From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (59 page)

The organized peace movement flourished in the United States early in the century. Some groups sponsored international friendship and understanding among schoolchildren and college students. The World Peace Foundation focused on research and education. Solid citizens such as Root and steelmaker Carnegie gave the movement respectability and resources. Like others of his era, Carnegie believed that the wealthy must assume responsibility for making a better world. Peace became one of his passions. His Endowment built up the international relations sections of Carnegie-funded libraries. It promoted peaceful resolution of disputes. Its charter reflected the optimism of the era. Once war had been eliminated, it declared, the Endowment could move on to the "next most degrading remaining evil or evils."
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Firm internationalists, the peace seekers believed that understanding and cooperation among nations were essential for world peace. They were also firmly ethnocentric. In their view, the world could best be regenerated by the spread of American values, principles, and institutions. They worked within precisely defined limits. Certain that their nation's security was not threatened by war in Asia or Europe, they did not consider breaking with tradition by joining alliances or involving the United States in world politics. Acting as "enlightened bystanders," they had no sense that achievement of their goal might require drastic measures.

They fastened rather on cautious, legalistic means such as arbitration. Arbitration was a natural for U.S. peace advocates. The U.S. practice of submitting disputes to arbitration dated to the 1794 Jay Treaty with England. Arbitration fitted within the Anglo-American tradition of extending legal concepts to international relations. It perfectly suited those peace advocates who desired to take practical steps without compromising U.S. freedom of action.

The peace advocates won the ear of policymakers, but they never determined how to take effective steps without compromising national sovereignty. With Roosevelt's blessing, Hay negotiated in 1904–5 with all the major European nations and Japan eleven bilateral treaties providing arbitration of all disputes that did not involve questions of national honor or vital interests—glaring exceptions. Already embroiled with the activist TR over numerous issues, a contentious Senate insisted that it must approve each case in which the United States went to arbitration. Dismissing the amended treaties as a "sham," Roosevelt refused to sign them.
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A more accommodating and cautious Root tried to pick up the pieces, conciliating the Senate and then negotiating twenty-four bilateral arbitration treaties with all the major powers except Russia and Germany. The Root treaties were easily approved and won their author a Nobel Peace Prize. They were so restrictive as to be of dubious value.
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American peace advocates and policymakers also supported the idea of regular great-power meetings to discuss matters of war and peace. Such efforts had the advantage of being multilateral rather than bilateral. They could deal with a broad spectrum of issues. The tsar had proposed the first "peace" conference, which met at The Hague in May 1899. Befitting its new world status, the United States took an active role. Male and female peace enthusiasts from across the world also flocked to The Hague,
where they held "fringe" meetings and, in the words of the U.S. delegate, submitted "queer letters and crankish proposals." The Quakers were "out in full force," he complained. Military figures such as Mahan and British admiral Sir John Fisher attended as delegates. The conference has been aptly characterized as a noble undertaking with limited results. It did "outlaw" several weapons, took steps to ensure better treatment of prisoners of war, thus seeking to render war more humane if not eliminating it, and agreed on a multilateral arbitration treaty. But it accomplished nothing in disarmament beyond an innocuous statement that the reduction of military budgets was "extremely desirable for the increase of the material and moral welfare of mankind." It did not even approve a U.S. proposal for a court of neutral nations to arbitrate disputes.
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Roosevelt proposed a second Hague conference to push for arbitration and reductions in armaments, but he politely allowed the tsar to issue formal invitations. Forty-four nations gathered in the summer of 1907. The conferees did not address such crucial issues as neutral rights and accomplished nothing in arms reduction. Finley Peter Dunne's fictional newspaper humorist, Mr. Dooley, acidly observed that they spent most of the time discussing "how future wars should be conducted in th' best inthrests iv peace."
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The delegates also rejected Root's proposal for a permanent world court. They initiated the practice of attaching reservations to their signatures, a method already used by U.S. senators. The main result was acceptance of Carnegie's proposal for the construction of a "peace palace" at The Hague.
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Ironically, it was the warmonger of 1898 and hero of San Juan Hill who gave practical expression to the burgeoning peace sentiment by helping to end the Russo-Japanese War and prevent war between France and Germany. Much has been made of Roosevelt's realpolitik, and power politics undoubtedly entered into his unprecedented intrusions in world affairs. Other factors were more important. Like the peace advocates, he felt that the United States must work actively to promote peace. "We have become a great nation . . . and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities."
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As one of the "civilized" nations, the United States had a moral duty to preserve peace.
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TR also loved to be at the
center of things, and such interventions gave him a bigger stage to perform on. As much as he complained about the pretensions of foreign heads of states and the intractability of diplomacy, he reveled in the intrigue and secrecy and the manipulation of people and nations. He also believed that his intercession could further vital U.S. interests.

The outbreak of war between Russia and Japan in 1904 provided the first opportunity for the onetime warrior to play the role of peacemaker. Since Japan's rise to world power, the two nations had competed for influence and markets in northeast Asia. Rivalry erupted into military conflict in February when Japan suddenly terminated six months of negotiations and launched a surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in southern Manchuria.

Roosevelt moved slowly toward mediation. At first, he and Root cheered Japanese successes—and even the way they began the war! TR feared Russian advances in East Asia; he profoundly disliked their autocratic form of government and branded the tsar "a preposterous little creature."
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Although he shared the racism of his contemporaries, he respected Japanese economic and military prowess, even conceding that they would be a "desirable addition" to "our civilized society." He hoped to thwart a possible threat to the Philippines and Hawaii by deflecting Japan's expansion toward the Asian mainland. The Japanese, he crowed, were "playing our game." As they drove from victory to victory over shockingly inept Russian forces, however, he began to fear they might get the "big head." It would be best if the two nations fought to a draw, exhausting each other in the process. At the outset, he concentrated on preventing the war from becoming another occasion for plundering China. Later, he decided that it must be stopped before Japan could gain too great an edge and offered his good offices.
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With difficulty, he got the combatants to the conference table. Each Russian military disaster seemed to render the tsar less amenable to compromise. Surprised with the ease of their success, the Japanese began to push for total victory. Roosevelt privately railed at the stubbornness and delusions of each. The Russians were capable of "literally fathomless mendacity"; Japan was an "oriental nation, and the individual standard of truthfulness is low."
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His persistence paid off. Japan's destruction of the Russian fleet at Tsushima in May 1905 forced the tsar to negotiate. Japan's
military success came at the cost of financial ruin; its leaders also found reason to talk. In the summer of 1905, the two nations agreed to attend a peace conference.

The meeting opened at the navy yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 9, 1905. Its location in the United States was without precedent. Roosevelt played a major role. He did not attend, but he watched closely from his Long Island home and exerted influence through tennis cabinet intermediaries such as von Sternburg and Jusserand, and even Kaiser Wilhelm II. In a preconference gathering at his Oyster Bay estate, he displayed diplomatic finesse by ordering a stand-up buffet dinner to avoid touchy protocol questions of seating and by delivering an admirably tactful toast. Privately, he vented his frustration: the Russians were "soddenly stupid, corrupt, treacherous, and incompetent," the Japanese "entirely selfish." It was difficult to be patient, he told friends, when "what I really want to do is to give utterance to whoops of rage and jump up and knock their heads together."
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To free itself of financial dependence on U.S. bankers, Japan sought a large indemnity and the retention of Manchurian territory it had taken. Despite its enormous losses, Russia refused concessions—"not an inch of ground, not a kopek of compensation."
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"The Japanese ask too much," Roosevelt complained, "but the Russians are ten times worse than the Japs because they are so stupid." Russian stubbornness paid off. Chief negotiator Count Sergei Witte made peace possible by ignoring the tsar's objections to ceding half of Sakhalin. Recognizing that their financial plight prevented them from resuming the war, the Japanese agreed to Roosevelt's pleas for compromise. The September 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth provided no indemnity. Japan secured Port Arthur, southern Sakhalin, and Russian recognition of its sphere of influence in Korea. Manchuria was left open to both powers.
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Roosevelt quickly discovered the curses as well as blessings that befall the peacemakers. Americans cheered this new evidence of their nation's benign influence in the world and exulted that their president's big stick could be used to impose peace. TR won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, the first American to be so honored. As with most such compromises, neither of the signatories was happy. Russians denounced Witte as "Count Half-Sakhalin." Russian-American relations, already strained over the Jewish issue, were further poisoned. Unable to grasp why their smashing military
victories had not won a bigger diplomatic payoff, Japanese found in the United States a handy scapegoat. Mourning crepe was hung from government buildings. In September 1905, during anti-peace riots, mobs surrounded the U.S. legation in Tokyo.
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Even before the Portsmouth conference, Roosevelt had begun to shore up the U.S. position in the Philippines. While inspiring Asians, Japan's stunning military success worried some Americans. United States officials, Roosevelt included, increasingly recognized that its naval prowess threatened the Philippines and even Hawaii, where the Japanese population continued to grow. Now painfully aware of the vulnerability of islands once touted as the nation's outer defenses, Roosevelt in July 1905 dispatched to Tokyo his protégé and favorite troubleshooter, Taft. The president's flamboyant and outspoken daughter Alice also went along and dominated the headlines. Meanwhile, Taft held secret discussions with Prime Minister Taro Katsura. In the resulting agreement, the United States gave Japan a free hand in Korea, violating the U.S.-Korea treaty of 1882; Katsura disavowed any Japanese aspirations toward the Philippines or Hawaii. Approved by the president, the so-called Taft-Katsura agreement remained secret until unearthed in his papers nearly two decades later. When Korea in November 1905 called upon the United States to live up to its treaty obligations, TR demurred, privately commenting that the Koreans could do nothing to defend themselves.
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The rise in tensions following the Treaty of Portsmouth, the concurrent crisis over Japanese immigration, fueled by reckless talk of yellow and white perils, and the growing possibility of conflict over Manchuria created pressures for further initiatives. In late November 1908, Root and Japanese ambassador Takahira Kogoro negotiated another secret agreement pledging respect for the status quo in the Pacific region, thus tacitly conceding Japan's preeminent interests in southern Manchuria. When Root proposed that the Senate might at least be informed of the understanding, Roosevelt, now a lame duck, responded curtly: "Why invite the expression of views with which we may not agree?"
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Roosevelt's role in averting war between France and Germany was less direct but still important. French efforts to create an exclusive sphere of influence in Morocco threatened existing German interests. Germany naturally objected and by threatening war hoped to drive a wedge between France and its new ally, Great Britain. Engaging in a histrionic display so typical of
the era, the kaiser made a dramatic, saber-rattling speech aboard a warship at Tangier, at the same time calling for an international conference to discuss the issue. Privately, he appealed to the United States to intercede.

Roosevelt moved cautiously. Some "civilized" nation should uphold order in Morocco, he reasoned, and France seemed a logical candidate. He did not want to alienate France or Britain, with whom he sympathized and sought to maintain close ties. "We have other fish to fry," he also noted, "no real interests in Morocco." Ultimately, the threat of a "world conflagration" drove him to act. In doing so, he broke precedent even more sharply than in the Russo-Japanese War, implicitly altering the Monroe Doctrine by asserting the right of the United States to intervene in European matters that affected its security.
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He nudged both sides toward the peace table. He helped resolve haggling over the agenda by persuading France and Germany to go "with no program." Largely through a major gaffe on the part of von Sternburg, he extracted a crucial German promise to accept the settlement he might work out.