more practical than to attempt to enforce judgments after the hearing. One reason is that the failure to submit to one of the two tribunals the threatening cause of war for the consideration of one or the other is a fact easily ascertained, and concerning which there can be no dispute, and it is a palpable violation of the obligation of the member. It is wiser not to attempt too much. The required submission and the delay incident thereto will in most cases lead to acquiescence in the judgment of the Court or in the recommendation of the Commission of Conciliation. The threat of force against plainly unjust war-for that is what is involved in the provision-will have a most salutary deterrent effect. I am

aware that membership in this League would involve on the part of the United States an obligation to take part in European and Asiatic wars, it may be, and that in this respect it would be a departure from the traditional policy of the United States in avoiding entangling alliances with European or Asiatic countries. But I conceive that the interest of the United States in the close relations it has of a business and social character with the other countries of the world-much closer now than ever before-would justify it, if such a League could be formed, in running the risk that there might be of such a war in making more probable the securing of the inestimable boon of peace to the world that now seems so far away.

T

HIS is a topsy-turvy world to-day. Thinking men-and women too, for that matter, stand aghast at the harking backward to barbarism. In one fell swoop, as it were, from a plane of ostensible civilization the greater part of the civilized universe has been plunged into a veritable maelstrom; an indescribable cataclysm of heinous warfare and matchless bestiality. Danté in his wildest dreams painted no such Inferno and the end blacker in perspective than the background of a Doré painting is not yet!

Out of the chaos what may come is a matter of rife speculation for future his torians. But that there is a sovereign remedy for the avoidance and future recurrence of such world racking evils of carnal pillage, wholesale murder and strife, is a fact that cannot be gainsaid and the keynote for that panacea was sounded at Cleveland on three gala days, this last May, when the first great World Court Congress was held with an enthusiasm and earnestness almost unpre

cedented in the history of such assemblages in this country.

This whole land was just awakening from a commercial and industrial somnolence, unrecorded except in days of panic and war at home, when the Congress was convened on May 12th and the progenitors of the great movement had many misgivings as to their ability to induce the staid business man of this country to lay aside his duties even for the movement and attend.

Marts and 'changes had been closed; industries idle and nearly the whole business world at a standstill for months past when the call for the Congress was sounded and it was thought by some of its warmest advocates that so many difficulties beset the way that but a meagre gathering could be assembled. To the astonishment and gratification of the big men back of the movement just the reverse was true and it is doubtful if a more representative body of Americans ever assembled under one roof. A one time President, Senators of the

State and Nation, members of Congress, great Captains of Industry, Educationalists, Bankers, Brokers, Ministers of the Gospel, diplomats and men of conspicuous prominence in nearly every walk in life thronged the immense armory in which the Congress was in session for three days, and the initial movement for a great World Court begun.

Some idea of the intense interest in the all-important prospect may be had from the statement that no less than twentyeight governors of various states of the Union signed the call for the Congress. More than one thousand delegates answered the roll call, representing national and civic life in all its different branches. Some of the more conspicuously promi

men present were ex-President William Howard Taft, John Hays Hammond, Judge Alton B. Parker, Henry Clews, Theodore Marburg, Rabbi Joseph Silverman, James Brown Scott, of the Carnegie Peace Foundation, Denys P. Myers, of the World Peace Foundation, Hon. Bainbridge Colby, of New York, Dr. Francis E. Clark, Dr. Samuel T. Dutton, Hon. Henry Lane Wilson, William Dudley Foulke, Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio, Harry A. Garfield, son of the late President Garfield, Thomas Raeburn White, Bascom Little, Herbert S. Houston, Vice-President of Doubleday, Page & Co., Thomas B. Warren, Senator Warren G. Harding, Emerson McMillin, and numerous others.

From noon on Wednesday, May 12th, until late Friday evening, the Congress was constantly in session and many memorable addresses were made by men notable in the world of affairs. The various addresses delivered put peace before the world as a business proposition. They discussed the economic side of war and demonstrated that peace is necessary to business stability and prosperity, that war directs and masters men, money, and measures, diverts them from the legitimate channels of industry and concentrates effort upon destruction instead of the constructive processes which are essential to public and private welfare. The horrible slaughter and devastation

of war are brought to the consciousness of the people of all countries by the gigantic contest now raging, more vividly than ever before, and the emotions engendered lead many good men and women to the suggestion of all kinds of idealistic and impracticable schemes for bringing the war to an end and ushering in universal peace. But when we look at the character of the nations engaged in the struggle and of the men who direct the policies of these nations, and at the deep underlying causes which precipitated the conflict, we perceive that peace cannot be restored by mere sentiment, nor can the permanence of peace if it is once secured, be guaranteed by mere paper treaties. The problem of peace is a problem which requires law as the basis of its solution. It is a problem which cannot be solved by sentimentalists and dreamers, but must be grappled by strong and clear visioned men. The failure of many merely sentimental peace movements in the past has tended to bring the cause of peace into ill repute. Those who called the World Court Congress at Cleveland felt that the time had come when strong hands were needed to launch an effective movement, and they accordingly summoned an array of men which has never been surpassed in any gathering, for collective wisdom, knowledge of the world, experience, and practical business sense. The discussion conducted by these men was in no wise historical or sciolistic, but based upon the solid foundation of reason, law, justice, and feasibility. The speakers were informed by knowledge and experience; many were adepts in the science of business and finance and government and practical politics. Some were experts in international law, and diplomacy. The plan they proposed must commend itself to practical business men for its workability, no less than to idealists for its justice and essential benevolence.

One great, rhymic, world-bettering ideal was the motif, the soul inspiring theme of all those addresses and invocations for a World Court-a World Court where men may carry their grievances

like men, not beasts of the field, and have their differences adjudged on the basic principles of equity and the fundamentals of justice; a World Court which might be a tribunal in prototype of the greatest court of the greatest peoples in the universe; a World Court which by its rulings would make not possible the mobocracy which menaces to-day; a court which by its laws unto itself will preclude beyond possibility such wars of extermination as are existent to-day! The Congress proceeded from the very first with the machinery of a great National Convention. It had been said that no such gathering of peace advocates and their factional followers could be assembled without petty bickerings, harsh argument, and debate. Nothing could be further from the resultant fact. Not a note of discord marred the proceedings and the preliminary work looking to the establishment of the international peace tribunal was accomplished with dispatch and fine promise. The speakers of honor and the delegates to a man seemed to be inspired with the work ahead and the vital import of final achievement.

The titanic struggle between the great powers abroad was not touched upon. Nothing was said or done that could possibly embarrass President Wilson or his advisors and all thought and effort was for future prevention rather than momentary cure. Former President Taft's address, delivered on the opening day of the Congress, had largely to do with the question of arbitration. He dwelt upon its grave importance and did not think it necessary in the constitution of an effective league of peace to embody all the nations. An agreement of eight or nine of the great powers of Europe, Asia, and America would furnish a useful restraint upon possible wars and its successful establishment draw into it eventually the less powerful nations. The Hon. Alton B. Parker set his seal of approval upon such an international court and called attention to the fact that it already had had the careful consideration of the forty-four states comprising

the Second Hague Conference; by the Institute of International Law; by the approving leading powers since 1907 and by the American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes at no less than four annual conferences. A World Court patterned after our own Supreme Court-the greatest court in the history of the world-he thought entirely possible and practicable.

Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio inferred that the projected World Court would give a new stamp on the sacredness of international contracts and that he said was a guarantee of peace itself.

The World Court was just as feasible as a family court, declared Hon. John Hays Hammond, although it did involve more elements as a tribal court. The time was ripe, he declared, for the higher règime of pacific reason and moral adjudication and America should voice the world groping and moral inquiry of the race and cause them to crystallize into a new world state "where men shall learn war no more."

After setting forth the limitations of the World's Court which perforce of necessity turns to the future rather than the past the Hon. Henry Lane Wilson asked "How vast would be the gain to humanity and civilization, how greatly would the number of wars be reduced, and how enormously would the horrors of conflict be diminished, if such a court were now in existence?"

The purpose of the Congress, said. Bainbridge Colby, was to bear aloft the standards of juctice and of law; of justice as the mightiest concern of mankind of law as its indispensable instrument. Mr. Colby positively denied that force had dethroned reason and declared that "The purpose of this Congress is to assert the undaunted and unshaken belief of the freest people in the world, that God still reigns, and that justice is mightiest in the mighty."

Rabbi Joseph Silverman made an appeal for the awakening of a new spirit of patriotism which would point the way to a great World Court for peace.

"We are worse off to-day," he asserted, "than men were in the days of savagery. The savage went forth with his bow and his arrow and his tomahawk, and one savage could, at best, with one shot kill one human being. But the modern civilized man goes forth with Krupp guns and cannons and bombs and shells and submarines and automobile and airship, and one human being to-day, with these arts and sciences of civilization, one human being, pressing one button, with one shot can kill ten thousand human beings, and destroy hundreds of millions. of dollars' worth of property. One savage can kill one man-one civilized man can destroy a whole city."

Mr. Henry Clews in an address entitled "An Epochal Event," called attention to the fact that the World Court Congress was an event of supreme importance and attracted world wide attention and interest that could not fail to help the cause of permanent peace. The movement, he avowed, for the creation of a great International Court of Justice "brings us a step nearer to that sublime idea of the inspired writer when men 'shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks,' and they shall hear no more of war upon the surface of this fair earth."

Emerson McMillin discussed the composition of "The World Court." He would not brook the thought that there was not patent and paramount need for such an institutional tribunal. The necessity for an International Court was so obvious that it was not a subject for discussion. The delegates of forty-five states would not have supported it at the Hague Conference if there had not been a great desire and a growing demand for it. He called attention, in his warm advocacy for the establishment of the Court, to the records of the two Hague Conferences. In 1899 it was but necessary to suggest the creation of a World's Court to have it promptly put aside as impracticable. After a lapse of but eight years the 1907 Conference adopted the following: "The Conference recommends to the signatory powers the

adoption of the project hereunto annexed of a convention for the establishment of a Court of Arbitral Justice and its putting in effect, as soon as an accord shall be reached upon the choice of the judges and the constitution of the court." This received the unanimous support of all the conferees.

In a logical appeal for such a court, U. S. Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio, presented some startling facts. "My friends," he said, "the other day the Cleveland Plain Dealer said, editorially, that according to the best estimates up to date there had been lost in this horrible war, 5,970,000 men. Think of it. In the great State of Ohio, which Senator Harding and I have the honor to represent, according to the last Federal census there were only 4,700,000 souls, men, women, and children. To-day there are, perhaps about 5,000,000 souls in Ohio. In other words, in the short space of about eight or nine months, nearly one million more men have been lost than we have men, women, and children in Ohio, all because the heads of governments are worshipping old Mars."

Thomas Raeburn White presented to the Congress a series of technical provisions for the appointment of judges to the International Court of Arbitration. They could be easily surmounted, however, he thought, and in an address on "The Method of Procedure," the Hon. James Brown Scott declared that great as these difficulties were in the selection of judges, they were not insuperable.

President Harry A. Garfield, of Williams College, in a discussion on "The Minimum Number of Nations Required to Successfully Inaugurate the Court," thought that four of the great powers would suffice for an inaugural. He called attention to the fact that Mr. Thomas Raeburn White, speaking at the third national conference of the American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes in December, 1912, analyzed the articles of the convention providing for the establishment of the court and showed that the question was

clearly left to the Powers represented at the conference, and could be, adopted by any two or more of them when they saw fit. There appears to be no serious dissent from this proposition.

There were other numerous addresses by men of nation-wide importance. There were utterances that will go down through the aeons of a new history-making civilization.

Men who had come to the Congress with the air of dreamers went away surcharged with the inspired atmosphere of accomplishment. As Bainbridge Colby had said it was no new thought, no new ideal, this scheme of the World Congress for World Court. It had come down through the centuries. But in the other ages, ay, even in the latter years there had been no such dire necessity for this purposed International Tribunal. Today was a different day with a different need. Jew and Gentile, capitalist and laborer touched shoulders and joined hands in the common weal and the great cause at this World Congress for the World Court. The Rabbi pointed out in one breath that the arrow of the savage killed one man and the gun of civilization destroyed a whole city and all within! In the next the figures of a grave Senator pointed to the horror that in a few months of civilized warfare 1,000,000 more souls have been hurled into eternity than there is population in the Buckeye State. Small wonder that the cardinal, incontrovertible facts and figures so widely disseminated through the press of this country have staggered the comprehension and understanding of humanity the world over. For the wassail cries of the royal rioters in warfare of all other ages are but miniature in comparison with those in this era of infamy.

A word in conclusion to the Mayor Newton D. Baker, Bascom Little and the people of Cleveland. Partly by chance and partly by design this almost matchlessly beautiful lake city was selected for the initial sessions of the World Congress. By municipal experts the

world over, Cleveland is counted one of the greatest accomplishments in latterday city building extant. Environment is everything and I shall always believe that so much was accomplished at the Congress because of the perfection of arrangements and the fitting surroundings to say nothing of the incomparable hospitality of the city. Since my return to New York and the offices of the International Peace Forum, I have been besieged with inquiries in relation to these accomplishments. Beginning with the month of July, a great magazine entitled THE WORLD COURT published under the auspices of the International Peace Forum will make its appearance on the book stalls. Many of these inquiries will then be answered. Its main purpose will be to advocate the establishment of a World Court which I am almost prone to prophesy is already assured. In addition the magazine will carry departments of Art, Music, Literature, the Drama and Information. Its editors and contributors will be eminent men of letters and it will carry a department under the title of "World Comment" which will hold and interest every thinking man in this and other lands. This magazine will have many kind words for Cleveland. That city itself may well feel proud of its achievements in behalf of the World Congress and a World Court.

And for a surety it was an epoch and an honor in the brilliant history of that great city. When the World Court is established the name of the city of Cleveland will ever be associated with it. And the two names will spell peace— International, national, commercial, and industrial peace-the peace that passeth all understanding and the peace that a tired world is crying for with that soulracking wail that comes only from the soul of a strong and helpless man.

I shall never forget the evening of the last session of the Congress. As I wended my way out of the armory, the city arose before me in all its multicolored splendor-the passing throngs