Address at a Luncheon at the Hotel Statler in St. Louis, Missouri

Mr. Johnson, your honor Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I find myself in St. Louis again, because I have always found it possible in St. Louis to discuss serious questions in a way that gets mind in contact with mind, instead of that other less desirable thing, passion in contact with passion. I am glad to hear the mayor say, and I believe that it is true, that politics is adjourned. Party politics has no place, my fellow citizens, in the subject we are now obliged to discuss and to decide. Politics in the wider sense has a great deal to do with it. The politics of the world, the policy of mankind, the concert of the methods by which the world is to be bettered, that concert of will and of action which will make every nation a nobler instrument of Divine Providence—that is world politics.

I have sometimes heard gentlemen discussing the questions that are now before us with a distinction drawn between nationalism and internationalism in these matters. It is very difficult for me to follow their distinction. The greatest nationalist is the man who wants his nation to be the greatest nation, and the greatest nation is the nation which penetrates to the heart of its duty and mission among the nations of the world. With every flash of insight into the great politics of mankind, the nation that has that vision is elevated to a place of influence and power which it can not get by arms, which it can not get by commercial rivalry, which it can get by no other way than by that spiritual leadership which comes from a profound understanding of the problems of humanity. It is in the light of ideas of this sort that I conceive it a privilege to discuss the matters that I have come away from Washington to discuss.

I have come away from Washington to discuss them because apparently it is difficult to discuss them in Washington. The whole subject is surrounded with a mist which it is difficult to penetrate. I brought home with me from the other side of the water a great document, a great human document, but after you hear it talked about in Washington for awhile you think that it has just about three or four clauses in it. You fancy that it has a certain Article X in it, that it has something about Shantung in it, that it has something about the Monroe doctrine in it, that it has something about quitting, withdrawing from the league, showing that you do not want to play the game. I do not hear about anything else in it. Why, my fellow citizens, those are mere details and incidents of a great human enterprise, and I have sought the privilege of telling you what I conceive that human enterprise to be.

The war that has just been finished was no accident. Any man who had followed the politics of the world up to that critical break must have known that that was the logical outcome of the processes that had preceded it, must have known that the nations of the world were preparing for that very thing and were expecting it. One of the most interesting things that I realized after I got to the other side of the water was that the mental attitude of the French people with regard to the settlement of this war was largely determined by the fact that for nearly 50 years they had expected it, that for nearly 50 years they had dreaded, by the exercise of German force, the very thing that had happened, and their constant theme was, "We must devise means by which this intolerable fear will be lifted from our hearts. We can not, we will not, live another 50 years under the cloud of that terror." The terror had been there all the time and the war was its flame and consummation. It had been expected, because the politics of Europe were based upon a definite conception. That conception was that the strong had all the rights and that all that the weak could enjoy was what the strong permitted them to enjoy; that no nation had any right that could not be asserted by the exercise of force, and that the real politics of Europe consisted in determining how many of the weak elements in the European combination of families and of nations should be under the influence and control of one set of nations and how many of those elements should be under the influence and control of another set of nations.

One of the centers of all the bad business was in that town of Constantinople. I do not suppose that intrigue was ever anywhere else reduced to such a consummate art or practiced with such ardor and subtlety as in Constantinople. That was because Constantinople was the key to the weak part of Europe. That was where the pawns were, not the kings and the queens and the castles and the bishops and the rest of the chess game of politics, but the little pawns. They made the openings for the heavier pieces. Their maneuvers determined the arrangement of the board, and those who controlled the pawns controlled the outcome of the whole effort to checkmate and to match and to capture and to take advantage. The shrewdest politicians in the diplomatic service of the several nations were put at Constantinople to run the game, which consisted in maneuvering the weak for the advantage of the strong, and every international conference that preceded the conference at Paris, which is still in process, was intended to complete and consummate the arrangements for that game. For the first time in the history of mankind, the recent conference at Paris was convened to destroy that system and substitute another.

I take it, my fellow citizens, that when you look at that volume, for it is a thick volume, that contains the treaty of peace with Germany, in the light of what I have been saying to you, you will read it with greater interest than you have hitherto attached to it. It is the chart and constitution of a new system for the world, and that new system is based upon an absolute reversal of the principles of the old system. The central object of that treaty is to establish the independence and protect the integrity of the weak peoples of the world. I hear some gentlemen, who are themselves incapable of altruistic purposes, say, "Ah, but that is altruistic. It is not our business to take care of the weak nations of the world." No, but it is our business to prevent war, and if we do not take care of the weak nations of the world, there will be war. These gentlemen assume the role of being very practical men, and they say, "we do not want to get into war to protect every little nation in the world." Very well then, let them show me how they will keep out of war by not protecting them, and let them show me how they will prove that, having gone into an enterprise, they are not absolute, contemptible quitters if they do not see the game through. They joined with the rest of us in the profession of fine purpose when we went into the war, and what was the fine purpose that they professed? It was not merely to defeat Germany. It is not a handsome enterprise for any great nation to go into a war merely to reduce another nation to obedience. They went in, and they professed to go in, to see to it that nobody after Germany's defeat should repeat the experiment which Germany had tried. And how do they propose to do that? To leave the material that Germany was going to make her dominating empire out of helpless and at her mercy.

What was the old formula of Pan-Germanism? From Bremen to Bagdad, wasn't it? Well, look at the map. What lies between Bremen and Bagdad? After you get past the German territory, there is Poland. There is Bohemia, which we have made into Czechoslovakia. There is Hungary, which is divided from Austria and does not share Austria's strength. There is Roumania. There is Jugo-Slavia. There is broken Turkey; and then Persia and Bagdad. The route is open. The route is wide open, and we have undertaken to say, "This route is closed!" If you do not close it, you have no choice but some day or other to enter into exactly the same sort of war that we have just gone through. Those gentlemen are dreaming. They are living in a past age which is gone and all but forgotten when they say that we can mind our own business.

What is our own business? Is there any merchant present here or any manufacturer or any banker who can say that our interests are separate from the interest of the rest of the world, commercially, industrially, financially? There is not a man in any one of those professions who does not admit that our industrial fortunes are tied up with the industrial fortunes of the rest of the world. He knows that, and when he draws a picture to himself, if he is frank, of what some gentlemen propose, this is what he sees: America minding her own business and having no other—despised, suspected, distrusted; and on the other side of the water the treaty and its operation—interrupted? Not at all! We are a great nation, my fellow citizens, but the treaty is going to be applied just the same whether we take part in it or not, and part of its application, at the center of its application, stands that great problem of the rehabilitation of Germany industrially. I say the problem of her rehabilitation because unless she is rehabilitated she can not pay the reparation. The reparation commission created by the treaty is created for the purpose of seeing that Germany pays the reparation, and it was admitted in all our conferences that in order to do that steps must be taken to enable Germany to pay the reparation, which means her industrial and commercial rehabilitation. Not only that, but some of you gentlemen know we used to have a trade with Germany. All of that trade is going to be in the hands and under the control of the reparation commission. I humbly asked leave to appoint a member to look after our interests, and I was rebuked for it. I am looking after the industrial interest of the United States. I would like to see the other men who are. They are forgetting the industrial interests of the United States, and they are doing things that will cut us off, and our trade off, from the normal channels, because the reparation commission can determine where Germany buys, what Germany buys, how much Germany buys; the reparation commission can determine in what instruments of credit she temporarily expresses her debt. It can determine how those instruments of credit shall be used for the basis of the credit which must underlie international exchanges. It is going to stand at the center of the financial operations of the world. Now, is it minding our business to keep out of that? On the contrary, it is handing our business over to people who are not particularly interested in seeing that it prospers. These are facts which I can appropriately address to a chamber of commerce because they are facts which nobody can controvert and which yet seem often to be forgotten. The broad aspects of this subject are seldom brought to your attention. It is the little picayune details here and there.

That brings me, my fellow citizens, to the guarantee of this whole thing. We said that we were going to fight this war for the purpose of seeing to it that the mothers and sisters and fathers of this land, and the sweethearts and wives, did not have to send their lads over on the other side of the sea to fight any more, and so we took part in an arrangement by which justice was to be secured throughout the world. The rest of the world, partly at our suggestion, said "Yes" and said it gladly; said "Yes, we will go into the partnership to see that justice is maintained; " and then I come home and hear some gentlemen say, "But will we? " Are we interested in justice? The treaty of peace, as I have just said to you, is based upon the protection of the weak against the strong, and there is only one force that can protect the weak against the strong, and that is the universal concert of the strength of mankind. That is the league of nations.

But I beg that you will not conceive of the league of nations as a combination of the world for war, for that is exactly what it is not. It is a combination of the world for arbitration and discussion. I was taking the pains the other day to make a sort of table of contents of the covenant of the league of nations, and I found that two- thirds of its provisions were devoted to setting up a system of arbitration and discussion in the world. Why, these are the facts, my fellow citizens: The members of the league agree that no one of them will ever go to war about anything without first doing one or other of two things: without either submitting the question to arbitration, in which case they agree to abide by the decision of the arbitrators absolutely, or submitting it to discussion by the council of the league of nations, in which case they agree that, no matter what the opinion expressed by the council may be, they will allow six months for the discussion, and, whether they are satisfied with the conclusion or not, will not go to war in less than three months after the rendering of the opinion. I think we can take it for granted that the preliminaries would take two or three months, in which case you have a whole year of discussion even when you do not get arbitration; and I want to call you to witness that in almost every international controversy which has been submitted to thorough canvass by the opinion of the world it has become impossible for the result to be war. War is a process of heat. Exposure is a process of cooling; and what is proposed in this is that every hot thing shall be spread out in the cooling air of the opinion of the world and after it is thoroughly cooled off, then let the nations concerned determine whether they are going to fight about it or not.

And notice the sanction. Any member of the league which breaks these promises with regard to arbitration or discussion is to be deemed thereby to have committed an act of war against the other members of the league; not merely to have done an immoral thing, but by refusing to obey those processes to have committed an act of war and put itself out of court. You know what then happens. You say, "Yes, we form an army and go and fight them." Not at all. We shut their doors and lock them in. We boycott them. Just so soon as that is done they can not ship cargoes out or receive them shipped in. They can not send a telegraphic message. They can not send or receive a letter. Nobody can leave their territory and nobody can enter their territory. They are absolutely boycotted by the rest of mankind. I do not think that after that remedy it will be necessary to do any fighting at all. What brought Germany to her knees was, not only the splendid fighting of the incomparable men who met her armies, but that her doors were locked and she could not get supplies from any part of the world. There were a few doors open, doors to some Swedish ore, for example, that she needed for making munitions, and that kept her going for a time; but the Swedish door would be shut this time. There would not be any door open, and that brings a nation to its senses just as suffocation removes from the individual all inclination to fight.

That is the league of nations, an agreement to arbitrate or discuss, and an agreement that if you do not arbitrate or discuss, you shall be absolutely boycotted and starved out. There is hardly a European nation, my fellow citizens, that is of a fighting inclination which has enough food to eat without importing food, and it will be a very persuasive argument that it has nothing to eat, because you can not fight on an empty stomach any more than you can worship God on an empty stomach.

When we add to that some other very interesting particulars, I think the league of nations becomes a very interesting thing indeed. You have heard of Article X, and I am going to speak about that in a minute, but read Article XI, because, really, there are other articles in the covenant! Article XI says—I am not quoting its language, but its substance—that anything that is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding upon which the peace of the world depends shall be everybody's business; that any nation, the littlest nation at the table, can stand up and challenge the right of the strongest nation there to keep on in a course of action or policy which is likely to disturb the peace of the world, and that it shall be its "friendly right" to do so. Those are the words. It can not be regarded as an hostile or unfriendly act. It is its friendly right to do that, and if you will not give the secret away, I wrote those words myself. I wanted it to be our friendly right and everybody's friendly right to discuss everything that was likely to affect the peace of the world, because that is everybody's business. It is every- body's business to see that nothing happens that does disturb the peace of the world.

And there is added to this particular this very interesting thing: There can hereafter be no secret treaties. There were nations represented around that board—I mean the board at which the commission on the league of nations sat, where 14 nations were represented— there were nations represented around that board who had entered into many a secret treaty and understanding, and they made not the least objection to promising that hereafter no secret treaty should have any validity whatever. The provision of the covenant is that every treaty or international understanding shall be "registered," I believe the word is, with the general secretary of the league, that the general secretary shall publish it in full just so soon as it is possible for him to publish it, and that no treaty shall be valid which is not thus registered. It is like our arrangements with regard to mortgages on real estate, that until they are registered nobody else need pay any attention to them. So with the treaties: Until they are registered in this office of the league, nobody, not even the parties themselves, can insist upon their execution. You have cleared the deck thereby of the most dangerous thing and the most embarrassing thing that has hitherto existed in international politics.

It was very embarrassing, my fellow citizens, when you thought you were approaching an ideal solution of a particular question to find that some of your principal colleagues had given the whole thing away. And that leads me to speak just in passing of what has given a great many people natural distress. I mean the Shantung settlement, the settlement with regard to a portion of the Province of Shantung in China. Great Britain and, subsequently, France, as everybody now knows, in order to make it more certain that Japan would come into the war and so assist to clear? the Pacific of the German fleets, had promised that any rights that Germany had in China should, in the case of the victory of the Allies, pass to Japan. There was no qualification in the promise. She was to get exactly what Germany had, and so the only thing that was possible was to induce Japan to promise—and I want to say in fairness, for it would not be fair if I did not say it, that Japan did very handsomely make the promise which was requested of her—that she would retain in Shantung none of the sovereign rights which Germany had enjoyed there, but would return the sovereignty without qualification to China and retain in Shantung Province only what other nationalities had already had elsewhere, economic rights with regard to the development and administration of the railway and of certain mines which had become attached to the railway. That is her promise, and personally I have not the slightest doubt that she will fulfill that promise. She can not fulfill it right now because the thing does not go into operation until three months after the treaty is ratified, so that we must not be too impatient about it. But she will fulfill that promise.

Suppose that we said that we would not assent. England and France must assent, and if we are going to get Shantung Province back for China and these gentlemen do not want to engage in foreign wars, how are they going to get it back? Their idea of not getting into trouble seems to be to stand for the largest possible number of unworkable propositions. It is all very well to talk about standing by China, but how are you standing by China when you withdraw from the only arrangement by which China can be assisted. If you are China's friend, then do not go into the council where you can act as China's friend! If you are China's friend, then put her in a position where even the concessions which have been made need not be carried out! If you are China's friend, scuttle and run! That is not the kind of American I am.

Now, just a word about Article X. Permit me, if you will, to recur to what I said at the opening of these somewhat disjointed remarks. I said that the treaty was intended to destroy one system and substitute another. That other system was based upon the principle that no strong power need respect the territorial integrity or the political independence of any weak power. I need not confine the phraseology to that. It was based upon the principle that no power is obliged to respect the territorial integrity or the political independence of any other power if it has the force necessary to disregard it. So that Article X cuts at the very heart, and is the only instrument that will cut to the very heart, of the old system. Remember that if this covenant is adopted by the number of nations which it probably will be adopted by, it means that every nation except Germany and Turkey, because we have already said we would let Austria come in (Germany has to undergo a certain period of probation to see whether she has really experienced a change of heart and effected a genuine change of constitutional provision)— it means that all the nations of the world, except one strong and one negligible one, agree that they will respect and preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of the other nations of the world. You would think from some of the discussions that the emphasis is on the word "preserve."

We are partners with the rest of the world in respecting the territorial integrity and political independence of others. They are all under solemn bonds themselves to respect and to preserve those things, and if they do not preserve them, if they do not respect them or preserve them, what happens? The council of the league then advises the several members of the league what it is necessary to do. I can testify from having sat at the board where the instrument was drawn that advice means advice. I supposed it did before I returned home, but I found some gentlemen doubted it. Advice means advice, and the advice can not be given without the concurrent vote of the representative of the United States. "Ah," but somebody says, "suppose we are a party to the quarrel!" I can not suppose that, because I know that the United States is not going to disregard the territorial integrity or the political independence of any other nation, but for the sake of the argument suppose that we are a party. Very well then, the scrap is ours anyway. For what these gentlemen are afraid of is that we are going to get into trouble. If we are a party, we are in trouble already, and if we are not a party, we can control the advice of the council by our vote. To my mind, that is a little like an open and shut game! I am not afraid of advice which we give ourselves; and yet that is the whole of the bugaboo which these gentlemen have been parading before you.

The solemn thing about Article X is the first sentence, not the second sentence. The first sentence says that we will respect and preserve against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of other nations; and let me stop a moment on the words "external aggression." Why were they put in? Because every man who sat at that board held that the right of revolution was sacred and must not be interfered with. Any kind of a row can happen inside and it is nobody's right to interfere. The only thing that there is any right to object to or interfere with is external aggression, by some outside power undertaking to take a piece of territory or to interfere with the internal political arrangements of the country which is suffering from the aggression; because territorial integrity does not mean that you can not invade another country; it means that you can not invade it and stay there. I have not impaired the territorial integrity of your backyard if I walk into it, but I very much impair it if I insist upon staying there and will not get out, and the impairment of integrity contemplated in this article is the kind of impairment as the seizure of territory, as an attempt at annexation, as an attempt at continuing domination either of the territory itself or of the methods of government inside that territory.

When you read Article X, therefore, you will see that it is nothing but the inevitable, logical center of the whole system of the covenant of the league of nations, and I stand for it absolutely. If it should ever in any important respect be impaired, I would feel like asking ? the Secretary of War to get the boys who went across the water to fight together on some field where I could go and see them, and I would stand up before them and say, "Boys, I told you before you went across the seas that this was a war against wars, and I did my best to fulfill the promise, but I am obliged to come to you in mortification and shame and say I have not been able to fulfill the promise. You are betrayed. You fought for something that you did not get." And the glory of the armies and the navies of the United States is gone like a dream in the night, and there ensues upon it, in the suitable darkness of the night, the nightmare of dread which lay upon the nations before this war came; and there will come sometime, in the vengeful Providence of God, another struggle in which, not a few hundred thousand fine men from America will have to die, but as many millions as are necessary to accomplish the final freedom of the peoples of the world.