or with both, together with certain other countries, in multilateral treaties relating to rights and obligations in the Far East, and in one great multilateral treaty to which practically all the countries of the world are parties.

Entered into by agreement, for the purpose of regulating relations between and among nations, treaties can lawfully be modified or be terminated-but only by processes prescribed or recognized or agreed upon by the parties to them.

In the international associations and relationships of the United States, the American Government seeks to be duly considerate of the rights, the obligations and the legitimate interests of other countries, and it expects on the part of other governments due consideration of the rights, the obligations and the legitimate interests of the United States.

In the opinion of the American people and the American Government, no nation can, without the assent of the other nations concerned, rightfully endeavor to make conclusive its will in situations where there are involved the rights, the obligations and the legitimate interests of other sovereign states.

The American Government has dedicated the United States to the policy of the good neighbor. To the practical application of that policy it will continue, on its own part and in association with other governments, to devote its best efforts."

(2) Report delivery immediately by telegraph.20

(3) Thereafter, we expect to make text public here at our convenience.

Press Releases, vol. X, p. 273

30

HULL

Address Delivered by the Secretary of State at Washington,

May 5, 1934

[Extracts]

There are innumerable demands both new and important which in this crisis rest upon the educational agencies of the Nation. The late war was supposed to have been waged to make the world safe for democracy. It is paradoxical to observe that since the war political systems on which representative or popular government has rested have been toppling over in every part of the world, while dictator20 Message was delivered on April 29.

ships have sprung up overnight in their stead. Nations everywhere are steadily narrowing their vision, their policies, and their program. Each is undertaking more and more to visualize only itself, to live by itself, and to arm conceivably to defend itself against any and all aggressors. Individual cooperation to promote community interests and community welfare is indispensable to human progress. International cooperation to promote understanding, friendship, and vast and varied reciprocal benefits and conditions of peace is equally indispensable to the progress of civilization. These international relationships have been practically abandoned.

Most standards of conduct, both individual and international, have been seriously neglected and impaired. In its chief fundamental respects, civilization since the war has been on the decline. The entire political, economic, social, and moral affairs of most parts of the world are unquestionably in a more or less chaotic condition. They present an unprecedented challenge, especially to the parents, the schools, and the churches.

There are more opportunities for the present young generation than is generally believed. It would be folly, however, for all to fail to recognize that the world is living more in an iron than in the socalled "golden age". The youth may as well realize that they face a world of stress and responsibilities far more difficult and complex than any during recent generations. More of study and of time and of effort will be required of those who lead and plan than is generally imagined. The task must be approached with vision, energy, and resolution, and in many respects with a pioneering and self-sacrificing spirit.

The United States is in a position to render valuable service to the world in the existing exigency. In my judgment, this Nation will continue as in recent months to offer wise, sound, and efficient leadership with suitable programs for political, economic, social, and moral rehabilitation. If in this we should later fail, to whom would our and other countries look to perform this indispensable role? We must revive some of the spirit of hardihood and determination which sustained those who came to this continent, conquered the wilderness, and erected our marvelous free institutions. It becomes all-important to this end that the Nation restore its humanitarian, moral, and spiritual values. I repeat that we are not living amidst conditions where an easy, soft, and flabby existence is possible, as it has seemed at times in the recent past.

Today numerous nations are feverishly arming. They are taxing all of their citizens beyond the limit of ability to pay, and in many

ways developing a military spirit which, regardless of present motives of self-defense, may probably lead to war, unless past human experience is to be reversed. Every Christian nation owes it to itself and to humanity to preach and promote understanding, friendship, and peace.

While there are no signs of immediate war anywhere, it is true that seriously volcanic conditions exist in many parts of the world. Peace stabilization is all-important at this stage. It would be both a blunder and a crime for civilized peoples to fail much longer to take notice of present dangerous tendencies which negative every idea of friendliness and of the spirit of the good neighbor.

Economic structures of most countries have been hopelessly undermined and must be restored under sound methods. The American people in this respect must realize that the World War destroyed hundreds of billions of physical wealth; that following the war the people in every country seemingly became obsessed with the one idea of materialism. To get rich or to secure money by the most direct method, regardless of ethics or law or decency, and to spend it for purposes of luxury, amusement, and pastime, became the all-absorbing passion. The result was the wildest runaway experience in the inflation of credit and securities in all human experience. From a combination of policies and methods, either short-sighted or narrow or selfish, the processes of exchange and distribution broke down, and the general world collapse of 1929 resulted. Conditions more or less chaotic have since characterized nearly all phases of affairs of both individuals and nations. Normal thinking and sane practical acting have been almost the exception rather than the rule. There is still a striking lack of enthusiasm for the restoration of those high standards of morals, of good fellowship, and of friendship which normally prevail and should prevail between both individuals and countries.

Let no one, however, become unduly pessimistic. The civilization. of the present age, in my judgment, is amply capable of meeting the unprecedented challenge which existing conditions offer, and which must be successfully met unless the world is to be threatened with another period of long night-such as the Dark Ages. My appeal, therefore, is for every individual to awaken and come to a realization of the problems and difficulties facing all alike, and of the necessity for real sacrifices of time and service on the part of the individual in aiding his Government to effect a solution. I know we shall succeed in this epochal task, and that the educational institutions of our country can be relied upon to play their full part.

711.94/970-2

31

Memorandum by the Secretary of State Regarding a Conversation With the Japanese Ambassador (Saito)

[Extracts]

[WASHINGTON,] May 16, 1934.

In accordance with his personal request made of me prior to the middle of April for a confidential and purely informal conversation about affairs as they exist between his Government and the Government of the United States, I met the Japanese Ambassador at my apartments in the Carlton Hotel by appointment this morning.

I remarked that we were living in a highly civilized age, and that my country, for example, was exerting every effort as rapidly as possible to condemn, repudiate, and discard any and every practice, policy, or utterance that might be reasonably calculated to give just or reasonable grounds of complaint to any other people or country; that it was our attitude to condemn and abandon just as rapidly as possible a number of practices towards different Latin American countries which had given rise to friction, misunderstanding, and illwill between our country and those affected; that human progress and civilization called for just such reforms and that this was the way my government and my people felt; and that we had no notion of turning back to those irritating and troublebreeding methods which at times my government had applied to different countries in Latin America.

I commented further, at the same time emphasizing that I was only offering this comment in the form of an inquiry which at present did not call for an answer, on the grave crisis in almost every conceivable way through which the world was passing; and remarked that some months ago an American citizen stepped into an aeroplane and sailed away, but that inside of eight days after flying around the world and over Japan, the Ambassador's own country, this same American alighted back at the station in the United States from which he had started; that formerly, and until very recently, England, for example, had felt herself isolated and secure from any ordinary interference with the Channel between her and Western Europe, whereas it was now patent that a fleet of 2000 bombing planes, probably carrying explosives of infinitely more powerful force than any heretofore used, could with perfect ease and convenience fly from many of the capitals of Western Europe to London, blow that city off the map, and return

within a few hours time to their base. I said that twenty years ago no human being with the wildest stretch of imagination could have visualized the smallest part of the amazing changes that had taken place in every part of the world during this period, and that only the Lord could begin to visualize the even more startling changes that might reasonably take place during the next twenty years; that amidst these amazing changes the more highly civilized nations had correspondingly greater responsibilities and duties, both from the standpoint of their own progress and well-being and that of the world, that could not be dodged or evaded; and that no notion need for a moment be entertained that my country, or his, or any other one country, no matter how highly civilized, could securely keep itself above the much lower level of world affairs, leaving them and all of the people of other countries to undergo a steady state of decline and even collapse, without that civilized nation itself being drawn down in the vortex.

I stated that this meant that since there were no two more highly civilized countries than Japan and the United States, their own selfpreservation, as well as their world responsibility, called for the utmost breadth of view and the profoundest statesmanship that their biggest and ablest statesmen could offer; that, faced with these unprecedented problems and conditions, it was all-important that his statesmen and mine should be broad-gauged enough to understand each other's problems and conditions, as well as those of the world, and to have the disposition and the will to deal with them in such capable manner as would avoid misunderstanding or material differences and promote both national and world progress; and that in no other way could countries like Japan and the United States, which were at present the trustees of the greatest civilization in history, make such showing as would give them a creditable place in the future history of the world. I said that, of course, Great Britain and other countries had their wonderful civilization, which I was not even remotely minimizing, but that Great Britain in particular was at present, and would be perhaps for some time to come, deeply engrossed with the serious and dangerous political, economic, and peace problems in Western Europe.

I repeated from time to time that I was only commenting in a general and inquiring way, and the Ambassador indicated his agreement with my utterances without elaborating upon them. I further commented in the way of professed inquiry that in all of these circumstances-together with another important circumstance, which was that Japan with her 65 million people was surrounded by over