LEAGUE APPEARS TO BE GAINING INFLUENCE AND GREATER CONFIDENCE

Mr. King was the official representative of two important middle-western newspapers at the League of Nations' Assembly last summer at Geneva. He was in a position to observe carefully the work of the Assembly and to interview many of the leading men connected with its activities.

After more than a month of daily contact with the League this summer I feel that one thing is outstanding,--the League is growing in influence and gaining in confidence all the time. The Third Assembly was much more successful in actual results achieved than either of the first two. Lord Robert Cecil's Disarmament scheme, or, more accurately, Reduction through a Pact of Mutual Guarantees, to be presented next year; a definite agreement by four great League members to get Austria on her feet; the sending of Nansen to Constantinople to care for the Greek refugees; and work on mandates and minorities were the main business.

I have always been in favor of the League, and am much encouraged after seeeing it in action. In point of fact the League is by far the greatest charitable organization that has ever existed on the face of the earth. No other, to cite one phase alone, has repatriated half a million prisoners of war! On its political side, it has prevented several wars, and is working towards disarmament by slow practical steps, to say nothing of having set up the first and only effective World Court.

"Timorous Conservatism" of America

To me it is a very sad and strange thing that the greatest and most powerful, as well as the most generous and humanitarian of peoples, should have been betrayed into shirking its plain duty of cooperation in world affairs through this splendid channel, the most hopeful ever created,--by the timorous conservatism and petty politics of a few men in the United States Senate. It seems likely that it will take at least five or six years to overcome in America the impression of suspicion and dread of the most Christian attempt to cooperate for the good of all ever seen in the world,--an impression raised by the bickering of the Republican Senators over a constitutional document that had yet to have the slightest breath of life blown into it,--that could have been amended at our slightest word. The silliness and smallness of this misrepresentation of the American people is abysmal, when one sees the League in operation, functioning smoothly and amicably, and already developing a splendid spirit of universal cooperation in the solving of problems of universal concern. The agreement to refloat Austria has been a tremendous step ahead, for instance, engineered mainly by the patience and skill and altruism of that great Leaguer, Balfour.

A "Most American Thing"

This League is far and away the most American thing that I have seen all summer on this suffering continent of Europe. That little international community of 350 men and women--the Secretariat whose work in the bustling Palais des Nations by the Rhone carries so far--has many Americans in it, three of whom, I am glad to say, are in really important positions. This great experiment that American faith and courage did much to start needs, as it has always needed, our aid as well as that of others. It has now become a successful experiment and has come definitely to stay in the world,--without us! Like the Publican we have passed by on the other side