MR. ROOSEVELT’S LETTER.
My Dear Mr. Maxim:
I thank you heartily for your book on "Defenseless America." It is a capital book and I believe it is safe to say that no wise and patriotic American can fail to recognize the service that you have rendered in writing it. I hope it will have the widest possible circulation throughout our country.
I was glad to see the first-class letters that have been written you by such good Americans as Oscar Straus, Garrett P. Serviss, Rear Admiral W.W. Kimball, C.P. Gray, Holman Day, and the others. On the other hand, I was saddened by the extraordinary letter sent you by the three young men who purported to speak for the senior class of the college of which they are members. The course of conduct which these men and those like them advocate for the nation would, of course, not only mean a peculiar craven avoidance of national duty by our people at this time, but would also inevitably tend permanently to encourage the spirit of individual cowardice no less than of national cowardice.
The professional pacifists, the professional peace-at-any-price men, who during the last five years have been so active, who have pushed the mischievous all-arbitration treaties at Washington, who have condoned our criminal inactivity as regards Mexico and, above all, as regards the questions raised by the great world war now raging, and who have applauded our abject failure to live up to the obligations imposed upon us as a signatory power of The Hague Convention, are, at best, an unlovely body of men, and taken as a whole are probably the most undesirable citizens that this country contains.
But it is less shocking to see such sentiments developed among old men than among young men. The college students who organize or join these peace-at-any-price leagues are engaged, according to their feeble abilities, in cultivating a standard of manhood which, if logically applied, would make them desire to "arbitrate" with any tough individual who slapped the sister or sweetheart of one of them in the face.
Well-meaning people, as we all know, sometimes advocate a course of action which is infamous; and, as was proved by the great Copperhead Party fifty years ago, there are always some brave men to be found condoning or advocating deeds of national cowardice. But the fact remains that the advocates of pacifism who have been most prominent in our country during the past five years have been preaching poltroonery.
Such preaching, if persevered in long enough, softens the fibre of any nation, and, above all, of those preaching it; and if it is reduced to practice it is ruinous to national character. These men have been doing their best to make us the China of the Occident, and the college students, such as those of whom you speak, have already reached a level considerably below that to which the higher type of Chinaman has now struggled on his upward path.
On the whole, for the nation as for the individual, the most contemptible of all sins is the sin of cowardice; and while there are other sins as base there are none baser. The prime duty for this nation is to prepare itself so that it can protect itself—and this is the duty that you are preaching in your admirable volume. It is only when this duty has been accomplished that we shall be able to perform the further duty of helping the cause of the world righteousness by backing the cause of the international peace of justice (the only kind of peace worth having) not merely by words but by deeds.
A peace conference such as that which some of our countrymen propose at the moment to hold is purely noxious, until as a preliminary we put ourselves in such shape that what we say will excite the respect and not the derision of foreign nations; and, furthermore, until we have by practical action shown that we are heartily ashamed of ourselves for our craven abandonment of duty in not daring to say a word when The Hague Conventions were ruthlessly violated before our eyes.
Righteousness must be put before peace, and peace must be recognized as of value only when it is the hand-maiden of justice. The doctrine of national or individual neutrality between right and wrong is an ignoble doctrine, unworthy the support of any brave or honorable man. It is wicked to be neutral between right and wrong, and this statement can be successfully refuted only by men who are prepared to hold up Pontius Pilate, the arch-typical neutral of all time, as worthy of our admiration.
An ignoble peace may be the worst crime against humanity, and righteous war may represent the greatest service a nation can at a given moment render to itself and to mankind.
Our people also need to come to their senses about the manufacture and sale of arms and ammunition. Of course, the same moral law applies here between nations as between individuals within a nation. There is not the slightest difference between selling ammunition in time of war and in time of peace, because when sold in time of peace it is only sold with a view to possibility or likelihood of war. It should never be sold to people who will make bad use of it, and it should be freely sold at all times to those who will use it for a proper purpose.
It is absolutely essential that we should have stores where citizens of a nation can buy arms and ammunition. It is a service to good citizenship to sell a revolver to an honest householder for use against burglars or to a policeman for use against "gunmen." It is an outrage against humanity knowingly to sell such a revolver to a burglar or a "gunman." The morality of the sale depends upon the purpose and the probable use. This is true among individuals. It is no less true among nations.
I am speaking of the moral right. Our legal right to sell ammunition to the Allies is, of course, perfect, just as Germany, the greatest trader in ammunition to other nations in the past, had an entire legal right to sell guns and ammunition to Turkey, for instance. But, in addition to our legal right to sell ammunition to those engaged in trying to restore Belgium to her own people, it is also our moral duty to do so, precisely as it is a moral duty to sell arms to policemen for use against "gunmen."
Wishing you all possible success, I am, faithfully yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Hudson Maxim, Esq., Lansing, N.J.