The Weston leader. [volume] (Weston, Umatilla County, Or.) 189?-1946, 1919-07-25
FREEDOM CAN COME
ONLY THROUGH LAW
A Professor Of Law a, Harvard uuL
verslty Gives His Views
on Ratification


international history Of the past sew
eral hundred years is the clccklikS
regularity with which at tho besln'
nlng OF each century eataclysmiC
world wars have broken out and
threatened the onward march Of civ
iilsation. in spite OF the contrary
desires Of the great mass OF the
worlds people. AZ the beginning Of
the seventeenth century Il was tho
bloody Thirty Years War which de-
yasta,ed Europe like plague: at the
beginning Of the eighteenth century
n was the long struggle between Louis
XIV and the Allied States Of Europe;
at the beginning Of the nineteenth
q was the far-rcsehing Napoleoaic
Wars which swept Europe like a
consuming fre. At the conclusion OF
every ono OF these wracking ways
the statesmen OF an exhausted
Europe, sincerely anxious TO guar
antee and secure the future peace
OF the world, concluded epoch-making
treaties. by which the map Of Europe
was substantially remade. in the full
belief that the formula had at last
been found for permanent and en-
during peace. Yet each peace proved
as transitory as the one which pre-
oeded It; and at the beginning OF
the twentieth century We have found
ourselves once again plunged, quite
against the wishes OF the great
majority OF mankind. into cata-
clysmic struggle. recalling all the
savagery Of the Thirty Years War
three centuries before.
Cause and effect ar changeless
and eternal: can any one who reads
history truly doubt but that II We
conclude a peace today, no different
IN substance or structure from the
Peace OF Munster OF 164S, the Treaty
of Utrecht of 171S, or the Treaty Of
Vienna OF 1915. II win be only a
question OF time till we are once
again engulfed in an even more ter
IlUtE NOllu Wat AAiAAA AAAANlSA
which we have Just passed? II the
Treaty Of 1919 does no more than
70 rearrange boundaries and impose
fndemnities, II II allows the contin-
uation OF the old International law
lessness. and fails to organize inter
national society into an ordered
community Of states. there can be
no mistaking the fact that all the
agony OF the past four years will
have been largely in vain; for as
surely as night follows day. within
n measurable period OF time We
shall have TO face the same agony
again.
International lawiessness may have
suited well enough at a time when
states we're in fact self-suficing and
Insulated units. But that timo has
passed Whether we like ii or no,
has come in fact. ,
Since the Industrial Revolution some
great nations have transformed
themselves from agricultural into
great Industrial communities; the
very existence Of these nations de-
pends upon the uninterrupted inter-
national exchange Of their manu-
actured goods for raw products and
'oodstuffs. IL England were cut OF ,
rom international intercourse today
,he would starye inside Of few !.
months. Morally and pe@ehologi- !
ally, no less than economically. ma !,
ions have ceased to be isolated :
nits. The national Prussian theory !
t the State, and the Prussian belief :,
hat might is a force Of more prac- !
lcal value than right, Aas borne its I !
fruitage in the wreckage .
( homes all around the world. The :
Solsheyism of Russia is the vital :,
oncern Of America on the opposite 4
emisphere. Dependency and inter :,
lay of nation upon nation consti- :,
Ites an actual internationallsm that :,
ill not be denied; apd IL we win !,
ave our law accord with the exist u
lg facts which have temporarily out i,
stanced il, we must develop in our 4,
w as real an intemationalism. Al
therwise. our international law n
Ill be and can be only futile theory.
ith no power to control actual con- r.
lct; for no law which is out Of IN
cord with existing facts can prove Il
real factor in human development
therefore there is to be such a ~
ing in the future as international M
W, there must be some legal organ Z
alton Of international society; in us
me form or other there must be
.ague Of Nations.
Paradoxical as it may seem, free Ju
N can come only through Law. Mlz
q absolute individual freedom
ich the anarchist dreams of in a q
:iety without government is in fact
logical impossibility; because the
noval Of all restraint by the social