of Commerce and the Secretary of Labor. The same provision for the appointment of the expert advisory commission and of sub-commissions and expert advisers and investigators should undoubtedly be made. The function of the new department would be to investigate and inform itself concerning all matters falling within the jurisdiction of the League and to advise the President and Congress concerning any of these matters regarding which the United States might be called upon to make a decision. The underlying principle upon which to base the action of the United States, in establishing such a new department would be that cooperative life is an art which can be acquired only by study and experience. It is a fact of general knowledge that only persons and nations of high attainments in intelligence and conscientiousness can appreciate the reasons and motives of enlightened self-interest which form the basis of the cooperative philosophy and actually do what cooperation requires. The units of a cooperative society must all be equally well-informed, intelligent and conscientious. International cooperation is impossible except by intelligent and conscientious nations, each of which has its own organ of investigation and judgment dealing with the affairs of the world in all their phases and acting as adviser to its executive and its legislature. The institution of such a department as above outlined, contemporaneously with the entry of the United States into any super-union, is dictated not merely by principle. It is enjoined upon us also by considerations of prudence. The proposed Covenant, or any other similar super-constitution, if adopted, will establish a body in the world which, even though given only advisory powers, will exercise a great influence. Experience proves that such an influence will tend to become actual political power. One has only to remember the influence and power which the Roman Papacy has had and still has in the affairs of the world, and that which great newspapers, like the London Times of a halfcentury ago, have exercised in international politics, to realize that advisory power in a person or personality of acknowledged leadership, especially if accompanied with the power of investigation and publication, must be classed, in its actual effect, as real political power. Against even the advisory action of a body recognized as having international leadership, each nation must be prepared. Each nation must have knowledge of world affairs equal to that of the body sitting at Geneva, or the advice of Geneva will be in effect the command of a superior to an inferior. The United States, in particular, must be prepared for the new emergency; for, if it is not intellectually prepared to meet with facts and arguments the advice emanating from Geneva, its geographical location may lead to political situations in which the body sitting at Geneva, voicing the sentiment of Europe, or of Europe and Asia, may succeed in giving advice to the United States or to America which will in fact be a command. Against such contingencies, provision should, it seems, be made at the instant the United States decides to enter into the League, if it does so decide. To delay the institution of the new department or organ would tend to involve the nation in a maze of complications caused by the attempt of the existing departments to deal with the new relations. It seems clear, therefore, that the question of the adoption of the Covenant and of the institution of the new department should be considered and decided together so that the moment the League begins to operate, at that moment the new department of the United States may begin also to operate. The prin ciple that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" evidently applies to the new situation presented by the proposal to enter the League, in all its phases, present and future. |