The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-15
ORGANIZED FOR PEACE.

ORGANIZED FOR PEACE.
This administration will have COM
pleted, before it turns over it's author
ity and duties to it's successor, the work
which we have already characterized
as the greatest done in the history of
this country and of the world. History
is full of international combinations for
attack, for defense, for conquest. AS
far back as records run you can find
monarchs and generals uniting in plans
for military ACKNOWLEDGMENT and parti-
tioning the world between them. Today
the dreibund is one of the great facts
and forces with which every nation in
Europe has to deal. But never before
have the nations begun to organize for
the sake of peace. They have formed
treaties offensive and defensive, but
the proposition. to apply to their rela-
tons to one another the principle that
prevails in the dealing of man with
man, that of the arbitrament of differ
ences by an authority outside Of them
selves is sanctioned for the first time
of the world Not all the triumphs of
diplomacy, not the marvellous and in
tricate web of statecraft, by which one
nation has artfully contrived to master
another, and not prowess in-arms
or in the cabinet can compare with the
mighty example that is set to the
world in the general arbitration agree
ment now practically completed be-
tween Great Britain and the United
States.
1t is marvelously simple withal
One wonders. as he reads. the ar
rangement for the submission of diff
ferences that may arise between us to
an impartial tribunal, just as two hon
orable men would do, why war has
ruled the world so long; why the pain
less decision of a tribunal of peace
should not have ruled, rather than the
might which can be just only by acct
dent. There are no complicated ar
rangements or machinery about this
arbitration scheme. There is simply a
tribunal of six arbitrators; three being
selected from the highest judicial body
in the United States and three from
the corresponding body in Great Brit
. ain. If they shall not be able to reach
decision, it is understood that the
casting vote will lie with member Sc
lected by another power friendly to us
both. But we think we may assume
fairly and with certainty that as soon
as the arbitration court has got into
fair working order the occasions when
the services of referee must be called
in will be very few.
This may be argued from the
experience Of our own supreme
court. The members of that body
belong to the great political par
ties and are generally men who have
strong party beliefs; yet no one ex-
poets that the decisions Of our supreme
court will be influenced by party rela-
tions, nor have they been, as matter
Of fact. The strongest rulings ever
made in defense of the doctrine of
state rights have been rendered by Re-
publican judges. The responsibility
which almost invariably sobers and
elevates a man makes it impossible
that the supreme court should decide
other than upon it's opinion of the mer-
its of a case before it, When less than
that should become possible, the de-
cadence of the republic would have al
ready proceeded far toward the end.
So we think it will be found that the
august nature of this new tribunal, the
fact that it stands above any court in
Christendom; that its work can bind or
loose the two greatest powers on earth;
that by its acts the policy of arbitra-
ton will be judged and its future de-
cided, and that to its deliberations the
whole world will look, assures US that
these men will rise above not only per
sonal prepossession, but the stronger
feeling Of nationality, and endeavor to
do that exact and patriotic justice to
render which is the highest and most
difficult service that can be asked of
any man.
1t has happened in the past that
boards of arbitration have not been
as impartial as we could desire. Too
generally, almost invariably in fact.
the representatives of the contending