Page:William Howard Taft - America Can't Quit (1919).djvu/15

 from the bottom of the sea destroyed innocent people on the sea who had a right to be there, men, women and children—non-combatants. All grew out of the great enormous armament. And then the devastation of the countries—for it was a devastation of peoples and of countries. The northern part of France, its great manufacturing centers, were absolutely destroyed and the mines have been so injured that it will take fifteen years' compensation by the use of other mines to enable France to pull herself together again. Machinery was stolen from Belgium in order to interfere with her industrial future, so that when these nations were conquered, not only would their armies be conquered but their commercial supremacy would be injured and their power of competition would be forever destroyed. The destruction of trees and houses in the country has no parallel. That is all due to the enormous scope of the armament and the opportunity for destruction that that armament gave.

Is there a man or woman with soul so dead to the welfare of mankind, of his own people and of the nations of the world, that does not long for some means of preventing a recurrence of that awful race for armament which is the inevitable alternative unless we adopt some means of stopping it?

You can't help it. Among the Allies, if you have no League, if there is no obligation of this kind, each nation will naturally, and ought to, turn to the question of its preservation by insurance of its safety—and that means armament. And when each nation arms, each other nation watches it, because that nation may be its enemy in the future. It can take no chances. Therefore the race begins at once—innocently, but in the end it goes on from year to year. This race that we have had went on for four decades and the dreary round of cause and effect will go on, it will go on more quickly than before, because if we are to have no League the nations will begin at once and then we will see the race has begun with its inevitable consequences.

This has long been seen. Why, even the poor Emperor of Russia saw what the result was likely to be. A number of years ago—he called the Hague Conference for the purpose of arranging machinery to prevent future wars, and the first heading that he made was "The limit of armament." Why wasn't it put through? Because Germany strode into that conference with mailed fist and said, "If you discuss the limit of armament, I withdraw from the Conference." Now these gentlemen who object to this Article VIII would have us play the part