Paris Peace Conf. 185.111/29
I discussed his draft with Dr. Mezes
at the time he handed it to me and subsequently wrote him a letter of which
I hand you, attached hereto, a copy. I do this with the idea that possibly
the interchange of ideas among the members of the Commission may result in a
general clarification and harmony of view on important questions.
[Enclosure]
General Tasker H. Bliss to the Chief of the Section of
Territorial, Economic and Political Intelligence of the Commission
to Negotiate Peace (
Mezes
)
Paris
, December
26, 1918.
Dear Dr. Mezes
: I have before me your Tentative Draft of
an “Agreement for an Association of Nations”. I have studied it with the
greatest interest. I shall make some comments and I shall [Page 522] make them in the light of an incident
that I am going to relate to you.
In my comparative youth I served on the staff of a very wise old General.
His mind was very active and he was constantly dictating memoranda of
things that he had it in mind to do, reforms to accomplish and all that
sort of thing. Almost the first day that I joined him he sent me one of
these memoranda, on a rather important subject as I now remember it, and
asked me to make any suggestions that occurred to me. From a feeling of
modesty not always characteristic of youth it did not occur to me that
he really wanted my criticism; so I returned his memorandum with a
careful analysis showing its excellent points and only suggesting some
rearrangement. It promptly came back to me with the statement that he
knew the good points in his memorandum better than I did; that what he
wanted to know was the bad points; and that, to know them, he wanted my
criticism, even that suggested by well-intentioned foolishness or
ignorance, because that could do him no harm and might suggest something
useful.
So I am going to suggest, haphazard, whatever occurs to me.21
1.) Paragraph 2, Clause
1:—The Capital selected will probably be that of a smaller
government. It will not have a diplomatic representative from each of
the powers, because many of them have no interests there. The powers
that have interests there, appoint diplomats to attend to those
interests, qualifications for which work may not call for the best kind
of men for the League of Nations. The other powers will, presumably,
appoint their best men specially for the latter work. One set of
diplomats will have other work than that of the League of Nations; the
other set can devote themselves exclusively to this work of the
League.
It has been objected against having specially assigned delegates versus
the regular diplomats at this Capital, that the former will, for a good
part of the time, have no ostensible function. If there is anything in
what I have said above, a part of the diplomatic body will, in effect,
be specially selected for the purposes of the League and will have
nothing else to attend to. Moreover, for some years, at least, the
delegates will have no lack of work in trying to get some degree of
order into this distracted world.
But, to my mind, the real objection is this. We cannot expect any near
change in the diplomatic system or methods of the world. Most of the
diplomats will be men trained from their youth, until they have become
hide-bound, in governmental ideas and in the ideas of governing classes.
That is the very thing that we most want to get away [Page 523] from. A diplomat from the United
States is the only one, of the large powers, that could realize my
conception of the requirements. He is not trained in a system where all
his ideas have been fitted to a Procrustean bed. And his appointment has
to be approved by an elected representative body.
I would, rather, suggest for consideration that the delegates must be
specially approved by the Legislatures of their respective countries,
and that they must be eminent in their countries for their knowledge of
history, of the Law of Nations and, above all, for their proved:
intelligent interest in the problems of humanity. This is the more;
necessary since Paragraph 17 makes the Representatives constitute an
International Court.
2.) Paragraph 2, Clause
2:—I am afraid of this provision as it stands. At the moment when
we hope to establish the League, the number of great, really civilized
powers will be pitifully small. Yet with them rest the issues of
world-peace and world-war. It is of vital importance to minimize the
chances of having any one of them secede from the League. Disguise it
from ourselves as we may, the basic idea of the League is to begin some
form of government for the world in which the ideas of the best class of
men in the great civilized powers shall dominate, because the ideas of
that class of men will be subject to a more or less wise restraint and,
in my judgment, a wise self-restraint is going to be the saving grace of
the League. But I see nothing in your provision to prevent the
government of the world from passing into the hands of the lesser
advanced peoples or, at least, being to some extent controlled by them.
It would be a risk to the interests of such nations as the United States
and Great Britain that we cannot expect them to take.
3.) Paragraph 2, Clause
3:—You do not provide affirmatively for an approval of the
Executive Committee. Do you mean that approval results ipso facto from the lapse of ten days without action? In that
case, disapproval might be given in 24 hours but approval must always
wait ten days. Yet, there might be a case of unanimous action of the
Representatives of the Powers and where prompt steps to carry it into
effect may be imperative.
Passing from that point, would it not be well to make the provision much
more elastic and leave it to the wisdom of the Representatives to meet
the requirements of each case? In that case, I should suggest a much
longer time limit, within which approval or disapproval is to be given,
assuming that a thing manifestly good will be promptly approved and a
thing doubtful will receive a longer consideration before it is either
approved or disapproved.
4.) Paragraph 3:—If the
Executive Committee provided for in Paragraph 2 can be made to fully
represent the interests of the large, [Page 524] advanced powers, I should prefer to have the Executive
Committee regulate everything that approximates routine.
5.) Paragraph 5:—I am
afraid of the word “guarantee”. Moreover, it is conceivable that the
League itself, in the adjustment of some dispute, may infringe on the
territorial integrity of some power.
Finally, “territorial integrity and political independence” cannot be
“guaranteed” except by an agreement to make war when necessary to
maintain the guarantee. The United States may make war to do this, but
it depends on the will of the Congress then in existence.
Nor do I believe that a guarantee is a sine qua
non for the present. If a solemn covenant or promise by all the
nations to respect territorial integrity and political independence is
threatened to be violated, thereby bringing on danger of a great war,
the United States may be trusted to live up to her “gentleman’s
agreement” as a member of the League.
6.) Paragraph 6:—I do not
like the provision “national armaments should be limited to the
requirements of international …22 security, and the Representatives of the Powers shall
consider provisions for carrying into effect this principle”. There is
only one way to carry the principle into effect, and that is to disarm.
And the burning question is, “has not this war made us reasonably ready
for it?” If not, God help us.
I am of those who believe that disarmament and a League of Nations go
hand-in-hand. When a dozen men sit around a table to discuss questions
fraught with all sorts of possible irritation and it appears that some
of them have a pistol in each pocket and a knife in their belts, while
others have penknives and fire-crackers or nothing at all, the first and
sole question is disarmament. There can be no fair and free discussion
of anything till that is settled. The American principle, I am inclined
to think, is a League of Nations with equal representation. How can you
have equal representation with some nations weak and others with
millions of trained soldiers or fleets of battleships or both? You must
remember that a League of Nations will be born not only from a feeling
of incipient international confidence and trust but also from the
existing feeling of international distrust. The problem would be bad
enough, but not thoroughly bad, if it were a League entirely of wolves
or entirely of sheep. It will be a problem indeed, if you try to make it
one of wolves and sheep.
And what will the United States have gained from the war if this is to be
the result? A League having some nations armed to the teeth will be
dominated by those nations. That is what they will [Page 525] be armed for. And what part will the
United States play in such a League? If she is going to play with wolves
she must have fangs and claws as long and as sharp as theirs. But, as I
conceive it, we fought the war more for the purpose of avoiding this
necessity than for any other one thing. If we want to play with the wolf
without becoming one ourselves we must pull all his fangs and trim all
his claws. The wolf is militarism and thus far we have pulled only one
fang.
I think we can have a League in only one or the other of two forms: a
general League of Nations disarmed for purposes of international war, or
a League of four or five heavily armed nations who will impose their
will upon the world and who will keep the peace among themselves only so
long as each thinks that it is getting its share of the rest of the
world.
Personally, I have not much fear of the result. If we do not settle it,
the peoples behind us will. And if our inaction or criminal stupidity
forces them to act it may be, almost of necessity will be, by a
revolutionary upheaval of all governments that may, for a time at least,
eclipse our present civilization. My hope is that the Americans will
have the courage to lead the people and, if I understand at all the
President’s views, I believe we will. Our peace terms with Germany
should provide as far as is humanely possible against a revival of
German militarism, and we should then and at once demand its abolition
everywhere.
In the subsequent paragraphs I suggest that careful scrutiny be given to
each one that touches on the Constitutional rights and powers of the
Congress of the United States. For example, under Paragraph 11 Congress
would have to cede to the League its constitutional power and duty to
regulate Commerce. I do not see how Paragraph 15 can be effective unless
Congress does what it cannot do,—delegate its power to make war to the
League. Such things might cause adverse action by the Senate on any
treaty.
Cordially yours,
