"As amended, we would have a treaty of arbitration which in effect will do nothing but recite that this Government will when it deems it wise hereafter enter into treaties of arbitration. Inasmuch as we, of course, now have the power to enter into any treaties of arbitration, and inasmuch as to pass these amended treaties does not in the smallest degree facilitate settlements by arbitration, to make them would in no way further the cause of international peace. It would not, in my judgment, be wise or expedient to try to secure the assent of the other contracting powers to the amended treaties, for even if such consent were secured we would still remain precisely where we were before, save where the situation may be changed a little for the worse. There would not even be the slight benefit that might obtain from the more general statement that we intend hereafter, when we can come to an agreement with foreign powers as to what shall be submitted, to enter into arbitration treaties; for we have already, when we ratified The Hague treaty with the various signatory powers, solemnly declared such to be our intention; and nothing is gained by reiterating our adherence to the principle, while refusing to provide any means of making our intention effectual. In the amended form the treaties contain nothing except such expression of barren intention, and indeed, as compared with what has already been provided in The Hague arbitration treaty, they probably represent not a step forward but a slight step backward, as regards the question of international arbitration. As such I do not think they should receive the sanction of this Government. Personally it is not my opinion that this Government lacks the power to enter into general treaties of arbitration, but if I am in error, and if this Government has no power to enter into such general treaties, then it seems to me that it is better not to attempt to make them, rather than to make the attempt in such shape that they will accomplish literally nothing whatever when made.
"Sincerely yours,
"(Signed) Theodore Roosevelt.
"Hon. S. M. Cullom, U. S. Senate."
This letter was read to the Senate, and notwithstanding the positive declaration by Mr. Roosevelt that he would not ask any of the foreign Governments to consent to the amendment made by the Senate, the treaties were amended and ratified by the Senate.
I told the President in advance of the action of the Senate what would be done, and he rather curtly remarked that the matter was closed, and that he would not ask the other Governments to agree to the treaties as amended. And no further action was taken on the treaties.
When Secretary Root entered the State Department he took an entirely different view of the subject. I do not know whether Mr. Root was of the opinion that the Senate was right in insisting on what it considered to be its duty in amending the treaties, but I do know that he negotiated arbitration treaties with Austria, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Haiti, Italy, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Salvador, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, every one of which treaties contained the stipulation that the special agreements referred to in article two were to be made by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. These treaties were promptly ratified and are a part of the supreme law of the land to-day.
Secretary Root was very wise in negotiating and sending to the Senate this series of Mondel or world treaties. All the Nations of the world were agreeing to these treaties among themselves, and it would have been a rather remarkable condition if the United States, of all the great Nations, should have remained aloof. I do not believe that Mr. Root had any difficulty in obtaining the consent of the signatory powers to the treaties, with the stipulation that the special agreement should come to the Senate for ratification; but for some reason or other, at the time when the first treaties were under consideration, President Roosevelt, as indicated in the letter which I have quoted, and probably more particularly Secretary Hay, were both very much incensed at the action of the Senate, and permitted the first treaties to expire.
This general movement in the direction of arbitration was one of the most important events of the beginning of the twentieth century. The importance of the adoption of this principle by the Nations of the world cannot be overestimated. It has been well said that international arbitration is the application of law and of judicial methods to the determination of disputes between Nations, and that this juristic idea in the settlement of international disputes is largely an outgrowth of the international relations, the new and advanced civilization of the nineteenth century.
I do not believe the time will ever come when wars will cease,— the United States obtained its independence by means of a revolution and war; but peace and arbitration have been advocated by the great majority of the enlightened statesmen of the world. There were many great wars during the nineteenth century, including our own Civil War, the greatest, the bloodiest, recorded in all history; but during this century arbitration has made wonderful strides. In the same period there were four hundred and seventy-one instances of international settlements involving the application of the principle of international arbitration. Many of these arbitrations were of the greatest importance; and I remark here that in the number of arbitrations and the importance of the questions involved, the United States and Great Britain have unquestionably led the way. In fact, since the War of 1812, every subject of dispute between the two Nations, which it was found impossible to settle by diplomacy, has been submitted to arbitration. Only within a few years the Alaskan boundary was settled by arbitration, and within the past year a fisheries dispute, a cause of embarrassment since 1818, was submitted to The Hague tribunal and a decision rendered, which, though not entirely satisfactory to the United States, we accepted as the final settlement.
We have uniformly adopted arbitration as a means of settlement for disputes with the Central and South American Republics. With Mexico the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, of 1848, stipulates that future disputes between the two republics shall be submitted to arbitration. We have a general arbitration treaty for the settlement of pecuniary claims with all the Central and South American Republics. At the first Hague Conference, which met in 1899, a general arbitration treaty was agreed to. It was a non-compulsory arbitration, and at the time represented the farthest steps in advance in the direction of arbitration which all the Nations were willing to take together. That treaty was perfected at the second Hague Conference of 1907; and, in addition, a series of treaties were agreed to concerning the opening of hostilities, the laws and customs of war on land, the rights and duties of neutrals, submarine contact mines, bombardment by naval forces, the right of capture in naval war, neutral powers in naval war, an international prize court, and the discharge of projectiles from balloons, and the Geneva Convention was revised. Aside from the prize court treaty, concerning which there were Constitutional objections, these treaties were ratified by the Senate, the United States being one of the first Nations of the world to take this step. Unlike the first Hague Conference, the South American Republics participated in the Second Conference, and it was the first time in all the world's history that the representatives of all the independent Nations in the world gathered together in the interest of peace and agreed on certain principles which should guide them in the conduct of war, if war must come.