Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
incomprehensible upon any theory of desire to see the canal built upon
the basis of mutual advantage alike to those building it and to Colombia
herself. All we desire to do is to take up the work begun by the French
Government and to finish it. Obviously it is Colombia's duty to help
towards such completion. We are most anxious to come to an agreement
with her in which most scrupulous care should be taken to guard her
interests and ours. But we cannot consent to permit her to block
the performance of the work which it is so greatly to our interest
immediately to begin and carry through."
Shortly after this rough draft was dictated the Panama revolution came,
and I never thought of the rough draft again until I was accused of
having instigated the revolution. This accusation is preposterous in
the eyes of any one who knows the actual conditions at Panama. Only the
menace of action by us in the interest of Colombia kept down revolution;
as soon as Colombia's own conduct removed such menace, all check on the
various revolutionary movements (there were at least three from entirely
separate sources) ceased; and then an explosion was inevitable, for
the French company knew that all their property would be confiscated
if Colombia put through her plans, and the entire people of Panama felt
that if in disgust with Colombia's extortions the United States turned
to Nicaragua, they, the people of Panama, would be ruined. Knowing the
character of those then in charge of the Colombian Government, I was not
surprised at their bad faith; but I was surprised at their folly. They
apparently had no idea either of the power of France or the power of
the United States, and expected to be permitted to commit wrong with
impunity, just as Castro in Venezuela had done. The difference was that,
unless we acted in self-defense, Colombia had it in her power to do
us serious harm, and Venezuela did not have such power. Colombia's
wrongdoing, therefore, recoiled on her own head. There was no new
lesson taught; it ought already to have been known to every one that
wickedness, weakness, and folly combined rarely fail to meet punishment,
and that the intent to do wrong, when joined to inability to carry
the evil purpose to a successful conclusion, inevitably reacts on the
wrongdoer.
For the full history of the acquisition and building of the canal see
"The Panama Gateway," by Joseph Bucklin Bishop (Scribner's Sons). Mr.
Bishop has been for eight years secretary of the commission and is one
of the most efficient of the many efficient men to whose work on the
Isthmus America owes so much.
CHAPTER XV
THE PEACE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
There can be no nobler cause for which to work than the peace of
righteousness; and high honor is due those serene and lofty souls who
with wisdom and courage, with high idealism tempered by sane facing
of the actual facts of life, have striven to bring nearer the day when
armed strife between nation and nation, between class and class, between
man and man shall end throughout the world. Because all this is true, it
is also true that there are no men more ignoble or more foolish, no men
whose actions are fraught with greater possibility of mischief to their
country and to mankind, than those who exalt unrighteous peace as better
than righteous war. The men who have stood highest in our history, as in
the history of all countries, are those who scorned injustice, who were
incapable of oppressing the weak, or of permitting their country, with
their consent, to oppress the weak, but who did not hesitate to draw
the sword when to leave it undrawn meant inability to arrest triumphant
wrong.
All this is so obvious that it ought not to be necessary to repeat it.
Yet every man in active affairs, who also reads about the past, grows
by bitter experience to realize that there are plenty of men, not only
among those who mean ill, but among those who mean well, who are ready
enough to praise what was done in the past, and yet are incapable of
profiting by it when faced by the needs of the present. During our
generation this seems to have been peculiarly the case among the men who
have become obsessed with the idea of obtaining universal peace by some
cheap patent panacea.
There has been a real and substantial growth in the feeling for
international responsibility and justice among the great civilized
nations during the past threescore or fourscore years. There has been a
real growth of recognition of the fact that moral turpitude is involved
in the wronging of one nation by another, and that in most cases war is
an evil method of settling international difficulties. But as yet
there has been only a rudimentary beginning of the development of
international tribunals of justice, and there has been no development at
all of any international police power. Now, as I have already said,
the whole fabric of municipal law, of law within each nation, rests
ultimately upon the judge and the policeman; and the complete absence
of the policeman, and the almost complete absence of the judge, in
international affairs, prevents there being as yet any real homology
between municipal and international law.
Moreover, the questions which sometimes involve nations in war are
far more difficult and complex than any questions that affect merely
individuals. Almost every great nation has inherited certain questions,
either with other nations or with sections of its own people, which it
is quite impossible, in the present state of civilization, to decide
as matters between private individuals can be decided. During the last
century at least half of the wars that have been fought have been
civil and not foreign wars. There are big and powerful nations which
habitually commit, either upon other nations or upon sections of their
own people, wrongs so outrageous as to justify even the most peaceful
persons in going to war. There are also weak nations so utterly
incompetent either to protect the rights of foreigners against their own
citizens, or to protect their own citizens against foreigners, that it
becomes a matter of sheer duty for some outside power to interfere in
connection with them. As yet in neither case is there any efficient
method of getting international action; and if joint action by several
powers is secured, the result is usually considerably worse than if only
one Power interfered. The worst infamies of modern times--such affairs
as the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, for instance--have been
perpetrated in a time of nominally profound international peace, when
there has been a concert of big Powers to prevent the breaking of this
peace, although only by breaking it could the outrages be stopped. Be it
remembered that the peoples who suffered by these hideous massacres,
who saw their women violated and their children tortured, were actually
enjoying all the benefits of "disarmament." Otherwise they would not
have been massacred; for if the Jews in Russia and the Armenians in
Turkey had been armed, and had been efficient in the use of their arms,
no mob would have meddled with them.
Yet amiable but fatuous persons, with all these facts before their eyes,
pass resolutions demanding universal arbitration for everything, and the
disarmament of the free civilized powers and their abandonment of their
armed forces; or else they write well-meaning, solemn little books, or
pamphlets or editorials, and articles in magazines or newspapers, to
show that it is "an illusion" to believe that war ever pays, because it
is expensive. This is precisely like arguing that we should disband the
police and devote our sole attention to persuading criminals that it
is "an illusion" to suppose that burglary, highway robbery and white
slavery are profitable. It is almost useless to attempt to argue with
these well-intentioned persons, because they are suffering under an
obsession and are not open to reason. They go wrong at the outset, for
they lay all the emphasis on peace and none at all on righteousness.
They are not all of them physically timid men; but they are usually men
of soft life; and they rarely possess a high sense of honor or a keen
patriotism. They rarely try to prevent their fellow countrymen from
insulting or wronging the people of other nations; but they always
ardently advocate that we, in our turn, shall tamely submit to wrong
and insult from other nations. As Americans their folly is peculiarly
scandalous, because if the principles they now uphold are right, it
means that it would have been better that Americans should never have
achieved their independence, and better that, in 1861, they should have
peacefully submitted to seeing their country split into half a dozen
jangling confederacies and slavery made perpetual. If unwilling to learn
from their own history, let those who think that it is an "illusion" to
believe that a war ever benefits a nation look at the difference between
China and Japan. China has neither a fleet nor an efficient army. It is
a huge civilized empire, one of the most populous on the globe; and it
has been the helpless prey of outsiders because it does not possess the
power to fight. Japan stands on a footing of equality with European
and American nations because it does possess this power. China now sees
Japan, Russia, Germany, England and France in possession of fragments of
her empire, and has twice within the lifetime of the present generation
seen her capital in the hands of allied invaders, because she in very
fact realizes the ideals of the persons who wish the United States
to disarm, and then trust that our helplessness will secure us a
contemptuous immunity from attack by outside nations.
The chief trouble comes from the entire inability of these worthy
people to understand that they are demanding things that are mutually
incompatible when they demand peace at any price, and also justice and
righteousness. I remember one representative of their number, who used
to write little sonnets on behalf of the Mahdi and the Sudanese, these
sonnets setting forth the need that the Sudan should be both independent
and peaceful. As a matter of fact, the Sudan valued independence only
because it desired to war against all Christians and to carry on an
unlimited slave trade. It was "independent" under the Mahdi for a dozen
years, and during those dozen years the bigotry, tyranny, and cruel
religious intolerance were such as flourished in the seventh century,
and in spite of systematic slave raids the population decreased by
nearly two-thirds, and practically all the children died. Peace came,
well-being came, freedom from rape and murder and torture and highway
robbery, and every brutal gratification of lust and greed came, only
when the Sudan lost its independence and passed under English rule. Yet
this well-meaning little sonneteer sincerely felt that his verses were
issued in the cause of humanity. Looking back from the vantage point of
a score of years, probably every one will agree that he was an absurd
person. But he was not one whit more absurd than most of the more
prominent persons who advocate disarmament by the United States, the
cessation of up-building the navy, and the promise to agree to arbitrate
all matters, including those affecting our national interests and honor,
with all foreign nations.
These persons would do no harm if they affected only themselves. Many
of them are, in the ordinary relations of life, good citizens. They are
exactly like the other good citizens who believe that enforced universal
vegetarianism or anti-vaccination is the panacea for all ills. But in
their particular case they are able to do harm because they affect our
relations with foreign powers, so that other men pay the debt which they