Pamphlet No. 48 Series 1927-28 January, 1928 A Constructive American Foreign Policy DISCUSSED BY Walter Scott Penfield Nicholas Murray Butler A STENOGRAPHIC REPORT OF THE 100th New York Luncheon Discussion December 3, 1927 of the Foreign Policy Association NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS Eighteen East Forty-First Street New York City SPEAKERS; NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER President, Columbia University. President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. WALTER SCOTT PENFIELD Formerly counsel at legations of Nicaragua, Salvador, Venezuela and Dominican Republic; Attorney for State Department, 1901-04; technical adviser for Panama at Paris Peace Conference. JAMES G. McDonald, chairman SPEAKER S’ TABLE Mr. Ernest Angell Prof. Philip Marshall Brown Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler Mr. H. W. Dodds Mr. Allen W. Dulles Mr. Austen G. Fox Mr. John P. Gavit Mr. Norman Hapgood Mr. Howard Heinz Hon. David Jayne Hill Dr. Hamilton Holt Mrs. Roland G. Hopkins Prof. Philip C. Jessup Mr. Otto H. Kahn Mr. Frederic R. Kellogg Mr. Gardner Lattimer Mrs. Gardner Lattimer Mr. James G. MacDonald Mr. Walter Scott Penfield Sir Rennell Rodd The Comtesse de Salignac-Fenelon Prof. James T. Shotwell Mr. Walter West A Constructive American Foreign Policy Introductory Remarks JAMES G. McDonald, chairman T his is the one hundredth luncheon of the Foreign Policy Associa- tion in New York. Like so many of its predecessors, it is being shared through the courtesy of WEAL with what we like to think is a wide and discriminating radio audience. I hope therefore that none of you here or none of you who are listening in on this discussion much more comfortably at home will per- emptorily object if I take three or four minutes to outline the growth of the Foreign Policy Association, since the first luncheon nine years ago. Then, we were a tiny New York group of about thirty-five. Now, we are a national organization of more than eight thousand members in forty-eight states and eighteen foreign countries. Then, we had a staff of five. Now, we have a staff of thirty-five. Then, in addition to occa- sional luncheons in New York, we sometimes issued statements to the press. Now, with a staff seven times that size, we have meetings in New York and crowd the largest ballrooms in fourteen or fifteen other cities. But, despite our increased staff, we are more modest than we used to be. We no longer feel capable of issuing pronouncements on questions of foreign policy. Instead, we are striving to function in a much more humble, but, we believe, more useful and more difficult way, that is, to supply factual data on problems of international relations to those whose daily job it is to write or speak about international affairs. We do this in the following ways : First, through our brief weekly News Bulletin. Second, through the fortnightly Information Service re- ports of the Research Department. Each report is what a layman, or rather a lawyer, woul-d call an agreed statement of facts about some one important international problem. They are designed and made available for those who write and speak on foreign affairs, particularly to the seven hundred editors of the daily press with a circulation of more than ten thousand. The State Department has repeatedly emphasized its faith in their fac- tual character, and within the last two years we have received hundreds of enthusiastic letters from editors and others who tell us that these re- ports are serving admirably the purpose for which they are designed, that is, to make the talents and training of a technical staff available to those who most need and can most effectively use such assistance. 3 And third, the preparation of special studies for organizations and groups. Fourth, and last, is our newest innovation, — a Washington Bu- reau. At present it is very modest, requiring only the part time of one of our regular members of the staff. None the less, it is already a val- uable contact with the State Department and the Washington correspond- ents. We hope that, always modest in demeanor and honest in purpose, it will grow and become a vital and trusted service for the statesmen on the Hill who may find need occasionally, at least, for factual data to supplement their own researches. Our task is to make it a little easier for our democracy to know some- thing more about the underlying factors which for good or ill are weav- ing the fate of America into the warp and woof of the fate of all man- kind. In short, everything that the Foreign Policy Association is now doing and everything that it plans to do is based on the belief that Elihu Root was right when he said, “A democracy which undertakes to control its own foreign relations ought to know something about the subject.” Today’s meeting is on the subject, “A Constructive American Foreign Policy.” I congratulate the Association in having induced so many of its members and friends to come and listen to the discussion of a sub- ject which really concerns them. If it were Russia or Fascist Italy, I should not be surprised at the crowded attendance. There are to be two speakers,- — one, the President of Columbia, and the other, Mr. Penfield, a distinguished American diplomat. Both men have kindly agreed to the schedule which we have worked out with the radio, which is a half-hour for each talk, leaving us a half-hour for questions and discussion. The first speaker is Mr. Penfield, whose list of accomplishments in the diplomatic field is so long that I would take all of his half-hour if I were to read them. Suffice it to say that he was formerly counsel at the legations of Nicaragua, Salvador, Venezuela and the Dominican Re- public, Attorney for the State Department from 1901 to 1904, and Tech- nical Adviser for Panama at the Paris Peace Conference. MR. WALTER SCOTT PENFIELD M r. CHAIRMAN, Ladies and Gentlemen : It is a privilege to be in- vited to speak on the subject of “A Constructive American For- eign Policy” before this distinguished audience, composed of members of the Foreign Policy Association of New York City; and it is an honor to be permitted to discuss this question with Dr. Nicholas Murray But- ler, the President of Columbia University, who occupies the enviable position of being an able educator, a prominent publicist and a brilliant internationalist. 4 The subject for discussion is so broad and includes so many possible phases that it is rather difficult even to attempt to discuss it within the space of time allowed. The only thing permanent in life is change. It is constantly about us in the material world. As it goes on, our American foreign policy must necessarily change in some particulars to meet the new international situations that may confront us ; and yet there are certain phases of our foreign policy which are a permanent part of us — policies which in the lapse of years since their adoption have proven their worth, and afforded us protection in time of stress. It would be ideal if we could adopt formulae by which our foreign policy in all respects could be definitely and permanently defined. But until human nature changes and the mil- lennium arrives, that would appear to be impracticable. Both before and subsequent to our independence we had our contacts and relations with foreign countries. These necessitated the inception and maintenance of a foreign policy. Under our constitution and laws, the President, acting through his Secretary of State, is charged with the con- duct of foreign affairs. The latter acts through his foreign service offi- cers, to whom he sends instructions and from whom he receives reports, and is assisted by departmental officials, most of whom have served in the country or particular group of countries where there may arise a new question, requiring the determination by the Executive as to what our policy should be. When such a question arises the President reaches his decision only after conference with his experts and study of his documents. The question may find its way to the Committees of Foreign Affairs of the Senate and House. It may be debated in Congress. It may be published in the newspapers, written about in the magazines, discussed in societies such as this, argued by men in their daily work and talked over by women in their homes. From all these sources our American foreign policy is finally formulated. Is it not, then, rather difficult for us to say whether the policy thus formed is or is not constructive? We may have heard the debates of Congress, read the newspapers and magazines and been present at dis- cussions in societies of this type, but unless we have studied the confi- dential communications from our diplomatic and consular officers abroad, and availed ourselves of the information possessed by our experts in the Department of State, we are not fully qualified to say what our foreign policy should be with reference to a particular question. For these reasons when questions — sometimes somewhat complicated and prolonged —-arise between our Government and that of a foreign country, we should not hastily criticize the policy of our President and Secretary of State. Your conclusion and mine, as to whether we have a constructive policy, is a matter of individual judgment. A passive policy may be constructive. 6 In diplomacy it is often better to know what not to do than to know what to do. To do nothing,- — to follow a passive policy, — may in the long run be a constructive policy. In reaching a conclusion as to what a constructive American foreign policy should be, would it not be well for us to consider our past policies ? In his farewell address Washington cautioned us to observe good faith and justice toward all nations and to cultivate peace and harmony with all. He advised us it would be unwise to implicate ourselves in European politics or the combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. He inquired, “Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?” Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address counselled us to maintain “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” The doctrine promulgated by President Monroe has been one of the beacons in our foreign policy. His declaration and counsel are as vital today for our national protection as they were at the time of their pro- nouncement in 1823. The United States has been interested in treaties of arbitration. In 1908 it made conventions for the arbitration of questions of a legal na- ture, or relating to the interpretation of treaties, provided they did not affect our vital interest, independence, or honor. In 1911 treaties were signed, but not ratified, to extend the scope of those of 1908, so as to exclude the exceptions and to provide for the peaceful solution of all questions of difference which it shall be found impossible to settle by diplomacy. They provided for the arbitration of differences that were justiciable in their nature, those that were sus- ceptible of decision by the application of the principles of law or equity. In 1915 treaties were made for the advancement of peace, which pro- vided that all disputes be submitted for investigation and report to a permanent international commission. The parties agreed not to resort to any act of force during the investigation, the theory being that it would give them an opportunity to cool off before taking any action. The United States has had a constructive policy with reference to Cen- tral America. It initiated two conferences of those countries, both held in Washington, the first in 1907 and the second in 1923. Among the results were general treaties of peace and amity, conventions providing that those governments would not recognize any other government which might come into power in any of the Republics as a consequence of a revolution against the recognized government, and conventions for the establishment of a Central American Court of Justice. The United States has also shown a constructive policy in regard to all of the countries of Latin America by the promotion of the Pan Amer- ican Conferences. In November, 1881, James G. Blaine, then Secretary of State, issued an invitation for an international American conference 6 “for the purpose of considering and discussing the methods of preventing war between the nations of America.” This conference was never held, but in 1889 the first Pan-American Conference did meet as the result of an invitation extended by Secretary of State Bayard. Since then five conferences have been held. At the sixth, which will convene in Havana next month, twelve projects will be presented pertaining to public inter- national law. It is interesting to note that none of them will deal with the rules and regulations of international war. The United States showed a constructive policy in its participation in The Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907. The object of these confer- ences was to secure the benefits of a real and enduring peace. Their pro- grams included limitation of armaments, good offices, mediation and arbi- tration. The United States can well point with pride to the Washington and Geneva Disarmament Conferences and to the part it played in providing the membership of the Dawes Commission. After the war came the Versailles Treaty and the discussion concern- ing the League of Nations. Some believed that we ought to stay out of the League. Others considered that our failure to join showed a lack of a constructive policy. The League has proved its value to the countries of Europe and the United States should do nothing to discourage its existence. But the majority of our people believe they voted correctly when they decided the United States should not become a party. An incident occurring during the last session of the League caused some of us to conclude that our decision to refrain from membership had been wise. It was a mere gesture, but, in case we had been a mem- ber, it had possibilities of proving a source of embarrassment. The dele- gate of Panama raised a question as to whether, under the treaty between Panama and the United States for the construction of the Canal, Panama transferred to the United States its right of sovereignty over the Canal Zone, or only conceded to the United States the power and authority as though the United States were sovereign. He suggested that if the Gov- ernment of the United States did not accept the Panaman interpretation there then remained the recourse of submitting this difference to the de- cision of a court of impartial justice. If the United States had been a party to the League, it seems probable that the gesture of the representative of Panama would have gone further and that we might have been required to submit the question of our sovereignty over the Canal. Would there be anything in the nature of a constructive foreign policy in joining a European League when con- ceivably it might lead to the loss of our rights to the Panama Canal? We have always favored the establishment of an International Court of Justice. The present World Court is a wing of the League of Nations. If we become a party to that court, it should be with proper reserva- 7 tions. Otherwise we should continue to decline membership, and lend our efforts to the establishment of a new court, totally divorced from the League. Today we have our international problems. Some of them are in the countries to the south of us. While our effort to solve the Tacna-Arica dispute has not yet been succesful, it was a constructive attempt to solve a long pending question between two of the principal governments of South America. We have a problem with Nicaragua, but a reading of the documents discloses that President Coolidge was correct in uphold- ing the sanctity of the Central American Treaty of 1923, providing against the recognition of any government that should come into power through a revolutionary movement; and study of the constitution and laws of Nicaragua makes clear that the recognition of the Government of Diaz was the only policy that the President could properly pursue. The problem with Mexico involves the constitution of 1917 and legis- lation enacted subsequent thereto of a confiscatory and retroactive na- ture. It has required the greatest amount of patience but the revelations, if correct, of our newspapers of the last month demonstrate that there is, as has been many times alleged, a connection between Moscow and Mexico City, and that at least prima-facie evidence has been produced which would tend to involve the Government of Mexico in the promo- tion of agitation and revolutionary disorder in Nicaragua as well as else- where. The Mexican question is somewhat related to that of Russia. We do not desire to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia. We recog- nize its right to develop its own institutions. But when it comes to the matter of recognition, the questions that must be answered must be with reference to its disposition to discharge its international obligations, its assurance of the validity of obligations, and its guaranty that rights shall not be repudiated and property confiscated. In our relations with China we have developed constructive policies — the Open Door, the maintenance of China’s integrity, equality of commer- cial opportunity, cooperation with other powers in the declaration of com- mon principles, limitation of naval armament and of fortifications and naval bases. The special Customs Conference and the Commission on Extraterritoriality were results of a constructive policy. But while the unfortunate conflict exists in China, and there is lacking a responsible government with which to deal, our policy must necessarily be held in abeyance. The chief problem in China is that of internal pacification. What should our policy be with reference to international peace? War is an abnormal condition. We should take every possible step to prevent its arising. Can this be accomplished by bringing about an outlawry of war? Among the most interesting suggestions of this year was Monsieur Briand’s proposal of perpetual peace, by nations agreeing to outlaw war. 8 This could have a favorable reception if our system of government would permit it. While authority to enter such a treaty may be a part of the treaty-making power, declaring the President empowered to make treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate, this power does not abolish other delegated powers. Under the Constitution, Congress is empowered to declare war. This is to be distinguished from the treaty-making power granted to the Pres- ident and Senate. While the Constitution gives Congress the right of de- claring war, neither it nor any other organ of the Government can abolish that right. At any time that it sees fit, Congress may declare war. A present Congress cannot prevent a future Congress from declaring war whenever it may deem it to the national interest to do so. Notwithstanding, it would appear that the President and Senate have the power to make such an agreement and that it would be binding on our Government. But in case Congress should subsequently desire to declare war, it would have the inherent right to do so. In such an event the law of the land would be the declaration of war and not the treaty. It is a fundamental principle of law that when there is a conflict between the terms of a treaty and a law, the one that was made last is the one that would be effective. So, if Congress should declare war, it would thereby repeal the treaty so far as domestic law is concerned. But with reference to international law it would be a case of breaking a treaty and we would stand before the world as being guilty of regarding our treaty as a scrap of paper, especially if the world should judge that our act of war was without just foundation or cause. Under such circum- stances, we might move slowly in declaring war, when we knew that by doing so we were violating the terms of a treaty; also we might move slowly in making such a treaty, if we thought there would be a possibility of our being forced for self protection to break it. Undoubtedly there will be a public demand that we enter into such a treaty. But from observations of such matters in Washington it is not likely that the Senate will consent to its passage. In 1916, Congress declared as the international policy of the United States the adjusting and settling of “its international disputes through mediation or arbitration, to the end that war may be honorably avoided,” and stated that it looked “with apprehension and disfavor upon a general increase of armament throughout the world,” but realized “that no single nation can disarm, and that without a common agreement upon the sub- ject every considerable power must maintain a relative standing in mili- tary strength.” In December, 1926, Senator Borah, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate, introduced a Resolution providing that it is the view of the Senate that war between nations should be outlawed, making it a public crime, and that every nation should be encouraged to 9 agree to punish war instigators and war profiteers; that a code of inter- national law for peace based upon the outlawing of war should be created and that a judicial substitute for war should be created in the nature of an international court modeled on our Federal Supreme Court. At the next session Congressman Burton, of the Committee on For- eign Affairs of the House, will present a joint Resolution declaring it to be the policy of the United States to prohibit the exportation of arms, munitions or implements of war to any country which engages in aggres- sive warfare against any other country in violation of a treaty, conven- tion, or other agreement to resort to arbitration or other peaceful means for the settlement of international controversies; and Senator Capper of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate will introduce a Reso- lution providing for the renunciation of war as an instrument of public policy and for the settlement of international disputes by mediation, arbi- tration and conciliation. These resolutions demonstrate the desire on the part of members of Congress to promote a constructive foreign policy. The diplomatic center of the world is at Washington. In that city are found more diplomatic representatives of more nations than are ac- credited to the capitals of any of the other countries of the world. The United States is today the most powerful nation. How are we going to use this world power? Shall it be in the martial sense — in the terms of aggressive war; or in the moral sense — ^in the terms of ideals? Nations and empires have risen and fallen. If we are to preserve ours, it must rest on principles of law and justice. It must not be by force. Never have we had an opportunity to exercise the power of peace as we have today. Our aims have always tended toward peace, even though on oc- casions they may have appeared otherwise. But who and what should determine our policy of peace? Who can say whether our foreign policy of the future will be constructive or other- wise? It will not be the President, Congress, the press, or the people. It will be public opinion. It is a matter of our educating from a false to a true standard. If it is possible to educate public opinion in one country, it can be done in others, and eventually we may have a public opinion which will be international. A law does not make men good, and a treaty will not necessarily make nations good. This has been proved by the frequent breaking of laws by individuals and of treaties by countries. Therefore, in order to enforce national or international law, there must be public opinion back of it. Then and only then is it a living force. With it all things are possible and without it there is little for which we may hope. Public opinion is a powerful agency. As a former officer of the League has stated, there should “be an international public opinion which will insist on higher standards of international morality in inter- national dealings.” 10 Whether our foreign policy shall be constructive or other-wise must necessarily depend on international developments. Until now it has been constructive and is constructive. We can well be proud of the world position which we occupy. The nations look to Washington as the greatest diplomatic center. They would not do so if they did not believe we had something of a constructive nature in our foreign policy. Whether you believe our foreign policy to be constructive or otherwise, I feel con- fident you will agree with President Coolidge in one of his messages to Congress, when he said, “The policy of our foreign relations, casting aside any suggestion of force, rests solely on the foundation of peace, good will, and good works.” The Chairman: There are six men in the United States who need no introduction to an American audience. One of these is the President of the United States. Another is the President of Columbia University. Dr. Butler! DR. NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER M r. chairman. Ladies and Gentlemen : The situation as to our foreign policy at the moment appears to me to be very like that which Mark Twain described in regard to the weather in Connecticut. He said that everybody complained about it, but nobody did anything about it ! The business of the foreign office of a government may be conducted in three possible ways. That office may pursue a constructive policy; it may pursue a destructive policy; or it may, like Mr. Micawber, sit with more or less patience waiting for something to turn up. That is appar- ently a popular way. A destructive foreign policy can be disposed of in a sentence, as the Duke of Wellington disposed of the policy of Lord Palmerston when he said that it had as its result to spread confusion everywhere. Destruc- tive foreign policy is more often than not the result of unconsciousness, carelessness, and ignorance. It springs from lack of knowledge of other peoples than our own, from lack of sympathy with their forms of gov- ernment, or with those who differ from us in race, in color, in language, or in faith. Another source of destructive foreign policy is the ultra-legalistic point of view. The moment that a foreign minister regards himself as attor- ney with his country as client-litigant, that moment the fat is in the fire. Foreign relations are not to be conceived or dealt with as matters of liti- gation. They are to be conceived and dealt with as relations offering opportunity for association, for cooperation, for mutual advantage, and for public benefit and the advance of civilization. In them, the legalistic point of view and the legalistic method should always and everywhere be subordinate. It cannot be mere chance that no lawyer has ever been 11 at the head of the Foreign Office of the British Government since that office was established in its present form in 1782. The habit of drifting Micawber-like is only a shade less discreditable than the habit of building up or permitting a destructive foreign policy. It is, of course, the result of lack of information, of cowardice, of lack of initiative, of lack of vision. Nobody would defend it, even if he illustrated it. A constructive foreign policy will start from certain definite premises and principles and proceed steadily toward the accomplishment of pre- cise, fixed and high ideals. We in the United States are under difficulties which other nations are only now coming to understand and appreciate, and which we our- selves are only now coming to understand and appreciate, in the devel- opment of a constructive foreign policy continuing over a long period of time. Those difficulties arise from the construction and operation of our form of government. They were set out with precision and care by Mr. Justice Sutherland of the United States Supreme Court in lectures delivered in the Blumenthal Foundation at Columbia University while he was Senator, entitled “Constitutional Power and World Affairs.” Justice Sutherland showed there very clearly what the structural difficulties are under which our Government operates in building up and carrying on foreign policy. A very important principle was written into the Constitution when it was provided that the President may, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, make treaties, provided that two-thirds of the Senators present concur. Of course, under our form of government, it would be quite inconceivable that the executive alone should be entrusted with those great and perhaps epochal decisions. But on the other hand, it is of the highest importance that into the advice and consent of the Senate and into its concurrence, the lower, baser, more partisan, more personal motives should not be permitted to enter. There must be understanding and cooperation between the President and the Senate or we are paralyzed in our international relations, and it is for us to fix the responsibility for lack of cooperation, and to remedy it by those methods which are in our hands as the governing force in this republic, the people of the United States. For example, at the present time, the Senate, by its insistence upon regarding every agreement made under a treaty of arbitration as a new and separate treaty, deprives arbitration treaties of all but rhetorical value. If, every time there is to be an arbitration under a treaty, the agreement so to arbitrate is to be a new treaty, then all you have done by your arbitration treaty, widely heralded and approved, is to express a pious wish. Mother, may I go in to swim? Yes, my darling daughter. Hang your clothes on the hickory limb. But don’t go near the water. 12 In the next place, we are often under embarrassment due to that provision of our public law to which Mr. Penfield has alluded in his very interesting survey of this subject. It is the law of the land that either a treaty or a statute may repeal the other to which it is subsequent, despite the fact that the treaty has required the assent of another nation, while the modifying or repealing statute may be adopted without any reference whatever to that other nation. The outstanding case, of course, is that of Chinese immigration. The Chinese had certain rights as im- migrants in the United States under a treaty which was the law of the land. That treaty might have been denounced, might have been amended, might have been revoked, might have had something substituted for it by the ordinary methods of discussion, consideration and diplomatic in- tercourse. Instead of that, our Congress followed the course, legally pos- sible but impolite, of enacting a statute in flat contradiction with the treaty, and it was not so many years afterwards that we were calling the Germans names for doing something not dissimilar. It is pretty important for us to realize that, having that power, it is heavily incumbent upon us to exercise it with consideration, with good manners, and that when a situation of that sort arises, we should deal with it not rudely, brusquely, inconsiderately, but kindly, after consider- ation, consultation and discussion, and full explanation of our changed point of view. I remember very well having explained that provision of our public law to the last German Emperor. He expressed his profound surprise and asked me to repeat my statement in the presence of the Chief of his Civil Cabinet, His Excellency, von Lucanus. I repeated my statement definitely and precisely, whereupon, turning to von Lucanus with a sharp gesture, the Emperor said, “Tell them at the Foreign Office never to make another treaty with the United States. With that provision of their public law, their treaty is valueless.” You can understand how that point of view will be taken by the rep- resentative of another nation that finds a carefully considered interna- tional engagement modified or wiped out by the legislative act of one of the parties thereto. The law is clear. The Congress has the right. Therefore, it is doubly incumbent upon us not to use it in violation of a plighted engagement if we are going to have the good-will of the world or its respect, and if we are going to promote those international relations at which we profess to aim. There is no good reason why a government should not acquire and manifest the manners of a gentleman. Bad manners have been at the bottom of many of our most vexatious international difficulties. Elihu Root has referred to that fact again and again, and in the course of his notable trip to Latin America in 1906, he found many manifestations of it. Remember that a generation ago, when the question of Irish home-rule was acute, hardly a week passed that in the Congress of the 13 United States, in a state legislature, in a board of aldermen, on a public platform, something was not said or done that gave grave offense to the friendliest of foreign nations. What do you suppose we should have thought if we were bombarded by resolutions, protests, declarations of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, the Reichstag, calling attention to the fact that we lynched negroes or that the Ku Klux Klan manifests various odd activities, or that there is a city called Chicago, or that there had been some other manifestation of what Mr. H. L. Mencken calls the “moron part” of our population. We can get nowhere, my friends, without good manners. It has been pointed out time and again that a rude, ill-natured passionate speech delivered on the floor of the Senate, however irresponsible the Senator, may undo the work of years in bringing about friendly and kindly relations with another people. I should say that one of the very first things to which to address our- selves would be to gain the information of which the Chairman has spoken, and then to cultivate a type of international good manners that will promote kindliness and understanding, that will remember there are other points of view, other traditions, other forms of government than our own, and that they are all entitled to consideration and hearing in the mind and policy of any self-governing people which stands in rela- tions with them. We began our foreign relations on a very high plane. That was, I think, in part because of the temper of our people and in part because of the men who negotiated the treaties and conducted our foreign rela- tions. When Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens were writing treaties, they were pretty sure to be treaties on a high plane. We were not ashamed then, in Mr. Jefferson’s epoch- making words, “to show a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” and we so framed and so guided our policies. We had not then climbed to that height of virtuous isolation from which we can see nobody and fatuously imagine that nobody can see us. Our earliest treaties— the famous treaty with Prussia of 1782, a very model of its kind, the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1782, ad- mirable in its humane* and farsighted provisions, and the first treaty, our treaty of amity and commerce with France in 1778, which is an epoch-making document — were all on the highest plane. We have never since been on a higher plane, if as high. John Quincy Adams wrote, in the preamble of that French treaty, that it stood in the same relation to our commercial intercourse with foreign nations that the Declaration of Independence did to our domestic institu- tions. There is where we started, and our great Secretaries of State, of whom the master builders have been John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, William H. Seward, Hamilton Fish and Elihu Root, have always walked on that lofty, high-principled and well considered path. 14 In the memory of most of us here, from McKinley to Wilson, we were making history in constructive international policy, regardless of party. Then came the unhappy, the disastrous and the wrecking differences of 1919. Eight years have passed. Mr. Chairman, the time has come to say “Onward march,” and to resume the constructive policies that we were pursuing when interrupted by factional and personal difference and dispute. The time has come to take the outstretched hand that has been offered us and to declare the policy of the United States in terms that our people desire and applaud and that the whole world can understand. When the Senate convenes on Monday, Senator Capper of Kansas, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, is going to introduce the joint resolution which Mr. Penfield has described. Mr. Penfield feels that nothing is going to be done about it. We propose to see whether anything is going to be done about it. If that be considered a question for the Senate of the United States alone, some gentlemen in Washington are going to find themselves mistaken. It is a question upon which the people of the United States will express themselves. Everything that Mr. Penfield has said is sound law. The Congress has the right, always will have the right, to declare war. When it got that right, the country had already said it would not go to war with France, with England, and with Prussia, and we have said it some thirty times since. We can break our word if we choose, of course. No power can prevent us. We can break our word, if we choose. But if we join nations on a like plane of civilization in saying that in our dealings with each other we do not contemplate fighting, that we contemplate only discussion, only concilia- tion, only arbitration, and in the extreme case judicial settlement, and that we have reached a civilized point where we are not going to consider fighting them, and if the five nations named by Senator Capper say that — • and they are ready to say it to us if we are ready to say it to them — believe me, so long as those nations and ours keep their word, war of a serious kind will have a much harder time in breaking out than it has now. This is wholly different from the proposal to outlaw war. You can not outlaw war. You can not outlaw any of the exhibitions of human passion. I should think anybody who had read the Eighteenth Amend- ment would know what happens when you try to do things like that. But what you can do is to say, — the authority that has the right may say, — “I am not going to do this thing!” The Congress of the United States has power to issue letters of marque and reprisal, that is, to commission privateers to prey upon the commerce of other nations at sea. Can you contemplate them doing it? No, Mr. Chairman, we must construe the Constitution of the United States in the light of a great charter to adapt itself to the moving and developing and liberalizing opinion of an increasingly civilized state of mankind. We are not tied to declare war because we have the power to do it, and we certainly are not to be prevented from saying that we will not 16 do it in respect to a nation on a like plane of civilization that is ready to say the same thing to us. Senator Capper has done another thing. He has included in his reso- lution a definition of an aggressor nation. I know the answer of the legalist. “You can not do that. Any foreign office would be clever enough so to state the case that you could not possibly manage that.” But, if a schoolchild can not understand Senator Capper’s definition, then the schoolchild is entitled to one seat I know of in the Senate of the United States. I quote the resolution : “To accept the definition of aggressor nation as one which, having agreed to submit international differences to conciliation, arbitration, or judicial settlement, begins hos- tilities without having done so.” If a country has not so agreed, it can not carry on an aggressive war under that definition, but everybody would be on the lookout for it anyhow. But if it has so agreed, there it is. And they do not seem to realize in Washington that Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Belgium have already done it at Locarno. It is done. We can not do it because, why? I do not know, and should like to be informed by somebody, because, of course, until you get this definition, there never will be an aggressive war. Every war has always begun because the party which began it was just going to be attacked by some- body else, and he had to do it to prevent being over-run. A hundred years from now, the historians are still going to be arguing about who really started the war of 1914. But if there is a definite, precise agree- ment to submit international differences to these methods of conciliation and you begin hostilities, and we know what they are, — invasion of ter- ritory, destruction of life or property in another territory,— if you begin that sort of thing without having kept your word, then you are an aggressor nation, and we know how to deal with you. It seems to me anyone not hopelessly befogged in legalism can under- stand that. My friends, here is the practical situation: There are in this country and gathered in considerable number at “the great diplomatic center of Washington” a large number of people who want to go on talking about peace but who are alarmed to the point of apoplexy if you ask them to do anything about it. They want to argue. They have some other plan. They think the world of bringing the nations together in an asso- ciation to promote good order and peace, but never for a moment in the League of Nations — something else. They are all for a court, but not this Court. They are all for preventing aggressive war, but not for this definition of aggressive war. Now the time has come, in Senator Capper’s language, to test the sincerity of the American people and the American Government. Are you to treat us indefinitely to talk, or are we going to have action ? Are we once more to be back where our grandfathers were 16 sixty years ago when James Russell Lowell so charmingly described the politicians of that day : “A marciful Providence fashioned us holler, O’purpose that we might our principles swaller.” Mr. Chairman, Abraham Lincoln, speaking at Ottowa in his first de- bate with Douglas, said, “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed. Conse- quently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.” My appeal is to the public sentiment of America to act on this practical, simple, consistent declaration, to say to ourselves and to the world that we are ready to this extent to manifest that Will to Peace which is the only thing that can establish the Habit of Peace. The Chairman: Now we have one-half hour, and not more, of question and discussion. The Chairman would like to emphasize that, knowing how many brilliant speakers there are on the floor, he would prefer that they for today limit themselves to short questions. Otherwise their brilliancy would be lost upon the more important part of the audience, that portion which is not in this room. Where is the first question, either written or oral? Mr. Colt: I should like to ask Mr. Penfield a question. His state- ment happened to be quite different from my point of view, which is that of those people, courageous but probably of poor judgment, who might have been willing to have had this country take the frightful risk of entering the League of Nations. The question is : Why did Mr. Penfield state that the League of Nations is a European League? Mr. Penfield: Well, in the first place, all of the countries of the world do not belong to the League of Nations. I used the expression “European League” because it sits at Geneva in Europe. I presume there would be no objection to calling it a World League. It was merely a phrase of mine in referring to the League of Nations as a European League. Prof. Chamberlain : May I ask Mr. Penfield a question just to clear up a doubt which arose in my mind ? He spoke with approval, I thought, of the Bryan Treaties of Conciliation. Those treaties provided that the United States should not go to war for a period of one year after a ques- tion arising between them and another signatory power had been sub- mitted to a conciliation commission. That, I understood, was a limitation by international agreement on the declaration of war. Another question is on the Treaty of Washington of 1922, by which the United States entered into an engagement with a number of other 17 nations, including Great Britain and Japan, not to build a navy in excess of the amount provided in the treaty. The Constitution provides expressly, as Mr. Penfield knows, that Congress shall have the power to raise and equip navies. That is an unlimited power. Are those two treaties — the Bryan Treaty, because it is an engagement by the United States not to declare war for a year after a dispute has arisen, and the Washington Treaty of 1922, because it is an international engagement to limit the navy of the United States — without the treaty power of the United States because they affect two powers of Congress? The Chairman: May I summarize Professor Chamberlain’s question for the benefit of the radio audience? I am sorry, but Professor Cham- berlain was not heard in Chicago when he gave that question. His question is addressed to Mr. Penfield. Professor Chamberlain re- minds you of the provision of the so-called Bryan treaties of delay, which promised that Congress would not declare war within a year after a given circumstance arose, and the treaties which followed the Washington con- ference, limiting the size of the navies which Congress would build. Pro- fessor Chamberlain asks whether Mr. Penfield thinks that the same diffi- culty does not apply to these unquestionably binding and legal treaties as he seemed to see in such a provision as that referred to in Senator Cap- per’s proposal and spoken of by Dr. Butler. Mr. Penfield: Professor Chamberlain, I believe in the draft of the treaty which Professor Shotwell and you prepared and which I have read with much interest, being developed, as Dr. Butler says, as a result of the spirit of the Treaty of Locarno, that you have in the first article of that treaty a provision against aggressive war. If your treaty were adopted by this Government, it would be open to the legal objection that I raise in regard to the Capper Treaty, namely, that it tends to bind the United States without authority to do so, in view of the provision of the Constitu- tion which gives to Congress inherent right to declare war. In your Bryan Treaty it is true that there is an agreement there to let, I think, a year go by during which time the Commission on Conciliation can pass on the question, but under your treaty, as I understand it, we can not go to war at all, that is, we cannot go into an aggressive war. Is that correct? Professor Chamberlain : That is wrong. Mr. Penfield: But Professor Chamberlain your model treaty does provide in Article I that “the United States of America and mutually undertake that they will in no case attack or invade each other or resort to war against each other.” The Washington Conference treaty deals with the limitation of the size of navies. Under the Bryan treaties we are not permanently bound not to go to war. I do not see any objection to our entering into your type of treaty if we will keep our word, but I do not think that you can bind Congress per- 18 petually with that type of a treaty. Congress reserves to itself its con- stitutional right all the time to declare war whenever it deems it best for national reasons to do so. There is a vast difference between this important right and that of the Washington treaty, which merely limits our right as to battleships, or that of the Bryan treaty, which merely postpones for a year our right to declare war. Professor Chamberlain ; May I, just to clinch that point, say that, as the Washington Conference and the Bryan Treaties depend also on Con- gress’ keeping its word, it seems to me that Mr. Penfield’s objection to the Treaty with which my name is connected applies equally to the very dangerous Washington Treaty and the equally dangerous Bryan Treaty. Mr. Kelsey : First, following in the line of Dr. Butler’s very interest- ing and able and convincing statement in regard to Senator Capper, would it not be well for every member of this Association present and absent to write to Senator Capper or telegraph him your and our com- mendation of the splendid position he has taken which comes like a beacon of light out of the Midwest. The next point ! Some of us who have been watching this question for a number of years with a great deal of interest, as members of this Asso- ciation — a non-partisan Association from its beginning, — and a number of other associations, are interested in one point to which I shall refer in the other minute, if Mr. McDonald will allow me, and that is this: We have about seventy-five different peace organizations. They are going in this direction and that direction and that direction and that direction, all having a common purpose, namely, the continuation of peace and cordial and amicable relations between nations. It has occurred to some of us, and I sent to the Foreign Policy Association and one or two others as long ago as March, a resolution in which I suggested that it would be desirable and in every way practicable that a dozen or fifteen of these leading organizations appoint a special committee of five, perhaps, with power, and that the committees of these dozen associations unite and form a central committee of perhaps five or ten of the best men in the country. That central committee could then speak for all of these or- ganizations in a united effort to take these questions up with the President or the Secretary of State and that Committee would have the hearing of the President and the Secretary of State and the people all over the United States. The Chairman: I have a question addressed to Mr. Penfield but I should feel badly if you let Dr. Butler off without something besides your cheers. I should feel that he was not being treated as a regular member of the Foreign Policy Association. Question : May I ask Dr. Butler a question ? As long as we are in 19 this rather absurd position of having one group in Congress wipe out everything that the other group, the Senate and the Secretary of State and the President, may do, would it not be a much simpler way to prevent war if he were to take away from Congress the power to do it? The Chairman : The lady asks Dr. Butler whether a simpler way out of this dilemma would not be to take away from Congress the power to declare war. Dr. Butler: The simplicity of that is admirable. It would only re- quire that Congress should submit, by vote of two-thirds of each House, and that the legislatures of three-fourths of the states should ratify by a majority vote of each of the two houses, a proposal to that effect. I think therefore the difficulty is not theoretical, merely legislative. The Chairman: Here is a question addressed to Mr. Penfield: Does Mr. Penfield base his belief in a Moscow-Mexico combination merely on the so-called disclosures of the Hearst papers or on something else? If the latter, what? Mr. Penfield: To answer that question in the affirmative would not be satisfactory to the inquirer. I said that it created a prima-facie case. I might say that I have been in Mexico and I have studied that situation. I do not consider that Mexico is a Bolshevik government, but I consider that it has adopted Bolshevik methods. I would dislike very much to say anything that would tend in any way to mar the situation that is bettering between Mexico and the United States today, but I base my statement partly on my observations in Mexico, in Vera Cruz, where I saw Bol- shevik parades, and in Orizaba, half way up between Vera Cruz and Mexico City, and because I believe that the disclosures of the newspapers of the past few days may have a considerable element of truth in them. But perhaps at the tail end of my paragraph where I was discussing the Mexican situation and stating that our Government has exercised the greatest amount of patience in handling it, I should have reminded this audience that several months ago the President and the Secretary of State were under most severe criticism on the part of some of the press and many of the people of this country because of our so-called Mexican policy, and if the revelations of the Hearst newspapers of the past two weeks are correct, I think that the President and the Secretary of State without doubt have been upheld in the policy that they pursued with reference to that country. The Chairman : I would like to ask one of the men at the guest table, Mr. Austen G. Fox, who is a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment, to read a very short statement from an historical document in refernce to one phase of the discussion which has been before us today. Mr. Fox: This is not mine, and it is owing to Dr. Butler’s suggestion that I show it to Mr. McDonald, that I now find myself in this predica- ment, — and so do you. 20 In The American Crisis of December, 1793, I came across the following words : “America need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire. . . The world has seen her great in adversity; struggling, without a thought of yielding, beneath ac- cumulated difficulties, bravely, nay proudly, encountering distress, and rising in resolution as the storm increased. All this is justly due to her, for her fortitude has merited the character. Let, then, the world see that she can bear prosperity, and that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to the bravest virtue in time of war. She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life. . . In this situa- tion may she never forget that a fair national reputation is of as much importance as independence. That it possesses a charm that wins upon the world and makes even enemies civil. That it gives a dignity which is often superior to power, and commands respect where pomp and splendor fail.” The Chairman: We have ten and one-half minutes more. I have one or two questions here addressed to Mr. Penfiield but it seems to me he has been working rather hard. Just half a moment ! Here is one addressed to Dr. Butler : To what extent would such commitments as implied in the Capper resolution ignore the factor of inevitable changes in national and international situa- tions and opinions? Dr. Butler: No more than the power to declare war. It is just a declaration of policy. They are on the same plane exactly. The Chairman: A question addressed to Mr. Penfield, I assume: Does the United States wish to retain the right to go to aggressive war ? Mr. Penfield : I would refer you in that question, as to whether the United States wished to retain the right to go to aggressive war, to the young lady in the rear of the ball room who asked whether we could not get rid of war by amending that part of our Constitution which gives Congress the power to declare war. Mr. Holt: I heard the speech by the Panama delegate at the Eighth Assembly of the League of Nations last September in which he said that Panama claimed the United States was not seeking sovereignty but only the exercise of sovereignty over the Canal. I would like to ask Dr. Butler this question: If we went into the World Court without signing the compulsory arbitration clause and the Senate consented to taking issues to the World Court for arbitration, what practical difference would it make to us as to whether we had sovereignty or the exercise of sovereignty? Dr. Butler: None whatever. The Chairman: If Mr. Penfield is going to answer it, then perhaps I ought to repeat, for the radio audience, Mr. Holt’s question. In effect, 21 his question was: What difference would it make whether a Court de- clared us to have sovereignty or the exercise of sovereignty over the Panama Canal ? Dr. Butler: The word “practical” was ahead of the word “differ- ence.” The Chairman: Yes, what practical difference was there? Dr. But- ler said none. Mr. Penfield is now speaking on that point. Mr. Penfield: There is a great deal of difference in the answer to the question of Mr. Holt, if I understand it correctly. That very dif- ference has been and is now a subject of diplomatic negotiations between the Government of Panama and the United States. It involves the ques- tion of the right of the United States Government to maintain commis- saries in the Canal Zone for the purpose of selling merchandise to such employees who are engaged in the operation, maintenance or sanitation of the Canal. It also involves the question of the right of the Govern- ment of Panama to tax all material that comes in to those commissaries that is not properly intended for employees engaged in the construction, operation or sanitation of the Canal. It is a most vital question to the economic welfare of the Republic of Panama, the maintenance of these commissaries and the continued selling of their goods to ships passing through the Canal. It is true that when this address was delivered by the delegate of Panama, it had some reference to a conflict between the Treaty of 1926 between Panama and the United States, containing a defensive clause in case of war in the nature of an alliance, and the duties that Panama has to the League of Nations under the Covenant. But the point that I make is that the delegate of Panama made a gesture before the League of Nations in regard to the arbitration of the question of our sovereignty over the rights of the Canal. I believe that that is only an indication of what we might expect if we were a party to the League of Nations. I am a firm believer that we should not become a party to the League of Nations. Mr. Haldenstein : I would like to ask Mr. Penfield this question : If the position that the United States has taken in reference to Panama is a valid one, what possible objection is there to the submission of the question of validity to an impartial court? Mr. Penfield : My answer to that is that while I do not know whether what I am now going to say is true or not, if the revelations of the news- papers of the last two weeks to the effect that the umpire of a certain tribunal in which the rights and interests of the United States were in- volved was paid a large sum of money on the side before the rendition of that decision, it shakes somewhat my confidence in submitting to judges of foreign countries, which countries may not be friendly toward us, the 22 question of our rights to the Panama Canal, especially as we have had those rights for a period of a quarter of a century. Mr. Goldman : In reference to Dr. Butler’s reply to the question of the young lady, I want to ask Dr. Butler if it would not take a shorter time to undergo the cumbersome procedure of placing the war-making power with the people than to leave it for the Senate to act favorably on the Capper or any other resolution? The Chairman: The question asked Dr. Butler is whether in the long run you perhaps could not more quickly take the war-making power from Congress and give it to the people, presumably under a plebiscite, than to get the Capper resolution adopted. Dr. Butler : I have more faith in the American people than that and I am looking for a very active answer to that question within the next four months. The gentleman must not forget that this is the psychologi- cal moment for public opinion to get something done because in about eleven months a number of gentlemen wish to be elected to public office. Mr. Long: Will Dr. Butler tell us what to do to help the Senators pass the resolution? Dr. Butler: There are at the present time sixty-three Senators. There will be added on Monday a certain number more — how many we shall not know until Tuesday. My information is that about seventy-five members of the Senate would vote for the Capper resolution if they could get it out of the Foreign Relations Committee and on the calendar. Mr. Rods : I heard Mr. Roosevelt say these words, “I took the Canal and I let Congress talk !” I would like to know how constructive a foreign policy that is in the light of recent events? Mr. Penfleld: My answer to that question is that in 1922 or 1923 we made a treaty with the Republic of Colombia whereby we agreed to pay it $25,000,000 in instalments of $5,000,000 per year in return for securing the rights to the Canal. 23 / ’ } THE RESEARCH DEPARTMENT Of the Foreign Policy Association Raymond Leslie Buell, Ph. D., Director Formerly Assistant Professor of Government, Harvard University Information Service Whether the question of the hour is Russia, Italy, China or Nic- aragua, the facts can be found accurately and impartially presented in the fortnightly reports of the F, P. A. Information Service. 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