79
Department of State pub. 1088, p. 82
Address Delivered by the
Secretary of State at Buenos Aires, December 5, 1936 [30b]
The primary purpose of this Conference is to
banish war from the Western Hemisphere. In its earnest pursuit of this great
undertaking it is necessary at the outset to visualize numerous dangerous
conditions and practices in general international affairs to the extent that
they bear upon and affect the work of this Conference. It is manifest that
every country today is faced with a supreme alternative. Each must play its
part in determining whether the world will slip backward toward war and
savagery, or whether it can maintain and
[30b]
At the opening of the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of
Peace.
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will advance the level of civilization and peace. None can escape its
responsibility.
The twenty-one American republics cannot
remain unconcerned by the grave and threatening conditions in many parts of the
world. Our convocation here in Buenos Aires utters this hemisphere's common
voice of its interest in, nay, its intense concern over, the determination of
this momentous question. The repercussions of wars and preparations for wars
have been so universally disastrous that it is now as plain as mathematical
truth that each nation in any part of the world is concerned in peace in every
part of the world. The nations of all the Americas, through their chosen
delegates, have assembled to make careful survey and analysis of all aspects of
their responsibilities; to take account of their common duties; and to plan
accordingly for the safety and welfare of their peoples.
The Western Hemisphere must now face squarely
certain hard realities. For the purpose of our undertaking, we must frankly
recognize that for some time the forces of militarism have been in the
ascendant in a large part of the world; those of peace have been
correspondingly on the decline. We should be lacking in common sense if we
ignored the plain fact that the effects of these forces will unavoidably have
direct impact upon all of us. We should be lacking in ordinary caution if we
fail to counsel together for our common safety and welfare.
It is bad enough when many statesmen and
peoples close their minds and memories to the awful lesson taught by the
millions of soldiers sacrificed in the World War; the shattered cities, the
desolated fields, and all the other material, moral, and spiritual ravages of
that conflict. Still worse, that war has brought in its train wounds to man's
heart and spirit, national hatreds and fears, the dislocation or destruction of
indispensable political and governmental structures, and the collapse or cool
abandonment of former high standards of national conduct. The supreme tragedy
is completed by the break-down of the commerce of mind and culture, the attempt
to isolate the nations of the earth into sealed compartments, all of which have
made war a burden not to be endured by mankind.
The delegates of the American nations,
meeting here in the face of these grave and threatening world conditions, must
realize that mere words will not suffice. From every wise and practical
viewpoint, concrete peace planning, peace views, and peace objectives are
imperative. We must quicken our words and our hopes into a specific, embracing
program to maintain peace. Such a program, adequately implemented, should
constitute an armory of peace. It should com-
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prise a structure affording all practical means for safeguarding peace.
At a time when many other governments or peoples fail or fear to proclaim and
embrace a broad or definite peace plan or movement, while their statesmen are
shouting threats of war, it is all the more necessary that we of the Americas
must cry out for peace, keep alive the spirit of peace, live by the rules of
peace, and forthwith perfect the machinery for its maintenance. Should we fail
to make this outstanding contribution, it would be a practical desertion of the
cause of peace and a tragic blow to the hopes of humanity.
In meeting this problem, the American
republics are in a peculiarly advantageous situation. There are among us no
radical differences, no profound mistrusts or deep hatreds. On the contrary we
are inspired by the impulse to be constant friends and the determination to be
peaceful neighbors.
We recognize the right of all nations to
handle their affairs in any way they choose, and this quite irrespective of the
fact that their way may be different from our way or even repugnant to our
ideas. But we cannot fail to take cognizance of the international aspect of
their policies when and to the extent that they may react upon us. I, myself,
am unalterably of the view that a policy leading to war may react upon us. In
the face of any situation directly leading to war, can we therefore be other
than apprehensive?
In sustaining the firm determination that
peace must be maintained and that any country whose policies make war likely is
threatening injury to all, I believe that the nations of this hemisphere would
find themselves in accord with governments elsewhere. I strongly entertain the
hope that a united group of American nations may take common action at this
Conference further to assure peace among themselves and define their attitude
toward war; and that this action may not only demonstrate the happy position of
the New World, but, though designed primarily for our own benefit, embody
policies of world application and correspond to the views and interests of
nations outside this hemisphere.
There is no need for war. There is a
practical alternative policy at hand, complete and adequate. It is no exclusive
policy aimed at the safety or supremacy of a few, leaving others to struggle
with distressful situations. It demands no sacrifices comparable to the
advantages which will result to each nation and to each individual.
In these circumstances the representatives of
the twenty-one American republics should frankly call the attention of the
people of this hemisphere to the possibilities of danger to their future peace
and progress and at the same time set forth the numerous steps that can
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well be undertaken as the most effective means of improving and
safeguarding the conditions of permanent peace.
While carefully avoiding any political
entanglements, my government strives at all times to cooperate with other
nations to every practical extent in support of peace objectives, including
reduction or limitation of armaments, the control of traffic in arms, taking
the profits out of war, and the restoration of fair and friendly economic
relationships. We reject war as a method of settling international disputes and
favor such methods as conference, conciliation, and arbitration.
Peace can be partially safeguarded through
international agreements. Such agreements, however, must reflect the utmost
good faith; this alone can be the guaranty of their significance and
usefulness. Contemporary events clearly show that, where mutual trust,
good-will, and sincerity of purpose are lacking, pacts or agreements fail; and
the world is seized by fear and left to the mercy of the wreckers.
The Conference has the duty of considering
all peace proposals of merit. Let me enumerate and briefly discuss eight
separate and vitally important principles and proposals for a comprehensive
peace program and peace structure. They are not designed to be all-inclusive.
In considering them we should be guided by the knowledge that other forces and
agencies of peace exist besides those made and to be made on our continents;
what we do contemplates no conflict with sincere efforts the world over.
First.
I would emphasize the local
and unilateral responsibility of each nation carefully to educate and organize
its people in opposition to war and its underlying causes. Support must be
given to peace, to the most effective policies for its preservation; and,
finally, each nation must maintain conditions within its own borders which will
permit it to adopt national policies that can be peacefully pursued. More than
any other factor, a thoroughly informed and alert public opinion in each
country as to the suitable and desirable relationships with other nations and
the principles underlying them, enables a government in time of crisis to act promptly
and effectively for peace.
The forces of peace everywhere are entitled
to function both through governments and through public opinion. The peoples of
the world would be far wiser if they expended more of their hard-earned money
in organizing the forces of peace and fewer of the present five billion dollars
in educating and training their military forces.
Since the time when Thomas Jefferson insisted
upon a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind", public opinion
has controlled for
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eign policy in all democracies. It is, therefore, all-important that
every platform, every pulpit, and every forum should become constant and active
agencies in the great work of education and organization. The limited extent of
such highly organized and intelligent public opinion in support of peace is by
far the largest draw-back to any plan to prevent war. Truly the first step is
that each nation must thus make itself safe for peace. This, too, develops a
common will for freedom, the soil from which peace springs.
People everywhere should be made to know of
the peace mechanisms Even more, there should be brought home to them the
knowledge the trade, commerce, finance, debts, communications, have a bearing o
peace. The workman at his bench, the farmer on his land, the shop keeper by his
shelves, the clerk at his books, the laborer in factory plantation, mine, or
construction camp, must realize that his work is the work of peace; that to
interrupt it for ends of national or persona rapacity is to drive him toward
quick death by bayonets, or to slower but not less grievous suffering through
economic distress.
In all our countries we have scholars who can
demonstrate these facts; let them not be silent. Our churches have direct
contact wit all groups; may they remember that the peacemakers are the children
of God. We have artists and poets who can distil their needed knowledge into
trenchant phrase and line; they have work to do. Our area journals on both
continents cover the world. Our women are awake our youth sentient; our clubs
and organizations make opinion every where. There is a strength here available
greater than that of armies We have but to ask its aid; it will be swift to
answer, not only here but in continents beyond the seas.
Second.
Indispensable in their
influence for peace and well-being are frequent conferences between
representatives of the nations and intercourse between their peoples.
Collaboration and the exchange of views, ideas, and information are the most
effective means of establishing understanding, friendship, and trust. I would
again emphasize that any written pacts or agreements not based upon such
relationships as these too often exist on paper only. Development of the
atmosphere of peace, understanding, and good-will during our sessions here will
alone constitute a vast accomplishment.
Third.
Any complete program would
include safeguarding the nations of this hemisphere from using force, one
against the other, through the consummation of all of the five well-known peace
agreements, produced in chief part by previous conferences, as well as through
the Draft Convention Coordinating the Existing Treaties between the American
States and Extending Them in Certain Re-
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spects, which the delegation of the United States is presenting for the
consideration of this Conference.
In these, virtually all of the essentials of
adequate machinery are present. If their operation is somewhat implemented by
provisions in the draft proposal I have just mentioned to be considered by this
Conference, such machinery would be complete.
The first of these is the Treaty to Avoid and
Prevent Conflicts between the American States, which was signed in Santiago in
1923.
The second is the Treaty for the Renunciation
of War, known as the Kellogg-Briand pact, or the Pact of Paris, signed at Paris
in 1928.
The third is the General Convention of
Inter-American Conciliation, signed at Washington in 1929.
The fourth is the General Treaty of
Inter-American Arbitration, signed at Washington in 1929.
The fifth is the Anti-War Treaty of
Non-Aggression and Conciliation, signed at Rio de Janeiro in 1933.
While the Montevideo Conference in 1933 went
on record of the valid execution of these five agreements by each of the
twenty-one governments represented, several have not yet completed this
ratification. These agreements provide a many-sided and flexible functioning
machinery for the adjustment of difficulties that may arise in this hemisphere.
A government could not give more tangible proof of its readiness to translate
into practicable form its desire to promote: and to maintain peace. Swift
action by all of us to ratify these agreements should be the natural assertion
of our intentions.
Fourth.
If war should occur, any
peace program must provide for the problem then presented. For the belligerent,
there is the ruin and suffering of war. For the neutrals, there is the task of
remaining neutral, of not being too disturbed in their own affairs, of not
having their own peace imperiled, of working in common to restrict the war and
bring it to an end. Can we in this Conference work out for ourselves a common
line of policy that might be pursued during a period of neutrality? Some first
broad approaches toward that end are, I think, possible. If these are to be
sound they must be inspired by the determination to stay at peace. When
interests are challenged, when minds are stirred, when entry into war in some
particular juncture may appear to offer to some country the chance of national
advantage then determination is needed to retain neutrality. The maintenance of
neutrality is an achievement to be attained more readily if undertaken jointly.
Such agreement would be a tremendous safeguard for each of us. It might be a
powerful means of ending war.
When we have done all that seems to be
possible in extending and
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perfecting an integrated and permanent mechanism for preserving peaceful
relations among ourselves, and when we have placed in operation these various
instruments, the twenty-one republics of this hemisphere will have given overt
expression to the most determined will for peace to be found in the world
today. In the face of a weakening elsewhere in the world of reliance on an
observance of international agreements, we shall have proclaimed our firm
intention that these peaceful instruments shall be the foundation of relations
between nations throughout this whole region.
If we can endow peace with certainty, if we
can make it glow in our part of the world, then we may indulge the hope that
our example will not be in vain.
Fifth.
The peoples of this region
have a further opportunity. They must make headway with a liberal policy of
commerce, which would lower excessive barriers to trade and lessen injurious
discriminations as between the trade of different countries. This means the
substitution of a policy of economic benefit, good-will, and fair-dealing for
one stimulated by greedy and short-sighted calculations of monetary advantage
in an impractical isolation. It would have most beneficial effects, both direct
and indirect, upon political difficulties and antagonisms.
A thriving international commerce,
well-adjusted to the resources and talents of each country, brings benefit to
all. It keeps men employed, active, and usefully supplying the wants of others.
It leads each country to look upon others as helpful counterparts to itself
rather than as antagonists. It opens up to each country, to the extent mutually
profitable and desirable, the resources and the organized productive power of
other countries; by its benefits small nations with limited territory or
resources can have a varied, secure, and prosperous life; it can bring
improvement to those who feel their toil too hard and their reward too meager.
Prosperity and peace are not separate
entities. To promote one is to promote the other. The economic well-being of
peoples is the greatest single protection against civil strife, large
armaments, war. Economic isolation and military force go hand in hand; when
nations cannot get what they need by the normal processes of trade, they will
continue to resort to the use of force. A people employed and in a state of
reasonable comfort is not a people among whom class struggles, militarism, and
war can thrive. But a people driven to desperation by want and misery is at all
times a threat to peace, their conditions an invitation to disorder and chaos,
both internal and external.
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The intervening years have given added
significance to the economic program adopted at the Conference at Montevideo
three years ago. That program is today the greatest potential force both for
peace and prosperity. Our present Conference should reaffirm and secure action
upon this program of economic intelligence.
One feature of the resolutions adopted at
Montevideo was the support for the principle of equality of treatment as the
basis of acceptable commercial policy. This rule has been followed in a number
of commercial agreements that have already been concluded between American
nations. Their benefits are already becoming manifest and will continue to
grow. We cannot blind ourselves to the fact, however, that at the same time
there has taken place even among the American nations a growth in the
restrictions upon trade and an extension of discriminatory practices; these
have tended to counteract the advantages resulting from the liberalizing terms
embodied in other agreements.
I would urge again the wisdom of avoiding
discrimination in our commercial policy. The practice of discrimination
prevents trade from following the lines which would produce the greatest
economic benefits; it inevitably, in the long run, provokes retaliation from
those who suffer from discrimination, makes it more difficult for countries
eager to pursue a liberal trade policy to secure the fair gains from this
policy, and thereby checks the lowering of restrictions. It will not serve our
broad and deep aims; on the contrary, if steadily extended, it will lead us
into new controversies and difficulties. The Montevideo program offers the only
alternative to the present short-sighted, war-breeding bilateral bargaining
method of trade, to the exclusion of triangular and multilateral trade, which
is being employed in many parts of the world with sterile results.
The ends we seek can best be achieved by the
concurrent or concerted action of many countries. Each can exert itself
steadfastly amidst the particular circumstances of its economic situation to
make its contribution toward the rebuilding of trade. Each can grant new opportunities
to others as it receives new opportunities for itself. All are called upon to
share in the concurrent or concerted action which is required. Any country
which seeks the benefits of the program while avoiding its responsibilities,
will in time shut itself off from the benefits. Any country which is tempted or
forced by some special calculation to depart from these lines of action and
which conveys and seeks special advantage jeopardizes the progress and,
perhaps, the very existence of the program. Faithful dealing, with
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out favor, between equal partners will be required to readjust trade
along the lines of growth, which is our goal.
Sixth.
The Conference must
recognize the all-important principle of practical international cooperation to
restore many indispensable relationships between nations, for international
relationships, in many vital respects, are at a low ebb. The entire
international order is severely dislocated. Chaotic conditions in the relations
between nations have appeared. Human progress already has slowed down.
Nations in recent years have sought to live a
hermit existence by isolating themselves from each other in suspicion and fear.
The inevitable result is not unlike that experienced by a community where
individuals undertake to live a hermit existence, with the resultant decline
and decay of the spiritual, the moral, the educational, and the material
benefits and blessings which spring from community organization and effort. The
difference, when nations live apart, is that the entire human race in countless
instances suffers irreparable injury—political, moral, material, spiritual, and
social. Today, for illustration, through lack of comprehension, understanding,
and confidence, we see many nations exhausting their material substance and the
vitality of their people by piling up huge armaments. We behold others, in
their attempted isolation, becoming more indifferent and less considerate
toward the rights, privileges, and honest opinions of others. National
character and conduct are threatened with utter demoralization. At no distant
time we shall see a state of moral and spiritual isolation, bringing with it
the condemnation of the world, covering great parts of the earth, unless
peoples halt and turn toward a sane course.
Seventh.
International law has been
in large measure flouted. It should be reestablished, revitalized, and
strengthened by general demand. International law protects the peace and
security of nations and so safeguards them against maintaining great armaments
and wasting their substance in continual readiness for war. Founded upon
justice and humanity, the great principles of international law are the source
and fountain of the equality, the security, and the very existence of nations.
Armies and navies are no permanent substitute. Abandonment of the rule of law
would not only leave small or unarmed states at the mercy of the reckless and
powerful but would hopelessly undermine all international order. It is
inconceivable that the civilized nations would long delay a supreme effort to
reestablish that rule of law.
Eighth.
Observance of
understandings, agreements, and treaties between nations constitutes the
foundation of international order.
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May I say here that this is not a time for crimination or recrimination,
nor is such in my mind during this discussion. There must be the fullest
patience and forbearance, one country with another, as the nations endeavor to
climb back to that high ground of wholesome and elevating relationship of loyalty
to the given word, of faithful fair-dealing.
International agreements have lost their
force and reliability as a basis of relations between nations. This extremely
ominous and fateful development constitutes the most dangerous single
phenomenon in the world of today; not international law merely, but that which
is higher—moral law—and the whole integrity and honor of governments are in
danger of being ruthlessly trampled upon. There has been a failure of the
spirit. There is no task more urgent than that of remaking the basis of trusted
agreement between nations. They must ardently seek the terms of new agreements
and stand behind them with unfailing will. The vitality of international
agreements must be restored.
If the solemn rights and obligations between
nations are to be treated lightly or brushed aside, the nations of the world
will head straight toward international anarchy and chaos. And soon, too, the
citizen begins to lower his individual standards of personal, moral, and
business conduct to those of his government. Trust in each nation's honor and
faith in its given word must be restored by the concerted resolve of all
governments.
It is to the interest of everyone that there
be an end of treaties broken by arbitrary unilateral action. Peaceful
procedure, agreements between the signatories, and mutual understanding must be
restored as the means of modifying or ending international agreements.
In the accomplishment of the high aims and
purposes of this eightfold program, the people of every nation have an equal
interest. We of this hemisphere have reason to hope that these great objectives
may receive the support of all peoples. If peace and progress are to be either
maintained or advanced, the time is overripe for renewed effort on each nation's
part. There can be no delay. Through past centuries, the human race fought its
way up from the low level of barbarism and war to that of civilization and
peace. This accomplishment has only been partial, and it may well be but
temporary.
It would be a frightful commentary on the
human race if, with the awful lesson of its disastrous experience, responsible
and civilized governments should now fail.
The nations of this continent should omit no
word or act in their
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attempt to meet the dangerous conditions which endanger peace. Let our
actions here at Buenos Aires constitute the most potent possible appeal to
peacemakers and warmakers throughout the world.
So only does civilization become real. So
only can we rightly ask that universal support which entitles governments to
speak for their peoples to the world, not with the voice of propaganda but with
that of truth. Having affirmed our faith, we should be remiss if we were to
leave anything undone which will tend to assure our peace here and make us
powerful for peace elsewhere. In a very real sense, let this continent set the
high example of championing the forces of peace, democracy, and civilization.