the dawn of a new and
auspicious era in the affairs of men and of nations.

During all the months preceding the action of the Senate on these
treaties the only statesman of any prominence to raise his voice in
opposition was ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. The gist of his
successive and violent attacks on the treaties is contained in this
utterance, which I quote, "It would be not merely foolish but wicked
for us as a nation to agree to arbitrate any dispute that affects our
vital interests or our independence or our honor." In this spirit, to
the surprise and disappointment of the whole nation, the Senate
amended the treaties out of their original intent, and placed upon
them limitations that defeated their purpose. By the Senate's action
the United States is still committed to the pretense that there may be
occasion for a just and solemn war, that vital interests and national
honor may force us to fight.

What, then, are the vital interests that can be conserved only by
saber and bullet? Nothing more, nothing less, according to various
acknowledged authorities, than a state's independence and its
territorial integrity. Did the keen mind of our former president
really foresee the seizure of some of our territory by England or
France? Yet he protests it that it would be "not merely foolish but
wicked for us as a nation to agree to arbitrate any dispute that
affects our vital interests." Did Senator Lodge and his threescore
colleagues who amended the treaties actually fear an attempt to
overthrow our form of government, to destroy our political
institutions, or to take away those individual rights and sacred
privileges upon which our government was founded? Yet to save us from
such fate they refused unlimited arbitration.

For the United States to except from arbitration her vital interests
is obvious pretense. To add thereto her national honor is extreme
hypocrisy. What is national honor? No man knows. It is one thing
to-day; another, to-morrow. It may involve an indemnity claim, a
boundary line, a fisheries dispute. In fact, any controversy may be
declared by either party, at will, to be a question of national honor.
Thus in the hands of an unskilled or malicious diplomacy, any question
which was originally a judicial one may become a question of national
honor. What, then, will we arbitrate? Every case in which a favorable
award is assured us. If we want Texas, we send an army after it. Every
case that does not r