The American Museum Journal 



Volume Will 



NOVKMKKR. I!) 18 



Nlmber 7 



A League of Free Nations' 



GEOGRAPHICAL ISOLATION OF COUNTRIES AND CONTINKXTS DISAP- 

 PEARS IN FACE OF INSTANTANEOUS TRANSOCEANIC COMMUNICA- 

 TION AND RAPID TRANSPORTATION OF RESOURCES.-LAWS OF 

 INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN RAW .AIATERIALS. -COOPER- 

 ATIVE WORLD ORGANIZATION WILL MEAN 

 ULTIMATE WORLD PEACE 



By CHARLES R. VAN H I S E 



President of the University of Wisconsin 



GERMANY, Austria, Bulgaria, 

 and Turkey have all urgently 

 asked tor armistices. By the 

 Allies the conditions of ceasing to press 

 their highly successful attacks have 

 been given, and have been accepted by 

 all the powers named. The conditions 

 are so drastic that hostilities cannot 

 possibly be resumed. The accepting 

 powers must submit to the terms of 

 peace imposed upon them by the Allies, 

 however severe they may be. The war 

 is won. 



If. when the terms of peace have been 

 concluded, some way has not been 

 worked out so that gigantic wars will 

 not recur, we shall be obliged to con- 

 clude that the human being has not 

 traveled sufficiently far along the road 

 of rationalism to have learned even by 

 the most bitter and costly experience. 



The proposal which has met general 

 approval for preventing war is a 

 League of Xations ; or. to introduce a 

 recent qualification, a League of Free 

 Nations. The President of the United 

 States and the premiers of Great Brit- 

 ain are definitely committed to a 

 League of Nations, and high officials 

 of France, Italy, and Japan have ex- 



pressed warm sympathy with the prin- 

 ciple. 



The League must be created as an 

 integral part of the terms of peace. 

 This is the golden opportunity. If it 

 be allowed to slip away and each of the 

 allied nations again devotes itself exclu- 

 sively to its own interests, it will then 

 be very difficult to form an effective 

 league. Now. when the allied nations 

 are acting together in all that relates 

 to the prosecution of the war and the 

 terms of peace, is the time that they are 

 most likely to agree upon obligations to 

 prevent the recurrence of wars. 



In regard to the covenants of the 

 League, proposals have been made rang- 

 ing from a complete United States of 

 the World to an alliance with vague and 

 general obligations. A number of inter- 

 esting plans have been worked out for 

 the United States of the World, but so 

 far as I have met men in this and other 

 countries — and my opportunities in 

 England have been exceptionally fortu- 

 nate — I know of no man who believes 

 that a "United States of (he World" is 

 now a practicable proposal. If, in the 

 future, there is such an organization, it 

 will be a growth. Therefore I shall con- 



' Opening address before the Wisconsin State Convention of the League to Enforce Peace, November 

 8, 1918. 



521 



