REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

The administration has got itself into a ridiculous position. The public utterances of both President Coolidge and Secretary Hughes have repeatedly pointed out the desirability of continuing to work in the interest of world peace through unofficial channels. With a strong savoring of paternalistic pride they exhibit for public inspection what has already been accomplished in this way. Great, indeed, are certain achievements in which America has taken prominent part officially; but great also is the irony of any presumption by the government to claim credit for these achievements. Such accomplishment stands as a monument not to the non-committal policy of the government, but to the individual enterprise that has made it possible in spite of that policy.

But if the irony of official claims has been obscure in the past, recent developments leave no doubt of the futility of present foreign policy to contribute toward world peace. Unofficially America is responsible for the Geneva protocol to outlaw war. Professor James T. Shotwell of Columbia University fathered the ideas incorporated in the document. And the world's applause of the plan apparently adds another feather to the cap of unofficial cooperation. In the middle of his graceful bow of acknowledgement, however, the administration receives a rude check. The experts at Geneva have conclude that all the constructive work of the forty-eight states which have signed the protocol is in vain, so long as the United States stays aloof. "What profits a World Court of International Justice," say these authorities. "If a refractory state, outlawed for refusing to abide by a process of international law, may set the world at defiance by supplying its economic and military needs at American markets?"

The deduction, which the United States must make for itself, is perfectly evident. Individual enterprise has put the dream of world peace into tangible and practical form; but unofficial cooperation--or to state it more exactly, official non-cooperation--renders the peace plans ineffective. Greater--variance between America's profession and her practice is impossible to imagine.