LEAGUE OF NATIONS LEAGUE OF NATIONS
that they will cynically repudiate it whenever they think
it to their interest to do so. Therefore, unless our folly is
such that it will not depart from us until we are brayed
in a mortar, let us remember that any such treaty will be
worthless unless our own prepared strength renders it
unsafe to break it. (Lafayette Day exercises, New York
City, September 6, 1918.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 411; Nat. Ed.
XIX, 372.
cure-all. (To Rider Haggard, December 6, 1918.) Mem.
Ed. XXIV, 547; Bishop II, 468.
____________. For the moment the point as to which
we are foggy is the League of Nations. We all of us
earnestly desire such a League, only we wish to be sure
that it will help and not hinder the cause of world peace
and justice. There is not a young man in this country
who has fought, or an old man who has seen those dear
to him fight, who does not wish to minimize the chance
of future war. But there is not a man of sense who does
not know that in any such movement if too much is
attempted the result is either failure or worse than
failure. (Dictated January 3, 1919; printed January 13,
1919.) Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 292.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS—ADMISSION TO.
President Wilson's announcement was a notice to the
malefactors that they would not be punished for the
murders. Let us treat the League of Nations only as an
addition to, and not as a substitute for, thorough
preparedness and intense nationalism on our part. Let
none of the present international criminals be admitted
until a sufficient number of years has passed to make us
sure it has repented. Make conduct the test of admission
to the league. In every crisis judge each nation by its
conduct. Therefore, at the present time let us stand by
our friends and against our enemies. (October 30,
1918.) Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 248.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS—MEMBERSHIP IN. Test
the proposed future League of Nations so far as
concerns proposals to disarm, and to trust to anything
except our own strength for our own defense, by what
the nations are actually doing at the present time. Any
such league would have to depend for its success upon
the adhesion of the nine nations which are actually or
potentially the most powerful military nations, and
these nine nations include Germany, Austria, Turkey,
and Russia. The first three have recently and repeatedly
violated, and are now actively and continuously
violating, not only every treaty, but every rule of
civilized warfare and of international good faith. During
the last year Russia, under the dominion of the
Bolshevists, has betrayed her allies, has become the tool
of the German autocracy. . . . What earthly use is it to
pretend that the safety of the world would be secured by
a league in which these four nations would be among
the nine leading partners? Long years must pass before
we can again trust any promises these four nations
make. Any treaty of any kind or sort which we make
with them should be made with the full understanding
____________. Probably the first essential would be to
limit the league at the outset to the Allies, to the peoples
with whom we have been operating and with whom we
are certain we can co-operate in the future. Neither
Turkey nor Austria need now be considered as regards
such a league, and we should clearly understand that
Bolshevist Russia is, and that Bolshevist Germany
would be, as undesirable in such a league as the
Germany and Russia of the Hohenzollerns and
Romanoffs. . . .
The league, therefore, would have to be based on
the combination among the Allies of the present war—
together with any peoples like the Czecho-Slovaks, who
have shown that they are fully entitled to enter into such
a league if they desire to do so. (November 17, 1918.)
Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 263.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS—ROOSEVELT'S
PROPOSAL FOR. Would it not be well to begin with
the League which we actually have in existence, the
League of the Allies who have fought through this great
war? Let us at the peace table see that real justice is
done as among these Allies and that while the sternest
reparation is demanded from our foes for such horrors
as those committed in Belgium, Northern France,
Armenia and the sinking of the Lusitania, nothing
should be done in the spirit of mere vengeance. Then let
us agree to extend the privileges of the League, as
rapidly as their conduct warrants it, to other nations,
doubtless discriminating between those who would
have a guiding part in the League and the weak nations
who would be entitled to the privileges of membership,
but who would not be entitled to a guiding voice in the
councils. (Dictated January 3, 1919; printed January 13,
1919.) Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star, 293.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND NATIONAL
DEFENSE. Above all, let us treat any such agreement
or covenant as a mere addition or supplement to and
never as a substitute for the preparation in advance of
our own armed power. Next time that we behave with
the
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