CHAPTER XXVII

HANDS ACROSS THE SEAS

PEACEABLENESS is not enough. If the world is to be saved from a recurrence of the tragedy of 1914, it will be by more than a passive pacificism on our part. We must learn how to co-operate with the other great nations in the building up of a common world-wide civilization and the removing of the causes that have hitherto made human history one long record of wars. Just now we are conscious that we want no more war and intend to have no more war. But we remember that in less than a century and a half we have fought six wars. We are not likely to escape future situations as acute. If we seriously mean to root out this intolerable, fratricidal way of settling disputes, we must do something about it. And we must set about doing it now, before the critical situation arises. We have been a leader in peace-propaganda; that proved in the event, to be of no value in averting war. It is now our opportunity and privilege to take a leading part in the construction of a world-order that shall put an end forever to the settlement of disputes by the ordeal of battle.

In the early days of our national life it was wise for us to remain aloof from the conflicts that perpetually ravaged Europe. We were young and weak, groping our way toward a new form of society, and separated by a long and dangerous voyage from the old world. We had little intercourse with Europe,

her problems were not ours; and we could best serve the world by concentrating our thought and energy upon our own difficult experiment in self-government. Washington and Jefferson were right, then, in counselling their fellow-countrymen to keep clear of European feuds, and to make no "entangling alliances" that might drag us into war. Thus Lord Bryce was able to write of us, in The American Commonwealth, "America has lived in a world of her own. Safe from attack, safe even from menace, she hears from afar the warring cries of European races and faiths, as the gods of Epicurus listened to the murmurs of the unhappy earth spread out beneath their golden dwellings."

But the times have changed. The lesson of 1917 has taught us that we can not remain isolated any longer from the rest of the world, if we would. We have an enormous interchange of commodities, of letters and travellers, of investments, with Europe. We are now full-grown. Our experiment has succeeded. One by one the European nations have adopted our democratic ideals, until now we stand as one member, the richest and probably the strongest, in the family of democratic nations that encircles the globe. Our future is wrapped up with theirs. They look to us for aid. By the side of Jefferson's Declaation of Independence we must now put Wilson's Declaration of Interdependence. The only way now to make our democracy safe is to make the world safe for democracy.

This does not mean "entangling alliances"-or promises to help any one nation against another. It does mean a willingness to co-operate with the rest of the world in constructing a mechanism of worldjustice and peace. The experience through which we

have passed in welding a number of separate States into a single nation should make us particularly useful in the difficult task of establishing for the diverse peoples of the earth a working world-policy. This is the finest possible extension of the ideals which animated our Founders. They sowed the seeds of freedom-in-co-operation on these shores; the plant has flourished, and may now be more widely spread. "What was in the writings of the men who founded America," asks Mr. Wilson,-"to serve the selfish interests of America? Do you find that in their writings? No; to serve the cause of humanity, to bring liberty to mankind.”

Many of us had hoped that the Great War would definitely mark the end of the period of our selfcentered and self-sufficient isolation. As a recent writer in the Century Magazine points out, "History does not tell a very reassuring tale of peoples that have striven to live apart, any more than memoirs give a comforting recount of recluses. No nation can cut itself off from the world without stunting its material and spiritual growth." It is not merely out of sympathy and altruism that we should stretch out our hands across the seas, but for our own souls' good, and to prevent the recurrence of a situation that may otherwise again arise, in which, as in 1917, we shall be drawn against our will into a maelstrom which we have not created, but which we have done nothing to avert. Whether we like it or not, whether we recognize it or not, we are now interdependent. Our future is linked with that of Europe and Asia.

The endowment of peace-societies, the teaching of the horrors of war, should be continued. But war can not be stopped by education and propaganda alone, any more than crime can be. "Hating war is quite

unproductive unless you are thinking about its nature and causes so thoroughly that you will presently be able to take hold of it and control it and end it." We must do all we can, through pulpit, platform, and press, to cultivate a genuine international-mindedness-not as a substitute for American-mindedness, but as its highest expression. But a mere subjective attitude, however generous and honorable, will not suffice, unless it expresses itself in an objective order, a world policy.

As a means to that end, and for their own sake, we shall do well to cultivate friendly intercourse with neighboring peoples-exchange professorships and student scholarships, international sports, international professional organizations, and such worldwide societies as Clarté and Corda Fratres. But increase of intercourse means increased occasions for friction. It is by no means true that the more we see of people the more we like them. The contact of dissimilar social systems often results in mutual antipathy, ridicule, or contempt; manners and morals different from our own affect us unpleasantly, and defects in alien customs tend to become exaggerated in our memory and discourse. It is hopeless to expect that we shall be brought by commercial, professional, or personal intercourse to any widespread understanding of and sympathy for the diverse standards of foreign peoples. Moreover, at times they will do or say what is really unfair and unjust. So, very likely, shall we. Human nature being what it is, we can not expect to avoid misunderstandings and resentments. But they need not lead to war, and will not, if we have an accepted alternative means of dealing with them.

Hitherto our efforts to devise a mechanism to settle misunderstandings have been confined to arbitration

treaties and the reference of disputes to the Hague Tribunal. The first arbitration-treaty of modern times was the Jay Treaty of 1794, between the United States and Great Britain; and we had the honor of being the first nation to submit a dispute to the Hague Tribunal, something over a century later. At date of writing, America is party to some thirty treaties, in which we agree that all disputes between us and these other nations, "of every nature whatsoever, to the settlement of which previous arbitration treaties or agreements do not apply in their terms or are not applied in fact, shall, when diplomatic methods of adjustment have failed, be referred for investigation and report to an international commission"; we further agree "not to declare war or to begin hostilities during such investigation and before the report is submitted."

These terms do not bind us to refrain from declaring war with these nations, as a last resort. But the required delay may be of immeasurable value in giving hot heads time in which to cool; and the report of the international commission should lift the dispute out of the realm of passion and prejudice into that of reason. This will not suffice to restrain a nation that is bent on war. But if our own people and the other peoples to whom we are thus bound are genuinely eager to maintain amicable relations, this method provides a way for us to preserve peace with selfrespect.

We may well be proud of this pioneer work in constructive statesmanship. But time has proved that we must go farther. Roosevelt pointed out with emphatic reiteration that "peace treaties and arbitration treaties unbacked by force are not merely useless but mischievous in any serious crisis. . . . The police