The course of the present administration in foreign affairs has now and then combined officiously offensive action toward foreign powers with tame submission to wrong-doing by foreign powers. As a nation we have refused to do our duty to others and yet we have at times tamely submitted to wrong at the hands of others. This has been notably true of our conduct in Mexico; and we have come perilously near such conduct in the case of Japan. It is also true of our activities as regards the European war. We failed to act in accordance with our obligations as a signatory power to the Hague treaties. In addition to the capital crime committed against Belgium we have seen outrage after outrage perpetrated in violation of the Hague conventions, and yet the administration has never ventured so much as a protest. It has even at times, and with wavering and vacillation, adopted policies unjust to one or the other of the two sets of combatants. But it has immediately abandoned these policies when the combatants in violent and157 improper fashion overrode them; and it has submitted with such tame servility to whatever the warring nations have dictated that in effect we see, as Theodore Woolsey, the expert on international law, has pointed out, the American government protecting belligerent interests abroad at the expense of neutral interests both at home and abroad. Not since the Napoleonic wars have belligerents acted with such high-handed disregard of the rights of neutrals. Germany was the first and greatest offender; and when we failed to protest in her case the administration perhaps felt ashamed to protest, felt that it was estopped from protesting, in other cases. England in its turn has violated our neutrality rights, and while exercising both force and ingenuity in making this violation effective has protested as if she herself were the injured party. As a matter of fact, England and France should note that in view of their command of the seas our war trade is of such value to them that certain congressmen, whose interest in Germany surpasses their interest in the United States, have sought by law totally to prohibit it. This proposed—and thoroughly improper—action is a sufficient answer to the charges of the Allies, and should remind them how ill they requite the service rendered by our merchants when they seek to block all our intercourse with other nations. They, however, are158 only to be blamed for short-sightedness; there is no reason why they should pay heed to American interests. But the administration should represent American interests; it should see that while we perform our duties as neutrals we should be protected in our rights as neutrals; and one of these rights is the trade in contraband. To prohibit this is to take part in the war for the benefit of one belligerent at the expense of another and to our own cost.

Of course it would be an ignoble action on our part after having conspicuously failed to protest against the violation of Belgian neutrality to show ourselves overeager to protest against comparatively insignificant violations of our own neutral rights. But we should never have put ourselves in such a position as to make insistence on our own rights seem disregard for the rights of others. The proper course for us to pursue was, on the one hand, scrupulously to see that we did not so act as to injure any contending nation, unless required to do so in the name of morality and of our solemn treaty obligations, and also fearlessly to act on behalf of other nations which were wronged, as required by these treaty obligations; and, on the other hand, with courteous firmness to warn any nation which, for instance, seized or searched our ships against the accepted rules of international conduct that this we could159 not permit and that such a course should not be persevered in by any nation which desired our good-will. I believe I speak for at least a considerable portion of our people when I say that we wish to make it evident that we feel sincere good-will toward all nations; that any action we take against any nation is taken with the greatest reluctance and only because the wrong-doing of that nation imposes a distinct, although painful, duty upon us; and yet that we do not intend ourselves to submit to wrong-doing from any nation.

Until an efficient world league for peace is in more than mere process of formation the United States must depend upon itself for protection where its vital interests are concerned. All the youth of the nation should be trained in warlike exercises and in the use of arms—as well as in the indispensable virtues of courage, self-restraint, and endurance—so as to be fit for national defense. But the right arm of the nation must be its navy. Our navy is our most efficient peacemaker. In order to use the navy effectively we should clearly define to ourselves the policy we intend to follow and the limits over which we expect our power to extend. Our own coasts, Alaska, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal and its approaches should represent the sphere in which we should expect to be able, single-handed, to meet and master any opponent from overseas.

160 I exclude the Philippines. This is because I feel that the present administration has definitely committed us to a course of action which will make the early and complete severance of the Philippines from us not merely desirable but necessary. I have never felt that the Philippines were of any special use to us. But I have felt that we had a great task to perform there and that a great nation is benefited by doing a great task. It was our bounden duty to work primarily for the interests of the Filipinos; but it was also our bounden duty, inasmuch as the entire responsibility lay upon us, to consult our own judgment and not theirs in finally deciding what was to be done. It was our duty to govern the islands or to get out of the islands. It was most certainly not our duty to take the responsibility of staying in the islands without governing them. Still less was it—or is it—our duty to enter into joint arrangements with other powers about the islands; arrangements of confused responsibility and divided power of the kind sure to cause mischief. I had hoped that we would continue to govern the islands until we were certain that they were able to govern themselves in such fashion as to do justice to other nations and to repel injustice committed on them by other nations. To substitute for such government by ourselves either a government by the161 Filipinos with us guaranteeing them against outsiders, or a joint guarantee between us and outsiders, would be folly. It is eminently desirable to guarantee the neutrality of small civilized nations which have a high social and cultural status and which are so advanced that they do not fall into disorder or commit wrong-doing on others. But it is eminently undesirable to guarantee the neutrality or sovereignty of an inherently weak nation which is impotent to preserve order at home, to repel assaults from abroad, or to refrain from doing wrong to outsiders. It is even more undesirable to give such a guarantee with no intention of making it really effective. That this is precisely what the present administration would be delighted to do has been shown by its refusal to live up to its Hague promises at the very time that it was making similar new international promises by the batch. To enter into a joint guarantee of neutrality which in emergencies can only be rendered effective by force of arms is to incur a serious responsibility which ought to be undertaken in a serious spirit. To enter into it with no intention of using force, or of preparing force, in order at need to make it effective, represents the kind of silliness which is worse than wickedness.

Above all, we should keep our promises. The present administration was elected on the outright162 pledge of giving the Filipinos independence. Apparently its course in the Philippines has proceeded upon the theory that the Filipinos are now fit to govern themselves. Whatever may be our personal and individual beliefs in this matter, we ought not as a nation to break faith or even to seem to break faith. I hope therefore that the Filipinos will be given their independence at an early date and without any guarantee from us which might in any way hamper our future action or commit us to staying on the Asiatic coast. I do not believe we should keep any foothold whatever in the Philippines. Any kind of position by us in the Philippines merely results in making them our heel of Achilles if we are attacked by a foreign power. They can be of no compensating benefit to us. If we were to retain complete control over them and to continue the course of action which in the past sixteen years has resulted in such immeasurable benefit for them, then I should feel that it was our duty to stay and work for them in spite of the expense incurred by us and the risk we thereby ran. But inasmuch as we have now promised to leave them and as we are now abandoning our power to work efficiently for and in them, I do not feel that we are warranted in staying in the islands in an equivocal position, thereby incurring great risk to ourselves without conferring any real compensating advantage,163 of a kind which we are bound to take into account, on the Filipinos themselves. If the Filipinos are entitled to independence then we are entitled to be freed from all the responsibility and risk which our presence in the islands entails upon us.

The great nations of southernmost South America, Brazil, the Argentine, and Chile are now so far advanced in stability and power that there is no longer any need of applying the Monroe Doctrine as far as they are concerned; and this also relieves us as regards Uruguay and Paraguay the former of which is well advanced and neither of which has any interests with which we need particularly concern ourselves. As regards all these powers, therefore, we now have no duty save that doubtless if they got into difficulties and desired our aid we would gladly extend it, just as, for instance, we would to Australia and Canada. But we can now proceed on the assumption that they are able to help themselves and that any help we should be required to give would be given by us as an auxiliary rather than as a principal.

Our naval problem, therefore, is primarily to provide for the protection of our own coasts and for the protection and policing of Hawaii, Alaska, and the Panama Canal and its approaches. This offers a definite problem which should be solved by our naval men. It is for them, having in view164 the lessons taught by this war, to say what is the exact type of fleet we require, the number and kind of submarines, of destroyers, of mines, and of air-ships to be used against hostile fleets, in addition to the cruisers and great fighting craft which must remain the backbone of the navy. Civilians may be competent to pass on the merits of the plans suggested by the naval men, but it is the naval men themselves who must make and submit the plans in detail. Lay opinion, however, should keep certain elementary facts steadily in mind.

The navy must primarily be used for offensive purposes. Forts, not the navy, are to be used for defense. The only permanently efficient type of defensive is the offensive. A portion, and a very important portion, of our naval strength must be used with our own coast ordinarily as a base, its striking radius being only a few score miles, or a couple of hundred at the outside. The events of this war have shown that submarines can play a tremendous part. We should develop our force of submarines and train the officers and crews who have charge of them to the highest pitch of efficiency—for they will be useless in time of war unless those aboard them have been trained in time of peace. These submarines, when used in connection with destroyers and with air-ships, can undoubtedly serve to165 minimize the danger of successful attack on our own shores. But t............