Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1917-07-14
STATEMENT OF
CAUSES OF WAR
Continued from last week.

Az tuiS JuuCtulS Tue Ile5luSul
read his address to the Senate, on
lined the kind Of peace the United
States of America could join in guar
anteeing. His words were addressed
not only to the Senate and this Ma
ton but to the people of all countries.
May not add that | hope and
believe that / am in effect speaking
for libertals and friends of humanity
in every nation and of every pro-
gram of liberty? / would fain be-
lieve that am speaking for the silent
mass of mankind everywhere who
have as yet no place or opportunity
to speak their real harris out concern
ing the death and ruin they see to
have come already puon the persons
and the homes they hold most dear"
The address was rebuke to those
who still cherished dreams of
world dominated by one nation. For
the peace outlined was not that of
a victorious emperor, 1t was not the
peace of Caesar, 1t was in behalf
OF all the world, and it was a Peace
of the People.
mo peace can last, or ought to
last, which does not recognize and
accept the principle that governments
derive all their just powers from the
consent of the governed, and that no
right anywhere exists to hand people
about from sovereignty to sovereignty
as If they were property"
II am proposing, as it were, that
the nations should with one accord
adopt the doctrine of President Mon
roe as the doctrine of the world that
no nation should seek to extend its
policy over any other nation or peo-
pie, but that every people should be
left free to determine its own policy,
its own way of development, unhin-
dered, unthreatened, unafraid, the
little along with the great and power
full"
II am proposing that all nations
henceforth avoid entangling ALI
ances which would draw them into
competitions of power, catch them
in a net of intrigue and selfish rival
ry, and disturb their own affairs
with influences intruded from with
out. There is no entangling allt-
ance in a concert of power. When
all unite to act in the same sense
and with the same purpose, all act
in the common interest and are free
to live their own lives under a COM
mon protection.
II am proposing government by
the consent of the governed; that
freedom of the seas which in inter-
national conference after conference
representatives of the United States
have urked with the eloquence of
those who are convinced diciples OF
liberty and that moderation of arma-
ments which makes of armies and
navies a power for order merely, not
an instrument of aggression or OF
selfish violence"
"And the paths of the sea must,
alike in law and in fact, be free.
The freedom of the seas is the sine
qua non of peace, equality, and
cooperation"
1T is a problem closely connect
nected with the limitation Of naval
armament and the cooperation of
the navies of the world in keeping
the seas at once free and safe. And
the question of limiting naval ar
maments opens the wider and per-
haps more difficult question Of the
limitation of armies and of all pro-
grams of military preparation.
There can be no sense OF safety
II great preponderating ornaments
are henceforth to continue here and
there to be built up and maintained
Mere agreements may not make
peace secure. 1t will be absolutely
necessary that force be created as
guarantor of the permanency of
the settlement so much greater than
the force of any nation now engaged
or any alliance hitherto formed or
projected that no nation, no prob |
able combination OF nations, could
face or withstand it. If the peace |
presently to be made is to endure,
it must be a peace made secure by |
the organized major force of man
kind"
If there were any doubt in our
minds as to which of the great |
alliances was the more in sympathy |
with those ideals, it was removed by |
the popular response abroad to this
address of the President, For while |
exception was taken to some of it |
in Britain and France, it was plain |
that so far as the people of the |
Entente were concerned the Presi-