The Commoner
M
MAY, 1915
The President's Advice on Neutrality
Address of President Wilson at the Associated Press Luncheon New
York, N. Y., April 20, 1915
Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Associated
Press, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am deeply gratified by the generous recep
tion you have accorded me. It makes me look
back with a touch of regret to former occasions
when I have stood in this place and enjoyed a
greater liberty than is granted me today. There
havo been times when I stood in this spot and
said what I really thought, and I can not help
praying that those days of indulgence may be
accorded mo again. I havo come hero today,
of course, somewhat restrained by a sense of
responsibility which I can not escape. For I
take the Associated Press very seriously. I
know the enormous part that you play in the
affairs not only of this country but of the world.
You deal in the raw raw material of opinion and,
if my convictions have any validity, opinion ul
timately governs the world.
TEST FOR AMERICA COMING
It is, therefore, of very serious things that I
think as I face this body of men. I do not think
of you, however, as members of the Associated
Press. I do not think of you as men of differ
ent parties or of different racial derivations or
of different religious denominations. I want to
talk to you as to my fellow citizens of the United
States, for there are serious things which as
fellow citizens we ought to consider. The times
behind us, gentlemen, have been difficult
enough; the times before us are likely to be
more difficult still, because, whatever may be said
about the present condition of the world's affairs,
it is clear that they are drawing rapidly to a
climax, and at the climax the test will come, not
only for the nations engaged in the present co
lossal struggle it will come to them of course
but the test will come for us particularly.
Do you realize that, roughly speaking, we are
the only great nation at present disengaged? I
am not speaking, of course, with disparagement
of the greatness of those nations in Europe
. which are not parties to the present war, but I
am thinking of their close neighborhood to it. I
am thinking how their lives much more than
ours touch the very heart and stuff of the busi
ness, whereas we have rolling between us and
those bitter days across the water 3,000 miles
of cool and silent ocean. Our atmosphere is not
yet charged with those disturbing elements
which must permeate every nation of Europe.
Therefore, is it not likely that the nations of the
world will some day turn to us for the cooler
assessment of the elements engaged? I am not
now thinking so preposterous a thought as that
we should sit in judgment upon tham no nation
is fit (o sit in judgment upon any other nation
but that we shall some day have to assist in re
constructing the processes of peace. Our re
sources are untouched; we are more and more
becoming by the force of circumstances the me
diating nation of the world in respect of its
finance. We must make up our minds what are
the best things to do and what are the best ways
to do them. We must put our money, our en
ergy, our enthusiasm, our sympathy into these
things, and we must have our judgments pre
pared and our spirits chastened against the com
ing of that day.
HIS MOTTO "AMERICA FIRST"
So that I am not speaking in a selfish spirit
when I say that our whole duty, for the present
at any rate, is summed up in this motto, "Amer
ica first." Let us think of America before we
think of Europe, in order that America may be
fit to be Europe's friend when the day of tested
friendship comes. The test of friendship is not
now sympathy with the one side or the other,
but getting ready to help both sides wheif the
struggle is over. The basis of neutrality, gen
tlemen, is not indifference; it is not self-interest.
The basis of neutrality is sympathy for
mankind. It is fairness, it is good will, at bot
tom. It is impartiality of spirit and of judg
ment. I wish that all of our fellow citizens could
realize that. There is in some quarters a dis
position to create distempers in this body pol
itic. Men are even uttering slanders against thef
United States, as if to excite her. $lenare say
ing that if we should go to war upon either side
there would be a divided America an &bom
inable libel of ignorance! America is not all of
it vocal just now. It is vocal in spots, but I, for
one, have a complete and abiding faith in that
great silent body of Americans who aro not
standing up and shouting and expressing their
opinions just now, but are waiting to find out
and support the duty of America. I am just as
sure of their solidity and of their loyalty and of
their unanimity, if we act justly, as I am that
tho history of this country has at every crisis
and turning point illustrated this great lesson.
NEW VIEW OF MEDIATION
We are the mediating nation of the world. I
do not mean that we undertake not to mind our
own business and to mediate where other peoplo
are quarreling. I mean tho word in a broader
sense. We are compounded of tho nations of the
world; we mediate their blood, wo mediate their
traditions, we mediate their sentiments, their
tastes, their passions; we are ourselves com
pounded of those things. We are, therefore,
able to understand all nations; wo are able to
understand them in the compound, not separate
ly, as partisans, but unitedly as knowing and
comprehending and embodying them all. It is in
that sense that I mean that America is a mediat
ing nation. The opinion of America, the action
of America, is ready to turn, and free to turn,
in any direction. Did you ever reflect upon how
almost every other nation has through centuries
been headed in one direction? That is not true
of the United States. The United States has no
racial momentum. It has no history back of it
which makes it run all its energies and all its
ambitions in one particular direction. And
America is particularly free in this, that she has
no hampering ambitions as a world power. We
do not want a foot of anybody's territory. If
we have been obliged by circumstance, or have
considered ourselves to be obliged by circum
stances, in the past, to take territory which we
otherwise would not have thought of taking, I
believe I am right in saying that we have consid
ered it our duty to administer that territory, not
for ourselves but for tho peoplo living in it, and
to put this" burden upon our consciences not to
think that this thing is ours for our use, but to
regard ourselves as trustees of tho great busi
ness for those to whom it does really belong,
trustees ready to hand it over to the cestui quo
trust at any time when the business seems to
make that possible and feasible. That is what
I mean by saying that we havo no .hampering
ambitions. We do not want any thing that does
not belong to us. Is not a nation in that position
free to. serve other nations, and is not a nation
like that ready to form some part of the assess
ing opinion of the world?
BETTER THAN FIGHTING
My interest in the neutrality of the United
States is not the petty desire to keep out of
trouble. To judge by my experience, I have never
been able to keep out of trouble. I have never
looked for it, but I have always found it. I do
not want to walk around trouble. If any man
wants a scrap that is an interesting scrap and
worth while, I am his man. I warn him that
he is not going to draw me into the scrap for
his advertisement, but if he is looking for
trouble that is the trouble of men in general
and I can help a little, why, then, I am in for it.
But I am interested in neutrality because there
is something so much greater to do than fight;
there is a distinction waiting for this nation that
no nation has ever yet got. That is the dis
tinction of absolute control and self-mastery.
Whom do you admire most among your friends?
The irritable man? The man out of whpm you
can get a "rise" without trying? The man who
will fight at the drop of the hat, whether ho
knows what the hat is dropped for or not? Don't
you admire and don't you fear, if you have to
contest with him, the self-mastered man who
watches you with calm eye and comes on only
when you have carried the thing so far that you
must be disposed of? That is the man you re
spect. That is the nfan who, you know, has at
bottom a much moro fundamental and terrible
courage than the irritable, fighting man. Now,
I covet for America this splendid courage of
reserve moral force, and I wanted to point out
to you gentlemen simply this:
WANT WORLD TO KNOW THE TRUTH
There is news and news. There is what is
called news from Turtle Bay that turns out to
bo falsehood, at any rate In what It is said to
signify, but which, if you could get tho nation,
to beliovo It true, might disturb our equilibrium
and our self-possession. Wo ought not to deal
in stuff of that kind. Wo ought not to permit
that sort of thing to uso up the olcctrlcal energ
of the wires, because its energy Is malign, IU
energy is not of tho truth, Its energy la of rain
chief. It Is possible to sift truth. I havo known
some things to go out on the wires as true when
there was only ono man or ono group of mon
who could have told tho originators of that re
port whether It was true or not, and they wore
not asked whether It was true or not for fear It
might not bo true. That sort of roport ought not
to go out over the wires. There Is goncrally, If
not always, somcbpdy who knows whether tho
thing Is so or not, and In theso days, above all
other days, wo ought to tako particular pains
to resort to the ono small group of men, or to
the ono man If there bo but ono, who known
whether thoso things aro true or not. Tho world
ought to know tho truth; tho world ught not
at this period of unstable equilibrium to be dis
turbed by rumor, ought not to be disturbed by
imaginative combinations of circumstances, or,
rather, by circumstances stated in combination
which do not belong in' combination. You gen
tlemen, and gentlemon engaged like you, are
holding tho balances in your hand. This un
stable equilibrium, rests upon scales that are In
your hands. For the food of opinion, as I began
by saying, is tho news of tho day. I havo known
many a man to go off at a tangent on Informa
tion that was not reliable. Indeed, that describes
the majority of mon. The world Is held stable
by the man who waits for tho next day to find
out whether the report was true or not.
HOLDS "PEOPLE'S HEART SOUND"
We can not afford, therefore, to let the ru
mors of irresponsible persons and origins got In
to the atmosphere of tho United States. Wo are
trustees for what I venture to say is the greatest
heritage that any nation over had, tho lovo.of
justice and righteousness and human liberty.
For, fundamentally, those are tho things to
which America is addicted and to which sho is
devoted. There are groups of selfish men In the
United States, there are coteries, where sinister
things aro purposed, but the great heart of tho
American peoplo Ifj just as sound and true as it
ever was. And It is a single heart; it Is tho
heart of America. It Is not a heart made up of
sections selected out of other countries.
What I try to remind myself of every day when
I am almost overcome by perplexities, what I try
to remember, ia what tho people at homo aro
thinking about. I put myself in the place of (ho
man who does not know all tho things that I
know and I ask myself what ho would like the
policy of this country to be. Not tho talkative
man, not tho partisan man, not tho man who re
members first that he is a republican or a dem-
ocrat, or that his parents wSre German or Eng
lish, but the man who remembers first that tho
whole destiny of modern affairs centers largely
upon his being an American first of all. If I
permitted myself to bo a partisan in this present
struggle, I would bo unworthy to represent you.
If I permitted myself to forget tho people who
are not partisans, I would bo unworthy to be
your spokesman. I am not sure that I am worthy
to represent you, but I do claim this degreo of
worthiness that before everything else I love
America.
During the month of April hundreds of estab
lishments have increased their working force
and mills that were closed by the disturbance
of all business following the sudden plunging of
Europe into war have been re-opening as fast
as they could get in shape. Even the railroad,
which have been trying to touch tho hearts of
tho interstate commerce commissioners by wear
ing their old clothes almost threadbare, hare
been placing large buying orders. The fact that
Wall Btreet is having a boom in stocks but adds
to tho conclusive evidence already introduced
as to the return of prosperity.
Evidence that the world does move continual
ly accumulates. The republicans of Chicago in
augurated their newly-elected mayor with what
they called "a prosperity parade." And this was
dono with tho full knowledge that a democratic
administration was still on down at Washing
ton. When the republicans officially admit the
existence of prosperity anywhere In the country
when tho democrats are in control of tho na
tional government, it is useless to keep on won
dering how soon tho millenlum will arrive.
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