Name: Timid Neutrality
Author: Walter Lippmann

Quotes from Timid Neutrality (Walter Lippmann)

“ Had we protested against the assault on international morality when Belgium was invaded, our faith in public law would have been made somewhat real. For unless someone some time is ready to take some chance for the sake of internationalism, it will remain what it is to-day, an object of derision to aggressive nations. Had the United States, as the courted neutral, stood out for the neutrality of Belgium and the rules of the Hague, would have received the severest jolt it ever imagined. We do not think the United States should have gone to war. We alone cannot undertake to police the world. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Walter Lippmann, Timid Neutrality

“ The nation is doomed to disappointment. For while the settlement may be made by a peace congress held under the presidency of the United States, the decisions will be determined by the balance of power in which the war results. The nations of Europe will have sacrificed so much that they will settle the issues in accordance with their own strength and position. And when we enter the congress with nothing but a record of comfortable neutrality, an acquiescence in the violated Hague conventions, and an array of vague treaties for a half-conceived future, our voice may well be disregarded. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Walter Lippmann, Timid Neutrality

“ It is assumed that by not doing anything, by pretending that peace is the reward of the peace-loving, neutrality will be assured and treaties made invincible.
Chiefly because Colonel Roosevelt is free from that delusion, we believe that of all Americans commenting on the war his judgment is the ripest. We reject as the idlest superstition the idea that he enjoys war and despises peace. We honor him and respect him for his courage in shouldering the inevitable risk of misunderstanding which is the portion of anyone who faces a brutal situation with intellectual integrity. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Walter Lippmann, Timid Neutrality

“ If we range ourselves with Roosevelt on this question, it is because we believe that treaties will never acquire sanctity until nations are ready to seal them with their blood. England may not have been too scrupulous about treaties in the past, but to-day she stands irrevocably committed. If she makes treaties now they may mean something, and that is an incalculable advance for the human race. So with us. It is our business to make no treaties which we are not ready to maintain with all our resources, for every scrap of paper is like a forged check, an assault on our credit in the world. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Walter Lippmann, Timid Neutrality

“ But we might alone, or with the help of the other neutral nations, have used the pressure of our diplomacy, and so laid the foundations of effective world opinion against international cynicism. A precedent would have been established which could react on all the future. The beginnings of world organization would have been tested in fire, and the hope of peace would have taken on at least the shadow of reality. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Walter Lippmann, Timid Neutrality

“ Against all this it may be said that because we acted so as to preserve the good-will of Europe, we shall be able to exercise a guiding influence in the settlement of the war. It is an idea which gratifies not only our desire to keep out of trouble, but our vanity and our hope that we shall do great things with small difficulty. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Walter Lippmann, Timid Neutrality

“ You may be glad that you have managed to avoid the risks of living on this planet; but don't talk about the need for world cooperation, the sanctity of treaties, an international court and an international police. Don't assume that the world will heed you, don't mistake your private good-will for the universal morality of nations. For if you do you make yourself the victim of your naivete, and your dreams will turn to despair. Though the world may love you as it loves St. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Walter Lippmann, Timid Neutrality

“ And yet when a man like Roosevelt insists that we must create no more valueless paper, he is denounced as an American Bernhardi and the twin of the Kaiser. On this same score The New Republic will no doubt be accused as a militarist organ, hostile to the good faith of the world. ”

Walter Lippmann

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Quotes from Timid Neutrality (Walter Lippmann)

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Walter Lippmann

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Quotes from Timid Neutrality (Walter Lippmann)

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