740.00/219a
The Under Secretary of State (Welles) to
President Roosevelt
Washington, October 26, 1937.
My Dear Mr. President: With reference to our
conversation of last Saturday, I submit herewith for your consideration a
draft of a proposal which you may wish to make to other governments covering
the suggestion we had previously discussed.
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I recommend that you adhere to your original idea and invite all of the
diplomatic representatives accredited to Washington to meet with you in the
East Room of the White House on the afternoon of Armistice Day, that you
then read to them a message along the lines suggested in the draft herewith
attached, and that the text of this message be simultaneously communicated
by us by telegraph to each one of our Ambassadors and Ministers abroad for
immediate transmission to the Chief of State to which he is accredited. It
seems to me that Armistice Day is a singularly appropriate day for you to
make announcement of this proposal should you determine to proffer it.
Furthermore, by the time November 11 is reached, the Brussels Conference4 will have been
in session for at least eight days. A proposal of the character suggested
will, I think, definitely strengthen the hands of the powers that are
seeking to avert world anarchy. We have, of course, discussed the idea with
no other government, but I do not see how any other government could refuse
to approve the proposal except perhaps Italy and Japan, and I doubt if the
former under present conditions would wish to place herself in such a
position. The reference in the suggested draft to the probable need for
readjustment of the settlements arrived at after the conclusion of the World
War would, I think, almost inevitably create a favorable reaction on the
part of Germany.
From the standpoint of public opinion at home, I would think that your making
this proposal four days before the opening of the Special Session of the
Congress would put a very definite quietus upon those individuals who have
been deliberately attempting to misinterpret your Chicago speech.
The Secretary of State has gone over the draft and has asked me to let you
know that he considers it “entirely sound”.
Believe me
Faithfully yours,
[Enclosure]
Draft of Proposal for Concerted International Effort
to Reach Common Agreement on the Principles of International Conduct
Necessary to Maintain Peace
At the end of the Great War the common feeling of all peoples was that
they had a right to lasting peace. Countless men and women in all
portions of the earth trusted that with the ending of that catastrophe
there might be brought into being a new epoch of lasting peace between
nations. They have seen that ideal year by year grow more remote. New
generations have reached adult age since that time and
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find themselves in a world surcharged with
anxiety, where governments are frantically rearming, where whole peoples
live in constant fear, and where physical and economic security for the
individual are lacking.
Those standards of conduct between nations which were gradually and
painfully evolved over a period of many centuries, and upon which modern
civilization is in great part founded, would seem to be obsolescent.
Moreover, due to recent scientific discoveries modern warfare has
assumed an aspect more cruel than ever before, and in the employment of
these new inventions war is waged in such fashion as frequently to
involve the destruction of undefended and civilian populations—the
slaughter of women and children—of the aged and the helpless—in utter
contravention of those rules of warfare which earlier international
instruments had laid down.
I have felt warranted in addressing to you this communication because of
my considered belief that unless the nations of the earth strive by
concerted effort to come rapidly to a renewed agreement upon those
fundamental principles which the experience of the past, and the best
judgment of present times, demonstrate as being wise and salutary in the
governing of relations between states, world peace cannot be maintained.
Furthermore, should war once more break out, notwithstanding all efforts
to avert it, and no binding international accord be had prior thereto as
to rules and measures which may mitigate its horrors and especially to
civilian populations, no man can say that another great war would not
destroy all that was salvaged from the last.
For these reasons I lay before you for your consideration the suggestion
that all governments at an early date strive to reach an unanimous
agreement upon the following matters:
- 1.
- The essential and fundamental principles which should be
observed in international relations.
- 2.
- The methods through which all peoples may obtain the right to
have access upon equal and effective terms to raw materials and
other elements necessary for their economic life.
- 3.
- The methods by which international agreements may be
pacifically revised.
- 4.
- In the unhappy event of war, the rights and obligations of
neutrals both on land and at sea, except in so far as in the
case of certain nations they may be determined by existing
international agreements; and the laws and customs of warfare
whose observance neutrals may be entitled to require.
Should it be found, as I hope it may, that the other governments of the
world are favorably disposed to this suggestion, and should they so
desire, the Government of the United States will be prepared to request
a number of other governments to join it immediately in the formulation
of tentative proposals in elaboration of the points above enumerated
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for subsequent submission to
all nations for such disposal as they may in their wisdom determine.
I recognize that however essential it may be for the nations of the earth
to reach a joint accord as to these norms of international conduct, such
agreement alone may not necessarily secure the maintenance of peace. It
is possible that before the foundations of a lasting peace can be
secured, international adjustments of various kinds must be found in
order to remove those inequities which exist by reason of the nature of
certain of the settlements reached at the termination of the Great War.
The traditional policy of freedom from political involvement which the
Government of the United States has maintained and will maintain is well
known. In the determination of political adjustments the Government of
the United States can play no part. But it has seemed to me that every
kind of adjustment, if undertaken, might perhaps be more readily arrived
at if all nations come to a common agreement as to the principles upon
which healthy international relationships should be based.
Today in the greater part of the world, governments and peoples
commemorate the armistice which terminated the Great War. I have deemed
it singularly fitting on this anniversary to proffer this suggestion to
the other governments of the world, and should it be found acceptable,
to pledge the cooperation of the Government of the United States in
seeking the attainment of the objectives sought. The quest of peace
under law and equity is imposed by the deepest instincts of humanity; it
can have no end save in success.
[After further consideration, the plan to present the proposal on
November 11 to the Diplomatic Corps in Washington and to communicate
it simultaneously to foreign Chiefs of State through American
diplomatic representatives abroad was abandoned on the advice of the
Secretary of State; see Memoirs of Cordell
Hull (Macmillan Company, New York, 1948), volume I, pages
546 ff.]
