Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

Page 14 text:

6 THE LOYOLA ANNUAL judicial system. Yet this enormous authority is immediately based upon the federation of individual States. If the nations of the world would come together in such a federation surely we would have a universal peace, but, let us be frank, such a union of the v orld is a long way off. The spirit of mutual trust must be infused into the powers before we can ever hope for such a blessing. Where can we find two na- tions today that are willing to lay down arms and unite on terms of mutual confidence? Far to the contrary, they are all competing in a silent warfare of treasury expenditures, the war of taxation against taxation, the war for supremacy in mili- tary and naval equipment, which claims its thousands of vic- tims as truly as does the upturned sod of the battlefield . Yes, the spirit of the world today is one of gain, one of individual glory, and as a consequence a spirit of deep-rooted suspicion. They are willing, indeed, to proceed from treaties of ar- bitration to federation, and thus to the attainment of peace, but the mode of progression, as I before implied, is quite the re- verse. They must proceed from federation to arbitration. Un- til this is realized the federation of the world dreamt of by Tennyson must remain but the dream of the poet, for no step toward peace is possible until the root of all discord has been removed. The citizens of the United States are at present deeply inter- ested in the treaties pending in the United States Senate be- tween our country and Germany and France. The people of the whole world are urging the universal establishment of such treaties, but without a common power to enforce their observ- ance they are doomed to failure. Here, if anywhere, let the truth be told. When the great strain comes treaties and de- cisions of arbitration courts will be swept aside. There is, it is trqe, no case on record in which the nations have refused to submit to the awards of such courts, but this is only because

Page 13 text:

THE LOYOLA ANNUAL 5 trolled only by a power higher than the individual nations. How, as a matter of fact, can nations establish treaties and courts of arbitration which will be effective in abolishing war without first organizing a federation among the various coun- tries? How can they hope for an unconditional compliance with the stipulations of such courts and treaties unless the constituent nations of that federation invest in one head the authority to enforce it? The lav s of justice and equity im- planted in our nature are contrary to our pugnacious inclina- tions and often little likely to be heeded without the fear of some power sufficient to secure this observance. Therefore, I say, that unless there be erected an authority higher than the individual nations any scheme to control them must be aban- doned. There is one v ay in which to secure such an author- ity. The individual nations must invest all their power in one assembly and must be willing to acknowledge the decrees of that assembly for peace as coming directly from themselves. In other words, a multiplicity of wills and voices must be reduced to unity and thus an order established, with- out which there can be no peace. The United States of Amer- ica is an admirable example of such a federation. Every State, though retaining its own sovereignty, is joined to the rest by a voluntary alliance and all agree to confer their strength upon a common executive, legislative and judicial head. In cases of dispute the judicial head, holding its authority immediately from the States, summons before it the sovereign powers af- fected in order to render an award. The State of New York vs. the State of Ohio was announced by the clerk of the court in De Tocqueville’s hearing, and so great was his im- pression on realizing how these two States, consisting of mil- lions of citizens, placed their interests before a court of judges that he many times expressed his admiration of our Federal

Page 15 text:

THE LOYOLA ANNUAL 7 minor cases have been submitted. Those of greater moment have always been reserved for the sword. But in questions of great import will you tell me that they will be held by treaties? When a chance for commercial opportunity and prominence or industrial outlet arises, what care they for the loss sustained through the dishonor of a broken treaty? What care they for the sanctions of the press when they suspect a nation with which they hold a treaty of contemplating plans detrimental to their possessions? What care they for the dis- honor accruing to a breach of confidence when a sister nation has been guilty of some trifling affront to their extravagant national pride ? It will always be the old, old story. They will choose what to them appears the lesser evil. Was it not Na- poleon who said that treaties were made to be broken, and, indeed, when we consider facts in the history of peace we must admit that the Little Corporal was right. In the first Hague Conference did not Germany prevent the adoption of the principle of compulsory arbitration, thus showing at the outset her intention, should a distasteful question arise? And need I recall the Holy Alliance of 1815, which, for want of the sufficient authority, degenerated into a military device for d 5 mastic interests? To allude to further examples without time to cite the concrete instances would be unworthy of your intelligence, but I leave it to your knowledge of facts that the history of the world is a history of broken treaties. Nor can we hope for anything better from treaties, for, being without an adequate authority, they must always be uncertain. If, then, treaties must fail is there no other way you will ask? Yes, the cure is a deeper one. Treaties may counteract to some extent the causes of war, but permanent peace can be had only by giving new viewpoints to the people. The advo- cates of peace will talk of treaties, of arbitration and the like, but the real cure lies in eradicating those false views which lead nations to war and in implanting the opposite virtues in