The truth is that the advocates of world-wide peace, like all reformers, should bear in mind Josh Billings’s astute remark that “it is much easier to be a harmless dove than a wise serpent.” The worthy pacificists have completely forgotten that the Biblical injunction is two-sided and that we are bidden not only to be harmless as doves but also to be wise as serpents. The ultrapacificists have undoubtedly been an exceedingly harmless body so far as obtaining peace is concerned. They have exerted practically no influence in restraining wrong, although they have sometimes had a real and lamentable influence in crippling the forces of right and preventing them from dealing with wrong. An appreciable amount of good work has been done for peace by genuine lovers of peace, but it has not been done by the feeble folk of the peace movement, loquacious but impotent, who are usually unfortunately prominent in the movement and who excite the utter derision of the great powers of evil.
Sincere lovers of peace who are wise have been obliged to face the fact that it is often a very complicated thing to secure peace without the sacrifice of righteousness. Furthermore, they have been obliged to face the fact that generally the only way to accomplish anything was by not trying to accomplish too much.
The complicated nature of the problem is shown by the fact that whereas the real friends of righteousness believe that our duty to peace ought to be fulfilled by protesting against—and doubtless if necessary doing more than merely protest against—the violation of the rights secured to Belgium by treaty, the professional pacificists nervously point out that such a course would expose us to accusations of abandoning our “neutrality.” In theory these pacificists admit it to be our duty to uphold the Hague treaties of which we were among the signatory powers; but they are against effective action to uphold them, for they are pathetic believers in the all-sufficiency of signatures, placed on bits of paper. They have pinned their faith to the foolish belief that everything put in these treaties was forthwith guaranteed to all mankind. In dealing with the rights of neutrals Article 10 of Chapter 1 explicitly states that if the territory of a neutral nation is invaded the repelling of such invasion by force shall not be esteemed a “hostile” act on the part of the neutral nation. Unquestionably under this clause Belgium has committed no hostile act. Yet, this sound declaration of morality, in a treaty that the leading world-powers have signed, amounts to precisely and exactly nothing so far as the rights of poor Belgium are concerned, because there is no way provided of enforcing the treaty and because the American government has decided that it can keep at peace and remain neutral only by declining to do what, according to the intention of the Hague treaty, it would be expected to do in securing peace for Belgium. In practice the Hague treaties have proved and will always prove useless while there is no sanction of force behind them. For the United States to proffer “good offices” to the various powers entering such a great conflict as the present one accomplishes not one particle of good; to refer them, when they mutually complain of wrongs, to a Hague court which is merely a phantom does less than no good. The Hague treaties can accomplish nothing, and ought not to have been entered into, unless in such a case as this of Belgium there is willingness to take efficient action under them. There could be no better illustration of how extremely complicated and difficult a thing it is in practice instead of in theory to make even a small advance in the cause of peace.
I believe that international opinion can do something to arrest wrong; but only if it is aroused and finds some method of clear and forceful expression. For example, I hope that it has been aroused to the point of preventing any repetition at the expense of Brussels of the destruction which has befallen Louvain. The peaceful people of Brussels now live in dread of what may happen to them if the Germans should evacuate the city. In such an event it is possible that half a dozen fanatics, or half a dozen young roughs of the “Apache” type, in spite of everything that good citizens may do, will from some building fire on the retiring soldiers. In such case the offenders ought to be and must be treated with instant and unsparing rigor, and those clearly guilty of aiding or shielding them should also be so treated. But if in such case Brussels is in whole or in part destroyed as Louvain was destroyed, those destroying it will be guilty of a capital crime against civilization; and it is heartily to be regretted that civilized nations have not devised some method by which the collective power of civilization can be used to prevent or punish such crimes. In every great city there are plenty of reckless or fanatical or downright evil men eagerly ready to do some act which is abhorrent to the vast majority of their fellows; and it is wicked to punish with cruel severity immense multitudes of innocent men, women, and children for the misdeeds of a few rascals or fanatics. Of course, it is eminently right to punish by death these rascals or fanatics themselves.
Kindly people who know little of life and nothing whatever of the great forces of international rivalry have exposed the cause of peace to ridicule by believing that serious wars could be avoided through arbitration treaties, peace treaties, neutrality treaties, and the action of the Hague court, without putting force behind such treaties and such action. The simple fact is that none of these existing treaties and no function of the Hague court hitherto planned and exercised have exerted or could exert the very smallest influence in maintaining peace when great conflicting international passions are aroused and great conflicting national interests are at stake. It happens that wars have been more numerous in the fifteen years since the first Hague conference than in the fifteen years prior to it. It was Russia that called the first and second Hague conferences, and in the interval she fought the war with Japan and is now fighting a far greater war. We bore a prominent part at the Hague conferences; but if the Hague court had been in existence in 1898 it could not have had the smallest effect upon our war with Spain; and neither would any possible arbitration treaty or peace treaty have had any effect. At the present moment Great Britain owes its immunity from invasion purely to its navy and to the fact that that navy has been sedulously exercised in time of peace so as to prepare it for war. Great Britain has always been willing to enter into any reasonable—and into some unreasonable—peace and arbitration treaties; but her fate now would have been the fate of Belgium and would not have been hindered in the smallest degree by these treaties, if she had not possessed a first-class navy. The navy has done a thousand times more for her peace than all the arbitration treaties and peace treaties of the type now existing that the wit of man could invent. I believe that national agreement in the future can do much toward minimizing the chance for war; but it must be by proceeding along different lines from those hitherto followed and in an entirely different spirit from the ultrapacificist or professional peace-at-any-price spirit.
The Hague court has served a very limited, but a useful, purpose. Some, although only a small number, of the existing peace and arbitration treaties have served a useful purpose. But the purpose and the service have been strictly limited. Issues often arise between nations which are not of first-class importance, which do not affect their vital honor and interest, but which, if left unsettled, may eventually cause irritation that will have the worst possible results. The Hague court and the different treaties in question provide instrumentalities for settling such disputes, where the nations involved really wish to settle them but might be unable to do so if means were not supplied. This is a real service and one well worth rendering. These treaties and the Hague court have rendered such service again and again in time past. It has been a misfortune that some worthy people have anticipated too much and claimed too much in reference to them, for the failure of the excessive claims has blinded men to what they really have accomplished. To expect from them what they cannot give is merely short-sighted. To assert that they will give what they cannot give is mischievous. To promise that they will give what they cannot give is not only mischievous but hypocritical; and it is for this reason that such treaties as the thirty or forty all-inclusive arbitration or peace treaties recently negotiated at Washington, although unimportant, are slightly harmful.
The Hague court has proved worthless in the present gigantic crisis. There is hardly a Hague treaty which in the present crisis has not in some respect been violated. However, a step toward the peaceful settlement of questions at issue between nations which are not vital and which do not mark a serious crisis has been accomplished on certain occasions in the past by the action of the Hague court and by rational and limited peace or arbitration treaties. Our business is to try to make this court of more effect and to enlarge the class of cases where its actions will be valuable. In order to do this, we must endeavor to put an international police force behind this international judiciary. At the same time we must refuse to do or say anything insincere. Above all, we must refuse to be misled into abandoning the policy of efficient self-defense, by any unfounded trust that the Hague court, as now constituted, and peace or arbitration treaties of the existing type, can in the smallest degree accomplish what they never have accomplished and never can accomplish. Neither the existing Hague court nor any peace treaties of the existing type will exert even the slightest influence in saving from disaster any nation that does not preserve the virile virtues and the long-sightedness that will enable it by its own might to guard its own honor, interest, and national life.