These are refreshing promises in these days of ebb; they show that the impulse that began so splendidly two weeks ago is not dead, that the tide rises toward world discussion and world organized peace will flow again presently, wider and stronger than its previous flow. And meanwhile these frank discussions of attitude and detail must go on; they cannot be ignored, but at the same time they must not be magnified into incurable quarrels and insurmountable difficulties. They are unavoidable and necessary things, but not the big things, the main things. While the tide is out our main projects, stranded in this estuary that leads perhaps to the ocean of peace, must needs keel over and look askew; we must scrape our keels, calk leaks and wait for the great waters to return.
XVIII
AMERICA AND ENTANGLING ALLIANCES
Washington, Nov. 30.
The power of the American impulse toward a world peace is undeniable. It has produced in succession the great dream of a League of Nations and now this second great dream of a gradually developing Association of Nations arising out of a series of such conferences as this one. No other nation could have raised such hopes and no other political system has the freedom of action needed to give these projects the substance and dignity which the initiative of the head of the state involves.
But if these projects are to carry through into the world of accomplished realities, if in a lifetime or so this glorious dream of a world peace—going on, as a world at peace must now inevitably do, from achievement to achievement—if that dream is to be realized, certain peculiarities of the American people and the American situation have at no very distant date to be faced.
All such gatherings and conferences as this are haunted by a peculiar foggy ghost called “Tact,” which is constantly seeking to cover up and conceal and obliterate some vitally important but rather troublesome reality in the matter. “Tact” is apparently a modern survival of the ancient “Tabu.” For example, a pleasant Indian gentleman sits among the British delegates at the conference; “Tact” demands that no one shall ever ask him or of him, “What do you conceive will be the place of India in that great World Association half a century ahead? Will it still be a British appendix?” And “Tact” becomes hysterical at the slightest whisper of the word “Senegalese,” or any inquiry about the possible uses of the French submarine. And a third question, hitherto veiled by “Tact” under the very thickest wrappings of fog, to which, greatly daring, I propose to address myself now, is: “How far is America really prepared to fix and adhere to any wide schemes for the permanent adjustment of the world’s affairs that may be arrived at by this conference or its successors?”
The other day a friend of mine in New York made a profoundly wise remark to me. “I have found,” she said, “that one can have nothing and do nothing without paying for it. If you do well or if you do ill, just the same you have to pay for it. If a mother wants to do her best by her children, she must pay for it, in giving up personal ambitions, dreams of writing or art, throughout the best years of life. If a man wants to do his best in business or politics, he must sacrifice dreams of travel and adventure.” And whatever America does with herself in the next few years, she too must be prepared to pay.
If she desires isolation, moral exaltation, irresponsibility and self-sufficiency, “America for the Americans and never mind the consequences,” she must be prepared to witness the decline and fall of the white civilization in Europe and the consolidation of a profoundly alien system across the Pacific. If, on the other hand, she now takes up this task for which she seems so inclined, as the leader and helper of white civilization, the task of organizing the permanent peace of the world upon the lines of the system of civilization to which she belongs, then for that nobler role also there is a price to be paid. She has to assume not only the dignity but the responsibilities of leadership. She has not merely to express noble sentiments, but to lay hold upon the difficulties and intricacies of the problem before her. She has not merely to criticise but to consider and sympathize and help, and she has to make decisions and abide by them.
When America really makes decisions, she abides by them—vigorously. The Monroe Doctrine was such a decision. It has saved South America for South Americans; it has saved Europe from a ruinous scramble for the Spanish inheritance. It was the first great feat of Americanism in world politics. The exponents of “Tact” will, I know, be outraged by the reminder that for a long time tacit approval of Britain and the existence of the British fleet provided a support and shield to the Monroe Doctrine, and also by the further reminder that the one serious attack upon it was made by Napoleon III. during the American Civil War—at which time, I admit, the attitude of Great Britain to the disunited States was also far from impeccable. But helped or assailed, the Monroe Doctrine held good.
The Washington Conference has developed a position with regard to the Pacific that calls for an American decision of equal vigor. It is as plain as daylight that Japanese liberal tendencies can be supported and the aggressive ambitions of Japanese imperialism can be restrained, that China can be saved for the Chinese and Eastern Siberia from foreign conquest, provided America places herself unequivocally side by side with Great Britain and France in framing and sustaining a definite system of guarantees and prohibitions in Eastern Asia. The Anglo-Japanese agreement could be ended in favor of such a new peace-pact and an enormous step forward toward world peace be made. It would mark an epoch in world statecraft.