New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
We are not peace-at-any-price men, because we do not think we have
reached the time when a plan based on the complete abolition of war is
impracticable. So long as nations partake of the frailties of men who
compose them, war is a possibility, and that possibility should not be
ignored in any League of Peace that is to be useful. We do not think
it necessary to call peace-at-any-price men cowards or apply other
epithets to them. We have known in history the most noble characters
who adhered to such a view and yet whose physical and moral courage is
a heritage of mankind.
To those who differ with us in our view of the necessity for this
feature of possible force in our plan, we say we respect your
attitude. We admit your claim to sincere patriotism to be as just as
ours. We do not ascribe your desire to avoid war to be a fear of death
to yourselves or your sons; but rather to your sense of the horrors,
injustice, and ineffectiveness of settling any international issue by
such a brutal arbitrament. Nevertheless, we differ with you in
judgment that, in the world of nations as they are, war can be
completely avoided.
_We believe it is still necessary to use a threat of overwhelming
force of a great league with a willingness to make the threat good in
order to frighten nations into a use of rational and peaceful means to
settle their issues with their associates of the league._ Nor are we
militarists or jingoes. We are trying to follow a middle path.
Now what is the machinery, a resort to which we wish to force an
intending belligerent of the league--it consists of two tribunals, to
one of which every issue must be submitted. Issues between nations are
of two classes:
First--Issues that can be decided on principles of international law
and equity, called justiciable.
Second--Issues that cannot be decided on such principles of law and
equity, but which might be quite as irritating and provocative of war,
called non-justiciable.
The questions of the Alaskan boundary, of the Bering Sea seal fishing,
and of the Alabama Claims were justiciable issues that could be
settled by a court, exactly as the Supreme Court would settle claims
between States. The questions whether the Japanese should be
naturalized, whether all American citizens should be admitted to
Russia as merchants without regard to religious faith, are capable of
causing great irritation against the nation denying the privilege, and
yet such nations, in the absence of a treaty on the subject, are
completely within their international right, and the real essence of
the trouble cannot be aided by a resort to a court. The trouble is
non-justiciable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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