First World War Centennial

CHAPTER XXIV

BELLIGERENT AGENTS IN NEUTRAL STATES

THE extraordinary activity of belligerent agents in the United States during these days of stress and strain introduces a new factor into the field of international law. One of the results of a slovenly immigration policy, it must none the less be regarded as a natural sequence of that twentieth-cent­ury restlessness which is driving people over their own boundary lines and into other do­mains. For the present North America is reaping the unhappy results of her acquisi­tiveness. To-morrow it may be the Argentine or Chili, or yet again some new Asiatic state as yet unshaped. The inpouring of a host of immigrants and the joining of hostilities by the countries from which such immigrants

come, are the only requirements. This makes it particularly necessary to think and act wisely with the first stirring of the factors which are startling the United States.

Given a group of foreigners owing alle­giance to a nation that is at war, but them­selves domiciled in a neutral country or living therein as official representatives of their government, and which concocts schemes for the destruction of neutral pos­sessions, whether the same be manufacturing plants, material in the course of construction, or finished product—does the government, which is itself, or whose people are impover­ished thereby, owe any duty to the profiting belligerent or its subjects, whether the same be acting under its orders or upon their own initiative?

It is unthinkable that any obligation should exist in the matter of private per­sons, inasmuch as these are as responsible to municipal regulations as are citizens. As for consuls, ambassadors, and the like, while their precious persons may require cer­tain consideration, they are supposed to stand for the Power they represent, and in offend­ing, offer a direct challenge from those whose servants they are. If any duty exists in this case, it would seem to be a colorless one of using polite phrases and manners while demanding satisfaction; or declaring war in terms sufficiently correct.

With duties thus disposed of the matter of rights may be considered without the embarrassment which comes when there is the uncertainty of a possible obligation. What rights has a neutral government in the premises?

1. The right to insist that the belligerent with which it is at peace, should not only abstain from interference with a friendly Power's internal concerns, but should—

(a) rigorously handle diplomatic repre­sentatives who volunteer the sort of destruc­tive service which may at any moment offer a casus belli;

(b) use its good offices in discouraging its subjects resident in neutral territory from the performance of such reprehensible practices.

2. The right to handle alien malefactors already amenable to her municipal law, with special severity, as open to a charge which criminals, who are citizens of the neutral state, are not suspected of, viz.: levying war upon the aggrieved sovereignty, and there­fore guilty of a felony which is akin to piracy.

In this connection the report that the Attorney-General of the United States, in­stead of acting in the face of repeated out­rages of belligerent origin, is content to search for proper legal authorization along the line of the Sherman Act which will justify him in dealing effectively with an extraordinary situation, should have been received cum grano salis, and has been already discredited.

Meantime it will not be sufficient for this nation or any nation to attempt to deal with this product of loose immigration laws by the sort of regulative enactments which national legislatures pass to prevent the growth of domestic abuses.

For this outgrowth of twentieth-century conditions is treason or war—treason when exploited by citizens of a double allegiance, and war of a most terrible sort when demon­strated by those members of the alien popu­lation of a country who take upon themselves destructive measures.

Up to the present time the United States appears to have been fairly complacent re­garding its rights in this matter. It can­not long continue so, because, ingenuous as are its public men in their belief that some favoring divinity will shield it from the debacles and tragedies that affect other states, belligerents are bound to appreciate the fact that a blow at its industries is the easiest approach to the vitals of the enemy.

With an increase in their activities there should come an arousing from slumber, and self-queries as to whether the nation, which has formally proclaimed itself a neutral, is not really getting the sort of blows which bellig­erents interchange without the privileges of belligerency. Then perhaps the nation will stir, and do that which will prove a useful precedent for all sovereignties.

If it does not, and other people are satisfied to follow its spineless policy, the civilized world will accelerate its pace toward a dark age, losing all that has been so hardly won by the same supineness which Demosthenes found in the enervated and decadent Athen­ians.

To man and nation self-respect is essential for existence, progress, achievement! As a consequence no principle of international law has been more emphatically affirmed as basic and essential. Without it there could be no sovereignty—no national integrity—no insistence upon that sort of obedience to the law of the community which originally produced coherence, and dignifies the man­dates of states.

Every force follows the line of least resist­ance. It is much easier for a belligerent to work through thousands of emissaries in countries whose factories are turning out the munitions and war supplies which arm, feed, and clothe their enemy, than to battle with the same enemy after it is made terrible by the purchase of these commodities. Therefore the American people in perfect pro­portion to their commercial and industrial activity can assume that the war now waging in Europe will be transferred within their own borders if they permit matters to drift, and this too while the offending Power or Powers are elaborating diplomatic notes which pro­test friendship and amity.

For a country situated as is the United States (and the latter is chosen as an example for all neutrals whose industries are similar), there are two courses either of which it may follow as a result of such internal attacks as are above referred to, if it does not care to declare public war, a step which might easily be justified if foreign governments were shown to be responsible for the injuries suffered. One—to inanely fuss and fume over the periodi­cal destruction of factory and storehouse with their contents—the other—to visit such terrible punishment upon the individuals who have dared to make private war upon it as will lead them to think twice before placing themselves outside the pale of organized society.

If the two paths thus suggested lead far apart, it only emphasizes the necessity of a correct choice. It is therefore to be greatly regretted that many pacificists mistake in­action and temporizing as more desirable than a swift calling to account, and thus im­peril the neutrality of their country by the same counsels with which they make ultimate and continuing peace impracticable.

The surest means toward the achievement of world peace and national peace is the maintenance of neutrality and the populariz­ing among other peoples of those principles which neutrals are bound to see recognized as a matter of self-interest. But if there is any one thing which statesmen and philo­sophers are agreed upon it is the quite self-evident proposition that neutrality must be effective, assertive, and ready to fight if it is to have any recognition by belligerents. It is therefore incumbent upon advocates of peace to heartily indorse a vigorous neutral policy, if they wish to see the working out of ends they have at heart.

Let us suppose that the sometime upholders of a policy of non-resistance see this, and with­draw opposition to the sort of rough handling of malefactors that a strong government will naturally adopt, or that the majority of the people are determined in spite of the cavillings of a minority to stop the destruction of their industrial machinery and its products. What can they do?

1. Publish and distribute broadcast so that he who runs may read such statutes and adjudications as form part of the body of state law and justify legal action by the Department of Justice, and such Executive proclamations and manifestoes as have been called forth by the default of both citizens and resident aliens;

2. Proceed against malefactors who owe allegiance to the Government with or without the warning above suggested, and with abso­lute disregard for the fact that such persons were born under a different flag, and may have higher, if mistaken, motives, than those of the ordinary criminal whose regard for himself generally outweighs his loyalty to any sovereignty.

If the act committed is plainly treason or misprision of treason, every neutral nation will be found to be provided with ample machinery to handle the situation. If not, the developments of the present European war, following hard upon the re-distribution of the peoples of the earth by immigration, will have the effect of stimulating such self-preservative legislation as has been neg­lected heretofore, and make good any existing deficiency.

If the act be one that lacks the stronger features of the least excusable of all crimes, but is still deserving of punishment, no government, if not already armed with suit­able authority, can well defer providing such statutory enactment as will meet the condi­tions. This was well understood by the Congress of the United States in 1799 when, with less occasion for action, it passed the following law adapted to the requirements of that hour:

"Sect. 5335—Every citizen of the United States," etc., "who without the permission or authority of the Government directly or indirectly commences or carries on any verbal or written correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof," etc., "in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the Govern­ment of the United States and every person being a citizen of or resident within the United States and not duly authorized who counsels, advises or assists in any such corre­spondence," "shall be punished," etc.

1799 was the year of George Washington's death. Since that period the world has evolved a thousand new problems for the United States, but none greater than that which has to do with the maintenance of neutrality at times when a large part of its population because of their foreign birth are greatly interested in the success of one or another of the countries at war.

If the nation needed a statute of the char­acter indicated more than one hundred years ago, it requires something far more compre­hensive to-day.

It is a curious fact that this and other similar laws, which appear in the Compiled Statutes of the United States were aimed at Tories or disloyal Copperheads, while the sort of legislation now demanded is required to meet the plots of the same sort of recreants, as those with whom former generations dealt but who pose to-day under the name of hyphenated Americans.

While the principal feature making the above classes akin is disloyalty—the object sought by the culprits at present is notably different from that which was aimed at in past periods and is significant. Aforetime it was the endeavor of these malcontents to sap the belligerent strength of the government. To-day the effort is aimed at its neutrality, and a suitable maintenance of correct rela­tions with belligerents.

Nothing can more clearly illustrate the point which has been made in earlier chapters, that neutrality is far from being synonymous with any status that suggests weakness or debility. A neutrality that does not conno­tate preparedness and virility is not only use­less, as far as the maintenance of peaceful relations is concerned, but is frequently more dangerous than frank belligerency.

3. Besides providing for ample notification and requiring obedience from its own people, a sovereign state which intends to make its neutrality respected must in the third place frankly and fearlessly address itself to the labor of holding in check the alien residents in its borders who show an inclination to con­spire against its interests.

The task should not be as difficult as many imagine. While the foreigner to be dealt with may at first appear to be better char­acterized by the Latin word inimicus, which denoted a private enemy, than by the word hostis or public enemy, and therefore not within the reach of statutory enactments which provide for the expulsion and regula­tion of the subjects of a state with whom the aggrieved nation is at war, adjudications and statements by learned authorities are not lacking which indicate that the citizens of a country which is making preparation for war or threatening hostilities, may be treated as if war were already declared. This is set out in Section 4067 of the Compiled Statutes of the United States, which, besides giving the President wide powers, recites:

Where "there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign government or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpet­rated, attempted or threatened against the ter­ritory of the United States by any foreign" government, "and the President makes public proclamation of the event," "all subjects," etc., "of the hostile nation," etc., "in the United States shall be liable to be "appre­hended, restrained, secured and removed as alien enemies."

Five years ago the interpretation of such a statute would have been different than that which should be given it to-day. Then the world clung to standards that had been gradually evolved as the nations, after shaking off the cloak of barbarism, worked out a system of relations based on good faith. To the minds of the epoch preceding the great war that is now impoverishing the world—"preparations for commencing hostilities or invasion," meant acts that were in the open and unmistakable. Charges and counter-charges since August, 1914, and evidence that cannot be shaken of secret plans worked out in our country for the extinction or demoralization of other sovereign states have shown the danger of relying upon such an understanding.

The moment that a government is satisfied by the reports of its agents that plans are under way for its undoing it should consider itself as at liberty to act.