LET US HAVE STRAIGHTFORWARD SPEAKING
December 24, 1918
Senator Lodge in his admirable speech has given the reasons why at least five of the famous fourteen points should not be considered in the peace negotiations proper. But the special merit of Senator Lodge’s statement lies in the fact that it is straightforwardand clear. There is no need of a key to find out what he means. The men who represent, or assume to represent, the United States at the Peace Conference, should be equally clear with our allies and our enemies and also with the American people. Above all things we need some straightforward statement as to just what is proposed and as to just why it is proposed.
Take, for example, the very extraordinary conflict between that one of the fourteen points in which the Administration has demanded practically complete disarmament and the action of the Administration at the same moment demanding that we shall build the biggest navy in the world. Either one course or the other must necessarily be improper. In such a matter we especially need a straightforward statement of reasons and principles.
The worst thing we could do would be to build a spite navy, a navy built not to meet our own needs, but to spite some one else. I am speaking purely as an American. No man in this country who is both intelligent or informed has the slightest fear that Great Britain will ever invade us or try to go to war with us. The British navy is not in the slightest degree a menace to us. I can go a little further than this. There is in Great Britain a large pacifist and defeatist party which behaves exactly like our own pacifists, pro-Germans, Germanized Socialists, defeatists, and Bolsheviki. If this party had its way and Great Britain abandoned its fleet, I should feel, so far from the United States being freed from thenecessity of building up a fleet, that it behooved us to build a much stronger one than is at present necessary. Our need is not as great as that of the vast scattered British Empire, for our domains are pretty much in a ring fence. We ought not to undertake the task of policing Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. Neither ought we to permit any interference with the Monroe Doctrine or any attempt by Europe or Asia to police America. Mexico is our Balkan Peninsula. Some day we will have to deal with it. All the coasts and islands which in any way approach the Panama Canal must be dealt with by this Nation, and by this Nation alone, in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine. With this object in view our navy should be second to that of Great Britain and superior to that of any other power—and if Great Britain chooses to abolish its navy it would mean that we ought to build a larger navy than is now necessary.