H5lfJJ5S?7!II?11 'I , $ t 4 EVENING PUBLIC LEDgEEr-PHILADELPHIA, MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1918 ' "" 1 V f 15, ADVEnTlSEMEXT ADVERTISEMENT AnvHmpiBMmr. 'v' ADVKnTiwr.Mr.NT Anrr.BTi.iEMiff.-T I ADVERTISEMENT DVKRTISEME.NT I . ADVERTS EMEOTT ft SI? If hi DO WE REALLY WANT TO PREVENT FUTURE WAR? Nothing But a League of Nations Can Do It. Is America Ready to Do Her Part? What It Involves. br IH i, I- ?i ?: fa W r lit f I fit That wars in the future cannot be prevented unless the world forms a League of Nations is the belief of the statesmen of Europe and America; of Premier Lloyd George, of ex-Premier Asquith, , of Lord Grey, of President Wilson. President Wilson and Lord Grey have both declared that if the League is not formed at the peace settlement it is never likely to be. This is the greatest task ever undertaken by statesmen. Premier Clemenceau says, "It is more difficult to make the peace thaft it was to win. the victory." America's voice can decide this issue, asking nothing for herself but that there shall be NO MORE WAR. You cannot have the League of Nations and -its immeasurable benefits for nothing: it cannot be all gain and no giving. America must know what it is that she must give and do. The statement of principles here published represents the considered judgment of a group of American business men, lawyers and students of international affairs, after many months of study and discussion. Statement of Principles THE object of this Society is to promote a more general reali zation and support by the public of the conditions indis pensable to the success, at the Peace Conference and there after, of American aims and policy as outlined by President Wilson. The particular aims, such as the liberation of Belgium, Ser bia. Poland and Bohemia, and their future protection from aggres . sion, and America's own future security on land and sea, are dependent upon'the realization of the more general aim of a sounder future international order, the corner-stone of which must be a League of Nations. . , The purposes of such a League are to achieve for all peoples, great and small: ' (1) Security: the due protection of national existence. M (2) Equality of economic opportunity. Remove Motives for Aggression EOTH these purposes demand for their accomplishment pro found changes in the spirit and principles of the older inter national statecraft. The underlying assumption heretofore has been that a nation's security and prosperity rest chiefly upon its own strength and resources. Such an assumption has been used to justify statesmen in attempting, on the ground of the supreme need for national security, to increase their own nation's power and resources by insistence upon strategic frontiers, territory with raw material, outlets to the sea, even though that course does violence to the security and prosperity of others. Under any sys tem in which adequate defense rests upon, individual preponder ance of power the security of one must involve the insecurity of another, and must inevitably give rise to covert or overt competi tions for power and territory dangerous to peace and destructive to justice. Under such a system of competitive as opposed to co-operative nationalism the smaller nationalities can never be really secure. Obviously Belgians, Jugoslavs, .Poles, Czechoslovaks will not be secure if they have to depend upon their own individual, unaided strength. International commitments of some kind there must be. The price of secure nationality is some degree of inter nationalism. The fundamental principle underlying the League of Nations is that the security and rights of each member shall rest upon the strength of the whole League,,pledged to uphold by their combined power international arrangements ensuring fair treatment for all. i New Rules of International Conduct The first concern of a League of Nations is io find out what those arrangements should be, what rules of fnternational life will ensure justice to all, how far the old international law or practice must be modified to secure that end. It is to the interest of the entire world xthat every nation should attain its maximum economic development, provided it does not prevent a similar development of other nations. The realization of this aim depends upon a gradually uicreasing freedom of mutual exchange, with its resulting economic independence. It is certain, for instance, that if anything approaching equality, of economic opportunity as between great and small, powerful and weak, is to be obtained, the following must be guaranteed for all on equal terms: (a) No State shall accord to one neighbor privileges not accorded to others this principle to apply to the purchase of raw material as well as to access to markets. Equality of economic opportunity does not mean the abolition of all tariffs or the abujkion of the right of self-governing States to determine whether EgaE Trade or protection is to their best interests. im (b) States exercising authority in nonself-governing terri- Mm-ks shall not exercise that power as a means of securing a JSffivilegcd economic position for their own nationals; economic opportunity in such territories shall be open to all peoples on equal Kerms, the peoples of nations possessing no such territories being 'in the same position economically as those that possess great subject empires. Investments and concessions in, backward countries should be placed under international control. (c) Goods and persons of the citizens of all States should be transported on equal terms on international rivers, canals, straits or railroads. (d) Landlocked States must be guaranteed access to the sea on equal terms both by equality of treatment on communications ' running through other States, and by the use of seaports. How Will the Rules Be Amended From Time to Time? 'pHE first task is legislative in its nature. The problem is to modify the conditions that lead to war. It will be quite inade quate to establish courts of arbitration or of law if they have to arbitrate or judge on the basis of the old laws and practices. These have proved insufficient. It is obvious that any plan ensurinc national security and equality of economic opportunity will involve a limitation of na tional sovereignty. It is here particularly that the success of the League will demand the doing of the "unprecedented things" men tioned by President Wilson. States possessing ports that are the natural outlet of a hinterland occupied by another people will per haps regard it as an intolerable invasion of their independence if their sovereignty over those ports is not absolute but limited by the obligation to permit of their use by a foreign and possibly rival people on equal terms. States possessing territories in Africa or Asia inhabited by populations in a backward state of develop ment have generally heretofore looked for privileged and prefer ential treatment of their own industry and commerce in those territories. Great interests will be challenged, some sacrifice of national pride demanded, and the hostility of political factions in some countries will be aroused. Yet if, after the war, States are to be shut out from the sea ; if rapidly expanding populations find themselves excluded from raw materials indispensable to their prosperity; if the privileges and preferences enjoyed by States with overseas territories place the less powerful States at a disadvantage, we shall have re-established potent motives for that competition for political power which, in the past, has been so large an element in the causation of war and the subjugation of veaker peoples. The ideal of the security of all nations and "equality of opportunity" will have failed of realization. In the Next Few Weeks or Never (OTH President Wilson and Lord Grey have insisted that the creation of a League of Nations must be an integral part of the settlement itself. Both have indeed declared that if it is not established at that settlement, it is never likely to be. The reason is obvious. If the League is not a political reality at the time that the territorial readjustments come to be discussed ; if, as in the past, nations must look for their future security chiefly to their own strength and resources, then inevitably, in the name of the needs of natfonal defense, there will be claims for strategic frontiers and territories with raw material which do violence to the principle of nationality. Afterward those who suffer from such violations would be opposed to the League of Nations because it would cpnsecrate the injustice Vf which they would be the victims. A refusal to trust to the League of Nations, and a demand for "material" guarantees for future safety, will set un that very fer ment which will afterward be appealed to as proof that the League could not succeed because men did not trust it. A bold "Act of Political Faith" in the League will justify itself by making the League a success ; but, equally, lack of faith will justify itself by ruining the League. Just as the general acceptance of the principles of the League must precede the territorial settlement, so must it precede attempts to reduce armaments. The League should not be, in the first stage, a proposal to relinquish arms, but to combine them; it should be an agreement upon the methods by which they can be used in com mon for common security. The League of Nations is not an alter native to the use of force, but the organization of force to the end that it may be effective for our common protection. If nations can be brought to realize that they can in truth look to the League as the main guaranty of political security and economic opportunity, that those things do not demand unwilling provinces as sources of man power or raw material, nor seaports as a condition of economic development, then one of the main obstacles to the liberation of subject nationalities will have been removed, and the solution of the specific problems of Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, Bohemia, Jugoslavia, and the self-determination of the peoples of Turkey and Russia, will have been enormously facilitated. We Have It in Part Now THE administrative machinery of a workable, internationalism already exists in rudimentary form. The international bodies that have already been established by the Allied belligerents who now number over a score to deal with their combined military resources, shipping and transport, food, raw materials, and finance, have been accorded immense powers. Any of these activi ties particularly those relating to the international control of raw material and shipping will have to be continued during the very considerable period of demobilization and reconstruction which will follow the war. Problems of demobilization and civil re-employment particularly will demand the efficient representa tion of Labor and Liberal elements of the various States. vVith international commissions, and exercising the same control over Why a New "League of Nations" Society! Because the war has shown that if a League of Nations is to be effective, the earlier conceptions of its scope must be expanded. The plan for a League of Nations which first naturally suggests itself is that of an Alliance of Governments using its combined power to compel submission of international differences to arbitration, or a Court of Law or Council of Conciliation. Why is this inadequate? The combination or alliance of force is indispensable. But it can not last or work effectively without very considerable changes in the principles, rules or practice by which Courts and Arbitration Boards heretofore have been obliged to decide. Great difficulties are likely to arise in" securing agreement on those changes unless the public is familiarized with the need of making them, and unless effective organs for the task which mean an international legislative body of some kind are provided. This conception of the League of Nations as the instrument by which the peoples shall change the conditions which lead to war has too often been made subsidiary to the conceptions of it as an Alliance of Governments for enforcing respect of the status quo. , , The League of Free Nations Association ioes not oppose the plans for creating an Alliance of force; many of its members subscribe heartily to them; but it would enlarge those plans, and emphasize and clarify the reasons for so doing. S?heSSiirC 1resou"es of.,the world, an international government with powerful sanction will in fact exist. Not Democratic Now rpi:i: l.ita-national machinery will need democratization as well Nnrc'enf VVedlffrenJlation -f functin- If the League of Nations is not to develop into an immense bureaucratic union of onfanet8x instea,d f a democratic union of peoples, the ele ? ((l) ,CTP ete- Felicity and (b) effective popular repre- ?n ",-? -S be lns,Sted .up?"' The first of thesis implicit Jw P,lmc,P,e' so emphasized by President Wilson, that in the nnvImenmUSt bG a" Cnd t0 s?cret diPlmacy. The second can only be met by some representation of the peoples in a body with SveCrf Ver '"Jeraational affairs-which must include SJfJ lements-as distinct from the Governments of the constituent States, of the League. It is the principle which has SlKf l" Ul lue American Union as contrasted with the p tSKi S f63 f w erman, EmPire- If the Government of 2w q?? 1GS ??n.sisted merely of the representatives of forty SSXpS? i U?lon could never have been maintained on a n?TttC as,s:.Happ,ly,it consists also of the representatives ii h"n eJ. "'"'on people, The new international government mi Ttv,m . ?e SJ!me Pulsion and deliberately aim to see that ?epresentatfon.Pa ffrUPS in the VarioUs States obtain nVhfSf1!00 of the political, civil, religious and cultural But tpnfnnPlv S W1,n St,ates 1S.an cven more diffic"lt problem. S Tnifn democralc Parliamentary institutions in the League, nublTc v S!n?Tn of minority opinion, as well as complete ?"a nstytvibn.iafftr0,nQ' deterent if. not a complete assurance States. tyranmcal tleatment of minorities within its constituent A Real Union of the Peoples follow"ngfenSable t0 tHe SUCCeSS f A P0 are at least the A universal association of nations uJJtTJtAS? the sccuritv of each shal1 rest enunmnanfdnJ?t u,ph.l international arrangements giving equality of political right and economic opportunity Based upon a constitution democratic in character Possessing a central council or parliament as train rnr natons-"3 PMlWe f "" ' PlHical parea " ftc "ottuSenl is rXlsmTto "thtTe'oX "" ""0l' WhSe Reformation of such an association should be an intearal s&s assr- "sc" """ " tmitm"" "b- " It should prohibit the formation of minor leagues or special exclusions. "" SP l eC0""""C combinati boycotts, or judicialTodiel betWen memben shonld be submitted to its ; 'teadminhtratiue machinery should be built up from the interallied bodies already in existence, expanded into InteZ con7mution difTerentiated in function democratized in , VnlSeecivt. !ianctio" of the association should not be alone the combined military power of the whole used as an instrument of repression, but such use of the world-wide control of economic resources as would make it more advantageous for a state to bl come and remain a member of the association and to co-operate with it, than to challenge it. vpeiaie All the principles above outlined are merely an extension rf national Ti?e?S bee" W0Vm int the bric'of our own At a time when deep-seated forces of reaction would hamper a democratic solution and assert the old schemes of competitive militarism, of economic wars after the war, of division aid bitted ness and unhealed sores, such as will breed further wars and rob this one of its great culmination, we call on all liberal-mindSd men to stand behind the principles which the President has SCreaUza?"on:Ve thei" t0 1hl fe"0WshiP toL for John OFAgar Frederic Almy Mary Beard Charles A. Beard Chas. W. Birtwell Ida Blair Georae Piatt Brett Sidney L. Gulick Francis Hackett Judge Learned Hand Norman Hapaood J. A. H. Hopkins William Hard Dora G. S. Hazard Rt. Rrv. Rem'. Ttrewsler Sidney Hillman John Graham Brooks Wm. E. Hocking wjinams ziaams isrown nummun noit Henry Bruere Robert W. Bruere Allen T. Burns Wendell T. Bush Reheeca A. Caldwell Wineion Churchill Julius Henry Cohen Lincoln Colcord John R. Commons Stouahton Coaley J. Randolph Coolidge Charles C. Cooper Seymour L. Cromivell Herbert Croly Walter Damrosch J. lAonberaer Davis John Dewey Stephen P. Duggan Will Durant Samuel T. Dutton L. J. Eddy S. S. Fels John A. Fitch Rose Dabney Forbes Felix Frankfurter Robert H. Gardiner Arthur Gleason Alvin Johnson Martyn Johnson Arthur P. Kellogg Paul U. Kellogg Edward Krehbiel Julia Lathrop Edward Morgan Lewis William Draper Lewis Adolph Letoisohn Owen R. Lovejoy Robert Morss Lovett Isobel Lowell Warren J. Lynch James G. McDonald Helen Marot Paul Monroe John F. Moors Robert J. Moton Helen S. Pratt Michael Idvorsky Pupiu Lawson Purdy Judge Wm. L. Ransom Dean Howard C. Robbins James Harvey Robinson Henry W. Rolfe Ralph S. Rounds Rev. John A. Ryan J. S. Schapiro Jacob H. Schiff Rose Schneiderman EVery Sedgwick E. R. A. Seligman Isabella Pratt Shaiv John R. Shillady Mary K. Simkhovitch John F. Sinclair James L. Slayden Edwin H. Slosson Charlotte H. Sorehan Nelson S. Spencer Harold Stearns Mary W. Stillman Dorothy Whitney Straight Harold L. Stratton Ida M. Tarbell Geraldine L. Thompson Mary Cooke B. Munford Katrina Ely Tiffany Henry R. Mussey George Nasmyth Margaret L. M. Norrie Agnes Nestor Harry A. Overstreet W. B. Pitkin George A. Plimpton Calvin Tomvkins Gertrude S. Trowbridge John A. Voll Joseph Walker Edward T. Ware Alice Binsse Warren Thomas Raeburn Whitt 130 WEST 42ND STREET, NEW YORK ' !l A m a t i JMl cfj KM S '?2 wi H f V, i' .t f -i 5i LEAGUE OF FREE NATIONS ASSOCIATION 'h: V iX .-.. M J. 4 y 'V- !A' &, ufy 2;y. r . ft LS&ttft K- t H- lTA ""?. A "i. Jfs i
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