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ourselves. We deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire; and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights or privileges or powers that we do not freely concede to every American republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in spirit; but our conception of the true way to accomplish this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together.14

This policy is the policy of the Americas. It should be the policy of the world. And in my opinion, if I may venture to speak in the first person, it will be, because it must be, if we are to have the intercourse of nations, and their rights and duties bottomed upon the eternal principles of justice, instead of based for the moment upon the shifting sands of material power and of physical force.

There is a matter which might be mentioned in this connection, and which the Nobel Committee no doubt had in mind, although it did not state it. This is Mr. Root's happy intervention, by which all the American States were invited to the Second Peace Conference at The Hague, to the first of which only Brazil-which did not attend-Mexico, and the United States were invited, inasmuch as they were then the only American Republics with diplomatic representatives accredited to the Imperial Government of All the Russias. Indeed, so intent was Mr. Root upon their presence, that he secured the postponement of the Peace Conference—scheduled for 1906-in order that it might not interfere with the Third Conference of the Americas, which was to, and actually did, meet in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of that year.

At this conference at Rio de Janeiro, the Pan American Bureau was enlarged and developed into the Pan American Union. Through Mr. Root's intercession, Mr. Carnegie was led to endow it with the beautiful Pan American Building, in which the representatives of all the Americas meet monthly in Washington; and, likewise through his initiative, the Government of the United States presented the ground upon which this stately structure is erected.

The Secretary of the Nobel Committee also mentions among Mr. 14 Latin America and the United States. Addresses by Elihu Root, Harvard University Press, 1917, p. 10.

Root's achievements, the repeal of the preference given American coastwise shipping in its transit through the Panama Canal, and signalizes his speech in the Senate, January 21, 1913, which was distributed among the friends of peace throughout the entire world. Then too the secretary of the committee rightly characterizes Mr. Root as the leader of the peace movement in the United States, and it leaves him as the President of the American Society of International Law and of the great Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This is true in a general sense-in fact, he is the American Society of International Law; he is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A word or two may be said about the founding of this Society, whose importance seemed to justify Mr. Root in accepting its presidency, notwithstanding his hands were more than full with the Department of State.

Some of the youngsters of twenty years ago, Mr. Chandler P. Anderson, later to hold many offices of trust under the government and at present its representative in the German-American Mixed Claims Commission; Mr. Charles Henry Butler, then Reporter of the Supreme Court and now engaged in the active practise of law; Mr. George W. Kirchwey, then Dean of Columbia Law School, and now a noted authority on penology; Mr. Robert Lansing, later to be Secretary of State-to mention but four of its advocates, in the order of the alphabet-took advantage of the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration to suggest the formation of an international law society. It was agreed to by the members of the conference then present on June 2, 1905. A committee was appointed, of which one of the advocates of the society was appointed secretary, and during the course of the fall three of its members, including Mr. Anderson and Mr. John Bassett Moore, met each week with, and at the residence of Mr. Oscar S. Straus, in order to frame a constitution for the society. This was accomplished, and on January 12, 1906, the society was organized in the rooms of the Bar Association of the City of New York. The constitution was adopted, and officers elected, Mr. Root being elected the first, and indeed, the only President of the Society. A Journal of International Law was established and made its first appearance in January, 1907.

Mr. Root himself made his first address as President in 1907, on a day of good augury-the 19th of April-taking as his subject, "The Real Questions under the Japanese Treaty and the San Francisco School Board Resolution."

The Japanese situation of 1906-1907 was, it will be recalled, mentioned by the Nobel Committee in its account of Mr. Root's services; and doubtless his handling of the entire controversy between Japan and the United States went far to constitute, in the opinion of the committee, Mr. Root's claim to represent the peace movement in the United States. The questions were simple in themselves— the difficulty of adjusting them was great. But "the will to peace”to use the language of Mr. Hughes, our present distinguished Secretary of State-was found to be "the way to peace." It was the way to the settlement of the school question in 1906; it was also the way to the settlement of the immigration question in 1907-not by the brutal assertion of authority on the part of the United States, but by the agreement of Japan to forbid, by its own sovereign authority, its subjects from leaving their country to establish themselves on the western coast of the United States. It was the way to the settlement of the Pacific questions in 1922. It will be the way to every settlement reached by countries without the imposition of force, which may, indeed, decide for the moment, but rarely in the long run, outstanding differences between nations.

The details of the school question need not detain us. The spirit in which the controversy was approached is the important thing. It was one of friendly good will and kindly consideration-what Robert Bacon used to call "the Root Doctrine." It bore its fruits. The facts were very simple. The Japanese were excluded from the schools of San Francisco, to which children of other foreigners were admitted. The treaty of 1894, then in force between Japan and the United States, contained the favored nation clause, by virtue whereof discriminations were not to be made against Japanese subjects in favor of aliens of other nationalities. As a result of conference with the local authorities, the difficulty was adjusted to the satisfaction of Japan. As Mr. Root, who conducted the negotiations, said in his address: "No sooner had the views and purposes of the Governments of the United States, the State of California, and the city of San Francisco been explained by each to the other than entire harmony and good understanding resulted, with a common desire to

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exercise the powers vested in each, for the common good of the whole country, of the State, and of the city."15

In the course of his address, Mr. Root took up the question of the treaty-making power, saying that it is not distributed, that it is vested exclusively in the National Government, and that therefore no part thereof is reserved to the States. "In international affairs," he said, "there are no States; there is but one nation, acting in direct relation to and representation of every citizen in every State." It is doubtless true that there are certain limitations upon the exercise of the treaty-making power, and to some of these Mr. Root adverted, but "To secure the citizens of one's country against discriminatory laws and discriminatory administration in the foreign countries where they may travel or trade or reside is, and always has been, one of the chief objects of treaty making, and such provisions always have been reciprocal." And in the exercise of the treatymaking power, Mr. Root pointed out that many things could be done which the government was not authorized to do by express grant, such as regulating the descent of property-a right often exercised by treaty, and never declared to be in excess of the nation's power.

There was, therefore, no real question of power arising under this Japanese treaty and no question of State rights.

There were, however, questions of policy, questions of national interests and of State interests, arising under the administration of the treaty and regarding the application of its provisions to the conditions existing on the Pacific coast.

These three interests could not be really in conflict; for the best interest of the whole country is always the true interest of every State and city, and the protection of the interests of every locality in the country is always the true interest of the nation.

These principles are applicable to the world at large, and upon their acceptance and application it is believed that the peace of nations largely depends. Mr. Root said that there was supposed or apparent clashing of interests, but that there was no real opposition, provided policies and purposes were explained. After this statement, he used this language:

15 Complete text of the address printed in Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 1907, pp. 43-57, and in Addresses on International Subjects by Elihu Root, Harvard University Press, 1916, pp. 7-23.

Many thoughtless and some mischievous persons have spoken and written regarding these conferences and communications as if they were the parleying and compromise of enemies. On the contrary, they were an example of the way in which the public business ought always to be conducted; so that the different public officers respectively charged with the performance of duties affecting the same subject-matter may work together in furtherance of the same public policy and with a common purpose for the good of the whole country and every part of the country.

I feel myself obliged, in view of the importance of the question, to quote two further passages from Mr. Root's address:

What was to be the effect upon that proud, sensitive, highly civilized people across the Pacific, of the discourtesy, insult, imputations of inferiority and abuse aimed at them in the columns of American newspapers and from the platforms of American public meetings? What would be the effect upon our own people of the responses that natural resentment for such treatment would elicit from the Japanese?

The first article of the first treaty Japan ever made with a western power provided:

"There shall be a perfect, permanent, and universal peace and a sincere and cordial amity between the United States of America on the one part, and the Empire of Japan on the other part, and between their people respectively, without exception of persons or places."

Under that treaty, which bore the signature of Matthew Calbraith Perry, we introduced Japan to the world of western civilization. We had always been proud of her wonderful development-proud of the genius of the race that in a single generation adapted an ancient feudal system of the Far East to the most advanced standards of modern Europe and America. The friendship between the two nations had been peculiar and close. Was the declaration of that treaty to be set aside? At Kurihama, in Japan, stands a monument to Commodore Perry, raised by the Japanese in grateful appreciation, upon the site where he landed and opened negotiations for the treaty. Was that monument henceforth to represent dislike and resentment? Were the two peoples to face each other across the Pacific in future years with angry and resentful feelings? All this was inevitable if the process which seemed to have begun was to continue, and the Government of the United States looked with the greatest solicitude upon the possibility that the process might continue.

He continued:

The people who permit themselves to treat the

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