THE NATIONAL CxEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



61 



Why should we favor international jus- 

 tice and then refuse to furnish the ma- 

 chinery by which that justice can be de- 

 clared and enforced? What risk do we 

 run? It is said that we ought not to be 

 called upon to enforce a judgment against 

 a Balkan State, so far away. 



Doubtless, different zones of executive 

 activity for the different great powers 

 might be established for convenience. 

 Thus, except in the case of a general riot 

 or conflagration, our activity might be 

 limited to the Western Hemisphere, while 

 the . European nations would take over 

 central and eastern Europe and Asia. 



SAFEGUARDING MEMBER NATIONS EROM 

 THE NECESSITY OE MAKING WAR 



With reference to the enforcement of 

 recommendations of compromise, the ex- 

 ecutive council should consider whether 

 it is a case in which peace would be pro- 

 moted more by economic or military en- 

 forcement than merely by international 

 public opinion. 



If, in such a case, it is thought that a 

 majority of the executive council should 

 not control the right to call for military 

 execution of the compromise, such action 

 might be limited to a unanimous decision 

 of the executive council. This would 

 prevent the imposition of the burden of 

 war by the determination of the League 

 members upon any nation without its 

 consent. Or the enforcement of such a 

 compromise, if determined on by a ma- 

 jority of the executive council, might be 

 left to that majority. 



AN ANSWER TO SENATOR KNOX 



Senator Knox, in his criticism, seemed 

 to anticipate that the United States was 

 to be drawn into the war against its will 

 by a majority vote of a convention of 

 heterogeneous nations. 



No such result could follow from the 

 organization of a League as indicated 

 above. The assumption that the votes of 

 Haiti, or San Salvador, or Uruguay 

 could create a majority forcing the 

 United States in a war against its inter- 

 est and will, under a practical League of 

 Nations, is wholly gratuitous and un- 

 founded. It would be left to the vote of 

 an executive council of the great powers, 

 and even then the United States, under 



the modifications above suggested, could 

 not be drawn into war against its will. 



NO CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION VIOLATED 



The next objection is that the United 

 States cannot through its treaty-making 

 power bind itself to make war in any 

 future contingency. The argument is 

 based on the constitutional requirement 

 that Congress shall declare and make 

 war. 



I confess that I cannot see the slightest 

 force in this contention. The treaty- 

 making power can bind the United States 

 to make war. It has done so. The legis- 

 lative arm, the Congress of the United 

 States, must perform the promise or it 

 cannot be performed. 



The promise to pay money is exactly 

 analogous to a promise to make war. 

 The treaty-making power binds the gov- 

 ernment to pay whatever sum it deems 

 just and proper, as where the treaty- 

 making power bound this government to 

 pay $20,000,000 to Spain for the Philip- 

 pines. That promise had to be performed 

 by Congress, because under the Consti- 

 tution Congress is the only power to 

 make the appropriation. 



PROMISES ALREADY MADE WHICH ENTAIE 

 OBLIGATION TO MAKE WAR 



Congress may repudiate either obliga- 

 tion and dishonor the promise of the 

 nation; but that does not invalidate the 

 promise or render it unconstitutional any 

 more than a man's letting his note go to 

 protest renders the original obligation in- 

 valid. 



We have already made promises that 

 may entail the obligation on us to make 

 war. We have promised to guarantee 

 the political and territorial integrity of 

 Panama, as we have of Cuba. If any 

 nation were to attempt to overthrow 

 Panama or Cuba, or to take any part of 

 the territory of either, we would be un- 

 der obligation to make war to resist this 

 aggression. 



These obligations were entered into by 

 the treaty-making power, but they are to 

 be performed by Congress and to be per- 

 formed by Congress in a constitutional 

 way — that is, by declaring and making 

 war. 



