The United States and the great powers now at war were parties to the international code created in the regulations annexed to the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907. As President, acting on behalf of this government, and in accordance with the unanimous wish of our people, I ordered the signature of the United States to these conventions. Most emphatically I would not have permitted such a farce to have gone through if it had entered my head that this government would not consider itself bound to do all it could to see that the regulations to which it made itself a party were actually observed when the necessity for their observance arose. I cannot imagine any sensible nation thinking it worth while to sign future Hague conventions if even such a powerful neutral as the United States does not care enough about them to protest against their open breach. Of the present neutral powers the United States of America is the most disinterested and the strongest, and should therefore bear the main burden of responsibility in this matter. It is quite possible to make an argument to the effect that we never should have entered into the Hague conventions, because our sole duty is to ourselves and not to others, and our sole concern should be to keep ourselves at peace, at any cost, and not to help other powers that are oppressed, and not to protest against wrong-doing. I do not myself accept this view; but in practice it is the view taken by the present administration, apparently with at the moment the approval of the mass of our people. Such a policy, while certainly not exalted, and in my judgment neither far-sighted nor worthy of a high-spirited and lofty-souled nation, is yet in a sense understandable, and in a sense defensible.