America and the World War

by Theodore Roosevelt

1. There is no provision for their enforcement, and,

2. They would be in some cases not only impossible but improper to enforce.

A treaty is a promise. It is like a promise to pay in the commercial world. Its value lies in the means provided for redeeming the promise. To make it, and not redeem it, is vicious. A United States gold certificate is valuable because gold is back of it. If there were nothing back of it the certificate would sink to the position of fiat money, which is irredeemable, and therefore valueless; as in the case of our Revolutionary currency. The Wilson-Bryan all-inclusive arbitration treaties represent nothing whatever but international fiat money. To make them is no more honest than it is to issue fiat money. Mr. Bryan would not make a good Secretary of the Treasury, but he would do better in that position than as Secretary of State. For his type of fiat obligations is a little worse in international than in internal affairs. The all-inclusive arbitration treaties, in whose free and unlimited negotiation Mr. Bryan takes such pleasure, are of less value than the thirty-cent dollars, whose free and unlimited coinage he formerly advocated.

An efficient world league for peace is as yet in the future; and it may be, although I sincerely hope not, in the far future. The indispensable thing for every free people to do in the present day is with efficiency to prepare against war by making itself able physically to defend its rights and by cultivating that stern and manly spirit without which no material preparation will avail.

The last point is all essential. It is not of much use to provide an armed force if that force is composed of poltroons and ultrapacificists. Such men should be sent to the front, of course, for they should not be allowed to shirk the danger which their braver fellow countrymen willingly face, and under proper discipline some use can be made of them; but the fewer there are of them in a nation the better the army of that nation will be.

A Yale professor—he might just as well have been a Harvard professor—is credited in the press with saying the other day that he wishes the United States would take the position that if attacked it would not defend itself, and would submit unresistingly to any spoliation. The professor said that this would afford such a beautiful example to mankind that war would undoubtedly be abolished. Magazine writers, and writers of syndicate articles published in reputable papers, have recently advocated similar plans. Men who talk this way are thoroughly bad citizens. Few members of the criminal class are greater enemies of the republic.

American citizens must understand that they cannot advocate or acquiesce in an evil course of action and then escape responsibility for the results. If disaster comes to our navy in the near future it will be directly due to the way the navy has been handled during the past twenty-two months, and a part of the responsibility will be shared by every man who has failed effectively to protest against, or in any way has made himself responsible for, the attitude of the present administration in foreign affairs and as regards the navy.

The first and most important thing for us as a people to do, in order to prepare ourselves for self-defense, is to get clearly in our minds just what our policy is to be, and to insist that our public servants shall make their words and their deeds correspond. As has already been pointed out, the present administration was elected on the explicit promise that the Philippines should be given their independence, and it has taken action in the Philippines which can only be justified on the theory that this independence is to come in the immediate future. I believe that we have rendered incalculable service to the Philippines, and that what we have there done has shown in the most striking manner the extreme mischief that would have followed if, in 1898 and the subsequent years, we had failed to do our duty in consequence of following the advice of Mr. Bryan and the pacificists or anti-imperialists of that day. But we must keep our promises; and we ought now to leave the islands completely at as early a date as possible.

There remains to defend—the United States proper, the Panama Canal and its approaches, Alaska, and Hawaii. To defend all these is vital to our honor and interest. For such defense preparedness is essential.

The first and most essential form of preparedness should be making the navy efficient. Absolutely and relatively, our navy has never been at such a pitch of efficiency as in February, 1909, when the battle fleet returned from its voyage around the world. Unit for unit, there was no other navy in the world which was at that time its equal. During the next four years we had an admirable Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Meyer—we were fortunate in having then and since good Secretaries of War in Mr. Stimson and Mr. Garrison. Owing to causes for which Mr. Meyer was in no way responsible, there was a slight relative falling off in the efficiency of the navy, and probably a slight absolute falling off during the following four years. But it remained very efficient.