country, must know the laws of this country, be familiar with their origin and their spirit; and it naturally happens that the lawyers have been and always will continue to be, so long as they retain the public spirit that they have exhibited in the past, dominant and potent forces in the effort to procure the largest amount of political liberty consistent with the maintenance of law and order.

In 1899, Secretary Hay instructed our delegates to the Hague Tribunal, and the instructions were repeated in 1907, that they were to seek to establish an international court which should administer international law. This proved to be impossible of accomplishment for the single reason that they could not agree upon any method by which the judges should be selected. There was the suspicion that the judges would not be impartial. It was not until the establishment of the League of Nations and the Commission of Jurists accepted the suggestion of Mr. Root as to the manner in which judges should be selected, that that difficulty was removed. His was the only suggestion that has ever been made in the entire discussion of this subject which was acceptable to those nations that had previously objected to the Court on the ground that impartial judges could not be selected.

And now Mr. Pepper, notably Mr. Pepper, asserting his strong adherence to the idea of the World Court, strikes at the heart of it by objecting to that method of selecting judges. But the history of the movement to which I have referred shows that if that feature of the World Court is eliminated, we will never enter the World Court at all. Mr. Borah's first, and then his only, objection was that resort to the World Court is to

be voluntary. I too would rather have it compulsory, but that can not be accomplished in the present stage of the movement. It is one of the things that we must hope for in the future. But is it not a step forward to have a tribunal constituted to which nations can voluntarily repair for the settlement of their disputes? Will we be harmed by the creation of such a Court? Are we not going to be benefited by setting up a tribunal which purports to administer justice and international law? And what harm is it going to do for us to join this theoretically perfect Court, which at least stands for a grand, magnificient principle, especially when, if we see fit, we can at any time withdraw?

As to the question of the power of the Court let us make a comparison with our own Supreme Court. If Mr. Borah and Mr. Pepper had been alive and members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, they probably would have objected to the Supreme Court of the United States on the ground that it lacked power to enforce its judgments, and their arguments would have been like those they are now urging with respect to the World Court. If a state defies the authority of our Supreme Court, process is put into the hands of the Marshal, and he with his deputies attempts to execute it. Suppose he fails, what can be done? Nothing; except that the President, the executive head of the government, may bring the army into requisition. But if resort is made to that expedient, it means revolution. In other words, if a state does not conform to the decree of the Supreme Court, it makes a revolution against the constituted Federal Government. The only practicable way to enforce a judgment is through public opinion. Several times in the history of this country a

state or a party has ignored a decree of the Supreme Court. That happened in the case of dispute between Virginia and West Virginia and in the bank cases in Ohio, and there is not now, nor has there ever been any way of compelling compliance with the Court's decree, except as I have pointed out. And it would be no different with the World Court. Armies could enforce its judgment—but that would mean war. The only remaining method is through the force of public opinion which in the case of the Supreme Court has thus far been entirely effective.

It may not

General Washington said about the Constitution that the convention was erecting a standard to which all free people might repair. That is what we are seeking to do by the establishment of a World Court. be perfect; but no human institution is. It is at least a lofty aspiration which for most of the nations of the world has been realized. What the American nation has been approving for thirty years, and seeking to obtain against the opposition of most of those nations, is now presented for acceptance by the American people.

Ultimately, great questions are bound to be presented to the World Court and, as a result, a body of international law will receive its sanction. If we fail to join the Court and have no voice in the formulation of the principles of that law, we will impair their authority. If, however, we enter the court we shall inspire confidence in the permanence and justice of the law established by the decisions of the Court and we will be making a substantial contribution to the peace of the world.

XVIII

THE WORLD COURT*

HE parade of lawyers which you have just wit

THE

nessed may not seem to you to be a symbol of peace for in the popular mind contention is associated with my profession. But the fact is that the highest function for lawyers of today is to settle the affairs of man, preferably without contest, upon the basis of fairness and justice. And more than any other class they believe that controversies between nations should be adjusted in accordance with fixed principles of International Law.

It is that lofty ideal that America has always sought to have applied. During a hundred years she has developed the idea of arbitration; and for nearly thirty years her leading statesmen have sought to pass from arbitral to judicial settlements, upon the basis of fixed principles of International Law. In 1899 Secretary Hay instructed our delegates to the First Hague Conference to advocate the machinery for such a settlement. They only succeeded in procuring a Court of Arbitration which was not really a court but only a panel from which arbitrators were to be selected by parties to a dispute. But that was not a court administered by impartial judges which was to decide disputes upon immutable principles of justice. For arbitration

Speech at World Court Ball, held under auspices of League of Nations NonPartisan Association, at the Plaza Hotel, February 18, 1925.

at best settles controversies by compromise, splitting of differences, the weighing of political expediency and diplomatic negotiation. It does not eliminate features which are fruitful in producing dissatisfaction and perhaps unfriendliness.

But the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague was undoubtedly a step forward. The seed had been sown. Then the War came, and there was a welter of death, suffering, distress and poverty. European civilization almost vanished. Only then were the European nations convinced of the necessity for some organization striving to adopt means for preserving peace, lest all should go down in a dreadful cataclysm. The League of Nations was devised; and a World Court and a code of International Law were envisaged. The League appointed a Committee of Jurists to consider how a Court should be erected. Upon that Committee was the greatest of American statesmen, Elihu Root, and he devised a means for the selection of judges, which had always been the stumbling block at The Hague conferences. The Court being established, the greatest international lawyer in this country, John Bassett Moore, was selected as one of the judges. And now the Court is functioning according to the American ideal.

Such is the historical background. Against it we see projected a picture of a World Court maintained by those nations who had originally thought the idea chimerical, while outside the precincts of the Tribunal stands the great American nation, hesitant and suspicious. Statesmen, while they profess friendship for the American idea of the Court, interpose objections which would defeat its consummation. They have de