File No. 763.72119/927
The Director of the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (
Nicholas Murray Butler) to the Secretary of State
New York,
November 9, 1917.
[Received November 10.]
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor and the
pleasure to enclose for your information an advance proof of a
statement, which will at once be widely circulated throughout the
world, recording action taken by the executive committee of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at a meeting held on
November 1, of which you have already been advised by the secretary
of the Endowment.
It is our purpose to send a copy of this form of statement to every
important leader in public affairs and to every important newspaper
throughout the world. It is hoped that by arranging for its
appearance in papers published in Switzerland, in Holland, in Norway
and in Sweden, it may in some form be reproduced in the German and
Austrian press.
I should be very glad to be advised whether this division can be of
any additional assistance to the Department by circulating this
statement in other ways. It would perhaps be well if a copy might
reach each American diplomatic and consular officer now in service.
If agreeable to the Department, we should be very glad to place in
[Page 300]
your hands a
sufficient number of copies to enable the Department to forward one
to each diplomatic and consular officer of the United States.
With high regard, I am [etc.]
[Enclosure]
Statement Issued by the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace
On behalf of the division of intercourse and education of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace I have the honor to
advise you that at a meeting of the executive committee of the
Endowment held in New York, November 1, 1917, at which there
were present Messrs. Elihu Root,
Nicholas Murray Butler, Henry
S. Pritchett, A. J.
Montague, Austen G. Fox, and
James Brown Scott, the following
declaration was unanimously adopted:
The trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, assembled in annual meeting at Washington, D. C,
on April 19–20 last, adopted the following resolution by
unanimous vote:
Resolved, That the trustees
of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
assembled for their annual meeting, declare hereby
their belief that the most effectual means of
promoting durable international peace is to
prosecute the war against the Imperial German
Government to final victory for democracy, in
accordance with the policy declared by the
President of the United States.
In view of recent events, emphasized by the widespread
intrigues of the German Government to deceive and
mislead the peace-loving people of the world, the
executive committee of the Endowment unanimously
reaffirms this declaration and pledges the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace to the loyal support
of those courses of action that will assure early,
complete, and final victory for the arms of the Allied
forces.
The path to durable international peace on which the
liberty-loving nations of the world would so gladly
enter, is now blocked by the blind reliance of Germany
upon the invincibility of German military power and upon
its effectiveness as an instrument of international
policy. This reliance must be broken before any other
effective steps can be taken to secure international
peace. It can be broken only by defeat.
The executive committee of the Carnegie Endowment calls
upon all lovers of peace to assist in every possible way
in the effective prosecution of the war which has peace
and not conquest for its aim.
Nicholas Murray Butler
Director
New York
, November 2,
1917.
