ask justice against every other state. In many cases there is no law which governs the behavior of states except international law, and that is administered by the Supreme Court of the United States in such cases.

I do not care what you call it, you have got to have a court, you have got to have a committee of conciliation, you have got to have force, you have got to fix rules of international law. You cannot get away from these.

LESSER LEAGUE OF NATIONS 1

Subjects for consideration by the conference at Versailles will naturally divide themselves into two great classes. The first will embrace those terms exacted of Germany and the other conquered nations to prevent them from again beginning war now or in the near future; the indemnities to be assessed against them for damage inflicted on France, Belgium, Serbia and the other Allies; the redistribution of their territories and carving out of them the new republics to be set up; together with the machinery for securing those terms and their maintenance. The second class of subjects for discussion and settlement will be less exigent and have more of a world-wide character. Such will be the definition of freedom of the seas, open diplomacy, the prevention of discriminating economic barriers and the machinery for a general League of Nations to Enforce Peace.

This league may well consist of only the Allied nations, 1 Article in Public Ledger Dec. 9, 1918.

England, France, Italy, Japan and the United States. These are now the only "great" Powers for practical purposes. They cannot achieve the end of this war without such a league. How, if at all, this league shall be expanded to include other or all nations may be properly inquired into by a Congress of Nations of the World, continuing the sessions of the Versailles conference. The greater league would thus be a growth from the smaller league into which the Allied Powers will find themselves forced by the necessities of the situation. This is the best method of developing political institutions. It is the Anglo-Saxon way. They are framed and set in operation to meet immediate needs and then are expanded as their adaptation to larger usefulness makes itself clear.

A question as to the first or smaller league will at once demand answer from us. That is, whether we shall join it. The reactionaries, of whom there seem to be several in our Senate, will insist that we should keep our skirts clear of it and leave it to the other four Great Powers. After we have signed and approved the treaty, in their view, we should rid ourselves of any responsibility for its enforcement or the maintenance of the just, equitable and democratic status which its signatories seek to establish. This is the counsel of cowardice and atavism. It breaks the word of promise to the oppressed peoples of Europe. It would take out of the executive council of such a league the only member of it to which the peoples of the new republics and the rest of Europe would look with confidence for purely disinterested counsel and action. After our magniloquent declarations of purpose in this war, after our high-sounding announcement of the equitable bases of settlement of the war upon which the armistice and the treaty to follow are conditioned, what

a lame and impotent conclusion it would be for our President to come back to this country, leaving, as an arbiter of half the world, a League of Nations in which we were to have no voice and over whose actions we were to have no control!

Could we thus selfishly retire to our isolated seclusion and repudiate the responsibility that our participation in the war and in the terms of peace must thrust upon us as the most powerful and most impartial member of the family of nations? It is inconceivable that President Wilson, after what he has written and said to the world, would consent to play such a humiliating part. If, on the contrary, he is consistent with himself, if he stands up to the character he has assumed before to the plain people of Europe and the world, and signs a treaty by which the United States becomes a responsible factor in the world's progress, the men of small vision in the Senate and Congress will be swept from their opposition by a public opinion they cannot withstand.

Such a general league must always be of the highest benefit to every small nation. It would offer protection against any oppression by a greater nation, and it would give relief from the burden of armament. Full reliance could be had on the fairness of the league, because a conspiracy by all the Great Powers, including the United States, to oppress a small Power is unthinkable. Therefore, every small nation would ultimately seek admission. It would then willingly submit to reasonable restrictions on its own representative weight in the league to which, as an initiating constituent member, it might make vociferous objection.

DISARMAMENT OF NATIONS AND FREEDOM OF THE SEAS1

1

The original program of the League to Enforce Peace contained no clause with reference to disarmament of nations. This was not because the projectors of the league did not deem disarmament of the utmost importance in the ultimate maintenance of permanent peace but because they deemed real disarmament possible only as the result of the successful operation of the league. The league could only serve its purpose by furnishing to the nations the protection that the nations secured by armament. It was to be substituted for armament. Until it proved its usefulness as such, the armed nations could not be expected to part with their own insurance.

In a league of nations to Enforce the Versailles Treaty the Allied Powers must retain armament to constitute a police force to secure peace between the new nations of Middle and Eastern Europe and Asia Minor. This will justify the United States in maintaining a potential army by a system of universal training. It accords with Secretary Daniels' recommendations that we continue the peace plan of increasing our navy.

As the smaller league of peace proves its adequate protection against war the motive of economy will prompt compliance with Mr. Wilson's armament clause in the fourteen points by a proportionate decrease in all armaments, and a mutual agreement will become possible and practical. Meantime we must be patient. Reforms of this kind do 1 Article in Public Ledger Dec. 11, 1918.

not come at once and should not be expected to. We take an important step, and its success leads to another forward movement.

There is nothing in England's position respecting her fleet that should discourage the friends of the League of Nations to Enforce Peace. The exaggerated language of a Winston Churchill should not discourage us. It is the language of an advocate in a heated political campaign. We must admit the justice of England's position - that she cannot give up her fleet in the absence of the test of a new league of nations. She cannot know whether the League will be sufficient protection to her against attack. Her isolated position requires her to protect herself against starvation in time of war. She is dependent on other countries for food and raw materials. These can only reach her by the sea. She must keep open the access by sea in time of war. Only by her fleet can she do this. Not until the operation of the League of Nations demonstrates that this danger in war is minimized can she be expected to reduce her fleet.

So far as freedom of the seas in time of peace is concerned, wherever the British flag floats there is and always has been freedom of the seas.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE GERMAN COLONIES 1

No one can overestimate the weight in winning this war of the morale of the Allies born of the righteousness of their cause. They said, and the world believed them, that they were engaged in this war for no selfish purpose. They were 1 Article in Public Ledger Dec. 16, 1918.