CHAPTER X

THE UNITED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE

International, lasting peace is the third great ideal sought by the Republic of the United States of America, and it is for the enforcement of that kind of peace that the United States is fighting. For, unless such peace is assured by a decisive victory, the menace of German imperialism will so overshadow the world that all civilization will be flung back into one long effort to keep armed to repel the invader.

Although other nations have struggled toward a standard of international and permanent peace, the United States was one of the first great nations to put the theory into practice. One of the first instances of this practice came at the close of the war between the States, when the question of the _Alabama_ Claims arose.

During the war the Confederate States had caused to be built in English ports, with the knowledge of the British Government, cruisers to damage Federal commerce on the high seas. The cruiser _Alabama_ was most active of these, and from its prominence gave name to the claim which the United States brought against Great Britain for the offense against international law, particularly since the independence of the Confederate States had not been recognized. Great Britain had paid no attention to American remonstrance during the war, but at its close requested settlement of the difficulty.

The United States was equipped for war, with a victorious army at command, and with a record of two victorious wars over England. It was a chance to launch another, had our nation been inclined toward militarism. Instead, our country did its part in appointing members of a joint high commission, of five British and five American statesmen, who met in Washington in 1871 and adjusted the difficulty. These commissioners made a treaty, known as the Treaty of Washington, by which it was agreed that the claims of either nation against the other should be submitted to a board of arbitration to be appointed by friendly nations. In 1872 this board met at Geneva, Switzerland, and decided the claims in favor of the United States. Great Britain paid fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars for the damage done by the cruisers built in her ports; but even more important was the precedent established by two great nations.

Through a period in which the world was singularly free from great wars the peace ideal grew among those countries where the democratic form of government was progressing. The other nations, striving to maintain that elusive standard of political and trade domination known as the balance of power, juggled with the peace idea, but from a different point of view. And it was, strangely enough, the Czar of Russia who proposed the establishment of an international court for the settling of international disputes. His idea and that of the nations who accepted the plan was to keep peace by a settlement of the causes of war, and also to reduce the military and naval armaments of the great Powers. He also brought forward the idea that, if war should come, the conditions of warfare should be made less terrible for the men who were fighting. He invited the delegates of the nations of the world to a conference at The Hague, in the Netherlands, in May, 1899.

The first conference promoted--to all appearances--a general good feeling, but did not formulate actual rules. The second, called by the Czar in 1907, at the request of the government of the United States, and extending from June to October of that year, promulgated certain rules that were regarded until the beginning of the war by Germany in 1914 as those which would hold all civilized nations.

The articles of this conference, known as The Hague Conventions, provided for:

I.--The pacific settling of international disputes;

II.--The recovery of debts contracted;

III.--Rules for the opening of hostilities;

IV.--Laws and customs of war on land;

V.--Rights and duties of neutral states and individuals in warfare on land;

VI.--Treatment of enemy’s merchant ships at the opening of hostilities;

VII.--Transformation of merchant ships into war vessels;

VIII.--Placing of submarine mines;

IX.--Bombardment of undefended towns by naval forces;

X.--Adoption of humane standards authorized by the Geneva Convention to maritime warfare;

XI.--Restrictions on right of capture in maritime war;

XII.--Establishment of an international prize court;

XIII.--Rights and duties of neutral states in maritime war.

In addition to the adoption of these thirteen articles, which were designed to keep peace or to make war less terrible, if it came, the conference established a permanent court of arbitration which has had its place at The Hague, and which is known as The Hague Tribunal. This court is really a number of judges from whom some are selected to try cases of international dispute. It is noteworthy that the first case laid before The Hague Tribunal for settlement was the Pius Fund matter between the United States and Mexico. The government of the United States took the dispute to The Hague, the first time in history when a great nation had appealed to an international court for settlement of a claim against a small nation.

Since The Hague Conference the United States has concluded about thirty peace treaties with as many nations. They are all modelled on one general idea which is expressed in the opening article of each in this way:

“The high contracting parties agree that all disputes between them, of every nature whatsoever, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjustment have failed, be referred for investigation and report to a permanent international commission to be constituted” (by the contracting parties) “... and agree not to declare war nor to begin hostilities during such investigation and before the report be submitted.”

Thirty-five nations had accepted this plan “in principle” before Germany flung war upon the world, and thirty treaties had been signed. France, Russia, Great Britain, and Italy had signed the treaties. Germany professed approval of the plan, but avoided all definite arrangements, her attitude apparently growing out of her dislike of arbitration.

This opposition to arbitration on Germany’s part was due to the fact that for many years she was actually preparing for war, and believed that her best chance of winning it was in the unpreparedness of the nations against which she intended to wage it. The utterances of her statesmen, philosophers, and editors revealed the German official attitude of mind. There can be no doubt but that Germany desired to keep the world lulled in a false security until she had made ready to strike the blow against world peace. Nothing else explains her refusal to bind herself with the terms that other nations accepted in the hope that wars were becoming things of the past.

Just before the United States was forced into the breaking off of diplomatic relations with Germany the President of the country went before the Senate to set forth the principles which should govern our nation in the making of any peace with which we would associate ourselves. The principles which he set forth were:

I.--An equality of rights between nations, to be based on justice and not on the old principle of balance of power;

II.--Recognition of the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;

III.--The right of all great peoples to have a direct outlet to the sea, either by territorial acquisition or by neutralization;

IV.--The freedom of the seas;

V.--The limitations of armaments on land and sea;

VI.--Refusal to permit any nation to extend its policy over any other nation or people;

VII.--A concert of nations to guarantee peace and the rights of all nations, no entangling alliances creating a competition for power, but a league for the enforcement of international peace.

“These are American principles, American policies,” the President stated. “They are also the principles of forward-looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, and of every enlightened community.”

To the very last, until the action of Germany in restricting the freedom of the seas for which the United States had fought and won a war in days when she was ill-prepared for any conflict, our country had stood out for peace. Only when our vital rights were threatened, our vital principles violated, did war come. And, when it came the United States entered into the conflict, not in hot passion, but with the high purpose of establishing a real peace that cannot be broken by any one vandal nation.

The kind of peace which is the ideal of the United States, and the one toward which we are now fighting, is not to be the sort which may be patched up over a council-table for a brief space. There is only one way of curing a cancer of the human body. It must be cut out. And so it is with the world. The only way to cure the world of war is to cut out the cancer of militarism. The only way to cut it out is to defeat the armies of militarism.

The United States and the Allies are not fighting to impose on Germany and her fellow fighters any particular form of government; but they are fighting to defeat that form of government which has precipitated the war, the so-called Junker policy of the German Empire. The Junker, who is a member of the Prussian nobility and a man devoted to militarism, has been the instrument of war, forcing it on the world that Germany, which for him means only a certain small class of rulers in Prussia headed by the Kaiser, shall be rich and powerful over all the earth. It is to end his reign upon earth that hundreds of thousands of men are dying on the fields of France and Flanders. It is to end that policy of Germany which aims to keep men always at war that we are warring. For, if Germany is not totally defeated, every country in the world will have to build up a military machine of the same kind as Germany’s in order to be ready to fight her when she makes up her mind to invade their territories; and no one will know when she might do that. The policy of Germany will threaten every democracy in the world; for democracies cannot exist while military establishments continue. Nothing but a total, annihilating defeat of Germany in this war will make the world “safe for democracy” and sure for peace.

When the war is won the United States will, it is sure, insist upon a just peace that will insure these ideals, a peace that will make impossible another such outrage as the invasion of Belgium, another _Lusitania_ outrage, another defiance of all civilized standards, a peace that will remove militarism, make free the seas, and give to the individual that freedom that has made the United States the haven of the whole world.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.