Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-03-14
WHAT IS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS?

councils and committees not only ensured ana
enhanced victory, but exactly correspondent
to the needs of an interrelated world as re-
spects both administrative and executive
authority.
The League to Enforce Peace is the best
known of the many organizations supporting
the project for League OF Nations. It's
original program the narrower one
adopted by the statesmen of Europe and
America since it was formulated at Phila-
delphia, June II, 1915. It's present program,
which will be examined below, incorporates
the cooperative lessons of the war and was
adopted an official platform November rs,
1918, at New York. This victory program"
exactly corresponds with the needs of inter
national existence. it has been generally &C
copied by other organizations as a minimum
on which all could agree.
Functions: This victory program declares
for "a League of Free Nations, universal
as possible, based upon treaty and pledged
that the security of each state shall rest upon
the strength of the whole;' and this league
demanded to ensure the fruits Of victory and
to prevent the recurrence of such catastro-
phe,' as "the war now happily brought
to a close" Statesmen innumerable have
said the same thing times without number
during the past four years, and the peoples
of the world have more and more insisted
that such result must be the outcome of
the war. The fundamental fact of all ma
tiOnal life is here applied on the international
of each state shall rest upon the strength of
the whole. The curse of Cain has existed
to this day among the nations, but this deela-
ration removes it by asserting the simple
truth that states are their brothers keepers.
1.-THE initiating nucleus of the membership
of the elague should be the nations associated
as belligerents in winning the war; continues
the program. The members of the league
must be both free agents and acceptable part
ners. On the other hand, it should be 'as
II, T.
League of Nations should follow the practice
of the American union. Starting among the
nations which have become partners in vic
tory over the forces of militarism and autoc-
racy, it would take in others as they proved
themselves fit for or met the conditions of
membership, somewhat after the manner in
which American territories have been adj
mitted to the union when they had attained
the standards fixed by the fundamental law OF
the constitution.
"The league should aim at promoting the
liberty, progress, and fair economic oppor-
tunity of all nations, and the orderly develop
ment of the world Here is perfectly sound
and honest purpose, fair to all and worthy
of all mems support. The liberty of every
nation must remain the foundation of all
healthy political growth, just as the freedom
of the individual is the basis of sound COM
munity life. AS Kipling, with poets vision,
made Canada, "Our Lady of the Shows" say
Daughter am I in my mothers house,
But mistress in my own"
1t is such a relation that the league should
bear to the individual nations, guaranteeing
their national independence and their position
in the family of nations. In that way-by
leaving it's individual problems to each nation
and by cooperation respecting its information
al problems-the progress and orderly devel-
opment of the world can best be assured.
In an industrial era, when the needs and
wants of peoples are manifold and when their
satisfaction hinges upon conditions of increas-
ing interdependence, fair economic oppor-
tunity is an essential Of progress" Fairness
of trade conditions is not only practical, but
as a system affords the opportunity for ind;-
vidual nations to pursue their own interests
to the best advantage, in accordance with
their duties toward the world.
eft should ensure peace by eliminating
causes of dissension, by deciding controver-
sizes by peaceable means, and by uniting the
potential force of all members as a standing
menace against any nation that seeks to upset
the peace of the world" Granting the dis