We are greeted first by the objection that no treaties can
prevent war. We are not called upon to deny this in order
to justify or vindicate our proposals as useful. We realize
that nations are sometimes utterly immoral in breaking
treaties and shamelessly bold in avowing their right to do so
on the ground of necessity. But this is not always the case.
We cannot give up treaties because sometimes they are
broken any more than we can give up commercial contracts
because men sometimes dishonor themselves by breaking
them. We decline to assume that all nations are always
dishonorable or that a solemn treaty obligation will not have
some deterrent effect upon a nation which has plighted its
faith, to prevent its breach. In every nation there are people
who are in favor of peace and opposed to war, and when you
furnish a treaty that binds the nation not to go to war, you
strengthen the hands of the people in that nation that do
not want to go to war and are in favor of preserving the
honor of the nation. When we add to this the sanction of
an agreement by a number of powerful nations to enforce
the obligation of the recalcitrant and faithless member, we
think we have a treaty that is much more than a "scrap of
paper" -- and we base our faith in this on a common sense
view of human nature.

We have got to depart from the traditional policy of this
country, I agree. But this war has borne in on us the fact
that we are so near to all the nations of the world to-day
that we are vitally interested in keeping war down as far as
we can, and that we had better step forward and assume
certain obligations in the interest of the world and in the
interest of mankind, because there is a utilitarian reason for
it -- we are likely to be drawn in ourselves. Therefore we
ought to depart from the policy of isolation that heretofore

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