The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1911-09-15
TREATY RAPED BY
COLONEL ROOSEVELT
Proposed Arbitration Pact Is
Declared Deficient.
Word "JusticiabIe" Used in the Treaty
Is Declared OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
ident Would Not Cringe
to Other Powers.


look denounces as hypocritical and
wholly deficient the proposed arbitra-
ton treaty recently presented to the
senate. He declares there are certain
things in the proposed agreement that
the United States never would attempt
to recognize and that the document is
constructed so loosely that it never
could be determined just what &c tain
parts of it mean. The editorial says in
part:
II is one of cur prime duties as
nation to seek peace. 1t IS an even
higher duty TO seek righteousness. 1t
is also our duty not TO indulge in
shams, not 10 make believe we are get
ting peace by some patent contrivance
which sensible men ought tc know can
not work in practice, and which il we
sought to make it work might cause
irreiriveable harm.
Il sincerely believe in the principle
of arbitration. I believe in applying
that principle so far as practicable, but
| believe that the effort to apply it
where it is not practicable cannot Go
good and may do serious harm. Con
fused thinking and a willingness to
substitute words for thoughts, eren
though INSPIRED by an entirely anna
f.. BILE sentimentality, does not tend TO-
ward SCUM daction.
I'VE, the American eople, believe,
and ought to believe, in righteousness
first, and IN peace as the handmade of
righteousness. We abhor brutality and
wrongdOing, whether exhibited by na-
tons or by individuals. We hold that
the same law of righteousness should
obtain between nation and nation. as
between man and man.
Il, for one. would rather cut off my
hand than see the United States adopt
the attitude either of cringing before
great and powerful nations VINO wish
to wrong us, or of bullying small and
weak nations, who have done us no
wrong.
The American people desire to do
ity toward all the other nations Of
mankind; but l err greatly in my judg-
ment of my cOuntrymen if they are
willing to submit to wrong, and injus-
tice. Again and again in the past thew
have shown, and rightly shown, that
when the choice lay between right
eousness and peace, they chose right
eOusness, just exactly as they also
chose righteousness when the choice
lay between righteousness and war"
Mr. Roosevelt cites the revolutionary
war, the civil war and the Spanish
American war as instances in which
eve put righteousness above peace
He also cites the existing arbitration
pacts between the United States, Great
Britain and France as better than the
proposed treaty because they make no
false pretenses, and exclude GrestiCns
affecting our vital interests, indepand-
ence or honor He continues:
The proposed arbitration treaty is
defective in the first place, because it
is not straightforward 1t sets forth
that all 'justiciable' matters shall be
arbitrated The language both of the
opponents and the defenders of the
treaty shows that even amoung our
own naOple. and before Il cause for ap-
plying the treaty had arisen, therc
hop ess confusion as to what 'jU5ticia-
BILE means.
''Such being the case, it can be imag-
ined how useless would be the effort to
define 'justiciable,' when a serious con-
flict had actually arisen, and blood was
up and passion high The wording Of
the treaty is so loose, it so lacks ex-
Dlicitness, as to allow one set of its ad-
vOcates to announce that it binds us to
arbitrate everything, and another set to
say that under it we would not have to
arbirate anything we did not wish to
Now, no moral movement is per-
manently helped by hypocrisy Does
the proposal in the treaties, if entered
into with various nations. bind us to
arbitrate the Monroe doctrine, the
Plat amendment with Cuba. the pay
ment of State bonds to European bond
holders, the question whether various
European countries are entitled to the
same concessions that Canada is to re-
L,
the right of other foreign nations to in
terfere in Panama, our own right to ex-
clude any immigrants whom we choose
to exclude.
IF these questions arose, am sure
our representative would, privately or
publicly. inform foreign powers (and
indeed would have to inform foreign
powers), that the American people
would never abide by an agreement to
arbitrate them; in which case the only
proper course to follow is that follow
ed by the senate committee, and to say
in honest ashton that there are Ger,
tain questions which this nation will
not arbitrate at the dictation of an out
side body. Critics of the senate in
this matter talk as if it had 'usurped
right: in reality the senate has
merely performed a duty"