Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-05-12
The President and the PacifIStS.

The committee of paci1sts who called on the
President the other day protest against his pre-
paredness program were given "a lesson in common
sense and good temper which they ought to pass
on to their uneasy brethren throughout the land.
They told the President that plans for increasing
the army and navy mean militarism and would I'M
fit the United States for playing a worthy and in
huential part in future efforts TO guarantee the
worlds peace. Though not insisting that the mil
lennium actually at hand, they argued in et-
feet that the lamb would fare best by trying soft
persuasion the wolf They silent, natur-
ally on the Mexican situation, but they quite
sure that America was in danger of foreign ag-
erosion. They Gisclaimed opposition to reason
able preparedness but it clearthat by ''rea-
sonable' preparedness they meant standing salts
fed with our present mobile army of thirty-odd
thousand men.
To these well-intentioned but woefully misguid-
ed pleas the President replied that it is very i'm
portant to discriminate between preparation and
miltarism and that while the traditions of Amer-
ca have been those of antimilitarsm they certainly
have not been those of military helplessness that
we should not antagonize reasonable protection in
an effort to avoid imagined ills; and finally, con-
corning the influence of the United States in future
plans for world peace:
"a nation which by the standards of other ma
tions-however mistaken those standards may
be-is regarded as helpless, is likely in general
counsel to be regarded as negligible; and when
you go into a conference to establish founda-
lions for the peace of the world you must
in on a basis ineligible to the people you are
comforting with. We have undertaken much
more than the safety of the United States; we
have undertaken to keep what we regard as
demoraIizing and hurtful influences out of this
hemisphere, and that means that if the world
undertakes, as all hope it WILL joint eff
fort to keep the peace, 1T will expect us to play
our proportional part in manifesting the force
that is going to rest back of that I'M
dertaking. Now, let US suppose that we have
formed a family of nations and that this fam
lily of nations says, The world is not going to
have any more wars of this sort, without at
least going through certain processes to show
whether there is anything in the aggressor's
case or not If you say, we will not have
any war; you must have the force to make that
will bite. And the rest of the world if
America takes part in this thing, will have the
right to expect that she contribute her element
of force to the general understanding. Surely,
that is not a militaristic ideal That is very
practical ideal"
1t is hardly to be doubted that when the ter
rible sacrifice With which Europe flames is
and the vision of men is cleared of blood there
will be devouty earnest effort to establish some
means for preventing such another tragedy, some
system that will give power we'll as justice
to international law. There have been divers
dreams of "the parliament of man" and 1.-The fed
Grafton of the world" but without some form of
international folly to think that the moral
and legal sense of the world maintain itself
against outlawry among nations any more than
against outlawry in the individual State without
some form of police.
Thus the broadest considerations of the worlds
1l-he less he I'll
mate and practical concern for her own security
bid America be prepared-not for purposes of mill
itarsm but for the ends and the needs of justice.
She will never escape war by being weak, though
she may discourage it by being strong She cannot
uphold her ideals if her force is negligible, but
she can make them felt for good around the world
If she is prepared to maintain them.