24
Press Releases, vol. IX, p. 380
Address Delivered by President Roosevelt at
Washington, December 28, 1933
"Comprehension
must be the soil in which shall grow all the fruits of friendship." Those
words, used by President Wilson in the Mobile speech in 1913, can well serve as
a statement of policy by the Government of the United States. That policy
applies equally to a comprehension of our internal problems and our
international relations.
Woodrow Wilson was a teacher, and when he
used the word "comprehension" he meant it not in terms of the
statesmen and political leaders and business executives and financial kings; he
meant it rather in its application to the peoples of the world, who are
constantly going to school to learn simple truths in order that they and their
neighbors can live their lives more safely, more happily, more fully.
In every continent and in every country
Woodrow Wilson accelerated comprehension on the part of the people themselves.
It is, I believe, true that the events of the past 10 months have caused a
greater interest in government, the problems of government, and the
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purposes of government than in any similar period in our history; and yet
this recent interest and comprehension would have been impossible for the
American people had they not had from Woodrow Wilson the original stimulus and
the original understanding of which he spoke 20 years ago.
In that speech in Mobile, President Wilson
first enunciated the definite statement "that the United States will never
again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest." The United
States accepted that declaration of policy. President Wilson went further,
pointing out with special reference to our Latin American neighbors that
material interests must never be made superior to human liberty.
Nevertheless, and largely as a result of the
convulsion of the World War and its after effects, the complete fruition of
that policy of unselfishness has not in every case been obtained. And in this
we, all of us, have to share the responsibility.
I do not hesitate to say that if I had been
engaged in a political campaign as a citizen of some other American republic, I
might have been strongly tempted to play upon the fears of my compatriots of
that republic by charging the United States of North America with some form of
imperialistic desire for selfish aggrandizement. As a citizen of some other
republic I might have found it difficult to believe fully in the altruism of
the richest American republic. In particular, as a citizen of some other
republic, I might have found it hard to approve of the occupation of the
territory of other republics, even as a temporary measure.
It therefore has seemed clear to me as
President that the time has come to supplement and to implement the declaration
of President Wilson by the further declaration that the definite policy of the
United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention.
The maintenance of constitutional government
in other nations is not a sacred obligation devolving upon the United States
alone. The maintenance of law and the orderly processes of government in this
hemisphere is the concern of each individual nation within its own borders
first of all. It is only if and when the failure of orderly processes affects
the other nations of the continent that it becomes their concern; and the point
to stress is that in such an event it becomes the joint concern of a whole
continent in which we are all neighbors.
It is the comprehension of that doctrine—a
comprehension not by the leaders alone but by the peoples of all the American
republics, that has made the conference now concluding its labors in Montevideo
such a fine success. A better state of feeling among the neighbor nations of
North and Central and South America exists
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today than at any time within a generation. For participation in the
bringing about of that result we can feel proud that so much credit belongs to
the Secretary of State of the United States, Cordell Hull.
In the wider world field a chain of events
has led, of late, away from rather than towards the ultimate objectives of
Woodrow Wilson.
The superficial observer charges this failure
to the growth of the spirit of nationalism. But in so doing he suggests a
nationalism in its narrower, restrictive sense, and a nationalism of that kind
supported by the overwhelming masses of the people themselves in each nation.
I challenge that description of the world
population today.
The blame for the danger to world peace lies
not in the world population but in the political leaders of that population.
The imagination of the masses of world
population was stirred, as never before, by President Wilson's gallant appeal
to them—to those masses—to banish future war. His appeal meant little to the
imagination or the hearts of a large number of the so-called statesmen who
gathered in Paris to assemble a treaty of so-called peace in 1919. I saw that
with my own eyes and heard that with my own ears. Political profit, personal
prestige, national aggrandizement attended the birth of the League of Nations,
and handicapped it from its infancy by seeking their own profit and their own
safety first.
Nevertheless, through the League directly, or
through its guiding motives indirectly, the states of the world have groped
forward to find something better than the old way of composing their
differences.
The League has provided a common meeting
place; it has provided machinery which serves for international discussion; and
in very many practical instances it has helped labor and health and commerce
and education, and, last but not least, the actual settlement of many disputes
great and small among nations great and small.
Today the United States is cooperating openly
in the fuller utilization of the League of Nations machinery than ever before.
I believe that I express the views of my
countrymen when I state that the old policies, alliances, combinations, and
balances of power have proved themselves inadequate for the preservation of
world peace. The League of Nations, encouraging as it does the extension of
non-aggression pacts, of reduction of armament agreements, is a prop in the
world peace structure.
We are not members and we do not contemplate
membership. We
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are giving cooperation to the League in every matter which is not
primarily political and in every matter which obviously represents he views and
the good of the peoples of the world as distinguished from the views and the
good of political leaders, of privileged classes, or of imperialistic aims.
If you figure the world's population at
approximately one billion and a half people, you will find it safe to guess
that at least 90 percent of all of them are today content with the territorial
limits of their respective nations and are willing further to reduce their
armed forces tomorrow if every other nation in the world will agree to do the
same thing. Back of the threat to world peace lies the fear and perhaps even
the possibility that the other 10 percent of the people of the world may go
along with a leadership which seeks territorial expansion at the expense of
neighbors and which under various pleas in avoidance are unwilling to reduce
armament or stop rearmament even if everybody else agrees to non-aggression and
to arms reduction.
If this 10 percent can be persuaded by the
other 90 percent to do their own thinking and not be led, we will have
practical peace, permanent peace, real peace throughout the world. Our own
country has reduced the immediate steps to this greatest of objectives to
practical and reasonable terms.
I have said to every nation in the world
something to this effect:
1. Let every nation agree to
eliminate over a short period of years, and by progressive steps, every weapon
of offense in its possession and to create no additional weapons of offense.
This does not guarantee a nation against invasion unless you implement it with
the right to fortify its own border with permanent and non-mobile defenses; and
also with the right to assure itself through international continuing
inspection that its neighbors are not creating nor maintaining offensive
weapons of war.
2. A simple declaration that no
nation will permit any of its armed forces to cross its own borders into the
territory of another nation. Such an act would be regarded by humanity as an
act of aggression and as an act, therefore, that would call for condemnation by
humanity.
3. It is clear, of course, that
no such general agreement for the elimination of aggression and of the weapons
of offensive warfare would be of any value to the world unless every nation,
without exception, entered into the agreement by
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solemn obligation. If, then, such an
agreement were signed by a great majority of the nations on the definite
condition that it would go into effect only when signed by all the nations, it
would be a comparatively easy matter to determine which nations in this
enlightened time are willing to go on record as belonging to the small minority
of mankind which still believes in the use of the sword for invasion of and
attack upon their neighbors.
I did not make this suggestion until I felt
assured, after a hardheaded practical survey, that the temper of the
overwhelming majority of all men and women in my own country, as well as those
who make up the world's population, subscribes to the fundamental objective I
have set forth and to the practical road to that objective. The political
leaders of many of these peoples interpose and will interpose argument, excuse,
befogging amendment—yes, and even ridicule. But I tell them that the men and
women they serve are so far in advance of that type of leadership that we could
get a world accord on world peace immediately if the people of the world spoke
for themselves.
Through all the centuries and down to the
world conflict of 1914 to 1918, wars were made by governments. Woodrow Wilson
challenged that necessity. That challenge made the people who create and who
change governments think. They wondered with Woodrow Wilson whether the people
themselves could not some day prevent governments from making war.
It is but an extension of the challenge of
Woodrow Wilson for us to propose in this newer generation that from now on war
by governments shall be changed to peace by peoples.