Sen. Pepper Calls for Post-War Federation

Senator Claude Pepper, Democrat from Florida, further confirmed his declaration for a post-war world union before the capacity audience in Emerson D. Friday night, in a forum sponsored by the Harvard and Radcliffe Councils on Post-War Problems.

Pepper introduced the topic by tracing the historical background of the world union problem and the importance of this background today. Following this, he emphasized that the foreign policy of the United States has been more or less consistent.

Although they retain this consistent policy the American people must make up their minds as to what their commitment on that policy is, Pepper continued. As an example of this, he pointed out that the American people seemed willing to fight for their own interests, but that those interests have now been stretched farther than the eye could reach.

Thus the United States has been led into the international picture and the subsequent post-war readjustment might best be insured, said Pepper, if each member of the United Nations were to pledge itself now to become a full member of a world organization to be created immediately after the war.

Describing the League of Nations as the furthest step the world has ever taken in international relations, Pepper stressed the fact that we must keep striving until a working organization has been established.

According to Pepper, the League of Nations was too rigid to allow effective functioning, whereas other confederations have been too weak to form a real connecting link between its members. The real problem, Pepper concluded, is to determine at what point the world situation can be effectively stabilized.