cannot be stopped until it is exhausted.
Next to the referendumeers, the most absurd of the pacifists now in practice among us are those who propose to put an end to war by setting up ironclad agreements between the principal predatory nations. To this lodge belongs another American ambassador, Monsieur Herrick, though it is somewhat difficult to determine, in the present negotiations, whether he represents the United States or France. His plan is for the two countries to agree to keep the peace forever hereafter, whatever the temptation to go to war. As I understand him, he is willing to go the whole hog. Even in the event that the French
gendarmerie
round up all the American drunks in Paris and chop off their heads, the United States is to refrain from doing anything beyond writing a sharp note.
To state this scheme is to provide a sufficient answer to it. No man who has read history can have any confidence in such grandiose agreements. They last until there is a good excuse for war, and then they blow up. In the late World War every participating nation, absolutely without exception, broke some treaty or other; most of them broke dozens. Even the United States, which, as every one knows, is extremely virtuous, engaged in this time-honored sport. It had a treaty with the Germans, honored by more than a century of life, which protected the merchant shipping of the two high contracting parties in case of war between them. It repudiated that treaty in order to grab the German ships interned in American harbors. No agreement with France would be worth a depreciated franc if that country and the United States ever came to a serious clash of interests. If the United States didn’t repudiate it, then the French would repudiate it. Naturally enough, the party doing the repudiating would swathe the business in a great deal of moral rhetoric. All the blame would be unloaded on the other fellow. But it would be a repudiation nonetheless, and it would be followed by a grand attempt, in the ancient Christian manner, to let the other fellow’s blood and grab his goods.
But must we have wars forever? I greatly fear so. Nevertheless, it should be possible to diminish their number, and even abate some of their ferocity. How? By a device that is as simple as mud,and has been tried often in the past, and with excellent success. In brief, by the device of the
Pax Romana.
Let the United States, which is now richer and stronger than any other nation, and perhaps richer and stronger than all of them put together, prepare such vast and horrible armaments that they are irresistible. Then let it launch them against France, or some other chronic trouble-maker, and proceed to give the victim a sound beating. And then let it announce quietly that war is adjourned, and that the next nation which prepares for it will get another and worse dose of the same medicine.
This scheme would more nearly approximate the course of justice within civilized states than any of the world courts, leagues of nations, and other such phantasms that now entertain sentimentalists—many of them with something to sell. The courts are obeyed among us, not because there is any solemn pact among litigants to respect their fiats, but simply and solely because they have force behind them. No individual—save he be, of course, a Prohibition agent or a heavy contributor to the funds of the Republican National Committee—is strong enough to defy them. If he loses he has no recourse: he must submit. Let him refuse and he is instantly laid by the heels and punished with great barbarity.
It seems to me that there can be no permanent peace among nations until some such system is set up among them. Of what avail are the mandates of a world court unable to enforce them—a world court that must seek help, when help is needed, among the body of litigants standing before it? Many of these litigants will inevitably sympathize with the worsted party; others will see no profit in
Next to the referendumeers, the most absurd of the pacifists now in practice among us are those who propose to put an end to war by setting up ironclad agreements between the principal predatory nations. To this lodge belongs another American ambassador, Monsieur Herrick, though it is somewhat difficult to determine, in the present negotiations, whether he represents the United States or France. His plan is for the two countries to agree to keep the peace forever hereafter, whatever the temptation to go to war. As I understand him, he is willing to go the whole hog. Even in the event that the French
gendarmerie
round up all the American drunks in Paris and chop off their heads, the United States is to refrain from doing anything beyond writing a sharp note.
To state this scheme is to provide a sufficient answer to it. No man who has read history can have any confidence in such grandiose agreements. They last until there is a good excuse for war, and then they blow up. In the late World War every participating nation, absolutely without exception, broke some treaty or other; most of them broke dozens. Even the United States, which, as every one knows, is extremely virtuous, engaged in this time-honored sport. It had a treaty with the Germans, honored by more than a century of life, which protected the merchant shipping of the two high contracting parties in case of war between them. It repudiated that treaty in order to grab the German ships interned in American harbors. No agreement with France would be worth a depreciated franc if that country and the United States ever came to a serious clash of interests. If the United States didn’t repudiate it, then the French would repudiate it. Naturally enough, the party doing the repudiating would swathe the business in a great deal of moral rhetoric. All the blame would be unloaded on the other fellow. But it would be a repudiation nonetheless, and it would be followed by a grand attempt, in the ancient Christian manner, to let the other fellow’s blood and grab his goods.
But must we have wars forever? I greatly fear so. Nevertheless, it should be possible to diminish their number, and even abate some of their ferocity. How? By a device that is as simple as mud,and has been tried often in the past, and with excellent success. In brief, by the device of the
Pax Romana.
Let the United States, which is now richer and stronger than any other nation, and perhaps richer and stronger than all of them put together, prepare such vast and horrible armaments that they are irresistible. Then let it launch them against France, or some other chronic trouble-maker, and proceed to give the victim a sound beating. And then let it announce quietly that war is adjourned, and that the next nation which prepares for it will get another and worse dose of the same medicine.
This scheme would more nearly approximate the course of justice within civilized states than any of the world courts, leagues of nations, and other such phantasms that now entertain sentimentalists—many of them with something to sell. The courts are obeyed among us, not because there is any solemn pact among litigants to respect their fiats, but simply and solely because they have force behind them. No individual—save he be, of course, a Prohibition agent or a heavy contributor to the funds of the Republican National Committee—is strong enough to defy them. If he loses he has no recourse: he must submit. Let him refuse and he is instantly laid by the heels and punished with great barbarity.
It seems to me that there can be no permanent peace among nations until some such system is set up among them. Of what avail are the mandates of a world court unable to enforce them—a world court that must seek help, when help is needed, among the body of litigants standing before it? Many of these litigants will inevitably sympathize with the worsted party; others will see no profit in
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