THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, WHAT IT 

 MEANS AND WHY IT MUST BE* 



By William Howard Taft 



Ex-President of the United States 



THE first attempt, after the begin- 

 ning of the European war, to for- 

 mulate and state a general plan 

 for a League of Nations to secure per- 

 manent peace after the war was made in 

 Philadelphia on the 17th of June, 1915, 

 in a convention of some three hundred 

 or four hundred prominent men inter- 

 ested in the subject and coming from all 

 parts of the country. 



They organized themselves into what 

 was called a League to Enforce Peace. 

 They declared it to be desirable for the 

 United States to join a League of Na- 

 tions, binding its members: 



First, to submit all justiciable ques- 

 tions to a judicial tribunal for hearing 

 and judgment; 



Second, to submit all other questions 

 arising between them to a Council of 

 Conciliation for hearing, consideration, 

 and recommendation; 



Third, jointly to use forthwith both 

 their economic and military forces against 

 any one of their number making war 

 against another before submitting the is- 

 sue to either the court or the Council of 

 Conciliation, and, 



Fourth, to hold conferences of nations 

 to formulate and codify rules of interna- 

 tional law to govern in the decisions of 

 the judicial tribunal. 



This jipcogram was enlarged and made 

 more ambitious at a meeting of the gov- 

 erning body of the League on November 

 24, 1918. It then declared that the initi- 

 ating nucleus of the membership of the 

 League should be the nations associated 

 as belligerents in winning the war. 



It declared further: 



First, that the judgments of the inter- 

 national court on justiciable questions 

 should be enforced; 



Second, that the League should deter- 

 mine what action, if any, should be taken 



* An address delivered by William Howard 

 Taft before the National Geographic Society, 

 in Washington, D. C, January 17, 1919. 



in respect to recommendations of the 

 Council of Conciliation in which the par- 

 ties concerned did not acquiesce ; 



Third, that provision should be made 

 for an administrative organization of the 

 League to conduct affairs of common 

 interest and for the protection and care 

 of backward regions and international 

 places and other matters jointly adminis- 

 tered before and during the war, and that 

 such administrative organization should 

 be so framed as to insure stability and 

 progress, preventing defeat of the forces 

 of healthy growth and changes, and pro- 

 viding a way by which progress could be 

 secured and the needed change effected 

 without recourse to war; 



Fourth, that a representative Congress 

 of Nations should formulate and codify 

 rules of international law, inspect the 

 work of the League's administrative 

 bodies, and consider any matter affecting 

 the tranquillity of the world or the prog- 

 ress or the betterment of human rela- 

 tions ; 



Fifth, that the League should have an 

 executive council to speak with authority 

 in the name of the nations represented 

 and to act in case the peace of the world 

 is endangered. 



NATIONS SHOULD BE REPRESENTED IN 

 PROPORTION TO THEIR RESPONSIBILITY 



It further declared that the representa- 

 tion of the different nations in the organs 

 of the League should be in proportion to 

 the responsibilities and obligations that 

 they assume, and that rules of interna- 

 tional law should not be defeated for lack 

 of unanimity. 



It will thus be seen that the American 

 Association has become more ambitious 

 in its aims since its first declarations, be- 

 cause under the first declaration it did 

 not propose to enforce judgments of the 

 court or in any way to deal with the rec- 

 ommendations of compromise. The ex- 

 ercise of force of the League was to be 



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