his Americanism. He ought to know at every step of his 210 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY action that the motive that lies behind what he does is a motive which no American need be ashamed of for a moment. Now, we ought to put this test to every man we know. We ought to let it be known that nobody who does not put America first can consort with us. But we ought to set them the example. We ought to set them the example by thinking American thoughts, by entertaining American purposes, and those thoughts and purposes will stand the test of example anywhere in the world, for they are intended for the betterment of mankind. So I have come to say these few words to you to day, gentlemen, for a double purpose; first of all to express my personal good wishes to you in your gradua tion, and my personal interest in you, and second of all to remind you how we must all stand together in one spirit as lovers and servants of America. And that means something more than lovers and servants merely of the United States. You have heard of the Monroe Doctrine, gentlemen. You know that we are already spiritual partners with both continents of this hemi sphere and that America means something which is bigger even than the United States, and that we stand here with the glorious power of this country ready to swing it out into the field of action whenever liberty and independence and political integrity are threatened anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And we are ready nobody has authorized me to say this, but I am sure of it we are ready to join with the other nations of the world in seeing that the kind of justice prevails everywhere that we believe in. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 211 So that you are graduating to-day, gentlemen, into a new distinction. Glory attaches to all these men whose names we love to recount who have made the annals of the American Army distinguished. They played the part they were called upon to play with honor and with extraordinary character and success. I am congratulat ing you, not because you will be better than they, but because you will have a wider world of thought and con ception to play your part in. I am an American, but I do not believe that any of us loves a blustering nation ality, a nationality with a chip on its shoulder, a nationality with its elbows out and its swagger on. We love that quiet, self-respecting, unconquerable spirit which does not strike until it is necessary to strike, and then strikes to conquer. Never since I was a youngster have I been afraid of the noisy man. I have always been afraid of the still man. I have always been afraid of the quiet man. I had a class mate at college who was most dangerous when he was most affable. When he was maddest he seemed to have the sweetest temper in the world. He would approach you with the most ingratiating smile, and then you knew that every red corpuscle in his blood was up and shouting. If you work things off in your elbows, you do not work them off in your mind; you do not work them off in your purposes. So my conception of Ajnerica is a conception of infinite dignity, along with quiet, unquestionable power. I ask you, gentlemen, to join with me in that con ception, and let us all in our several spheres be soldiers together to realize it. ADDRESS ON FLAG DAY, WASHINGTON, JUNE 14, 1916 MK. SECRETARY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have not come here this afternoon with the pur pose of delivering to you an elaborate address. It seems to me that the day is sufficiently eloquent already with the meaning which it should convey to us. The spec tacle of the morning has been a very moving spectacle indeed an almost unpremeditated outpouring of thou sands of sober citizens to manifest their interest in the safety of the country and the sacredness of the flag which is its emblem. I need not remind you how much sentiment has been poured out in honor of the flag of the United States. Sometimes we have been charged with being a very sen timental people, fond of expressing in general rhetorical phrases principles not sufficiently defined in action, and I dare say there have been times of happy and careless ease in this country, when all that it has been neces sary to do for the honor of the flag was to put our sentiments into poetic expressions, into the words that for the time being satisfied our hearts. But this is not a day of sentiment. Sentiment is a propulsive power, but it does not propel in the way that is serviceable to the nation unless it have a definite pur pose before it. This is not merely a day of sentiment. This is a day of purpose. 212 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 213 It is an eloquent symbol of the unity of our history that upon this monument, which commemorates the man who did most to establish the American Union, we should have hoisted those stars that have so multiplied since his time, associated with those lines of red and white which mean all that is pure in our purpose, and all that is red in our blood in the service of a nation whose his tory has been full of inspiration because of his example. But Washington was one of the least sentimental men that America has ever produced. The thing that thrills me about Washington is that he is impatient of any sentiment that has not got definite purpose in it. His letters run along the lines of action, not merely along the mere lines of sentiment, and the most inspir ing times that this nation has ever seen have been the times when sentiment had to be translated into action. Apparently this nation is again and again and again to be tested, and always tested in the same way. The last supreme test this nation went through was the test of the Civil War. You know how deep that cut. You know what exigent issues of life were at issue in that struggle. You know how two great sections of this Union seemed to be moving in opposite directions, and for a long time it was questionable whether that flag represented any one united purpose in America. And you know how deep that struggle cut into the sentiments of this people, and how there came a whole generation, following that great struggle, when men s hearts were bitter and sore, and memories hurt as well as exalted, and how it seemed as if a rift had come in the hearts of the people of America. 214- PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY And you know how that ended. While it seemed a time of terror, it has turned out a proof of the validity of our hope. Where are now the divisions of sentiment which cut us asunder at the time of the Civil War? Did you not see the Blue and the Gray mingled this morning in the procession? Did not you see the sons of a subsequent generation walking together in happy comradeship? Was there any contradiction of feel ing or division of sentiment evident there for a moment ? Nothing cuts so deep as a civil war, and yet all the wounds of that war have been healed, not only, but the very passion of that war seems to have contributed to the strength of national feeling which now moves us as a single body politic. And yet again the test is applied, my fellow-country men. A new sort of division of feeling has sprung up among us. You know that we are derived in our citizen ship from every nation in the world. It is not singu lar that sentiment should be disturbed by what is going on on the other side of the water, but while sentiment may be disturbed, loyalty ought not to be. I want to be scrupulously just, my fellow-citizens, in assessing the circumstances of this day, and I am sure that you wish with me to deal ou^ with an even hand the praise and the blame of this day of test. I believe that the vast majority of those men whose lineage is directly derived from the nations now at war are just as loyal to the flag of the United States as any native citizen of this beloved land, but there are some men of that extraction who are not, and they, not only MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 215 in past months, but at the present time, are doing their best to undermine the influence of the Government of the United States in the interest of matters which are foreign to us and which are not derived from the ques tions of our own politics. There is disloyalty active in the United States, and it must be absolutely crushed. It proceeds from a minority, a very small minority, but a very active and subtle minority. It works underground, but it also shows its ugly head where we can see it; and there are those at this moment who are trying to levy a species of political blackmail, saying, "Do what we wish in the interest of foreign sentiment or we will wreak our venge ance at the polls." That is the sort of thing against which the Ameri can nation will turn with a might and triumph of sen timent which will teach these gentlemen once for all that loyalty to this flag is the first test of tolerance in the United States. That is the lesson that I have come to remind you of on this day no mere sentiment. It runs into your daily life and conversation. Are you going yourselves, individually and collectively, to see to it that no man is tolerated who does not do honor to that flag? It is not a matter of force. It is not a matter, that is to say, of physical force. It is a matter of a greater force than that which is physical. It is a matter of spiritual force. It is to be achieved as we think, as we purpose, as we believe, and when the world finally learns that America is indivisible then the world will learn how truly and profoundly great and powerful America is. 216 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY I realize personally, my fellow citizens, the peculiar significance of the flag of the United States at this time, because there was a day not many years ago when, although I thought I knew what the flag stood for, it had not penetrated my whole consciousness as it has now. If you could have gone with me through the space of the last two years, and could have felt the subtle impact of intrigue and sedition, and have realized with me that those to whom you have intrusted authority are trustees not only of the power, but of the very spirit and purpose of the United States, you would realize with me the solemnity with which I look upon the sublime symbol of our unity and power. I want you to share that consciousness with me. I want you to realize that in what I am saying I am merely your spokesman, merely trying to interpret your thoughts, merely trying to put into inadequate words the purpose that is in your hearts. I regard this day as a day of rededication to all the ideals of the United States. I took the liberty a few weeks ago to ask our fellow citizens all over the United States to gather together in celebration of this day the anniversary of the adoption of our present flag as the emblem of the nation. I had no legal right to declare it a holiday, I had no legal right to ask for the cessation of business, but when you read the papers to-morrow morning, I think you will see that authority was not necessary ; that the people of the country were waiting for an opportunity to cease their ordinary business and gather together in united demon stration of their feeling as a nation. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 217 It was a very happy thought that led the committee of gentlemen who had charge of the demonstration of the forenoon to choose June 14 for the parade which most of us have witnessed. It is a tiresome thing, my fellow citizens, to stand for hours and see a parade go by, but I want to take you into this secret: It was not half as tiresome as the inauguration parade. The inauguration parade is a very interesting thing, but it is painfully interesting to the man who is being in augurated, because there then lie ahead of him the four years of responsibility whose horoscope cannot be cast by any man. But to-day was interesting because the inauguration parade of the day of my inauguration is more than three years gone by. I have gone through deep waters with you in the meantime. This parade was not a demonstration in honor of any man. It was an outpouring of people to demonstrate a great national sentiment. I was not the object of it; I was one citizen among millions whose heart beat in unison with it. I felt caught up and buoyed along by the great stream of human purpose which seemed to flow there in front of me by the stand by the White House, and I shall go away from this meeting, as 1 came away from that parade, with all the deepest pur poses of my heart renewed ; and as I see the winds lov ingly unfold the beautiful lines of our great flag, I shall seem to see a hand pointing the way of duty no matter how hard, no matter how long, which we shall tread while we vindicate the glory and honor of the United States. ADDRESS ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE, BE FORE THE SALESMANSHIP CONGRESS, DETROIT, JULY 10, 1916 MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: It is with a great deal of gratification that I find myself facing so interesting and important a company as this. You will readily understand that I have not come here to make an elaborate address, but I have come here to express my interest in the objects of this great association, and to congratulate you on the oppor tunities which are immediately ahead of you in handling the business of this country. These are days of incalculable change, my fellow citizens. It is impossible for anybody to predict any thing that is certain, in detail, with regard to the future either of this country or of the world in the large move ments of business; but one thing is perfectly clear, and that is that the United States will play a new part, and that it will be a part of unprecedented opportunity and of greatly increased responsibility. The United States has had a very singular history in respect of its business relationships with the rest of the world. I have always believed, and I think you have always believed, that there is more business genius in the United States than anywhere else in the world; and yet America has apparently been afraid of touch ing too intimately the great processes of international exchange. America, of all countries in the world, has 218 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 219 been timid; has not until recently, has not until within the last two or three years, provided itself with the fundamental instrumentalities for playing a large part in the trade of the world. America, which ought to have had the broadest vision of any nation, has raised up an extraordinary number of provincial thinkers, men who thought provincially about business, men who thought that the United States was not ready to take her competitive part in the struggle for the peaceful conquest of the world. For anybody who reflects philo sophically upon the history of this country, that is the most amazing fact about it. But the time for provincial thinkers has gone by. We must play a great part in the world whether we choose it or not. Do you know the significance of this single fact, that within the last year or two we have, speaking in large terms, ceased to be a debtor nation and become a creditor nation? We have more of the surplus gold of the world than we ever had before, and our business hereafter is to be to lend and to help and to promote the great peaceful enterprises of the world. We have got to finance the world in some important degree, and those who finance the world must under stand it and rule it with their spirits and with their minds. We cannot cabin and confine ourselves any longer, and so I said that I came here to congratulate you upon the great role that lies ahead of you to play. This is a salesmanship congress, and hereafter sales manship will have to be closely related in its outlook and scope to statesmanship, to international statesman ship. It will have to be touched with an intimate com- 220 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY prehension of the conditions of business and enterprise throughout the round globe, because America will have to place her goods by running her intelligence ahead of her goods. No amount of mere push, no amount of mere hustling, or, to speak in the western language, no amount of mere rustling, no amount of mere active enterprise, will suffice. There have been two ways of doing business in the world outside of the lands in which the great manufac tures have been made. One has been to try to force the tastes of the manufacturing country on the country in which the markets were being sought, and the other way has been to study the tastes and needs of the coun tries where the markets were being sought and suit your goods to those tastes and needs; and the latter method has beaten the former method. If you are going to sell carpets, for example, in India, you have got to have as good taste as the Indians in the patterns of the carpets, and that is going some. If you are going to sell things in tropical countries, they must, rather obviously, be different from those which you sell in cold and arctic countries. You cannot assume that the rest of the world is going to wear or use or manufacture what you wear and use and manufacture. Your raw mate rials must be the raw materials that they need, not the raw materials that you need. Your manufactured goods must be the manufactured goods which they desire, not those which other markets have desired. So your busi ness will keep pace with your knowledge, not of your self and of your manufacturing processes, but of them and of their commercial needs. That is statesmanship, MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 221 because that is relating your international activities to the conditions which exist in other countries. If we can once get what some gentlemen are so loath to give us, a merchant marine! The trouble with some men is that they are slow in their minds. They do not see ; they do not know the need, and they will not allow you to point it out to them. If we can once get in a position to deliver our own goods, then the goods that we have to deliver will be adjusted to the desires of those to whom we deliver them, and all the world will welcome America in the great field of commerce and manufacture. There is a great deal of cant talked, my fellow citi zens, about service. I wish the word had not been sur rounded with so much sickly sentimentality, because it is a good, robust, red-blooded word, and it is the key to everything that concerns the peace and prosperity of the world. You cannot force yourself upon anybody who is not obliged to take you. The only way in which you can be sure of being accepted is by being sure that you have got something to offer that is worth taking, and the only way you can be sure of that is by being sure that you wish to adapt it to the use and the service of the people to whom you are trying to sell. I was trying to expound in another place the other day the long way and the short way to get together. The long way is to fight. I hear some gentlemen say that they want to help Mexico, and the way they pro pose to help her is to overwhelm her with force. That is the long way to help Mexico as well as the wrong way. After the fighting you have a nation full of justi- 222 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY fied suspicion and animated by well-founded hostility and hatred, and then will you help them? Then will you establish cordial business relationships with them? Then will you go in as neighbors and enjoy their confi dence ? On the contrary, you will have shut every door as if it were of steel against you. What makes Mexico suspicious of us is that she does not believe as yet that we want to serve her. She believes that we want to possess her, and she has justification for the belief in the way in which some of our fellow citizens have tried to exploit her privileges and possessions. For my part, I will not serve the ambitions of these gentlemen, but I will try to serve all America, so far as intercourse with Mexico is concerned, by trying to serve Mexico herself. There are some things that are not debatable. Of course, we have to defend our border. That goes without say ing. Of course, we must make good our own sovereignty, but we must respect the sovereignty of Mexico. I am one of those I have sometimes suspected that there were not many of them who believe, absolutely believe, the Virginia Bill of Eights, which was the model of the old bill of rights, which says that a people has a right to do anything they please with their own country and their own government. I am old-fashioned enough to believe that, and I am going to stand by that belief. (That is for the benefit of those gentlemen who wish to butt in.) Now, I use that as an illustration, my fellow citizens. What do we all most desire when the present tragical confusion of the world s affairs is over? We desire permanent peace, do we not? Permanent peace can MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 223 grow in only one soil. That is the soil of actual good will, and good will cannot exist without mutual com prehension. Charles Lamb, the English writer, made a very delightful remark that I have long treasured in my memory. He stuttered a little bit, and he said of someone who was not present, "I h-h-hate that m-man;" and someone said, "Why, Charles, I didn t know you knew him." "Oh," he said, "I-I-I don t; I-I can t h-hate a m-man I know." That is a profound human remark. You cannot hate a man you know. I know some rascals whom I have tried to hate. I have tried to head them off: as rascals, but I have been unable to hate them. I have liked them. And so, not to compare like with unlike, in the relationship of nations with each other, many of our antagonisms are based upon mis understandings, and as long as you do not understand a country you cannot trade with it. As long as you cannot take its point of view you cannot commend your goods to its purchase. As long as you go to it with a supercilious air, for example, and patronize it, as we have tried to do in some less developed countries, and tell them that this is what they ought to want whether they want it or not, you cannot do business with them. You have got to approach them just as you really ought to approach all matters of human relationship. Those people who give their money to philanthropy, for example, but cannot for the life of them see from the point of view of those for whose benefit they are giving the money are not philanthropists. They endow and promote philanthropy, but you cannot be a philan thropist unless you love all sorts and conditions of men. 224 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY The great barrier in this world, I have sometimes thought, is not the barrier of principle, but the barrier of taste. Certain classes of society find certain other classes of society distasteful to them. They do not like the way they dress. They do not like the infrequency with which they bathe. They do not like to consort with them under the conditions under which they live, and, therefore, they stand at a distance from them, and it is impossible for them to serve them. They do not understand them and do not feel that common pulse of humanity and that common school of experience which is the only thing that binds us together and educates us in the same fashion. This, then, my friends, is the simple message that I bring you. Lift your eyes to the horizons of business; do not look too close at the little processes with which you are concerned, but let your thoughts and your imaginations run abroad throughout the whole world, and with the inspiration of the thought that you are Americans and are meant to carry liberty and justice and the principles of humanity wherever you go, go out and sell goods that will make the world more com fortable and more happy, and convert them to the prin ciples of America. PREPAREDNESS AND PEACE ADDRESS AT TOLEDO, JULY 10, 1916 MY FELLOW CITIZENS: This is an entire surprise party to me. I did not know I was going to have the pleasure of stopping long enough to address any number of you, but I am very glad indeed to give you my very cordial greetings and to express my very great interest in this interesting city. General Sherwood said that there were many things we agreed about; there is one thing we disagree about. General Sherwood has been opposing preparedness, and I have been advocating it, and I am very sorry to have found him on the other side. Because, I think, you will bear me witness, fellow citizens, that in advocating pre paredness I have not been advocating hostility. You will bear me witness that I have been a persistent friend of peace and that nothing but unmistakable necessity will drive me from that position. I think it is a matter of sincere congratulation to us that our neighbor Re public to the south shows evidences of at last believing in our friendly intentions; that while we must protect our border and see to it that our sovereignty is not impugned, we are ready to respect their sovereignty also, and to be their friends, and not their enemies. The real uses of intelligence, my fellow citizens, are the uses of peace. Any body of men can get up a row, but only an intelligent body of men can get together and co-operate. Peace is not only a test of a nation s patience; it is also a test of whether the nation knows 225 226 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY how to conduct its relations or not. It takes time to do intelligent things, and it does not take any time to do unintelligent things. I can lose my temper in a minute, but it takes me a long time to keep it, and I think that if you were to subject my Scotch-Irish blood to the proper kind of analysis, you would find that it was fighting blood, and that it is pretty hard for a man born that way to keep quiet and do things in the way in which his intelligence tells him he ought to do them. I know just as well as that I am standing here that I represent and am the servant of a Nation that loves peace, and that loves it upon the proper basis; loves it not because it is afraid of anybody ; loves it not because it does not understand and mean to maintain its rights, but because it knows that humanity is something in which we are all linked together, and that it behooves the United States, just as long as it is possible, to hold off from becoming involved in a strife which makes it all the more necessary that some part of the world should keep cool while all the rest of it is hot. Here in America, for the time being, are the spaces, the cool spaces, of thoughtfulness, and so long as we are allowed to do so, we will serve and not contend with the rest of our fellow men. We are the more inclined to do this because the very principles upon which our Govern ment is based are principles of common counsel and not of contest. So, my fellow citizens, I congratulate myself upon this opportunity, brief as it is, to give you my greetings and to convey to you my congratulations that the signs that surround us are all signs of peace. ADDRESS ON ACCEPTING RENOMINATION FOR THE PRESIDENCY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1916 x In foreign affairs we have been guided by prin ciples clearly conceived and consistently lived up to. Perhaps they have not been fully comprehended because they have hitherto governed international affairs only in theory, not in practice. They are simple, obvious, easily stated, and fundamental to American ideals. We have been neutral not only because it was the fixed and traditional policy of the United States to stand aloof from the politics of Europe and because we had had no part either of action or of policy in the influences which brought on the present war, but also because it was manifestly our duty to prevent, if it were possible, the indefinite extension of the fires of hate and desolation kindled by that terrible conflict and seek to serve mankind by reserving our strength and our resources for the anxious and difficult days of restoration and healing which must follow, when peace will have to build its house anew. The rights of our own citizens of course became involved : that was inevitable. Where they did this was our guiding principle: that property rights can be vin dicated by claims for damages when the war is over, and no modern nation can decline to arbitrate such claims; but the fundamental rights of humanity can- 1 Only that part of the speech is given which concerns international re lations. 227 228 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY not be. The loss of life is irreparable. Neither can direct violations of a nation s sovereignty await vindi cation in suits for damages. The nation that violates these essential rights must expect to be checked and called to account by direct challenge and resistance. It at once makes the quarrel in part our own. These are plain principles and we have never lost sight of them or departed from them, whatever the stress or the perplexity of circumstance or the provocation to hasty resentment. The record is clear and consistent through out and stands distinct and definite for anyone to judge who wishes to know the truth about it. The seas were not broad enough to keep the infec tion of the conflict out of our own politics. The pas sions and intrigues of certain active groups and com binations of men amongst us who were born under for eign flags injected the poison of disloyalty into our own most critical affairs, laid violent hands upon many of our industries, and subjected us to the shame of divisions of sentiment and purpose in which America was contemned and forgotten. It is part of the busi ness of this year of reckoning and settlement to speak plainly and act with unmistakable purpose in rebuke of these things, in order that they may be forever here after impossible. I am the candidate of a party, but I am above all things else an American citizen. I neither seek the favor nor fear the displeasure of that small alien element amongst us which puts loyalty to any foreign power before loyalty to the United States. While Europe was at war our own continent, one of our own neighbors, was shaken by revolution. In that MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 229 matter, too, principle was plain and it was imperative that we should live up to it if we were to deserve the trust of any real partisan of the right as free men see it. We have professed to believe, and we do believe, that the people of small and weak states have the right to expect to be dealt with exactly as the people of big and powerful states would be. We have acted upon that principle in dealing with the people of Mexico. * Our recent pursuit of bandits into Mexican terri tory was no violation of that principle. We ventured to enter Mexican territory only because there were no military forces in Mexico that could protect our border from hostile attack and our own people from violence, and we have committed there no single act of hostility or interference even with the sovereign authority of the Republic of Mexico herself. It was a plain case of the violation of our own sovereignty which could not wait to be vindicated by damages and for which there was no other remedy. The authorities of Mexico were power less to prevent it. Many serious wrongs against the property, many irreparable wrongs against the persons, of Americans have been committed within the territory of Mexico herself during this confused revolution, wrongs which could not be effectually checked so long as there was no constituted power in Mexico which was in a position to check them. We could not act directly in that matter ourselves without denying Mexicans the right to any revolution at all which disturbed us and making the emancipation of her own people await our own interest and convenience. 230 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY For it is their emancipation that they are seeking, blindly, it may be, and as yet ineffectually, but with profound and passionate purpose and within their un questionable right, apply what true American principle you will, any principle that an American would pub licly avow. The people of Mexico have not been suffered to own their own country or direct their own institu tions. Outsiders, men out of other nations and with interests too often alien to their own, have dictated what their privileges and opportunities should be and who should control their land, their lives, and their re sources, some of them Americans, pressing for things they could never have got in their own country. The Mexican people are entitled to attempt their liberty from such influences; and so long as I have anything to do with the action of our great Government I shall do everything in my power to prevent anyone standing in their way. I know that this is hard for some persons to understand; but it is not hard for the plain people of the United States to understand. It is hard doctrine only for those who wish to get something for them selves out of Mexico. There are men, and noble women, too, not a few, of our own people, thank God! whose fortunes are invested in great properties in Mexico who yet see the case with true vision and assess its issues with true American feeling. The rest can be left for the present out of the reckoning until this enslaved people has had its day of struggle towards the light. I have heard no one who was free from such influences propose interference by the United States with the internal affairs of Mexico. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 231 Certainly no friend of the Mexican people has proposed it. The people of the United States are capable of great sympathies and a noble pity in dealing with problems of this kind. As their spokesman and representative, I have tried to act in the spirit they would wish me to show. The people of Mexico are striving for the rights that are fundamental to life and happiness, fifteen million oppressed men, overburdened women, and piti ful children in virtual bondage in their own home of fertile lands and inexhaustible treasure! Some of the leaders of the revolution may often have been mistaken and violent and selfish, but the revolution itself was inevitable and is right. The unspeakable Huerta be trayed the very comrades he served, traitorously over threw the government of which he was a trusted part, impudently spoke for the very forces that had driven his people to the rebellion with which he had pretended to sympathize. The men who overcame him and drove him out represent at least the fierce passion of recon struction which lies at the very heart of liberty; and so long as they represent, however imperfectly, such a struggle for deliverance, I am ready to serve their ends when I can. So long as the power of recognition rests"^ with me the Government of the United States will refuse to extend the hand of welcome to anyone who obtains / power in a sister republic by treachery and violence./ No permanency can be given the affairs of any republic by a title based upon intrigue and assassination. I de clared that to be the policy of this Administration within three weeks after I assumed the presidency. I 232 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY here again vow it. I am more interested in the for tunes of oppressed men and pitiful women and children than in any property rights whatever. Mistakes I have no doubt made in this perplexing business, but not in purpose or object. More is involved than the immediate destinies of Mexico and the relations of the United States with a distressed and distracted people. All America looks on. Test is now being made of us whether we be sincere lovers of popular liberty or not and are indeed to be trusted to respect national sovereignty among our weaker neighbors. We have undertaken these many years to play big brother to the republics of this hemi sphere. This is the day of our test whether we mean, or have ever meant, to play that part for our own benefit wholly or also for theirs. Upon the outcome of that test (its outcome in their minds, not in ours) depends every relationship of the United States with Latin America, whether in politics or in commerce and enterprise. These are great issues and lie at the heart of the gravest tasks of the future, tasks both economic and political and very intimately inwrought with many of the most vital of the new issues of the politics of the world. The republics of America have in the last three years been drawing together in a new spirit of accommodation, mutual understanding, and cor dial co-operation. Much of the politics of the world in the years to come will depend upon their relationships with one another. It is a barren and provincial statesmanship that loses sight of such things ! MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 233 The future, the immediate future, will bring us squarely face to face with many great and exacting problems which will search us through and through whether we be able and ready to play the part in the world that we mean to play. It will not bring us into their presence slowly, gently, with ceremonious intro duction, but suddenly and at once, the moment the war in Europe is over. They will be new problems, most of them; many will be old problems in a new setting and with new elements which we have never dealt with or reckoned the force and meaning of before. They will require for their solution new thinking, fresh courage and resourcefulness, and in some matters radical recon siderations of policy. We must be ready to mobilize our resources alike of brains and of materials. It is not a future to be afraid of. It is, rather, a future to stimulate and excite us to the display of the best powers that are in us. "We may enter it with con fidence when we are sure that we understand it, and we have provided ourselves already with the means of understanding it. Look first at what it will be necessary that the nations of the world should do to make the days to come toler able and fit to live and work in; and then look at our part in what is to follow and our own duty of prepara tion. For we must be prepared both in resources and in policy. There must be a just and settled peace, and we here in America must contribute the full force of our en thusiasm and of our authority as a nation to the organi zation of that peace upon world-wide foundations that 234 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY cannot easily be shaken. No nation should be forced to take sides in any quarrel in which its own honor and integrity and the fortunes of its own people are not involved; but no nation can any longer remain neutral as against any willful disturbance of the peace of the world. The effects of war can no longer be confined to the areas of battle. No nation stands wholly apart in interest when the life and interests of all nations are thrown into confusion and peril. If hopeful and gen erous enterprise is to be renewed, if the healing and helpful arts of life are indeed to be revived when peace comes again, a new atmosphere of justice and friendship must be generated by means the world has never tried before. The nations of the world must unite in joint guarantees that whatever is done to disturb the whole world s life must first be tested in the court of the whole world s opinion before it is attempted. These are the new foundations the world must build for itself, and we must play our part in the reconstruc tion, generously and without too much thought of our separate interests. We must make ourselves ready to play it intelligently, vigorously and well. One of the contributions we must make to the world s peace is this: We must see to it that the people in our insular possessions are treated in their own lands as we would treat them here, and make the rule of the United States mean the same thing everywhere, the same justice, the same consideration for the essential rights of men. . . -.. PEACE NOTES TO THE BELLIGERENT GOV ERNMENTS, DATED DECEMBER 18, 1916 President Wilson s preoccupation from the outbreak of the European War on August 1, 1814, to April 6, 1917, was two-fold; first, to bring this war to a conclusion_in_the^intereat of our common humanity; second, to maintain peace ful relations between the United States, on the one hand, ani the belligerents, on the other. In pursuance of these purposes, he addressed the following mes sage to the nations at war, under date of August 5, 1914: "As official head of one of the powers signatory to The Hague Convention, I feel it to be my privilege and my duty, under Article 3 of that Convention, to say to you in a spirit of most earnest friendship that I should welcome the opportunity to act in the interest of European peace, either now or at any other time that might be thought more suitable, as an occasion to serve you and all concerned in a way that would afford me lasting cause for gratitude and happiness." These overtures were not accepted and apparently no encouragement offered for their future presentation. President Wilson s action in this matter, however, was then and later, in his more formal offer, in strict accordance with Article 3 of The Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, to which all the belligerent and neutral powers are contracting parties. This article is so important that the material portion of it is quoted : " Powers, strangers to the dispute, have the right to offer good offices or mediation, even during the course of hostilities. " The exercise of this right can never be regarded by one or the other of the parties in conflict as an unfriendly act." On December 12, 1916, the Imperial German Government addressed a note to all the neutral powers and to the Vatican, proposing " to enter forthwith into peace negotiations" with the Allied Powers, and asking the neutral powers to bring this communication to the notice of the belligerent governments. Terms were not stated, but were apparently reserved, to be laid before a conference of the belligerents when it should meet. A separate statement at the same time was made by the Government of Austria-Hungary, although Germany acted for its allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. On December 18th President Wilson directed the Secretary of State to transmit to the Imperial German Gov ernment and its allies and to all neutral governments, for their information, a request that the belligerents thus addressed should make more definite proposals. On the same day a communication was addressed to the Allied Powers and to all neutral governments, for their information, requesting a specific statement of the terms upon which they would agree to consider the conclusion of peace, in order that, by this exchange of views, a basis might be found for negotiotions. The belligerent governments answered the request, the Allies stating specific 235 236 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY terms, whereas Germany and its allies, while commending the "noble initiative of the President," refused to state terms to the President, while declaring them selves ready to enter into direct negotiations with the belligerents. Thus: "A direct exchange of views appears to the Imperial Government as the most suitable way of arriving at the desired result. . . . " It is also the view of the Imperial Government that the great work for the prevention of future wars can first be taken up only after the ending of the present conflict of exhaustion." THE SECRETARY or STATE TO AMBASSADOR GERARD" DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 18, 1916. The President directs me to send you the following communication to be presented immediately to the Min ister of Foreign Affairs of the Government to which you are accredited: "The President of the United States has instructed me to suggest to the Imperial German Government a course of action with regard to the present war which he hopes that the Imperial Government will take under consideration as suggested in the most friendly spirit and as coming not only from a friend but also as coming from the representative of a neutral nation whose inter ests have been most seriously affected by the war and whose concern for its early conclusion arises out of a manifest necessity to determine how best to safeguard those interests if the war is to continue. "The suggestion which I am instructed to make the President has long had it in mind to offer. He is some what embarrassed to offer it at this particular time because it may now seem to have been prompted by a desire to play a part in connection with the recent overtures of the Central Powers. It has in fact been in 1 Same, mutatis mutandis, to the American Diplomatic Representatives accredited to the Governments of Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and to all neutral Governments for their information. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 237 no way suggested by them in its origin and the Presi dent would have delayed offering it until those overtures had been independently answered but for the fact that it also concerns the question of peace and may best be considered in connection with other proposals which have the same end in view. The President can only beg that his suggestion be considered entirely on its own merits and as if it had been made in other cir cumstances. "The President suggests that an early occasion be sought to call out from all the nations now at war such an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded and the arrangements which would be deemed satisfactory as a guaranty against its renewal or the kindling of any similar con flict in the future as would make it possible frankly to compare them. He is indifferent as to the means taken to accomplish this. He would be happy himself to serve, or even to take the initiative in its accomplishment, in any way that might prove acceptable, but he has no desire to determine the method or the instrumentality. One way will be as acceptable to him as another if only the great object he has in mind be attained. "He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides have in mind in this war are virtually the same, as stated in general terms to their own people and to the world. Each side desires to make the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small states as secure against aggression or denial in the future as the rights and privileges of the great and powerful states now at war. Each wishes itself to be made secure in the future, along with all other nations and peoples, against the recurrence of wars like this, and against aggression of selfish interference of any kind. Each would be jealous 238 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY of the formation of any more rival leagues to preserve an uncertain balance of power amidst multiplying sus picions; but each is ready to consider the formation of a league of nations to insure peace and justice through out the world. Before that final step can be taken, however, each deems it necessary first to settle the issues of the present war upon terms which will certainly safe guard the independence, the territorial integrity, and the political and commercial freedom of the nations involved. "In the measures to be taken to secure the future peace of the world the people and Government of the United States are as vitally and as directly interested as the Governments now at war. Their interest, more over, in the means to be adopted to relieve the smaller and weaker peoples of the world of the peril of wrong and violence is as quick and ardent as that of any other people or Government. They stand ready, and even eager, to co-operate in the accomplishment of these ends, when the war is over, with every influence and resource at their command. But the war must first be concluded. The terms upon which it is to be concluded they are not at liberty to suggest; but the President does feel that it is his right and his duty to point out their intimate interest in its conclusion, lest it should presently be too late to accomplish the greater things which lie beyond its conclusion, lest the situation of neu tral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be ren dered altogether intolerable, and lest, more than all, an injury be done civilization itself which can never be atoned for or repaired. "The President therefore feels altogether justified in suggesting an immediate opportunity for a comparison of views as to the terms which must precede those ulti mate arrangements for the peace of the world, which MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 239 all desire and in which the neutral nations as well as those at war are ready to play their full responsible part. If the contest must continue to proceed towards undefined ends by slow attrition until the one group of belligerents or the other is exhausted, if million after million of human lives must continue to be offered up until on the one side or the other there are no more to offer, if resentments must be kindled that can never cool and despairs engendered from which there can be no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert of free peoples will be rendered vain and idle. "The life of the entire world has been profoundly affected. Every part of the great family of mankind has felt the burden and terror of this unprecedented contest of arms. No nation in the civilized world can be said in truth to stand outside its influence or to be safe against its disturbing effects. And yet the concrete objects for which it is being waged have never been definitely stated. "The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that the war had been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture what definitive results, what actual exchange of guaran ties, what political or territorial changes or readjust ments, what stage of military success even, would bring the war to an end. "It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on the other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not so irreconcilable as some have feared; that an inter change of views would clear the way at least for confer- 240 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY ence and make the permanent concord of the nations a hope of the immediate future, a concert of nations immediately practicable. "The President is not proposing peace; he is not even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that soundings be taken in order that we may learn, the neutral nations with the belligerent, how near the haven of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an intense and increasing longing. He believes that the spirit in which he speaks and the objects which he seeks will be understood by all concerned, and he confidently hopes for a response which will bring a new light into the affairs of the world." LANSING. SUGGESTION TO THE ENTENTE ALLIES THAT TERMS OF PEACE BE DISCUSSED THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO AMBASSADOR PAGE 1 DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 18, 1916. The President directs me to send you the following communication to be presented immediately to the Min ister of Foreign Affairs of the Government to which you are accredited: "The President of the United States has instructed me to suggest to His Majesty s Government a course of action with regard to the present war which he hopes that the British Government will take under considera- 1 Same, mutatis mutandis, to the American Diplomatic Representatives accredited to the Governments of France, Italy, Japan, Russia, Belg um, Montenegro. Portugal. Roumania, and Servia, and to all neutral Governments for their information. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 241 tion as suggested in the most friendly spirit and as coming not only from a friend but also as coming from the representative of a neutral nation whose interests have been most seriously affected by the war and whose concern for its early conclusion arises out of a mani fest necessity to determine how best to safeguard those interests if the war is to continue. "The suggestion which I am instructed to make the President has long had it in mind to offer. He is some what embarrassed to offer it at this particular time because it may now seem to have been prompted by the recent overtures of the Central Powers. It is in fact in no way associated with them in its origin and the Presi dent would have delayed offering it until those over tures had been answered but for the fact that it also concerns the question of peace and may best be con sidered in connection with other proposals which have the same end in view. The President can only beg that his suggestion be considered entirely on its own merits and as if it had been made in other circum stances. 4 The President suggests that an early occasion be sought to call out from all the nations now at war such an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded and the arrangements which would be deemed satisfactory as a guaranty against its renewal or the kindling of any similar con flict in the future as would make it possible frankly to compare them. He is indifferent as to the means taken to accomplish this. He would be happy himself to serve or even to take the initiative in its accomplishment in any way that might prove acceptable, but he has no desire to determine the method or the instrumentality. One way will be as acceptable to him as another if only the great object he has in mind be attained. 242 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY "He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides have in mind in this war are virtually the same, as stated in general terms to their own people and to the world. Each side desires to make the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small States as secure against aggression or denial in the future as the rights and privileges of the great and powerful States now at war. Each wishes itself to be made secure in the future, along with all other nations and peoples, against the recurrence of wars like this and against aggression of selfish interference of any kind. Each would be jealous of the formation of any more rival leagues to preserve an uncertain balance of power amidst multiplying sus picions; but each is ready to consider the formation of a league of nations to insure peace and justice through out the world. Before that final step can be taken, however, each deems it necessary first to settle the issues of the present war upon terms which will certainly safe guard the independence, the territorial integrity, and the political and commercial freedom of the nations involved. "In the measures to be taken to secure the future peace of the world the people and Government of the United States are as vitally and as directly interested as the Governments now at war. Their interest, more over, in the means to be adopted to relieve the smaller and weaker peoples of the world of the peril of wrong and violence is as quick and ardent as that of any other people or Government. They stand ready, and even eager, to co-operate in the accomplishment of these ends, when the war is over, with every influence and resource at their command. But the war must first be concluded. The terms upon which it is to be concluded they are not at liberty to suggest; but the President MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 243 does feel that it is his right and his duty to point out their intimate interest in its conclusion, lest it should presently be too late to accomplish the greater things which lie beyond its conclusion, lest the situation of neu tral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be ren dered altogether intolerable, and lest, more than all, an injury be done civilization itself which can never be atoned for or repaired. 4 The President therefore feels altogether justified in suggesting an immediate opportunity for a comparison of views as to the terms which must precede those ulti mate arrangements for the peace of the world, which all desire and in which the neutral nations as well as those at war are ready to play their full responsible part. If the contest must continue to proceed towards undefined ends by slow attrition until the one group of belligerents or the other is exhausted, if million after million of human lives must continue to be offered up until on the one side or the other there are no more to offer, if resentments must be kindled that can never cool and despairs engendered from which there can be no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert of free peoples will be rendered vain and idle. "The life of the entire world has been profoundly affected. Every part of the great family of mankind has felt the burden and terror of this unprecedented contest of arms. No nation in the civilized world can be said in truth to stand outside its influence or to be safe against its disturbing effects. And yet the concrete objects for which it is being waged have never been definitely stated. "The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never yet have the authoritative spokesmen of 244 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY either side avowed the precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that the war had been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture what definitive results, what actual exchange of guaran tees, what political or territorial changes or readjust ments, what stage of military success even, would bring the war to an end. "It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on the other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not so irreconcilable as some have feared; that an inter change of views would clear the way at least for confer ence and make the permanent concord of the nations a hope of the immediate future, a concert of nations immediately practicable. "The President is not proposing peace; he is not even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that soundings be taken in order that we may learn, the neutral nations with the belligerent, how near the haven of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an intense and increasing longing. He believes that the spirit in which he speaks and the objects which he seeks will be understood by all concerned, and he confidently hopes for a response which will bring a new light into the affairs of the world." LANSING. ADDRESS ON THE ESSENTIALS OF PERMA NENT PEACE, DELIVERED TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 22, 1917 In the Presidency of Washington and of Adams it was the custom of the President to repair to the Congress to read in person his messages, which were therefore addresses to the Congress by the President. President Jefferson conceived it to be more democratic and in keeping with the position of the President to send, rather than to deliver in person, his messages; and his successors followed his initiative, which seemed to have become both a prece dent and a custom. President Wilson, however, returned to the practice of the Fathers with his address to the Congress on Mexican affairs, August 27, 1913, and each succeeding message of importance has been delivered by him in person, whether it be special or whether it be annual. The Senate of the United States was, in foreign affairs, meant to be an ad visory as well as a controlling body, controlling in the sense that all treaties and conventions negotiated with the President are mere proposals until their rati fication has been advised and consented to by two-thirds of the Senators present at the time of the vote taken upon their disposition. President Washington was wont to consult in person the Senate, and President Wilson revived this custom by the address under consideration. GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE: On the eighteenth of December last I addressed an identic note to the governments of the nations now at war requesting them to state, more definitely than they had yet been stated by either group of belligerents, the terms upon which they would deem it possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the rights of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose most vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy. The Central Powers united in a reply which stated merely that they were ready to meet their antagonists in con ference to discuss terms of peace. The Entente Powers have replied much more definitely and have stated, in general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to 245 246 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY imply details, the arrangements, guarantees, and acts of reparation which they deem to be the indispensable conditions of a satisfactory settlement. We are that much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which shall end the present war. We are that much nearer the discussion of the international concert which must thereafter hold the world at peace. In every discussion of the peace that must end this war it is taken for granted that that peace must be followed by some defi nite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever over whelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man must take that for granted. I have sought this opportunity to address you be cause I thought that I owed it to you, as the council associated with me in the final determination of our international obligations, to disclose to you without reserve the thought and purpose that have been taking form in my mind in regard to the duty of our Govern ment in the days to come when it will be necessary to lay afresh and upon a new plan the foundations of peace among the nations. It is inconceivable that the people of the United States should play no part in that great enterprise. To take part in such a service will be the opportunity for which they have sought to prepare themselves by the very principles and purposes of their polity and the approved practices of their Government ever since the days when they set up a new nation in the high and honorable hope that it might in all that it was and did show mankind the way to liberty. They cannot in MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 247 honor withhold the service to which they are now about to be challenged. They do not wish to withhold it. But they owe it to themselves and to the other nations of the world to state the conditions under which they will feel free to render it. That service is nothing less than this, to add their authority and their power to the authority and force of other nations to guarantee peace and justice through out the world. Such a settlement cannot now be long postponed. It is right that before it comes this Govern ment should frankly formulate the conditions upon which it would feel justified in asking our people to approve its formal and solemn adherence to a League for Peace. I am here to attempt to state those con ditions. The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candor and to a just regard for the opinion of man kind to say that, so far as our participation in guaran tees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged. We shall have no voice in determining what those terms shall be, but we shall, I feel sure, have a voice in determining whether they shall be made lasting or not by the guarantees of a universal covenant; and our judgment upon what is fundamental and essential as a condition precedent to 248 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY permanency should be spoken now, not afterwards when it may be too late. No covenant of co-operative peace that does not include the peoples of the New "World can suffice to keep the future safe against war; and yet there is only one sort of peace that the peoples of America could join in guaranteeing. The elements of that peace must be elements that engage the confidence and satisfy the prin ciples of the American governments, elements consistent with their political faith and with the practical convic tions which the peoples of America have once for all embraced and undertaken to defend. I do not mean to say that any American government would throw any obstacle in the way of any terms of peace the governments now at war might agree upon, or seek to upset them when made, whatever they might be. I only take it for granted that mere terms of peace between the belligerents will not satisfy even the bellig erents themselves. Mere agreements may not make peace secure. It will be absolutely necessary that a force be created as a guarantor of the permanency of the settlement so much greater than the force of any nation now engaged or any alliance hitherto formed or projected that no nation, no probable combination of nations could face or withstand it. If the peace pres ently to be made is to endure, it must be a peace made secure by the organized major force of mankind. The terms of the immediate peace agreed upon will determine whether it is a peace for which such a guar antee can be secured. The question upon which the whole future peace and policy of the world depends is MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 249 this : Is the present war a struggle for a just and secure peace, or only for a new balance of power ? If it be only a struggle for a new balance of power, who will guarantee, who can guarantee, the stable equilibrium of the new arrangement? Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe. There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace. Fortunately we have received very explicit assur ances on this point. The statesmen of both of the groups of nations now arrayed against one another have said, in terms that could not be misinterpreted, that it was no part of the purpose they had in mind to crush their antagonists. But the implications of these assurances may not be equally clear to all, may not be the same on both sides of the water. I think it will be service able if I attempt to set forth what we understand them to be. They imply, first of all, that it must be a peace with out victory. It is not pleasant to say this. I beg that I may be permitted to put my own interpretation upon it and that it may be understood that no other inter pretation was in my thought. I am seeking only to face realities and to face them without soft conceal ments. Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor s terms imposed upon the vanquished. It would be accepted in humiliation, under duress, at an intoler able sacrifice, and would leave a sting, a resentment, a bitter memory upon which terms of peace would rest, not permanently, but only as upon quicksand. Only a peace between equals can last. Only a peace the very 250 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY principle of which is equality and a common participa tion in a common benefit. The right state of mind, the right feeling between nations, is as necessary for a last ing peace as is the just settlement of vexed questions of territory or of racial and national allegiance. The equality of nations upon which peace must be founded if it is to last must be an equality of rights; the guarantees exchanged must neither recognize nor imply a difference between big nations and small, be tween those that are powerful and those that are weak. Eight must be based upon the common strength, not upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose concert peace will depend. Equality of territory or of resources there of course cannot be; nor any other sort of equality not gained in the ordinary peaceful and legitimate development of the peoples themselves. But no one asks or expects anything more than an equality of rights. Mankind is looking now for freedom of life, not for equipoises of power. And there is a deeper thing involved than even equality of right among organized nations. No peace can last, or ought to last, which does not recognize and accept the principle that governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that no right anywhere exists to hand peoples about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property. I take it for granted, for instance, if I may venture upon a single example, that statesmen everywhere are agreed that there should be a united, independent, and auton omous Poland, and that henceforth inviolable security of life, of worship, and of industrial and social devel- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 251 opment should be guaranteed to all peoples who have lived hitherto under the power of governments devoted to a faith and purpose hostile to their own. I speak of this, not because of any desire to exalt an abstract political principle which has always been held very dear by those who have sought to build up liberty in America, but for the same reason that I have spoken of the other conditions of peace which seem to me clearly indispensable, because I wish frankly to un cover realities. Any peace which does not recognize and accept this principle will inevitably be upset. It will not rest upon the affections or the convictions of mankind. The ferment of spirit of whole populations will fight subtly and constantly against it, and all the world will sympathize. The world can be at peace only if its life is stable, and there can be no stability where the will is in rebellion, where there is not tranquillity of spirit and a sense of justice, of freedom, and of right. So far as practicable, moreover, every great people now struggling towards a full development of its re- sources and of its powers should be assured a direct outlet to the great highways of the sea. Where this cannot be done by the cession of territory, it can no doubt be done by the neutralization of direct rights of way under the general guarantee which will assure the peace itself. "With a right comity of arrangement no nation need be shut away from free access to the open paths of the world s commerce. And the paths of the sea must alike in law and in fact be free. The freedom of the seas is the sine qua non of peace, equality, and co-operation. No doubt a some- 252 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY what radical reconsideration of many of the rules of international practice hitherto thought to be established may be necessary in order to make the seas indeed free and common in practically all circumstances for the use of mankind, but the motive for such changes is con vincing and compelling. There can be no trust or intimacy between the peoples of the world without them. The free, constant, unthreatened intercourse of nations is an essential part of the process of peace and of devel opment. It need not be difficult either to define or to secure the freedom of the seas if the governments of the world sincerely desire to come to an agreement con cerning it. It is a problem closely connected with the limitation of naval armaments and the co-operation of the navies of the world in keeping the seas at once free and safe. And the question of limiting naval armaments opens the wider and perhaps more difficult question of the limi tation of armies and of all programs of military prep aration. Difficult and delicate as these questions are, they must be faced with the utmost candor and decided in a spirit of real accommodation if peace is to come with healing in its wings, and come to stay. Peace can not be had without concession and sacrifice. There can be no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great preponderating armaments are henceforth to con tinue here and there to be built up and maintained. The statesmen of the world must plan for peace and nations must adjust and accommodate their policy to it as they have planned for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry. The question of armaments, MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 253 whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind. I have spoken upon these great matters without reserve and with the utmost explicitness because it has seemed to me to be necessary if the world s yearning desire for peace was anywhere to find free voice and utterance. Perhaps I am the only person in high authority amongst all the peoples of the world who is at liberty to speak and hold nothing back. I am speak ing as an individual, and yet I am speaking also, of course, as the responsible head of a great government, and I feel confident that I have said what the people of the United States would wish me to say. May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speak ing for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every program of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place or opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear. And in holding out the expectation that the people and Government of the United States will join the other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the per manence of peace upon such terms as I have named I speak with the greater boldness and confidence because it is clear to every man who can think that there is in this promise no breach in either our traditions or our policy as a nation, but a fulfillment, rather, of all that we have professed or striven for. 254 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world : that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful. I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into com petitions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry, and disturb their own affairs with influ ences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act in the same sense and with the same purpose all act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a common protection. I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom of the seas which in inter national conference after conference representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of those who are the convinced disciples of liberty; and that moderation of armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not an instru ment of aggression or of selfish violence. These are American principles, American policies. We could stand for no others. And they are also the principles and policies of forward looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail. ADDRESS ANNOUNCING THE SEVERANCE OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE IMPE RIAL GERMAN GOVERNMENT, DE LIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 3, 1917 GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: The Imperial German Government on the thirty- first of January announced to this Government and to the governments of the other neutral nations that on and after the first day of February, the present month, it would adopt a policy with regard to the use of sub marines against all shipping seeking to pass through certain designated areas of the high seas to which it is clearly my duty to call your attention. Let me remind the Congress that on the eighteenth of April last, in view of the sinking on the twenty- fourth of March of the cross-channel passenger steamer Sussex by a German submarine, without summons or warning, and the consequent loss of the lives of sev eral citizens of the United States who were passengers aboard her, this Government addressed a note to the Imperial German Government in which it made the following declaration: "If it is still the purpose of the Imperial Govern ment to prosecute relentless and indiscriminate warfare 255 256 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY against vessels of commerce by the use of submarines without regard to what the Government of the United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of international law and the universally recognized dic tates of humanity, the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion that there is but one course it can pursue. Unless the Imperial Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandon ment of its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels, the Gov ernment of the United States can have no choice but to sever diplomatic relations with the German Empire altogether. In reply to this declaration the Imperial German Government gave this Government the following assur ance : "The German Government is prepared to do its utmost to confine the operations of war for the rest of its duration to the fighting forces of the belligerents, thereby also insuring the freedom of the seas, a prin ciple upon which the German Government believes, now as before, to be in agreement with the Government of the United States. "The German Government, guided by this idea, notifies the Government of the United States that the German naval forces have received the following orders : In accordance with the general principles of visit and search and destruction of merchant vessels recognized by international law, such vessels, both within and with out the area declared as naval war zone, shall not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives, unless these ships attempt to escape or offer resistance. "But," it added, "neutrals cannot expect that Ger many, forced to fight for her existence, shall, for the MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 257 sake of neutral interest, restrict the use of an effective weapon if her enemy is permitted to continue to apply at will methods of warfare violating the rules of inter national law. Such a demand would be incompatible with the character of neutrality, and the German Gov ernment is convinced that the Government of the United States does not think of making such a demand, know ing that the Government of the United States has repeatedly declared that it is determined to restore the principle of the freedom of the seas, from whatever quarter it has been violated." To this the Government of the United States replied on the eighth of May, accepting, of course, the assur ances given, but adding, "The Government of the United States feels it necessary to state that it takes it for granted that the Imperial German Government does not intend to imply that the maintenance of its newly announced policy is in any way contingent upon the course or result of diplomatic negotiations between the Government of the United States and any other belligerent Government, notwithstanding the fact that certain passages in the Imperial Government s note of the 4th instant might appear to be susceptible of that construction. In order, however, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, the Government of the United States notifies the Imperial Government that it cannot for a moment entertain, much less discuss, a suggestion that respect by German naval authorities for the rights of citizens of the United States upon the high seas should in any way or in the slightest degree be made contingent upon the conduct of any other Government affecting the rights of neutrals and noncombatants. Responsibility in such matters is sin gle, not joint; absolute, not relative." 258 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY To this note of the eighth of May the Imperial Ger man Government made no reply. On the thirty-first of January, the Wednesday of the present week, the German Ambassador handed to the Secretary of State, along with a formal note, a memo randum which contains the following statement: "The Imperial Government, therefore, does not doubt that the Government of the United States will understand the situation thus forced upon Germany by the Entente-Allies brutal methods of war and by their determination to destroy the Central Powers, and that the Government of the United States will further realize that the now openly disclosed intentions of the Entente-Allies give back to Germany the freedom of action which she reserved in her note addressed to the Government of the United States on May 4, 1916. "Under these circumstances Germany will meet the illegal measures of her enemies by forcibly preventing after February 1, 1917, in a zone around Great Britain, France, Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean all navigation, that of neutrals included, from and to Eng land and from and to France, etc., etc. All ships met within the zone will be sunk." I think that you will agree with me that, in view of this declaration, which suddenly and without prior intimation of any kind deliberately withdraws the solemn assurance given in the Imperial Government s note of the fourth of May, 1916, this Government has no alternative consistent with the dignity and honor of the United States but to take the course which, in its note of the eighteenth of April, 1916, it announced that it would take in the event that the German Govern- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 259 ment did not declare and effect an abandonment of the methods of submarine warfare which it was then em ploying and to which it now purposes again to resort. I have, therefore, directed the Secretary of State to announce to His Excellency the German Ambassador that all diplomatic relations between the United States and the German Empire are severed, and that the American Ambassador at Berlin will immediately be withdrawn; and, in accordance with this decision, to hand to His Excellency his passports. Notwithstanding this unexpected action of the Ger man Government, this sudden and deeply deplorable renunciation of its assurances, given this Government at one of the most critical moments of tension in the rela tions of the two governments, I refuse to believe that it is the intention of the German authorities to do in fact what they have warned us they will feel at liberty to do. I cannot bring myself to believe that they will indeed pay no regard to the ancient friendship between their people and our own or to the solemn obligations which have been exchanged between them and destroy American ships and take the lives of American citizens in the willful prosecution of the ruthless naval program they have announced their intention to adopt. Only actual overt acts on their part can make me believe it. even now. If this inveterate confidence on my part in the sobriety and prudent foresight of their purpose should unhappily prove unfounded; if American ships and American lives should in fact be sacrificed by their naval commanders in heedless contravention of the just and 260 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY reasonable understandings of international law and the obvious dictates of humanity, I shall take the liberty of coming again before the Congress, to ask that authority be given me to use any means that may be necessary for the protection of our seamen and our people in the prosecution of their peaceful and legitimate errands on the high seas. I can do nothing less. I take it for granted that all neutral governments will take the same course. We do not desire any hostile conflict with the Im perial German Government. We are the sincere friends of the German people and earnestly desire to remain at peace with the Government which speaks for them. We shall not believe that they are hostile to us unless and until we are obliged to believe it; and we purpose nothing more than the reasonable defense of the un doubted rights of our people. We wish to serve no selfish ends. We seek merely to stand true alike in thought and in action to the immemorial principles of our people which I sought to express in my address to the Senate only two weeks ago, seek merely to vindi cate our right to liberty and justice and an unmolested life. These are the bases of peace, not war. God grant we may not be challenged to defend them by acts of willful injustice on the part of the Government of Germany ! ADDRESS ON ARMED NEUTRALITY, DELIV ERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 26, 1917 In the following address President Wilson evidently still hoped that some form of defensive action on the part of the United States would cause the Imperial German Government to reflect and to mend its ways before war actually broke out between the two countries. President Wilson apparently had in mind the armed neutrality of 1780 and 1800 and the action of the United States against France in President Adams administration, by which American mer chantmen were armed to defend themselves against attack of French cruisers unlawfully overhauling and capturing American vessels upon the high seas. In accordance with American precedent and with the conclusion reached by the President in his address under consideration, Secretary of State Lansing gave to the press the following statement on March 12, 1917: " The Department of State has to-day sent the following statement to all foreign missions in Washington for their information: " In view of the announcement of the Imperial German Government on January 31, 1917, that all ships, those of neutrals included, met within certain zones of the high seas, would be sunk without any precautions being taken for the safety of the persons on board, and without the exercise of visit and search, the Government of the United States has determined to place upon all American merchant vessels sailing through the barred areas an armed guard for the pro tection of the vessels and the lives of the persons on board." GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: I have again asked the privilege of addressing you because we are moving through critical times during which it seems to me to be my duty to keep in close touch with the Houses of Congress, so that neither coun sel nor action shall run at cross purposes between us. On the third of February I officially informed you of the sudden and unexpected action of the Imperial Ger man Government in declaring its intention to disregard the promises it had made to this Government in April last and undertake immediate submarine operations 261 262 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY against all commerce, whether of belligerents or of neu trals, that should seek to approach Great Britain and Ireland, the Atlantic coasts of Europe, or the harbors of the eastern Mediterranean, and to conduct those operations without regard to the established restrictions of international practice, without regard to any con siderations of humanity even which might interfere with their object. That policy was forthwith put into practice. It has now been in active execution for nearly four weeks. Its practical results are not yet fully disclosed. The commerce of other neutral nations is suffering severely, but not, perhaps, very much more severely than it was already suffering before the first of February, when the new policy of the Imperial Government was put into operation. We have asked the co-operation of the other neutral governments to prevent these depredations, but so far none of them has thought it wise to join us in any common course of action. Our own commerce has suffered, is suffering, rather in apprehension than in fact, rather because so many of our ships are timidly keeping to their home ports than because American ships have been sunk. Two American vessels have been sunk, the Housa- tonic and the Lyman M. Law. The case of the Housatonic, which was carrying foodstuffs consigned to a London firm, was essentially like the case of the Frye, in which, it will be recalled, the German Govern ment admitted its liability for damages, and the lives of the crew, as in the case of the Frye, were safeguarded with reasonable care. The case of the Law, which was MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 263 carrying lemon-box staves to Palermo, disclosed a ruth- lessness of method which deserves grave condemnation, but was accompanied by no circumstances which might not have been expected at any time in connection with the use of the submarine against merchantmen as the German Government has used it. In sum, therefore, the situation we find ourselves in with regard to the actual conduct of the German sub marine warfare against commerce and its effects upon our own ships and people is substantially the same that it was when I addressed you on the third of February, except for the tying up of our shipping in our own ports because of the unwillingness of our shipowners -to risk their vessels at sea without insurance or adequate protection, and the very serious congestion of our com merce which has resulted, a congestion which is growing rapidly more and more serious every day. This in itself might presently accomplish, in effect, what the new German submarine orders were meant to accom plish, so far as we are concerned. We can only say, therefore, that the overt act which I have ventured to hope the German commanders would in fact avoid has not occurred. But, while this is happily true, it must be admitted that there have been certain additional indications and expressions of purpose on the part of the German press and the German authorities which have increased rather than lessened the impression that, if our ships and our people are spared, it will be because of fortunate cir cumstances or because the commanders of the German submarines which they may happen to encounter exer- 264 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY else an unexpected discretion and restraint rather than because of the instructions under which those com manders are acting. It would be foolish to deny that the situation is fraught with the gravest possibilities and dangers. No thoughtful man can fail to see that the necessity for definite action may come at any time, if we are in fact, and not in word merely, to defend our elementary rights as a neutral nation. It would be most imprudent to be unprepared. I cannot in such circumstances be unmindful of the fact that the expiration of the term of the present Con gress is immediately at hand, by constitutional limita tion; and that it would in all likelihood require an unusual length of time to assemble and organize the Congress which is to succeed it. I feel that I ought, in view of that fact, to obtain from you full and immediate assurance of the authority which I may need at any moment to exercise. No doubt I already possess that authority without special warrant of law, by the plain implication of my constitutional duties and powers ; but I prefer, in the present circumstances, not to act upon general implication. I wish to feel that the authority and the power of the Congress are behind me in what ever it may become necessary for me to do. We are jointly the servants of the people and must act to gether and in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it. No one doubts what it is our duty to do. We must defend our commerce and the lives of our people in the midst of the present trying circumstances, with discre tion but with clear and steadfast purpose. Only the MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 265 method and the extent remain to be chosen, upon the occasion, if occasion should indeed arise. Since it has unhappily proved impossible to safeguard our neutral rights by diplomatic means against the unwarranted infringements they are suffering at the hands of Ger many, there may be no recourse but to armed neutrality, which we shall know how to maintain and for which there is abundant American precedent. It is devoutly to be hoped that it will not be neces sary to put armed force anywhere into action. The American people do not desire it, and our desire is not different from theirs. I am sure that they will under stand the spirit in which I am now acting, the purpose I hold nearest my heart and would wish to exhibit in everything I do. I am anxious that the people of the nations at war also should understand and not mistrust us. I hope that I need give no further proofs and assur ances than I have already given throughout nearly three years of anxious patience that I am the friend of peace and mean to preserve it for America so long as I am able. I am not now proposing or contemplating war or any steps that need lead to it. I merely request that you will accord me by your own vote and definite be stowal the means and the authority to safeguard in practice the right of a great people who are at peace and who are desirous of exercising none but the rights of peace to follow the pursuits of peace in quietness and good will, rights recognized time out of mind by all the civilized nations of the world. No course of my choosing or of theirs will lead to war. War can come only by the willful acts and aggressions of others. 266 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY You will understand why I can make no definite pro posals or forecasts of action now and must ask for your supporting authority in the most general terms. The form in which action may become necessary cannot yet be foreseen. I believe that the people will be willing to trust me to act with restraint, with prudence, and in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant ships with defen sive arms, should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instru mentalities or methods that may be necessary and ade quate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits on the seas. I request also that you will grant me at the same time, along with the powers I ask, a sufficient credit to enable me to provide adequate means of protection where they are lacking, including adequate insurance against the pres ent war risks. I have spoken of our commerce and of the legiti mate errands of our people on the seas, but you will not be misled as to my main thought, the thought that lies beneath these phrases and gives them dignity and weight. It is not of material interests merely that we are thinking. It is, rather, of fundamental human rights, chief of all the right of life itself. I am think ing, not only of the rights of Americans to go and come about their proper business by way of the sea, but also of something much deeper, much more fundamental than that. I am thinking of those rights of humanity MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 267 without which there is no civilization. My theme is of those great principles of compassion and of protection which mankind has sought to throw about human lives, the lives of non-combatants, the lives of men who are peacefully at work keeping the industrial processes of the world quick and vital, the lives of women and chil dren and of those who supply the labor which ministers to their sustenance. We are speaking of no selfish material rights but of rights which our hearts support and whose foundation is that righteous passion for jus tice upon which all law, all structures alike of family, of state, and of mankind must rest, as upon the ulti mate base of our existence and our liberty. I cannot imagine any man with American principles at his heart hesitating to defend these things. SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, WASHING TON, MARCH 5, 1917 MY FELLOW CITIZENS: The four years which have elapsed since last I stood in this place have been crowded with counsel and action of the most vital interest and consequence. Perhaps no equal period in our history has been so fruitful of im portant reforms in our economic and industrial life or so full of significant changes in the spirit and purpose of our political action. We have sought very thought fully to set our house in order, correct the grosser errors and abuses of our industrial life, liberate and quicken the processes of our national genius and energy, and lift our politics to a broader view of the people s essential interests. It is a record of singular variety and singu lar distinction. But I shall not attempt to review it. It speaks for itself and will be of increasing influence as the years go by. This is not the time for retrospect. It is time, rather, to speak our thoughts and purposes concerning the present and the immediate future. Although we have centered counsel and action with such unusual concentration and success upon the great problems of domestic legislation to which we addressed ourselves four years ago, other matters have more and more forced themselves upon our attention, matters lying outside our own life as a nation and over which we had no control, but which, despite our wish to keep 268 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 269 free of them, have drawn us more and more irresistibly into their own current and influence. It has been impossible to avoid them. They have affected the life of the whole world. They have shaken men everywhere with a passion and an apprehension they never knew before. It has been hard to preserve calm counsel while the thought of our own people swayed this way and that under their influence. We are a com posite and cosmopolitan people. We are of the blood of all the nations that are at war. The currents of our thoughts as well as the currents of our trade run quick at all seasons back and forth between us and them. The war inevitably set its mark from the first alike upon our minds, our industries, our commerce, our politics, and our social action. To be indifferent to it or independent of it was out of the question. And yet all the while we have been conscious that we were not part of it. In that consciousness, despite many divisions, we have drawn closer together. We have been deeply wronged upon the seas, but we have not wished to wrong or injure in return; have retained throughout the consciousness of standing in some sort apart, intent upon an interest that transcended the immediate issues of the war itself. As some of the injuries done us have become intolerable we have still been clear that we wished nothing for ourselves that we were not ready to demand for all mankind, fair dealing, justice, the freedom to live and be at ease against organized wrong. It is in this spirit and with this thought that we have grown more and more aware, more and more cer- 270 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY tain that the part we wished to play was the part of those who mean to vindicate and fortify peace. We have been obliged to arm ourselves to make good our claim to a certain minimum of right and of freedom of action. We stand firm in armed neutrality since it seems that in no other way we can demonstrate what it is we insist upon and cannot forego. We may even be drawn on, by circumstances, not by our own purpose or desire, to a more active assertion of our rights as we see them and a more immediate association with the great struggle itself. But nothing will alter our thought or our purpose. They are too clear to be obscured. They are too deeply rooted in the principles of our national life to be altered. We desire neither conquest nor advantage. We wish nothing that can be had only at the cost of another people. We have always professed unselfish purpose and we covet the opportunity to prove that our professions are sincere. There are many things still to do at home, to clarify our own politics and give new vitality to the industrial processes of our own life, and we shall do them as time and opportunity serve; but we realize that the greatest things that remain to be done must be done with the whole world for stage and in co-operation with the wide and universal forces of mankind, and we are making our spirits ready for those things. They will follow in the immediate wake of the war itself and will set civili zation up again. We are provincials no longer. The tragical events of the thirty months of vital turmoil through which we have just passed have made us citi zens of the world. There can be no turning back. Our MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 271 own fortunes as a nation are involved, whether we would have it so or not. And yet we are not the less Americans on that account. We shall be the more American if we but remain true to the principles in which we have been bred. They are not the principles of a province or of a single continent. We have known and boasted all along that they were the principles of a liberated man kind. These, therefore, are the things we shall stand for, whether in war or in peace: That all nations are equally interested in the peace of the world and in the political stability of free peo ples, and equally responsible for their maintenance; That the essential principle of peace is the actual equality of nations in all matters of right or privilege; That peace cannot securely or justly rest upon an armed balance of power; That ^governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed and that no other powers should be supported by the common thought, purpose, or power of the family of nations. That the seas should be equally free and safe for the use of all peoples, under rules set up by common agreement and consent, and that, so far as practicable, they should be accessible to all upon equal terms; That national armaments should be limited to the necessities of national order and domestic safety; That the community of interest and of power upon which peace must henceforth depend imposes upon each nation the duty of seeing to it that all influences pro ceeding from its own citizens meant to encourage or 272 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY assist revolution in other states should be sternly and effectually suppressed and prevented. I need not argue these principles to you, my fellow countrymen: they are your own, part and parcel of your own thinking and your own motive in affairs. They spring up native amongst us. Upon this as a platform of purpose and of action we can stand together. And it is imperative that we should stand together. We are being forged into a new unity amidst the fires that now blaze throughout the world. In their ardent heat we shall, in God s providence, let us hope, be purged of faction and division, purified of the errant humors of party and of private interest, and shall stand forth in the days to come with a new dignity of national pride and spirit. Let each man see to it that the dedi cation is in his own heart, the high purpose of the Nation in his own mind, ruler of his own will and desire. I stand here and have taken the high and solemn oath to which you have been audience because the peo ple of the United States have chosen me for this august delegation of power and have by their gracious judg ment named me their leader in affairs. I know now what the task means. I realize to the full the responsi bility which it involves. I pray God I may be given the wisdom and the prudence to do my duty in the true spirit of this great people. I am their servant and can succeed only as they sustain and guide me by their con fidence and their counsel. The thing I shall count upon, the thing without which neither counsel nor action will avail, is the unity of America, an America united in feeling, in purpose, and in its vision of duty, of oppor- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 273 tunity, and of service. We are to beware of all men who would turn the tasks and the necessities of the Nation to their own private profit or use them for the building up of private power; beware that no faction or disloyal intrigue break the harmony or embarrass the spirit of our people; beware that our Government be kept pure and incorrupt in all its parts. United alike in the conception of our duty and in the high resolve to perform it in the face of all men, let us dedicate our selves to the great task to which we must now set our hand. For myself I beg your tolerance, your counte nance, and your united aid. The shadows that now He dark upon our path will soon be dispelled and we shall walk with the light all about us if we be but true to ourselves, to ourselves as we have wished to be known in the counsels of the world and in the thought of all those who love liberty and justice and the right exalted. ADDRESS RECOMMENDING THE DECLARA TION OF A STATE OF WAR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE IM PERIAL GERMAN GOVERNMENT, DELIVERED AT A JOINT SES SION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, APRIL 2, 1917 In the interval between February 26th and April 2d, the President had come to the conclusion that neutrality was incompatible with the undoubted rights, and therefore the best interests, of the United States. Germany had already drawn the sword and was in a state of war, although not declared, with the United States. President Wilson decided that this situation should be regular ized by a declaration on the part of the United States that a state of war existed between the Imperial German Government and the United States. He therefore recommended such action in his address of April 2d, and on the 6th instant the Congress passed the following joint resolution, carrying into effect his recommendation: " Whereas the Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America: Therefore be it " Resolved Ity the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial German Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States." GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS : I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making. 274 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 275 On the third of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government that on and after the first day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the com manders of its undersea craft in conformity with its promise then given to us that passenger boats should not be sunk and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meager and hap hazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed. The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Ves sels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and with out thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belliger ents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, 276 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Govern ment itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reck less lack of compassion or of principle. I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any government that had hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up, with meager enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and con science of mankind demanded. This minimum -of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these which it is impossible to employ as it is employing them with out throwing to the winds all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world. I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children, engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. | Property can be paid i for ; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 277 The present German submarine warfare against com merce is a warfare against mankind. It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperate- ness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindi cation of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion. When I addressed the Congress on the twenty-sixth of February last I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neu- - trality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because sub marines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is com mon prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavor to destroy them before they have 278 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Govern ment denies the right of neutrals to use arms at ail within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The inti mation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual: it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war with out either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life. With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragi cal character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it ; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 279 a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Gov ernment of the German Empire to terms and end the war. What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the mate rials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the navy in all respects but particu larly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy s submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least five hundred thousand men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent addi tional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equi tably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation. I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxa tion because it seems to me that it would be most un- 280 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY wise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans. In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty, for it will be a very practical duty, of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should help them in every way to be effective there. I shall take the liberty of suggesting, through the several executive departments of the Government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have men tioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon which the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguard ing the nation will most directly fall. While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 281 nation has been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the twenty- second of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the third of February and on the twenty-sixth of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the prin- , ciples of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those prin ciples. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the free dom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states. We have no quarrel with the German people. > We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were no- 282 where consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow-men as pawns and tools. Self -governed nations do not fill their neighbor states wrm spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from gener ation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full informa tion concerning all the nation s affairs. r"""" r- f A steadfast concert for peace can never be main tained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a L league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own. Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 283 happening within the last few weeks in Russia ? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor. One of the things that has served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began; and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture but a fact proved in our courts of justice that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal direction of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States. Even in checking these things 284 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY and trying to extirpate them we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them because we knew that their source lay, not in any hos tile feeling or purpose of the German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the inter cepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence. We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic govern ments of the world. We are now about to accept gauge of battle with this natural foe to liberty and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 285 upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them. Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punc tilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for. I have said nothing of the governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Govern ment has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been pos sible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria- Hungary; but that Government has not actually en gaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only 286 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights. It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is run ning amuck. We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate rela tions of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present government through all these bitter months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impos sible. We shall, happily, still have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our daily attitude and actions towards the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it towards all who are in fact loyal to their neighbors and to the Gov ernment in the hour of test. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but, if it lifts its head at all, MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 287 it will lift it only here and there and without counte nance except from a lawless and malignant few. It is a distressing and oppressive duty, Gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own govern ments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other. ADDRESS TO HIS FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN, CONCERNING THE WAR WITH GER MANY, APRIL 15, 1917 MY FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN : The entrance of our own beloved country into the grim and terrible war for democracy and human rights which has shaken the world creates so many problems of national life and action which call for immediate consideration and settlement that I hope you will per mit me to address to you a few words of earnest coun sel and appeal with regard to them. We are rapidly putting our navy upon an effective war footing and are about to create and equip a great army, but these are the simplest parts of the great task to which we have addressed ourselves. There is not a single selfish element, so far as I can see, in the cause we are fighting for. We are fighting for what we believe and wish to be the rights of mankind and for the future peace and security of the world. To do this great thing worthily and successfully we must devote ourselves to the service without regard to profit or material advantage and with an energy and intelligence that will rise to the level of the enterprise itself. We must realize to the full how great the task is and how many things, how many kinds and elements of capacity and service and self-sacrifice, it involves. 283 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 289 These, then, are the things we must do, and do well, besides fighting, the things without which mere fight ing would be fruitless: We must supply abundant food for ourselves and for our armies and our seamen not only, but also for a large part of the nations with whom we have now made common cause, in whose support and by whose sides we shall be fighting; We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our shipyards to carry to the other side of the sea, sub marines or no submarines, what will every day be needed there, and abundant materials out of our fields and our mines and our factories with which not only to clothe and equip our own forces on land and sea but also to clothe and support our people for whom the gallant fellows under arms can no longer work, to help clothe and equip the armies with which we are co-operating in Europe, and to keep the looms and manufactories there in raw material; coal to keep the fires going in ships at sea and in the furnaces of hundreds of factories across the sea; steel out of which to make arms and ammunition both here and there; rails for worn-out railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and rolling stock to take the place of those every day going to pieces; mules, horses, cattle for labor and for mili tary service; everything with which the people of Eng land and France and Italy and Russia have usually supplied themselves but cannot now afford the men, the materials, or the machinery to make. It is evident to every thinking man that our indus tries, on the farms, in the shipyards, in the mines, in 290 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the factories, must be made more prolific and more efficient than ever and that they must be more eco nomically managed and better adapted to the particular requirements of our task than they have been ; and what I want to say is that the men and the women who devote their thought and their energy to these things will be serving the country and conducting the fight for peace and freedom just as truly and just as effectively as the men on the battlefield or in the trenches. The industrial forces of the country, men and women alike, will be a great national, a great international, Service Army, a notable and honored host engaged in the service of the nation and the world, the efficient friends and saviors of free men everywhere. Thousands, nay, hun dreds of thousands, of men otherwise liable to military service will of right and of necessity be excused from that service and assigned to the fundamental, sustain ing work of the fields and factories and mines, and they will be as much part of the great patriotic forces of the nation as the men under fire. I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing this word to the farmers of the country and to all who work on the farms: The supreme need of our own nation and of the nations with which we are co-operating is an abundance of supplies, and especially of foodstuffs. The importance of an adequate food supply, especially for the present year, is superlative. Without abundant food, alike for the armies and the peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise upon which we have em barked will break down and fail. The world s food reserves are low. Not only during the present emer- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 291 gency but for some time after peace shall have come both our own people and a large proportion of the people of Europe must rely upon the harvests in America. Upon the farmers of this country, therefore, in large measure, rests the fate of the war and the fate of the nations. May the nation not count upon them to omit no step that will increase the production of their land or that will bring about the most effectual co-oper ation in the sale and distribution of their products? The time is short. It is of the most imperative impor tance that everything possible be done and done immedi ately to make sure of large harvests. I call upon young men and old alike and upon the able-bodied boys of the land to accept and act upon this duty to turn in hosts to the farms and make certain that no pains and no labor is lacking in this great matter. I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South to plant abundant foodstuffs as well as cotton. They can show their patriotism in no better or more con vincing way than by resisting the great temptation of the present price of cotton and helping, helping upon a great scale, to feed the nation and the peoples every where who are fighting for their liberties and for our own. The variety of their crops will be the visible measure of their comprehension of their national duty. The Government of the United States and the gov ernments of the several States stand ready to co-operate. They will do everything possible to assist farmers in securing an adequate supply of seed, an adequate force of laborers when they are most needed, at harvest time, and the means of expediting shipments of fertilizers 292 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY and farm machinery, as well as of the crops themselves when harvested. The course of trade shall be as un hampered as it is possible to make it and there shall be no unwarranted manipulation of the nation s food supply by those who handle it on its way to the con sumer. This is our opportunity to demonstrate the efficiency of a great Democracy and we shall not fall short of it! This let me say to the middlemen of every sort, whether they are handling our foodstuffs or our raw materials of manufacture or the products of our mills and factories : The eyes of the country will be especially upon you. This is your opportunity for signal service, efficient and disinterested. The country expects you, as it expects all others, to forego unusual profits, to organize and expedite shipments of supplies of every kind, but especially of food, with an eye to the service you are rendering and in the spirit of those who enlist in the ranks, for their people, not for themselves. I shall confidently expect you to deserve and win the con fidence of people of every sort and station. To the men who run the railways of the country, whether they be managers or operative employees, let me say that the railways are the arteries of the nation s life and that upon them rests the immense responsi bility of seeing to it that those arteries suffer no obstruc tion of any kind, no inefficiency or slackened power. To the merchant let me suggest the motto, " Small profits and quick service;" and to the shipbuilder the thought that the life of the war depends upon him. The food and the war supplies must be carried across MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 293 the seas no matter how many ships are sent to the bottom. The places of those that go down must be supplied and supplied at once. To the miner let me say that he stands where the farmer does: the work of the world waits on him. If he slackens or fails, armies and statesmen are helpless. He also is enlisted in the great Service Army. The manufacturer does not need to be told, I hope, that the nation looks to him to speed and perfect every process; and I want only to remind his employees that their service is absolutely indispen sable and is counted on by every man who loves the country and its liberties. Let me suggest, also, that everyone who creates or cultivates a garden helps, and helps greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding of the nations; and that every housewife who practices strict economy puts her self in the ranks of those who serve the nation. This is the time for America to correct her unpardonable fault of wastefulness and extravagance. Let every man and every woman assume the duty of careful, provident use and expenditure as a public duty, as a dictate of patriotism which no one can now expect ever to be excused or forgiven for ignoring. In the hope that this statement of the needs of the nation and of the world in this hour of supreme crisis may stimulate those to whom it comes and remind all who need reminder of the solemn duties of a time such as the world has never seen before, I beg that all editors and publishers everywhere will give as prominent publi cation and as wide circulation as possible to this appeal. I venture to suggest, also, to all advertising agencies 294 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY that they would perhaps render a very substantial and timely service to the country if they would give it wide spread repetition. And I hope that clergymen will not think the theme of it an unworthy or inappropriate subject of comment and homily from their pulpits. The supreme test of the nation has come. We must all speak, act, and serve together! WOODROW WILSON. ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE RED CROSS BUILDING, WASHINGTON, MAY 12, 1917 In the course of the following address, President Wilson said, in speaking of the war between the United States and the Imperial German Government: " We have gone in with no special grievance of our own." This phrase did not stand alone, and the text of which it was a part clearly showed the President s thought to be that the war was commenced by Germany and that our liberty as well as the liberty of the world was at stake. It waa only in this sense he meant it to be understood that we had no special grievance. As, however, the expression was seized upon as if it stood alone, the President wrote on May 22, 1917, and made public the following letter to Representative Heflin, who had addressed him on the subject: " It is incomprehensible to me how any frank or honest person could doubt or question my position with regard to the war and its objects. I have again and again stated the very serious and long-continued wrongs which the Imperial German Government has perpetrated against the rights, the commerce, and the citizens of the United States. The list is long and overwhelming. No nation that respected itself or the rights of humanity could have borne those wrongs any longer. " Our objects in going into the war have been stated with equal clearness. The whole of the conception, which I take to be the conception of our fellow- countrymen, with regard to the outcome of the war and the terms of its settle ment I set forth with the utmost explicitness in an address to the Senate of the United States on the twenty-second of January last. Again, in my message to Congress on the second of April last those objects were stated in unmistakable terms. I can conceive no purpose in seeking to becloud this matter except the purpose of weakening the hands of the Government and making the part which the United States is to play in this great struggle for human liberty an inefficient and hesitating part. We have entered the war for our own reasons and with our own objects clearly stated, and shall forget neither the reasons nor the objects. There is no hate in our hearts for the German people, but there is a resolve which cannot be shaken even by misrepresentation to overcome the pretensions of the autocratic Government which acts upon purposes to which the German people have never consented." MR. CHAIRMAN, MR. SECRETARY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : It gives me a very deep gratification as the titular head of the American Red Cross to accept in the name of that association this significant and beautiful gift, 295 296 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY the gift of the government and of private individuals who have conceived their duty in a noble spirit and upon a great scale. It seems to me that the architecture of the building to which the Secretary alluded sug gests something very significant. There are few build ings in Washington more simple in their lines and in their ornamentation than the beautiful building we are dedicating this evening. It breathes a spirit of mod esty and seems to adorn duty with its proper garment of beauty. It is significant that it should be dedicated to women who served to alleviate suffering and com fort those who were in need during our Civil War, because their thoughtful, disinterested, self-sacrificing devotion is the spirit which should always illustrate the services of the Red Cross. The Red Cross needs at this time more than ever it needed before the comprehending support of the Ameri can people and all the facilities which could be placed at its disposal to perform its duties adequately and efficiently. I believe that the American people perhaps hardly yet realize the sacrifices and sufferings that are before them. We thought the scale of our Civil War was un precedented, but in comparison with the struggle into which we have now entered the Civil War seems almost insignificant in its proportions and in its expenditure of treasure and of blood. And, therefore, it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should at the outset see to it that the American Red Cross is equipped and prepared for the things that lie before it. It will be our instrument to do the works of allevi- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 297 ation and mercy which will attend this struggle. Of course, the scale upon which it shall act will be greater than the scale of any other duty that it has ever attempted to perform. It is in recognition of that fact that the American Red Cross has just added to its organization a small body of men whom it has chosen to call its war council not because they are to counsel war, but because they are to serve in this special war those purposes of coun sel which have become so imperatively necessary. Their first duty will be to raise a great fund out of which to draw the resources for the performance of their duty, and I do not believe that it will be neces sary to appeal to the American people to respond to their call for funds, because the heart of this country is in this war, and if the heart of the country is in the war, its heart will express itself in the gifts that will be poured out for those humane purposes. I say the heart of the country is in this war because it would not have gone into it if its heart had not been prepared for it. It would not have gone into it if it had not first believed that here was an opportunity to express the character of the United States. We have gone in with no special grievance of our own, because we have always said that we were the friends and servants of mankind. We look for no profit. We look for no advantage. We will accept no advan tage out of this war. We go because we believe that the very principles upon which the American Republic was founded are now at stake and must be vindicated. 298 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY In such a contest, therefore, we shall not fail to respond to the call for service that comes through the instrumentality of this particular organization. And I think it not inappropriate to say this: There will be many expressions of the spirit of sympathy and mercy and philanthropy, and I think that it is very necessary that we should not disperse our activities in those lines too much; that we should keep constantly in view the desire to have the utmost concentration and efficiency of effort, and I hope that most, if not all, of the philanthropic activities of this war may be exercised, if not through the Bed Cross then through some already constituted and experienced organiza tion. This is no war for amateurs. This is no war for mere spontaneous impulse. It means grim business on every side of it, and it is the mere counsel of prudence that in our philanthropy as well as in our fighting we should act through the instrumentalities already pre pared to our hand and already experienced in the tasks which are going to be assigned to them. This should be merely the expression of the practical genius of America itself, and I believe that the practical genius of America will dictate that the efforts in this war in this particular field should be concentrated in experi enced hands as our efforts in other fields will be. There is another thing that is significant and delight ful to my thought about the fact that this building should be dedicated to the memory of the women both of the North and South. It is a sort of landmark of the unity to which the people have been brought so far MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 299 as any old question which tore our hearts in days gone by is concerned; and I pray God that the outcome of this struggle may be that every other element of dif ference amongst us will be obliterated and that some day historians will remember these momentous years as the years which made a single people out of the great body of those who call themselves Americans. The evidences are already many that this is hap pening. The divisions which were predicted have not occurred and will not occur. The spirit of this people is already united, and when effort and suffering and sacrifice have completed the union, men will no longer speak of any lines either of race or association cutting athwart the great body of this nation. So that I feel that we are now beginning the pro cesses which will some day require another beautiful memorial erected to those whose hearts uniting united America. ADDRESS ON MEMORIAL DAY AT ARLING TON, MAY 30, 1917 x The program has conferred an unmerited dignity upon the remarks I am going to make by calling them an address, because I am not here to deliver an address. I am here merely to show in my official capacity the sympathy of this great government with the object of this occasion, and also to speak just a word of the senti ment that is within my own heart. Any Memorial day of this sort is, of course, a day touched with sorrowful memory, and yet I for one do not see how we can have any thought of pity for the men whose memory we honor to-day. I do not pity them. I envy them, rather, because theirs is a great work for liberty accomplished and we are in the midst of a work unfinished, testing our strength where their strength has already been tested. There is a touch of sorrow, but there is a touch of reassurance also in a day like this, because we know how the men of America have responded to the call of the cause of liberty, and it fills our mind with a perfect assurance that that response will come again in equal measure, with equal majesty, and with a result which will hold the attention of all mankind. When you reflect upon it these men who died to preserve the Union died to preserve the instrument 1 Only that part of the address is given which concerns international affaire. 300 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 301 which we are now using to serve the world a free nation espousing the cause of human liberty. In one sense the great struggle into which we have now en tered is an American struggle, because it is in the sense of American honor and American rights, but it is something even greater than that, it is a world struggle. It is a struggle of men who love liberty everywhere, and in this cause America will show herself greater than ever, because she will rise to a greater thing. We have said in the beginning that we planned this great government that men who wish freedom might have a place of refuge and a place where their hope could be realized and now, having established such a government, having preserved such a government, hav ing vindicated the power of such a government, we are saying to all mankind, "we did not set this government up in order that we might have a selfish and separate liberty, for we are now ready to come to your assist ance and fight out upon the fields of the world the cause of human liberty." In this thing America attains her full dignity and the full fruition of her great pur pose. No man can be glad that such things have happened as we have witnessed these last fateful years, but perhaps it may be permitted to us to be glad that we have an opportunity to show the principles that we profess to be living, principles that live in our hearts, and to have a chance by the pouring out of our blood and treasure to vindicate the things which we have pro fessed. 302 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY For, my friends, the real fruition of life is to do the things we have said we wish to do. There are times when work seems empty and only action seems great. Such a time has come, and in the providence of God America will once more have an opportunity to show the world she was born to serve mankind. ADDRESS AT THE CONFEDERATE REUNION, WASHINGTON, JUNE 6, 1917 I esteem it a very great pleasure and a real privi lege to extend to the men who are attending this reunion the very cordial greetings of the United States. I suppose that as you mix with one another you chiefly find these to be days of memory, when your thoughts go back and recall those days of struggle in which your hearts were strained, in which the whole nation seemed in grapple, and I dare say that you are thrilled as you remember the heroic things that were then done. You are glad to remember that heroic things were done on both sides and that men in those days fought in something like the old spirit of chivalric gallantry. There are many memories of the Civil War that thrill along the blood and make one proud to have been sprung of a race that could produce such bravery and constancy ; and yet the world does not live on memories. The world is constantly making its toilsome way for ward into new and different days and I believe that one of the things that contribute satisfaction to a reunion like this and a welcome like this is that this is also a day of oblivion. There are some things that we have thankfully buried, and among them are the great passions of division which once threatened to rend this nation in twain. 303 304 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY The passion of admiration we still entertain for the heroic figures of those old days, but the passion of separation, the passion of difference of principle is gone gone out of our minds, gone out of our hearts, and one of the things that will thrill this country as it reads of this reunion is that it will read also of a rededication on the part of all of us to the great nation which we serve in common. These are days of oblivion as well as of memory, for we are forgetting the things that once held us asunder. Not only that, but they are days of rejoicing because we now at last see why this great nation was kept united, for we are beginning to see the great world purpose which it was meant to serve. Many men I know, particularly of your own genera tion, have wondered at some of the dealings of Provi dence, but the wise heart never questions the dealings of Providence, because the great long plan as it unfolds has a majesty about it and a definiteness of purpose, an elevation of ideal which we were incapable of con ceiving as we tried to work things out with our own short sight and weak strength. And now that we see ourselves part of a nation united, powerful, great in spirit and in purpose, we know the great ends which God in His mysterious Providence wrought through our instrumentality, because at the heart of the men of the North and of the South there was the same love of self-government and of liberty and now we are to be an instrument in the hands of God to see that liberty is made secure for man kind. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 305 At the day of our greatest division there was one common passion among us, and that was the passion for human freedom. We did not know that God was working out in His own way the method by which we should best serve human freedom by making this Union a great united, indivisible, indestructible instrument in His hands for the accomplishment of these great things. As I came along the streets a few minutes ago my heart was full of the thought that this is registration day. Will you not support me in feeling that there is some significance in this coincidence, that this day, when I come to welcome you to the National Capital, is the day when men young as you were in those old days, when you gathered together to fight, are now registering their names as evidence of this great idea, that in a democracy the duty to serve and the privilege to serve falls upon all alike? There is something very fine, my fellow citi zens, in the spirit of the volunteer, but deeper than the volunteer spirit is the spirit of obliga tion. There is not a man of us who must not hold him self ready to be summoned to the duty of supporting the great government under which we live. No really thoughtful and patriotic man is jealous of that obliga tion. No man who really understands the privilege and dignity of being an American citizen quarrels for a moment with the idea that the Congress of the United States has the right to call upon whom it will to serve the nation. 306 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY These solemn lines of young men going to-day all over the union to the places of registration ought to be a signal to the world, to those who dare flout the dignity and honor and rights of the United States, that all her manhood will flock to that standard under which we all delight to serve, and that he who challenges the rights and principles of the United States challenges the united strength and devotion of a nation. There are not many things that one desires about war, my fellow citizens, but you have come through war ; you know how you have been chastened by it, and there comes a time when it is good for a nation to know that it must sacrifice, if need be, everything that it has to vindicate the principles which it professes. We have prospered with a sort of heedless and irre sponsible prosperity. Now we are going to lay all our wealth, if necessary, and spend all our blood, if need be, to show that we were not accumulating that wealth sel fishly, but were accumulating it for the service of man kind. Men all over the world have thought of the United States as a trading and money-getting people, where as we who have lived at home know the ideals with which the hearts of this people have thrilled; we know the sober convictions which have lain at the basis of our life all the time, and we know the power and devo tion which can be spent in heroic ways for the service of those ideals that we have treasured. We have been allowed to become strong in the provi dence of God that our strength might be used to prove not our selfishness, but our greatness, and if there is MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 307 any ground for thankfulness in a day like this I am thankful for the privilege of self-sacrifice which is the only privilege that lends dignity to the human spirit. And so it seems to me that we may regard this as a very happy day, because a day of reunion, a day of noble memories, a day of dedication, a day of the renewal of the spirit which has made America great among the peoples of the world. FLAG DAY ADDRESS, DELIVERED AT WASH INGTON, JUNE 14, 1917 MY FELLOW CITIZENS: We meet to celebrate Flag Day because this flag which we honor and under which we serve is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. The choices are ours. It floats in majestic silence above the hosts that execute those choices, whether in peace or in war. And yet, though silent, it speaks to us, speaks to us of the past, of the men and women who went before us and of the records they wrote upon it. We celebrate the day of its birth ; and from its birth until now it has witnessed a great history, has floated on high the symbol of great events, of a great plan of life worked out by a great people. We are about to carry it into battle, to lift it where it will draw the fire of our enemies. We are about to bid thousands, hundreds of thousands, it may be millions, of our men, the young, the strong, the capable men of the nation, to go forth and die be neath it on fields of blood far away, for what? For some unaccustomed thing? For something for which it has never sought the fire before? American armies were never before sent across the seas. Why are they sent now? For some new purpose, for which this great flag has never been carried before, or for some old, familiar, heroic purpose for which it has seen men, MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 309 its own men, die on every battlefield upon which Ameri cans have borne arms since the Revolution? These are questions which must be answered. We are Americans. We in our turn serve America, and can serve her with no private purpose. We must use her flag as she has always used it. We are accountable at the bar of history and must plead in utter frankness what purpose it is we seek to serve. It is plain enough how we were forced into the war. The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Im perial German Government left us no self-respecting choice but to take up arms in defense of our rights as a free people and of our honor as a sovereign govern ment. The military masters of Germany denied us the right to be neutral. They filled our unsuspecting com munities with vicious spies and conspirators and sought to corrupt the opinion of our people in their own behalf. When they found that they could not do that, their agents diligently spread sedition amongst us and sought to draw our own citizens from their allegiance, and some of those agents were men connected with the offi cial Embassy of the German Government itself here in our own capital. They sought by violence to destroy our industries and arrest our commerce. They tried to incite Mexico to take up arms against us and to draw Japan into a hostile alliance with her, and that, not by indirection, but by direct suggestion from the For eign Office in Berlin. They impudently denied us the use of the high seas and repeatedly executed their threat that they would send to their death any of our people who ventured to approach the coasts of Europe. And 310 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY many of our own people were corrupted. Men began to look upon their own neighbors with suspicion and to wonder in their hot resentment and surprise whether there was any community in which hostile intrigue did not lurk. What great nation in such circumstances would not have taken up arms? Much as we had desired peace, it was denied us, and not of our own choice. This flag under which we serve would have been dishonored had we withheld our hand. But that is only part of the story. We know now as clearly as we knew before we were ourselves engaged that we are not the enemies of the German people and that they are not our enemies. They did not originate or desire this hideous war or wish that we should be drawn into it.; and we are vaguely conscious that we are fighting their cause, as they will some day see it, as well as our own. They are themselves in the grip of the same sinister power that has now at last stretched its ugly talons out and drawn blood from us. The whole world is at war because the whole world is in the grip of that power and is trying out the great battle which shall determine whether it is to be brought under its mastery or fling itself free. The war was begun by the military masters of Ger many, who proved to be also the masters of Austria- Hungary. These men have never regarded nations as peoples, men, women, and children of like blood and frame as themselves, for whom governments existed and in whom governments had their life. They have re garded them merely as serviceable organizations which they could by force or intrigue bend or corrupt to their MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 311 own purpose. They have regarded the smaller states, in particular, and the peoples who could be overwhelmed by force, as their natural tools and instruments of domi nation. Their purpose has long been avowed. The statesmen of other nations, to whom that purpose was incredible, paid little attention j regarded what German professors expounded in their classrooms and German writers set forth to the world as the goal of German policy as rather the dream of minds detached from practical affairs, as preposterous private conceptions of German destiny, than as the actual plans of respon sible rulers ; but the rulers of Germany themselves knew all the while what concrete plans, what well advanced intrigues lay back of what the professors and the writers were saying, and were glad to go forward unmolested, filling the thrones of Balkan states with German princes, putting German officers at the service of Turkey to drill her armies and make interest with her government, developing plans of sedition and rebellion in India and Egypt, setting their fires in Persia. The demands made by Austria upon Servia were a mere single step in a plan which compassed Europe and Asia, from Berlin to Bagdad. They hoped those demands might not arouse Europe, but they meant to press them whether they did or not, for they thought themselves ready for the final issue of arms. Their plan was to throw a broad belt of German military power and political control across the very center of Europe and beyond the Mediterranean into the heart of Asia; and Austria-Hungary was to be as much their tool and pawn as Servia or Bulgaria or 312 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY Turkey or the ponderous states of the East. Austria- Hungary, indeed, was to become part of the central German Empire, absorbed and dominated by the same forces and influences that had originally cemented the German states themselves. The dream had its heart at Berlin. It could haye had a heart nowhere else! It rejected the idea of solidarity of race entirely. The choice of peoples played no part in it at all. It con templated binding together racial and political units which could be kept together only by force, Czechs, Magyars, Croats, Serbs, Roumanians, Turks, Armenians, the proud states of Bohemia and Hungary, the stout little commonwealths of the Balkans, the indomitable Turks, the subtile peoples of the East. These peoples did not wish to be united. They ardently desired to direct their own affairs, would be satisfied only by undisputed independence. They could be kept quiet only by the presence or the constant threat of armed men. They would live under a common power only by sheer compulsion and await the day of revolution. But the German military statesmen had reckoned with all that and were ready to deal with it in their own way. And they have actually carried the greater part of that amazing plan into execution! Look how things stand. Austria is at their mercy. It has acted, not upon its own initiative or upon the choice of its own people, but at Berlin s dictation ever since the war began. Its people now desire peace, but cannot have it until leave is granted from Berlin. The so-called Central Powers are in fact but a single Power. Servia is at its mercy, should its hands be but for a moment MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 313 freed. Bulgaria has consented to its will, and Rou- mania is overrun. The Turkish armies, which Germans trained, are serving Germany, certainly not themselves, and the guns of German warships lying in the harbor at Constantinople remind Turkish statesmen every day that they have no choice but to take their orders from Berlin. From Hamburg to the Persian Gulf the net is spread. Is it not easy to understand the eagerness for peace that has been manifested from Berlin ever since the snare was set and sprung? Peace, peace, peace has been the talk of her Foreign Office for now a year and more; not peace upon her own initiative, but upon the initiative of the nations over which she now deems herself to hold the advantage. A little of the talk has been public, but most of it has been private. Through all sorts of channels it has come to me, and in all sorts of guises, but never with the terms dis closed which the German Government would be willing to accept. That government has other valuable pawns in its hands besides those I have mentioned. It still holds a valuable part of France, though with slowly relaxing grasp, and practically the whole of Belgium. Its armies press close upon Russia and overrun Poland at their will. It cannot go further ; it dare not go back. It wishes to close its bargain before it is too late and it has little left to offer for the pound of flesh it will demand. The military masters under whom Germany is bleed ing see very clearly to what point Fate has brought them. If they fall back or are forced back an inch, 314 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY their power both abroad and at home will fall to pieces like a house of cards. It is their power at home they are thinking about now more than their power abroad. It is that power which is trembling under their very feet; and deep fear has entered their hearts. They have but one chance to perpetuate their military power or even their controlling political influence. If they can secure peace now with the immense advantages still in their hands which they have up to this point appar ently gained, they will have justified themselves before the German people : they will have gained by force what they promised to gain by it: an immense expansion of German power, an immense enlargement of German industrial and commercial opportunities. Their prestige will be secure, and with their prestige their political power. If they fail, their people will thrust them aside ; a government accountable to the people themselves will be set up in Germany as it has been in England, in the United States, in France, and in all the great coun tries of the modern time except Germany. If they suc ceed they are safe and Germany and the world are un done; if they fail Germany is saved and the world will be at peace. If they succeed, America will fall within the menace. We and all the rest of the world must remain armed, as they will remain, and must make ready for the next step in their aggression; if they fail, the world may unite for peace and Germany may be of the union. Do you not now understand the new intrigue, the intrigue for peace, and why the masters of Germany do not hesitate to use any agency that promises to effect MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 315 their purpose, the deceit of the nations ? Their present particular aim is to deceive all those who throughout the world stand for the rights of peoples and the self- government of nations; for they see what immense strength the forces of justice and of liberalism are gathering out of this war. They are employing liberals in their enterprise. They are using men, in Germany and without, as their spokesmen whom they have hitherto despised and oppressed, using them for their own destruction, socialists, the leaders of labor, the thinkers they have hitherto sought to silence. Let them once succeed and these men, now their tools, will be ground to powder beneath the weight of the great mili tary empire they will have set up; the revolutionists in Russia will be cut off from all succour or co-operation in western Europe and a counter revolution fostered and supported; Germany herself will lose her chance of freedom; and all Europe will arm for the next, the final struggle. The sinister intrigue is being no less actively con ducted in this country than in Russia and in every country in Europe to which the agents and dupes of the Imperial German Government can get access. That government has many spokesmen here, in places high and low. They have learned discretion. They keep within the law. It is opinion they utter now, not sedi tion. They proclaim the liberal purposes of their mas ters ; declare this a foreign war which can touch America with no danger to either her lands or her institutions; set England at the center of the stage and talk of her ambition to assert economic dominion throughout the 316 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY world; appeal to our ancient tradition of isolation in the politics of the nations; and seek to undermine the government with false professions of loyalty to its principles. But they will make no headway. The false betray themselves always in every accent. It is only friends and partisans of the German Government whom we have already identified who utter these thinly disguised disloyalties. The facts are patent to all the world, and nowhere are they more plainly seen than in the United States, where we are accustomed to deal with facts and not with sophistries; and the great fact that stands out above all the rest is that this is a Peoples War, a war for freedom and justice and self-government amongst all the nations of the world, a war to make the world safe for the peoples who live upon it and have made it their own, the German people themselves included; and that with us rests the choice to break through all these hypocrisies and patent cheats and masks of brute force and help set the world free, or else stand aside and let it be dominated a long age through by sheer weight of arms and the arbitrary choices of self-consti tuted masters, by the nation which can maintain the biggest armies and the most irresistible armaments, a power to which the world has afforded no parallel and in the face of which political freedom must wither and perish. For us there is but one choice. We have made it. Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way in this day of high resolution when every principle we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 317 secure for the salvation of the nations. We are ready to plead at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster. Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes the great faith to which we were born, and a new glory shall shine in the face of our people. COMMUNICATION TO THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF RUSSIA, JUNE 9, 1917 On March 15, 1917, the world was startled by the abdication of the Czar of all the Russias in favor of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael. The Grand Duke, however, was unwilling to bear the responsibility which had been too great for his brother and to stem the current of revolution which his brother had failed to stem. He, therefore, declined the proffered honor. A provisional gov ernment was formed, the first recognition of which was made by the United States on March 22, 1917. On May 12, 1917, a special diplomatic mission of the United States of America, headed by the Honorable Elihu Root, was sent to Russia. President Wilson himself prepared and transmitted to the Provisional Government of Russia the following communication. In view of the approaching visit of the American delegation to Russia to express the deep friendship of the American people for the people of Russia and to discuss the best and most practical means of co-opera tion between the two peoples in carrying the present /> > struggle for the freedom of all peoples to a successful consummation, it seems opportune and appropriate that I should state again, in the light of this new partner ship, the objects the United States has had in mind in entering the war. Those objects have been very much beclouded during the past few weeks by mistaken and misleading statements, and the issues at stake are too momentous, too tremendous, too significant, for the whole human race to permit any misinterpretations or misunderstandings, however slight, to remain uncor- rected for a moment. The war has begun to go against Germany, and in their desperate desire to escape the inevitable ultimate defeat, those who are in authority in Germany are using 318 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 319 every possible instrumentality, are making use even of the influence of groups and parties among their own subjects to whom they have never been just or fair, or even tolerant, to promote a propaganda on both sides of the sea which will preserve for them their influence at home and their power abroad, to the undoing of the very men they are using. The position of America in this war is so clearly avowed that no man can be excused for mistaking it. She seeks no material profit or aggrandizement of any kind. She is fighting for no advantage or selfish object of her own, but for the liberation of peoples every where from the aggressions of autocratic force. The ruling classes in Germany have begun of late to profess a like liberality and justice of purpose, but only to preserve the power they have set up in Germany and the selfish advantages which they have wrongly gained for themselves and their private projects of power all the way from Berlin to Bagdad and beyond. Govern ment after government has by their influence, without open conquest of its territory, been linked together in a net of intrigue directed against nothing less than the peace and liberty of the world. The meshes of that intrigue must be broken, but cannot be broken unless wrongs already done are undone; and adequate meas ures must be taken to prevent it from ever again being rewoven or repaired. Of course, the Imperial German Government and those whom it is using for their own undoing are seek ing to obtain pledges that the war will end in the resto ration of the status quo ante. It was the status quo ante 320 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY out of which this iniquitous war issued forth, the power of the Imperial German Government within the Empire and its widespread domination and influence outside of that Empire. That status must be altered in such fashion as to prevent any such hideous thing from ever happening again. We are fighting for the liberty, the self-government, and the undictated development of all peoples, and every feature of the settlement that concludes this war must be conceived and executed for that purpose. Wrongs must first be righted and then adequate safeguards must be created to prevent their being committed again. We ought not to consider remedies merely because they have a pleasing and sonorous sound. Practical ques tions can be settled only by practical means. Phrases will not accomplish the result. Effective readjustments will, and whatever readjustments are necessary must be made. But they must follow a principle and that prin ciple is plain. No people must be forced under sover eignty under which it does not wish to live. No terri tory must change hands except for the purpose of secur ing those who inhabit it a fair chance of life and liberty. No indemnities must be insisted on except those that constitute payment for manifest wrongs done. No readjustments of power must be made except such as will tend to secure the future peace of the world and the future welfare and happiness of its peoples. And then the free peoples of the world must draw together in some common covenant, some genuine and practical co-operation that will in effect combine their MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 321 force to secure peace and justice in the dealings of nations with one another. The brotherhood of mankind must no longer be a fair but empty phrase: it must be given a structure of force and reality. The nations must realize their common life and effect a workable partner ship to secure that life against the aggressions of auto cratic and self-pleasing power. For these things we can afford to pour out blood and treasure. For these are the things we have always professed to desire, and unless we pour out blood and treasure now and succeed, we may never be able to unite or show conquering force again in the great cause of human liberty. The day has come to conquer or submit. If the forces of autocracy can divide us, they will overcome us; if we stand together, victory is certain and the liberty which victory will secure. We can afford then to be generous, but we cannot afford then or now to be weak or omit any single guarantee of justice and security. WOODKOW WILSON. REPLY TO THE PEACE APPEAL OF THE POPE, AUGUST 27, 1917 To His HOLINESS BENEDICTUS XV, POPE: In acknowledgment of the communication of Your Holiness to the belligerent peoples, dated August 1, 1917, the President of the United States requests me to trans mit the following reply: "Every heart that has not been blinded and hardened by this terrible war must be touched by this moving appeal of His Holiness the Pope, must feel the dignity and force of the humane and generous motives which prompted it, and must fervently wish that we might take the path of peace he so persuasively points out. But it would be folly to take it if it does not in fact lead to the goal he proposes. Our response must be based upon the stern facts and upon nothing else. It is not a mere cessation of arms he desires; it is a stable and enduring peace. This agony must not be gone through with again, and it must be a matter of very sober judgment what will insure us against it. "His Holiness in substance proposes that we return to the status quo ante bellum, and that then there be a general condonation, disarmament, and a concert of nations based upon an acceptance of the principle of arbitration; that by a similar concert freedom of the seas be established; and that the territorial claims of France and Italy, the perplexing problems of the Balkan States, and the restitution of Poland be left to such con ciliatory adjustments as may be possible in the new temper of such a peace, due regard being paid to the 322 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 323 aspirations of the peoples whose political fortunes and affiliations will be involved. "It is manifest that no part of this program can be successfully carried out unless the restitution of the status quo ante furnishes a firm and satisfactory basis for it. The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long-established practices and long- cherished principles of international action and honor; which chose its own time for the war ; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; stopped at no barrier either of law or of mercy; swept a whole continent within the tide of blood not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children also and of the helpless poor; and now stands balked but not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world. This power is not the German people. It is the ruthless master of the German people. It is no business of ours how that great people came under its control or submitted with temporary zest to the domination of its purpose; but it is our business to see to it that the history of the rest of the world is no longer left to its handling. "To deal with such a power by way of peace upon the plan proposed by His Holiness the Pope would, so far as we can see, involve a recuperation of its strength and a renewal of its policy; would make it necessary to create a permanent hostile combination of nations against the German people, who are its instruments; and would result in abandoning the new-born Eussia to the intrigue, the manifold subtle interference, and the certain counter-revolution which would be attempted 324 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY by all the malign influences to which the German Gov ernment has of late accustomed the world. Can peace be based upon a restitution of its power or upon any word of honor it could pledge in a treaty of settlement and accommodation ? 11 Responsible statesmen must now everywhere see, if they never saw before, that no peace can rest securely upon political or economic restrictions meant to benefit some nations and cripple or embarrass others, upon vindictive action of any sort, or any kind of revenge or deliberate injury. The American people have suffered intolerable wrongs at the hands of the Imperial German Government, but they desire no reprisal upon the Ger man people, who have themselves suffered all things in this war, which they did not choose. They believe that peace should rest upon the rights of peoples, not the rights of Governments the rights of peoples great or small, weak or powerful their equal right to freedom and security and self-government and to a participa tion upon fair terms in the economic opportunities of the world, the German people of course included if they will accept equality and not seek domination. "The test, therefore, of every plan of peace is this: Is it based upon the faith of all the peoples involved or merely upon the word of an ambitious and intriguing government on the one hand and of a group of free peoples, on the other? This is a test which goes to the root of the matter; and it is the test which must be applied. "The purposes of the United States in this war are known to the whole world, to every people to whom the truth has been permitted to come. They do not need to be stated again. We seek no material advan tage of any kind. We believe that the intolerable wrongs done in this war by the furious and brutal power 325 of the Imperial German Government ought to be re paired, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of any people rather a vindication of the sovereignty both of those that are weak and of those that are strong. Puni tive damages, the dismemberment of empires, the estab lishment of selfish and exclusive economic leagues, we deem inexpedient and in the end worse than futile, no proper basis for a peace of any kind, least of all for an enduring peace. That must be based upon justice and fairness and the common rights of mankind. "We cannot take the word of the present rulers of Germany as a guarantee of anything that is to endure, unless explicitly supported by such conclusive evidence of the will and purpose of the German people them selves as the other peoples of the world would be justi fied in accepting. Without such guarantees treaties of settlement, agreements for disarmament, covenants to set up arbitration in the place of force, territorial ad justments, reconstitutions of small nations, if made with the German Government, no man, no nation could now depend on. We must await some new evidence of the purposes of the great peoples of the Central Powers. God grant it may be given soon and in a way to restore the confidence of all peoples everywhere in the faith of nations and the possibility of a covenanted peace. " EGBERT LANSING, Secretary of State of the United States of America. ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR CONVENTION, BUFFALO, NOVEM BER 12, 1917 MR. PRESIDENT, DELEGATES OF THE AMERICAN FEDERA TION OF LABOR, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN: I esteem it a great privilege and a real honor to be thus admitted to your public counsels. When your executive committee paid me the compliment of inviting me here I gladly accepted the invitation because it seems to me that this, above all other times in our his tory, is the time for common counsel, for the drawing together not only of the energies but of the minds of the Nation. I thought that it was a welcome opportunity for disclosing to you some of the thoughts that have been gathering in my mind during the last momentous months. I am introduced to you as the President of the United States, and yet I would be pleased if you would put the thought of the office into the background and regard me as one of your fellow citizens who has come here to speak, not the words of authority, but the words of counsel; the words which men should speak to one another who wish to be frank in a moment more critical perhaps than the history of the world has ever yet known; a moment when it is every man s duty to forget himself, to forget his own interests, to fill himself with the nobility of a great national and world conception, MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 327 and act upon a new platform elevated above the ordinary affairs of life and lifted to where men have views of the long destiny of mankind. I think that in order to realize just what this moment of counsel is it is very desirable that we should remind ourselves just how this war came about and just what it is for. You can explain most wars very simply, but the explanation of this is not so simple. Its roots run deep into all the obscure soils of history, and in my view this is the last decisive issue between the old principle of power and the new principle of freedom. The war was started by Germany. Her authorities deny that they started it, but I am willing to let the statement I have just made await the verdict of history. And the thing that needs to be explained is why Ger many started the war. Remember what the position of Germany in the world was as enviable a position as any nation has ever occupied. The whole world stood in admiration of her wonderful intellectual and material achievements. All the intellectual men of the world went to school to her. As a university man I have been surrounded by men trained in Germany, men who had resorted to Germany because nowhere else could they get such thorough and searching training, particularly in the principles of science and the principles that under lie modern material achievement. Her men of science had made her industries perhaps the most competent industries of the world, and the label "Made in Ger many" was a guarantee of good workmanship and of sound material. She had access to all the markets of the world, and every other nation who traded in those 328 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY markets feared Germany because of her effective and almost irresistible competition. She had a "place in the sun." Why was she not satisfied? What more did she want? There was nothing in the world of peace that she did not already have and have in abundance. We boast of the extraordinary pace of American advance ment. We show with pride the statistics of the increase of our industries and of the population of our cities. Well, those statistics did not match the recent statistics of Germany. Her old cities took on youth and grew faster than any American cities ever grew. Her old industries opened their eyes and saw a new world and went out for its conquest. And yet the authorities of Germany were not satisfied. You have one part of the answer to the question why she was not satisfied in her methods of competition. There is no important industry in Germany upon which the Government has not laid its hands, to direct it and, when necessity arose, control it; and you have only to ask any man whom you meet who is familiar with the conditions that pre vailed before the war in the matter of national compe tition to find out the methods of competition which the German manufacturers and exporters used under the patronage and support of the Government of Germany. You will find that they were the same sort of competi tion that we have tried to prevent by law within our own borders. If they could not sell their goods cheaper than we could sell ours at a profit to themselves they could get a subsidy from the Government which made it possible to sell them cheaper anyhow, and the condi- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 329 tions of competition were thus controlled in large meas ure by the German Government itself. But that did not satisfy the German Government. All the while there was lying behind its thought and in its dreams of the future a political control which would enable it in the long run to dominate the labor and the industry of the world. They were not content with suc cess by superior achievement; they wanted success by authority. I suppose very few of you have thought much about the Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway. The Berlin- Bagdad Railway was constructed in order to run the threat of force down the flank of the industrial under takings of half a dozen other countries; so that when German competition came in it would not be resisted too far, because there was always the possibility of getting German armies into the heart of that country quicker than any other armies could be got there. Look at the map of Europe now! Germany in thrusting upon us again and again the discussion of peace talks about what? Talks about Belgium; talks about northern France; talks about Alsace-Lorraine. Well, those are deeply interesting subjects to us and to them, but they are not the heart of the matter. Take the map and look at it. Germany has abso lute control of Austria-Hungary, practical control of the Balkan States, control of Turkey, control of Asia Minor. I saw a map in which the whole thing was printed in appropriate black the other day, and the black stretched all the way from Hamburg to Bagdad the bulk of German power inserted into the heart of the world. If she can keep that, she has kept 330 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY all that her dreams contemplated when the war began. If she can keep that, her power can disturb the world as long as she keeps it, always provided, for I feel bound to put this proviso in always provided the pres ent influences that control the German Government con tinue to control it. I believe that the spirit of freedom can get into the hearts of Germans and find as fine a welcome there as it can find in any other hearts, but the spirit of freedom does not suit the plans of the Pan-Germans. Power cannot be used with concentrated force against free peoples if it is used by free people. You know how many intimations come to us from one of the central powers that it is more anxious for peace than the chief central power, and you know that it means that the people in that central power know that if the war ends as it stands they will in effect themselves be vassals of Germany, notwithstanding that their populations are compounded of all the peoples of that part of the world, and notwithstanding the fact that they do not wish in their pride and proper spirit of nationality to be so absorbed and dominated. Ger many is determined that the political power of the world shall belong to her. There have been such ambi tions before. They have been in part realized, but never before have those ambitions been based upon so exact and precise and scientific a plan of domination. May I not say that it is amazing to me that any group of persons should be so ill-informed as to sup pose, as some groups in Russia apparently suppose, that any reforms planned in the interest of the people MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 331 can live in the presence of a Germany powerful enough to undermine or overthrow them by intrigue or force? Any body of free men that compounds with the present German Government is compounding for its own destruction. But that is not the whole of the story. Any man in America or anywhere else that supposes that the free industry and enterprise of the world can continue if the Pan-German plan is achieved and Ger man power fastened upon the world is as fatuous as the dreamers in Russia. What I am opposed to is not the feeling of the pacifists, but their stupidity. My heart is with them, but my mind has a contempt for them. I want peace, but I know how to get it, and they do not. You will notice that I sent a friend of mine, Col. House, to Europe, who is as great a lover of peace as any man in the world; but I didn t send him on a peace mission yet. I sent him to take part in a conference as to how the war was to be won, and he knows, as I know, that that is the way to get peace, if you want it for more than a few minutes. All of this is a preface to the conference that I have referred to with regard to what we are going to do. If we are true friends of freedom, our own or any body else s, we will see that the power of this country and the productivity of this country is raised to its absolute maximum, and that absolutely nobody is allowed to stand in the way of it. When I say that nobody is allowed to stand in the way I do not mean that they shall be prevented by the power of the Government but by the power of the American spirit. Our duty, if we 332 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY are to do this great thing and show America to be what we believe her to be the greatest hope and energy of the world is to stand together night and day until the job is finished. While we are fighting for freedom we must see, among other things, that labor is free; and that means a number of interesting things. It means not only that we must do what we have declared our purpose to do, see that the conditions of labor are not rendered more onerous by the war, but also that we shall see to it that the instrumentalities by which the conditions of labor are improved are not blocked or checked. That we must do. That has been the matter about which I have taken pleasure in conferring from time to time with your president, Mr. Gompers ; and if I may be permitted to do so, I want to express my admiration of his patri otic courage, his large vision, and his statesmanlike sense of what has to be done. I like to lay my mind alongside of a mind that knows how to pull in harness. The horses that kick over the traces will have to be put in corral. Now, to stand together means that nobody must interrupt the processes of our energy if the interrup tion can possibly be avoided without the absolute invasion of freedom. To put it concretely, that means this: Nobody has a right to stop the processes of labor until all the methods of conciliation and settlement have been exhausted. And I might as well say right here that I am not talking to you alone. You some times stop the courses of labor, but there are others who do the same, and I believe I am speaking from MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 333 my own experience not only, but from the experi ence of others, when I say that you are reasonable in a larger number of cases than the capitalists. I am not saying these things to them personally yet, because I have not had a chance, but they have to be said, not in any spirit of criticism, but in order to clear the atmos phere and come down to business. Everybody on both sides has now got to transact business, and a settlement is never impossible when both sides want to do the square and right thing. Moreover, a settlement is always hard to avoid when the parties can be brought face to face. I can differ from a man much more radically when he is not in the room than I can when he is in the room, because then the awkward thing is he can come back at me and answer what I say. It is always dangerous for a man to have the floor entirely to himself. Therefore, we must insist in every instance that the parties come into each other s presence and there discuss the issues between them and not separately in places which have no communication with each other. I always like to remind myself of a delightful saying of an Englishman of the past gener ation, Charles Lamb. He stuttered a little bit, and once when he was with a group of friends he spoke very harshly of some man who was not present. One of his friends said: "Why, Charles, I didn t know that you knew so and so." "O-o-oh," he said, "I-I d-d-don t; I-I can t h-h-hate a m-m-man I-I know." There is a great deal of human nature, of very pleasant human nature, in the saying. It is hard to hate a man you know. I may admit, parenthetically, that there are 334 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY some politicians whose methods I do not at all believe in, but they are jolly good fellows, and if they only would not talk the wrong kind of politics, I would love to be with them. So it is all along the line, in serious matters and things less serious. We are all of the same clay and spirit, and we can get together if we desire to get together. Therefore, my counsel to you is this: Let us show ourselves Americans by showing that we do not want to go off in separate camps or groups by our selves, but that we want to co-operate with all other classes and all other groups in the common enterprise which is to release the spirits of the world from bondage. I would be willing to set that up as the final test of an American. That is the meaning of democracy. I have been very much distressed, my fellow citizens, by some of the things that have happened recently. The mob spirit is displaying itself here and there in this country. I have no sympathy with what some men are saying, but I have no sympathy with the men who take their punishment into their own hands; and I want to say to every man who does join such a mob that I do not recognize him as worthy of the free institutions of the United States. There are some organizations in this country whose object is anarchy and the destruction of law, but I would not meet their efforts by making myself partner in destroying the law. I despise and hate their purposes as much as any man, but I respect the ancient processes of justice; and I would be too proud not to see them done justice, however wrong they are. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 335 So I want to utter my earnest protest against any manifestation of the spirit of lawlessness anywhere or in any cause. Why, gentlemen, look what it means. We claim to be the greatest democratic people in the world, and democracy means first of all that we can govern ourselves. If our men have not self-control, then they are not capable of that great thing which we call democratic government. A man who takes the law into his own hands is not the right man to co-operate in any formation or development of law and institutions, and some of the processes by which the struggle between capital and labor is carried on are processes that come very near to taking the law into your own hands. I do not mean for a moment to compare them with what I have just been speaking of, but I want you to see that they are mere gradations in this manifestation of the unwillingness to co-operate, and that the fundamental lesson of the whole situation is that we must not only take common counsel, but that we must yield to and obey common counsel. Not all of the instrumentalities for this are at hand. I am hopeful that in the very near future new instrumentalities may be organized by which we can see to it that various things that are now going on ought not to go on. There are various processes of the dilution of labor and the unnecessary substitution of labor and the bidding in distant markets and unfairly upsetting the whole competition of labor which ought not to go on. I mean now on the part of employers, and we must interject some instrumentality of co-operation by which the fair thing will be done all around. I am hopeful that some such instrumen- 336 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY talities may be devised, but whether they are or not, we must use those that we have and upon every occasion where it is necessary have such an instrumentality originated upon that occasion. So, my fellow citizens, the reason I came away from Washington is that I sometimes get lonely down there. So many people come to Washington who know things that are not so, and so few people who know anything about what the people of the United States are think ing about. I have to come away and get reminded of the rest of the country. I have to come away and talk to men who are up against the real thing, and say to them, "I am with you if you are with me." And the only test of being with me is not to think about me personally at all, but merely to think of me as the expression for the time being of the power and dignity and hope of the United States. TELEGRAM TO THE NORTHWEST LOYALTY MEETINGS, ST. PAUL, MINN., NOVEMBER 16, 1917 Northwest Loyalty Meetings, St. Paul, Minn., R. W. HARGADINE, Secretary. Nothing could be more significant than your gather ing to express the loyalty of the Great Northwest. If it were possible I should gladly be with you. You have come together as the representatives of that Western Empire in which the sons of all sections of America and the stocks of all the nations of Europe have made the prairie and the forest the home of a new race and the temple of a new faith. The time has come when that home must be protected and that faith affirmed in deeds. Sacrifice and service must come from every class, every profession, every party, every race, every creed, every section. This is not a banker s war or a farmer s war or a manufac turer s war or a laboring man s war it is a war for every straight-out American whether our flag be his by birth or by adoption. We are to-day a Nation in arms and we must fight and farm, mine and manufacture, conserve food and fuel, save and spend to the one common purpose. It is to the Great Northwest that the Nation looks, as once before in critical days, for that steadiness of purpose and firmness of determination which shall see this struggle through to a decision that shall make the masters of Germany rue the day they unmasked their purpose and challenged our Republic. 337 TELEGRAM TO THE KING OF THE BELGIANS, NOVEMBER 17, 1917 His MAJESTY ALBEKT, King of the Belgians, Havre. I take pleasure in extending to Your Majesty greet ings of friendship and good will on this your fete day. For the people of the United States, I take this occasion to renew expressions of deep sympathy for the sufferings which Belgium has endured under the willful, cruel, and barbaric force of a disappointed Prussian autocracy. The people of the United States were never more in earnest than in their determination to prosecute to a successful conclusion this war against that power and to secure for the future, obedience to the laws of nations and respect for the rights of humanity. 338 ADDRESS RECOMMENDING THE DECLARA TION OF A STATE OF WAR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE AUS- TRO-HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT, DELIVERED AT A JOINT SES SION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF THE CONGRESS, DECEMBER 4, 1917 In his address to the Congress of April 2, 1917, President Wilson referred to the grievances which this country had against the Austro-Hungarian Govern ment, and stated that " that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights." As, however, events proved, in the language of the Austrian poet, Friedrich Halm, that Germany and Austria- Hungary are " Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one," the President reluctantly reached the conclusion that a state of war should be declared to exist between the United States and the Austro-Hungarian Govern ment. He therefore recommended it in his address to the Congress of December 4th, and on December 7th that body gave effect to his recommendation as follows: " Whereas, The Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government has committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America, therefore be it " Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a state of war is hereby de clared to exist between the United States of America and the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government, and that the President be and he is hereby, authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States. GEXTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS : Eight months have elapsed since I last had the honor of addressing you. They have been months crowded 340 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY with events of immense and grave significance for us. I shall not undertake to retail or even to summarize those events. The practical particulars of the part we have played in them will be laid before you in the reports of the Executive Departments. I shall discuss only our present outlook upon these vast affairs, our present duties, and the immediate means of accomplishing the objects we shall hold always in view. I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true American to need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask you to consider again and with a very grave scrutiny our objectives and the measures by which we mean to attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place is action, and our action must move straight towards definite ends. Our object is, of course, to win the war; and we shall not slacken or suffer ourselves to be diverted until it is won. But it is worth while asking and answering the question, When shall we consider the war won ? From one point of view it is not necessary to broach this fundamental matter. I do not doubt that the American people know what the war is about and what sort of an outcome they will regard as a realization of their purpose in it. As a nation we are united in spirit and intention. I pay little heed to those who tell me otherwise. I hear the voices of dissent, who does not? I hear the criticism and the clamor of the noisily thoughtless and troublesome. I also see men here and there fling themselves in impotent disloyalty against the MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 341 calm, indomitable power of the nation. I hear men debate peace who understand neither its nature nor the way in which we may attain it with uplifted eyes and unbroken spirits. But I know that none of these speaks for the nation. They do not touch the heart of any thing. They may safely be left to strut their uneasy hour and be forgotten. But from another point of view I believe that it is necessary to say plainly what we here at the seat of action consider the war to be for and what part we mean to play in the settlement of its searching issues. We are the spokesmen of the American people and they have a right to know whether their purpose is ours. They de sire peace by the overcoming of evil, by the defeat once for all of the sinister forces that interrupt peace and render it impossible, and they wish to know how closely our thought runs with theirs and what action we pro pose. They are impatient with those who desire peace by any sort of compromise, deeply and indignantly im patient, but they will be equally impatient with us if we do not make it plain to them what our objectives are and what we are planning for in seeking to make con quest of peace by arms. I believe that I speak for them when I say two things: First, that this intolerable Thing of which the masters of Germany have shown us the ugly face, this menace of combined intrigue and force which we now see so clearly as the German power, a Thing without con science or honor or capacity for covenanted peace, must be crushed and, if it be not utterly brought to an end, at least shut out from the friendly intercourse of the na- 342 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY tions; and, second, that when this Thing and its power are indeed defeated and the time comes that we can dis cuss peace, when the German people have spokesmen whose word we can believe and when those spokesmen are ready in the name of their people to accept the com mon judgment of the nations as to what shall henceforth be the bases of law and of covenant for the life of the world, we shall be willing and glad to pay the full price for peace, and pay it ungrudgingly. We know what that price will be. It will be full, impartial jus tice, justice done at every point and to every nation that the final settlement must affect, our enemies as well as our friends. You catch, with me, the voices of humanity that are in the air. They grow daily more audible, more articu late, more persuasive, and they come from the hearts of men everywhere. They insist that the war shall not end in vindictive action of any kind ; that no nation or peo ple shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single country have themselves done deep and abominable wrong. It is this thought that has been expressed in the formula "No annexations, no contribu tions, no punitive indemnities." Just because this crude formula expresses the instinctive judgment as to right of plain men everywhere it has been made diligent use of by the masters of German intrigue to lead the people of Russia astray and the people of every other country their agents could reach, in order that a premature peace might be brought about before autocracy has been taught its final and convincing lesson, and the people of the world put in control of their own destinies. MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 343 But the fact that a wrong use has been made of a just idea is no reason why a right use should not be made of it. It ought to be brought under the patronage of its real friends. Let it be said again that autocracy must first be shown the utter futility of its claims to power or leadership in the modern world. It is impossible to apply any standard of justice so long as such forces are unchecked and undefeated as the present masters of Ger many command. Not until that has been done can Eight be set up as arbiter and peace-maker among the nations. But when that has been done, as, God willing, it as suredly will be, we shall at last be free to do an un precedented thing, and this is the time to avow our purpose to do it. We shall be free to base peace on generosity and justice, to the exclusion of all selfish claims to advantage even on the part of the victors. Let there be no misunderstanding. Our present and immediate task is to win the war, and nothing shall turn us aside from it until it is accomplished. Every power and resource we possess, whether of men, of money, or of materials, is being devoted and will continue to be devoted to that purpose until it is achieved. Those who desire to bring peace about before that purpose is achieved I counsel to carry their advice elsewhere. We will not entertain it. We shall regard the war as won only when the German people say to us, through properly accredited representatives, that they are ready to agree to a settlement based upon justice and the reparation of the wrongs their rulers have done. They have done a wrong to Belgium which must be repaired. They have 344 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY established a power over other lands and peoples than their own, over the great Empire of Austria-Hungary, over hitherto free Balkan states, over Turkey, and within Asia, which must be relinquished. Germany s success by skill, by industry, by knowl edge, by enterprise we did not grudge or oppose, but admired, rather. She had built up for herself a real empire of trade and influence, secured by the peace of the world. We were content to abide the rivalries of manufacture, science, and commerce that were involved for us in her success and stand or fall as we had or did not have the brains and the initiative to surpass her. But at the moment when she had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace she threw them away, to establish in their stead what the world will no longer permit to be established, military and political domination by arms, by which to oust where she could not excel the rivals she most feared and hated. The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples of Belgium and northern France from the Prussian conquest and the Prussian menace, but it must also deliver the peoples of Austria-Hungary, the peo ples of the Balkans, and the peoples of Turkey, alike in Europe and in Asia, from the impudent and alien dominion of the Prussian military and commercial autocracy. We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do not wish in any way to impair or to rearrange the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no affair of ours what they do with their own life, either industrially or politi cally. We do not purpose or desire to dictate to them in MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 345 any way. "We only desire to see that their affairs are left in their own hands, in all matters, great or small. We shall hope to secure for the peoples of the Balkan peninsula and for the people of the Turkish Empire the right and opportunity to make their own lives safe, their own fortunes secure against oppression or injustice and from the dictation of foreign courts or parties. And our attitude and purpose with regard to Ger many herself are of a like kind. "We intend no wrong against the German Empire, no interference with her in ternal affairs. We should deem either the one or the other absolutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the principles we have professed to live by and to hold most sacred throughout our life as a nation. The people of Germany are being told by the men whom they now permit to deceive them and to act as their masters that they are fighting for the very life and existence of their Empire, a war of desperate self- defense against deliberate aggression. Nothing could be more grossly or wantonly false, and we must seek by the utmost openness and candor as to our real aims to convince them of its falseness. "We are in fact fighting for their emancipation from fear, along with our own, from the fear as well as from the fact of unjust attack by neighbors or rivals or schemers after world empire. No one is threatening the existence or the independence or the peaceful enterprise of the German Empire. The worst that can happen to the detriment of the German people is this, that if they should still, after the war is over, continue to be obliged to live under am bitious and intriguing masters interested to disturb the 346 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY peace of the world, men or classes of men whom the other peoples of the world could not trust, it might be \ impossible to admit them to the partnership of nations which must henceforth guarantee the world s peace. That partnership must be a partnership of peoples, not a mere partnership of governments. It might be impos sible, also, in such untoward circumstances, to admit Germany to the free economic intercourse which must inevitably spring out of the other partnerships of a real peace. But there would be no aggression in that; and such a situation, inevitable because of distrust, would in the very nature of things sooner or later cure itself, by processes which would assuredly set in. The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in this war will have to be righted. That of course. But they cannot and must not be righted by the commission of similar wrongs against Germany and her allies. The world will not permit the commission of similar wrongs as a means of reparation and settlement. Statesmen must by this time have learned that the opinion of the world is everywhere wide awake and fully comprehends the issues involved. No representative of any self- governed nation will dare disregard it by attempting any such covenants of selfishness and compromise as were entered into at the Congress of Vienna. The thought of the plain people here and everywhere throughout the world, the people who enjoy no privilege and have very simple and unsophisticated standards of right and wrong, is the air all governments must hence forth breathe if they would live. It is in the full dis closing light of that thought that all policies must be MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 347 conceived and executed in this midday hour of the world s life. German rulers have been able to upset the peace of the world only because the German people were not suffered under their tutelage to share the comrade ship of the other peoples of the world either in thought or in purpose. They were allowed to have no opinion of their own which might be set up as a rule of conduct for those who exercised authority over them. But the congress that concludes this war will feel the full strength of the tides that run now in the hearts and consciences of free men everywhere. Its conclusion will run with those tides. All these things have been true from the very begin ning of this stupendous war ; and I cannot help thinking that if they had been made plain at the very outset the sympathy and enthusiasm of the Russian people might have been once for all enlisted on the side of the Allies, suspicion and distrust swept away, and a real and last ing union of purpose effected. Had they believed these things at the very moment of their revolution and had they been confirmed in that belief since, the sad reverses which have recently marked the progress of their affairs towards an ordered and stable government of free men might have been avoided. The Russian people have been poisoned by the very same falsehoods that have kept the German people in the dark, and the poison has been ad ministered by the very same hands. The only possible antidote is the truth. It cannot be uttered too plainly or too often. From every point of view, therefore, it has seemed to be my duty to speak these declarations of purpose, to 348 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY add these specific interpretations to what I took the lib erty of saying to the Senate in January. Our entrance into the war has not altered our attitude towards the settlement that must come when it is over. When I said in January that the nations of the world were entitled not only to free pathways upon the sea but also to as sured and unmolested access to those pathways I was thinking, and I am thinking now, not of the smaller and weaker nations alone, which need our countenance and support, but also of the great and powerful nations, and of our present enemies as well as our present asso ciates in the war. I was thinking, and am thinking now, of Austria herself, among the rest, as well as of Serbia and of Poland. Justice and equality of rights can be had only at a great price. "We are seeking permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace of the world and must seek them candidly and fear lessly. As always, the right will prove to be the expedient. What shall we do, then, to push this great war of freedom and justice to its righteous conclusion? We must clear away with a thorough hand all impediments to success and we must make every adjustment of law that will facilitate the full and free use of our whole capacity and force as a fighting unit. One very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our way is that we are at war with Germany but not with her allies. I therefore very earnestly recommend that the Congress immediately declare the United States in a state of war with Austria-Hungary. Does it seem strange to you that this should be the conclusion of the MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 349 argument I have just addressed to you? It is not. It is in fact the inevitable logic of what I have said. Austria- Hungary is for the time being not her own mistress but simply the vassal of the German Government. We must face the facts as they are and act upon them without sentiment in this stern business. The government of Austria-Hungary is not acting upon its own initiative or in response to the wishes and feelings of its own peo ples but as the instrument of another nation. We must meet its force with our own and regard the Central Powers as but one. The war can be successfully con ducted in no other way. The same logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Turkey and Bul garia. They also are the tools of Germany. But they are mere tools and do not yet stand in the direct path of our necessary action. We shall go wherever the necessi ties of this war carry us, but it seems to me that we should go only where immediate and practical considera tions lead us and not heed any others. The financial and military measures which must be adopted will suggest themselves as the war and its under takings develop, but I will take the liberty of proposing to you certain other acts of legislation which seem to me to be needed for the support of the war and for the release of our whole force and energy. It will be necessary to extend in certain particulars the legislation of the last session with regard to alien enemies ; and also necessary, I believe, to create a very definite and particular control over the entrance and departure of all persons into and from the United States. 350 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY Legislation should be enacted defining as a criminal offense every willful violation of the presidential procla mations relating to alien enemies promulgated under section 4067 of the Eevised Statutes and providing ap propriate punishments ; and women as well as men should be included under the terms of the acts placing restraints upon alien enemies. It is likely that as time goes on many alien enemies will be willing to be fed and housed at the expense of the Government in the detention camps and it would be the purpose of the legislation I have suggested to confine offenders among them in penitenti aries and other similar institutions where they could be made to work as other criminals do. Recent experience has convinced me that the Con gress must go further in authorizing the Government to set limits to prices. The law of supply and demand, I am sorry to say, has been replaced by the law of unre strained selfishness. While we have eliminated profiteer ing in several branches of industry it still runs impu dently rampant in others. The farmers, for example, complain with a great deal of justice that, while the regulation of food prices restricts their incomes, no re straints are placed upon the prices of most of the things they must themselves purchase; and similar inequities obtain on all sides. It is imperatively necessary that the consideration of the full use of the water power of the country and also the consideration of the systematic and yet economi cal development of such of the natural resources of the country as are still under the control of the federal gov ernment should be immediately resumed and affirma- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 351 tively and constructively dealt with at the earliest pos sible moment. The pressing need of such legislation is daily becoming more obvious. The legislation proposed at the last session with re gard to regulated combinations among our exporters, in order to provide for our foreign trade a more effective organization and method of co-operation, ought by all means to be completed at this session. And I beg that the members of the House of Repre sentatives will permit me to express the opinion that it will be impossible to deal in any but a very wasteful and extravagant fashion with the enormous appropria tions of the public moneys which must continue to be made, if the war is to be properly sustained, unless the House will consent to return to its former practice of initiating and preparing all appropriation bills through a single committee, in order that responsibility may be centered, expenditures standardized and made uni form, and waste and duplication as much as possible avoided. Additional legislation may also become necessary be fore the present Congress again adjourns in order to effect the most efficient co-ordination and operation of the railway and other transportation systems of the country ; but to that I shall, if circumstances should de mand, call the attention of the Congress upon another occasion. If I have overlooked anything that ought to be done for the more effective conduct of the war, your own counsels will supply the omission. What I am per fectly clear about is that in the present session of the 352 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY Congress our whole attention and energy should be con centrated on the vigorous, rapid, and successful prosecu tion of the great task of winning the war. We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusi asm because we know that for us this is a war of high principle, debased by no selfish ambition of conquest or spoliation; because we know, and all the world knows, that we have been forced into it to save the very institu tions we live under from corruption and destruction. The purposes of the Central Powers strike straight at the very heart of everything we believe in; their meth ods of warfare outrage every principle of humanity and of knightly honor ; their intrigue has corrupted the very thought and spirit of many of our people ; their sinister and secret diplomacy has sought to take our very terri tory away from us and disrupt the Union of the States. Our safety would be at an end, our honor forever sullied and brought into contempt were we to permit their triumph. They are striking at the very existence of democracy and liberty. It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested purpose, in which all the free peoples of the world are banded together for the vindication of right, a war for the preservation of our nation and of all that it has held dear of principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves doubly constrained to propose for its outcome only that which is righteous and of irreproachable intention, for our foes as well as for our friends. The cause being just and holy, the settlement must be of like motive and quality. For this we can fight, but for nothing less noble or less worthy of our traditions. For this cause MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 353 we enter the war and for this cause will we battle until the last gun is fired. I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the time when it is most necessary to speak plainly, in order that all the world may know that even in the heat and ardor of the struggle and when our whole thought is of carrying the war through to its end we have not forgot ten any ideal or principle for which the name of America has been held in honor among the nations and for which it has been our glory to contend in the great generations that went before us. A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes of the people have been opened and they see. The hand of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear heights of His own justice and mercy. ADDRESS ON THE CONDITIONS OF PEACE DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, JANUARY 8, 1918 The Czar of Russia was, to the outward world at least, unexpectedly forced to abdicate on March 15, 1917. Two days later his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, in whose favor he had abdicated, renounced whatever title the late Czar had to convey. A provisional government was formed, which was recognized by the United States on March 22, which, with various changes, maintained itself in power, pursuing a checkered course between the extreme radicals and social ists, on the one hand, and what might be called the conservative or moderate party, on the other. On November 7, 1917, the radical elements of the socialist party, called Bolsheviki (meaning the majority party), led by Nikolai Lenine, who had united, under his leadership the extreme elements, came into power and immediately made overtures for an armistice and a peace with Germany and its allies, invit ing the other belligerents to do likewise and stating the conditions upon which a general peace should be made. An armistice was concluded with Germany and its allies on December 15, 1917, to last to January 14, 1918, and two days before its expiration a further armistice was agreed upon for a month. Repre sentatives of the Bolshevist government met representatives of Germany and its allies at Brest-Litovsk to discuss the terms of peace. Germany s enemies, however, refused to consider the terms stated by the Bolshevik government, and on January 5, 1918, during the Russo-German nego tiations, Mr. Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Great Britain, delivered an ad dress before the Labor Conference on Man-Power in London, in which he out lined, after consulting the self-governing dominions of the British Empire, and undoubtedly after an exchange of views with Britain s allies, the terms and conditions of peace which Great Britain would consider. Three days later, under these circumstances, when Russia had withdrawn from the war and was in conference with the representatives of Germany and its allies, and after Mr. Lloyd George had stated the terms and conditions of peace as they appeared to a European statesman, President Wilson, on January 8, 1918, delivered the following address, in which, after paying particular attention to the Russian situation and expressing sympathy for the Russian people in the crisis through which they were passing, he announced his agreement with the aims and pur poses of the countries allied against Germany, thus showing the allied govern ments to be in perfect accord. GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS : Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the Central Empires have indicated their desire to discuss 354 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 355 the objects of the war and the possible bases of a general peace. Parleys have been in progress at Brest-Litovsk between Russian representatives and representatives of the Central Powers to which the attention of all the bel ligerents has been invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether it may be possible to extend these parleys into a general conference with regard to terms of peace and set tlement/ The Russian representatives presented not only a perfectly definite statement of the principles upon which they would be willing to conclude peace but also an equally definite program of the concrete application of those principles. The representatives of the Central Powers, on their part, presented an outline of settlement which, if much less definite, seemed susceptible of liberal interpretation until their specific program of practical terms was added. That program proposed no conces sions at all either to the sovereignty of Russia or to the preferences of the populations with whose fortunes it dealt, but meant, in a word, that the Central Empires were to keep every foot of territory their armed forces had occupied, every province, every city, every point of vantage, as a permanent addition to their territories and their power. It is a reasonable conjecture that the general principles of settlement which they at first sug gested originated with the more liberal statesmen of Germany and Austria, the men who have begun to feel the force of their own peoples thought and purpose, while the concrete terms of actual settlement came from the military leaders who have no thought but to keep what they have got. The negotiations have been broken off. The Russian representatives were sincere and in 356 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY earnest. They cannot entertain such proposals of con quest and domination. The whole incident is full of significance. It is also full of perplexity. With whom are the Russian repre sentatives dealing? For whom are the representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking for the majorities of their respective parliaments or for the minority parties, that military and imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their whole policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey and of the Balkan states which have felt obliged to become their associates in this war ? The Russian representatives have insisted, very justly, very wisely, and in the true spirit of modern democracy, that the conferences they have been holding with Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be held within open, not closed, doors, and all the world has been audience, as was desired. To whom have we been listen ing, then? To those who speak the spirit and intention of the Resolutions of the German Reichstag of the ninth of July last, the spirit and intention of the liberal leaders and parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy that spirit and intention and insist upon conquest and subjugation? Or are we listening, in fact, to both, un reconciled and in open and hopeless contradiction? These are very serious and pregnant questions. Upon the answer to them depends the peace of the world. But, whatever the results of the parleys at Brest- Litovsk, whatever the confusions of counsel and of pur pose in the utterances of the spokesmen of the Central Empires, they have again attempted to acquaint the world with their objects in the war and have again chal- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 357 lenged their adversaries to say what their objects are and what sort of settlement they would deem just and satis factory. There is no good reason why that challenge should not be responded to, and responded to with the utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not once, but again and again, we have laid our whole thought and purpose before the world, not in general terms only, but each time with sufficient definition to make it clear what sort of definitive terms of settlement must necessarily spring out of them. Within the last week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken with admirable candor and in ad mirable spirit for the people and Government of Great Britain. There is no confusion of counsel among the adversaries of the Central Powers, no uncertainty of principle, no vagueness of detail. The only secrecy of counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the only failure to make definite statement of the objects of the war, lies with Germany and her Allies. The issues of life and death hang upon these definitions. No states man who has the least conception of his responsibility ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure unless he is sure beyond a peradventure that the objects of the vital sacrifice are part and parcel of the very life of Society and that the people for whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does. There is, moreover, a voice calling for these defini tions of principle and of purpose which is, it seems to me, more thrilling and more compelling than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. 358 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY They are prostrate and all but helpless, it would seem, before the grim power of Germany, which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their power, appar ently, is shattered. And yet their soul is not subservient. They will not yield either in principle or in action. Their conception of what is right, of what it is humane and honorable for them to accept, has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity of spirit, and a universal human sympathy which must challenge the admiration of every friend of mankind; and they have refused to compound their ideals or desert others that they themselves may be safe. They call to us to say what it is that we desire, in what, if in anything, our purpose and our spirit differ from theirs; and I believe that the people of the United States would wish me to re spond, with utter simplicity and frankness. Whether their present leaders believe it or not, it is our heart felt desire and hope that some way may be opened whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of Eussia to attain their utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace. It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular gov ernments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 359 makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow now or at any other time the objects it has in view. We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all against their recur rence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is noth ing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peo ples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world s peace, therefore, is our pro gram; and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this: I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understand ings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, ex cept as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade 360 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance. IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that na tional armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial ad justment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined. VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing ; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distin guished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 361 which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. With out this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired. VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all. IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nation ality. X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development. XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated ; occupied territories restored ; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and terri torial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into. XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous de- 362 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY velopment, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees. XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indis putably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of af fording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot be sepa rated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand to gether until the end. For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved ; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this pro gram does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this program that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinc tion of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legiti mate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 363 either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace-loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, the new world in which we now live, instead of a place of mastery. Neither do we presume to suggest to her any altera tion or modification of her institutions. But it is neces sary, we must frankly say, and necessary as a pre liminary to any intelligent dealings with her on our part, that we should know whom her spokesmen speak for when they speak to us, whether for the Reichstag ma jority or for the military party and the men whose creed is imperial domination. We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete to admit of any further doubt or question. An evident principle runs through the whole program I have out lined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and ^ nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak. Unless this principle be made its foundation no part of the structure of international justice can stand. The people of the United States could act upon no other principle; and to the vindication of this principle they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, and everything that they possess. The moral climax of this the culminating and final war for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the test. REPLY TO THE ADDRESSES OF THE IMPE RIAL GERMAN CHANCELLOR, AND THE IMPERIAL AND ROYAL AUSTRO- HUNGARIAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A JOINT SESSION OF THE TWO HOUSES OF CONGRESS, FEBRUARY 11, 1918 In the course of an address delivered on January 24, 1918 before the Reichsrat, Count Czernin, Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, is reported by the Press to have said, explaining the negotiations then in progress with Russia, that while peace could not be matured within twenty-four hours, he was convinced that, " it is now maturing and that the question whether or not an honorable general peace can be secured is merely a question of resistance." Referring to the address of January 8, 1918, he remarked that, " President Wilson s peace offer confirms me in this opinion. Naturally an offer of this kind cannot be regarded as a matter acceptable in every detail, for that obviously would render any negotiations superfluous," that he con sidered, " the recent proposals of President Wilson as an appreciable approach to the Austro-Hungarian point of view, and that to some of them Austria- Hungary joyfully could give her approval," and finally, that, " It is obvious to me that an exchange of views between America and Austria-Hungary might form the starting point for a conciliatory discussion among all the States which have not yet entered into peace negotiations." GENTLEMEN OF THE CONGRESS: On the eighth of January I had the honor of ad dressing you on the objects of the war as our people conceive them. The Prime Minister of Great Britain had spoken in similar terms on the fifth of January. To these addresses the German Chancellor replied on the twenty-fourth and Count Czernin, for Austria, on 364 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 365 the same day. It is gratifying to have our desire so promptly realized that all exchanges of view on this great matter should be made in the hearing of all the world. Count Czernin s reply, which is directed chiefly to my own address of the eighth of January, is uttered in a very friendly tone. He finds in my statement a suffi ciently encouraging approach to the views of his own Government to justify him in believing that it furnishes a basis for a more detailed discussion of purposes by the two Governments. He is represented to have inti mated that the views he was expressing had been com municated to me beforehand and that I was aware of them at the time he was uttering them : but in this I am sure he was misunderstood. I had received no intima tion of what he intended to say. There was, of course, no reason why he should communicate privately with me. I am quite content to be one of his public audience. Count von Hertling s reply is, I must say, very vague and very confusing. It is full of equivocal phrases and leads it is not clear where. But it is cer tainly in a very different tone from that of Count Czernin, and apparently of an opposite purpose. It confirms, I am sorry to say, rather than removes, the unfortunate impression made by what we had learned of the conferences at Brest-Litovsk. His discussion and acceptance of our general principles lead him to no practical conclusions. He refuses to apply them to the substantive items which must constitute the body of any final settlement. He is jealous of international action 366 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY and of international counsel. He accepts, lie says, the principle of public diplomacy, but he appears to insist that it be confined, at any rate in this case, to gen eralities and that the several particular questions of territory and sovereignty, the several questions upon whose settlement must depend the acceptance of peace by the twenty-three states now engaged in the war, must be discussed and settled, not in general council, but sev erally by the nations most immediately concerned by interest or neighborhood. He agrees that the seas should be free, but looks askance at any limitation to that freedom by international action in the interest of the common order. He would without reserve be glad to see economic barriers removed between nation and nation, for that could in no way impede the ambitions of the military party with whom he seems constrained to keep on terms. Neither does he raise objection to a limitation of armaments. That matter will be settled of itself, he thinks, by the economic conditions which must follow the war. But the German colonies, he demands, must be returned without debate. He will discuss with no one but the representatives of Russia what disposition shall be made of the peoples and the lands of the Baltic provinces; with no one but the Government of France the "conditions" under which French territory shall be evacuated ; and only with Aus tria what shall be done with Poland. In the determina tion of all questions affecting the Balkan states he defers, as I understand him, to Austria and Turkey; and with regard to the agreements to be entered into concerning the non-Turkish peoples of the present Otto- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 367 man Empire, to the Turkish authorities themselves. After a settlement all around, effected in this fashion, by individual barter and concession, he would have no objection, if I correctly interpret his statement, to a league of nations which would undertake to hold the new balance of power steady against external disturb ance. It must be evident to everyone who understands what this war has wrought in the opinion and temper of the world that no general peace, no peace worth the infinite sacrifices of these years of tragical suffering, can pos sibly be arrived at in any such fashion. The method the German Chancellor proposes is the method of the Congress of Vienna. We cannot and will not return to that. What is at stake now is the peace of the world. What we are striving for is a new international order based upon broad and universal principles of right and justice, no mere peace of shreds and patches. Is it possible that Count von Hertling does not see that, does not grasp it, is in fact living in his thought in a world dead and gone? Has he utterly forgotten the Reichs tag Resolutions of the nineteenth of July, or does he deliberately ignore them 1 ? They spoke of the conditions of a general peace, not of national aggrandizement or of arrangements between state and state. The peace of the_ world depends upon the just settlement of each of the several problems to which I adverted in my recent ad dress to the Congress. I, of course, do not mean that the peace of the world depends upon the acceptance of any particular set of suggestions as to the way in which those problems are to be dealt with. I mean only that 368 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY those problems each and all affect the whole world; that unless they are dealt with in a spirit of unselfish and unbiased justice, with a view to the wishes, the natural connections, the racial aspirations, the security, and the peace of mind of the peoples involved, no perma nent peace will have been attained. They cannot be discussed separately or in corners. None of them con stitutes a private or separate interest from which the opinion of the world may be shut out. Whatever affects the peace affects mankind, and nothing settled by mili tary force, if settled wrong, is settled at all. It will presently have to be reopened. Is Count von Hertling not aware that he is speaking in the court of mankind, that all the awakened nations of the world now sit in judgment on what every public man, of whatever nation, may say on the issues of a conflict which has spread to every region of the world? The Reichstag Resolutions of July themselves frankly accepted the decisions of that court. There shall be no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages. Peoples are not to be handed about from one sov ereignty to another by an international conference or an understanding between rivals and antagonists. Na tional aspirations must be respected; peoples may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. " Self -determination" is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle^ of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. We cannot have gen eral peace for the asking, or by the mere arrangements of a peace conference. It cannot be pieced together out of individual understandings between powerful MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 369 states. All the parties to this war must join in the set tlement of every issue anywhere involved in it ; because what we are seeking is a peace that we can all unite to guarantee and maintain and every item of it must be submitted to the common judgment whether it be right and fair, an act of justice, rather than a bargain be tween sovereigns. The United States has no desire to interfere in European affairs or to act as arbiter in European territorial disputes. She would disdain to take advan tage of any internal weakness or disorder to impose her own will upon another people. She is quite ready to be shown that the settlements she has suggested are not the best or the most enduring. They are only her own provisional sketch of principles and of the way in which they should be applied. But she entered this war because she was made a partner, whether she would or not, in the sufferings and indignities inflicted by the military masters of Germany, against the peace and security of mankind; and the conditions of peace will touch her as nearly as they will touch any other nation to which is entrusted a leading part in the maintenance of civilization. She cannot see her way to peace until the causes of this war are removed, its renewal rendered as nearly as may be impossible. This war had its roots in the disregard of the rights of small nations and of nationalities which lacked the union and the force to make good their claim to deter mine their own allegiances and their own forms of political life. Covenants must now be entered into which will render such things impossible for the future ; 370 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY and those covenants must be backed by the united force of all the nations that love justice and are willing to maintain it at any cost. If territorial settlements and the political relations of great populations which have not the organized power to resist are to be determined by the contracts of the powerful governments which con sider themselves most directly affected, as Count von Hertling proposes, why may not economic questions also? It has come about in the altered world in which we now find ourselves that justice and the rights of peo ples affect the whole field of international dealing as much as access to raw materials and fair and equal conditions of trade. Count von Hertling wants the essential bases of commercial and industrial life to be safeguarded by common agreement and guarantee, but he cannot expect that to be conceded him if the other matters to be determined by the articles of peace are not handled in the same way as items in the final ac counting. He cannot ask the benefit of common agree ment in the one field without according it in the other. I take it for granted that he sees that separate and selfish compacts with regard to trade and the essential materials of manufacture would afford no foundation for peace. Neither, he may rest assured, will separate and selfish compacts with regard to provinces and peoples. Count Czernin seems to see the fundamental ele ments of peace with clear eyes and does not seek to obscure them. He sees that an independent Poland, made up of all the indisputably Polish peoples who lie contiguous to one another, is a matter of European con- MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 371 cern and must of course be conceded ; that Belgium must be evacuated and restored, no matter what sacrifices and concessions that may involve; and that national aspirations must be satisfied, even within his own Em pire, in the common interest of Europe and mankind. If he is silent about questions which touch the interest and purpose of his allies more nearly than they touch those of Austria only, it must of course be because he feels constrained, I suppose, to defer to Germany and Turkey in the circumstances. Seeing and conced ing, as he does, the essential principles involved and the necessity of candidly applying them, he naturally feels that Austria can respond to the purpose of peace as expressed by the United States with less embarrass ment than could Germany. He would probably have gone much farther had it not been for the embarrass ments of Austria s alliances and of her dependence upon Germany. After all, the test of whether it is possible for either government to go any further in this comparison of views is simple and obvious. The principles to be applied are these: First, that each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent ; Second, that peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the balance of power; but that 372 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY Third, every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival states; and Fourth, that all well defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old ele ments of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world. A general peace erected upon such foundations can be discussed. Until such a peace can be secured we have no choice but to go on. So far as we can judge, these principles that we regard as fundamental are already everywhere accepted as imperative except among the spokesmen of the military and annexationist party in Germany. If they have anywhere else been rejected, the objectors have not been sufficiently numerous or influen tial to make their voices audible. The tragical circum stance is that this one party in Germany is apparently willing and able to send millions of men to their death to prevent what all the world now sees to be just. I would not be a true spokesman of the people of the United States if I did not say once more that we entered this war upon no small occasion, and that we can never turn back from a course chosen upon principle. Our resources are in part mobilized now, and we shall not pause until they are mobilized in their entirety. Our armies are rapidly going to the fighting front, and will go more and more rapidly. Our whole strength will be MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 373 put into this war of emancipation, emancipation from the threat and attempted mastery of selfish groups of autocratic rulers, whatever the difficulties and present partial delays. We are indomitable in our power of in dependent action and can in no circumstances consent to live in a world governed by intrigue and force. We believe that our own desire for new international order under which reason and justice and the common inter ests of mankind shall prevail is the desire of enlightened men everywhere. Without that new order the world will be without peace and human life will lack tolerable con ditions of existence and development. Having set our hand to the task of achieving it, we shall not turn back. I hope that it is not necessary for me to add that no word of what I have said is intended as a threat. That is not the temper of our people. I have spoken thus only that the whole world may know the true spirit of America, that men everywhere may know that our pas sion for justice and for self-government is no mere passion of words but a passion which, once set in action, must be satisfied. The power of the United States is a menace to no nation or people. It will never be used in aggression or for the aggrandizement of any selfish in terest of our own. It springs out of freedom and is for the service of freedom. AFTER ONE YEAR OF WAR ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE THIRD LIBERTY LOAN CAMPAIGN, BALTIMORE, APRIL 6, 1918 On February 25, 1918, the Imperial German Chancellor, Count von Hertling, speaking in the Reichstag, said that he could accept the four principles laid down in President Wilson s last address, provided they be recognized by all States and peoples and that the principle of self-determination be applied to Ireland, Egypt and India. He further stated that Germany would not adopt an antagonistic attitude if a proposal be made from Belgium, as Germany had repeatedly announced that it did not contemplate retaining Belgium, although its interests in that country must and should be safeguarded. " Meanwhile," to quote his exact language, " I readily admit that President Wilson s message of February 11 constitutes perhaps a small step toward neutral rapprochement." On March 3, 1918, as indicating the sense in which President Wilson s four principles, with which the Chancellor said he agreed, were to be applied, Germany wrung from Eussia a peace, by the terms of which that country ceded Batum, Kars and Ardahan to Turkey, renounced its sovereignty over Courland, Poland and Lithuania, excepting a part of the province of Grodno, consented to evacuate Lavonia and Esthonia and to recognize Finland and Ukraine as Independent Powers. President Wilson did not reply at the time to Count von Hertling s address, but, taking advantage of the first anniversary of the existence of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government, he stated anew, and at the end of the first year, the reasons which had caused the United States to declare war, the aims and purposes of that war, and the conditions upon which the United States could consent to discuss a peace as equitable as it is hoped to be permanent. FELLOW CITIZENS: This is the anniversary of our acceptance of Ger many s challenge to fight for our right to live and be free, and for the sacred rights of free men everywhere. The Nation is awake. There is no need to call to it. We know what the war must cost, our utmost sacrifice, the lives of our fittest men and, if need be, all that we possess. The loan we are met to discuss is one of the 374 MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 375 least parts of what we are called upon to give and to do, though in itself imperative. The people of the whole country are alive to the necessity of it, and are ready to lend to the utmost, even where it involves a sharp skimping and daily sacrifice to lend out of meager earn ings. They will look with reprobation and contempt upon those who can and will not, upon those who demand a higher rate of interest, upon those who think of it as a mere commercial transaction. I have not come, therefore, to urge the loan. I have come only to give you, if I can, a more vivid conception of what it is for. The reason for this great war, the reason why it had to come, the need to fight it through, and the issues that hang upon its outcome, are more clearly disclosed now than ever before. It is easy to see just what this par ticular loan means because the Cause we are fighting for stands more sharply revealed than at any previous crisis of the momentous struggle. The man who knows least can now see plainly how the cause of Justice stands and what the imperishable thing is he is asked to invest in. Men in America may be more sure than they ever were before that the cause is their own, and that, if it should be lost, their own great Nation s place and mission in the world would be lost with it. I call you to witness, my fellow countrymen, that at no stage of this terrible business have I judged the pur poses of Germany intemperately. I should be ashamed in the presence of affairs so grave, so fraught with the destinies of mankind throughout all the world, to speak with truculence, to use the weak language of hatred or 376 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY vindictive purpose. We must judge as we would be judged. I have sought to learn the objects Germany has in this war from the mouths of her own spokesmen, and to deal as frankly with them as I wished them to deal with me. I have laid bare our own ideals, our own purposes, without reserve or doubtful phrase, and have asked them to say as plainly what it is that they seek. We have ourselves proposed no injustice, no ag gression. We are ready, whenever the final reckoning is made, to be just to the German people, deal fairly with the German power, as with all others. There can be no difference between peoples in the final judgment, if it is indeed to be a righteous judgment. To pro pose anything but justice, even-handed and dispas sionate justice, to Germany at any time, whatever the outcome of the war, would be to renounce and dis honor our own cause. For we ask nothing that we are not willing to accord. It has been with this thought that I have sought to learn from those who spoke for Germany whether it was justice or dominion and the execution of their own will upon the other nations of the world that the German leaders were seeking. They have answered, answered in unmistakable terms. They have avowed that it was not justice but dominion and the unhindered execution of their own will. The avowal has not come from Germany s statesmen. It has come from her military leaders, who are her real rulers. Her statesmen have said that they wished peace, and were ready to discuss its terms whenever their oppo nents were willing to sit down at the conference table MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 377 with them. Her present Chancellor has said, in in definite and uncertain terms, indeed, and in phrases that often seem to deny their own meaning, but with as much plainness as he thought prudent, that he believed that peace should be based upon the principles which we had declared would be our own in the final settlement. At Brest-Litovsk her civilian delegates spoke in similar terms; professed their desire to conclude a fair peace and accord to the peoples with whose fortunes they were dealing the right to choose their own allegiances. But action accompanied and followed the profession. Their military masters, the men who act for Germany and exhibit her purpose in execution, proclaimed a very dif ferent conclusion. We cannot mistake what they have done, in Russia, in Finland, in the Ukraine, in Rou- mania. The real test of their justice and fair play has come. From this we may judge the rest. They are enjoying in Russia a cheap triumph in which no brave or gallant nation can long take pride. A great people, helpless by their own act, lies for the time at their mercy. Their fair professions are forgotten. They no where set up justice, but everywhere impose their power and exploit everything for their own use and aggrandize ment; and the peoples of conquered provinces are in vited to be free under their dominion! Are we not justified in believing that they would do the same things at their western front if they were not there face to face with armies whom even their countless divisions cannot overcome? If, when they have felt their check to be final, they should propose favorable and equitable terms with regard to Belgium and France 378 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY and Italy, could they blame us if we concluded that they did so only to assure themselves of a free hand in Russia and the East? Their purpose is undoubtedly to make all the Slavic peoples, all the free and ambitious nations of the Baltic peninsula, all the lands that Turkey has dominated and misruled, subject to their will and ambition and build upon that dominion an empire of force upon which they fancy that they can then erect an empire of gain and commercial supremacy, an empire as hostile to the Americas as to the Europe which it will overawe, an empire which will ultimately master Persia, India, and the peoples of the Far East. In such a programme our ideals, the ideals of justice and humanity and liberty, / the principle of the free self-determination of nations upon which all the modern world insists, can play no part. They are rejected for the ideals of power, for the principle that the strong must rule the weak, that trade must follow the flag, whether those to whom it is taken welcome it or not, that the peoples of the world are to be made subject to the patronage and overlordship of those who have the power to enforce it. That programme once carried out, America and all who care or dare to stand with her must arm and pre pare themselves to contest the mastery of the World, a mastery in which the rights of common men, the rights of women and of all who are weak, must for the time being be trodden under foot and disregarded, and the old, age-long struggle for freedom and right begin again at its beginning. Everything that America has lived for and loved and grown great to vindicate and bring MESSAGES, ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 379 to a glorious realization will have fallen in utter ruin and the gates of mercy once more pitilessly shut upon mankind ! The thing is preposterous and impossible ; and yet is not that what the whole course and action of the Ger man armies has meant wherever they have moved? I do not wish, even in this moment of utter disillusion ment, to judge harshly or unrighteously. I judge only what the German arms have accomplished with unpity- ing thoroughness throughout every fair region they have touched. What, then, are we to do? For myself, I am ready, ready still, ready even now, to discuss a fair and just and honest peace at any time that it is sincerely pur posed, a peace in which the strong and the weak shall fare alike. But the answer, when I proposed such a peace, came from the German commanders in Russia, and I cannot mistake the meaning of the answer. I accept the challenge. I know that you accept it. All the world shall know that you accept it. It shall appear in the utter sacrifice and self-forgetfulness with which we shall give all that we love and all that we have to redeem the world and make it fit for free men like ourselves to live in. This now is the meaning of all that we do. Let everything that we say, my fellow countrymen, everything that we henceforth plan and accomplish, ring true to this response till the majesty and might of our concerted power shall fill the thought and utterly defeat the force of those who flout and mis prize what we honor and hold dear. Germany has once more said that force, and force alone, shall decide 380 PRESIDENT WILSON S FOREIGN POLICY whether Justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of men, whether Eight as America conceives it or Do minion as she conceives it shall determine the destinies of mankind. There is, therefore, but one response pos sible from us: Force, Force to the utmost, Force with out stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant Force which shall make Eight the law of the world, and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust. APPENDIX APPENDIX (1) MEXICO: THE RECORD OF A CONVERSATION WITH PRESIDENT WILSON l By Samuel G. Blythe "My ideal is an orderly and righteous government in Mexico; but my passion is for the submerged 85 per cent of the people of that Re public, who are now struggling toward liberty." The President closed his fingers into a sinewy fist. He leaned forward in his chair leaned forward as a man leans forward who is about to start on a race, his body taut, his muscles tense. I could see the cords stand out on the back of his neck. His eyes were narrowed, his lips slightly parted, his vigor and earnestness impressive. Bang ! He hit the desk with that clenched fist. The paper knife rattled against the tray and a few open letters stirred a bit from the jar of the blow. "I challenge you," he said, "to cite me an instance in all the his tory of the world where liberty was handed down from above. Lib erty always is attained by the forces working below, underneath, by the great movement of the people. That, leavened by the sense of wrong and oppression and injustice, by the ferment of human rights to be attained, brings freedom." The President relaxed from his tense attitude and smiled. "It is a curious thing," he continued, "that every demand for the establishment of order in Mexico takes into consideration, not order for the benefit of the people of Mexico, the great mass of the popula tion, but order for the benefit of the old-time regime, for the aristo crats, for the vested interests, for the men who are responsible for this very condition of disorder. No one asks for order because order will help the masses of the people to get a portion of their rights and their land; but all demand it so that the great owners of property, the overlords, the hidalgos, the men who have exploited that rich country for their own selfish purposes, shall be able to continue their processes undisturbed by the protests of the people from whom their wealth and power have been obtained. 1 Congressional Record, May 23, 1914. 383 384 APPENDIX "The dangers that beset the Republic are held to be the individual and corporate troubles of these men, not the aggregated injustices that have been heaped on this vastly greater section of the popula tion that is now struggling to recover by force what has always been theirs by right. "They want order the old order; but I say to you that the old order is dead. It is my part, as I see it, to aid in composing those differences so far as I may be able, that the new order, which will have its foundation on human liberty and human rights, shall prevail. We were sitting in the old Cabinet room, on the second floor of the White House, now changed to a library and workroom for the President. Two sides of the walls are lined with books, and oppo site the mantel there hangs a great picture of the signing of the Spanish War peace treaty, showing President McKinley gazing be- nignantly at Secretary Day and the Spanish commissioner, who, seated side by side, are writing their names on the document that formally ended the war of 1898. A great globe stands in the corner a great blue globe, with many lines traced on it, many lines running from Washington to the south. There was a cluster of red roses in the corner, and a little breeze fluttered the curtains of the windows that looked out on the fountain, the wonderful masses of bloom on the flowering trees, the new, soft green of the leaves, and the velvet of the grass. A searchlight played on the tip of the Washington Monument, and, far back, the Dome of the Capitol swam mistily in the silver light of the new moon. The President was in evening dress, and he seemed strong and vigorous as he sat facing me at the side of his desk. He was waiting to go to a conference between the Attorney General, the Secretary of War, and Senator Thomas, of Colorado, over the mining strike in the Senator s State. We talked for three-quarters of an hour. The President went freely and frankly into the situation told his ideals, his hopes, his plans, his conclusions dealing, of course, with the subject in a gen eral rather than in a specific way, because of the length of time I told him must ensue between the talk and the publication of what I might write concerning it, and the knowledge that in a day-to-day event like this, with its constantly shifting series of happenings, summaries must be resorted to rather than immediate comment. As a result of my conversation with the President, which was on the evening of April 27, only a few hours after word had come that Huerta would accept the offer of mediation made by the representa tives of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, I can state these conclusions, APPENDIX 385 which will endure regardless of the outcome of mediation negotiations. The settled policy of the President in regard to Mexico will be as follows : First. The United States, so long as Mr. Wilson is President, will not seek to gain a foot of Mexican territory in any way or under any pretext. When we have finished with Mexico, Mexico will be terri torially intact. Second. No personal aggrandizement by American investors or adventurers or capitalists, or exploitation of that country, will be permitted. Legitimate business interests that seek to develop rather than exploit will be encouraged. Third. A settlement of the agrarian land question by constitu tional means such as that followed in New Zealand, for example will be insisted on. These are the materialistic ideals of President Wilson, the main points he has firmly in his mind. His future policy will rest on these foundations, regardless of what the moment may inject into the situation in the way of minor questions. We talked for a few moments on that April evening of the historic associations of the portion of the White House where we were, which, until the time of President Roosevelt, was used by the Presidents as office and workroom by the clerical force, by the Cabinet, and as the public reception room. It was in this part of the White House that all the preliminaries of the Spanish War were decided on by President McKinley, and it was this portion of the White House that President Lincoln occupied as his office and workroom during the Civil War. Now it makes up a part of the home space in the White House ; but in that library where we were sitting, and where McKinley s Cabinet debated the Spanish War and Lincoln s Cabinet debated the Civil War, a great many of the problems of Mexico, whether war problems or peace problems, have been and will be considered by President Wilson. "Mr. President," I began. "I have recently been through the country somewhat, and I am constantly meeting men who have arrived from various States. I find and they find that, though the people of this country are patriotic and are loyally standing by the administra tion, they do not, as a whole, know just what they are patriotic about." "I have found that to be true, in a measure, myself," said the President, "and I am glad of an opportunity to explain my ideas and my ideals on the subject. He stopped for a moment, as though to select a place for begin ning. I noticed that his face, instead of being pale, as it was the 386 APPENDIX last time I saw him, was burned by the sun; that his eye was clear and bright, and his whole attitude that of a man who is strong and well. I noticed, too, that his hands were not burned by the sun ; and as he talked I watched those hands and observed how he used them constantly not in widespread gestures, but rather in supplementary and interpretative motions, as though he were a musician speaking the score of his music and playing the notes with his fingers as he went along. I doubt whether his hands, except when he thwacked the desk, moved more than twelve inches one way or the other ; but they seemed almost a part of his speech and expressed his various atti tudes of mind and emotion when he proceeded as vividly as did the intonation of his voice and the emphasis of his words. He sat back in his chair and half closed his eyes. His fingers laced and interlaced. Then he began to talk clearly, simply, with a clarity of diction, a sequence of thought, and a lucidity of expres sion that seemed even more remarkable than it really was when compared with the muddied speech of many of our statesmen. Now and then he used a colloquialism. Once or twice he dropped into slang. He spoke of someone "butting in," and he said, "We must hump ourselves." He marshaled his facts with such precision and presented his ideas so cogently that it was apparent his viewpoint was the result of a long and continuous study of every phase of the minor problems involved in the great problem, Why are we in Mexico, and what are we going to do there? "Every phase of the Mexican situation," the President said, "is based on the condition that those in de facto control of the government must be relieved of that control before Mexico can realize her manifest destiny. The President made it clear that the United States has no quarrel with the Mexican people and that the Mexican people should have no quarrel with us. He sketched the conditions in Mexico under Diaz and came to the underlying cause for all the unrest in that country for many years. This, he said, was the fight for the land just that and nothing more. He pointed out how the landed aristocracy, originally given con trol of vast tracts of land by Spanish grants, had during succeeding years, by coercion, absorption, and by other methods of force, and with the support of the Government, taken away from the small land owners most of their properties and had created the feudal estates, where the people were virtually slaves. These processes were followed by the passage of a general law which made legal the condemnation of all land to the State that was APPENDIX 387 not secured by a title which complied with provisions in the law that made most of the titles, of the properties the landed aristocracy wanted, easy of annulment. Farm after farm passed into the control of the big landowners, and there was no recourse for the former owners or for their families but to work at dictated terms and prac tically as slaves on the land that had formerly been theirs. "Fortunately for the peons, but unfortunately for himself," the President continued, "Diaz permitted the establishment of a public school system. He himself said he raised up the instrument that brought about his own destruction the school system." Weak and incomplete as this school system was and is, it never theless had the effect of helping in great measure toward the partial education of a sufficient number of the peons to make it easy for agi tators to start revolutions. Revolutions were started. Finally there came the successful revolution of Madero and his supporters and the exile of Diaz. This was followed by the killing of Madero and the assumption of power by Huerta. The present revolution, like all preceding revolutions, is primarily a revolution by the peons who want to regain their land. "To some extent," the President said, "the situation in Mexico is similar to that in France at the time of the revolution. There are wide differences in many ways," he continued, "but the basic situa tion has many resemblances." After the accession of Huerta the President definitely decided not to recognize that alleged government and remained firm in that re solve. However, for many months he has not been unaware that a situation was developing which would force him to make an active movement against Mexico, or the alleged Huerta government of Mexico, and would bring about such a condition as existed at the time mediation was suggested. "It has been a difficult situation," he said, "because so many elements of it have been without our control and our territory. In a domestic matter we can see our way clear, because ordinarily all the elements are within our view and consideration ; but here was a trouble that had its active movements in another and an adjacent and a some what remote country, and we were forced to sit and watch and await such developments as might be. I have known for months that some such thing could happen was inevitable, in fact and my prayer was that it might not be a calamity." Then came the incident at Tampico. Rear Admiral Mayo, resent ing the insult to the flag, issued his demand for an apology, and the President and his Cabinet stepped in behind the admiral. 388 APPENDIX "Really," said the President, "it was a psychological moment, if that phrase is not too trite to be used. There was no great disaster like the sinking of the Maine, and there was an adequate reason for our action in this culminating insult of a series of insults to our country and our flag. The President followed with his emphatic declaration that his pas sion is for the great masses of the Mexican people, and his statement that his sole object in Mexico is to help the people secure the liberty which he holds is fully theirs by right. "The function of being a policeman in Mexico has not appealed to me, nor does it appeal to our people," he said. "Our duty is higher than that. If we are to go in there, restore order, and immedi ately get out, and invite a repetition of conflict similar to that which is in progress now, we had better have remained out. "What we must do and what we hope to do are twofold: First, we hope to show the world that our friendship for Mexico is a dis interested friendship, so far as our own aggrandizement goes; and, second, we hope to prove to the world that the Monroe Doctrine is not what the rest of the world, including some of the countries in this hemisphere, contends merely an excuse for the gaining of territory for ourselves. "I hold this to be a wonderful opportunity to prove to the world that the United States of America is not only human but humane ; that we are actuated by no other motives than the betterment of the con ditions of our unfortunate neighbor, and by the sincere desire to ad vance the cause of human liberty. / The situation, he pointed out, is intolerable, and requires the strong guiding hand of the great Nation on this continent that, by very appeal of right and justice, and the love for order, and the hope for peace and prosperity, must assist these warring people back into the paths of quiet and prosperity. We have an object lesson to give to the rest of the world: an object lesson that will prove to the skeptical outsiders that this Nation rises superior to considerations of added power and scorns an opportunity for territorial aggrandize ment; an object lesson that will show to the people of this, our own, hemisphere that we are sincerely and unselfishly the friends of all of them, and particularly the friends of the Mexican people, with no other idea than the idea and the ideal of helping them compose their differences, starting them on the road to continued peace and renewed )rosperity, and leaving them to work out their own destiny, but matching them narrowly and insisting that they shall take help when help is needed. APPENDIX 389 "I have not permitted myself to think of what will be the out come of these plans for mediation," the President said. "I hope they may be successful. In any event, we shall deem it our duty to help the Mexican people, and we shall continue until we have satis factory knowledge that peace has been restored, that a constitutional government is reorganized, and that the way is open for the peaceful reorganization of that harassed country. "We shall not demand a foot of territory nor a cent of money \ except, of course, the settlement of such claims as may justly be made J by American citizens for damages to their property during these dis turbances individual claims. There will be no money demand in a national sense. Then we shall have shown the entire world that the Monroe Doctrine means an unselfish friendship for our neighbors a disinterested friendship, in the sense of not being interested in our aggrandizement and that our motives are only the motives inspired by the higher humanity, by our sense of duty and responsibility, and by our determination that human liberty shall prevail in our hemi sphere. The President paused. He had been intensely in earnest in his talk. He smiled, and his long white fingers wove themselves in and out. Then, with a little gesture that betokened amused contempt, he continued : They say the Mexicans are not fitted for self-government ; and to this I reply that, when properly directed, there is no people not fitted V for self-government. The very fact that the extension of the school system by Diaz brought about a certain degree of understanding among some of the people, which caused them to awaken to their wrongs and to strive intelligently for their rights, makes that con tention absurd. I do not hold that the Mexican peons are at present as . capable of self-government as other people ours, for example but 1 1 do hold that the widespread sentiment that they never will be andij never can be made to be capable of self-government is as wickedly false as it is palpably absurd." He paused again. "Did you see that dispatch we gave out, from Consul General Hanna, which detailed his experiences with the army at Torreon? It was a sort of diary of his adventures and a record of what he saw. We gave it all out ; but the latter part of it was not widely printed, for the first part of it was full of bloody details of the battle. I sup pose" and he smiled whimsically again "I suppose the editors felt there was no particular interest in the peaceful and gratifying in formation that was in the latter portion of the dispatch. 390 APPENDIX "Well, if you read that dispatch, you learned that Mr. Hanna was most agreeably surprised and greatly gratified by the treatment Villa s men gave their prisoners ; how they endeavored to live up to the rules of civilized warfare ; how they were constantly on the lookout for new information that would relieve them of the stigma of being bar barians. This merely shows that these people, if they get the chance, are capable of learning and are anxious to learn." The President returned to the question of mediation and what it might bring forth, but has not information beyond the general knowl edge that Huerta had accepted the friendly offices of the self -proposed mediators. I asked him whether, in the event of successful mediation, his plans for the betterment of Mexico would be carried out. "I hope so," he replied, "for it is not my intention, having begun this enterprise, to turn back unless I am forced to do so until I have assurances that the great and crying wrongs the people have endured are in process of satisfactory adjustment. Of course, it would not do for us to insist on an exact procedure for the partition of the land, for example, for that would set us up in the position of dictators, which we are not and never shall be ; but it is not our inten tion to cease in our friendly offices until we are assured that all these matters are on their way to successful settlement. It is a great and a complicated question, but I have every hope that a suitable solution will be found, and that the day will come when the Mexican people will be put in full possession of the land, the liberty, and the peaceful prosperity that are rightfully theirs." President Wilson banged the desk again. His smile vanished and his face became stern and set. "And eventually," he said slowly, "I shall fight every one of these men who are now seeking and who will then be seeking to exploit Mexico for their own selfish ends. I shall do what I can to keep Mexico from their plundering. There shall be no individual exploita tion of Mexico if I can stop it." He walked over to the big blue globe. "It is a wonderful country," he said as he put his finger on Mexico, "a wonderful country. There is every advantage there for the peaceful and prosperous pursuit of happiness. Have you ever noticed that if you draw a line straight south from New York it will touch the western coast of South America instead of the eastern, and that it runs along by Chile and Peru, and the other countries on the western side of the southern continent? : "Thus, with the Panama Canal running practically north and feouth, this brings these countries which have been so remote into close APPENDIX 391 touch with us, and the commerce of this Western Hemisphere will/ brood over Central America. What we desire to do, and what we shall do, is to show our neigh bors to the south of us that their interests are identical with our inter ests ; that we have no plans or any thoughts of our own exaltation, but have in view only the peace and the prosperity of the people in our hemisphere. The little clock on the bookcase struck nine. The President rose. He walked down the stairs with me, and took his hat to go across to his office, where there was to be a conference on the vexing situation in Colorado. As we parted at the end of the corridor he held out his hand and said: "It will be a great thing not only to have helped humanity by restoring order, but to have gone further than that by laying the j secure foundations for that liberty without which there can be noJ happiness." 392 APPENDIX (2) THE PRESIDENT S MEXICAN POLICY PRESENTED IN AN AUTHORIZED INTERVIEW BY SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR FRANKLIN K. LANE, JULY 16, 1916 President Wilson s Mexican policy is one of the things of which, as a member of his administration, I am most proud. It shows so well his abounding faith in humanity, his profound philosophy of democracy, and his unshakable belief in the ultimate triumph of lib erty, justice, and right. He has never sought the easy solution of any of the difficult questions that have arisen in the last three years. He has always sought the right solution. Mr. Wilson s Mexican policy has not been weak and vacillating. It has been definite and consistent, firm and constructive. How firm is already known to those who have sought to force American inter vention in Mexico; how constructive will best be appreciated fifty years from now by the whole world. It was to Mexico perhaps more than to anything that the President referred the other day when he said that he was playing for the verdict of mankind. "The policy of the United States toward Mexico is a policy of hope and of helpfulness; it is a policy of Mexico for the Mexicans. That, after all, is the traditional policy of this country it is the policy that drove Maximilian out of Mexico." Secretary of the Interior Lane made this statement to me at his summer camp on the shores of Lake Champlain, and then he launched out into a forceful declaration of the principles underlying President Wilson s Mexican policy and proceeded to give the reasons for his conviction that the President was right when he refused to recognize Huerta, and declared that the murderer of Madero must go, right when he occupied the port of Vera Cruz, right when he accepted the offer of mediation extended by the ABC, right when he abided by the agreement reached at Niagara Falls, right when he withdrew from Vera Cruz, right when he recognized Carranza as head of the de facto Government, and right when he sent the United States Army into Mexico after the bandit raid on Columbus. Mr. Lane said: "The doctrine of force is always fighting with the doctrine of sympathy, and the trouble with the two schools of warism and pacifism is that neither one will recognize that both philosophies have a part to play in the life of every individual and of every nation and in APPENDIX 393 the production and advancement of that strange thing we call civiliza tion. "Now, the doctrine of force has been worked to its limit in Mexico. President Wilson believes that the doctrine of sympathy should have its chance in that country and this is the foundation of his Mexican policy. Not that Mexico wants our sympathy. It does not and that is one of the great difficulties we have to contend with. Another is that it takes a long while to make a Mexican believe that we intend his country good and not evil. The people of Mexico have inherited the pride of Aragon, and the thing above all others that they do not want and will not stand for is that kind of sympathy which is nothing but pity. "The sympathy that Mexico needs is the sympathy of under standing. The United States should be what the Latin Americans call muy simpatico. We have no exact English equivalent for that expression, but if there is one thing it does not mean it is sympathy as we Americans use the word. Uncle Sam will be muy simpatico to the Mexican people only when he has a conscientious regard for and realization of the feelings and the desires of the Mexican and understands his best side, his aspiring nature. "Mexico is a bad neighbor now. There is no use in denying this. We live at peace with Canada on our northern border, without a soldier along 3,000 miles of land, while, as a matter of necessity, we are obliged to keep an armed force on our Mexican border all of the time, and have now gathered there the largest army assembled in the United States since the Civil War. The superficial reason for this is that Mexico cannot settle her own troubles at home and that the de facto government has been unable to prevent bandits from harass ing us. "Our neighbor s sewage is running over into our lot, and we must find some way to stop it even if we have to go over the boundary line and stop the pipes ourselves. This is the easiest thing in the world to say. but to respect the letter of the law and at the same time abate a nuisance that is not on your own property is one of the most diffi cult things in the world. "Mexico will always be a nuisance to us until a few fundamental reforms are put into effect there. If it is to be lasting, however, someone inside of Mexico must do it. It cannot be done by us unless we are prepared not only to conquer Mexico but to annex Mexico. We should not only have to make war on Mexico and impose peace by force, but after giving it a preliminary cleaning up we should have to establish and maintain indefinitely a government there." 394 APPENDIX I asked Secretary Lane to go over the history of the past six years in Mexico with me and to tell the World the reasons which had gov erned the policy and actions of the United States Government as each emergency arose. In complying with this request Mr. Lane said: "Diaz was a great man, a very great man. I doubt if, with the possible exception of Bismarck, there was a greater man alive in his day. After the Czar of Russia he was the most absolute despot of modern times. He built a monument to himself, which I believe is still standing, to celebrate thirty years of peace in Mexico, and all the nations of the earth sent representatives to its unveiling. Within two years he was an exile because that monument represented order alone and the aspirations of only a very small portion of his people. "The peace that he had maintained was an imposed peace not coming from the people themselves. Diaz ruled by fear. He had gone into office with promises upon his lips, and I am willing to be lieve that he meant to keep them. But once in power he was appalled by the span of years necessary for the slow process of constructive civilization, and he determined that to gain time Mexico was to be saved by two things, force and wealth. "And so, while observing to some extent the letter of the con stitution he cynically avoided its spirit. He always placed property rights before human rights. Although he sought to improve, and did improve, Mexico s material condition it was without even so much as a thought of her moral progress. He kept the masses of the people in subjection by keeping them in ignorance. "When he died eighty-three per cent of the people could neither read nor write, and as far as her political development went, Mexico was no further forward and no more fitted for self-government than in 1821, when, having wrested her independence from Spain, she was first recognized as a sovereign nation by the United States. "During Diaz s time I had a very interesting talk with a great lawyer in Mexico City who was an officeholder in the Diaz regime. I asked him the current question: After Diaz, what? To my sur prise the man said: I am a Constitutionalist. Either before Diaz dies or immediately upon his death a revolution will break out in Mexico having for its purpose three things the restoration of the land to the people, the establishment of public schools throughout the country, and a judicial system in which the courts will decide according to law and not according to executive desires. "The Madero revolution followed exactly on these lines, but Madero was a dreamer, an idealist, a man who took his constitution seriously and who failed for two reasons, or rather because of two APPENDIX 395 weaknesses of his own character. He was not strong enough to sup press the rapacious rascals who surrounded him. and he was not practical enough to deliver the goods that he had promised. Men in Madero s own government saw in his revolution only another oppor tunity for getting rich quick, and they ruined him while he was still dreaming. "Huerta was his commander-in-chief, a soldier trained by Diaz and dominated by Diaz s friends. He, too, believed in saving Mexico by force and wealth ; he was in complete sympathy with the philosophy expressed in the Diaz administration. There is no truth in the oft- repeated allegation that all the trouble with Mexico would have been avoided if President Wilson had recognized Huerta. I ask anyone who wishes to be fair to this administration to look back three years and read the newspapers of that day and the debates in Congress in which the murder of Madero and Suarez was denounced. "Had we recognized Huerta or had we not taken a positive stand against him, the criticism this administration has received for the policy we have pursued would be as nothing to what would now overwhelm us. "Who were the American statesmen who demanded Huerta s recognition? What one of our leaders of either party set forth the principles upon which a better feeling between this country and all of our sister Republics of the South could be stimulated by taking a position that was abhorrent to our American conscience? "We know what we have suffered in the past three years, and it is too easy now to say that all this would have been avoided if Huerta had been recognized, but the only demand made at that time by the more solid of our men of affairs who were antagonistic to the administration s policy was that we should intervene ; that we should bring order to Mexico by force. "No one then believed and no one really believes now that the recognition of Huerta would have solved the Mexican problem. We do know, however, one thing that we were not conscious of then, that Huerta himself had so slight a hold upon Mexico that he did not dare to leave the capital and that he was to all intents and purposes a prisoner of the reactionaries, able only to reach the sea at its nearest point. "Although it is self-evident that this country, as the champion of constitutional government in America, can never recognize a military despotism based upon assassination, it is not necessary to call Huerta an assassin in order to justify our refusal to recognize him. His attempted dictatorship was but a fiction of government. With the elected President and Vice-President murdered and the minister of 396 APPENDIX state, who was their lawful successor, cowed into submission, Huerta took the reins of power at the best as a temporary stop-gap. ; The revolution against Huerta broke out immediately upon the news of Madero s death. The correspondence between Huerta and Carranza recently published shows that every practical inducement was held out to Carranza to put an end to his revolutionary move ment. To Carranza s credit, be it said, he refused to come to terms with those who he believed had been the cause of the President s death and who had set to one side the laws of his country. " It is not to be forgotten that Huerta did not pretend even to be a constitutional ruler. He sent word to the United States that he had taken the Government of Mexico into his own hands and that he was all the law that was to be found in Mexico. His statement was so bold that even the Supreme Court of Mexico uttered a feeble protest, which was somewhat more loudly echoed in the Mexican Senate. In the face of this Huerta asked for recognition from the United States, but President Taft felt that he could not conscientiously grant it, and he left the problem to be dealt with by his successor, who had already been elected. That was the situation when President Wilson took office. Could President Wilson have recognized Huerta ? Surely there can be but one answer to that question No! To have recognized Huerta would have been a twofold injustice : First, to the people of Mexico, and, secondly, to all the people of South and Central America. To give to the commander-in-chief of an army recognition as President under such circumstances would have been to announce to all ambitious military officers that they had but to ally themselves with a successful junta, seize the Government by force, murder the lawful incumbents, and announce the overthrow of all law and a supreme military dictatorship in order to gain the recognition of the United States, we being thoroughly aware of all that had happened. "Americans are justified in the pride that through the operation of the Monroe Doctrine there is gradually growing up in the New World a civilization that will make old-time revolutionary methods impossible, that will carry forward all of the twenty-one Republics to the unification of our international interests in the true spirit of Pan Americanism. We have so amplified the Monroe Doctrine that we are virtually the copartners of the Republics to the south of us, and to proclaim that the violation of their constitutional laws would not in the slightest interfere with our recognition of a conspiracy to murder lawful executives and overthrow their established republican forms of government would have been rightly considered by the American APPENDIX 397 people as the most cowardly and short-sighted policy imaginable. Condemnation would have arisen not -only from the people of the United States but from all the nations of the Pan American Union. "During Huerta s regime we learned much of the ability of the Mexican as a casuist. The notes that came from Mexico were models of the seventeenth-century style of diplomatic state paper. President j X Wilson attempted, it will be remembered, to find a basis upon which there could be set up in Mexico a government that we could recog nize. There was nothing peremptory about our attitude in the be ginning of the diplomatic exchanges. "Our whole effort was to the obtaining of a republican form of government in Mexico which would have the people back of it, and guarantees against the establishment of an absolutism on our southern border under which the people of Mexico would so chafe that we should have a constant state of revolution there. "Many of the best Mexicans were in sympathy with the attitude that the United States took toward Huerta. They knew that stability of government was not to be hoped for under a man of his tempera ment and disposition. After it became evident, by continued nego tiation which ended nowhere, that Huerta was standing, so to speak, in the City of Mexico heaping insolence on the United States, Presi dent Wilson gave notice that Huerta must go. "Then followed the Tampico incident. Our sailors landed at Tampico and were arrested, marched through the streets in ignominy, and eventually returned to their boat. The admiral in charge was so incensed at their treatment that he immediately made upon Huerta a demand that a national salute should be fired in atonement for the insult to the flag. Again the Mexican Government attempted to con tinue its policy of diplomatic quibbling. "Meanwhile the revolution had gained such headway in the north that it was difficult from day to day to say which force had or occu pied the greatest portion of Mexican territory. Huerta was keeping up his resistance because he was being supplied with ammunition from abroad. A ship was reported ready to land at Vera Cruz with a cargo of arms, and as a warning to Huerta and in proof of the seri ousness of our purpose to bring Huerta to a recognition of our atti tude, the order was given to seize the custom house and occupy the port of Vera Cruz. "We did not go to Vera Cruz to force Huerta to salute the flag. We did go there to show Mexico that we were in earnest in our demand that Huerta must go. and he went before our forces were withdrawn. The occupation of Vera Cruz was carried out without difficulty, with 398 APPENDIX the loss of nineteen of our brave sailors and marines, and if aggres sion and intervention had been our aim we could have easily seized the railroad to Mexico City and occupied the capital. "The menacing attitude of the Mexican troops surrounding our force of occupation at Vera Cruz made hostilities appear imminent, and again the strongest kind of pressure was brought to bear upon the President to intervene, that we should go into Mexico and take matters into our own hands. This is the one thing that the President has set his face against from the first. It is the thing to which this administration is opposed so long as any other hope holds out." "But, Mr. Secretary," I asked, "could not the United States have done in Mexico what it did in Cuba?" "No," said Mr. Lane, "we could not. That is a very common delusion, but the Mexican situation is not at all that which we met in Cuba. We went in there at the request of the revolutionists and after the Maine had been sunk in Havana harbor, and such authority as there was in Cuba had thus evidenced its hostility. We could go in and did go in there with some heart, fighting alongside of the revolutionists against a monarchy, but we could not go in with any heart to fight against the Mexicans who are struggling to find a way to popular government. But to return to the facts : "We had sought to bring to our sympathetic support all of the South American countries. They also were anxious for a settlement of this trouble upon some basis that would safeguard the interests of Mexico and conserve that unity which is the soul of the great Pan American movement. Some of them thought that they saw a greedy hand from the north reaching down with no benevolent purpose, and if it laid hold of Mexico none of them knew but that it might be their turn next. This fear of the big brother is a very real one in Latin America. They do not know us intimately; they are suspicious of our motives. They think of the Mexican War of 1846 as an unjustifiable aggression on our part; they think of the Panama incident as a robbery; they misconstrue our purpose in Santo Domingo, and in Nicaragua, and they do not trust us. They fear that the spirit of imperialism is upon the American people and that the Monroe Doctrine may be construed some day as a doctrine that will give the whole Western Hemisphere to the United States ; that it is a doctrine of selfishness and not a doc trine of altruism. "Those who are familiar with the feeling of the South and Central American countries toward the United States know that just at that time, when our forces occupied Vera Cruz, a very intense fear had APPENDIX 399 seized upon Latin America. They believed in their hearts that we were on our march southward and that the President s Mobile speech and other generous utterances of the same sort were to be taken in a Pickwickian sense. When they presented a plan of mediation, the United States had no choice but to accept it. Indeed, if we had refused to accept it, Latin America would have been justified in doubting our good faith. No one that I am aware of, either ^Republican or Democrat, has ever criticized the President for accepting the mediation of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, and abiding strictly by the agreement reached at Niagara Falls. "By the protocols there signed on June 23, 1914, the United States agreed that the selection of a provisional and constitutional President be left wholly to the Mexicans, and we guaranteed our recognition of them when chosen. This made clear our desire not to interfere in any way in the settlement of Mexico s domestic troubles, and as a further proof of our disinterested friendship for the Mexican people the United States agreed not to claim any war indemnity or other international satisfaction from Mexico. We had gone to Vera Cruz to serve mankind. Our only quarrel was with Huerta, and Huerta got out on July 16, 1914. Our forces were withdrawn from Vera Cruz on November 23 following. "Three days after Huerta left Mexico Villa began levying taxes on his own authority, and it was plain that the successful revolution ists would soon be fighting between themselves. Both Carranza and Villa agreed to a conference at Aguascalientes, and it was stipulated that no soldiers were to be there ; but Villa turned up with an armed force that terrorized the convention and prevented it from recog nizing Carranza, and in a short while open warfare began between the two factions. "Villa and Carranza had broken, and there was a double sov ereignty claimed even on our border in northern Mexico. Things were going from bad to worse, and it was suggested in the Cabinet that there should be some determination by the United States as to which of the rival claimants to power in Mexico as leader of a suc cessful revolution should be recognized as a de facto government. "Secretary of State Lansing thereupon called a conference of the representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala and asked them, from their knowledge of the situation for a considerable portion of the information in the hands of the United States came through the representatives of these countries in Mexico to co-operate with him in the determination of the claimant to be 400 APPENDIX recognized. These six Latin-American Catholic countries unani mously recommended the recognition of Carranza, and in furtherance of our Pan American policy this recognition was at once given by the United States and Latin America. " Since Carranza s recognition we have seen Americans who have gone into Mexico on peaceful errands murdered; we have seen our own towns upon the border raided and Americans slain on American soil. These outrages prompted President Wilson to send our troops into Mexico, and this course cannot be otherwise construed than as a recognition of the fact that the de facto Government of Mexico, recognized by ourselves and by other nations, is not fulfilling the duty which one Government owes to another. "We are in Mexico to-day, and how long we shall stay and how far we shall go depends upon the policy and the power to keep the peace of the Carranza Government, but we shall go no further than we have gone until every effort to secure effective Mexican eo-opera- 7" n fails." Then Mr. Lane proceeded to an examination of the principles governing the policy of the United States toward Mexico and of the needs of the Mexican people. He said : There are things that a democracy must always be willing to fight for. But what thing is there that any American can say we ought to be willing to fight for in Mexico? Is it because railroads built with American capital have been damaged, that mines have been shut down, or even that American citizens have been killed by outlaws and bandits? "All those things we can and do very much regret, but who will say they are great principles for which a democracy should be willing to sacrifice the blood of its sons ? Who can formulate out of the whole history of the past six years any other determination than this : That we should resist the temptation to fight where pride and interest move us in that direction, and that we should and will fight when we are attacked and when we find no other means by which our inter ests can be safeguarded and Mexico be given any hope of itself? "We have been on the edge of war with Mexico several times in the last three years, but each time, before the determination was made that we should discard our hopes, there has opened some way by which reasonable men might expect that Mexico could prove herself able to take care of her own problems. The one man who can justifiably criticize President Wilson for his Mexican policy is the man who hon estly believes that Mexico cannot be brought to stability of government and responsibility except through the exercise of outside force. That APPENDIX 401 man is consistent, and the only criticism I have to make of him is a criticism of his judgment. "There is no question that we could easily overrun Mexico. I believe we could do it with a comparatively few men, although we would have a united Mexico against us. There would be no glory in such a war, and there is not one man in ten thousand in this country who really wants such a war. It would be repugnant to every Ameri can tradition and would discourage the friendship of every other American nation. Of course we could conquer Mexico, and after a good deal of guerrilla warfare we could bring Mexico to a state of quiet. "Then we could hold her while we administered to her the medi cine that we believe she needs. We could have what we call a general cleaning up, the rebuilding of her railroads, of her wagon roads, the construction of sewers for her cities, the enforcement of health regu lations, and all the other things that go to make up the outward and visible signs of order and good government. "But don t you see that the peace we would bring would be a peace imposed by force, the government we would give to Mexico would be the kind of government that we have and which makes life tolerable to us in our communities ? Its standards would not be Mexi can standards, its ideals would not be Mexican ideals, its genius would not be Mexican genius. The moment we withdrew from Mexico there would be a return after a very short time to Mexican standards. "What Mexico really needs and must be allowed to do is to raise her own standards; it is to give herself a cleaning up by herself. That is bound to take time, but in no other way can Mexico get a government that will be expressive of her own ideals, that will be expressive of some aspiration of her own as to what her civilization should be, and in this we want to be of help to Mexico if she will allow us to do so. The Mexican problem, as a problem, depends upon your attitude toward other peoples. Mexico is a land to conquer, and the Mexican people are a people to be conquered and subordinated and the country and its resources made ours, if you look upon a smaller and less highly civilized country as a proper object of exploitation. On the other hand, Mexico is a country out of which something greater can be made, and the Mexican people are a people who have possibilities and can be helped to become a self-governing nation, and if you take that attitude toward Mexico you are bound to sympathize with their struggle upward. 402 APPENDIX "In other words, where we find that conditions justify revolu tion, if we think it our business to go in and work the revolution to our profit, we must condemn the President s policy; but if, where we find conditions justify revolution, we want to give that revolution a chance to work out from the inside, we must hold up his hands." "What are the things that Mexico needs, Mr. Secretary?" I asked. "What is necessary for a return to peace and order?" Mr. Lane said : The things that Mexico needs are few, but they are fundamental. A land-tax system which will make it impossible to hold great bodies of idle land for selfish reasons and which will make it unnecessary for the Government to sell concessions in order to support itself. A school system by which popular education may be given to all the people as it is given in the United States. If Diaz had done this, as he promised, he would have created an active public opinion in Mexico which would have made present conditions impossible. "Along with the primary schools should go agricultural schools in which modern methods of agriculture should be taught. The army might well be used as a sanitation corps, so as to insure against the recurrence of those plagues which so affect trade relations with Mexico and the health of her people. With these things, Mexico would be well started on her way toward that better era which her more intelligent revolutionists thought she had reached in the early days of the Diaz administration, some forty years ago. "Everyone in Mexico is united upon the proposition that the present land system is based upon privilege and is unjust. I have talked with twenty of the wealthiest and most intelligent men who belonged to the Diaz regime. All have admitted the fact. Some have even volunteered the statement that Mexico is in a feudal state, and that the land belongs to great proprietors, who work the peons and keep them in a semi-slave condition. If the facts were better realized, the people of the United States would not stand for the labor condi tions that exist in Mexico, and for the peonage, which is only a form of slavery. I have some personal knowledge of these conditions. One morning ten years ago I was on a coffee finca a great estate high up in the Sierra Madre and I asked a peasant who labored from sunrise to sunset what he was getting for his day s work. His answer was 60 cents in Guatemalan money, which was equal to 10 cents gold. Here was a strong, able-bodied agricultural laborer earning $3 a month. I asked him why he did not go down to the railroad, where the American contractors would pay him 50 cents or more a day. His answer was, I would not be from here one mile before Don APPENDIX 403 Porfirio would have reached out his hand and drawn me back to jail. I said, Why could he arrest you? and the answer given me, falter- ingly and in fear, was, Because I owe the store. He had lived and worked on that finca for twelve years ; alive or dead, he is there to-day, unless he has run away to join an army in the revolution. I asked that Mexican peon where he had come from, and he pointed across the mountains to a valley where his people had lived for a thousand years. Why did you leave there? I inquired. His answer was that Don Porfirio had given the land where he was born to a Chinaman. "From an investigation I made myself I found out that this was literally true; that the land, which was the hereditary possession of these Indians, had been taken from them by the Government and given to a greater company on terms which one can only guess; that the company had sold the land to a syndicate, in which there were no Americans, upon condition that it should be populated under a law somewhat similar to our homestead law, with the reservation that it was neither to go to Mexican natives nor to citizens of the United States, and the immigrants with which the syndicate was populating that part of Mexico were Chinamen. I crossed a bridge on the Camino Keal. The last time I crossed that bridge, said the peon who was with me, the governor of the State was lying there dead. He had become ambitious and presented to the people a program of reform. Doubtless he hoped to be another Juarez, and Don Porfirio had ended his ambitions. The peon of Mexico and out of possibly 15,000,000 inhabitants at least 12,000,000 are peons is a kindly and gentle creature under normal conditions, disregardful of his own life but not anxious to make war on anyone. The peon has it forced upon his mind that he belongs to a definite sphere of life, and so he is without ambition and without foresight; but he is not without intelligence, and he makes an excellent workman when taught. All he needs is a chance to live and a chance to learn, land to cultivate, and schools to go to. Is it conceivable that to add to the miseries of these struggling people any American citizen would want to make war on them? "We of the United States have the impulse that all virile people have. We feel conscious of our ability to do a job in nation making much better than anyone else. Read over Kipling s poem, The White Man s Burden. It was not so much the white man s duty to clean up insanitary conditions on the outskirts of civilization and to develop the backward peoples of the earth that he was expressing as it was our perfect, self-complacent appreciation of our supreme 404 APPENDIX ability to do the cleaning up better than any other people on the face of the globe. "There is a good deal of the special policeman, of the sanitary engineer, of the social worker, and of the welfare dictator about the American people. We are quite conscious that in the development of this great country of ours, in our march across the continent, we have done a perfectly good job, and the pioneering spirit is very much alive. It is one of the most fundamental instincts that has made white men give to the world its history for the last thousand years. "As a great Nation, dedicated to democracy, we cannot under take a war of conquest against a people because their moral develop ment has been neglected by their former rulers. We can, however, insist, and we must insist, that these people shall make safe our borders and give protection to the lives and property of our nationals who have settled in Mexico at her invitation." "But is there no way, Mr. Secretary, in which the United States can help Mexico on the road to progress?" I asked. Mr. Lane said: "To directly offer help to Mexico would be looked upon by them as an insult, like slapping them in the face. This is a kind of pride that is purely Latin. It is an inheritance that comes to Mexico by way of Spain along with the ideals that Cervantes ridicules in Don Quixote ; but it is so real a thing that no progress can be made with out recognizing it. So I say that to tell Mexico what she shall do in our straight-out American fashion, to say to Mexico, We are going to help you without being invited to do so, is equivalent under present conditions to a declaration of war. "The Mexicans do not believe in our professions of altruism. We must say to Mexico one of two things : Either you must keep our border safe and protect the rights of our nationals in Mexico, which you have not done, or we will invade your country and restore order ourselves; or we must say to Mexico, We understand the effort you are making to give the people a chance for life, liberty, and the pur suit of happiness, and we will gladly help you if you ask our help to accomplish this end. "The last is the policy that the United States has been seeking to put into effect. The difficulty in doing this arises almost solely out of the difficulty we Americans have in persuading the peoples of Latin America that our intentions are really honest. "Nor is this altogether to be wondered at. Latin America has known the American chiefly as a seeker after concessions, a land grabber and an exploiter. Even where the American has bought property, as many have who to-day hold perfectly legal title to the APPENDIX 405 land, they are absentee landlords, and every just criticism that the Irishman has had to make against the absentee English landlord can be made against the absentee American landlord in Mexico. "He does not become a part of Mexico; he does not throw in his lot with the Mexicans. He is willing to spend his money there and employ labor, but he has nothing in common with the people of the country. The Mexican feels that the American goes there only to get rich out of the land and labor of Mexico ; that he comes to exploit, not to develop." Mr. Lane had risen. He was standing on the raised veranda of his camp overlooking the placid waters of Lake Champlain. "There are just two more things that I want to say," he continued. "There has never been a time since the United States estab lished the present Mexican border under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo when raids, small or great, have not taken place across that border, and sometimes Americans have been the raiders we may as well acknowledge the fact. Furthermore, there never has been a time since the United States was founded when Mexico itself was a whole in the control of any one Government. Even Diaz never had the Yaqui Indian country, never really controlled Sonora. "A police force alone has been a failure in Mexico. A failure both as far as the Mexicans are concerned and in protecting Ameri can life and American property. American life and American prop erty have both been repeatedly assailed and destroyed during every administration. The protection of our people there has always been a problem, and I believe always will be a problem. This hazard any foreigner takes who goes into a country filled with people who would risk their lives for a horse or a saddle. "Further, I say this: That looking at Mexico solely from the standpoint of allowing our miners, our engineers, and our capitalists to develop that country for their own benefit, and only incidentally for the benefit of Mexico, a policy of force is all that Mexico needs. It is the only policy that has ever been tried upon the Mexican people, and it has proved a success for the exploitation of the country by out siders. If, however, we look at the Mexican question from the stand point of the Mexican, is the policy of force adequate to the problem? No one who has studied it will say so. The truth is this : "Mexico will never be a nation in any real sense, nor will the Mexicans ever be a people of agricultural, commercial, industrial, or political consequence until the individual Mexican has had an economic and an educational chance. He must be tied to Mexico, and not to a landlord, by the ownership of a piece of land ; he must be able to read 406 APPENDIX and write, so that he may know what the needs of civilization are. This policy is that which I characterized as a policy of hope and hopefulness. It is founded on doubt and despair. It refuses to recog nize the Mexican who can only be shot into keeping order. "If we despair of these people, who is to be their friend? Are we Americans to see Mexico forever remain a land of a few rich and cultivated gentlemen, and 12,000,000 half-starved, ill-clothed, and il literate peasants men, women, and children kept in slavery and subjection and ignorance, a people into whose lives comes nothing that raises them above the beasts of the field? "The people of the United States cannot conceive of such condi tions. Is it not time to try another policy than that of force alone, which has failed so miserably and wrought such woe? Is President Wilson to be criticized because he believes that it is not idealistic, not outside the range of reasonable hope, to think of America as the help ful friend of Mexico ? Why may not Mexico be led to see that we are honest in our willingness to help and that we can do it? "President Wilson has clearly seen the end that he desired from the first, and he has worked toward it against an opposition that was cunning and intensive, persistent and powerful. If he succeeds in giving a new birth of freedom to Mexico, he most surely will receive the verdict of mankind." APPENDIX 407 THE MEXICAN QUESTION (3) THE ARTICLE BY PRESIDENT WILSON REPRINTED HERE APPEARED IN THE ISSUE OF THE "LADIES HOME JOURNAL" FOR OCTOBER, 1916 Large questions are difficult to state in brief compass, but they can be intelligently comprehended only when fully stated, and must to all candid persons seem worthy of the pains. The Mexican question has never anywhere been fully stated, so far as I know, and yet it is one which is in need of all the light that can be thrown upon it, and can be intelligently discussed only by those who clearly see all that is involved. In the first place, it is not a question which can be treated by itself as only a matter between Mexico and the United States. It is a part, a very intimate part, of the Pan-American question. The two Americas can be knitted together only by processes of peace, friendship, helpfulness, and good will, and the nation which must of necessity take the initiative in proving the possibility of these proc esses is the United States. A discussion of the Pan-American question must always begin with the Monroe Doctrine, and very little light will be thrown upon it unless we consider the Monroe Doctrine from the point of view of Latin-America rather than from the point of view of the United States. In adopting the Monroe Doctrine the United States assumed the part of Big Brother to the rest of America. The primary purpose of the policy was to prevent the extension to the American Hemisphere of European influences, which seemed likely to involve South America and eventually ourselves as well in the net of European intrigue and reaction which was in that day being spread with so wide a sweep of purpose. But it was not adopted at the request of the American Republics. While it no doubt made them measurably free from the fear of European aggression or intervention in their affairs, it neither gave nor implied any guarantee on the part of the United States that we would use our power for their benefit and not for our own aggrandizement and advantage. As the power of the United States has increased, the uneasiness 408 APPENDIX of the Latin-American republics has increased with regard to the use we might make of that power in dealing with them. Unfortunately we gave one very disquieting example of what we might do when we went to war with Mexico in Mr. Folk s time and got out of that war a great addition to our national territory. The suspicion of our southern neighbors, their uneasiness as to our growing power, their jealousy that we should assume to play Big Brother to them without their invitation to do so, has constantly stood in the way of the amicable and happy relations we wished to establish with them. Only in very recent years have they extended their hands to us with anything like cordiality, and it is not likely that we shall ever have their entire confidence until we have succeeded in giving them satisfactory and conclusive proofs of our own friendly and unselfish purpose. What is needed for the firm establishment of their faith in us is that we should give guaranties of some sort, in conduct as well as in promise, that we will as scrupulously respect their territorial integrity and their political sovereignty as we insist that European nations should respect them. If we should intervene in Mexico, we would undoubtedly revive the gravest suspicions throughout all the states of America. By intervention I mean the use of the power of the United States to establish internal order there without the invitation of Mexico and determine the character and method of her political institutions. We have professed to believe that every nation, every people, has the right to order its own institutions as it will, and we must live up to that profession in our actions in absolute good faith. Moreover, "order" has been purchased in Mexico at a terrible cost when it has been obtained by foreign assistance. The foreign assistance has generally come in the form of financial aid. That financial aid has almost invariably been conditioned upon "conces sions" which have put the greater part of the resources of the country which have as yet been developed in the hands of foreign capitalists, and by the same token under the "protection" of foreign governments. Those who have successfully maintained stable order in Mexico by such means have, like Diaz, found that they were the servants, not of Mexico, but of foreign concessionaires. The economic development of Mexico has so far been accomplished by such "concessions" and by the exploitation of the fertile lands of the republic by a very small number of owners who have accumulated APPENDIX 409 under one title hundreds of thousands of acres, swept within one ownership the greater part of states, and reduced the population of the country to a sort of peonage. Mexico is one of the treasure houses of the world. It is exceed ingly to be desired by those who wish to amass fortunes. Its resources are indeed serviceable to the whole world and are needed by the industries of the whole world. No enterprising capitalist can look upon her without coveting her. The foreign diplomacy with which she has become bitterly familiar is the "dollar diplomacy," which has almost invariably obliged her to give precedence to foreign inter ests over her own. What she needs more than anything else is financial support which will not involve the sale of her liberties and the enslave ment of her people. Property owned by foreigners, enterprises conducted by foreigners, will never be safe in Mexico so long as their existence and the method of their use and conduct excite the suspicion and, upon occasion, the hatred of the people of the country itself. I would not be understood as saying that all or even the majority of the foreigners who have owned property in Mexico or who have developed her extraordinary resources have acted in a way to excite the jealousy or deserve the dislike of the people of the country. It is fortunately true that there have been a great many who acted with the same honor and public spirit there that characterized them at home, and whose wish it has never been to exploit the country to its own hurt and detriment. I am speaking of a system and not uttering an indictment. The system by which Mexico has been financially assisted has in the past generally bound her hand and foot and left her in effect without a free government. It has almost in every instance deprived her people of the part they were entitled to play in the determination of their own destiny and development. This is what every leader in Mexico has to fear, and the history of Mexico s dealings with the United States cannot be said to be reassuring. It goes without saying that the United States must do as she is doing she must insist upon the safety of her borders; she must, so />/ fast as order is worked out of chaos, use every instrumentality she can in friendship employ to protect the lives and the property of her citizens in Mexico. But she can establish permanent peace on her borders only by a resolute and consistent adoption in action of the principles which 410 APPENDIX underlie her own life. She must respect the liberties and the self- government of Mexicans as she would respect her own. She has pro fessed to be the champion of the rights of small and helpless states, and she must make that profession good in what she does. She has professed to be the friend of Mexico, and she must prove it by seeing to it that every step she takes is a step of friendship and helpfulness. Our own principles and the peace of the world are conditioned upon the exemplification of those professions in action by ourselves and by all the nations of the world, and our dealings with Mexico afford us an opportunity to show the way. Mexico must no doubt struggle through long processes of blood and terror before she finds herself and returns to the paths of peace and order; but other nations, older in political experience than she, have staggered and struggled through these dark ways for years together to find themselves at last, to come out into the light, to know the price of liberty, to realize the compulsion of peace, and the orderly processes of law. It is painful to observe how few of the suggestions as to what the United States ought to do with regard to Mexico are based upon sympathy with the Mexican people or any effort even to understand what they need and desire. I can say with knowledge that most of the suggestions of action come from those who wish to possess her, who wish to use her, who regard her people with condescension and a touch of contempt, who believe that they are fit only to serve and not fit for liberty of any sort. Such men can not and will not determine the policy of the United States. They are not of the true American breed or motive. America will honor herself and prove the validity of her own principles by treating Mexico as she would wish Mexico to treat her. APPENDIX 411 (4) MEMORANDUM ON THE RIGHT OP AMERICAN CITIZENS TO TRAVEL UPON ARMED MERCHANT SHIPS, TRANSMITTED TO THE COM MITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRE SENTATIVES, MARCH 4, 1916 The question to be considered in the present memorandum is whether Americans intending to travel on armed belligerent merchant vessels should be warned by the United States that in doing so they travel at their own risk, and that the United States should so warn its citizens about to embark upon armed belligerent merchant vessels. This raises the question whether or not a neutral citizen and subject can avail himself of a belligerent armed vessel for the transport of his person or goods, the determination of which seems to depend upon the further and the fundamental question whether a belligerent merchant ship may, without violation of law, carry armament to defend itself against attack upon the high seas. The conclusions to be sustained by this memorandum, and which it is believed are supported by the practice of nations, are that a neu tral has the right to transport his person and property upon armed belligerent merchant ships; that the vessels so armed may defend themselves if attacked by the enemy ; that, in so doing, they are within their rights under the law of nations as interpreted and applied by the Supreme Court of the United States; and that the neutral does not partake of a belligerent character although he is on board the bel ligerent merchant vessel, nor does he sacrifice his neutral character nor the neutral quality of his goods, according to the law of nations as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States, if the armed belligerent merchant vessel resists attack, unless the neutral actually took part in the hostilities committed under these circumstances by the armed belligerent merchant vessel upon which his person may happen to be. The memorandum will also endeavor to show that, while the out break of war authorizes a belligerent to capture the private property of his enemy upon the high seas, the declaration of war does not operate as a confiscation of the property, but only authorizes the bel ligerent to use the force necessary to capture the property, and that, according to the law of nations, the formalities hitherto recognized must be complied with namely, that a merchant vessel of the enemy before capture must be summoned to surrender, and that upon its surrender, whether after the use of force or an attempt to escape the 412 APPENDIX capturing vessel, it shall not be sunk or destroyed without first putting in a place of safety the persons on board and, if possible, the property ; that the use of an agent or instrumentality such as the submarine that does not and cannot comply with these requirements is not authorized by the law of nations to capture the enemy vessel ; that the law ought not to be changed to suit the convenience of the submarine or of the belligerent, but that the agency of the belligerent ought to be changed to meet the requirements of the law ; and that the requirements of this law cannot be overcome by an ex parte announcement or warning issued by a belligerent government that it will destroy without warn ing any merchant vessel of the enemy which the commanding officer of that vessel may, before visit and search, decide to be an armed enemy vessel. The right of a belligerent vessel to arm is not the result of a sudden decision on the part of a belligerent in order to protect h.is merchant vessels from capture upon the high seas, but has been for centuries the practice of nations. An armed merchant vessel differs from a privateer, which was a vessel owned by a private person although commissioned by a belligerent and, by virtue of its com mission, authorized to commit hostilities and to make captures in that the merchant vessel carries its armament for defensive purposes and is not commissioned by the government whose flag it flies. It is therefore a merchant vessel, having none of the marks of a war vessel, and its arms are for purely defensive purposes, to protect it from capture, a protection it would enjoy without armament if the policy of the United States, extending over a period of a century, were recog nized to-day as it was, in 1785, recognized by Prussia in the treaty of September 10 of that year. It is not, however, necessary to con sider this matter in the light of history or in the light of theory, be cause, in so far as the United States is concerned, the right of an enemy merchant vessel to arm itself for defensive purposes has been solemnly adjudged in the case of the Nereide (9 Cranch 388), decided in 1815, and, upon reconsideration, affirmed three years later in the case of the Atalanta (3 Wheaton 409). The judgment of the court in the first, which is the leading case on the subject, was written and delivered by Chief Justice Marshall, m the course of which he said : A belligerent has a perfect right to arm in his own defence and a neutral has a perfect right to transport his goods in a belligerent ves sel. These rights do not interfere with each other. The neutral has no control over the belligerent right to arm ought he to be account able for the exercise of it? By placing neutral property in a belliger ent ship, that property, according to the positive rules of law, does APPENDIX 413 not cease to be neutral. Why should it be changed by the exercise of a belligerent right, universally acknowledged, and in common use when the rule was laid down, and over which the neutral had no control? The Nereide was a British merchant vessel. It was not commis sioned, so that it did not partake of any of the characteristics or enjoy the rights or privileges then accorded to privateers, and which the United States at the present day could accord to its privateers if it availed itself of the right to use them. It was armed for defense. It was attacked and it defended itself. The neutral, with his cargo, was aboard the vessel. He took no part in the armed resistance, and the Supreme Court of the United States laid down the rule that neither his rights as a neutral nor his property as that of a neutral were affected by the resistance to the capture by the belligerent armed ship. As this decision is so important, and is binding upon the United States for the decision of the Supreme Court on a point of law binds all departments of the Government until it is changed, which it has not been to the present day it is more advisable to quote certain por tions of the opinion to the Court rather than to indulge in theoretical speculations, however well grounded they may appear. Thus, Chief Justice Marshall said: That a neutral may lawfully put his goods on board a belligerent ship for conveyance on the ocean, is universally recognized as the rightful rule of the law of nations. It is, as has already been stated, founded on the plain and simple principle, that the property of a friend remains his property, wherever it may be found. "Since it is not," says Vattel, "the place where a thing is, which determines the nature of that thing, but the character of the person to whom it be longs, things belonging to neutral persons, which happen to be in an enemy s country, or on board an enemy s ships are to be distinguished from those which belong to the enemy." Bynkershoek lays down the same principles in terms equally explicit; and in terms entitled to the more consideration, because he enters into the inquiry whether a knowledge of the hostile character of the vessel, <?an affect the owner of the goods. The same principle is laid down by other writers on the same subject, and is believed to be contradicted by none. It is true, there were some old ordinances of France, declaring that a hostile vessel or cargo should expose both to condemnation; but these ordi nances have never constituted a rule of public law. After laying down this general principle and supporting it by author ity, if authority other than that of his own great name and of his unanswerable reasoning be required, the great Chief Justice continues : It is deemed of much importance, that the rule is universally laid down in terms which comprehend an armed as well as an unarmed vessel; and that armed vessels have never been excepted from it. 414 APPENDIX Bynkershoek, in discussing a question, suggesting an exception, with his mind directed to hostilities, does not hint that this privilege is confined to unarmed merchantmen. In point of fact, it is believed, that a belligerent merchant vessel rarely sails unarmed, so that this exception from the rule would be greater than the rule itself. At all events, the number of those who are armed, and who sail under convoy, is too great, not to have attracted the attention of writers on public law: and this exception to their broad general rule, if it existed, would certainly be found in some of their works. It would be strange, if a rule laid down, with a view to war, in such broad terms as to have universal application, should be so construed, as to exclude from its operation almost every case for which it purports to provide, and yet that not a dictum should be found in the books, pointing to such construction. The antiquity of the rule is certainly not unworthy of consideration. It is to be traced back to the time when almost every merchantman was in a condition of self-defence, and the implements of war were so light and so cheap, that scarcely any would sail without them. But the Chief Justice was not content to lay down principles. He stated and answered the arguments which had been addressed to the court in the trial of the case. Thus : To the argument, that by placing his goods in the vessel of an armed enemy, he connects himself with that enemy, and assumes the hostile character ; it is answered, that no such connection exists. The object of the neutral is the transportation of his goods. His connec tion with the vessel which transports them is the same, whether that vessel be armed or unarmed. The act of arming is not his it is the act of a party who has a right so to do. He meddles not with the armament, nor with the war. Whether his goods were on board or not, the vessel would be armed and would sail. His goods do not con tribute to the armament, further than the freight he pays, and freight he would pay, were the vessel unarmed. It is difficult to perceive in this argument anything which does not also apply to an unarmed vessel. In both instances, it is the right and the duty of the carrier to avoid capture, and to prevent a search. There is no difference, except in the degree of capacity to carry this duty into effect. The argument would operate against the rule which permits the neutral merchant to employ a belligerent vessel, without imparting to his goods the bel ligerent character. It will be observed that in this passage the Chief Justice, speak ing under a sense of judicial responsibility and passing adversely upon a contention advanced by his own government in the war of 1812 with Great Britain, states it to be "both the right and the duty of the carrier to avoid capture and to prevent a search, whether the vessel be armed or unarmed. Having stated that it is the duty of the carrier to avoid capture, the conclusion necessarily follows, which the Chief Justice himself draws in the succeeding paragraph, that APPENDIX 415 "the argument respecting resistance stands on the same ground with that with respect to arming. Both are lawful. Neither of them is chargeable to the goods or their owner, where he has taken no part in it. They are incident to the character of the vessel and may always occur where the carrier is belligerent." In a later passage of his opinion, Chief Justice Marshall assimilates the status of passengers to the status of cargo, and in so doing ac knowledges the right of passengers to their neutral character upon a belligerent armed merchant vessel, just as the property of such a person is regarded as neutral property. Thus he says : If the neutral character of the goods is forfeited by the resistance of the belligerent vessel, why is not the neutral character of the pas sengers forfeited by the same cause ? The master and crew are prison ers of war, why are not those passengers who did not engage in the conflict, also prisoners? That they are not, would seem to the court to afford a strong argument in favor of the goods. The law would operate in the same manner on both. Recapitulating, it appears to be incontrovertible that the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States solemnly acknowledges the right of a belligerent to resist attack, and that this right is to be considered not merely as a decision of the United States on this point but as a decision in accordance with the dictates of international law, based upon universal usage and authority, which the Chief Justice applied, and which he was obliged to apply, in a case involving its principles. It also appears to be incontrovertible that the vessel not merely had the right to arm and to resist, but, in the language of the Chief Justice, it was "the duty of the carrier to avoid capture" by the use of such arms and resistance, and, as the Chief Justice said in another passage, "she had a right to defend herself, did defend herself, and might have captured an assailing vessel;" and that the neutral has the right to be a passenger and to transport his prop erty on such a vessel, and does not have his neutral character ques tioned, even although the ship, armed for defensive purposes, exer cises the right by resisting capture. This decision of the Supreme Court, delivered in this instance by Chief Justice Marshall, has not been overruled and is the law of the land at the present day. A right which has been shown universally to exist is presumed to continue to exist until it has been shown that it no longer does ex ist, and any country claiming that the law has ceased to exist cannot relieve itself of the burden of proof ; and in this connection another passage is quoted from a decision of the Supreme Court of the 416 APPENDIX United States, likewise delivered by Chief Justice Marshall. In speak ing of the slave trade, which was at that time lawful, Chief Justice Marshall said, in the case of the Antelope (10 Wheaton 66, 122), de cided in 1825 : In this commerce thus sanctioned by universal assent, every na tion had an equal right to engage. How is this right to be lost ? Each may renounce it for its own people; but can this renunciation affect others ? No principle of general law is more universally acknowledged, than the perfect equality of nations. Eussia and Geneva have equal rights. It results from this equality, that no one can rightfully impose a rule on another. Each legislates for itself, but its legislation can operate on itself alone. A right, then, which is vested in all, by the consent of all, can be divested only by consent; and this trade, in which all have participated, must remain lawful to those who can not be induced to relinquish it. As no nation can prescribe a rule for others, none can make a law of nations; and this traffic remains lawful to those whose governments have not forbidden it. A careful examination fails to disclose any action taken to ques tion the lawfulness of belligerent merchant vessels to arm in self- defense. The abolition of privateering by the Declaration of Paris to which, however, the United States was not and is not now a party did not affect the right of a private merchant vessel to carry and to use arms in self-defense, because the Declaration of Paris abolished merely the right of privateering, and did not directly or indirectly affect the rights or duties or the privileges of private merchant vessels, as such. The right, therefore, of merchant vessels to arm in self-defense was unaffected by the Declaration of Paris and there is no other inter national convention or international act to be found questioning the existence of that right. In some quarters the claim has been advanced that merchant ves sels armed for defense are practically privateers. This claim has no basis in fact. A privateer was a private vessel, admittedly armed for offense and acting under a letter of marque or other government commission which removed it from the class of merchant vessels. By the fact of the government commissions, privateers were authorized to act offensively without committing a breach of the laws of warfare, and the captain and owners of the privateer were further placed under a measure of government responsibility to which the owner and cap tain of an ordinary merchant vessel are not subject. A merchant vessel armed for defense only is one whose status is entirely un changed except for her armament. She does not operate under any commission of the government and her captain and owners are not in APPENDIX 417 any special sense responsible to the government by virtue of any commission or other governmental authority issued in her behalf. Should she use her armament offensively she will thereby render her self liable to the consequent results under international law; but the mere fact of her having an armament on board does not change her status from that of a merchant vessel to that of a vessel of war, which a privateer was. The right of a merchant vessel so to arm was not questioned until the actions of belligerents indicated an intention on their part to use converted merchant vessels for offensive purposes, and for fear that unconverted merchant vessels should be so used, the Second Hague Peace Conference laid down the conditions upon which merchant ships might be incorporated in the fighting fleet in time of war. This Con vention was signed and ratified by both Germany and Great Britain, and regardless of any technical question as to whether it is in force in the present war, may be taken as indicating their views upon this subject which has now become so important. According to the Con vention, before a merchant vessel may be considered a warship it must: 1. Be placed under the direct authority, immediate control, and responsibility of the power whose flag it flies (Art. 2). 2. It must bear the external marks which distinguish the war ships of their nationality (Art. 2). 3. The commander must be in the service of the state and duly commissioned by the competent authorities. His name must figure on the list of the officers of the fighting fleet (Art. 3). 4. The crew must be subjected to military discipline (Art. 4) . 5. A belligerent who converts a merchant ship into a warship must as soon as possible announce such conversion in the list of war ships (Art. 6). In the face of the provisions of this Convention, one of the signa tory and ratifying powers seeks to maintain that a merchant vessel may be considered a warship, regardless of whether the provisions of this Convention have or have not been complied with. It is sig nificant, in this connection, that the United States, in order to retain full liberty of action with reference to the use of merchant ships in time of war, neither signed, ratified, nor adhered to this Con vention. The declared intention of belligerents to convert merchant vessels to war vessels and the policy of nations to have merchant vessels built in such a way that they might carry armament, and thus be more use ful when converted, suggested the possibility that merchant vessels 418 APPENDIX of belligerents might, by means of defensive armament, exercise their right (and their duty, according to Chief Justice Marshall) to defend themselves from capture by these converted merchantmen, whereas they would not have been able to offer resistance to heavily armed men-of-war built solely for offensive purposes. The question, therefore, as to the right of merchant vessels to arm became a subject of discussion and a matter of moment to those nations which might wish to use converted merchant vessels as com merce destroyers. The question of the right of merchant vessels to arm and to de fend themselves was carefully considered just a year before the out break of the war of 1914, in the session of the Institute of Interna tional Law, composed of distinguished publicists of the different coun tries, which, meeting at Oxford, England, in August, 1913, adopted a Manual of the Laws of Maritime Warfare. Article 13 of the project of the Commission charged with the preparation of the Manual reads as follows : Privateering, Private vessels, Public vessels not vessels of war. Privateering is forbidden. In addition to the conditions laid down in Articles 3 and following, public vessels and vessels belonging to private persons, as well as their personnel, cannot commit acts of hostility against the enemy. It is permitted, however, to vessels of each of these two classes to employ force to defend themselves against the attack of an enemy vessel. The discussion of the meeting turned entirely upon the last para graph. Dr. Triepel of Germany asked its suppression, saying: "A ship of commerce never has the right of defending herself even if the attack of which it is the object is illegitimate. It is not for her to make herself the judge on this point." His point of view was opposed by Dr. Fiore, of Italy, who said that if private ships can never attack it is at least legal for them to defend themselves, and even make legitimately a prize under this hypothesis if they find they have the material and force necessary. He congratulated himself at seeing in the text of the commission the confirmation of this rule of Italian legislation, and later on he said: "The question is at bottom very simple. Force should be able to be repulsed by force in whatever manner this manifests itself," and asked the vote on Article 13 just as it stood. Lord Reay, of Great Britain, supported Dr. Fiore s view of voting Article 13 just as it was written in the projet, and he men tioned that the legitimacy of the permission given by the Admiralty to certain large liners to have four guns on board has been contested, APPENDIX 419 even by distinguished persons. The text of paragraph 3 of Article 12 would cause every objection to disappear on this point. Lord Reay asked of the Institute to announce for ships of commerce the right of legitimate defense in the conditions contemplated. The article was adopted as written in the pro jet by a large majority and is now published as a part of the Manual in the Annuaire of the In stitute. The whole Manual was adopted by 53 out of 54 members present, one (an Italian delegate) abstaining. In the discussion, Dr. Niemeyer, a delegate from Germany, said that the right of self-defense against an act of force goes without saying, and he proposed to suppress the last paragraph of Article 12 (13 of the pro jet), for the reason that the fact of inserting a pro vision of that kind was equivalent to a concession that a contrary opinion was possible. It is thus seen that the delegates from Ger many were not in accord among themselves, and in view of the large majority in favor of Article 12 and of the final almost unanimous approval of the total Manual, it appears that very recent and very intelligent opinion supports the view that the arming of merchant ships for defense is entirely proper, and that such an armament may be used properly for defense. Considering that the right of a belligerent merchant vessel to arm itself for defensive purposes is in accordance with the practice and the law of nations, and that it was as laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States, and considering also that the right has been carefully considered and examined by an unofficial but scientific body, whose views have influenced, and rightly, the actions of govern ments, the question naturally arises, if the belligerent can capture private property of the enemy upon the high seas, what are the condi tions, if any, which must regulate the exercise of the right of capture ? The statement of Chief Justice Marshall in the case of the Nereide is sufficient authority for the right of a belligerent to capture the pri vate property of the enemy, if authority were needed, but the point is so well admitted that a quotation of authority for this universally acknowledged right would be a waste of time. It should be said, however, in this connection, that the immunity of private property on the high seas has been the traditional policy advocated by the United States, formulated by this Government before the existence of the present Constitution, and this Government therefore would not be justified in relaxing the rules relating to capture. Universal practice permits the capture of private property of the enemy upon the high seas. The fact, however, that neutrals may be interested in property on board of a captured ship has resulted in the 420 APPENDIX enlightened practice obtaining before the outbreak of the war of 1914, to preserve the property captured, and to pass it before a prize court in order to determine the validity of the prize by a court of justice passing upon the evidence in the case, instead of virtually allowing a naval commander to set up a prize court upon the quarterdeck to determine the enemy character and to take such action as might occur to him in the premises. The practice of nations before the outbreak of the present war was for a belligerent vessel having to make capture to summon the vessel suspected of being an enemy ship to lie to. If it did not do so, the belligerent war vessel was authorized to proceed to the use of force necessary to complete surrender. If the enemy vessel attempted to escape it was the right of the belligerent man-of- war to give pursuit and to use such force as was at its disposal to compel the ship to halt, even although the vessel should be sunk in the conflict. The practice which crystallized into law on the question was that, as the enemy vessel had the right and the duty, as Chief Justice Marshall said, to avoid capture, either by resisting attack or by escaping if it were able, the vessel so exercising its right and per forming its duty was not subjected to punishment therefor; and en lightened practice at the outbreak of the current war required that the vessel should not be sunk if it could be taken into port, or, if it was sunk, that this should not be done until the persons on board and, if possible, the property, had been saved. This was the procedure prescribed in the Imperial German Prize Ordinance, issued on the 3d day of August, 1914. The right of a submarine to carry on hostile operations is not questioned. It is a public vessel, built for a military purpose, duly commissioned, under command of commissioned naval officers, with a crew subjected to military discipline. It therefore is a man-of-war and entitled to exercise the rights thereof in so far as her structure and personnel permit such exercise in accordance with international law. It is likewise bound by all the obligations resting upon a man- of-war. It does not have any greater rights than a man-of-war would have, and is not relieved of any duties of a man-of-war which operates upon the surface. It may summon a merchant vessel to lie to. It can, however, exercise the right of visit and search under exceptional circumstances only. Its limited personnel does not admit of furnish ing prize crews. On the other hand, it cannot take on board the per sonnel of captured ships to insure their safety if the destruction of the prize is intended. Its commander can rarely, if ever, secure the papers on board a prize. In fact, it is a vessel which was origi nally designed for military action against military vessels, where APPENDIX 421 safety of personnel and warning of attack are not essential. By its limitations it cannot, unless the circumstances be exceptional, act as a cruiser against commerce and fulfill the requirements of inter national law and the dictates of ordinary humanity. If the United States yields the point that its citizens have not the right to travel on armed merchant ships of belligerents, to the ex tent of the public warning by the legislative branch of the Govern ment to United States citizens not to take passage on such vessels, it will, in the face of its own precedents, in effect consent to a change of international law, which will result to the advantage of one belligerent and to the disadvantage of his adversaries. This would be unneutral. Furthermore, it would be consenting to a change of international law during war, a thing against which the United States has earnestly and steadily protested in other international questions that have arisen during the war. The conditions under which enemy merchant vessels can be de stroyed were correctly laid down by the German Government in offi cial instructions issued to its naval officers at the beginning of the war. The German Prize Code (Prizenordnung) of the 30th September, 1909, and issued at the beginning of the war, is given in its amended form as in force July 1, 1915, after the submarine warfare against merchant vessels had begun, in a book entitled TTie German Prize Code, translated by Huberich and King (Baker, Voorhis & Co., New York, 1915). Articles 113 to 116, inclusive, and Articles 118 and 119 refer to the destruction of prizes. Article 113 refers to the de struction of neutral prizes. Article 114 reads, translated: Before the commander determines on the destruction of a vessel, he must consider whether the damage thereby done to the enemy will outweigh the damages payable for the parts of the cargo not subject to condemnation (op. arts. 18, 42, 51, 56 and 80), and which are de stroyed at the same time. Article 18, referred to in Article 114, must be read in connection with Article 17. Those two articles read as follows : 17. A captured enemy vessel is subject to condemnation. 18. The following parts of the cargo of such vessels are subject to condemnation : (a) Enemy goods; (b) Goods belonging to the master and owner of the vessel, if the vessel was captured by reason of resistance (see art. 16b). (c) Articles of contraband, and goods belonging to the owner of the contraband, as provided for in Part III ; (d) In case of breach of blockade, goods liable to confiscation under art. 80. 422 APPENDIX From this reference in Article 114 to Article 18, which latter depends upon Article 17, referring to a captured enemy vessel, it is plain that Article 114 refers to the destruction of any prize, whether enemy or neutral. Therefore, following the regulations, if they do not specifically mention enemy or neutral vessels they must apply gen erally. Article 116 reads: Before destruction, the safety of all persons on board, and, so far as possible, their effects, is to be provided for, and all ship s papers and other evidentiary material, which, according to the views of the persons at interest, is of value for the formulation of the judgment of the prize court, are to be taken over by the commander. By this article the destruction of no vessel can take place without first providing for the safety of all persons on board. This refers to persons of the enemy as well as to persons of the neutral. This hu mane rule, found in the German Prize Code after the inauguration of submarine warfare, is identical with the wording of the same rule in the Prize Code as it was originally issued at the beginning of the cur rent war. The submarine warfare was entered into by Germany as a measure of reprisal and not in accordance with the laws of maritime warfare, which are so well expressed in the prize ordinance, and the illegality of the destruction of vessels without the formalities recognized by their own Prize Code -in pursuance of a policy that is itself illegal as toward the interests of neutrals, especially when these interests involve the sacrifice of life, should not be admitted for one moment by this Government. In considering the issue of a warning to American citizens against traveling upon armed merchant vessels of the belligerents, it must not be overlooked that the United States has an obligation to protect the property of its citizens as well as to protect their lives. If citi zens are warned not to intrust their lives upon armed merchant ships of the belligerents, the same reasons would compel the United States to warn its citizens not to intrust their property to armed merchant ships; for, as pointed out by Chief Justice Marshall, the right to travel and the right to transport goods are legally identical. If the warning be carried to its logical results, there would be a voluntary surrender of the rights of American citizens to trade with belligerents, which right it has been sought, especially as it affects the trade in munitions, to limit in a direct way, and it has been the subject of negotiations in which the United States has already taken a firm stand. It is not to be expected that this Government should submit APPENDIX 423 indirectly upon a point which it has heretofore declined to submit to directly. Passing from the subjeot of contraband, it would seem that if this policy be adopted, it would logically follow that a warning should also be issued to American citizens against intrusting non-contraband cargoes to armed vessels, and that they should be told that if they intrust their property to such vessels and it is sunk by a submarine, there will result a total loss and the Government will not be in a position to make a claim for its value, because the merchant vessel happened to be exercising its lawful right of carrying defensive armament. The situation should not be overlooked with which the United States would be confronted in case a warning to American citizens not to travel upon armed merchant vessels of belligerents be issued. In view of the variety of deceits, stratagems and subterfuges which the present war has produced, it will have to be determined definitely whether a merchant vessel comes within the prohibited class, not only when it sails from our ports but also at the time of attack. The question will also arise for consideration as to the attitude which the United States is to take if an ostensibly armed vessel leaves our ports with American citizens on board and is sunk by a submarine on the ground that it was armed after leaving an American port. The ves sel and probably all persons and evidence on board for determining the question of armament will be at the bottom of the sea. The United States may provide for the inspection of all belligerent armed mer chant vessels before they leave port, but the Government operating the submarine is at liberty to accept or reject the finding of the American inspector, and, if it thinks proper, to insist upon the accu racy of the report of its submarine commander. The diplomatic correspondence which has already passed between the United States and other governments on this point need only be referred to to show the probability of such an issue being raised. If the United States should admit the contention of the government so operating the sub marine, it might follow that all merchant vessels would be sunk upon the ground, real or alleged, that they were armed. In such a con tingency, no real progress would be made in settling the issue which has arisen by voluntary relinquishment of the undisputed and im memorial rights of American citizens to transport both their persons and property upon armed merchant vessels of belligerents. A warn ing issued to American citizens to avoid armed merchant vessels of the belligerents would, it is believed, merely shift the point of con troversy from a discussion of the character of the arming of merchant 424 APPENDIX vessels as offensive or defensive to the broader question whether any armament at all is aboard the vessel. The position this Government has taken is briefly as follows : Neutrals have a right to travel on merchant ships in time of war in the full assurance that their lives are safe from illegal attack. An unannounced attack on a merchant ship is illegal. Merchant ships have the right to arm for defense. The highest court of the United States, in the words of one of its most distinguished jurists, Chief Justice Marshall, has distinctly af firmed this right, and the United States is therefore the last to be able to contest it. The arming of a belligerent merchant ship impairs no neutral right. As the arming of a merchant ship for defense is not illegal and does not impair any neutral right the United States has no ground to demand that it be discontinued by the belligerents practicing it. It is not illegal for a belligerent to destroy an enemy merchant ship after capture, whether that ship be armed or not, provided that the destruction be done after the requirements of international law have been observed. Submarines, if they observe the preliminary requirements of inter national law, are vessels that may, in so far as their status and that of their personnel is concerned, make captures. If, however, they cannot, owing to their limitations, observe all the requirements of international law in making captures, neutral governments cannot admit their right to go beyond the act of capture and actually destroy merchant vessels without warning, in disregard of the requirements of international law and especially of the one grounded on decency and humanity the safety of innocent human life without surrendering national self-respect and national sov ereignty, which would be a betrayal of the national honor. The United States Government cannot, without such betrayal, pub licly warn its citizens to renounce their rights in the face of a bel ligerent threat to do an illegal act, for such warning would be in effect an admission of the right of submarines to destroy merchant vessels illegally. Individual citizens are free to act as their individual judgment may dictate, but for the United States Government to advise them to refrain from doing what they have a right to do in safety according to law, without exposing their lives to danger, would be to abdicate its function of protecting its citizens not only in their rights but in their lives. RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO ^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW AUTO DISC MM h s cuaCUL&IlC N FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 (F2336slO)476B Berkeley YLJ 14129 C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES BODBOlbsli 33 7 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY