Whatever is of common interest, whatever makes for the common good, whatever demands united effort is a fit subject for applied Pan-Americanism. Fraternal helpfulness is the keystone to the arch. Its pillars are faith and justice.

In this great movement this congress will, I believe, play an exalted part. You, gentlemen, represent powerful intellectual forces in your respective countries. Together you represent the enlightened thought of the continent. The policy of Pan-Americanism is practical. The Pan-American spirit is ideal. It finds its source and being in the minds of thinking men. It is the offspring of the best, the noblest conception of international obligation.

With all earnestness, therefore, I commend to you, gentlemen, the thought of the American Republics, twenty-one sovereign and independent nations, bound together by faith and justice, and firmly cemented by a sympathy which knows no superior and no inferior, but which recognizes only equality and fraternity.

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE PEACE1

A. LAWRENCE LOWELL

In spite of its ominous sound, the suggestion of a league of nations to enforce peace has no connection with any effort to stop the present war. It is aimed solely at preventing future conflicts after the terrific struggle now raging has come to an end; and yet this is not a bad time for people in private life to bring forward proposals of such a nature. Owing to the vast number of soldiers under arms, to the proportion of men and women in the warring countries who suffer acutely, to the extent of the devastation and misery, it is probable that, whatever the result may be, the people of all nations will be more anxious to prevent the outbreak of another war than ever before in the history of the world. The time is not yet ripe for governments to take action, but it is ripe for public discussion of practicable means to reduce the danger of future breaches of international peace.

The nations of the world to-day are in much the position of frontier settlements in America half a century ago, before orderly government was set up. The men there were in the main well disposed, but in the absence of an authority that could enforce order each man, feeling no other security from attack, carried arms which he was prepared to use if danger threatened. The first step, when affrays became unbearable, was the formation of a vigilance committee, supported by the enrollment of all good citizens, to prevent men from shooting one another and to punish offenders. People did

1 Reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1915, through the generous permission of the author and of the Atlantic Monthly Publishing Company.

not wait for a gradual improvement by the preaching of higher ethics and a better civilization. They felt that violence must be met by force, and, when the show of force was strong enough, violence ceased. In time the vigilance committee was replaced by the policeman and by the sheriff with the posse comitatus. The policeman and the sheriff maintain order because they have the bulk of the community behind them, and no country has yet reached, or is likely for an indefinite period to reach, such a state of civilization that it can wholly dispense with the police.

Treaties for the arbitration of international disputes are good. They have proved an effective method of settling questions that would otherwise have bred ill-feeling without directly causing war; but when passion runs high, and deeprooted interests or sentiments are at stake, there is need of the sheriff with his posse to enforce the obligation. There are, no doubt, differences in the conception of justice and right, divergencies of civilization, so profound that people will fight over them, and face even the prospect of disaster in war rather than submit. Yet even in such cases it is worth while to postpone the conflict, to have a public discussion of the question at issue before an impartial tribunal, and thus give to the people of the countries involved a chance to consider, before hostilities begin, whether the risk and suffering of war is really worth while. No sensible man expects to abolish wars altogether, but we ought to seek to reduce the probability of war as much as possible. It is on these grounds that the suggestion has been put forth of a league of nations to enforce peace.

Without attempting to cover details of operation, which are, indeed, of vital importance and will require careful study by experts in international law and diplomacy, the proposal contains four points stated as general objects. The first is that before resorting to arms the members of the

league shall submit disputes with one another, if justiciable, to an international tribunal; second, that in like manner they shall submit non-justiciable questions (that is, such as cannot be decided on the basis of strict international law) to an international council of conciliation, which shall recommend a fair and amicable solution; third, that if any member of the league wages war against another before submitting the question in dispute to the tribunal or council, all the other members shall jointly use forthwith both their economic and military forces against the state that so breaks the peace; and, fourth, that the signatory powers shall endeavor to codify and improve the rules of international law.

The kernel of the proposal, the feature in which it differs from other plans, lies in the third point, obliging all the members of the league to declare war on any member violating the pact of peace. This is the provision that provokes both adherence and opposition; and at first it certainly gives one a shock that a people should be asked to pledge itself to go to war over a quarrel which is not of its making, in which it has no interest, and in which it may believe that substantial justice lies on the other side. If, indeed, the nations of the earth could maintain complete isolation, could pursue each its own destiny without regard to the rest, if they were not affected by a war between two others or liable to be drawn into it; if, in short, there were no overwhelming common interest in securing universal peace, the provision would be intolerable. It would be as bad as the liability of an individual to take part in the posse comitatus of a community with which he had nothing in common. But in every civilized country the public force is employed to prevent any man, however just his claim, from vindicating his own right with his own hand instead of going to law; and every citizen is bound, when needed, to assist in preventing him, because that is the only way to restrain private war, and the main

tenance of order is of paramount importance for every one. Surely the family of nations has a like interest in restraining war between states.

It will be observed that the members of the league are not to bind themselves to enforce the decision of the tribunal or the award of the council of conciliation. That may come in the remote future, but it is no part of this proposal. It would be imposing obligations far greater than the nations can reasonably be expected to assume at the present day; for the conceptions of international morality and fair play are still so vague and divergent that a nation can hardly bind itself to wage war on another, with which it has no quarrel, to enforce a decision or a recommendation of whose justice or wisdom it may not be itself heartily convinced. The proposal goes no farther than obliging all the members to prevent by threat of armed intervention a breach of the public peace before the matter in dispute has been submitted to arbitration, and this is neither unreasonable nor impracticable. There are many questions, especially of a non-justiciable nature, on which we should not be willing to bind ourselves to accept the decision of an arbitration, and where we should regard compulsion by armed intervention of the rest of the world as outrageous. Take, for example, the question of Asiatic immigration, or a claim that the Panama Canal ought to be an unfortified neutral highway, or the desire by a European power to take possession of Colombia. But we ought not, in the interest of universal peace, to object to making a public statement of our position in an international court or council before resorting to arms; and in fact the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, ratified on November 14, 1914, provides that all disputes between the high contracting parties, of every nature whatsoever, shall, failing other methods of adjustment, be referred for investigation and report to a Permanent International Commission