Harper's Weekly/A Dismal Page in Our History

by Carl Schurz

A DISMAL PAGE IN OUR HISTORY.

There has been much newspaper discussion of the question how the arbitration treaty between the United States and Great Britain was defeated in the Senate, and who did it. To appreciate the full significance of that defeat we must recall some facts which preceded it. In 1890 the Congress of the United States, by a unanimous vote of each House, adopted the following concurrent resolution: “That the President be and is hereby requested to invite from time to time, as fit occasions may arise, negotiations with any government with which the United States has or may have diplomatic relations, to the end that any differences or disputes arising between the two governments which cannot be adjusted by diplomatic agency may be referred to arbitration, and be peaceably adjusted by such means.”

By this resolution the Congress of the United States did indeed not literally invite all other nations to make with this republic treaties providing for a permanent system of arbitration with standing tribunals, but it made substantially this proclamation to the world: “We, the American people, wish all nations to understand that we are ready to discard the barbarous arbitrament of war, and to submit any differences or disputes arising between this republic and any other nation that may not be diplomatically adjusted, to peaceable arbitration, and we call upon all the world to follow this example.” The resolution meant this, if anything. Thus the United States solemnly — it may even be said demonstratively — assumed the leadership of nations as to this great onward movement of progressive civilization.

This appeal was not without result. In July, 1893, the British House of Commons responsively resolved “that this House, cordially sympathizing with the purpose in view, expresses the hope that her Majesty's government will lend their ready co-operation to the government of the United States, upon the basis of the foregoing resolution” — namely, that adopted by our Congress in 1890. Thus the British Parliament formally accepted our invitation, recognizing our leadership, and promising to follow.

It will be admitted by any fair-minded person that our voluntary and solemn proclamation of our readiness to submit to arbitration any difference or dispute we might have with any foreign nation, was, if not in point of form, at least in substance, equivalent to an expression of willingness, or even of desire, on our part, to establish arbitration as a fixed and regulated system between this and other countries, and to provide for regular tribunals to that end. The two things belonged as naturally and logically together as the enactment of a law and the adoption of proper machinery for its execution.

Accordingly negotiations were begun, under President Cleveland's administration, with the British government for the purpose of translating into actual fact — that is, into a formal treaty — the declarations and promises contained in the resolutions passed in 1890 by our Congress, and in 1893 by the British Parliament. The British Premier, Lord Salisbury, appeared at first unwilling to give that treaty the broad scope of the resolution adopted by our Congress in 1890, which called for the submission to arbitration of “any differences” between the two countries. But by ingenious and persistent argument our Secretary of State, Mr. Olney, at last prevailed upon him to accept our proposition. Thus a treaty was framed between the United States and Great Britain upon the basis of our proclamation that any international differences should be submitted to arbitration, providing for various tribunals to adjudicate various classes of disputes, and regulating the jurisdiction and the proceedings of those tribunals in such a manner as to guard against any offensive trespass upon the sense of honor or the self-respect of either of the contracting nations — a treaty, in one word, embodying the principle solemnly proclaimed by this republic to the whole world, to the full acceptance of which the British government had been brought only by the strenuous and able arguments of our representative.

And it is this treaty, the first attempt to give systematic effect to the proud proclamation of 1890 and to our leadership in this great work of progressive civilization — it is this treaty that was rejected by the Senate of the United States. Considering the preceding events and the attendant circumstances, it is difficult to imagine any reason that would, before the American people and before mankind, justify such a rejection, except the one that the treaty in its practical operation would have worked for international dissension and conflict instead of international peace and good-will. Upon no other ground, it would seem, could the action of the Senate claim the respect of the civilized world. But just this reason is missing among those which, so far as the public are informed, have been assigned by the opponents of the treaty for their efforts to defeat it.

It is said that several Senators voted against it because they bore Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Olney a grudge, and would not let them have the credit of so great an achievement. But such a motive of action in the face of so momentous a subject appears too inexpressibly mean to be entertained by more than a very few persons of exceptional smallness. We are also told that almost all those who voted against the treaty were furious free-coinage men who hated England as the foremost gold country, and were loath to adopt any arrangement calculated to prevent foreign conflicts, because a war might force this country off the gold basis. Whatever there may be in reasoning like this, we cannot lay the flattering unction to our souls that the defeat of the treaty was wholly or mainly owing only to the speculative hostility of the mining camps or the vagaries of the Populists; for the most effective blows against it were struck from the ranks of those Senators who finally voted for the treaty, or for what was left of it.

When the text of the treaty first became known it was greeted by an enthusiastic uprising in its favor of the best public sentiment all over the country, of which the American people had every reason to be proud, and which might properly have had a powerful influence with the Senate. The first check it received came from a Senator who probably was at heart not opposed to the treaty, but who in almost angry tones protested against the intrusion of that public sentiment, creating the impression that in his view the Senate would the better maintain its dignity the more slowly it proceeded and the less regard it paid to the urgency of public opinion. This was not a Senator from the mining camps, but from New England. The second blow came in the shape of an amendment to the treaty excluding from its operation those international differences which might become really dangerous to international peace, and therefore would make a peaceable method of settlement especially desirable — an amendment implying the suspicion that this treaty was full of snares and pitfalls which only the acumen of an exceptionally keen eyed patriot could discern, and which it was highly needful to guard against. This amendment, which was, if not meant, at least calculated thoroughly to discredit the treaty, also came from a New England Senator, a professed “friend” of the treaty. After all this and more of the same sort, it was discovered that the Senate would renounce its prerogative as a part of the treaty-making power if it assented to this treaty without amending it to the effect that in each specific case of dispute the agreement to arbitrate should be submitted to the Senate for its approval. When thus the treaty had been thoroughly discredited and disembowelled by its “friends,” the ranters against Great Britain as the “hereditary foe,” the “bully” and so on, with whom no treaty of friendship should be made anyhow, had a free field, and the final defeat of the treaty was the logical result.

The Senate, by thus amending and at last defeating the arbitration treaty, has virtually changed the proud proclamation of 1890 so that it now may read, “The President be and is hereby requested to invite negotiations with foreign governments, to the end that such differences or disputes arising between them and the United States may be referred to arbitration as the Senate may consider of sufficiently little consequence. As to more important matters, we are not sure whether the most civilized method of settlement will suit us best.” That the leadership of the United States in this great onward movement of civilization has thus been forfeited nobody will deny. The Senate has put the republic in the lamentable attitude of a false pretender. But it may truthfully be said that the Senate has not in this matter represented the people. Never has an international agreement been more heartily welcomed than this arbitration treaty by all those elements of our population, from the university to the workshop, whose opinions and feelings are entitled to the greatest respect. And the American people owe it to themselves, for the protection of their good name, to manifest their true sentiments on this subject in the strongest possible manner on every occasion that may present itself.

Carl Schurz.