[tyme]

The more I think about the President's declaration as to the right of `self-determination', the more convinced I am of the danger of putting such ideas into the minds of certain races. It is bound to be the basis of impossible demands on the Peace Congress, and create trouble in many lands . . . . The phrase is simply loaded with dynamite. It will raise hopes which can never be realized. It will, I fear, cost thousands of lives. In the end it is bound to be discredited, to be called the dream of an idealist who failed to realize the danger until too late to check those who attempt to put the principle into force. What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered! What misery it will cause! Think of the feelings of the author when he counts the dead who dies because he coined a phrase! A man, who is a leader of public thought, should beware of intemperate or undigested declarations. He is responsible for the consequences.

-Robert Lansing, Wilson's Secretary of State, 1918-12-30
There are so many ways to apply this. WW2 Germany, multiple Middle-East conflicts, Mexico and Aztlan, ...

Does historical evidence suggest Lansing was right?

[Jim March]

Lansing was an idiot and a bigot.

There are certain *cultures* which are too "mentally ill" to run their own affairs very well or more commonly, interact with other nations in a sane fashion.

It doesn't have a danged thing to do with race; Lansing wasn't smart enough to figure that out because in order to do so, you'd have to realize that the *US* has at times experienced "cultural mental illness". In 1876, most US citizens would tell you with a straight face that "the only good Indian was a dead Indian".

Racism itself is a "cultural mental illness" and since Lansing suffered from it, he couldn't see it and substituted "race" for "culture". Him and people like him were a big reason the European fascists were able to get an early head start without interference: since these were "whites", Germany and Italy were presumed to be mostly sane until they proved otherwise in disasterous fashion.

We can maybe make allowances for him, given the period he lived in but really, just a bit of *thinking* on his part might have helped. England has suffered periods of psychotic despotic leadership for over 1,000 years; there was no excuse whatsoever for assuming that bad government was something reserved for what Lansing would term "darkies" :rolleyes:.

[tyme]

So just substitute "ethnicity" or "people" for "race." I think it's clear Lansing, at least in a rather racist quote I found, is not condemning certain countries because of their majority races, but because of their lack of adherence to western political structures and scientific advancement/dependency.

[Jim March]

Wait...you can't say "substitute "ethnicity" or "people" for "race"" because they're all three basically the same thing. CULTURE is something else. As one example, we now in the US have a guy with a contract as a rap "artist" who is genetically Chinese, but clearly "culturally black" in at least some ways :D.

So at this point, I dunno just what it is you're trying to say because you seem to have your terms mixed up?

I'll *assume* for a sec that you're trying to agree with me, and that "culture" (including a trend for a democratic government and "scientific thought") is what you think Lansing either meant, or should have meant.

If so, it may sound simple to "substitute culture for race" as the defining element of a nation's "sanity", but they ARE two different things and it'll make a huge foreign policy difference.

Example: if you think RACE is the defining element as to whether or not you can "work with" another nation in a rational manner, you'll assume Germany is going to be rational where, say, Thailand won't be. And in the 1920s, ye GODS would that ever be a mistake!!!

If you realize that race doesn't have a damned thing to do with it, then if you're Lansing and you come across evidence that Germany's "cultural heath" is taking a turn for the demented, you'll notice faster and be more willing to do something about it. (Basically, Germany should have been dealt with sometime around the early 1930's the way we just popped Saddam and with little more difficulty - it would have saved millions of lives.) But if you're fixated on RACE, whoops...

Let's recall that when Lansing wrote that, it was the PEAK of racism in the US. The KKK reached it's largest membership level in what, 1929 I think? "Birth of a Nation" was a hit movie in...I think 1923, but I could be wrong by a few years. Whatever. Point is, it was pro-KKK propaganda. In California, the testimony of a Chinese person wasn't worth as much as that of a white, so no Chinese person could sue in court, basically. They also couldn't own land or bring their wives over. And that was in *California*, can you even begin to imagine what the South was like?

With all that racism around, when Lansing talked about deficiencies in *race*, I have to believe he meant exactly that and it would lead to massive mistakes in foreign policy.

[tyme]

The original quote was written in Lansing's diary as a direct result of Wilson's 14-point plan positing the right of the people (collectively) to seek self-determination. The issue was WW1, not the potential for an african american uprising in harlem. Sure, Germany was very much irrational. Wilson's point was that all of the peoples Germany had sought to conquer had a right to self determination, and Wilson wanted to ensure they retained that right. Lansing is proposing that acknowledging a right of self-determination for countries like France and Russia will lead to all sorts of other problems. IMO, it's hard to say that it hasn't, though it's impossible to know if the alternative might have been and might be worse.

Wilson did ask for Lansing's resignation the next year. :)

[Jim March]

Well...when *I* look at Lansing's words, I don't see that he's limiting himself to Europe, fragments or Germany or whatever.

Look, we had taken over the Philippines not long prior, ditto Cuba, and...hell, I can't remember if the first Haitian "adventure" had gone down by then and I don't have time to look it up. But Teddy Roosevelt and others had been practicing "gunboat diplomacy" all over Central America prior to WW1. Point is, any discussion of "races able to run their own affairs" would definately have impacted the debates and thinking in all those cases - at a minimum. It could also be read in the broader context of white European domination of Africa, Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

Would chopping Germany up into a buncha little bits have helped? Dunno. Might have just left more bite-sized pieces for Hitler :rolleyes:. Countries DO have the right to "internally divorce", it happened quite peacefully in the case of what was Chechoslovakia(sp?) - it's now the Chechs and Slovaks. Cool, if that's what they want.