End Of Armed Rule Far Off, Says Abbott.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 15, 1913:
Tells Mohonk Lake Delegates Sword Is Still Destined for Long Sway.
HE ANSWERS PEACE SOCIETY
Criticises Annulment of Russian Treaty and California's Alien Land Legislation.
    MOHONK LAKE, May 14.— Three hundred delegates to the nineteenth annual Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration heard Dr. Lyman Abbott of New York, presiding as Chairman of the opening session today, assert that disarmament was as yet a dream; that "the blow of the fist, the gleam of the sword, the bark of the cannon will continue until some other power greater than that of armed man is found to protect innocence from injustice."
    Dr. Abbott also took occasion to criticise the United States for annulling the treaty with Russia, and referred to the recent anti-alien bills passed by the California Legislature as an example of American unwillingness to live up to a distasteful treaty.
    Dr. Abbott's address was interpreted as a reply to the American Peace Society, his fellowship in which was severed recently. He said in part:
    Christians have not stood and ought not to stand for peace at any price. They have recognized and they ought to recognize that there are worse things than war, bad as war is. It is quite possible to pay too high a price for peace. Our fathers would have paid too high a price if, in 1776, they had bartered liberty for peace. The generation of the civil war would have paid too high a price it, for the sake of peace, they had allowed the country to be rent in twain and a great slave empire to be founded, extending from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico, and perhaps including Mexico and Central America. More progress has been made toward world peace in the fourteen years which have elapsed since the First Hague Conference than was made in all the years which preceded. Why? Because the movement has been one not primarily for international peace, but primarily for international justice. Enduring peace is possible only when it is the fruit of justice.
    There must be developed in the civilized nations a sense of justice strong enough te overcome race, religious, and national prejudices.
    We had a treaty with Russia. We believed that she violated that treaty in refusing to recognize our passports when issued to American citizens of the Jewish faith. We should have proposed to Russia to submit the interpretation of that treaty to The Hague Tribunal. Instead of so doing we, with passionate haste, annulled it. We made a treaty with Great Britain in which we agreed that all the vessels of the world should have equal advantages in their use of the Panama Canal. Great Britain thinks we have violated that treaty in exempting coastwise vessels from canal tolls. Some of our ablest lawyers are of the same opinion.
    We made a treaty with Japan granting certain privileges to the Japanese. The State of California, without waiting for consultation with the Japanese people and without consideration for their feelings, has passed an act which to the Japanese seems a violation of the spirit of that treaty, and there is danger that, as the result, the friendly relations between Japan and America will be seriously impaired.
    It cannot be too strongly affirmed that it is worse than useless to make a general arbitration treaty, and then when any conflict arises which arouses popular prejudice and excites popular clamor, disregard our treaty obligations on the ground that it is either not consonant with our interest or with our honor to submit the question to a foreign tribunal.
    America is one of the rightest countries on the globe. Make it also one of the weakest, and it would invite assault. It is the first duty of a Government to protect its people in the enjoyment of life and liberty. If it fails to afford such protection it has no right to exist. America, therefore, must have an army sufficient in size, equipment, and efficiency to protect its citizens from violence at home, and a navy sufficient to protect its coasts and its commerce from attack and to enable it to take its share in the fulfillment of those world obligations which belong to all the civilized nations of the earth.
    There is, at least one question that cannot be subjected to international arbitration — the Monroe Doctrine — in the opinion of Prof. William R. Shepherd of Columbia University, expressed in a speech to the conference to-day.
    "In the present state of public opinion," Mr. Shepherd said, "a question about the application of the doctrine could no more be subjected to international arbitration than could one about the National independence of the United States."
    M. Bourassa, a leader of the French-Canadian Nationalist Party, said the evolution of the British Empire was hastening the day when Canada would have to "assume the responsibilities of manhood, either as an independent nation or as a real partner of Great Britain in some new form of federated association."