ing idiots will turn and shriek that this is inconsistent
with what I did at the Peace Conference, whereas in reality it will be
exactly in line with it."

To one of my political opponents, Mr. Schurz, who wrote me
congratulating me upon the outcome at Portsmouth, and suggesting that
the time was opportune for a move towards disarmament, I answered in a
letter setting forth views which I thought sound then, and think sound
now. The letter ran as follows:

OYSTER BAY, N. Y., September 8, 1905.

My dear Mr. Schurz: I thank you for your congratulations. As to what you
say about disarmament--which I suppose is the rough equivalent of "the
gradual diminution of the oppressive burdens imposed upon the world by
armed peace"--I am not clear either as to what can be done or what ought
to be done. If I had been known as one of the conventional type of peace
advocates I could have done nothing whatever in bringing about peace
now, I would be powerless in the future to accomplish anything, and
I would not have been able to help confer the boons upon Cuba, the
Philippines, Porto Rico and Panama, brought about by our action therein.
If the Japanese had not armed during the last twenty years, this would
indeed be a sorrowful century for Japan. If this country had not fought
the Spanish War; if we had failed to take the action we did about
Panama; all mankind would have been the loser. While the Turks were
butchering the Armenians the European powers kept the peace and thereby
added a burden of infamy to the Nineteenth Century, for in keeping that
peace a greater number of lives were lost than in any European war since
the days of Napoleon, and these lives were those of women and children
as well as of men; while the moral degradation, the brutality inflicted
and endured, the aggregate of hideous wrong done, surpassed that of any
war of which we have record in modern times. Until people get it firmly
fixed in their minds that peace is valuable chiefly as a means to
righteousness, and that it can only be considered as an end when it also
coincides with righteousness, we can do only a limited amount to advance
its coming on this earth. There is of course no analogy at present
between international law and private or municipal law, because there
is no sanction of force for the former, while there is for the latter.
Inside our own nation the law-abiding man does not have to arm himself
against the lawless simply because there is some arm