America's Neutrality
By Count Albert Apponyi
[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 28, 1915.]
The letter which follows was sent by Count Albert Apponyi to Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, and was written in the latter part of last month in Budapest. Count Apponyi, who is one of the most distinguished of contemporary European statesmen, was President of the Hungarian Parliament from 1872 to 1904. He was formerly Minister of Public Instruction, Privy Councillor, Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and Member of the Interparliamentary Union.
I have been greatly interested in your account of American neutrality in the present European crisis. I must confess that I had seen it in a somewhat different light before and that some of the facts under our notice still appear to me as hardly concordant with the magnificent attitude of impartiality, nay, not even with the international duties of neutrality, which intellectual and official America professes to keep.
We cannot explain to ourselves that a neutral power should suffer the selling of arms and ammunition by its citizens to one of the belligerent parties, when no such selling to the other party is practically feasible; we cannot understand why America should meekly submit to the dictates of England, declaring all foodstuffs and manufacturing materials contraband of war, with not even a show of right and with the clear and openly proclaimed intention of starving Germany and Austria-Hungary; why, on the other hand, America should use an almost threatening language against Germany, and against Germany alone, when the latter country announces reprisals against the English trade, which, under given circumstances, can be considered only as acts of legitimate self-defense against an enemy who chooses to wage war not on our soldiers only, but on our women and children, too.
With all the respect we feel for the United States, we cannot find this attitude of their Government either fair or dignified. I offer these remarks in no spirit of uncalled-for criticism, but because I see how much the moral authority of the United States and their splendid situation as the providential peace makers of some future—alas! still far off—day has been impaired by the aforementioned proceedings. We cannot help considering them as so many acts of ill-disguised hostility against ourselves and of compliance with our foes. How can you expect, then, to have your good offices accepted with confidence by both belligerent parties when the times are ripe for them? It seems like the throwing away of a magnificent opportunity, and I think that those who, like yourself, cherish for your country the noble ambition of being some day the restorer of peace, should exert themselves to prevent practices which, if continued, would disable her to play any such part.
In your letter you strike the keynote of what I cannot help considering the partiality of Americans for the Entente powers. It is the idea that "in the western area of conflict, at least, there is an armed clash between the representatives of dynastic institutions and bureaucratic rule on the one hand with those of representative government and liberal institutions on the other." I can understand that it impresses some people that way, but I beg to enter a protest against this interpretation of the conflict.
Liberal or less liberal institutions have nothing to do with it in the west; the progress of democracy in Germany will not be stopped by her victory, it will rather be promoted by it, because the masses are conscious of bearing the burden of war and of being the main force of its vigorous prosecution, and they are enlightened and strong enough to insist on a proper reward. Rights cannot be denied to those who fulfilled duties involving self-sacrifice of the sublimest kind with unflinching devotion. No practical interest of democracy then is involved in the conflict of the western powers.