On April 19 and 20, 1907, was held the first annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, at Washington, which was attended by an unexpectedly large number of members. The society had grown, in the short time since its organization, to a membership of over five hundred. The various sessions were devoted to discussions of international topics, and closed with a banquet presided over by Secretary Root, and addresses were made by several speakers, including two former Secretaries of State, namely, Richard Olney and John W. Foster, as well as by James Bryce, General Horace Porter, and the writer.
To-day the society has more than twelve hundred members, and since 1907 it has regularly held annual meetings and issued its quarterly publication, "The American Journal of International Law." Since the beginning, Elihu Root has been the president, with whom are associated as vice-presidents and members of the executive council more than forty of the leading writers and authorities, Senators and judges, including the Chief Justice of the United States. I still am the chairman of the executive committee, of which Professor Scott has from the beginning been the recording secretary, as well as the editor-in-chief of the "Journal." An analytical index of the fourteen volumes of the "Journal" (1907-20) has recently been prepared by George A. Finch, secretary of the board of editors.
While these various groups were pressing forward on their respective avenues of approach to a better understanding between nations, President Roosevelt was applying his energies to the problem in his own way. His method was in this instance characterized by a strikingly objective and dramatic treatment. He firmly believed that the greater power a peaceful nation has to make war in a world threatened by war, the greater becomes its power to command peace. The peace societies will not endorse this contention; but the history of international relations gives force to that proposition. Such are international amenities, paradoxical as it may appear.
Roosevelt's terse message to a world threatened by war was to send a great fleet of battleships on a voyage round the world.
The fleet was scheduled to return to Hampton Roads on Washington's birthday, February 22, 1908. It was to be reviewed on its arrival by the President. Admiral Adolph Marix, the chairman of the Lighthouse Board in my Department, in the tender Maple took my wife and me, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Hockstader, my son-in-law and daughter, and several officials of the Department to Hampton Roads, and we steamed out to the tail of the Horse Shoe some ten miles from Old Point Comfort. At the appointed time, eleven o'clock that day, Admiral Sperry in his flagship Connecticut passed in review before the President, and following him came the twenty-four battleships consisting of the sixteen ships that went around the Horn, and eight additional ones, most of which had been completed since the squadron had left the Atlantic on this voyage sixteen months before. These ships had steamed 42,000 miles without any hitch or any casualty, or any untoward circumstance.
When the President first decided that this trip should be made, all kinds of hostile criticism bristled in the press of the country. But the President, with his usual alertness, had several far-sighted purposes in view. He says in his "Autobiography": "At that time, as I happened to know neither the English nor the German authorities believed it possible to take a fleet of great battleships around the world, I made up my mind that it was time to have a show-down in the matter; because if it was really true that our fleet could not get from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it was much better to know it and be able to shape our policy in view of the knowledge."
The great show of naval strength on the part of the United States that this voyage illustrated naturally had its effect throughout the world. A strength that is not menacing tends to allay menace. And in this instance the visit of the fleet to Japan was promptly interpreted by the Japanese as one of courtesy and good-will. The President, again and again in his public utterances, as well as in his private statements at Cabinet meetings, had emphasized his view that a strong navy makes for peace. And toasting the admirals and captains in the cabin of the Mayflower, he exclaimed:
"Isn't it magnificent? Nobody after this will forget that the American coast is on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic!"
The home-coming of the fleet was a most imposing sight. The weather was beautiful, and altogether the function appeared as calm and peaceful as if it had been a magnificent pleasure excursion, which indeed it had proved to be.