or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.

I have spoken upon these great matters without reserve and with the utmost explicitness because it has seemed to me to be necessary if the world's yearning desire for peace was anywhere to find free voice and utterance. Perhaps I am the only person in high authority among all the peoples of the world who is at liberty to speak and hold nothing back. I am speaking as an individual and yet I am speaking, also, of course, as the responsible head of a great government and I feel confident that I have said what the people of the United States would wish me to say.

May I not add that I hope and believe that I am in effect speaking for liberals and friends of humanity in every nation and of every programme of liberty? I would fain believe that I am speaking for the silent mass of mankind everywhere who have as yet had no place of opportunity to speak their real hearts out concerning the death and ruin they see to have come already upon the persons and the homes they hold most dear.

And in holding out the expectation that the people and Government of the United States will join the other civilized nations of the world in guaranteeing the permanence of peace upon such terms as I have named, I speak with the greater boldness and confidence because it is clear to every man who can think that there is in this promise no breach as a nation, but a fulfillment rather of all that we have professed or striven for.

I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world; that no nation should seek to extend its policy over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful.

I am proposing that all nations henceforth avoid entangling alliances which would draw them into competitions of power, catch them in a net of intrigue and selfish rivalry and disturb their own affairs with influences intruded from without. There is no entangling alliance in a concert of power. When all unite to act on the same sense and with the same purpose all act in the common interest and are free to live their own lives under a common protection.

I am proposing government by the consent of the governed; that freedom of the seas which in international conference after conference representatives of the United States have urged with the eloquence of those who are the convinced disciples of liberty; and

that moderation of armaments which makes of armies and navies a power for order merely, not an instrument of aggression or of selfish violence.

These are American principles, American polices. We can stand for no others. And they are also the principles and policies of forward looking men and women everywhere, of every modern nation, of every enlightened community. They are the principles of mankind and must prevail.

APPENDIX XIV

SPECIMEN ARGUMENT: AN INFORMAL ORAL
DISCUSSION 1

SHOULD THE UNITED STATES JOIN THE LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE?

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, for the Affirmative

THE League to Enforce Peace is an association organized through the activities of three or four gentlemen who were first dazed with the defeat of their hopes by the outbreak of the war and who, after they recovered themselves, thought it was wise to bring together as many interested in the subject as they could within the cosy limits of the Century Club at dinner. There is something about a dinner that always helps to promote agreement. It creates a desire to be unanimous. Much to the surprise of the twenty gentlemen who were there, we did agree, and then, lest we might not hide our light under a bushel or lose for lack of appreciation of the importance of our own work, we shrunk from the public gaze by gathering at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and there we agreed upon the platform with very few changes.

I recite in general what the platform is, not because I think that most who are here do not know it, but merely for the purpose of refreshing their recollection and making it the basis of my remarks, which are directed toward some controverted features in the practical working of the plan. The plan contemplates an international agreement signed by as many powers as can be induced to sign it. The first provision is for a permanent court of justice international, with jurisdiction to consider and decide all controversies of a justiciable character arising between two or more members of the League, the power of the court to be extended to passing upon questions finally and in a binding way upon whether the issue presented is a justiciable one and therefore, within the jurisdiction of the court. The second provision is that all questions not of a justiciable character, leading to differences between two or more members of the

1 Abridged from Pamphlet No. 106, September, 1916, of the American Association for International Conciliation, New York. Addresses at the Lake Mohonk Conference, 1916.

League, are to be presented to a commission, before which evidence is to be introduced, arguments are to be made and then the commission is to recommend something in the nature of a compromise. The third provision is that if any one member of the League, violating its pledged faith, shall begin hostilities against any other member of the League before the questions creating the trouble have been submitted either for decision by the court or for recommendation by the commission, then all the other members of the League agree to defend the member prematurely attacked against the one who begins the hostilities; and to use, first, economic means, and then military force for that purpose. The fourth plank provides that international congresses shall be convened with representatives from all members of the League, who shall consider the subject of international law, shall extend it in a legislative way and submit the changes thus agreed upon to the nations constituting the League. If there is no objection within a year, then the rules changing or extending existing international law shall be considered as rules for the decision of the permanent court.

It would seem that many had been waiting for the formulation of some such proposals, and if I may judge from the comments on them, what attracts is its affirmative and constructive quality in the proposition that physical force be added to the weight of moral force in order to prevent a general war, with the hope that the threat will be enough without actual resort to military or economic means.

Now I want to emphasize in this plan a number of its features, with a view of taking up some of the objections. First, I would like to emphasize the distinction between justiciable and non-justiciable. That has led to the division into a court and a commission, the court to consider justiciable questions, the commission to consider nonjusticiable questions. Non-justiciable questions are those which cannot be settled according to the principles of law or equity. The justiciable ones are those that can be so settled. There are a great many non-justiciable questions that can arise between nations that may well lead to war, and in that respect is not so different in our domestic life. Take the case of Mrs. A., who has a lawn upon which she allows the children of Mrs. B. to play, Mrs. B. being a neighbor, and Mrs. C. is the neighbor on the other side and she does not let Mrs. C.'s children play on that lawn because she has had some previous experience with Mrs. C.'s children and she finds that they are young mustangs and dig up the lawn and tear the flowers and everything of that sort. Now she has a perfect right to say who shall come on that lawn and who shall not, but there well may be an issue be

tween Mrs. C. and Mrs. A. growing out of that discrimination. It is non-justiciable; you cannot settle it in court, unless perhaps Mr. C. comes home and Mrs. C. tells Mr. C. about it and asks him to go over and see Mr. A. about it; then you may have a justiciable question. [Laughter.] But the issue then is not whether Mrs. A. was right in her judgment of Mrs. C.'s children and her discrimination against them in favor of Mrs. B.'s; the justiciable issue usually settles down to the ultimate fact whether Mr. A. or Mr. C. hit first. This is a domestic illustration, but we are having just such a situation with respect to Japan and China. We have a right to exclude the Japanese if we please; we have a right to exclude the Chinese. We are a bit inconsistent; we wish the Chinese trade, but we do not care for the Chinese. We have a color scheme in our immigration and naturalization laws; it is limited to black and white and we are very fastidious about the browns and yellows. Such a question may very well lead to friction and lead to something worse. I give that as an illustration of a non-justiciable question which in some way or other must be provided for.

Objection has been made to giving to the permanent court the power to decide whether the question before it is justiciable or not; in other words, the power to decide upon its own jurisdiction. This is not giving it any executive power. Every domestic court has it. The question whether an issue is one of law or equity is a question that such a court is entirely competent to decide. It has been suggested that we ought to have the military forces of all those connected with the League, not only to prevent a hasty beginning of war before submission, but that we ought to have all bound to use their economic and military forces to enforce the judgment rendered. Well, that was made the subject of very considerable thought, but it was finally concluded that we ought not to be over-ambitious. It was thought that if we could stop hostilities until there had been a full hearing of a dispute, the introduction of evidence and the argument and delay incident to all that, that we might reasonably count on some settlement between the parties after they had had the time to think which was necessarily given by the discussion, the hearing and the delay.

Now it is said that this leaves something too open and that war may creep in. I agree; it does, and anybody that says that he has got a machine that will work every time to keep away war, says something that I cannot credit. I believe he is sincere if he says it, but I think his conclusion impeaches his judgment some. I feel that we cannot make progress if we are going to attempt the impossible,