principles and point of view of the Covenant and of the platform of the World's Court League are identical, emphasizing the primary importance of the moral force of public opinion. Provision is made for regular delegate Conferences, an Executive Council and a Permanent Secretariat; the Executive Council "shall formulate plans for the establishment of a permanent Court of International Justice." We hail enthusiastically this chart of international progress as one which furnishes this magazine with the main lines of a policy of continuous popular education in international affairs to which all the enlarged resources at our command will be devoted, under the name LEAGUE OF NATIONS MAGAZINE, continuing THE WORLD COURT.

The deepest meaning of the League Covenant, said President Wilson in reporting it to the Peace Conference, is "the union of wills in a common purpose, a union of wills which cannot be resisted, and which, I dare say, no nation will run the risk of attempting to resist. *** We are depending primarily and chiefly upon one great force, and this is the moral force of the public opinion of the world. * * Armed force is in the background in this program, but it is in the background, and if the moral force of the world will not suffice the physical force of the world shall. But that is the last resort because this is intended as a constitution of peace, not as a league for war. It is not a straight jacket, but a vehicle of life."

As one who is familiar with sentiment overseas, I want to tell you there is only one nation that can avert the coming to pass of a league of nations, and that nation is the United States of America. America will be trebly damned if, though its great leader has had it in his hands to bring about the creation of a league of nations, America shall fail him and shall fail her own moral genius. If America does not stand behind the President at this time it will stand alone among the allied nations. There are some Senators in the United States to-day who are opposed to the League of Nations. Any one who deliberately undermines the work of President Wilson in his endeavor to bring about the league is guilty of moral treason and will be dealt with by the American people in due time. Any leader of the Governments of France, Britain or Italy who would dare get up and publicly declare that he were opposed to the league would not survive politically for twentyfour hours. In the interest of the League of Nations and all that it may mean for the peace of the world, the President should be compelled by such moral pressure as the people of the United States can exert to remain in or return to Paris. I would

also have some members of the United States Senate despatched to Paris in order that they may learn what men are thinking and feeling throughout Europe to-day,that there is little hope of saving Europe from a cataclysm of blood unless the peoples of Europe are assured that the League of Nations is coming to pass.-Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at League of Nations Congress.

We talk of our "sovereign freedom." We indulge in canting prattle about its preservation. The truth is that it is gone-gone for England, gone for France, gone for Italy, gone for us. The cause of the Entente was on the verge of failure when we threw our decisive strength into the balance, and who will contend that we alone, with the duty upon us of organizing for war, as well as waging it, could have prevailed against the concentrated power of the barbarian alliance? France needed England, England needed Japan, France and England besought Italy for help. All needed us, and we needed all. Thus only was victory won.-Bainbridge Colby at League of Nations Congress.

I

T is well to take news of fatal differences among the peace makers at Paris with several grains of salt. For two or three days before the unanimous report on the Covenant for a League of Nations was made, February 14, such reports were especially plentiful. Reassurance came, however, from British authority.

The Peace Conference has "made progress beyond the most sanguine expectations,"

declared Premier

Lloyd George at the opening session of the House of Commons, February 11. Before both houses of Parliament that day the King's speech had contained a similar declaration that good progress had been made. Discussion at the Conference, he said, was marked "with the utmost cordiality, good will and by no disagreement." He added: "I rejoice particularly that the powers assembled in the conference have agreed to accept the principle of a League of Nations, for it is by progress along that road that I see the only hope of saving mankind from a recurrence of the scourge of war." King George spoke of his own visit to France and cordial reception; then referring to the pleasure of receiving the President of the United States in England, he said: "The enthusiastic welcome accorded him is proof of the good will all sections of my people feel toward the United States. I earnestly desire to increase this understanding, and I trust my country

and the United States will act together in the future."

At the same time a flood of correspondence and comment in French, British and American newspapers criticized Mr. Wilson's use of his power at the conference and insisted that mutual suspicion and discord reigns at Paris. The cry of a "German peril," both military and economic, is raised; we are told that against that peril nothing has been done, and what will it profit a paper League of Nations to lose the victory to Germany? M. Capus, editor of Le Figaro, leads a group of French critics in maintaining that Mr. Wilson's kind of peace means ruin for France. Wilson's "international equivocation" is such that "our vanquished enemies appeal to his idea to contest the reality of our victory and to-morrow will evoke his name to refuse us its fruits."

Premier Clemenceau gave an interview to the Associated Press on February 9, in which he described how Germany had wrecked France industrially and commercially, how the French fortune of some 50 or 60 billion francs invested abroad had shrunk through the war, and how Germany's relation to broken Russia still involved a military menace. "I have said that the war is won," he remarked; "it would perhaps be more accurate to say that there is a lull in the storm. At least it is well to face squarely all of the possibilities." M. Clemenceau's words served as an

other text for many press critics. It is only fair, however, to note that Clemenceau did not fail to say that there was great solace in Mr. Wilson's assurance in the Chamber of Deputies "that under the operation of the League of Nations whenever France or any other free people is threatened, the whole world will be ready to vindicate its liberty so that there never shall be any doubt or waiting or surmise." Clemenceau concluded:

"Of course a Society of Nations in which America and France enter must be supported profoundly by the conviction of their peoples and by a determination of each nation entering into the agreement to be willing to renounce their traditional aloofness from other peoples and willing to employ the national strength outside their own country both in time of peace as well as under the pressure of war.

...

"All of our plans are based upon the splendid platform laid down by President Wilson. In perfect harmony with the principles which he has enunciated, we are striving for higher and holier idealism in the conduct of the affairs of the world. Divested of all mercenary aspirations, we join heartily and unreservedly in the effort to make a better world and one of simple justice to all mankind.”

If one picks out of the Clemenceau interview merely the note of alarm, perhaps only one's own state of warworn nerves may be blamed for it.

Certainly it is proper to recall that the United States in this war successfully challenged the Prussian theory of the bald right of military conquest. Nor is it conceivable that a League of Nations can now be approved by the world which would sanction military conquest by either

imperialist or Bolshevik combination. Faith in the triumph of right and justice is the cornerstone of the League of Nations. M. Paul Deschanel gave most effective expression to this idea of what the Peace Conference is building in his address in the Chamber of Deputies: at the reception for President Wilson

“Whatever may be the difficulties and obstacles, we cannot dissimulate them. But wouldn't you say that the honor of thinking beings requires them to be faced and solved? The future-let us not doubt it-belongs to justice. Formerly, between individuals, savage struggles were based upon the hazards of violence and cunning. To-day individual conflicts are settled by rules of justice and codes of law. It will be the same between great, moral persons called nations, and it is not the fault of any one of our Allies that this process of law should not have already gone further.

"The sentiment of the world requires that the best efforts of the wisest and most exalted men be directed to preserve mankind against the recurrence of the barbarities, afflictions and desolations of the last four years.

"With all its obvious possible imperfections and the danger of a conflict of counsel or confused direction, no better plan has suggested itself to the minds of the nations than this scheme for united international association. It should not be overloaded with detail at the outset. It would be fatal to erect it as a super-sovereignty in the world of existing sovereignty. Too much should not be promised for it. Too much must not be expected. Conscience of regulations must be the foundation upon which the new world is to be built. The league must be so framed and its beginnings so directed that it will grow in the confidence and the esteem of men, and if it prove effective in its beginning, it may extend its beneficent functions until, so far as human nature may permit, it shall justify the hopes of mankind."