THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



53 



example of a court passing on questions 

 of legal right and deciding them against 

 the United States. Then we have the 

 court changing itself into a council of 

 mediation and recommending a compro- 

 mise, prompted by considerations of de- 

 cency and good form and the public wel- 

 fare of the world, which the nations ap- 

 pealed to have adopted and embodied in 

 a treaty. 



VIRTUALLY TWO LEAGUES PROPOSED 



The American, English, and French 

 plans all show a purpose to create a 

 smaller League of the allied nations fight- 

 ing this war, who are, so to speak, to be 

 charter members of a larger League, 

 which they are to form by inviting other 

 nations into it as they show themselves 

 fitted to exercise the privileges the 

 League will give and to enjoy its protec- 

 tion and to meet their obligations as 

 members. The American plan refers to 

 these allied nations who won the war as 

 the initiating nucleus of the larger 

 League. 



Each plan looks to the enforcement of 

 judgments and leaves open to the League 

 the question what shall be done with ref- 

 erence to compromises recommended and 

 not acquiesced in. Each one looks to a 

 congress of nations to declare and codify 

 international law. 



One of them provides for the reduc- 

 tion of armament ; the others omit it. 

 It does not appear in the American plan. 

 I may say that this was not because the 

 ultimate reduction of armament was not 

 regarded as important, but because it was 

 thought that this feature of a League of 

 Nations might meet serious objection 

 until the League should be shown to be 

 an effective substitute for the insurance 

 which reasonable preparation for self- 

 defense gives against unjust foreign ag- 

 gression. 



The purpose of this war was to defeat 

 the military power of Germany and to 

 destroy any possibility in the future of 

 her instituting a war of conquest against 

 the world. It was to make the world 

 safe for democracy and to allow races 

 and peoples oppressed by the imperial 

 central powers to establish independent, 

 popular governments. 



This purpose was shown in the four- 



teen points of President Wilson, set forth 

 in his message of January 8, 1918 The 

 armistice made those fourteen points a 

 diagram of the purposes of the allies to 

 be embraced in the treaty, subject to two 

 modifications by the Entente Allies, one 

 in reference to the freedom of the seas 

 and the other in reference to indemnities. 



If the points of the President's mes- 

 sage are carried out, there will be created 

 an independent State of the Ukraine, an 

 independent State of the Baltic provinces 

 of old Russia, an independent State of 

 Finland, an independent State of Poland, 

 including Russian, Austrian, and German 

 Poland, with a strip running through 

 East Prussia connecting Poland with 

 Danzig, the port upon the Baltic Sea. 

 There will also be created a republic of 

 the Czecho-Slovaks, including Moravia, 

 Bohemia, and Slovakia — a State lying 

 between Germany on the north and Aus- 

 tria and Hungary on the south. 



In addition, the Jugo-Slavs are to be 

 created into an independent republic. 

 Palestine is to be set up as an autono- 

 mous State, and so, too, are Armenia 

 and the Caucasus. 



In this wise Germany will be hemmed 

 in to prevent her extending herself into 

 Russia, and her ambitious plan of con- 

 trolling middle Europe to Bagdad and 

 the Persian Gulf will be made impossible. 



THE ALLIES PLEDGED TO LAUNCH MANY 

 NEW REPUBLICS 



The allies are thus to launch on the 

 troubled seas of new national life half a 

 dozen or more republics whose peoples 

 have never had any training in self-gov- 

 ernment. 



Our experience with Cuba, in which 

 we gave her self-government and had to 

 take her over again after two years for 

 another period of two years, should 

 teach us how uncertain is the fate of 

 such new republics unless they have a 

 protector who can aid them to stand upon 

 their feet. 



Self-government is a boon, but it is, 

 as President Wilson says, character. 

 People need training in it in order to 

 make it useful. We allies are now to 

 give birth to seven or eight children, 

 whose steps we must lead gently in order 

 that they may learn firmly to walk. We 



