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1913

62d Congeess, ) SENATE. j Document
1st Session. f ( No. 79.

ADDEESS OF PEESIDENT TAFT AT MAEION, IND.

Mr. Page presented the following
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY HON. WILLIAM H. TAFT, PRESIDENT OF
THE tTNITED STATES, AT THE MARION (IND.) BRANCH OF THE
NATIONAL HOME FOR DISABLED VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS ON
JULY 3, 1911.

July 28, 1911.— Ordered to be printed.

Members of the National Volunteer Soldiers' Home of Marion:
Such an audience as this, on the eve of the natal day of the Nation,
stirs the depths of one's patriotic feeling. Harbors of refuge and
havens of rest for those who in the stormy passages of their lives
bared their breasts in behalf of their country to hostile bullets serve
two high purposes : In the first place, they contribute to the payment
of their country's everlasting debt to its defenders, and, in the second
place, they make known to all citizens the care which they may expect
from a grateful Nation should they in a similar crisis offer their lives
to save the Government. Better than monuments of brass to the
dead are the comforts to the living lq their old age, as an evidence of
the country's love and veneration for patriotic self-sacrifice. Much
inore stimulating to the young is the contemplation of the Nation's
heroes hving in retirement, but in comfort, at its expense, and bring
ing back, in their grizzled faces, in their armless sleeves, in their limb
less bodies, the dangers they ran and the deeds they did. Of course
such a presence can not but by reminiscence suggest the subject of
war, for it was in the greatest war of modern times that the members
of this home earned their right to be here. But war suggests its
counterpart. It is those who have seen the horrors of war, who have
felt its hardships, and have realized its cruelties, and seen the awful
passions it could arouse, who have witnessed the suffering and bru
tality, as well as the courage and self-sacrifice, that know its evils
and that feel most deeply the necessity for avoiding it when possible.
No men loved pe^ce more than Grant and Sherman. Neither
general hesitated, in time of war, to accomplish the national purpose,
to sacrifice the hves that were necessary to achieve victory. No men
had to bear any heavier charges of indifference to loss of hfe and
suffering than they. Their greatness, however, consisted in recog
nizing the necessity for action and in seeing clearly that if victories
were to be won, lives must be given up, and that any attempt to
temporize with the occasion and mitigate the awful horrors, would

Ci/6.43S

2 ADDKESS OF PRESIDENT TAET AT MARION, IND.
only lengthen the war and postpone the coming of peace, with all the
suffering that such postponement necessarily entailed. No men were
really more tenderhearted than they; and after the war, none were
more emphatic in their advocacy of peace, and in their detestation of
war. It is certain that Grant in his travels in Europe took less
interest in the memorials of Napoleon, the greatest soldier of the
world, than in a study of social conditions, and a comparison of the
Eeoples of the countries that he visited with those of his own. He
ad no patience with a military genius who sacrificed countries and
peoples to his ambition, and whose whole history is nothiiig but a trail
of bloody conquest following the lust of power and ultimate defeat,
in all of which the people of France and of Europe were made to pay
the cost and render the sacrifices.
I am far from saying that war has not in times past accomplished
much in the progress of the world. Whether the same progress
might have been achieved in a more peaceful way, it is unnecessary
to discuss. Probably not. It was by war that this country gained
its independence of Great Britain. One hundred and thirty-five
years ago the Declaration of Independence was signed, which changed
a protest under arms against unjust government to a successful rev
olution. If England had been better advised, probably war would
not have ensued, and we might now be, as in the case of Canada,
cherishing attachment to the mother country without exercising
complete independence. Certain it is that the lesson which we
taugnt England she took to her heart, and in her colonial policy she
continued to lighten the bonds which she had laid upon her colonies
until now they have no weight and are merely nerves of affection
from a mother to children, evincing an authority that, however great
in form, is, in fact, in the wisdom of the mother country one of only
nominal restriction. When, therefore, our forefathers signed that
great instrument of independence they were acting not only on behalf
of the Thirteen Colonies of America, but they were building better
than they knew, in that the result of their protest was to be a change
of the entire colonial policy of Great Britain in the making of her
English-speaking colonies that girdled the earth, self-governing and
independent ; and this result was achieved not by war with the colo
nies, but by the persuasiveness of the error that she had made in
dealing with us.
The War of 1812 might certainly have been avoided by arbitration.
The questions there presented were questions all of which have been
settled, by the judgment of mankind, in favor of our side of the
controversy. The War with Mexico— though there is some dispute over this—
was one of the questions which were capable of solution by an impartial
tribunal. Whether the Civil War could have been avoided is a very difficult
question to answer. When slavery has become Smbedded in the social
fiber of a country it is possible that only an excision of a war knife
can remove the cancer.
Nor shall I attempt to answer a similar question as to the Spanish
War. It is one of those instances of internal dissension like the Civil
War, and yet I believe that the submission of the issues to a tribunal
might have affected Spain's treatment of Cuba in such a way that
we could have avoided a resort to arms. The truth is, the danger of

ADDEESS OE PRESIDENT TAET AT MAEION, IND. 6
war between two great, well-established countries, with modern arma
ments, is much less than that kind of war that arises from bad gov
ernment or from the ambition of sinister men in a weak government
who overturn it. The awful consquences to two heavily-armed
countries under modern conditions of war have been a great deterrent
of war; but the irresponsibility of men claiming to be patriots and
desiring to overturn existing governments where law and order are
nQt well established has led to a great deal of guerrilla warfare and
to the suffering of innocent people who find no real principle involved
in the two contending parties except that of ambition for power.
Much of this kind of work has occurred in South America and in
Central America, and in that degree of guardianship which the United
States must feel over the republics of this hemisphere, in maintaining
their integrity against European invasion, we ought to welcome every
opportunity which gives us a legitimate instrument by which we can
make less probable such internecine strife. In the assertion of that
sort of guardianship we have to be very careful to avoid the charge,
which is always made by the suspicious, that we are seeking our own
aggrandizement in our interference with the affairs of other countries
or this hemisphere. It is an unfounded charge, for we envy no power
its territory. We have enough. But we have been able to fend off
war in five or more instances of recent date because of our attitude
as an elder brother of these smaller governments. Thus in Cuba,
after the Piatt amendment, we were able to intervene and prevent a
bloody war of revolution, and this after 20,000 rebels against the
constituted government were in arms immediately outside the city
of Habana ready to take part. We were able, by reason of the agree
ment we made with Santo Domingo, to help her collect her revenues
and liquidate and satisfy her legitimate debts, by putting our agents
in charge at the customhouses, to take away the chief motive for a
rebellion and the chief hope of success of a revolution, which is the
acquisition of the customhouses in order to collect taxes. And by
reason of our intervention between Haiti and Santo Domingo we
have been able to prevent a war between those two countries, growing
out of a dispute over a boundary line, which is now in course of
reference to The Hague.
So, too, as between Peru and Ecuador, we were able, with the
assistance of the great South American Eepublics — ^Brazil, Argentina,
and Chile — to stop a war that was on the eve of breaking out, a war
that involved chiefiy a question of honor, and both countries became
willing to submit it to negotiation and arbitration. We have always
believed that the course we pursued impressing Bolivia and Peru to
settle their boundary dispute prevented hostilities between those
countries. The situation was most acute when our advice was sought
by both countries. We have been able to bring the heads of two
contending factions in a civil war in Honduras onto the deck of an
American vessel and there negotiate terms which have led to perma
nent peace. Now Honduras and Nicaragua ask us to assist them in
paying their debts by agreeing in case of a default to accept responsi
bility for the collection of the revenues and to make settlements in
accordance with the contracts of indebtedness. These two treaties
are pending in the Senate. I sincerely hope that they may be con
firmed, because I do not know any other power that is so useful in

4 ADDEESS OP -PEESIDENT TAFT AT MARION, IND.
the prevention of war as that which enables the United States Gov
ernment to collect revenue of bankrupt and unstable governments
and to apply them as law and the contracts made require, and thus
to put the governments on their feet firmly. It has worked out with
the Eepublic of Santo Domingo in a most remarkable way to the
benefit of that country in the cause of peace, and we can be certain
that it will work in the same way in the case of Honduras and Nica
ragua, if only the Senate will agree with the Executive and confirm
the treaties made.
I have merely stated to you what has been accompHshed in the
present administration in the securing of peace among our South
American and Central American friends. Treaties of arbitration
in the matter of claims have been confirmed between them, and long
steps were made by our predecessors in office in this direction. Indeed
the pacification of Cuba belongs to the last administration, and not
to this. As we look back, therefore, it will not do to say that great
strides have not been made in the direction of universal peace. Of
course the condition of Mexico may well make us hesitate to prophesy
too strongly as to the future; but all the lovers of mankind hope
that the present condition of that country may lead to the estab
lishment of a firm government, and one in which there may not be
the same occasion for popular unrest as that which gave rise to the
recent collision.
For the further securing of peace, and as an example to all the
world of the possibilities of the use of arbitration, we have invited
England and France and Germany to make a treaty for the arbitra
tion of all differences of an international character that in their
nature can be adjudicated, and we have left out in this treaty those
exceptions which have heretofore always been excluded from
arbitrable controversies, to wit, questions of a nation's honor, and
of its vital interest. Of course I can not say with positiveness that
these treaties will all be made and confirmed. I can only say that
the prospect of an agreement with the executive of one of the coun
tries is reasonably sure, and we have every hope as to the other two,
and that these three treaties will be followed by many of the same
tenor with other countries if the original three are agreed upon and
confirmed. Objection has been made that an agreement to arbitrate a ques
tion of national honor ought not to be entered into, for the reason
that when one's honor is affected, one will never consent to have the
question arbitrated, and, therefore, that to agree to do so in advance
is to agree to do something that one will not be willing to do, and
that one does not intend to do, and, therefore, it savors of hypocrisy
and ought not to be adopted as a national policy. I can not concede
the premises of this argument. I look upon a treaty of this sort as a
self-denying ordinance, as a self-restricting obligation. It seems to
be of the same character as the constitution which the people as a
whole set up, and in which they impose checks upon their own
power, and limitations upon the method by which they exercise
the ultimate sovereignty which is in them. It is not that they do
not recognize that when the temptation comes to exercise arbitrary
power they will not feel like exercising it, but it is that they delib
erately impose these limitations upon their own action, with the
intention that they shall be effective, however averse they may be

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT TAFT AT MARION, IND. 5
to yield to them when the occasion arises for their enforcement. And
so m agreeing to arbitrate questions of national honor, I see no reason
why we may not agree to do so, and that we may not have moral
courage enough, in spite of our impulse to the contrary, to submit such
questions to an impartial tribunal and await its judgment. ''
As I have had occasion to say before, there was a time when ques
tions of honor could only be settled between gentlemen on the dueling
field, and many a valuable life has been sacrificed to a standard of
ethics which the world has now generally discarded. There is not
the slightest reason why the same course may not be pursued in
respect to questions of national honor. There is very little proba
bility, as between Great Britain and the United States, that any occa
sion will ever arise in which war would be possible. The same thing is
true of France and of Germany. Why, therefore, it is asked, is it
necessary to make a treaty of arbitration to avoid wars that are only
remotely possible? International law is made up of international
customs, traditions, and the formulation of international standards
of ethics in treaties between civilized governments. A willingness of
freat countries like those of England, France, Germany, and the
Fnited States to submit their differences, even of honor, to an impar
tial tribunal will be a step forward in the cause of peace for the
world that can hardly be overestimated.
I am not a wild enthusiast or a blind optimist. I do not look
forward to a complete restoration of peace which can not be dis
turbed in the world even if these treaties are adopted. Morality of
nations improves only step by step, and so the making and confirm
ing of these treaties must be regarded only as a step, but as a very
long step, toward the securing of peace in the world. To you men
who have seen war, to you who know its horrors, I appeal for the
support of every practical instrument like this in makmg war less
possible and peace more permanent. o

3 9002 08305 0071

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