500.A15a3/810: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Chairman of the American Delegation (Stimson)
280. [Paraphrase.] You may say to Briand and Tardieu, if you think it will help, that the President has sent a personal message for them. You may make any alterations or deletions you wish in the text which follows. It is our object to emphasize to the French that if American cooperation is to be secured, it should be accomplished by dealing with positive problems successfully and to build up gradually the principles and methods. The message reads: [End paraphrase.]
“At this distance from the Conference I cannot hope to know all its difficulties and problems, but I have, as well as I have been able, followed the course of argument and it is possible that my estimate of the American position may be of help to them now.
I have given a great deal of consideration to the position of our relations with Europe, especially with France, and the setting of the United States in the whole picture of international cooperation as affected by the current possibilities of the naval conference. You are well aware of my own intensely sympathetic feeling toward France and of the deep-rooted bonds which so profoundly unite the peoples of the United States and France together with my long and consistent devotion to the cause of world peace. I appreciate fully the logic of the French note of December 31st [20th?] to the British Government in which the French Government introduces questions of political agreement in connection with reduction of navies and sets out her view of the ineffectiveness of the Pact of Paris, her insistence upon more methodical procedure of pacific settlements to make it more effective, and her opinion that the absence of provisions of security against aggression makes her dependence on the League of Nations essential.
1. Following the World War we have had a period in the United States of strong reaction against any cooperation in general plans for methodical procedure in settlement of international controversies. The distance of our people from Europe, their inability to appreciate fully the difficulties of European statesmen, and the differences between European political constitutions and our own, together with deep dissensions and disappointments which have arisen here out of our participation in the great war—have all confirmed the inherited and deep instinct of our people against being involved in any international action with Europe.
Framed largely by the genius of Mr. Briand, the Pact of Paris gave a formula which found complete and ready acceptance in the American mind. The outlawry of war was a noble and simple basis for the preservation of peace in which this country was generally in agreement. There was general agreement also in the idea that there must be always sought pacific means for the settlement of international controversies and that public opinion, informed and enlightened, [Page 97] is a most potent power to that end. But the American mind has not come to the point of accepting any general plan of methodical procedure for the pacific settlement of international disputes and particularly, it is not ready to commit itself to any plan in cases of violation of the Pact of Paris or as to action in cases of aggression.
But the American mind is, I think, ready to take up and consider, and, I believe, approve certain immediate and obviously practicable steps which will do much to obviate and to remove the source of international controversies and thus help prevent war. The American people have before them the plan to enter the World Court12 and become a party to an impartial international tribunal for the settlement of such legal questions as we may from time to time be ready to submit to the Court for decision. That is a simple proposal consonant with our traditional principles and acceptable to the American mind.
We could, no doubt, from time to time take up other definite, limited questions which bear on world peace. One we are ready now to take up as to naval arms.
2. We believe that the outstanding controversy of the world today is competition in naval arms and the excessive size of navies in the light of the presumed reorientation of world thought to a purely defensive basis through the Pact of Paris. In our participation in a conference of the naval powers to settle this question, the United States has joined in a practical instance in a possible methodical settlement of controversies by pacific means which, if successful, would pave the way for the natural development of cooperation in settlement of other age-old controversies which imperil the peace of the world. Success in such practical steps one by one seems the way the American people are prepared to accept more systematic or automatic methods of procedure of international cooperation.
3. In the matter of general security we had conceived that by our preliminary negotiation with the British (through which we had eliminated the hitherto primary bar to any settlement of the naval question) we were in fact making a very distinct contribution toward the security of France. The result of these negotiations promised a reduction of the British fleet by some 300,000 or 400,000 tons, a reduction of the American fleet by some 200,000 tons, substantial reduction of the Japanese fleet—which very reductions add materially to the security of France and the world. It was our feeling that these measures were the very fundamentals of practical progress toward security in the world and they were even more important as establishing the principle of cooperation with the other nations in the elimination of war.
It is the view of American public men that we have an obligation to serve in the cause of peace among nations and we believe it is the desire of other nations that we should so serve. Recognizing the realities of our situation, however, this cooperation can best be developed, as I have said, by dealing with limited and positive questions as they may arise.”