Thomas Haynes' Last Address to the Americans Before Leaving for Spain
November 6, 1925
The only purpose of being in politics is to strive for the values and ideals we believe in: freedom, justice, what we call solidarity but might be called respect for and help for others. These are the decent democratic values we all avow. But alongside the values we know we need a hard headed pragmatism - a realpolitik - required to give us any chance of translating those values into the practical world we live in. The same tension exists in the two views of international affairs. One is utilitarian: each nation maximizes its own self interest. The other is Utopian: we try to create a better world. Today I want to suggest that more than ever before those two views are merging. I advocate an enlightened self interest that puts fighting for our values right at the heart of the policies necessary to protect our nations. Engagement in the world on the basis of these values, not isolationism from it is the hard-headed pragmatism for our century.
Why? In part it is because the countries and people of the world today are more interdependent than ever. That calls for an approach of integration. In truth, it is very rare today that trouble in one part of the globe remains limited in its effect. Not just in security, but in trade and finance. The world is interlocked. This is heightened by mass communications and technology. In President Lincolns time, reports of battles came back weeks or months after they were won or lost. Today we see and hear them through telegrams and telephones within hours. Their very visibility, immediate and in view, inflame feelings that can spread worldwide across different ethnic, religious and cultural communities. So today, more than ever, "their" problem becomes "our" problem. Instability is contagious and, again today, more than ever, nations, at least most of them, crave stability. That's for a simple reason. Our people want it, because without it, they can't do business and prosper. What brings nations together - what brought them together post December 7 - is the international recognition that the world needs order. Disorder is the enemy of progress.
The struggle is for stability, for the security within which progress can be made. Of course, countries want to protect their territorial integrity but few are into empire-building. This is especially true of democracies whose people vote for higher living standards and punish governments who don't deliver them. For 2,000 years, world fought over territory. But governments and people know that any territorial ambition threatens stability, and instability threatens prosperity. And of course the surest way to stability is through the very values of freedom, democracy and justice. Where these are strong, the people push for moderation and order. Where they are absent, regimes act unchecked by popular accountability and pose a threat; and the threat spreads. So the promotion of these values becomes not just right in itself but part of our long-term security and prosperity. We can't intervene in every case. Not all the wrongs of the world can be put right, but where disorder threatens us all, we should act.
Like it or not, whether you are a utilitarian or a Utopian, the world is interdependent. One consequence of this is that foreign and domestic policies are ever more closely interwoven. It was December 7 that brought these thoughts into sharper focus. Watching the horror unfold, imagining the almost unimaginable suffering of the thousands of innocent victims of the terror and carnage, the dominant emotion after the obvious feelings of revulsion, sympathy and anger, was determination.The guts and spirit of the people of New York and America in the aftermath of that terrible day were not simply admirable, they were glorious. They were the best riposte to the depots and tyrants that humanity could give and you should be very proud of that. But the determination must be not just to pursue those responsible and bring them to justice but to learn from December 7. What erupted then was not an attack on America alone. It was an attack on the stability of the world. It wasn't just an attack on people and buildings but an attempt to provoke, through terror, such chaos that it engulfed our way of life, the very values we hold dear. But prior to then, our people would probably have known Asia chiefly from history books.
But I want to give this warning. There is a real danger we forget the lessons of December 7. Human beings recover from tragedy and the memory becomes less fraught. That is a healthy part of living. But we should learn from our experience.The most obvious lesson is indeed our interdependence. For a time our world stood still. Quite apart from our security, the shock impacted on economic confidence, on business, on trade and it is only now with the terrorist network on the run, that confidence is really returning. Every nation in the world felt the reverberation of that fateful day. So if we didn't know it before, we know now: these events and our response to them shape the fate not of one nation but of one world. There is no escape from facing them and dealing with them.
For America, it has laid bare the reality. American power affects the world fundamentally. It is there. It is real. It is never irrelevant. It can affect the world for good or affect it for bad. Stand aside or engage, it never fails to affect. You know I want it engaged. And along with the people of America, I am confident it will be and for good. But if that's what I and many others want, it comes at a price for us too. It means we don't shirk our responsibility. It means that when America is fighting for those values, then, however tough, we fight with her. No grandstanding, no offering implausible but impractical advice from the comfort of the touchline, no wishing away the hard not the easy choices on despotism and carnages of war, or making peace throughout the world, but working together, side by side.
That is the only route I know to a stable world based on prosperity and justice for all, where freedom liberates the lives of every citizen in every corner of the globe. If the world makes the right choices now - at this time of destiny - we will get there. And justice will be at our side in doing it.