Isolationism

“ Are we to become one of a dozen clutching, struggling, fighting nations, seeking to destroy each other, or are we to contribute to a solution of the problems that now divide nations into warring groups? Though our isolation is gone, we still preserve a latitude of action. We may choose between two foreign policies, between Nationalistic Imperialism and Internationalism. We may elect to fight for our share of the world's spoils or to labour, and, if necessary, to fight for a world peace and for just international relations, upon which alone a permanent peace can be based. ”

“ Divided the Oceanic Allies are, to speak plainly, geographical rags and nakedness; united they are a world. To set about organizing that League now, with its necessary repudiation on the part of Britain, France, and Italy, of a selfish and, it must be remembered in the light of these things I have but hinted at here, a now hopelessly unpracticable imperialism, would, I am convinced, lead quite rapidly to a great change of heart in Germany and to a satisfactory peace. But even if I am wrong in that, then all the stronger is the reason for binding, locking and uniting the allied powers together. ”

“ As the old conception of isolation fades and the American mind accustoms itself to the new conception of a need of alliances and understandings to save mankind from the megalomania of races and dynasties, I believe it will turn first to the idea of keeping the seas with Britain and France, and then to this still wider idea of an understanding with the Pledged Allies that will keep the peace of the world. ”

“ I point these things out here only to carry home the fact that the ideas of sovereign isolation and detachment that were perfectly valid in 1900, the self-sufficient empire, Imperial Zollverein and all that stuff, and damn the foreigner! are now, because of the enormous changes in range of action and facility of locomotion that have been going on, almost as wild—or would be if we were not so fatally accustomed to them—and quite as dangerous, as the idea of setting up a free and sovereign state in the Isle of Dogs. All the European empires are becoming vulnerable at every point. ”

“ By a thousand ties of commerce and of brotherhood the old world is bound to the new. So the war cloud which darkened Europe cast its shadow also over America, even although at first there was no thought that America would be drawn into the war. Was it possible, men asked, while Europe was at death grips, for America still to keep her "splendid isolation," was it not time for her to take a place, "In the Parliament of man, in the Federation of the world?" ”

“ And what if this powerful nation, vowed to war, were once firmly established in South or Central America? What of our boasted isolation then?
It is only because I believe that our people should be informed that I have consented to write this book. There are too many thinkers, writers and speakers in the United States; from now on we need the doers, the organisers, and the realists who alone can win this contest for us, for democracy and for permanent peace! ”

“ Our early settlers, as also many of our later immigrants, came to these shores to escape political and religious warfare, and brought with them a broad humanitarian ideal, an ideal of peace, internationalism, freedom and equality. They also brought an antipathy towards those monarchical and aristocratic institutions, with which in America we still associate conceptions of imperialism and war. The simplicity and inherent equality of our frontier life, its self-government and its local independence, tended to reinforce our leaning towards a peaceful internationalism. ”

“ It all makes for that attrition, that practical intercourse, which is the process of civilization; and in destroying the isolation, the separation of American states from each other, in building up an American public opinion, we are preparing ourselves the more perfectly to unite with our friends of Europe in a world public opinion, which shall establish the reign of justice and liberty and humanity throughout the world by slow, practical, untiring processes of intercourse and friendship in place of the rules of brutal force. ”

“ In other words, they have wanted their share in the division of Africa and Asia into spheres under the control of European nations.
Is a logical and legitimate ambition to play a part in the world's politics in proportion to one's population, one's wealth, one's industrial and maritime activity, necessarily a menace to the world's peace? It has always been, and I suppose always will be, in the nature of those who have, to look with alarm upon the efforts of those who have not, to possess something. ”

“ It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the colonies in the mother country, to give permanent satisfaction to your people,—and (far from a scheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to British government. My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion,—and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. ”

“ All this gives a mere hint of what the organized isolation by the entire world would mean to any one nation. Imagine the position of a civilized country whose ports no ship from another country would enter, whose bills no banker would discount, a country unable to receive a telegram or a letter from the outside world or send one thereto, whose citizens could neither travel in other countries or maintain communications therewith. ”

“ There it will stand, and stand forever, the mighty continental breakwater between the continents of Asia and of Europe, against which the breakers of internal faction, and the waves of despotic power would dash in vain. To that home of the oppressed, to that asylum of genuine and universal freedom, millions from the Old World would then come, and unite with us in strengthening and maintaining a Government based upon the rights of humanity, and sustained by the affections of the people. ”

“ It was the United States which first ventured to send a fleet to the Mediterranean to suppress the Barbary pirates—an act from which all the civilized world benefited. Indeed, it is within the limits of truth to say that the period of our liveliest intercourse with foreign powers was the identical period of "the fathers" who are so often and so falsely quoted as urging the policy of isolation that would sooner or later reduce us to the condition of the Chinese Empire. ”

“ It is the utter impossibility of peace, in a territory made by nature a geographical unity, inhabited by a people, or peoples, of one lineage, one language, bound together in historical reminiscences, yet divided into petty sovereign States too small for any respectable nationalities themselves, and yet preventing any beneficent nationality as a whole. ”

“ It would lead me too far to enter here upon the discussion of the various ways of communication between one nation and another. But let me state at once that no period in human history is known in which any nation has been allowed to live isolated for any length of time. There is no such thing as isolation. ”

“ It cannot erect a wall around its people and live entirely within itself. This is as unnatural as it is impossible. There must be intercommunion with other powers and peoples. To render its full duty to its citizens, there must be intermingling with outside nations. Through these means its own people become richer, more prosperous, and cultivated, and the nations with whom it associates benefit proportionately from the intercourse. With us there can be no such thing as national isolation. Especially is this remark applicable to the United States at this time ”

“ I imply a policy which recognizes that great civilized Powers cannot by any possibility permanently ignore and disregard semi-civilized peoples on their borders, but must inevitably establish, and in time regularize, intercourse with them, and should therefore seize opportunities of humanizing that intercourse, and, by promoting neighbourly association, minimize that risk of war which isolation, aloofness, and estrangement, invariably bring about. ”

“ Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you. There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide. Trace through, from east to west, upon the line between the free and slave country. ”

“ When we consider that the isolation of the country was due to no spirit of exclusiveness in the national character, that indeed it was the result of a policy that actually went against the grain of 238the people, how many restless spirits must there have been during these long years, who kept longing for more light. ”

“ The United States, again, have been hitherto comparatively independent of external commerce. Even the carrying trade has been allowed to slip chiefly into foreign hands. Continental isolation and vast population give a sufficient range for national industry and sufficient security from hostile invasion. They enable the people to turn their attention mainly to internal development and the complex or even threatening problems involved in the assimilation and elevation of the confluent races which are taking possession of the soil. Very different is the position of British people. ”

“ We are ready not only to press forward with the present plans for closer unity of the nations of Western Europe but also, upon that foundation, to strive to foster a broader European community, conducive to the free movement of persons, of trade, and of ideas. ”

“ The policy of imperial cooperation—the policy whereby each great colony became independent of outside control but voluntarily acted in concert with the mother country and the sister states on matters of common concern—sought to reconcile liberty and unity, nationhood and empire, to unite what was most practicable in the aims of the advocates of independence and the advocates of imperial federation. ”

“ The honorable gentleman has warned us to guard against European politics. Shall we not be more able to set their machinations at defiance, by uniting our councils and strength, than by splitting into factions and divisions? Our divisions, and consequent debility, are the objects most ardently wished for by the nations of Europe. What cause induced Great Britain, and other European nations which had settlements in America, to keep their colonies in an infantine condition? What cause leads them to exclude our vessels from the West Indies? The fear of our becoming important and powerful. ”

“ How far shall the modern world recognize nations which are not nations, but combinations of a dominant caste and a suppressed horde of serfs? Will it not be possible to rebuild a world with compact nations, empires of self-governing elements, and colonies of backward peoples under benevolent international control? ”

“ There can be no secure peace now but a common peace of the whole world; no prosperity but a general prosperity, and this for the simple reason that we are all now brought so near together and are so pathetically and intricately interdependent, that the old notions of noble Isolation and national sovereignty are magnificently criminal. ”

“ The internationalism of the so-called big nations, of one who is oppressing others, must consist not only in formally accepting the principle of equality of nations, but also in creating conditions for the abolition of the wrong doings of the great nation. ”

“ People have got to a point in their development where isolation terrifies them. They want to be members of a stronger group. In Europe they turned to a system of alliances because no nation dared to stand alone. We have turned in this country in part to an understanding with Great Britain, in part to the Latin-American States. All of which proves that patriotism is not a fixed quantity, that it is not attached to the map as it was drawn when we were at school, and that it is not only capable of expansion, but is crying for it. ”

“ Well, there were a few men who did not feel content with that comfortable isolationist climate. They thought the United States had an important role to play in the world and they resolved to try to find out what that role ought to be. ”

“ Then, as we sail down the eastern islands, hardly a score in number, and within sight of one another, aggregating in area less than our little State of Delaware, about 2,000 square miles, we find five foreign and no less than a dozen distinct colonial governments, each responsible to Europe, with no 423 shadow of federation between them, or even cooperation of any kind—a condition not only pitiable, but absurd. ”

“ We not only have a present nation-size job of assimilation, but we need to prepare ourselves for the problems that will accompany negotiations for peace. We shall have at least three questions of great and far-reaching importance—incoming immigration, outgoing emigration, and citizenship status in America and abroad. ”

“ To-day the nation is again in a position to contribute to the political progress of the world. It stands before a fourth decision. Either it can cling hopelessly to the last vestiges of its policy of isolation or can launch out into imperialistic ventures, or finally it can promote, as can no other nation, a policy of internationalism, which will bind together the nations in a union of mutual interest, and will hasten the peaceful progress of the economic and political integration of the world. ”

“ That progress is towards the independence, the freedom, the dignity, the happiness of every small and weak nation. [Pg 221] It tends to realize the theory of international law, the real national equality. The process is one of attrition. Isolation among nations leaves no appeal for the enforcement of rules of right conduct, but the appeal to force. ”