From the standpoint of morality the justification is even more clear. Selling arms to a belligerent may be morally either very right or very wrong. This depends absolutely upon the justice of the cause in which the arms are to be used. This is just as true in international as in private matters. It is moral and commendable to sell arms to a policeman in order that he may put down black-handers, white-slavers, burglars, highwaymen and other criminals who commit acts of violence. It is immoral to sell arms to those who are committing or intend to commit such acts of violence. In the same way it is thoroughly immoral in any way to help Germany win a triumph which would result in making the subjugation of Belgium perpetual. It is highly moral, it is from every standpoint commendable, to sell arms which shall be used in endeavoring to secure the freedom of Belgium and to create a condition of things which will make it impossible that such a crime against humanity as its subjugation by Germany shall ever be repeated, whether by Germany or by any other power.

I am not speaking as an enemy of Germany. I have as much German blood in my veins as I have English or French. I am speaking, as every American citizen ought to speak, purely as an American. I believe that the United States should adopt as the two cardinal principles of its foreign policy: First, the duty of being amply ready to guard its own rights; and second, the duty to show sympathy with, and so far as possible to make effectively evident this sympathy with, every nation which by its conduct deserves such sympathy, and to stand against every nation in every specific case where it is guilty of misconduct. In 1878, for instance, our sympathies should have been against England and for Russia and Bulgaria. In the eighties our sympathies anent Egypt and the Soudan should have been with England and against France. In 1914 our sympathies should have been against Germany and for England, France, Russia and Belgium, if we were loyal to our own American traditions and to the great world-laws of righteousness. In each case American sympathies should have been based on the conduct of the various powers in the event under consideration. Moreover, it is cowardly to remain neutral between right and wrong. It is cowardly to "remain neutral in thought and speech" and therefore to fail to uphold right and to condemn wrong. It is a base and unworthy thing for a nation to enter into engage

ments for securing right against wrong and then to fail to keep such engagements. Finally, and most important, no nation can ever help forward the cause of international peace and justice until it proves by its actions that it will refuse to be neutral in cases of international wrongdoing, and that in acting against the wrongdoer it is merely acting against the wrong and would at once reverse its action if the wrong were reversed.

Germany's action toward Belgium, and her action toward non-combatants as shown by the murder of women and children on the Lusitania, and, alas, by far worse crimes committed on women and children ashore in Belgium and northern France, and by the collection of excessive contributions, and the bombarding of defenseless towns, and the destruction of cathedrals, universities and cities, and by the wholesale ravaging of the countryside; and her action toward combatants by the use of poisonous gas and similar methods of war: were all in flagrant violation of Hague Convention II of 1899 and IV of 1907 and of the international agreements and well established laws of war upon which this convention was based. All, separately and collectively, were criminal actions against international right, against civilization, against justice and humanity throughout the world. When such is the case America is recreant to her duty when she fails to act. Even if not called upon to act by the Hague Convention she has the right and the duty to act as soon as any such gross violations of international law occur. This is the only way to establish proper precedents in international law, and to save it from becoming a farce. France, for instance, exercised this right and performed this duty when in the case of the "Trent" the United States committed against England the same kind of wrong which England fifty years previously had committed against us—a wrong which Abraham Lincoln promptly redressed. Unless neutral powers are willing to take decisive action against such violations of international right as Germany has committed, it is impossible to treat international law as being of any binding value.

I wish to emphasize the fact that we could deprive Germany of the plea of necessity for acting as she has done in Belgium and in the Lusitania matter by making it evident that we would be able and willing to act against France and England under reversed circumstances exactly as quickly as against Germany. If the wrongs of Belgium were redressed and the

actions of the type Germany took in the Lusitania matter and in the other matters alluded to above were disavowed and abandoned, we ought then to do all in our power to insist that England and France in their turn live up to their obligations —including their obligations to neutral commerce on the high seas as such obligations were avowed and understood prior to the outbreak of the war. I am not speaking in the least as an enemy of Germany, I am speaking from the standpoint of the United States, as one who desires to see the United States both a strong and a just nation, who desires to see it act in precisely the same fashion to Germany and Russia, to England, France and Austria, and to all other nations, treating each purely on its merits, as shown by its conduct in given circumstances.

It is a gross iniquity to demand action against nations which have offended, if at all, in minor matters, while we take no effective steps to secure the redress of the frightful wrongs committed by the other side. To demand action against France and England, who are now standing for humanity and civilization, would be infamous until and unless we have previously taken effective action against Germany, whose offenses against us and against civilization have been a hundredfold worse than anything that can even be alleged-truthfully or untruthfully— against the allies. England has proposed to arbitrate the questions at issue between us and herself. We are under solemn treaty obligations, entered into by the present administration, to arbitrate such matters with England. We are in honor bound either to accept England's proposal or to abrogate the arbitration treaty. For the administration to follow any other course would be a proof of trickiness and insincerity.

The foolish professional pacifists who advocate refusing to sell munitions of war to the allies are proposing a course of action as wicked as it is base; and those making such a proposal or approving and advocating action in accordance therewith, should be listed on a roll of national dishonor. It has even been proposed that the United States should spend a billion dollars in paying Germany to give Belgium back to her own people. The profound immorality of this proposition surpasses even its fatuity. If it could be adopted, it would of course merely be paying blackmail on a gigantic scale, and be a direct encouragement to nations to commit wrong in order to get

money. If such a proposal were adopted by the United States, the fact would completely justify Germany or Japan in seizing New York or San Francisco and refusing to leave until we had paid into the German or Japanese coffers a sum, say, twice as much as that which it has been thus proposed to pay into the German coffers in order to get them to surrender Belgium.

The full flower of treachery to the duties of the United States and to the rights of the nations of mankind is best observed when the professional pacifist and the hyphenated American strike hands on some public occasion. Recently a so-called Labor Peace Conference was held at Washington for the purpose of intimidating public servants by political threats into refusing to allow the export of arms and munitions to the allies. The newspapers reported that one of the officials of a German-American organization announced that "the members of his body would not enlist in the event of war between the United States and Germany." If this statement is correct, the gentleman in question and those for whom he spoke are traitors and in the event of war should be dealt with in summary fashion. The hyphenated American has been shown in actual practise to be loyal only to that part of his title which precedes the hyphen. He is thoroughly disloyal to the "American" part of his hyphenated cognomen, and he must be thus disloyal, because of the necessities of the case. The professional German-Americans of this kind ought by rights immediately to be deprived of their United States citizenship. Their place is not here. Their place is in Germany, in the trenches; and the sooner they go thither, the better it will be for everything decent in American citizenship. And in saying this I wish to emphasize my belief that the professional German-Americans are not a bit worse than all other professional hyphenated Americans. These professional German-Americans sin most bitterly against the real Americans of German blood. We have no better citizens than the Americans of German birth or descent who in good faith are fulfilling the duties of American citizenship and who are Americans and nothing else. I happen to know that these men, men who are entitled to the highest honor and the highest respect from all their fellow-Americans, feel a peculiar indignation at the professional German-Americans, the hyphenated Americans, who by their actions during the past year have dishonored their own stock and have done

all the damage they could to the country which offered itself as a refuge to them or to their forefathers.

The United States owes a duty to other nations. We should so act as to show that we are one in a community of nations, with common rights and common duties, and that we are fit by our own trained strength to do our duty to others as well as to ourselves. This duty the United States can never perform until and unless she acts purely as a nation, not as a knot of jangling nationalities. If America means nothing but a squabbling congeries of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans, then it is not worth while to have it a nation at all. Every man in our country who seeks to divide himself from his fellow-Americans along lines of creed or national origin is a bad American. Every man in this country who seeks to shape the policy of the nation, not in accordance with the interests of the United States and of humanity at large, but in accordance with the interests of the nation from which he or his ancestors sprang, is a thoroughly unworthy and unpatriotic citizen and should leave the country, to whose welfare his mere presence is a menace.

SALE OF MUNITIONS TO BELLIGERENTS1

With respect to the rights of our citizens as neutrals to sell munitions of war to any belligerent power, it is submitted: 1. That these rights are in no way denied by the rules of international law.

2. That these rights are not forbidden by any municipal statute or ordinance except as to vessels of war and, in certain limited cases, as to our neighboring American republics, when the latter are involved in civil strife.

3. That such rights have been constantly exercised in this country since the beginning of its history and in like manner have been habitually exercised by the manufacturers of the most enlightened commercial nations of the world, not only in remote times, but during all recent years.

1 By Charles Noble Gregory. Reprinted from the Annals of the American Academy, July 1915, p. 183-191.