LEAGUE OF NATIONS A NECESSITY FOR PEACE

Enlarging upon the idea brought up by the President's speech, Professor Albert Bushnell Hart '80 advocates the League of Nations in the following article written for the CRIMSON:

President Wilson's Boston speech, which touched upon rather than described or discussed the League of Nations, was a straightforward, manful appeal to high motives and farsight in public policy, which is the President's trump, and apparently the highest in the pack. He treated a combination of nations, on substantially the basis of the document that has been circulated throughout the world, as a foregone conclusion. Otherwise he said, the European war would have been fought in vain; the blood of America's sons would have been given in vain; the European peace will be made in vain.

The justification for this insistence upon a plan of world organization which assembles the sheep and the goats in one fold is that the world has tried and failed in all other methods of keeping civilization afloat. Another war like that through which the world, is still passing, would throw the governments of most of the world into chaos, would break in pieces the remaining world powers, and would in the end destroy democracy and the democratic countries together.

To be sure civilization has struggled up in the midst of destructive wars, and was apparently never so flourishing as in the spring of 1914. The course of the war, however, has gone far to convince mankind that there can be no return to the old order of things. One of the mistakes of those who oppose a League of Peace is to think that any country in the world can go back to the place that it occupied five years ago. Not only are three great empires smashed, but the fourth--Germany, seems to be in the midst of civil war. If the world lets go, that country as well as Russia, Austro-Hungary and Turkey, are certain to plunge into confused and hopeless civil wars. It is not for the interest of the rest of the world that half of Europe and half of Asia should be left to fall into anarchy. It is not to the interest of the United States that the spirit of division and ruin should spread into the European countries that are at present allied. International and civil wars anywhere in the world are a danger to us.

The solid bottom rock of the plan of the League of Peace is, therefore, the fact that though an association of moderately democratic countries has overcome the militaristic combine which tried to make itself the dominant power in the world, peace will leave the conquered countries in ruins, unless the solid, stable part of the world unites to set it in order and to give it the opportunity to grow into strength. A combination of nations has been found absolutely necessary to fight the war; without some combination of nations, there will be another war to fight before many years.

It would be very comfortable if the United States could tuck its head under its wing, and enjoy a dove-like sleep while the rest of the world was in flames. That is simply impossible. The policy of Washington and Jefferson applied to the conditions and times of Washington and Jefferson. The Monroe Doctrine was necessary when it was possible for the United States-to keep out of world politics. A country like ours, with possessions in Asia, in the North Pacific, in the Caribbean, in Central America, simply cannot carry out a policy of isolation. Nor can the richest country in the world, with enormous products and exports, with nearly fifteen million foreign born persons living within our boundaries, communicating daily with swift ships to all parts of the world, bound in a network of cables and wireless, now a creditor in thousands of millions, to many European governments, owner of immense values in foreign securities, keep out of the complications of modern industrial and economic life.

As the country that has most to lose by war and disorder and anarchy, the United States has most to gain by peace and security. Some senators and representatives of the United States and other public men argue that we must take care of ourselves. When the conditions of the world proved to be such that the British Empire has been absolutely unable to take care of itself alone, when the alert and courageous French nation was all but strangled, when Russia with a hundred and sixty million people breaks into fragments, what guarantee has the United States of America that it will be free to take care of itself? Our soldiers made a splendid fight, and rendered the world a great service; but how long would it have taken the United States to break the German lines and blockade the German and Austrian and Turkish coasts solely with our own army and navy?

Never has the United States had such a shining proposition offered to it. We are asked to give up no part of our constitution, our system of government, our laws, our possessions, except the present right to make war when we think best, for reasons that satisfy us, against any other nation that we see fit. This is a small privilege to a nation like ours, which is essentially pacific. In return for that concession we get two great privileges. The first is an assurance against the return of the frightful conditions which led to the present war, into which we were forced whether' we would or no. In the second place, the vast influence of the United States, about which President Wilson spoke so feelingly, at Mechanics Building will be permanently recognized; and we shall be in a position to press peace and democracy upon the rest of the world. When men argue that we are thus putting the destinies of the United States out of our hands, they mean that there is danger that European nations will combine against us in spite of the League of Nations. Other nations, however, give up far more than we, in admitting the United States to share with them in preserving peace