The CHAIRMAN. Without at all going back upon the decision I made a moment ago in regard to myself, may I say just one word, before suggesting that we adjourn, in confirmation of what Dr. Hill so admirably said? Dr. Hill referred to the experience of the United States. Might I be permitted to dwell upon that one moment, from the international standpoint merely?

When on the 4th of July, 1776, the political communities whether they be called "colonies" or "states," declared their independence of the mother country, and assumed among the nations of the world an equal position, they were held together in a loose and unexpressed union by pressure from without. They attempted to give some formal expression to their unity by a system of government known as the "Articles of Confederation," declaring, in the second of these articles, that each of the States was sovereign, free and independent, and entitled to the exercise of all powers which had not been expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. When, for reasons which I shall not trouble you by attempting to mention or to enumerate, that form of union proved inadequate to their needs or their desires, they formed a more perfect union by sending to a convention, specially called for that purpose, in Philadelphia, delegates to represent them; and as the result of weeks and months of discussion, they agreed upon a document which, when submitted to each of the States, and ratified by each of them, became binding upon those States, and is known to-day, as it was known then, as "The Constitution of the United States of America."

Now, gentlemen, in lending my feeble authority to Dr. Hill's statement regarding the experiences of the United States, I would like to call your attention to the fact that we had here States, political communities, independent in fact and in theory, feeling the necessity of some kind of organization, and, as a first step thereto, they established a league, and that league not exactly meeting their desires, they formed a more perfect union, still stipulating, however, that the States forming this union retained every sovereign power and the exercise of every sovereign power which they did not expressly grant to their agent, the United States, or the exercise of which they did not renounce. So that in considering a Society of Nations, a closer form, a closer union, I think Dr. Hill is justified in the assertion that the experience of the United States, having passed through these different phases and having reached a more perfect union, which even withstood the throes of the Civil War, is entitled to careful consideration. Impressed with these ideas, I would like to state, as Mr. Fenwick remarked in the course of his address, that the Carnegie Endowment has issued a

collection of The Hague Arbitrations, that this same Endowment has in press a little volume composed of three documents the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States-to be issued with a very brief introductory note calling attention to the international aspects of the question. Strange as it may seem, I have been unable to procure those three documents together in convenient form, without annotation, and believing that these documents should not be lost sight of, that the experience of the United States must be considered, the Endowment is issuing the three documents in a convenient form, as the contribution of the revolutionary statesmen and their successors to the solution of the international problem suggested by the American States desiring to come together into some closer form of union, without, however, sacrificing their political identity as States. With a constitution, constitutional provisions, and constitutional limitations interpreted by a court of the Union, by the application of the Federal law, or by the principles of international law which may be approved by the nations, we may help toward a solution of that problem.

If there be no further desire for discussion, I would suggest that we stand adjourned until 8 o'clock this evening, when this same matter will be further considered.

(Whereupon, at 5.10 o'clock P.M., the meeting adjourned until 8 o'clock P.M., of the same day, at the same place.)

FOURTH SESSION

Friday, April 27, 1917, 8.00 o'clock p.m.

The CHAIRMAN. (Professor George G. Wilson, a member of the Executive Council.): The meeting will please come to order. The subject of the evening is "International Organization: Executive and Administrative." The first paper is by Mr. William C. Dennis, of the bar of the District of Columbia.

Mr. DENNIS. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: I ordinarily take leave to print my paper on occasions of this kind, and give myself the pleasure of talking to the audience, but on this occasion I was one of those who insisted that the speakers confine themselves to their allotted time. In view of that, I thought I had better read my paper, and prepared it at such length that if I make the same speed over the entire course as I did on a trial trip, I ought to get through on time.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION: EXECUTIVE' AND
ADMINISTRATIVE

SOME SUPPOSED OBJECTIONS TO A LEAGUE FOR PEACE

ADDRESS BY WILLIAM C. DENNIS,

Of the District of Columbia Bar

We are met in the midst of war. We have not thought as some other organizations have, that because of the war we ought not to meet. This I take it is, in part at least, because while we recognize that the first duty of each and every one of us is to contribute in whatever way we are best fitted whatever is necessary for the successful prosecution of the war, we also hold that our next duty is to see to it, so far as in us lies, that the United States does its part in crowning the victory, which we hope and believe will be won, with a constructive peace, that is to say, a peace in which we at least seek nothing by way of indemnity or selfish gain for ourselves, but seek in behalf of the whole world such a reorganization of

international relations as will secure for all nations alike the greatest practicable advance in the gradual elimination of war through the substitution of other and better means of obtaining justice.

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If we do not win the war, all our plans for a constructive peace will go into the wastebasket for a long time to come. If we do win, in so far as we fail to use our victory for the benefit of mankind, it will likewise be wasted. It can hardly be said, therefore, that one of our duties is more important than the other, although one comes first in point of time. But it must be remembered that if our country is to come to the end of the war through perils and dismays, renewed and re-renewed," with the same high ideals with which it is entering it, and which have been so nobly expressed by our President, it is absolutely necessary that such bodies as this should devote adequate time and attention, even while the struggle is going on, to keeping these ideals clearly before the American people and the peoples of the Entente, and giving them, as far as possible, precise definition in working plans. The Crusaders who started out to redeem the Holy Sepulchre and turned aside to engage in petty wars of conquest, and their many spiritual successors from that day to this, remind us of how necessary it is for us to be vigilant if we are not to be deflected from our high purpose. And it is also necessary for the American people (and not merely the Government) not only to mean well, but to think clearly, and to be prepared when victory comes to say with reasonable unanimity and in reasonably definite terms just how far the United States is prepared to go at present along the pathway of international organization; and so we are here to-night to try in some small way to "do our bit" in preparing not for the "war after the war" but for the peace after the war.

The problem of world organization has for centuries attracted the attention of many of the world's greatest constructive thinkers. In 1693 William Penn found time in the midst of his great struggle for religious liberty and in the midst of a world at war to write his Essay toward the Present and Future Peace of Europe. The literature on peace and world organization was then very meager, and there appears to be no evidence that Penn was acquainted with such as there was, beyond the Great Design of Henry IV and his Minister Sully, which was after all so largely devoted to redrawing the map of Europe as to afford comparatively little guidance beyond suggesting the idea of world organization. And yet Penn's essay, it is believed, contains every substantive idea which has ever found expression as regards international organization, arbitration and peace.

Since then the world has merely been endeavoring to catch up with Penn, to fill in the details of the outline sketch which he drew, to furnish

the evidence needed in support of the general propositions which he advanced, and to translate his dream into a reality. In this work a host of wise and open-minded men of every nation have contributed, among whom might be mentioned Saint Pierre in France, Kant in Germany, Bentham in England and Ladd in the United States, coming down through more than 200 years to President Wilson's memorable address to the Senate of January 22d last, in which he bravely took his reputation as a practical statesman into his hands and, speaking both as an individual and also "as the responsible head of a great government," dared to make the adoption of the dream of the great philosophers and philanthropists of the past a question of the practical politics of to-day.

Penn was a Quaker. It would scarcely be denied that he was a good Quaker. He not only believed in the inherent wickedness of war but in its futility. He understood with John Bright, that other great English Quaker statesman, that "force is never a remedy" and that men can no more be made righteous by treaties enforced by armies than they can by laws enforced by policemen. He understood that true peace, the peace of the soul, comes from within because a spirit has entered the soul of man "which taketh away the occasion for war." At the same time he was the founder of Pennsylvania and he knew, as he quaintly says, referring of course to ordinary civil peace, not the peace of the spirit, that "peace is maintained by justice which is the fruit of government as government is from society and society from consent," and he believed a hundred and fifty years before Darwin that the life history of the individual is the miniature of the life history of the race, or, as he puts it, "that by the same rules of justice and prudence by which parents and masters govern their families, and magistrates their cities, and estates their republics and princes and kings their principalities and kingdoms, Europe may obtain and preserve peace among her sovereignties."

So believing and knowing that civil peace among individuals is maintained by force, actual or potential, he had no hesitation in proposing to maintain peace among nations in the same manner. Further than that he had no hesitation about compelling a recalcitrant nation by force to become a member of the league which he proposed and which he styled "the sovereign or imperial diet, parliament or state of Europe" and to submit to a proper reduction of armaments. Answering the objection which might be raised "that the strongest and richest sovereignty will never agree to it," he replies, "I answer to the first part he is not stronger than all the rest and for that reason you should promote this and compel him into it, especially before he be so, for then it will be too late to deal with such a one."