TH

HE effect of the proposed Covenant will be to change our relations with all the states which shall be members of the League from foreign relations into external domestic relations. If this be its true effect the fact will be that, in case the United States shall decide to enter the League, it will find itself without proper organs to enable it to maintain its rights and to fulfill its duties under the League, unless it shall have previously instituted such organs. The State Department is organized to deal with foreign relations; the others to deal with internal relations. It is not generally realized that we have always had some external domestic relations. We have always had external domestic territories which were incorporated into the Union, and by the Spanish War we acquired insular countries which are still in subordinate and dependent union with the United States. Our relations with some of these subordinately united countries are in charge of the War Department; our relations with others of them are in

charge of the Interior and Navy Departments. The use of these departments as organs of the government for handling these kinds of external domestic relations serves for the present in view of the powerlessness of these subordinately united regions; but such use of the existing departments will not be possible when the vast volume of external domestic relations which will arise from the moment when the League comes into operation, and which will daily grow in extent and insistency, is poured upon the United States. In order to meet this new situation successfully, it will be necessary to be prepared in advance with suitable organs of government, under penalty of the vast loss which is certain to be caused to any nation in every case in which it permits itself to be unprepared to meet a great emergency.

A question which the United States must face, and at once settle, if it decides to enter the League, therefore, is: What kind of an organ is necessary to handle successfully the new external domestic relations of the

United States with the other states of the League? The answer would seem to be that there must be a new department of the government to deal with these relations. On account of the mixed character of these relations, it seems that the new organ or department should be composed of the heads of those existing departments which deal with our foreign relations and with such of our domestic relations as have an international aspect. The action taken by Congress during the war in establishing the Council of National Defence, would seem to furnish a precedent in instituting the new organ. When the United States entered into association with the powers of the European Entente to prosecute the war against the Central Powers, its relations with the Entente Powers became, for the period of the war, assimilated to external domestic relations rather than to foreign relations. In order to prosecute the war successfully, there had to be both national concentration and international cooperation. To meet the situation arising from the existence of these new relations, there was established by act of Congress (Army Appropriation Act, approved August 29, 1916, Sec. 2, U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 39, pp. 619, 649, 650), a Council of National Defence which was virtually a department of the government, but was of a composite character. The function of the new department was declared to be "the coordination of industries and resources for the general welfare." It was provided that there should be

two parts of the new organ, an upper and a lower body. The upper body,

Council of National Defence proper, was to consist of the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Labor. The lower body was called the "advisory commission." The act provided that it was to be composed of not more than seven persons, nominated by the Council and appointed by the President, and that each of these persons should "have special knowledge of some industry, public utility, or the development of some natural resource, or be otherwise specially qualified, in the opinion of the Council, for the performance of the duties" of the department. Provision was also made for the appointment of expert sub-commissions and of individuals as expert investigators. The duties of the Council, as specified in the act, were as follows:

"To supervise and direct investigations and make recommendations to the President and the heads of executive departments as to the location of railroads with reference to the frontier of the United

States, so as to render possible expeditious concentration of troops and supplies to points of defence; the coordination of military, industrial and commercial purposes in the location of extensive highways and branch lines of railroad; the utilization of waterways; the mobilization of military and naval resources for defence; the increase of domestic production of articles and materials essential to the support of armies and of the people during the interruption of foreign commerce; the development of seagoing transportation; data as to amounts, location, methods and means of production, and availability of military supplies; the giving of information to producers and manufacturers as to the class of supplies needed by the military and other services of the Government, the requirements re

lating thereto, and the creation of relations which will render possible in time of need the immediate concentration and utilization of the resources of the Nation."

The reason why this statute was adopted, and the new organ or department instituted was, that it had been found by experience that the external domestic relations of the

United States with its associates during the war could be handled successfully only by a new department of the government adapted to bring about the requisite national concentration and international cooperation. In order to cooperate in a military association with other states, the United States found it necessary to visualize itself, and to act, as a unit of a union, for producing and placing in the field an army and navy provided with adequate food, shelter, and munitions of war, so long as the war should last. Peaceful cooperation with other states will also require the United States to visualize itself, and to act permanently, as a unit of a union for producing and placing in the field an army of organizers and workers provided with adequate food, shelter, and the appurtenances of civilization adapted to the pursuit of happiness, for utilizing the materials and forces of nature for human benefit, and equitably distributing the product among the states, peoples and individuals of the world. In order to deal successfully with these new and vast external domestic relations which will arise under a union which, like the one proposed, is "to promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security," it will be

necessary, it would seem, to institute by act of Congress, a new organ or department of the Government, based on the principles of the Council of National Defence. The new department might perhaps be called "the National Council of International

Cooperation." It might be composed of the Secretary of State, as Chairman, and the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Secretary of Labor. The same provision for the appointment of the expert advisory commission and of subcommissions and expert advisers and investigators should undoubtedly be made. The function of the new department would be to investigate and inform itself concerning the matters falling under the jurisdiction of the League, and to advise the President and the Congress concerning any of these matters regarding which the United States might be called upon to make a decision.

The underlying principle upon which to base the action of the United States, in establishing such a new department would be, that cooperative life is an art which can be acquired only by study and experience. It is a fact of general knowledge that only persons and nations of high attainments in intelligence and conscientiousness can appreciate the reasons and motives of enlightened self-interest which form the basis of the cooperative philosophy, and actually do what cooperation requires. The units of a cooperative society must all be equally well-informed, intelli

gent and conscientious. International cooperation is impossible except by intelligent and conscientious nations each of which has its own organ of investigation and judgment, dealing with the affairs of the world in all their phases and acting as adviser to its Executive and its Legislature.

The institution of such a department as above outlined, contemporaneously with the entry of the United States into any super-union, is dictated not merely by principle. It is enjoined upon us also by considerations of prudence. The proposed covenant, or any other similar super-constitution, if adopted, will establish a body in the world which, even though given only advisory powers, will exercise a great influence. Experience proves that such an influence will tend to become actual political power. One has only to remember the influence and power which the Roman Papacy has had and still has in the affairs of the world, and that which great newspapers, like the London Times of a half-century ago, have exercised in international politics, to realize that advisory power in a person or personality of acknowledged leadership, especially if accompanied with the power of investigation and publication, must be classed, in its actual effect, as real political power. Against even the advisory action of a body recognized as having international leadership, each nation must be prepared.

Each nation must have knowledge of world affairs equal to that of the body sitting at Geneva,

or the advice of Geneva will be in effect the command of a superior to an inferior. The United States in particular must be prepared for the new emergency; for, if it is not intellectually prepared to meet with facts and arguments the advice emanating from Geneva, its geographical location may lead to political situations in which the body sitting at Geneva, voicing the sentiment of Europe, or of Europe and Asia, may succeed in giving advice to the United States or to America, which will in fact be a command. Against such contingencies, provision should, it seems, be made at the instant the United States decides to enter into the League, if it does so decide. To delay the institution of the new department or organ would tend to involve the nation in a maze of complications caused by the attempt of the existing departments to deal with the new relations. It seems clear, therefore, that the question of the adoption of the Covenant and of the institution of the new department should be considered and decided together, so that the moment the League begins to operate, at that moment the new department of the United States may begin also to operate. The principle that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" evidently applies to the new situation presented by the proposal to enter the League, in all its phases, present and future.

The German National Assembly voted ratification of the Peace Treaty on July 9, after which the allied and associated Powers lifted the economic blockade of Germany.

On July 10, President Wilson, in presenting the signed Peace Treaty with Germany to the Senate of the United States, spoke as follows:

The treaty of peace with Germany was signed at Versailles on the 28th of June. I avail myself of the earliest opportunity to lay the treaty before you for ratification and to inform you with regard to the work of the conference by which that treaty was formulated.

The treaty constitutes nothing less than a world settlement. It would not be possible for me either to summarize or to construe its manifold provisions in an address which must of necessity be something less than a treatise. My services and all the information I possess will be at your disposal and at the disposal of your Committee on Foreign Relations at any time, either informally or in session, as you may prefer, and I hope that you will not hesitate to make use of them. I shall at this time, prior to your own study of the document, attempt only a general characterization of its scope and

purpose.

In one sense, no doubt, there is no need that I should report to you what was attempted and done at Paris. You have been daily cognizant of what was going on thereof the problems with which the Peace Conference had to deal and of the difficulty of laying down straight lines of settlement anywhere on a field on which the old lines of inter

national relationship, and the new alike, followed so intricate a pattern and were for the most part cut so deep by historical circumstances which dominated action where it would have been best to ignore or reverse them. The cross-currents of politics and of interest must have been evident to you.

It would be presuming in me to attempt to explain the questions which arose or the many diverse elements that entered into them. I shall attempt something less ambitious than that and more clearly suggested by my duty to report to the Congress the part it seemed necessary for my colleagues and me to play as representatives of the Government of the United States.

That part was dictated by the rôle America had played in the war and by the expectations that had been created in the minds of the peoples with whom we had associated ourselves in that great struggle.

The United States entered the war upon a different footing from every other nation except our associates on this side the sea. We entered it, not because our material interests were directly threatened or because any special treaty obligations to which we were parties had been violated, but only because we saw the supremacy and even the validity of right everywhere put in jeopardy and free government likely to be everywhere imperiled by the in