IV
THE DUTIES OF PEACE
A speech made at the dinner given by the Ohio Society in honor of the Peace Commissioners, in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, February 25, 1899.
THE DUTIES OF PEACE
You call and I obey. Any call from Ohio, wherever it finds me, is at once a distinction and a duty. But it would be easier to-night and more natural for me to remain silent. I am one of yourselves, the givers of the feast, and the occasion belongs peculiarly to my colleagues on the Peace Commission. I regret that more of them are not here to tell you in person how profoundly we all appreciate the compliment you pay us. Judge Day, after an experience and strain the like of which few Americans of this generation have so suddenly and so successfully met, is seeking to regain his strength at the South; Senator Frye, at the close of an anxious session, finds his responsible duties in Washington too exacting to permit even a day's absence; and Senator Davis, who could not leave the care of the treaty to visit his State even when his own reëlection was pending, has at last snatched the first moment of relief since he was sent to Paris last summer, to go out to St. Paul and meet the constituents who have in his absence renewed to him the crown of a good and faithful servant.
It is all the more fortunate, therefore, that you are honored by the presence of the patriotic member of the opposition who formed the regulator and balance-wheel of the Commission. When Senator Gray objected, we all reëxamined the processes of our reasoning. When he assented, we knew at once we must be on solid ground and went ahead. It was an expected gratification to have with you also the accomplished secretary and counsel to the Commission, a man as modest and unobtrusive as its president, and, like him, equal to any summons. In his regretted absence, we rejoice to find here the most distinguished military aid ordered to report to the Commission, and the most important witness before it—the Conqueror of Manila.
So much you will permit me to say in my capacity as one of the hosts, rather than as a member of the body to which you pay this gracious compliment.
It is not for me to speak of another figure necessarily missing to-night, though often with you heretofore at these meetings—the member of the Ohio Society who sent us to Paris! A great and shining record already speaks for him. He will be known in our history as the President who freed America from the last trace of Spanish blight; who realized the aspiration of our earlier statesmen, cherished by the leaders of either party through three quarters of a century, for planting the flag both on Cuba and on the Sandwich Islands; more than this, as the President who has carried that flag half-way round the world and opened the road for the trade of the Nation to follow it.
All this came from simply doing his duty from day to day, as that duty was forced upon him. No other man in the United States held back from war as he did, risking loss of popularity, risking the hostility of Congress, risking the harsh judgment of friends in agonizing for peace. It was no doubt in the spirit of the Prince of Peace, but it was also with the wisdom of Polonius: "Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee!" Never again will any nation imagine that it can trespass indefinitely against the United States with impunity. Never again will an American war-ship run greater risks in a peaceful harbor than in battle. The world will never again be in doubt whether, when driven to war, we will end it in a gush of sentimentality or a shiver of unmanly apprehension over untried responsibilities, by fleeing from our plain duty, and hastening to give up what we are entitled to, before we have even taken an opportunity to look at it.
Does Peace Pacify?