These treaties were entered into when the administration had before its eyes at that very moment the examples of Belgium and Luxembourg, which showed beyond possibility of doubt, especially when taken in connection with other similar incidents that have occurred during the last couple of decades, that there are various great military empires in the Old World who will pay not one moment’s heed to the most solemn and binding treaty, if it is to their interest to break it. If any one of these empires, as the result of the present contest, obtains something approaching to a position of complete predominance in the Old World, it is absolutely certain that it would pay no heed whatever to these treaties, if it desired to better its position in the New World by taking possession of the Dutch or Danish West Indies or of the territory of some weak American state on the mainland of the continent. In such event we would be obliged either instantly ourselves to repudiate the scandalous treaties by which the government at Washington has just sought to tie our hands--and thereby expose ourselves in our turn to the charge of bad faith--or else we should have to abdicate our position as a great power and submit to abject humiliation. Since these articles of mine were written and published, I am glad to see that James Bryce, a lifelong advocate of peace and the stanchest possible friend of the United States, has taken precisely the position herein taken. He dwells, as I have dwelt, upon the absolute need of protecting small states that behave themselves from absorption in great military empires. He insists, as I have insisted, upon the need of the reduction of armaments, the quenching of the baleful spirit of militarism, and the admission of the peoples everywhere to a fuller share in the control of foreign policy--all to be accomplished by some kind of international league of peace. He adds, however, as the culminating and most important portion of his article: “But no scheme for preventing future wars will have any chance of success unless it rests upon the assurance that the states which enter it will loyally and steadfastly abide by it and that each and all of them will join in coercing by their overwhelming united strength any state which may disregard the obligations it has undertaken.” This is almost exactly what I have said. Indeed, it is almost word for word what I have said--an agreement which is all the more striking because when he wrote it Lord Bryce could not have known what I had written. We must insist on righteousness first and foremost. We must strive for peace always; but we must never hesitate to put righteousness above peace. In order to do this, we must put force back of righteousness, for, as the world now is, national righteousness without force back of it speedily becomes a matter of derision. To the doctrine that might makes right, it is utterly useless to oppose the doctrine of right unbacked by might.