This is no new thing in our history. If only we were willing to learn from our defeats and failures instead of paying heed purely to our successes, we would realize that what I have above described is one of the common phases of our history. In the War of 1812, at the outset of the struggle, American forces were repeatedly beaten, as at Niagara and Bladensburg, by an enemy one half or one quarter the strength of the American army engaged. Yet two years later these same American troops on the northern frontier, when trained and commanded by Brown, Scott, and Ripley, proved able to do what the finest troops of Napoleon were unable to do, that is, meet the British regulars on equal terms in the open; and the Tennessee backwoodsmen and Louisiana volunteers, when mastered and controlled by the iron will and warlike genius of Andrew Jackson, performed at New Orleans a really great feat. During the year 1812 the American soldiers on shore suffered shameful and discreditable defeats, and yet their own brothers at sea won equally striking victories, and this because the men on shore were utterly unprepared and because the men at sea had been thoroughly trained and drilled long in advance.
Exactly the same lessons are taught by the histories of other nations. When, during the Napoleonic wars, a small force of veteran French soldiers landed in Ireland they defeated without an effort five times their number of British and Irish troops at Castlebar. Yet the men whom they thus drove in wild flight were the own brothers of and often the very same men who a few years later, under Wellington, proved an overmatch for the flower of the French forces. The nation that waits until the crisis is upon it before taking measures for its own safety pays heavy toll in the blood of its best and its bravest and in bitter shame and humiliation. Small is the comfort it can then take from the memory of the times when the noisy and feeble folk in its own ranks cried “Peace, peace,” without taking one practical step to secure peace.
We can never follow out a worthy national policy, we can never be of benefit to others or to ourselves, unless we keep steadily in view as our ideal that of the just man armed, the man who is fearless, self-reliant, ready, because he has prepared himself for possible contingencies; the man who is scornful alike of those who would advise him to do wrong and of those who would advise him tamely to suffer wrong. The great war now being waged in Europe and the fact that no neutral nation has ventured to make even the smallest effort to alleviate[1] or even to protest against the wrongs that have been done show with lamentable clearness that all the peace congresses of the past fifteen years have accomplished precisely and exactly nothing so far as any great crisis is concerned. Fundamentally this is because they have confined themselves to mere words, seemingly without realizing that mere words are utterly useless unless translated into deeds and that an ounce of promise which is accompanied by provision for a similar ounce of effective performance is worth at least a ton of promise as to which no effective method of performance is provided. Furthermore, a very serious blunder has been to treat peace as the end instead of righteousness as the end. The greatest soldier-patriots of history, Timoleon, John Hamden, Andreas Hofer, Koerner, the great patriot-statesman-soldiers like Washington, the great patriot-statesmen like Lincoln whose achievements for good depended upon the use of soldiers, have all achieved their immortal claim to the gratitude of mankind by what they did in just war. To condemn war in terms which include the wars these men waged or took part in precisely as they include the most wicked and unjust wars of history is to serve the devil and not God.
[1] The much advertised sending of food and supplies to Belgium has been of most benefit to the German conquerors of Belgium. They have taken the money and food of the Belgians and permitted the Belgians to be supported by outsiders. Of course, it was far better to send them food, even under such conditions, than to let them starve; but the professional pacificists would do well to ponder the fact that if the neutral nations had been willing to prevent the invasion of Belgium, which could only be done by willingness and ability to use force, they would by this act of “war” have prevented more misery and suffering to innocent men, women, and children than the organized charity of all the “peaceful” nations of the world can now remove.
Again, these peace people have persistently and resolutely blinked facts. One of the peace congresses sat in New York at the very time that the feeling in California about the Japanese question gravely threatened the good relations between ourselves and the great empire of Japan. The only thing which at the moment could practically be done for the cause of peace was to secure some proper solution of the question at issue between ourselves and Japan. But this represented real effort, real thought. The peace congress paid not the slightest serious attention to the matter and instead devoted itself to listening to speeches which favored the abolition of the United States navy and even in one case the prohibiting the use of tin soldiers in nurseries because of the militaristic effect on the minds of the little boys and girls who played with them!
Ex-President Taft has recently said that it is hysterical to endeavor to prepare against war; and he at the same time explained that the only real possibility of war was to be found “in the wanton, reckless, wicked willingness on the part of a narrow section of the country to gratify racial prejudice and class hatred by flagrant breach of treaty right in the form of state law.” This characterization is, of course, aimed at the State of California for its action toward the Japanese. If—which may Heaven forfend—any trouble comes because of the action of California toward the Japanese, a prime factor in producing it will be the treaty negotiated four years ago with Japan; and no clearer illustration can be given of the mischief that comes to our people from the habit our public men have contracted of getting cheap applause for themselves by making treaties which they know to be shams, which they know cannot be observed. The result of such action is that there is one set of real facts, those that actually exist and must be reckoned with, and another set of make-believe facts which do not exist except on pieces of paper or in after-dinner speeches, which are known to be false but which serve to deceive well-meaning pacificists. Four years ago there was in existence a long-standing treaty with Japan under which we reserved the right to keep out Japanese laborers. Every man of any knowledge whatever of conditions on the Pacific Slope, and, indeed, generally throughout this country, knew, and knows now, that any immigration in mass to this country of the Japanese, whether the immigrants be industrial laborers or men whose labor takes the form of agricultural work or even the form of small shopkeeping, was and is absolutely certain to produce trouble of the most dangerous kind. The then administration entered on a course of conduct as regards Manchuria which not only deeply offended the Japanese but actually achieved the result of uniting the Russians and Japanese against us. To make amends for this serious blunder the administration committed the far worse blunder of endeavoring to placate Japanese opinion by the negotiation of a new treaty in which our right to exclude Japanese laborers, that is, to prevent Japanese immigration in mass, was abandoned. The extraordinary and lamentable fact in the matter was that the California senators acquiesced in the treaty. Apparently they took the view, which so many of our public men do take and which they are encouraged to take by the unwisdom of those who demand impossible treaties, that they were perfectly willing to please some people by passing the treaty because, if necessary, the opponents of the treaty could at any time be placated by its violation. One item in securing their support was the statement by the then administration that the Japanese authorities had said that they would promise under a “gentlemen’s agreement” to keep the immigrants out if only they were by treaty given the right to let them in. Under the preceding treaty, during my administration, the Japanese government had made and had in good faith kept such an agreement, the agreement being that as long as the Japanese government itself kept out Japanese immigrants and thereby relieved us of the necessity of passing any law to exclude them, no such law would be passed. Apparently the next administration did not perceive the fathomless difference between retaining the power to enact a law which was not enacted as long as no necessity for enacting it arose, and abandoning the power, surrendering the right, and trusting that the necessity to exercise it would not arise.
I immensely admire and respect the Japanese people. I prize their good-will. I am proud of my personal relations with some of their leading men. Fifty years ago there was no possible community between the Japanese and ourselves. The events of the last fifty years have been so extraordinary that now Japanese statesmen, generals, artists, writers, scientific men, business men, can meet our corresponding men on terms of entire equality. I am fortunate enough to have a number of Japanese friends. I value their friendship. They and I meet on a footing of absolute equality, socially, politically, and in every other way. I respect and regard them precisely as in the case of my German and Russian, French and English friends. But there is no use blinking the truth because it is unpleasant. As yet the differences between the Japanese who work with their hands and the Americans who work with their hands are such that it is absolutely impossible for them, when brought into contact with one another in great numbers, to get on. Japan would not permit any immigration in mass of our people into her territory, and it is wholly inadvisable that there should be such immigration of her people into our territory. This is not because either side is inferior to the other but because they are different. As a matter of fact, these differences are sometimes in favor of the Japanese and sometimes in favor of the Americans. But they are so marked that at this time, whatever may be the case in the future, friction and trouble are certain to come if there is any immigration in mass of Japanese into this country, exactly as friction and trouble have actually come in British Columbia from this cause, and have been prevented from coming in Australia only by the most rigid exclusion laws. Under these conditions the way to avoid trouble is not by making believe that things which are not so are so but by courteously and firmly facing the situation. The two nations should be given absolutely reciprocal treatment. Students, statesmen, publicists, scientific men, all travellers, whether for business or pleasure, and all men engaged in international business, whether Japanese or American, should have absolute right of entry into one another’s countries and should be treated with the highest consideration while therein, but no settlement in mass should be permitted of the people of either country in the other country. All travelling and sojourning by the people of either country in the other country should be encouraged, but there should be no immigration of workers to, no settlement in, either country by the people of the other. I advocate this solution, which for years I have advocated, because I am not merely a friend but an intense admirer of Japan, because I am most anxious that America should learn from Japan the great amount that Japan can teach us and because I wish to work for the best possible feeling between the two countries. Each country has interests in the Pacific which can best be served by their cordial co-operation on a footing of frank and friendly equality; and in eastern Asiatic waters the interest and therefore the proper dominance of Japan are and will be greater than those of any other nation. If such a plan as that above advocated were once adopted by both our nations all sources of friction between the two countries would vanish at once. Ultimately I have no question that all restrictions of movement from one country to the other could be dispensed with. But to attempt to dispense with them in our day and our generation will fail; and even worse failure will attend the attempt to make believe to dispense with them while not doing so.
It is eminently necessary that the United States should in good faith observe its treaties, and it is therefore eminently necessary not to pass treaties which it is absolutely certain will not be obeyed, and which themselves provoke disobedience to them. The height of folly, of course, is to pass treaties which will not be obeyed and the disregard of which may cause the gravest possible trouble, even war, and at the same time to refuse to prepare for war and to pass other foolish treaties calculated to lure our people into the belief that there will never be war.
I advocate that our preparedness take such shape as to fit us to resist aggression, not to encourage us in aggression. I advocate preparedness that will enable us to defend our own shores and to defend the Panama Canal and Hawaii and Alaska, and prevent the seizure of territory at the expense of any commonwealth of the western hemisphere by any military power of the Old World. I advocate this being done in the most democratic manner possible. We Americans do not realize how fundamentally democratic our army really is. When I served in Cuba it was under General Sam Young and alongside of General Adna Chaffee. Both had entered the American army as enlisted men in the Civil War. Later, as President, I made both of them in succession lieutenant-generals and commanders of the army. On the occasion when General Chaffee was to appear at the White House for the first time as lieutenant-general, General Young sent him his own starred shoulder-straps with a little note saying that they were from “Private Young, ’61, to Private Chaffee, ’61.” Both of the fine old fellows represented the best type of citizen-soldier. Each was simply and sincerely devoted to peace and justice. Each was incapable of advocating our doing wrong to others. Neither could have understood willingness on the part of any American to see the United States submit tamely to insult or injury. Both typified the attitude that we Americans should take in our dealings with foreign countries.