The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-05-12
ROOSEVELT ON PEACE.

EX-President Roosevelt, in his ad-
dress before the Nobel Prize Commit
tee, delivered at Christiania, Norway,
Thursday, spoke on a subject that
should be of great interest to every
nation, international Peace"
Mr.. Roosevelt is not the most ar
dent foe of war in the world by any
means, and takes pains in this address
to qualify the kind of peace that is
worth having, but he sets forth clear
ly and ably certain arguments, among
the most forceful of which, are the
following;
In the third place, something should
be done as soon as possible to check
the growth of ornaments, especially
naval ornaments, by international
agreement. No one power could or
should act by itself; for it is eminent
ly undesirable, from the standpoint
of the peace of righteousness, that
power which really does believe in
peace should place itself at the mercy
OF some rival which may at bottom
have no such belief and no intention
of acting on it, But, granted SINGER
ity of purpose, the great powers of
the world should find no insurmount-
able difficulty in reaching an agree
ment which would put an end to the
present costly and growing extrava-
sance of expenditure on naval arma-
ments. An agreement merely to lin
it the size of ships would have been
very useful few years ago, and
would still be of use; but the agree
ment should go much further.
Finally, 1t would be a master stroke
if those great powers honestly bent on
peace would form a league of peace,
not only to keep the peace among
themselves, but to prevent, by force
If necessary, its being broken by 9TH
ers. The supreme difficulty in con-
nection with developing the peace
work of The Hague arises from the
lack of any executive power, of any
police power to enforce the DEGREES
of the court. In any community of
any size the authority of the courts
rests upon actual or potential force; ;
on the existence of police or on the
knowledge that the ablebodied m N
of the country are both ready and will
ing to see that the DEGREES of judicial
and legislative bodies are put into el-
feet. In new and wild communities
NINl' llitlt 10 NlOltHNt, an HOntSI
man must protect himself; and until
other means of securing his safety
are devised, it is both foolish and
wicked to persuade him to surrender
his arms while the men who are dan
gerous to the community retain theirs.
He should not renounce the right to
protect himself by his own efforts nm
til the community retain theirs He
should not renounce the right to pro-
tect himself by his own efforts until
the community is so organized that
1t can. effectively relieve the indiyid-
uai of the duty of putting down vio-
lence. SO it is with nations. Each
nation must keep well prepared to de-
fend itself until the establishment of
some form of International police
power, competent and willing 70 pre-
vent violence as between nations.
AS things are now, such power
TO command peace throughout
the world could best be assured Ly
some combination between those
great nations which sincerely desire
peace and have no thought themselves
of committing aggressions. The COM
bination might at first be only to Sc
cure peace within certain definite i'm
Its and certain definite conditions; but