Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1920 — ROOSEVELT ON PEACE [ARTICLE]

ROOSEVELT ON PEACE

* The Nobel peace prize was award-

ed to Theodore Roosevelt on May 5, 1910, he having, on the completion of his African trip, Journeyed to Christiania to receive it. The two addresses delivered by him on that historic occasion have a peculiar timeliness today. In one of them he said: In the end I firmly believe that some method will be devised by which the people of the world as a whole will be able to insure peace as it can not now be insured. How soon that end will come I do not know; it may be far distant, and until it does come I think that while we should give all the support that we can to any feasible scheme for

quickly bringing about such a state of affairs, yet we should meanwhile do the more practicable, though less sensational things. Let us advance step by step; let us, for example, endeavor to increase the number of arbitration treaties and enlarge the methods for obtaining peaceful settlements. Above all let us strive to awaken the public International conscience, so that it shall be expected, and expected efficiently of the public men responsible for the management of any nation’s affairs that those affairs shall be conducted with all proper regard for the interests and well-being of other powers, great or small. In the second address the speaker

was more defldlte, descending from generalities to particulars: It would be a master-stroke if these great powers bent on peace would form a league of peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others. Does this describe what Mr. Harding calls a “supergovernment”? Mr. Roosevelt was not speaking of the present league because he spoke long before the European war, but he would have made it the duty of the league that he favored to preserve the peace, even tor force if necessary. His league would have been .an alliance, and would have involved us in world affairs. Nor should it be forgotten that we have, as he advised, advanced “step by step," and greatly Increased “the number of arbitration treaties.” It was believed that much had been done “to awaken the public International conscience,” and that the time was ripe for a further advance. Whether the former president favored the league now proposed or not, we do not know. But he was committed to- the underlying principle, committed by words spoken on a solemn occasion, to a brilliant audience, and addressed to the conscience of the world. They should have some weight in the present crisis. His words may well be supplemented by those of Henry Cabot Lodge, spoken June 9, 1915: Nations must unite as men unite in order to preserve peace and order. The great nations must be so united as to be able to say to any single country “you must not go to war”; and they can only say that effectively when the country desiring war knows that the force which the united nations place behind peace is irresistible. * • ♦ In differences between nations, which go beyond the limited range of arbitrable questions, peace can only be maintained by putting behind it the force of united nations determined to uphold it and prevent war. Yet one *of Senator Lodge’s objections to the league covenant is that it would bind us to'do precisely what be said five years ago would have to be done if peace were to be maintained —that is, combine with other nations in the use of force to uphold it. Senator Harding, in his speech of acceptance, repudiated the pending league, and denounced and disallowed the principle on which it is based, which is, as far as an alliance pledged to the use of force is concerned, identical with that advocated by Lodge and Roosevelt. — Indianapolis News.