by Richard van Pelt, WWI Correspondent

As the attempt to blockade Great Britain continues, the headline in the Oregon Statesman reads:

UNITED STATES NOT TO REPLY TO TWO NOTES
Will Probably Stand on Original Warning to Belligerents

The United States probably will make no reply, for the present at least, to either the British or German notes, regarding, respectively, the use of the American flag on foreign vessels and the dangers to neutral ships in the naval war zone about the British isles, but will stand firmly on its warning against destruction of American lives or vessels.

Continuing to set the Oregon Statesman’s position on neutrality, the editor writes:

GEORGE WASHINGTON ON NEUTRALITY

George Washington didn’t have our advantages, and yet he may have been just as wise as any of us. Maybe he was wiser. Anyhow, here is what he’d say to the American people about their war conduct if he were living today. The phraseology is rather old fashioned, but never mind that; the quaint phrases are full of meat.

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” said Mr. Washington at Mount Vernon last evening, in an exclusive statement to the Associated Press (we might just as well give it any modern touches we can), “the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.

“But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it.

“Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike for another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only in one side and serve to veil, and even second, the arts of influence on the other.

“The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign relations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

“Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none, or a very remote, relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essential foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, in the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

“Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far distant when we may defy material inure from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice, shall counsel.

“Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own ground to stand on foreign ground? Why, by intertwining our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?”

“Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course.” Washington spoke on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. The global economy and the technological changes that were spawned during the intervening twelve decades fundamentally altered the concept of neutrality. The neutrality of which Washington spoke relied upon a nation with a vast internal market. As markets became global and as technology and machinery expanded the reach and the firepower of navies, wars could no longer be fought in their own paradigm. The entangling alliances that brought about The Great War cold now affect neutral nations to a degree Washington could not have foreseen. The editorial continues:

The circumstances in which the father of our now somewhat perturbed country made this statement were surprisingly like those of today. It was the year 1796, at the close of Washington’s second term. France and England were at war, and there had arisen in America a frenzy of partisanship. It was even worse than the partisanship of today. For the present German faction there was then the French faction, composed not of French-Americans but of sympathizers with the French republic. It controlled a strong political party, and was eager to give France substantial aid in return for the help France had given the colonies in their war of independence against Great Britain. Another faction, though smaller, was just as fervid in its sympathy with England. Washington, standing midway between the two in unswerving neutrality, had invited the angry criticism of both. He was particularly condemned for suppressing the operations of “Citizen” Genet, the French minister to the United Staes, who had the audacity to co-operate with Americans in fitting out a privateer at Charleston to prey on British commerce.

It was not until years afterward,when men’s blood had cooled and their judgment had returned, that this advice form General Washington, given in his famous farewell address, was appreciated at anything like its full value.

It is worth even more to the 100,000,000 of us today, torn as we are by strong war sympathies, than it was to the4,000,000 or 5,000,00 Americans who first read it.