BY WALTER LIPPMANN THE POEMS OF PAUL MARIETT Edited with an Introduction A PREFACE TO POLITICS DRIFT AND MASTERY THE STAKES OF DIPLOMACY THE POLITICAL SCENE An Essay on the Victory of 1918 BY WALTER LIPPMANN NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1919 A ^f* Copyright, 1919 BY THE REPUBLIC PUBLISHING COMPANY. Inc. Copyright, 1919 BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY apr ; ©CU515296 DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF WILLARD DICKERMAN STRAIGHT f CONTENTS PAGE Introduction .; ix CHAPTER I. The Task at Paris .... 3 II. Peace as of January, 1918 . . n III. Absolute Victory .... 19 IV. " The Natural Master of the House" 29 V. The Covenant 35 VI. A World Pool 40 VII. Alternatives 46 TIL Amendments 54 IX. Bolshevism 66 X. The Test 80 Appendix I : The World Conflict in its Rela- tion to American Democracy . . 83 Appendix II: Text of the Proposed Consti- tution of the League of Nations . 104 INTRODUCTION ONE evening last December I was talking with an Italian scholar who had come to Paris for his government. The news that day was bad: outbreaks on the Dalmatian coast, quarrels between the Czechs and Poles, the British elections at the bottom of their deepest depression, and inspiration raging in the French press. He shook his head sympathetically : " This is our old Europe, and you Americans must not be surprised. We have had our American phase, but that is over now that the war is finished. We have been through a frightful illness, and thought we were going to die. Our minds turned in those days to higher things, and along came the Americans with a perfect bedside man- ner, entrancing self-confidence, the strength of youth, and a gospel of the simple life. We made good resolutions as sick poets do. We swore that if we got well this time, we would stay well. You know — no more city life, but the country, a cow, rise at dawn, to bed early, exercise, fear ix x Introduction God, and listen to Woodrow Wilson. It was sincere at the time. Then Europe recovered. It put off going to the country. It paid a visit to the old haunts, met the old cronies, and felt most awfully bored with the everlasting morality of the Fourteen Commandments. A little of that goes a long way." In the essay which follows I have tried to in- dicate some of the reasons why my friend was wrong, and why, if Europe is to reconstruct it- self in the face of the international revolution, the democracies of the West must devote them- selves unreservedly to the making of a coopera- tive peace. For a new Europe will emerge from this war. That much is certain, and the only question is whether it will be organized at Paris or disorganized from Moscow. Three great influences are at work in the world which may briefly be described as the Re- action, the Reconstruction, and the Revolution. From them the political scene is engendered. Behind the Reaction are those who believe that hostile rivalry and recurrent wars are permanent European institutions, and that the object of a treaty of peace is to secure as many advantages Introduction XI for yourself and your friends and put as many handicaps on your enemies and rivals as the traffic will bear. Thus you prepare yourself for the competitions and the wars which are certain to ensue. Anything else is what a French royalist paper has called "vertiginous ideal- ism," or what an insubordinate American military politician has described as " verbal massage." The Revolution is equally convinced that any- thing else is highfalutin nonsense. Lenin and his followers in all countries say quite frankly that liberalism is dying and should be extermi- nated, that the " idealogy " of the Wilsons merely confuses and blurs the issue which is about to be fought out between the old order resting on vio- lence and the new order created by violence. Lenin has no doubts that if ever the choice is narrowed so that the masses must choose be- tween him and the reaction, his own victory is assured. He is quite right. Men will prefer a violent hope to a terrible despair. The old order which so many of the states- men at Paris are trying so earnestly to maintain is utterly incapable of creating the security, the xii Introduction well-being and that temper of reconciliation which alone can avert a universal revolution. There is one chance, and a somewhat slim one, that the purposes which Wilson has voiced can, if honestly applied, open an orderly road to re- vival and freedom. I call it a slim chance, be- cause moral fervor can easily lose itself in a world where needs are stark and scruples few. Many who have supported Mr. Wilson and still support him in all loyalty, know that his ideas have never had the precision and downrightness which characterizes both the Reaction and the Revolution. Those who have said " We demand this territory " have known just exactly what they wanted, as have those who say " We de- mand the complete overthrow of existing gov- ernments." But the Wilson movement is an ef- fort to temper the policies of existing govern- ments in order to justify their existence. That is an immensely difficult thing to do, requiring the most persistent education, and the shrewdest use of opportunities. One thinks then of the Committee on Public Information and the Am- erican diplomatic service abroad, and of the in- numerable occasions when responsible American Introduction xii officials in Europe derived their notions of Am- erican official policy by reading the morning newspapers. I think especially of the discom- forting remark made to me by the diplomatic agent of one of the smaller nations shortly be- fore the President arrived in Paris: "If he knows exactly what he wants, he can get it. Does he know? He has an ideal; but has he a program ? " This much is certain. From the day of Am- erica's entrance into the war to the day of the armistice, the chance to lead Europe to a liberal reconstruction was completely in the hands of the President. With the end of the war, as my Italian friend remarked, this chance diminished, and the winter in Paris has been spent wran- gling over points that could have been settled with marvelous ease at any time during the course of the war. But only those who feed on prejudice, and those who wish to see failure at Paris, can do anything now but pray anxiously that they will still be settled, and that the peace which emerges from the secrecy of Paris will represent the faith that has been proclaimed to all the world. xiv Introduction For permission to reprint the text which fol- lows I am indebted to the New Republic, where it first appeared. An address delivered before the American Academy of Political Science in April, 191 7, is included in the Appendix. W. L. New York City, March 23, 1919. THE POLITICAL SCENE THE TASK AT PARIS IT looks as if a large number of Americans were thoroughly frightened at what a world war can do to the world. Curiously enough this state of fear seems to exist among those who not only were heart and soul for the war them- selves, but were convinced that they were a little more heart and soul for it than anyone else. They expected better of this war, and they are really rather disappointed at the way things are working themselves out. They had anticipated, that once the Hun was licked, the world would automatically return, if not to righteousness, at least to something rather like what it enjoyed in the days when the Kaiser was still flattering mil- lionaires and professors. Instead they discover Mr. Wilson engaged in making a peace that to them passeth all understanding; instead of the comfort of having won and letting the other fel- low worry, it seems to be the victors who have to 3 The Political Scene perform the extremely complicated and unmis- takably dangerous task of setting the earth to rights. The old idea that to the victor belong the spoils, has turned into the victor's duty of listening to everybody's troubles. Not only that. His duties do not end with listening, but do actually involve a mass of responsibility for the future of which it is fair to say most Amer- icans had no notion when they entered the war. They did not suppose that so many things would be irrevocably changed. " War measures " — the vast interruptions necessary to the fight, they endured without murmuring, but now they would like to resume. It becomes clearer every day that the war was not an interruption which will end with the end of the war. For the plain fact is that in- ternational relations as they existed in 19 14 were almost completely determined by the military imperialisms of which Prussia was the chief. And until we master the fact that the empires of Hohenzollern, Hapsburg, Sultan and Czar were the foundations of law and order in Europe before 19 14, we shall not understand either the meaning of their destruction, or the conse- The Task at Paris quences of our own victories. They were the basis of " peace," such as it was, and of normal conditions, as men suffered them. Only Amer- ica seemed to lie outside the orbit of their in- fluence, and this proved in the end to be a de- lusion. The ambitions, intrigues, necessities, and tyrannies of those empires were the point of reference for all the world. They set the pace in armaments. Those towering systems of power necessitated the building of another sys- tem of power to balance them. The character of the competition they created in the backward por- tions of the globe stimulated an imitative com- petition. It did not matter who liked their game or hated it. They made the game, and reluc- tantly or otherwise the game was played. From Prussian Germany came the example of how to modernize and make a success of ideas at which this generation was inclined to jeer. She was not the first of the imperial depotisms, nor altogether unique either in manners or morals. Where her peculiar danger lay was that in all the others there had arisen controlling popular forces, or, as in Russia, the administration of tyranny was collapsing through sheer incompe- The Political Scene tence. But Prussia was competent, and because of that competence she threatened to erect a dazzling modern triumph out of ideas which lingered only fitfully in the dusty corners of stale chancelleries. She came uncomfortably close not only to making her will the law of three con- tinents, but to making her ideas the pattern of conventional human thought. She almost dem- onstrated how tyranny could be made success- ful and on a world-wide scale. Her downfall brought down with it the hopes of those feebler empires which existed as com- petitors or vassals or imitators, and made a mockery of those empires which existed in the dreams and propaganda of hopeful jingoes. " Europe," as it presented itself to the old-school diplomat, is gone. The continent is still there, most of the population is still there, to be sure, but Europe as a diplomatic system is hopelessly gone. Its organization tf rom the Rhine to the Pacific, from the North Sea to the Moslem world is broken, and all the subsidiary organizations which leaned upon it, and against it, are sus- pended on nothing. Only small groups of far- seeing men have comprehended even partially The Task at Paris that this is what the " victoire integrate " would mean; that victory would compel us to make a new framework for human society. It is no wonder, then, that many elder statesmen, edu- cated in that ruined order, should still act for the ideas which belonged to it, that Baron Sonnino should behave like a diplomat of the Triplice, or M. Pasic should be puzzled by the younger Serbs, that M. Pichon should have forgotten nothing but a little of what democratic France has professed. The meaning of complete victory was cer- tainly not known to those statesmen who wrote the secret treaties and memoranda which passed between the Allies in 1915 and 1916. To be sure, the execution of what they claimed would have required clear victory over the Central Powers. But although the victory was to be de- cisive, it was somehow to change nothing very radically. These documents belonged in spirit to a world in which Prussia was temporarily de- feated, but in which Prussianism survived as the pacemaker of Europe. Moreover, they presup- posed an easy victory — a victory which did not wrack every nation to its depths, and call forth 8 The Political Scene the suppressed energies of revolution. They were written under the double illusion that the Europe of Sazanov, Sonnino, the Quai d'Orsay and the Morning Post was strong enough to de- feat the German Empire — and that having defeated her, Europe could carry on as before. Events proved that Prussia could not be re- placed by paler reflections of herself. For in de- stroying her, it was necessary to awaken dor- mant peoples and submerged classes and the western hemisphere. Why anyone should suppose that it was pos- sible to tear down the authority which ruled in central and eastern Europe without producing disorder, it is difficult to understand. We have torn down authority. We have willed to tear it down. It was a vile authority, but it was the existing authority in law and in fact. We sent two million men to France with orders to tear it down, to crush it beyond hope of resurrection. And when you tear down, you have torn down. We started to destroy a supremely evil thing and it is destroyed. The result of destroying it is destruction, and what is left are fragments, and possibilities, the stirrings of new life long The Task at Paris suppressed, old hopes released, old wrongs being avenged, and endless agitation. It is chaos by every standard of our thinking, wild and danger- ous, perhaps infectious, and thoroughly uncom- fortable. But we cannot, having deliberately torn a central part of the world order to pieces, leave the wreckage in a panic and whimper that it is dreadful. Nor can we cure it, or save our- selves, by calling everybody who examines it dispassionately some idiotic name like pro-Ger- man and Bolshevik. It calls for imagination to picture just what has happened to Europe and the world by the disappearance of its imperial organizations. We find ourselves in a world where four of the eight or nine centers of decisive authority have collapsed; where hundreds of millions of people have been wrenched from their ancient altars of obedience; where the necessities of bare exist- ence are scarce, and precariously obtained. These people have lost homes, children, fathers. They are full of rumor and fear, and subject to every gust of agitation. Their leaders are untried, their lands undefined, their class interests and property in a jumble, they cannot see ahead three IO The Political Scene weeks with assurance. It was inevitable that it should be so, once the decision was taken to destroy autocracy to its foundations. For Prus- sian Germany was the last strong source of authority in Eastern Europe, and the only bul- wark of absolutism to which the old order could turn for help. II PEACE AS OF JANUARY, 1918 IN the winter of 1917-18 there were men in all countries who saw this, and urged a com- promise with the Prussian state. It is no secret now that a combination of conservatism and war-weariness nearly brought the conflict to an indecisive end some time be- tween June, 19 1 7, and March, 19 18. The sum- mer months had been a time of deep depression in France after the military failure of the spring. In July the German Reichstag passed its famous " Majority Resolution " ; in early August the Pope made his appeal; everywhere Stockholm was debated. Kerensky's failure was already apparent, and although Pershing was in France, he was a general without an army. Caporetto was followed swiftly by Byng's failure at Cam- brai and by the Bolshevist revolution. There was no longer an eastern front. The Italian front seemed to be a liability; Saloniki was re- 11 12 The Political Scene garded cynically as a great Allied internment camp. Within the Central Powers there were undoubted signs of popular revolt, which called forth a certain feeble response from the Em- peror Charles and Count Czernin. By Christmas the yearning for peace had risen high in all countries, and the opening of the parleys at Brest-Litovsk stirred men deeply. Beneath the surface the efforts at peace were continual : General Smuts had gone to meet Count Mensdorff in Switzerland; Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Milner were inclined to abandon Russia, and Lord Lansdowne had definitely announced that if " civilization " — i.e. the old European order, was to be maintained, an imme- diate peace was necessary. All the while Luden- dorff was moving divisions to the western front. The ten weeks from December first to mid- February were the time of supreme decision. They saw the final attempt to save the old system and avert European revolution. Three figures dominated : Ludendorff, Clemen- ceau and Wilson. The choice lay between a peace which yielded to Germany the organization of the East and a frightful military gamble on the Peace as of January, IQl8 13 western front, the issue of which no man could foresee. Clemenceau forced the issue, and be- cause he succeeded he will belong to the assembly of great men. Wilson's position was more com- plicated. He never for an instant yielded to the suggestion of an unclean peace at the expense of Russia, but he had been affected by the reports of feeling in England, by the spectacle of the early days at Brest-Litovsk, he had by December acquired interest in the Reichstag Resolution of July; and he had a certain lingering hope in Czernin. He did not intend to yield to Prussia, but he did undoubtedly see that unless the Allied cause were morally unified by diplomacy, the combined peace and military offensives from Ber- lin and Vienna might disintegrate the Allied peoples. More than that, he too was willing to gamble. Ludendorff and Clemenceau were set for a death struggle in which all might be lost. He determined to try the diplomatic adventure of offering a separate peace to Austria. It was for this setting that the Congressional Addresses of December fourth and January eighth were prepared. The invitation to Czernin was plain : 14 The Political Scene " We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do not wish in any way to impair or to rear- range the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is no affair of ours what they do with their own life, either industrially or politically." Early in January Mr. Lloyd George spoke in the same vein, thus abandoning for the moment the clear purpose of the Allied reply to the Presi- dent a year previous. Mr. Wilson followed with the address of January eighth in which he offered to negotiate with representatives of the Reichstag majority on the basis of the Fourteen Points. It was as events showed a summons to the dead, for the majority had disappeared by that time, and the abortive strikes of early January had made Ludendorff military dictator of Germany. It is a very significant fact that the project of a League of Nations is merely the Fourteenth of the articles, and is treated as a kind of seal upon the peace when made. Clearly Mr. Wilson had not yet arrived at the conclusion that the League is a means of making peace as well as a guaran- tee when peace has been made. The reason is that the Fourteen Points were conceived as a just settlement in a world not radically different Peace as of January, IQl8 15 in structure from that out of which the war had arisen. This was the only kind of peace possible in January, 1918. At bottom it would have been an Agreement of the Powers, and nothing more. But the peace which has actually to be initiated in Paris to-day is the result of the 1918 campaign. The Fourteen Points were written before that campaign was fought, and that campaign in its military, diplomatic, and social phases was the most penetrating conflict in modern history. Its conclusion was radical, and out of it nothing less could result than the necessity of creating a new framework for international society. The decision to fight that campaign meant that the world had burned its bridges. They were not burned in the Fourteen Points. The sharpest proof of this is to be found in Article II, which reads: "Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforce- ment of international covenants. 3 ' This article opens with an attempt to safe- guard the rights of neutrals. That much of it 1 6 The Political Scene supposes a world not controlled by a League of Nations. But the portion beginning " except as the seas may be closed " foreshadows Article XVI of the constitution drafted at Paris w r here the boycott is provided as a sanction. As the propo- sition stood on January eighth it seems to imply united and occasional action by the League. Above all it recognized war as a normal institu- tion. In the document from Paris the League's action is virtually complete. I venture this criticism simply because it illus- trates a truth of special importance to us at this moment: that the war became revolutionary (in the exact sense of the word) only as a result of the 19 1 8 campaign; that previously statesmen saw the League of Nations as a useful annex to the structure of peace; that after 19 18 it became the central framework of the structure. Early last winter the best that leading states- men planned was a balance of claims, an adjust- ment of a few outstanding grievances, and the acceptance of a number of general principles resting upon nothing more than common agree- ment. That is why the territorial sections of Mr. Wilson's program are in so far as they affect Peace as of January, IQl8 17 the Great Powers chiefly self-denying ordinances. The reference to Alsace-Lorraine is carefully phrased so as to exclude the annexation of the Saar basin, for it is the wrong of 1871 and not the wrong of 181 5 which is to be righted. Italy's portion conspicuously ignores strategic consider- ations; the Russian section avoids mention of the border nations, and except for the establishment of Poland, assumes a reconstitution of the former boundaries of the Empire. Serbia is promised the outlet so long denied her, but Jugo-Slavia is not mentioned because the Austro-Hungarian Empire's integrity is presupposed. Rumania retains her old boundaries vis-a-vis Hungary. The Czecho-Slovaks do not appear at all. The dismemberment of Turkey is not specified, and the only new state definitely demanded is Poland. Here the phrase " indisputably Polish popula- tions " expressly precludes those geographical fantasies which reach into Lithuanian and Ukrainian territory. Finally the Fourteen Points do not deal with the mechanism of economic life which the short- age of ships, food and materials compelled the Allies to organize in 19 18. That mechanism 1 8 The Political Scene barely existed when the Points were formulated. Its bearing upon the whole peace was not under- stood then except by a few far-sighted men like Mr. Dwight Morrow and Mr. George Rublee. Its bearing is not adequately realized today, as the constitution of the League indicates. Mr. Wilson's ideal, then as now, both in international and in domestic affairs was that New Freedom which is the Old Manchester. But even the fight- ing edge of that ideal — " the removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers " has been blunted by the discovery that not much removal is possible. The practice of international cooperation in trade advanced extraordinarily in 1918. But the political appreciation of it lags behind, and we approach the modern period with a new politics and an unrevised industrialism. Not all of our thinking is as swift as events. Ill ABSOLUTE VICTORY REFORM, not reconstruction, was the in- tention a little over a year ago. But Germany under Ludendorrr* had no such tame ambition. Facing towards the East she assessed the materials of empire from Finland to Turkestan. Instead of the comparatively modest project of Hamburg to Bagdad she toyed with a bewildering choice of routes and markets and materials and jobs across the Ukraine to the Caucasus. Such a jig-saw puzzle of thrones and concessions never delighted the mind of the craziest diplomat. The only diffi- culty was that the Allies on the west had hold of Germany's coat tails. To shake them off Luden- dorfl determined to strike in Picardy for the Empire of the East. His margin of reserves and materials was too small; a superiority of a little over 300,000 bayonets was not enough to complete the break 19 20 The Political Scene through. But it was enough to frighten the Allies into unity, and bring America enormously to France. By June fifteenth, in spite of the de- feat in Champagne, Foch commanded more light- ing men than Ludendorff, and the superiority was steadily growing. The German government undoubtedly knew the figures, and a little over a week later Kuhlmann made his extraordinary speech renouncing military victory while the German army was bombarding Paris. The aggressive faction in Allied circles had guessed a German weakness from the diminished inten- sity of the June battles west of Soissons, and so a counter-offensive was planned. It was even believed at the end of June, and so prophesied, that the German collapse might occur by the end of September. Three objectives were laid down — the reduction of the salients at Montdidier, the Marne, and St. Mihiel. Then through ex- cellent intelligence work on the part of the French, the German attack of mid-July was completely foreseen, and brilliantly smashed by General Gouraud's army. The Allied offen- sive opened immediately, with extraordinary results. Absolute Victory 21 Concurrently, the diplomacy of the Allies was being rearranged on the axiom of a complete victory. The references to Austria-Hungary made by Mr. Lloyd George and the President during the winter had depressed the groups working for the " victoire integrate." These groups had always been as radically anti-Haps- burg as they were anti-Hohenzollern. Their organ was The New Europe, and they made it the one most indispensable periodical in the English-speaking world. Its contributors were gathered from all parts of Europe, and many of them were themselves leaders in the work by which Allied and American diplomacy was turned during 19 18 from the policy of compromise with Austria to that of dismemberment. Masaryk, Benes, Trumbic, Steed, Seton- Watson and others led the way with a skill, an expert knowledge, and a vision which made the rest of us their pupils and their debtors. Their task was to form a working partnership between the nationalist forces of Central Europe and the Allied cause, to disrupt middle Europe from within while the German army was held and finally beaten in France. They realized 22 The Political Scene before most of us that the apparent strength of Prussian Germany had the fatal weakness of reposing upon the subjugation of smaller peoples through the alliance with German Austria and the Magyar oligarchy. They knew that the destruction of absolutism meant the break up of that military and bureaucratic alliance through which these nations were held down. And they knew equally well that once this power was wrecked it would be necessary to rebuild the whole diplomatic structure of Europe. In 19 1 8 they set about wrecking it. Once the decision was taken to fight the war to a conclu- sion many men came to their assistance who were not primarily interested in the freeing of the nations. Thus they were able gradually to convince the statesmen of the West that the encouragement of rebellion would be an impor- tant military factor in the final result. But before an alliance with these nations could actu- ally be realized a formidable series of diplomatic obstacles had to be overcome. The full story of the manceuvers by which this was partially achieved in 19 18 is an intricate tale, and all the facts are as yet unrevealed. Absolute Victory 23 But the main outlines are known and can be told : Two nationalities had strategic importance — the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs, both because of their geographical position, their in- ternal strength, and the definiteness of their aspirations. The Czecho-Slovaks were known to be one of the best educated and most trustworthy peoples in the world — politically as mature as any nation on the continent. They had, moreover, a most important advantage over the Jugo-Slavs; their territory did not touch Allied territory at any point, and there was no Allied group of any significance interested in thwarting them. The case of the Jugo-Slavs was complicated by their territorial conflict with Italy, and by the internal difficulty arising out of dynastic jealousies at the court of the Serbian kingdom. The problem soon narrowed itself to the status of the Jugo-Slavs. If that could be adjusted the Allies would have as allies the two nations of Central Europe through whose lands ran the chief arteries of the German-Austrian system. But the Jugo-Slav question turned on the validity of the Treaty of London which was the price of Italy's participation in the war. Would Italy 24 The Political Scene renounce those portions of the treaty which assigned to her lands inhabited by Jugo-Slavs? If she would, Austria would soon be out of the war. If she refused untold complications faced the Allies. For ethnic justice to the Southern Slavs became the touchstone of Allied sincerity, and every small nation watched the diplomatic debate anxiously for evidence as to whether any one of the major allies would yield annexationist claims for the sake of the principles they all professed. England and France could not officially press Italy to accept a revision of the treaty because they had signed the treaty. America was hesi- tant and at first not particularly well informed, while the more important figures in the embassy at Rome were, as so often happens to American embassies abroad, very much under the influence of fashionable chauvinism at the capital. The policy adopted by the reformers was shrewd, and inspired by a genuine devotion to the larger interests and honor of Italy. They set about inducing Italy herself to take the leadership in cementing the alliance between the Austrian nationalities and the Entente. The first step was Absolute Victory 2$ the pact concluded on March seventh, 191 8, be- tween Dr. Torre, representing a committee of the Italian Parliament, and the Jugo-Slav leader, Dr. Trumbic. Italian liberals within the Chamber of Deputies and in the press well understood the peril to Italy and to Europe of Baron Sonnino's insistence upon his pound of flesh. They coop- erated loyally, and in early April the Congress of the Oppressed Nationalities of Austria- Hungary was held in Rome. The resolution of that Congress demanded the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary by the constructive liberation of the oppressed Austro-Hungarian nationalities. The Italian Premier blessed the deliberations. The result was highly important in Central Europe; it made Vienna furious and fearful. Italy's action, however, was not altogether official, for the Treaty of London had not been renounced. At the end of May the United States recognized the aspirations of the subject peoples, but the language employed was vague, and at the Versailles council of early June Baron Sonnino refused to assent to the complete recognition of the Jugo-Slavs, taking refuge behind Mr. Lan- sing's obscurity. Nevertheless, the result had 26 The Political Scene been sufficient to cause the disaffection of Slav troops, and the offensive on the Piave in June was materially weakened by the propaganda of the Allies. At the end of June Mr. Lansing cleared up the obscurity, and definitely stated that the liberation of these peoples was an American war aim. In August, under the influence primarily of Lord Northcliffe and Mr. Wickham Steed, another attempt was made to induce Baron Son- nino to recognize the claims of the Jugo-Slavs. This precipitated a violent political controversy in Italy. At the same time Great Britain and the United States formally recognized the Czecho- slovaks as belligerent allies. This action caused dismay in Vienna, and was the cause of the post- ponement of peace proposals, which finally came from Austria a month later. For Austria had determined early in August to ask for peace, and had secured the consent of Germany following the success of the Allied counter-offensive. The note was already drafted when Britain and America recognized the government of Masaryk, and by implication declared for the dismember- ment of the Dual Empire. The argument of the Absolute Victory 27 Austrian note was based upon the speeches of January in which the integrity of the Empire was promised. The recognition of the Czecho- slovaks made it meaningless, and so the delivery of the note was delayed until mid-September, when it was launched virtually unamended in a gesture of despair. At about the same time Italy issued an official communique recognizing Jugo- slav aspirations, and the Allied world waited for an Italian offensive against the disintegrating Austrian troops. During the summer, the diplomatic campaign had been extended to Bulgaria. It is not gen- erally known just what was the character of the secret manceuvers which led up to the success of Franchet d'Esperey's attack in Macedonia, though the disaffection of Bulgaria had been prophesied ever since the fall of Radoslavov and the visits of Ferdinand to Germany. Some spoke know- ingly of the cavalry of St. George. At any rate with the fall of Bulgaria the resurrection of Rumania became possible, and Hungary was in peril. Then the Ukraine revolted against the foraging detachments, and at that moment Mr. Wilson made the sensational speech of Septem- 28 The Political Scene ber twenty-seventh, which was read in Germany during the first days of October. This speech with its extraordinary moderation coincided with the first successes of the American army between the Argonne Forest and the river Meuse. That gigantic battle had as its purpose the defeat of LudendorfFs plan to retreat to the Meuse, to establish a new defensive line for the winter and negotiate peace from behind his defenses. When the opening phase of the American attack carried through the first three positions Ludendorff demanded an armistice, and the government of Prince Max was called upon to accomplish it. IV " THE NATURAL MASTER OF THE HOUSE " MAX did what Austria had tried to do a few weeks earlier. He tried to secure peace as of January instead of October. And though in form the armistice was signed on that basis, in reality, the peace which is actually being made, must, because of the revolutionary events of 191 8, differ radically from that which was contemplated when the Fourteen Points were written. After the military decision of late October, and in face of the Lorraine offensive which had been prepared and of the revolution within the Empire, Germany did in fact surren- der as unconditionally as Austria. The only lasting significance of the armistice negotiations was the voluntary acceptance by the European Allies of a few negative obligations and certain general principles. The successive renewals of the armistice show that the first terms were dictated unconditionally. 29 30 The Political Scene The original armistice was prepared hastily; French views seem to have prevailed in its mili- tary features; British in its naval; and American in its political. In the Austrian armistice it appears that Italy was given a free hand, with the result that the line of occupation had a fatal resemblance with certain additions to the line of annexationist claims. The Treaty of London appeared at the decisive moment with renewed vigor. November was a period of great anxiety. The victory had come swiftly. It had brought the necessity of reconstructing Europe externally and internally. And almost everyone was dazed, tired, and suspicious. The most serious feature of all, to speak frankly, was an Anglo-American irritation in official circles, for the peace of the world depended upon a working partnership between the only two Powers which had the resources for a creative statesmanship. The President arrived at the very moment when com- mon counsel was least, and national propaganda most evident. It was a time when the tendency was to pull apart, and get out of the war helter- skelter. The same weariness of mind which " The Natural Master of the House " 31 accounts for the President's address to Congress before sailing, the same individualism, was epi- demic in Europe. His presence soon changed the atmosphere, and by January America and Britain had ceased pinching each other, and were at work. The great unifier was the determination to make the League of Nations the basis of peace. For here was a task which reached beyond national vanity into the future. It was a task which lifted men's minds once again to the exalted aims which had consoled them for the war, and threw into a humane perspective the more immediate demands which had become so clamorous. The Allied conference in Paris began in Jan- uary to build peace in the only way that it could be built. Faced with a world in which govern- ment had disappeared over immense areas, in which the old diplomatic system was ruined, the statesmen were forced to start in by creating the tool with which peace could be administered, They knew that there are no final solutions to be had just now. A rigid treaty of peace cannot be written when there is no stable government any- where east of the Rhine. No man knows what 32 The Political Scene Germany is to be, nor Russia, nor the twenty odd nationalities of Eastern Europe and Nearer Asia. No man can possibly foresee, not even Mr. James Beck, what adjustments will be required in the years ahead; none can predict what revolution will do to the process and method of trade, nor does anyone know what will be the movements of immigration, or the condition of capital, or the character and policies of any government five years hence. There is a world- wide regrouping in progress. It cannot be con- trolled by agreement alone. It requires a con- tinuing series of decisions, and a machinery for executing them, and that is the essence of the League of Nations. It is a constitution of common action adopted by the stable powers in a period of unpredictable change. To suppose that the conference was merely fumbling with a vague future under the pressure of idealists is a complete misunderstand- ing. The truth has been stated by the man whose statesmanship has been one of the happiest resources of Europe and perhaps the decisive influence in the constitution drafted at Paris. This man is Lieutenant-General J. C. Smuts. In " The Natural Master of the House " 33 a pamphlet published the middle of December, 19 18, he states the core of the matter as it con- fronts the Peace Conference: "Europe is being liquidated, and the League of Nations must be the heir to this great estate. The peoples left behind by the decomposition of Russia, Austria, and Turkey are mostly untrained politically; many of them are either incapable or deficient in power of self -government; they are mostly destitute and will require much nursing toward economic and political independence. If there is going to be a scramble among the victors for this loot, the future of Europe must indeed be despaired of. The application of the spoils system at this most solemn juncture of the his- tory of the world; a repartition of Europe at a moment when Europe is bleeding at every pore as a result of partitions less than half a century old, would indeed be incorrigible madness on the part of rulers, and enough to drive the torn and broken peoples of the world to that despair of the state which is the motive power behind Russian Bolshevism. Surely the only statesmanlike course is to make the League of Nations the reversion- ary in the broadest sense of these empires. In 34 The Political Scene this debacle of the old Europe the League of Nations is no longer an outsider or stranger, but the natural master of the house. It becomes naturally and obviously the solvent for a problem which no other means will solve." THE COVENANT IT is useless to discuss the covenant as if it were an abstract document snatched from the blue. It is an arrangement devised by men who knew the condition of things, knew that years of trouble are ahead, knew that no final settlement would be made now by mortal man, knew that Europe would revert to anarchy unless the governments of the world agreed to meet regularly, exchange information, make decisions together, and cooperate in the execution of the treaty. They understood that if each nation went its own way and the secret jealousies re- vived, if the old suspicions were allowed to fester in each foreign office and in each general staff, if heads of governments did not bind themselves to meet around a table and speak face to face, then there was little hope that the world could rise out of the prostration of the war. They provided, therefore, first of all for the 35 36 The Political Scene presence in one city of men who can speak for the governments. This in itself is of transcend- ent importance. For modern diplomacy cannot continue to transact its business through the machinery of embassies and state departments alone. No decision can be made on time, no discussion can take place without involved mis- understanding by the old method of scattered information and criss-cross correspondence be- tween negotiators. You have only to read the dispatches of the Twelve Days which preceded the war to realize the paralysis which results from the lack of any one place where the great decisions of mankind can be centralized. If there is one method of insuring the irritation of ignorance and suspicion it is long distance tele- graphic communication between the heads of governments. The mere act of committing ideas to paper for the scrutiny of biographers stiffens the mind and arouses the disastrous desire to pose nobly. There is little good humor in official dispatches; like most newspaper editorials, they are sick with infallibility, and there is nothing worse for the peace of the world than two infal- lible diplomats uttering strong sentiment at each The Covenant 37 other from opposite ends of a cable. Writing u state papers," for posterity, instead of doing business, is bad enough, but when you add to it the sheer nuisance of coding, decoding, and trans- lating, with the correlative arts of cracking codes and listening-in, you have produced a very subtle engine of mischief. Then, too, the atmosphere in which embassies exist invites intrigue. In each capital there is a little cosmopolitan village known as the diplo- matic set where gossip is a means of social prestige, and whispering a delight. Few can resist the lure of a good " inside " rumor, with all it implies of secrecy and knowing a perfectly tremendously awful lot. That is how diplomacy derives its false glamour. The ordinary business between nations may be difficult, it is nevertheless a concrete and practical business. But in the dinners and week-end parties of a capital that business is made into an artificial game for the titillation of a bored group of privileged people. By them it is refined and subtilized and screened in personality, as if the happiness of mankind were not at stake. All this is complicated further by the employ- 38 The Political Scene ment of propaganda to manipulate opinion. Dur- ing this war the deliberate manufacture of opinion both for export and for home consump- tion has reached the proportion of a major indus- trial operation. This is not the place, nor is it yet possible without breach of confidence to dis- cuss international propaganda freely. But some day the technic must be investigated if the judgments of peoples are to escape persistent exploitation. When the story is told, it will cover a range of subjects extending from legal censor- ship to reptile press, from wilful fabrication to the purchase of writers, from outright subsidy to the award of ribbons. It will include entertain- ment, and a vast amount of stimulated snobbish- ness, and the right way of conducting sight- seeing tours. The art of befuddlement engages able men and draws large appropriations. There are in practically all countries Ministries of Befuddlement generally presided over by per- sonal representatives of the leading statesman. What they emit makes unconfused dealing between nations most difficult. It is necessary consequently to break through all this and establish a personal meeting of repre- The Covenant 39 sentatives. Two men doing business will write and write and write, and listen to what their friends say at the club, and what their wives heard from somebody else's wife, and go ever deeper into confusion. Unless they meet and talk it out, they never will catch up with each other's misunderstandings. So with govern- ments, and that is why a league of peace cannot get along without a board of delegates and a standing committee as its executive. There is no other basis even with the best of intentions for common action and decent intercourse. If the nations are to work together responsible leaders must confront one another. VI A WORLD POOL AND if they meet, they cannot afford to appear in shining armor each morning after breakfast. For one thing the cost is pro- hibitive. To start in where the war had led us, to pile up heavy artillery, tanks, airplanes, gas, transports, dreadnoughts, submarines, destroyers for a war as great as the possibilities of science, is a proposal that no statesman in Europe dares to contemplate. That is left for theorists like Mr. Henry A. Wise Wood, and I suspect for him only in the absence of the tax bills. There cannot be another race of armaments — that is flat. There is no need to argue from reasons of humanity. Those who dream of renewing the competition, and contemplate calmly another war fought by our children, are impervious to such arguments, and no one need waste ink and breath trying to convince them. The argument does not 40 A World Pool 41 lie between right and wrong, but between the possible and the impossible. The world cannot arm competitively. Nor can it re-establish a balance of power unless the supreme madness descends upon the English-speaking peoples. I take it that the Treaty of Peace will contain provisions for the disarmament of Germany as a world power. As far as we can see into the future Russia will be militarily impotent, and nobody in his senses, I suppose, intends to arm Africa, or to permit any aggressive armament in Asia. There are in fact but two great states with the resources and the wealth for really modern munitions manufac- ture. These are the British Empire and the United States. The only possible way in which a balance could be created now is by putting these two powers up as the leaders of rival coalitions. If this idea is abandoned for the nonsense that it is, if Britain and America work out their common purposes, then such a preponderance of power is created as to make all notion of a balance impossible. An Anglo-American entente means the substitution of a pool for a balance, and in that pool will be 42 The Political Scene found the ultimate force upon which rests the League of Nations. For if the united power of Britain and America — potential and actual — is wielded for the ends they now both officially profess, they are assured of the active assistance of the smaller nations everywhere. The reason for this is that they exercise a form of force — sea power — which is irresistible in conflict and yet cannot be used permanently to conscript and enslave alien peoples. Nor does it rest internally upon the existence of a large caste in control of a regimented population. Sea power can be all- powerful without destroying the liberties of the nation which exercises it, and only free peoples can be trusted with great power. In spite of the comparison between navalism and militarism there are these fundamental differences between them, and they are appreciated by the bulk of the world. A question remains, which may be put in this fashion: What assurance is there that this pool- ing of force can be maintained in an emergency? The answer is that the covenant provides a pro- cedure in disputes, the final object of which is to insure delay accompanied by publicity. It is a A World Pool 43 mechanism for airing quarrels in their earlier stages. Here is the ultimate guarantee upon which the whole project rests. It assumes as its working theory that democratic faith in regard to the causes of war, which says that aggression is the work of a minority; that the masses in no nation have anything to gain by conquest, and that the masses would refuse such wars if they had a chance to examine their pretexts, and put pressure upon their governments. This faith may be unfounded. It may be that there is a universal pugnacity which requires war for its satisfaction, and the League may in the course of time fail to keep the peace. Perhaps, but the peoples who to-day press against every govern- ment, and may to-morrow control them, hold this faith, and it has prevailed in the delibera- tions at Paris. The most radical feature of the covenant springs from this faith. "It is hereby also declared and agreed to be the friendly right of each of the high con-, trading parties to draw the attention of the body of delegates or the Executive council to any cir- cumstances affecting international intercourse 44 The Political Scene which threaten to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends." That clause is the most precious in the whole document because it strikes so deeply at the isola- tion which breeds arrogance. It is by far the most revolutionary idea which could be intro- duced into the comity of nations, because a seal is put upon the truth that the peace of the world is a vital interest of all nations. The active forces of peace are released by it. According to this new doctrine it will not be necessary for any people, neutral in a dispute, to sit by helplessly and see a conflagration prepared which may burn down its own homes. It abolishes those alleged private quarrels which in the end involve every- body. It states flatly that America, for example, is not to remain mute while some diplomat fixes up a war in the Balkans which cannot be ended until two million Americans are on foreign soil. It says that international duelling is over, and that every nation can discuss the causes of a fight before the fight takes place. Above all it enables any government in the League to arouse the pub- lic opinion of the world wherever a condition A World Pool 45 appears which threatens the peace. The faith is that no quarrel can grow big enough to justify war when the peoples who must do the fighting know about it soon enough. VII ALTERNATIVES REMAINS the question of our own adher- ence to the covenant. This is not to be answered easily, and I think we may well congratulate ourselves upon the appearance of a genuine and respectable opposition. It will insure a thorough examination of the whole prob- lem and we shall enter the League, if at all, as a democratic people should. i It is necessary, therefore, to make a somewhat tedious analysis of America's position in the world as a result of the war. Previous to 1900 the continent of Europe was divided into coalitions — the Triplice, consisting of Germany, Austria, and Italy, and the Dual Alliance of France and Russia. England still played the role of guardian over the balance of power. In the years leading up to the war, the aggressiveness of Germany grew with her power, and moved in two directions — towards Turkey 46 Alternatives 47 across the Balkans, where it conflicted with Russian claims, and towards naval power where it threatened England's security. Gradually Eng- land was drawn away from mere guardian- ship, and forced to throw her weight to Russia and France. The balance tipped so far in favor of Germany that England's whole weight had to be thrown into the scales to right it. Even the defection of Italy, foreshadowed in the Tripoli- tan war, did not restrain the increasing aggress- iveness of the Central Powers. So when the war began, Europe was divided into two coalitions of such nearly equal strength that three years of furious warfare failed to break the deadlock. In all this America was the neutral, and though the issue between the two coalitions involved the existence of small nations, and the survival of liberal governments, there was no body of con- siderable opinion which proposed to enter the war on those grounds alone. It was only when Germany brought the sub- marine into use, and threatened to disintegrate sea power that Americans felt themselves men- aced. There was no difference in principle here between Roosevelt and Wilson. Mr. Roosevelt 48 The Political Scene would have gone to war when the Lusitania was sunk; Mr. Wilson went to war when diplomacy had failed to mitigate the submarine attack. Neither of them proposed to go to war before the submarine appeared. As President, Mr. Roosevelt would perhaps have protested against the violation of Belgium : Mr. Wilson to-day may feel that he wishes he had done it. But both, in fact, were driven to action only when the threat against sea power became real. This is a very significant matter, for a response of this kind arises out of the deepest political interests of a nation. Both were American statesmen, and neither felt a real menace to American life until the control of the seas was endangered. The conflict came home to us, as the saying is, when the aggression reached the world's highways and struck at the basis of mastery by the naval powers. Then we entered the war, saying that the autocracy of Germany must be overthrown and the rights of democracy safeguarded. What we have perhaps not so clearly realized, and yet must realize, is that the protection of democracy, as we understand it, is built upon the joint administration of sea power Alternatives 49 by the British Empire and America. Our own Monroe Doctrine is built upon it from its incep- tion to the present day. Though we often talk as if we were the only great power in the western hemisphere, as a matter of plain fact we are the closest neighbors of the British Empire at every vital point. So habitual and so unobtrusive has this relation become that we almost forget its existence. But it exists mightily, and if we have enjoyed a century of immunity from European aggressions the real cause lies in the successful maintenance by England of a balance of power upon the continent. We have never had the navy or the army to enforce the Monroe Doctrine against a European coalition and it is a mischie- vous form of self-deception to proceed on the theory that the Monroe Doctrine has been respected simply because we willed it. It was a principle of English policy fully as much as ours, because the English realized that the security of the Empire over large areas was protected by it. Now, after the most serious threat ever directed against sea power, Britain and America emerge the undisputed leaders of world politics. Their common purposes are irresistible, and the $0 The Political Scene destiny of all governments is for the moment in their hands. How that joint power shall be used is the heart of the world's problem. How, then, shall it be used ? There are some who would seem to favor a course by which we should find ourselves pre- paring for war with Britain. They do not say so publicly, to be sure, but they dream of sup- planting Great Britain as mistress of the seas. That means war. They may not face the fact now, but it is a fact — sea power cannot be divided permanently. Britain may wield it; America, after a disastrous war, might snatch it from her. The two together can wield it. But they cannot each wield parts of it for any length of time, because after a period of competition war seems preferable to perpetual menace. The control of the seas is so delicate and so funda- mental that it is impossible to leave it in dispute. Naval competition makes naval war, not a prob- ability, but a certainty. Another school, realizing this and smacking its lips over the concentration of power under Anglo- American control, looks to a permanent alliance as the basis of a good headstrong foreign policy. Alternatives 51 Since America and Britain temporarily control the world's destiny, why not continue, and profit by it? This is the policy of imperialist alliance, and it leads straight to those very entanglements against which Washington warned the nation. A mere offensive and defensive alliance between two or three powers means in practice that each has to back the other's ambitions and mistakes. It is a method of whetting the worst appetites of each, and of committing both to all the troublesome- ness of either. Such a policy would soon awaken against us first the jealousy and then the enmity of the excluded nations. The masses of the world are stirring; they will not long trust themselves to any selfish combination of powers, no matter how idealistic their present purposes may be. An alliance would be a temporary thing, for there is too much disruptive energy in the world to tolerate it long. There is only one other course, and that is to make Anglo-American sea power the nucleus of world organization, to guarantee its uses before the whole world, to bind ourselves in honor to employ it only for the security of all nations. That is what the League does. The actual own- 52 The Political Scene ership of power remains in British and American hands, but its uses are stipulated in a covenant. By this we avoid the dangers of competition and alliance, while retaining the possession of the necessary force against an emergency in case the League were destroyed. Anglo-American sea power, fortified by the abolition of neutrality, becomes the ultimate guarantor of the world's affairs. It is the force by which such liberties as we may devise are finally secured. This is not the old isolation. There is no denying that. But so far as mortal man can see into an extremely perplexing future, this pro- gram can if intelligently administered be made to serve the same ends. At the beginning of the nineteenth century we were a weak people and the neighbors of a string of weak republics which had just secured their independence. In Europe a great war had ended with the triumph on the continent of autocracies which hated republics and were resolved to crush them. Taking ad- vantage of England's position and her liberalism President Monroe proclaimed the doctrine that this hemisphere must remain safe for democracy. Now, a century later, another great war has Alternatives 53 closed in which those autocracies are crushed and a string of weak republics has risen from their ruins. We stand as the richest and strongest power in the world, and our intervention decided the issue. In spite of our strength we have re- mained true to those very things which we proclaimed when we* were young and weak. European peoples seeing this miracle, for mira- cle it is to the continental mind, have turned to us with such faith as was never before given to a distant people. They have heard an Ameri- can president announce their liberation and prom- ise their safety, and while the war was engaged they heard no dissent because in fact there was none. They have taken his word as America's, and built their hopes upon it. Perhaps it was wrong of him to arouse such expectations. Certainly it would have been wiser if he had acted less singly in committing the nation. But nevertheless, there was opportunity to object, and no formal objection was made. Our honor is consequently very seriously involved in the President's promises. VIII AMENDMENTS IT cannot be asserted too often that the indis- pensable action to be taken at Paris is to provide for a continuous meeting. Nothing else in the Twenty-Six Articles can be regarded as beyond the reach of criticism and amendment. Let it be agreed now, that in one form or another the contacts which exist shall not be broken, and it becomes not only possible but desirable that the covenant should be subjected to drastic examina- tion. Revision need not delay the making of the Peace Treaty, because the Congress of Versailles — if it does not adjourn — can adequately per- form the immediate tasks of the League. For at bottom the League is merely the conference made permanent, and the conference is quite competent to make the necessary decisions of the next half a dozen months, while a more adequate instru- ment is provided out of the provisional text con- tained in the Twenty-Six Articles. 54 Amendments 55 The document itself exhibits all the marks of haste and patching. General principles, agencies, procedure are scattered through the various arti- cles in considerable confusion, and one has to search through most of the covenant to discover the complete doctrine on any specific point. For example, why having read Articles VII, VIII, and IX on the subject of armaments, does one suddenly discover another provision on the sub- ject in XVIII? What is the meaning of " free- dom of transit and equitable treatment " in XXI, and how does it relate itself to X where " political independence" is guaranteed? Does this same X mean that the boundaries to be fixed at Ver- sailles are immutable, or simply that they cannot be changed by threat of war? Does this X mean that if a state once member of the League col- lapses through misgovernment the mandatory principle cannot be applied to it? Apart from these general and technical diffi- culties there are certain specific criticisms to be made. The covenant is very difficult to amend. Now an organic law which is virtually unchangeable should not burden itself with those abstract nega- 56 The Political Scene tive principles, which are the refuge of obstruc- tionists. Article X, guaranteeing territorial integrity and existing political independence, is of this type. It is an article of distrust, an effort to be wiser than the next generation, and to curb the action of the future by a magic set of words. Contrast it with Article XI, which makes it a " friendly right " to draw attention to circum- stances which threaten peace and understanding. X binds the League in a formula; XI releases the League for an active policy of conciliation. The one is restrictive, the other permissive, and the two clauses bark at each other. X is one of those grand generalities behind which every opponent of change can barricade himself. He can always declare that anything he does not like is " external aggression " against his political independence, and there is always sure to be some nation ready to vote against a unanimous recom- mendation. The clause will not protect a nation's independ- ence against the kind of economic penetration which to-day constitutes the chief mode of con- quest. But it will protect a government in bad practices and oppressions. It will hamper the Amendments 57 honorable nations by ruling out interference; it will assist the dishonorable governments who have learned to manipulate affairs in a costume of legality. It may put minorities beyond the scope of the League's protection, and enforce the privilege of the oppressing state. Moreover, it puts a premium upon insincerity. In the actual conduct of human affairs there is an increasing limitation of political dependence resulting from the necessities of economic cooperation. Those necessities are stronger than any political axiom, and will prevail. But under Article X they will prevail in roundabout fashion and furtively. The framers of the covenant, and the majority of well-informed people do not believe that a state can do what it pleases within its own boundaries. In the future men will believe it still less, for they are discovering that "international relations" are after all nothing but the result of what goes on within the different nations. Surely at the end of this war it is perfectly clear that the " political independence " of empires like that of the Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs, and Sultan is not something the world can afford to regard as beyond the jurisdiction of the League. 58 The Political Scene The Article should be revised. The preamble contains all that is valuable in it without setting up a piece of political dogmatism derived from the eighteenth century. Provided that international law is given binding sanctions, it is not the busi- ness of this generation to put the substance of that law in a straitjacket. When we have agreed that law is binding we have given all the neces- sary guarantees. What the law is to be in specific cases must be determined on the facts as they are developed by events. There is every reason to believe, for example, that sooner or later the world will require a far greater regulation of international trade than any one has yet dared to suggest. The experiences of the war point that way. They indicate the impossibility of per- mitting unfair trade practices between sup- posedly friendly nations, or of profiteering by governments, or the use of monopolies as a means of conquest. The conferees at Paris have avoided these matters in the draft. Perhaps they had to. But statesmen in the future may not be able to avoid them, and it is the part of wisdom to eliminate any dogmatic rule now which might exclude such action. Amendments 59 If the covenant is to serve through the perils that confront the next generation, flexibility and the possibilities of growth must be assured. To attempt, in the organic law, to go beyond " in- struments " to legislation is to turn our back upon a century of experience with written constitu- tions. No printed text can govern the energies of a generation, but it can stifle the more inventive but scrupulous minds. When we have accepted the League we intend to abide by its spirit and its letter; let us not, then, tie ourselves up in the presence of those who may use the letter of it to defeat the spirit. That we can do by eliminat- ing the negatives. We can do it also by enlarging the " instru- mentalities/' The President's own experience shows how necessary it is to secure the intimate cooperation of executive and legislature, majority and minority, if the action of the League is not to be balked. No meeting of executives alone is sufficient to bind the nations, and it is a stultifica- tion of democratic control to erect a structure on the theory that the legislature will accept the commitments of the executive after they are made. In parliamentary countries the ministry 60 The Political Scene will fall if its representatives make commitments of which the legislature disapproves. Under congressional government the result is likely to be a deadlock. Inevitably, the mere act of securing agreement under the machinery of the League is impossible unless the delegates are capable of speaking with assurance for their countries. And having spoken, having reached a complicated agreement, it is infinitely confusing to throw the whole busi- ness back to the legislature for revision. A dis- agreement between House and Senate is nothing to what a disagreement between the legislatures of many nations would be. The only solution apparently is to have the legislative branch partic- ipate in the original discussion, so that it is not confronted each time with an accomplished fact. To be sure, the whole legislature of every state cannot be at the seat of the League, but there is no obvious reason why delegates from its Foreign Relations Committee should not be pres- ent to consult with the executive and with foreign legislators to share the responsibilities, and advise during the course of the negotiations. Both the administration parties and the opposition parties Amendments 61 would thus be on the ground, and the resulting commitment would have a surer basis. Unless Congress is to abandon power over foreign affairs, except the power to obstruct, it will insist upon representation of the legislature in the structure of the League. Formally, this representation need be nothing more than advis- ory, but the advice should be in the course, and not at the end, of the negotiations. It is no question of trusting or distrusting Mr. Wilson. I trust him beyond any statesman in the world to-day. It is a matter of the future, when Mr. Wilson will be a private citizen, and when per- haps some other person will be in the White House who needs to be checked by Congress. Above all, it is a matter of downright democratic responsibility which the legislature cannot abandon, no matter how excellent a President may be. Finally, it is a necessity, as politics is managed to-day. No government on the conti- nent of Europe is rooted deeply in the affections of the masses. Those who are now at Paris may not all be there a few months hence. No man knows who will rise to power. But this covenant is supposed to be a League not of governments 62 The Political Scene but of nations, and that implies that the com- plexion of political parties must be represented. The opposition of to-day may be the government to-morrow. Surely it is nothing but common sense to ask that the leaders of the opposition should remain in the closest personal touch with the affairs of the League. The value of this participation does not end here. Everyone knows that even with the best will in the world, each legislature is enormously preoccupied with purely local affairs, and that its contact with international politics is meager. Yet the texture of diplomacy is largely made out of the acts of legislatures. If the world is to have peace and understanding some means must be found of creating a community of feeling be- tween parliaments. They should have ways of debating with one another as well as within their own chambers. The opposition, no less than the administration, should have direct access to that subtle but decisive information which can be obtained only by being on the spot. Had Mr. Lodge been in Paris, studying the confidential reports, and talking to responsible European offi- cials, had he been made to feel that what he Amendments 63 thought really matters, as it undoubtedly does, he would insensibly have tended to forget that his role was officially that of opposing what Demo- crats propose. And when he returned to Wash- ington Republican senators would have listened to him as they will never listen to Mr. Wilson. In other words, it is necessary to expose the opposition to the same influences, and the same information, if any settled national policy is to emerge. What is true of Mr. Lodge is equally true of the extreme left. The irreconcilable radi- cal is ever so much less irreconcilable when he can express himself and when he has to share respon- sibility. Now the irreconcilable radical is a very considerable person in the modern world, and once he becomes convinced that the League is a secret manipulation he will be equally convinced that it is a sinister manipulation. Deny him the chance to protest and to advise, he will certainly attack and condemn. It will be difficult enough in all conscience to secure harmony in a League when half the world is socialist and the other half anti-socialist. By calling in representatives of the elected parlia- ments this schism can be modified and an indis- 64 The Political Scene pensable bridge built between the conservative governments and the more radical masses. M. Clemenceau, for example, loves France, but he will never have the confidence of Socialist Europe, and anything he does is suspect to it. But M. Thomas also loves France; yet he can converse with socialists. Mr. Henderson can work for understanding in groups when Mr. Lloyd George can produce only a rhetori- cal explosion. So if the League is not to find itself marooned on the dry sands of irrele- vance it should take steps to introduce into its own structure the conciliatory influence of the opposition parties. Conciliatory they are, and I do not see how any sane person could wish them to be anything else. Senator Lodge talks menacingly about building bridges across chasms to anarchy, but unless the bridges to moderate radicalism are maintained anarchy will follow. For there is just one sure protection against those things which Senator Lodge and most of the rest of us fear. That protection does not consist in play- ing the ostrich, nor does it consist in losing your head and trying to stamp on those who wish to Amendments 65 make life too decent to be the breeding place of anarchy. It consists in remembering the very wise remark of the British Prime Minister that he feared reaction more than Bolshevism. For everything depends on where you think the chasm is. If you think it begins at a line drawn sharply along the frontiers of Senator Lodge's mind, then I fear most of us will find ourselves on the other side of the chasm. But if you put the frontier far enough to the left so as to in- clude that huge majority of men who want change, and are not yet blind with desperation, there is no reason to fear anarchy here. Bol- shevism is extraordinarily easy to combat in a well-fed country, and its existence is a sign of disgraceful incompetence in the governing cir- cles. Bolshevism arises only where rulers have made a botch of their duties, and one of the sure ways of making a botch of them is to close your mind to the loyal opposition. IX BOLSHEVISM THE League can be made the instrument by which the disrooted populations of the world may readjust themselves peacefully. It can be. It may not be. If there is not enough imagination and courage applied to the policies for which the instrument is used, it is altogether probable that the complete collapse of established authority will follow. It is entirely true that if authority is to be preserved and the transition controlled, the Western powers will have to listen to those men whose minds are un- poisoned by their own fears and their own hates. The peril is too real for self-indulgence in the lazy repetition of war cries, and those who are really bent on preserving the order of the world cannot allow themselves to be silenced by those moral terrorists who are pretending to save civilization by dividing it. The hope of world order to-day is confronted 66 Bolshevism 67 by the diminishing faith of vast masses of people, who have seen governments bungle, falter and send men uselessly to death. They have seen governments blinded by privileged groups and favoritism, and cowed by the forces of reaction; they are angry and fiercely distrustful. They have borne the pain of the most extensive calam- ity in human history, and they have little more to lose. They sit restlessly in awful judgment upon the Lodges of the world. Their theories are a tiny part of their true feelings. What holds them from almost universal despair and dissolution is a lingering hope that perhaps there is still enough generosity and mercy left in Western statecraft to meet the issue. They are still turned, though skeptically, to the America which Wilson has described to them. For Amer- ica did the incredible thing among governments. It fought without selfish purpose. It waged a clean war, and thereby made itself the strongest pillar of faith in authority standing intact in the world to-day. It is a terrifying thing rather than a cause of vanity that this should be so. Americans did not plan to have thrust upon them such responsibilities as these. The army 68 The Political Scene went humbly to the veterans of France. The American people intended to follow rather than to lead their Allies. But when the actual situa- tion of Europe was revealed, they found their own diffidence a source of confidence in others. The goodness or badness of all this is a trivial question compared to the fact that it represents the truth about the world to-day, and a with- drawal by America from the position she occu- pies will be the signal for a European revolution. The imminence of that revolution is the domi- nating thought of all men everywhere. Lenin and Liebknecht sit in the Council at Paris, and their voices are heard in every discussion. It is with them that the world is negotiating to-day for its own preservation. Those negotiations are watched intensely through the crevices of publicity which the Peace Conference permits. But cutting across this basic negotiation are a thousand strands of special claim and ambition to interrupt and entangle. Some one wants a piece of land, some one else wants to make money, another wants to work a little intrigue, and this stuff of the old diplomacy obscures vision, and distorts the proceedings. The direct Bolshevism 69 business of the conference is to feed the world, set it to work, and reconcile its people. Whoever impedes that is fiddling for a disaster. What- ever prevents the existing governments in Eu- rope from reestablishing normal life encourages those who say that the existing governments are damned and that there is no salvation in them. The reason why Lenin may succeed is that the victors do not take seriously enough what he rep- resents. They are frightened to be sure, they are even panicky, but they are not serious enough about the menace to be willing to subordinate every other consideration to the creation of a Europe which will be sterile to Bolshevism. They want to fight Lenin with one hand and use the other for their own purposes. They are re- peating the error of those who wanted to win the war and at the same time continue to do business as usual. Out of this desire arise those ingenious dip- lomatic futilities by which the old intrigue is to be maintained as a method of crushing the Bol- shevist power. Having realized that the armies of France and Great Britain cannot be used to police Russia, and that the American people do 70 The Political Scene not intend to bury half a million boys in a wild- erness for ten years or so, the idea of direct military intervention has been abandoned, and for it has been substituted the fashionable phrase " sanitary cordon." The theory is that a dam is to be erected in the east of Europe consisting of Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, a Greater Rumania, and Jugo-Slavia, and statesmen representing these nations have actually been found who are willing to have their countries used as a dam. These new and fragile republics are to be erected between Bolshevist Russia, Communist Hungary and Spartacide Germany. Then another dam is to be erected on the Rhine, and the whole thing guaranteed by an alliance with Great Britain and America disguised as a League of Nations. This is a very dangerous bit of fooling. No one who knows anything of the internal condi- tions of the new states of eastern Europe can for a moment imagine that they will survive squeezed in between gigantic revolutions in both Germany and Russia. Those new states are fragments of destroyed empires, and each con- tains within itself problems that have all the seeds of disorder. Each one moreover is at least Bolshevism 7 l partially in the hands of men whose ideas reflect the old imperial system, with the result that there has been through the winter a tangle of little wars on the frontiers of all of them. One Am- erican observer returning in January from what was Austria-Hungary had accounted for eleven separate military campaigns going on in the sani- tary cordon. The motive for using these little states as the buffer of the world is clear. It is to evade the disagreeable necessity of effecting a reconcilia- tion between the German people and the Western nations. If the cordon can be made to stand up it is possible to keep Germany prostrate and to escape the danger to Europe if her people become desperate; the new states are to be an iron fence dividing two areas of Bolshevism from each other. This is a more complicated version of what was tried at Brest-Litovsk, the scheme there was to use these same border states as a buffer, and then to paralyze Russia by splitting off the Ukraine. The new version is to use these states as a buffer facing two ways, and to paralyze Germany by splitting off a Rhenish republic. It would require as its first condition the mainte- 72 The Political Scene nance for an indefinite period of a huge army on the Rhine. With Germany in profound dis- order, as it will be, if food is not given and factories set going and the burden of debt made bearable, the occupation of Germany would have to follow. For Bolshevism in both Russia and Germany would soon eat the heart out of Po- land, Rumania, and Hungary where social condi- tions are already desperate. Now any one who supposes that the populations of France and Great Britain will endure the human and econ- omic cost of such an occupation is suffering from a severe case of reading nothing but censored news. The plain fact is that the reconstruction of Europe requires an orderly government and a contented population in Germany. The very existence of the new states depends upon protect- ing their flanks against revolution. A moderate socialist republic in Germany, such as the Ebert government represents, is the only type of gov- ernment in central Europe to-day which can make that part of the world immune against the disorder which is traveling westward. If what Ebert represents is a failure, if it cannot pre- Bolshevism 73 serve Germany from dismemberment and a long economic bondage, then the only alternatives open are to restore the Hohenzollerns or to give up in desperation, repudiate all authority and obligation and go Bolshevist. Of the three pos- sible Germanys — Junker, Ebert, or Spartacide, there can be no doubt that Ebert' s is the one with which the world can best live at peace. But the persistence of Ebert depends entirely upon his ability to extricate Germany from her immediate troubles. Now if this were the Last Judgment it would be quite plausible to think of the horrors of Bel- gium and France, to recall the exultation which accompanied the Lusitania's destruction, and to deny that it is desirable to extricate such a people from the damnation of its defeat. But the Con- gress of Versailles is not the Last Judgment; it is a meeting of statesmen to determine the fu- ture of mankind, and that freedom from respon- sibility for the future, as well as the omnipo- tence and omniscence of the Last Judgment are denied to them. They cannot damn the German people for all time, desirable as that might be, be- cause German mothers bear German children. 74 The Political Scene They cannot consign them to the hell they de- serve, because the location of that hell will be the center of Europe. They are limited to nar- row choices among present day facts — to an economic and political reconciliation with the Weimar convention or the victory of the Sparta- cides. Moral reconciliation will come more slowly, and not altogether until a guiltless gen- eration has grown to maturity. With the in- dividual grown-up citizens of what was the Ger- man Empire the resumption of spiritual inter- course will always depend upon a preliminary discussion of the past. But this feeling which will in varying degree govern the conduct of Western peoples has no place in statesmanship. The business of that statesmanship is not to make a sanitary cordon, but a sanitary Europe. Having eliminated the dangers of a sudden Prussian revival by disarm- ing the German nation for war their first concern should be to preserve a continuous area of stable democracy to the frontiers of Bolshevist Russia. That is the true way to protect France, both against the hypothetical peril of renewed aggres- sion and the actual peril of revolution within the Bolshevism 75 next few years. That is the true way of dealing with Lenin's ambitions which will corrode an army, but are baffled by contentment. With a settlement in Europe which weaves Germany and the new states into the texture of western commerce and political life, the League of Nations will have a basis in reality that it can never obtain by making a schism at the Rhine, and throwing little states out into the middle of the revolutionary torrent in order to stem it. For the creation of a solid area of liberal govern- ment under the aegis of the League is prelimi- nary to the final problem of dealing with Lenin. The nations, with whose whole conception of society Lenin is avowedly at war, can go for- ward to deal with him successfully only when they have left no formidable discontent in their own rear. So long as the nations of the league are perforated with maladministration and loss of faith they are like an army advancing while its lines of communication are cut. The perplexing thing about Bolshevism is that it is primitive. And being primitive it is formless, and has no vital center. You can kill a government by occupying its capital and a few 76 The Political Scene of its chief strategic points. Bolshevism has no strategic points. It is a complete dissolution of centralized organization into local atoms of self- government. These atoms have to be stamped on one by one, because no one of them is pro- foundly dependent on the others. That is why the policing of Russia would require an enor- mous army distributed over its whole area. Now even if a sufficient army could be raised, which it cannot be, the discipline of that army would be most difficult to maintain. An army of occupa- tion is a bored and discontented army and the more successfully it maintains order the more time it has to growl against the politicians and wonder when it will be allowed to go home. Moreover, no government established by an army of occupation is likely to last after the army goes because it bears the stigma of being the creature of the invading alien. The odium of all the privations which occurred during the occupation is upon it, and it is the experience of this war at least that an administration set up by the conqueror has to be escorted out of the country when the conqueror leaves. It is possible to make war upon a nation or- Bolshevism 77 ganized under a government. There is no way of winning a war against several hundred thou- sand more or less independent villages. Yet that is the fundamental condition in Bolshevik Rus- sia to-day. All the ordinary rules of warfare are inapplicable. And because of this, the ordin- ary short cut of force instead of negotiation is inapplicable. The process of redintegration can- not be pushed fast because all the ties of habit upon which government rests are torn. It is not possible to bully Russia into order, nor to curse her into it. She will have to be drawn into it by reestablishing the bonds of economic inter- dependence between her fragments and the or- ganized society of the west. To this end a suggestion might perhaps be offered. As a preliminary to the withdrawal of the Allied forces now operating in various parts of Russia, agreement should be reached both with the local Soviets and with the Central Soviet at Moscow that certain ports of the Arctic, the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Pacific should be constituted international cities under the admin- istration of bodies appointed by the League of Nations, and including for this purpose repre- 78 The Political Scene sentative of the local and Central Soviets. The policing of these ports would be by naval forces including marines authorized by the League. In these ports economic commissions representing the League would be set up with authority to make trading agreements with any soviet, coop- erative society, trade union or corporation that could give the necessary guarantees. The fail- ure to uphold the guarantees would be followed by boycott of the particular offender. These commissions would sell the goods imported by and exported for an international trading cor- poration organized for the purpose by the na- tions having commercial resources for the enter- prise. They could also distribute relief where the need existed without means of payment. Now the raising of the standards of life re- sulting from this trading and from relief might gradually restore the contact of the Russian peo- ple with the outer world. And with contact would come that sense of the realities of govern- ment and business which is necessary to the re- vival of Russia. The relation would be delicate, and if mismanaged would certainly fail. If it were used to promote the counter-revolution, if Bolshevism 79 these commissions were made the centers of anti- soviet intrigue, if in short the thing were done in bad faith, the experiment would certainly col- lapse. But if it were done humanely, tolerantly, generously, with a high sense that the Russian people too have a right to choose their own ways of life and obedience, it might well undermine the Bolshevist regime, and attach Soviet Rus- sia to the world community. By permitting the members of the League actual observation of Russian affairs it might make unnecessary the spectacle of the United States Senate trying to inform itself about Russia by listening to tittle- tattle. By opening a commercial regime, it might avert the awkwardness of attempting dip- lomatic relations with a state that denies all the premises of international relationship. Finally it might prevent whatever danger there may be in the single exploitation of Russia by a resur- rected Pan-Germany. THE TEST THE three problems presented by Germany, Russia, and the intervening border states, do not exhaust the perplexities which victory has brought to the victors. One has only to mention Turkey and China. But these prob- lems do indicate how pressing and practical is the need for an international organization by which the world can be administered into an era of stability. No one who has grasped those problems as they press upon mankind can per- sist in the idea that peace consists in signing a treaty, shaking hands with the Allies, and return- ing home to gaze in rapt admiration at the Mon- roe Doctrine. I know this feeling quite well. I have shared it, and have wondered whether anything could be done with that jangle of mem- ories which so often seems to be the mind of Europe. Perhaps nothing can be done. Perhaps the Thy&zst 8 1 memories and the appetites are too strong to save the world from a period of despair. Per- haps the men who are meeting so secretly in Paris are too much divided to use the instru- ment of cooperation which they have framed. We shall know soon whether they have made a peace upon which a League can operate. But they shall not be able to say that they failed be- cause America failed them, and that the dishonor is hers. They shall not be able to claim that the peace of the world was shattered because the strongest and safest of all was too timid to help them. America's true policy in this day is to say to Europe: We shall stay with you and share the decisions of the future if you will make the peace we are asked to share, a peace that Europe will endure. But if you make it a peace that can be maintained only by the bayonet we shall leave you to the consequences and find our own security in this hemisphere. It will have to be a very bad peace indeed to justify any such action on our part, and nothing less than that would ever justify it. APPENDIX I THE WORLD CONFLICT IN ITS RELATION TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY An address delivered before the American Academy of Political and Social Science at Philadelphia, April, 191 7. Reprinted as Senate Document No. 80, 65th Congress 1st Session. I. The way in which President Wilson directed America's entrance into the war has had a mighty effect on the public opinion of the world. Many of those who are disappointed or pleased say they are surprised. They would not be sur- prised had they made it their business this last year to understand the policy of their Govern- ment. In May, 19 16, the President made a speech which will be counted among the two or three decisive utterances of American foreign policy. The Sussex pledge had just been extracted from the German Government, and on the surface 83 84 The Political Scene American neutrality seemed assured. The speech was an announcement that American iso- lation was ended, and that we were prepared to join a League of Peace. This was the founda- tion of all that followed, and it was intended to make clear to the world that America would not abandon its traditional policy for imperial- istic adventure, that if America had to fight it would fight for the peace and order of the world. It was a great portent in human history, but it was overshadowed at the time by the opening of the presidential campaign. Through the summer the President insisted again and again that the time had come when America must assume its share of responsibility for a better organization of mankind. In the early autumn very startling news came from Germany. It was most confusing because it promised peace manceuvers, hinted at a separate arrangement with the Russian court party, and at the resumption of unlimited submarine war- fare. The months from November to February were to tell the story. Never was the situation more perplexing. The prestige of the Allies was at low ebb, there was treachery in Russia, and, In April, IQIJ 85 as Mr. Lansing said, America was on the verge of war. We were not only on the verge of war, but on the verge of a bewildering war which would not command the whole-hearted support of the American people. With the election past, and a continuity of ad- ministration assured, it became President Wil- son's task to make some bold move which would clarify the muddle. While he was preparing this move, the German chancellor made his high- handed proposal for a blind conference. That it would be rejected was obvious. That the rejec- tion would be followed by the submarine war was certain. The danger was that America would be drawn into the war at the moment when Germany appeared to be offering the peace for which the bulk of the American people hoped. We know now that the peace Germany was prepared to make last December was the peace of a conqueror; but at the time Germany could pose as a nation which had been denied a chance to end the war. It was necessary, there- fore, to test the sincerity of Germany by asking publicly for a statement of terms. The Presi- dent's circular note to the powers was issued. 86 The Political Scene This note stated more precisely than ever before that America was ready to help guarantee the peace, and at the same time it gave all the bellig- erents a chance to show that they were fighting for terms which could be justified to American opinion. The note was very much misunder- stood at first because the President had said that, since both sides claimed to be fighting for the same things, neither could well refuse to define the terms. The misunderstanding soon passed away when the replies came. Germany brushed the President aside, and showed that she wanted a peace by intrigue. The Allies produced a docu- ment which contained a number of formulae so cleverly worded that they might be stretched to cover the wildest demands of the extremists or contracted to a moderate and just settlement. Above all the Allies assented to the league of peace which Germany had dismissed as irrele- vant. The war was certain to go on with America drawn in. On January 22, after submarine war- fare had been decided upon but before it had been proclaimed, the President made his address to the Senate. It was an international program In April, IQI7 87 for democracy. It was also a last appeal to Ger- man liberals to avert a catastrophe. They did not avert it, and on February 1 Germany at- tacked the whole neutral world. That America would not submit was assured. The question that remained to be decided was the extent of our participation in the war. Should it be merely defensive on the high seas, or should it be a separate war? The real source of confusion was the treacherous and despotic Russian Gov- ernment. By no twist of language could a part- nership with that Government be made consist- ent with the principles laid down by the Presi- dent in his address to the Senate. The Russian revolution ended that perplexity and we could enter the war with a clear con- science and a whole heart. When Russia became a republic and the American Republic became an enemy, the German Empire was isolated before mankind as the final refuge of autocracy. The principle of its life is destructive of the peace of the world. How destructive that principle is the ever-widening circle of the war has disclosed. 88 The Political Scene II. Our task is to define that danger so that our immense sacrifices shall serve to end it. I can not do that for myself without turning to the origins of the war in order to trace the logical steps by which the pursuit of a German victory has enlisted the enmity of the world. We read statements by Germans that there was a conspiracy against their national develop- ment, that they found themselves encircled by enemies, that Russia, using Serbia as an instru- ment, was trying to destroy Austria, and that the Entente had already detached Italy. Supposing that all this were true, it would remain an extraor- dinary thing that the Entente had succeeded in encircling Germany. Had that empire been a good neighbor in Europe, by what miracle could the old hostility between England and France and Russia have been wiped out so quickly ? But there is positive evidence that no such conspiracy existed. Germany's place in the sun is Asia Minor. By the Anglo-German agreement of June, 19 14, re- cently published, a satisfactory arrangement had In April, igij 89 been reached about the economic exploitation of the Turkish Empire. Prof. Rohrbach has ac- knowledged that Germany was given concessions " which exceeded all expectations/' and on De- cember second, 1914, when the war was five months old, von Bethmann-Hollweg declared in the Reichstag that "this understanding was to lessen every possible political friction." The place in the sun had been secured by negotiation. But the road to that place lay through Austria- Hungary and the Balkans. It was this highway which Germany determined to control absolutely and the chief obstacle on that highway was Serbia backed by Russia. Into the complexities of that Balkan intrigue I am not competent to enter. We need, however, do no more than fol- low Lord Grey in the belief that Austria had a genuine grievance against Serbia, a far greater one, certainly, than the United States has ever had against Mexico. But Britain had no stake in the Austro-Serbian quarrel itself. It had an interest in the method which the Central Powers took of settling the quarrel. When Germany declared that Europe could not be consulted, that Austria must be allowed to 90 The Political Scene crush Serbia without reference to the concert of Europe, Germany proclaimed herself an en- emy of international order. She preferred a war which involved all of Europe to any admission of the fact that a cooperative Europe existed. It was an assertion of unlimited national sover- eignty which Europe could not tolerate. This brought Russia and France into the field. Instantly Germany acted on the same doctrine of unlimited national sovereignty by striking at France through Belgium. Had Belgium been merely a small neutral nation the crime would still have been one of the worst in the history of the modern world. The fact that Belgium was an internationalized State has made the in- vasion the master tragedy of the war. For Bel- gium represented what progress the world had made toward cooperation. If it could not sur- vive then no internationalism was possible. That is why through these years of horror upon horror the Belgian horror is the fiercest of all. The burning, the shooting, the starving, and the robbing of small and inoffensive nations is tragic enough. But the German crime in Belgium is greater than the sum of Belgium's misery. It In April, IQI7 9 1 is a crime against the bases of faith on which the world must build or perish. The invasion of Belgium instantly brought the five British democracies into the war. I think this is the accurate way to state the fact. Had the war remained a Balkan war with France en- gaged merely because of her treaty with Russia, had the fighting been confined to the Franco- German frontier, the British Empire might have come into the war to save the balance of power and to fulfil the naval agreements with France, but the conflict would probably never have become a people's war in all the free nations of the Empire. Whatever justice there may have been in Austria's original quarrel with Serbia and Russia was overwhelmed by the exhibition of national lawlessness in Belgium. This led to the third great phase of the war, the phase which concerned America most immedi- ately. The Allies, directed by Great Britain, em- ployed sea power to the utmost. They barred every road to Germany, and undoubtedly vio- lated many commercial rights of neutrals. What America would do about this became of decisive importance. If it chose to uphold the rights it 92 The Political Scene claimed, it would aid Germany and cripple the Allies. If it refused to do more than negotiate with the Allies, it had, whatever the technicali- ties of the case might be, thrown its great weight against Germany. It had earned the enmity of the German Government, an enmity which broke out into intrigue and conspiracy on American soil. Somewhere in the winter of 19 15 America was forced to choose between a policy which helped Germany and one which helped the Allies. We were confronted with a situation in which we had to choose between opening a road to Germany and making an enemy of Germany. With the proclamation of submarine warfare in 1 91 5 we were told that either we must aid Ger- many by crippling sea power or be treated as a hostile nation. The German policy was very simple: British mastery of the seas must be broken. It could be broken by an American at- tack from the rear or by the German submarine. If America refused to attack from the rear, America was to be counted as an enemy. It was a case of he who is not for me is against me. To such an alternative there was but one an- swer for a free people to make. To become the In April, IQI7 93 ally of the conqueror of Belgium against France and the British democracies was utterly out of the question. Our choice was made and the su- preme question of American policy became : How far will Germany carry the war against us and how hard shall we strike back? That we were aligned on the side of Germany's enemies no candid man, I think, can deny. The effect of this alignment was to make sea power absolute. For mastery of the seas is no longer the posses- sion of any one nation. The supremacy of the British Navy in this war rests on international consent, on the consent of her allies and of the neutrals. Without that consent the blockade of Germany could not exist, and the decision of America not to resist Allied sea power was the final blow which cut off Germany from the world. It happened gradually, without spectac- ular announcement, but history, I think, will call it one of the decisive events of the war. The effect was to deny Germany access to the resources of the neutral world, and to open these resources to the Allies. Poetic justice never de- vised a more perfect retribution. The nation 94 The Political Scene which had struck down a neutral to gain a mili- tary advantage found the neutral world a part- ner of its enemies. That partnership between the neutral world and Germany's enemies rested on merchant ship- ping. This suggested a new theory of warfare to the German Government. It decided that since every ship afloat fed the resources of its enemies, it might be a good idea to sink every ship afloat. It decided that since all the high- ways of the world were the communications of the Allies, those communications should be cut. It decided that if enough ships were destroyed, it didn't matter what ships or whose ships, Eng- land and France would have to surrender and make a peace on the basis of Germany's victories in Europe. Therefore on the thirty-first of January, 191 7, Germany abolished neutrality in the world. The policy which began by denying that a quarrel in the Balkans could be referred to Europe, went on to destroy the internationalized State of Bel- gium, culminated in indiscriminate attack upon the merchant shipping of all nations. The doc- trine of exclusive nationalism had moved In April, 19 1 7 95 through these three dramatic phases until those who held it were at war with mankind. III. The terrible logic of Germany's policy had a stupendous result. By striking at the bases of all international order, Germany convinced even the most isolated of neutrals that order must be preserved by common effort. By denying that a society of nations exists, a society of nations has been forced into existence. The very thing Ger- many challenged Germany has established. Be- fore 1914 only a handful of visionaries dared to hope for some kind of federation. The ortho- dox view was that each nation had a destiny of its own, spheres of influence of its own, and that it was somehow beneath the dignity of a great State to discuss its so-called vital interests with other governments. It was a world almost with- out common aspiration, with few effective com- mon ideals. Europe was split into shifting alliances, democracies and autocracies jumbled together. America lay apart with a budding im- perialism of its own. China was marked as the helpless victim of exploitation. That old politi- 96 The Political Scene cal system was one in which the German view was by no means altogether disreputable. In- ternationalism was half-hearted and generally regarded somewhat cynically. What Germany did was to demonstrate ad nauseam the doctrine of competitive nationalism. Other nations had applied it here and there, cau- tiously and timidly. No other nation in our time had ever applied it with absolute logic, with absolute preparation, and with absolute disre- gard of the consequences. Other nations had dallied with it, compromised about it, muddled along with it. But Germany followed through, and Germany taught the world just where the doctrine leads. Out of the necessities of defense against it men have gradually formulated the ideals of a cooperative nationalism. From all parts of the world there has been a movement of ideals work- ing slowly toward one end, toward a higher degree of spiritual unanimity than has ever been known before. China and India have been stirred out of their dependence. The American Republic has abandoned its isolation. Russia has become something like a republic. The Brit- In April, IQIJ 97 ish Empire is moving toward closer federation. The grand alliance called into existence by the German aggression is now something more than a military coalition. Common ideals are work- ing through it — ideals of local autonomy and joint action. Men are crying that they must be free and that they must be united. They have learned that they can not be free unless they co- operate, that they can not cooperate unless they are free. I do not wish to underestimate the forces of reaction in our country or in the other nations of the alliance. There are politicians and com- mercial groups who see in this whole thing nothing but opportunity to secure concessions, manipulate tariffs, and extend the bureaucracies. We shall know how to deal with them. Forces have been let loose which they can no longer control, and out of this immense horror ideas have arisen to possess men's souls. There are times when a prudent statesman must build on a contracted view of human nature. But there are times when new sources of energy are tapped, when the impossible becomes possible, when events outrun our calculations. This may 98 The Political Scene be such a time. The alliance to which we belong has suddenly grown hot with the new democracy of Russia and the new internationalism of Amer- ica. It has had an access of spiritual force which opens a new prospect in the policies of the world. We can dare to hope for things which we never dared to hope for in the past. In fact if those forces are not to grow cold and frittered they must be turned to a great end and offered a great hope. IV. That great end and that great hope is nothing less than the federation of the world. I know it sounds a little old-fashioned to use that phrase because we have abused it so long in empty rhet- oric; but no other idea is big enough to describe the alliance. It is no longer an offensive-defen- sive military agreement among diplomats. That is how it started, to be sure; but it has grown and is growing into a union of peoples deter- mined to end forever that intriguing, adventur- ous nationalism which has torn the world for three centuries. Good democrats have always believed that the common interests of men were In April, IQ 1 7 99 greater than their special interests, that ruling classes can be enemies, but that the nations must be partners. Well, this war is being fought by- nations. It is the nations who were called to arms, and it is the force of nations that is now stirring the world to its foundations. The war is dissolving into a stupendous rev- olution. A few months ago we still argued about the Bagdad corridor, strategic frontiers, colonies. Those were the stakes of the diplo- mat's war. The whole perspective is changed to-day by the revolution in Russia and the in- tervention of America. The scale of values is transformed, for the democracies are unloosed. Those democracies have nothing to gain and everything to lose by the old competitive nation- alism, the old apparatus of diplomacy, with its criminal rivalries in the backward places of the earth. The democracies, if they are to be safe, must cooperate. For the old rivalries mean fric- tion and armament and a distortion of all the hopes of free government. They mean that na- tions are organized to exploit each other and to exploit themselves. That is the life of what we call autocracy. It establishes its power at home IOO The Political Scene by pointing to enemies abroad. It fights its enemies abroad by dragooning the population at home. That is why practically the whole world is at war with the greatest of the autocracies. That is why the whole world is turning so passionately toward democracy as the only principle on which peace can be secured. Many have feared, I know, that the war against Prussian militarism would result the other way, that instead of lib- eralizing Prussia the outcome would be a Prus- sianization of the democracies. That would be the outcome if Prusso-Germany won. That would be the result of a German victory. And that is why we, who are the most peaceful of democracies, are at war. The success of the sub- marine would give Germany victory. It was and is her one great chance. To have stood aside when Germany made this terrible bid for victory would have been to betray the hope of free gov- ernment and international union. There are two ways now in which peace can be made. The first is by political revolution in In April, IQI7 101 Germany and Austria-Hungary. It is not for us to define the nature of that revolution. We can not dictate liberty to the German people. It is for them to decide what political institutions they will adopt, but if peace is to come through revolution, we shall know that it has come when new voices are heard in Germany, new policies are proclaimed, when there is good evidence that there has, indeed, been a new orientation. If that is done, the war can be ended by negotia- tion. The other path to peace is by the definite de- feat of every item in the program of aggression. This will mean, at a minimum, a demonstration on the field that the German army is not invin- cible; a renunciation by Germany of all the ter- ritory she has conquered ; a special compensation to Belgium; and an acknowledgment of the fal- lacy of exclusive nationalism by an application for membership in the league of nations. Frontier questions, colonial questions, are now entirely secondary, and beyond this minimum program the United States has no direct interest in the territorial settlement. The objects for which we are at war will be attained if we can 102 The Political Scene defeat absolutely the foreign policy of the pres- ent German Government. For a ruling caste which has been humiliated abroad has lost its glamour at home. So we are at war to defeat the German Government in the outer world, to destroy its prestige, to deny its conquests, and to throw it back at last into the arms of the Ger- man people marked and discredited as the author of their miseries. It is for them to make the final settlement with it. If it is our privilege to exert the power which turns the scale, it is our duty to see that the end justifies the means. We can win nothing from this war unless it culminates in a union of liberal peoples pledged to cooperate in the settlement of all outstanding questions, sworn to turn against the aggressor, determined to erect a larger and more modern system of international law upon a federation of the world. That is what we are fighting for, at this moment, on the ocean, in the shipyard, and in the factory; later perhaps in France and Belgium, ultimately at the council of peace. If we are strong enough and wise enough to win this victory, to reject all the poison of hatred In April, IQI7 103 abroad and intolerance at home, we shall have made a nation to which free men will turn with love and gratitude. For ourselves we shall stand committed as never before to the realization of democracy in America. We who have gone to war to insure democracy in the world will have raised an aspiration here that will not end with the overthrow of the Prussian autocracy. We shall turn with fresh interests to our own tyran- nies — to our Colorado mines, our autocratic steel industries, our sweatshops, and our slums. We shall call that man un-American and no pa- triot who prates of liberty in Europe and resists it at home. A force is loose in America as well. Our own reactionaries will not assuage it with their Billy Sundays or control it through lawyers and politicians of the old guard. APPENDIX II TEXT OF THE PROPOSED CONSTITU- TION OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS * COVENANT Preamble In order to promote international cooperation and to secure international peace and security by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to zvar, by the prescription of open, just and honorable relations between nations, by the firm establish- ment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupu- lous respect for all treaty obligations in the deal- ings of organized people with one another, the powers signatory to this covenant adopt this con- stitution of the League of Nations: Article I. The action of the high contracting parties under the terms of this covenant shall be effected 1 Reprinted from pamphlet published by League to Enforce Peace, 130 West 426. Street, New York. 104 The Proposed League of Nations 105 through the instrumentality of meetings of a body of delegates representing the high contract- ing parties, of meetings at more frequent in- tervals of an Executive Council, and of a permanent international secretariat to be estab- lished at the seat of the League. Article II. Meetings of the body of delegates shall be held at stated intervals and from time to time, as occasion may require, for the purpose of deal- ing with matters within the sphere of action of the League. Meetings of the body of delegates shall be held at the seat of the League, or at such other places as may be found convenient, and shall consist of representatives of the high con- tracting parties. Each of the high contracting parties shall have one vote, but may have not more than three representatives. Article III. The Executive Council shall consist of repre- sentatives of the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, to- io6 Appendix gether with representatives of four other States, members of the League. The selection of these four States shall be made by the body of dele- gates on such principles and in such manner as they think fit. Pending the appointment of these representatives of the other States, representa- tives of shall be members of the Execu- tive Council. Meetings of the council shall be held from time to time as occasion may require, and at least once a year, at whatever place may be decided on, or, failing any such decision, at the seat of the League, and any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world may be dealt with at such meetings. Invitations shall be sent to any power to attend a meeting of the council, at which matters directly affecting its interests are to be dis- cussed, and no decision taken at any meeting will be binding on such a power unless so invited. Article IV. All matters of procedure at meetings of the body of delegates or the Executive Council, in- cluding the appointment of committees to inves- The Proposed League of Nations 107 tigate particular matters, shall be regulated by the body of delegates or the Executive Council, and may be decided by a majority of the States represented at the meeting. The first meeting of the body of delegates and of the Executive Council shall be summoned by the President of the United States of America. Article V. The permanent secretariat of the League shall be established at , which shall constitute the seat of the League. The secretariat shall comprise such secretaries and staff as may be required, under the general direction and control of a Secretary General of the League, who shall be chosen by the Executive Council. The secre- tariat shall be appointed by the Secretary Gen- eral subject to confirmation by the Executive Council. The Secretary General shall act in that capac- ity at all meetings of the body of delegates or of the Executive Council. The expenses of the secretariat shall be borne by the States members of the League, in accord- ance with the apportionment of the expenses of io8 Appendix the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union. Article VI. Representatives of the high contracting parties and officials of the League, when engaged in the business of the League, shall enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunities, and the buildings oc- cupied by the League or its officials, or by repre- sentatives attending its meetings, shall enjoy the benefits of extra-territoriality. Article VII. Admission to the League of States, not signa- tories to the covenant and not named in the pro- tocol hereto as States to be invited to adhere to the covenant, requires the assent of not less than two-thirds of the States represented in the body of delegates, and shall be limited to fully self- governing countries, including dominions and colonies. No State shall be admitted to the League un- less it is able to give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international ob- ligations and unless it shall conform to such principles as may be prescribed by the League The Proposed League of Nations 109 in regard to its naval and military forces and armaments. Article VIII. The high contracting parties recognize the principle that the maintenance of peace will re- quire the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety, and the enforcement by common action of interna- tional obligations, having special regard to the geographical situation and circumstances of each State, and the Executive Council shall formulate plans for effecting such reduction. The Exe- cutive Council shall also determine for the con- sideration and action of the several Governments what military equipment and armament is fair and reasonable in proportion to the scale of forces laid down in the program of disarma- ment; and these limits, when adopted, shall not be exceeded without the permission of the Exe- cutive Council. The high contracting parties agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war lends itself to grave ob- jections, and direct the Executive Council to ad- no Appendix vise how the evil effects attendant upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard being had to the necessities of those countries which are not able to manufacture for themselves the munitions and implements of war necessary for their safety. The high contracting parties undertake in no way to conceal from each other the condition of such of their industries as are capable of being adapted to warlike purposes or the scale of their armaments, and agree that there shall be full and frank interchange of information as to their military and naval programs. Article IX. A permanent commission shall be constituted to advise the League on the execution of the provisions of Article VIII. and on military and naval questions generally. Article X. The high contracting parties shall undertake to respect and preserve as against external ag- gression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all States members of The Proposed League of Nations in the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggres- sion the Executive Council shall advise upon the means by which the obligation shall be fulfilled. Article XL Any war or threat of war, whether immedi- ately affecting any of the high contracting par- ties or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the League, and the high contracting parties reserve the right to take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. It is hereby also declared and agreed to be the friendly right of each of the high contracting parties to draw the attention of the body of dele- gates or of the Executive Council to any cir- cumstance affecting international intercourse which threatens to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends. Article XII. The high contracting parties agree that should disputes arise between them which cannot be ad- 112 Appendix justed by the ordinary processes of diplomacy they will in no case resort to war without pre- viously submitting the questions and matters in- volved either to arbitration or to inquiry by the Executive Council and until three months after the award by the arbitrators or a recommenda- tion by the Executive Council, and that they will not even then resort to war as against a member of the League which complies with the award of the arbitrators or the recommendation of the Executive Council. In any case under this article the award of the arbitrators shall be made within a reasonable time, and the recommendation of the Executive Council shall be made within six months after the submission of the dispute. Article XIII. The high contracting parties agree that when- ever any dispute or difficulty shall arise between them, which they recognize to be suitable for submission to arbitration and which cannot be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy, they will sub- mit the whole matter to arbitration. For this purpose the court of arbitration to which the The Proposed League of Nations 113 case is referred shall be the court agreed on by the parties or stipulated in any convention ex- isting between them. The high contracting parties agree that they will carry out in full good faith any award that may be rendered. In the event of any failure to carry out the award the Executive Council shall propose what steps can best be taken to give effect thereto. Article XIV. The Executive Council shall formulate plans for the establishment of a permanent court of international justice, and this court shall, when established, be competent to hear and determine any matter which the parties recognize as suit- able for submission to it for arbitration under the foregoing article. Article XV. If there should arise between States, members of the League, any dispute likely to lead to a rup- ture, which is not submitted to arbitration as above, the high contracting parties agree that they will refer the matter to the Executive 114 Appendix Council; either party to the dispute may give notice of the existence of the dispute to the Sec- retary General, who will make all necessary arrangements for a full investigation and consid- eration thereof. For this purpose the parties agree to communicate to the Secretary General, as promptly as possible, statements of their case, with all the relevant facts and papers, and the Executive Council may forthwith direct the pub- lication thereof. Where the efforts of the council lead to the settlement of the dispute, a statement shall be published, indicating the nature of the dispute and the terms of settlement, together with such explanations as may be appropriate. If the dis- pute has not been settled, a report by the council shall be published, setting forth with all neces- sary facts and explanations the recommendation which the council think just and proper for the settlement of the dispute. If the report is unanimously agreed to by the members of the council, other than the parties to the dispute, the high contracting parties agree that they will not go to war with any party which complies with the recommendations, and that, if any party shall The Proposed League of Nations 115 refuse so to comply, the council shall propose measures necessary to give effect to the recom- mendations. If no such unanimous report can be made it shail be the duty of the majority and the privilege of the minority to issue statements, in- dicating what they believe to be the facts, and containing the recommendations which they con- sider to be just and proper. The Executive Council may in any case under this article refer the dispute to the body of dele- gates. The dispute shall be so referred at the request of either party to the dispute, provided that such request must be made within fourteen days after the submission of the dispute. In any case referred to the body of delegates, all the provisions of this article, and of Article XII., relating to the action and powers of the Executive Council, shall apply to the action and powers of the body of delegates. Article XVI. Should any of the high contracting parties break or disregard its covenants under Article XII. it shall thereby ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all the other II 6 Appendix members of the League, which hereby under- takes immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the prevention of all financial, commercial, or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State, whether a member of the League or not. It shall be the duty of the Executive Council in such case to recommend what effective mili- tary or naval force the members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League. The high contracting parties agree, further, that they will mutually support one another in the financial and economic measures which may be taken under this article in order to minimize the loss and inconvenience resulting from the above measures, and that they will mutually sup- port one another in resisting any special measures aimed at one of their number by the covenant- breaking State and that they will afford pas- sage through their territory to the forces of any The Proposed League of Nations 117 of the high contracting parties who are coopera- ting to protect the covenants of the League. Article XVII. In the event of disputes between one State member of the League and another State which is not a member of the League, or between States not members of the League, the high contracting parties agree that the State or States, not mem- bers of the League, shall be invited to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, upon such conditions as the Executive Council may deem just, and upon acceptance of any such invitation, the above pro- visions shall be applied with such modifications as may be deemed necessary by the League. Upon such invitation being given, the Execu- tive Council shall immediately institute an in- quiry into the circumstances and merits of the dispute and recommend such action as may seem best and most effectual in the circumstances. In the event of a power so invited refusing to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, and taking any action against a State member of the n8 Appendix League, which in the case of a State member of the League would constitute a breach of Arti- cle XII., the provisions of Article XVI. shall be applicable as against the State taking such action. If both parties to the dispute, when so invited, refuse to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, the Executive Council may take such action and make such recommendations as will prevent hos- tilities and will result in the settlement of the dispute. Article XVIII. The high contracting parties agree that the League shall be intrusted with the general super- vision of the trade in arms and ammunition with the countries in which the control of this traffic is necessary in the common interest. Article XIX. To those colonies and territories which, as a consequence of the late war, have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which for- merly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves un- The Proposed League of Nations 119 der the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples 'form a sacred trust of civilization and that se- curities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in the constitution of the League. The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be intrusted to advanced nations, who by reason of their resources, their experience, or their geographical position, can best undertake this responsibility, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as mandatories on behalf of the League. t The character of the mandate must differ ac- cording to the stage of the development of the people, the geographical situation of the terri- tory, its economic conditions and other similar circumstances. Certain communities, formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire, have reached a stage of development where their existence as independ- ent nations can be provisionally recognized, sub- ject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory power until such 120 Appendix time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal con- sideration in the selection of the mandatory power. Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are at such a stage that the mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory, subject to conditions which will guar- antee freedom of conscience or religion, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic, and the liquor traf- fic, and the prevention of the establishment of fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training of the natives for other than police purposes and the defense of territory, and will also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other members of the League. There are territories, such as Southwest Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, which, owing to the sparseness of the population, or their small size, or their remoteness from the centers of civilization, or their geographical con- tiguity to the mandatory State and other cir- cumstances, can be best administered under the The Proposed League of Nations 121 laws of the mandatory States as integral por- tions thereof, subject to the safeguards above mentioned in the interests of the indigenous population. In every case of mandate, the mandatory State shall render to the League an annual report in reference to the territory committed to its charge. The degree of authority, control, or adminis- tration, to be exercised by the mandatory State, shall, if not previously agreed upon by the high contracting parties in each case, be explicitly de- fined by the Executive Council in a special act or charter. The high contracting parties further agree to establish at the seat of the League a mandatory commission to receive and examine the annual reports of the mandatory powers, and to assist the League in insuring the observance of the terms of all mandates. Article XX. The high contracting parties will endeavor to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labor for men, women, and children, both in their own countries and in all countries to which 122 Appendix their commercial and industrial relations extend; and to that end agree to establish as part of the organization of the League a permanent bureau of labor. Article XXI. The high contracting parties agree that pro- vision shall be made through the instrumentality of the League to secure and maintain freedom of transit and equitable treatment for the com- merce of all States members of the League, hav- ing in mind, among other things, special arrange- ments with regard to the necessities cf the regions devastated during the war of 1914-1918. Article XXII. The high contracting parties agree to place under the control of the League all international bureaus already established by general treaties, if the parties to such treaties consent. Further- more, they agree that all such international bu- reaus to be constituted in future shall be placed under control of the League. The Proposed League of Nations 123 Article XXIII. The high contracting parties agree that every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any State member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the Secretary General and as soon as possible published by him, and that no such treaty or international engage- ment shall be binding until so registered. - Article XXIV. It shall be the right of the body of delegates from time to time to advise the reconsideration by States members of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable and of interna- tional conditions of which the continuance may endanger the peace of the world. Article XXV. The high contracting parties severally agree that the present covenant is accepted as abrogat- ing all obligations inter se which are inconsist- ent with the terms thereof, and solemnly engage that they will not hereafter enter into any en- gagement inconsistent with the terms thereof. 124 Appendix In case any of the powers signatory hereto or subsequently admitted to the League shall, be- fore becoming a party to this covenant, have undertaken any obligations which are inconsist- ent with the terms of this covenant, it shall be the duty of such power to take immediate steps to procure its release from such obligations. Article XXVI. Amendments to this covenant will take effect when ratified by the States whose representa- tives compose the Executive Council and by three-fourths of the States whose representa- tives compose the body of delegates. THE END. 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