The Nation's Honor.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 23, 1912:
Demands Fulfillment of the Plain Wording of Our Treaty Promise.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    We were brought up to believe that George Washington was a man of his word; that it was a precept of his never to make a promise unless he was sure he could keep it, but when he had made one to keep it absolutely. I like to believe this true of the Father of Our Country and to admire him for it. But now our country herself is in immediate danger of breaking her promise by violating her treaty. This we must seriously deprecate, for our country means so much to us that we cannot repudiate her. Is the Canal bill a treaty violation? Legally, how can we say? How can we know beforehand how a court which is itself a part of the delinquent promisor will decide as to the validity of the promise? But it would seem to the impartial that the treaty was a bilateral contract wherein there was sufficient consideration for the promise. It would seem to the impartial that when the treaty says that the canal shall be open to the vessels of all nations on equal terms it means what it says, "all nations," and that our own Nation is not to be excepted.
    Leaving out of consideration the economic question of the value of what is in effect a subsidy to the coastwise steamship monopoly, our moral sense should make clear to us the importance of keeping our promise. We must not follow the example of Theodore Roosevelt if we wish the same high ideal of truthfulness to be linked with the name of our country which is linked with the name of the Father of Our County. Let us pray that Mr. Taft will veto the Canal bill.
            E. R. GODFREY.
            Bangor, Me., Aug. 21, 1912.

Published: August 23, 1912 Copyright © The New York Times