THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS AND THE ENSLAVEMENT OF MANKIND
November 22, 1918
The surest way to kill a great cause is to reduce it to a hard-and-fast formula and insist upon the application of the formula without regard to actual existing conditions.
It is announced in the press that the President is going to the Peace Conference especially to insist, among other things, on that one of his fourteen points dealing with the so-called “freedom of the seas.” The President’s position in the matter is, of course, eagerly championed by Germany, as it has been Germany’s special position throughout the war. It is, of course, eagerly championed by the New York World, the Hearst papers, and all the rubber-stamp gentry. It is antagonized by England and France and by every anti-German in America who understands the situation.
It is utterly impossible, in view of the immense rapidity of the change in modern war conditions, to formulate abstract policies about such matters as contraband and blockades. These policies must be actually tested in order to see how they work. Both England and the United States have reversed themselves in this matter on several different occasions. This is interesting as a matter of history, but from no other standpoint. If we are honorable and intelligent we will follow the course in this matter which, under existing conditions at this time, seems most likely to work justice in the immediate future.
Germany’s position was that England had no right to blockade her so as to cut off her supplies from the outside world. President Wilson at the time accepted this view and talked a good deal about the freedom of the seas. Meanwhile Germany, through her submarines, began an unprecedented course of wholesale murder on the seas. President Wilson protested against this in language much more apologetic and tender than he had used in protesting against Great Britain blockading Germany in what was essentially the same manner in which we blockaded the South during the Civil War. He put the dollar above the man and incidentally above the women and the children. He protested more vigorously upon the interference with American goods than against the taking of American lives.
Then we finally went to war with Germany ourselves. We instantly adopted toward Germany and toward neutrals like Holland exactly the position which President Wilson had been denouncing England for adopting toward Germany and toward us. Our action in this case was quite right, whereas our protest against England’s action had been entirely wrong.
President Wilson now proposes to accept the German view and provide a system which, if it had been in existence in 1914, would have meant the inevitable and rapid triumph of Germany.
If this particular one of the proposed fourteen points had been in treaty form and had been lived up to in 1914, Germany would have had free access to the outside world. England’s fleet would not have enabled her to bring economic pressure to bear upon Germany and doubtless Germany would have won an overwhelming victory within a couple of years. Therefore Mr. Wilson’s proposal is that now, when no human being can foretell whether Germany will feel chastened and morally changed, we shall take steps which will mean that if the war has to be fought over again, Germany’s triumph will have been secured in advance so far as we are able to secure it. All such conditions, all merely academic questions as to the attitude of America or of England before the outbreak of the Great War, are insignificant. Whatever our views prior to the Great War, we are fools, indeed, if we have not learned the lessons these last four and a half terrible years have taught. The freedom of the seas in the sense used by Germany and Mr. Wilson would have meant the enslavement of mankind to Germany. It would have meant that this country would at this time either be lying prostrate under the feet of German invaders or be purchasing peace by ransoms heavier than were paid by Belgium. No patriotic American has the right to stand quiet and see the President of the country, without any warrant from the country, try to bring upon us such outrageous potentiality and disaster as would be implied in the general international adoption of the so-called “freedom of the seas.” Such freedom of the seas means the enslavement of mankind.