At The Hague and elsewhere, Germany stood in the way of all arbitral proposals which meant anything, preferring the arbitrament of force; thus the two countries, Imperial Germany and the United States, in a sense might be regarded as the champions of the two systems of force and arbitration for the settlement of differences and their military power has cor responded.
Modern Diplomacy and General Char Other topics with which our diplomacy has had to do might be detailed. Extradition, copyrights and trademarks, free navigation of rivers, Samoan affairs, tariff by treaty, and so on; but these are more conven iently discussed elsewhere. American diplomacy to-day still shrinks from an active part in Euro pean politics. This was explicitly stated to The Hague Conference in 1899. With this in mind it is a question if the United States can properly be called a world power. But in point of fact, our interests and our diplomacy have been more impressed by those of Europe than we may think. Our share in international legislation relating to the care of the wounded, industrial property, the slave trade, submarine cables, ex change of official documents, are examples, and particularly since the Spanish War has this been true. One detects in our recent diplomacy
a more confident tone, a readier initiative, even the air of leadership, coupled with ingenuity of resource and that simplicity and directness of aim which have long been its characteristics. But yet its defects and handicaps must not be lost sight of,— lack of continuity from frequent change in administration and in party, lack of certainty because of the Senate's control of treaties made by the executive, lack of a trained diplomatic service. In reviewing the diplomacy of the United States as a whole, one is im pressed by its blunt straightforwardness (some times amounting to crudity or ill manners), by its usual freedom from intrigue, lastly by its rather surprising successes, owing surely to the soundness of its aims. "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations," wrote Washington in his farewell address, "cultivate peace and harmony with all." Could any diplomacy have had a nobler rule laid down for it? See also