Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1919-08-13
Freedom CAN come
ONLY THROUGH LAW"
A Professor of Law at Harvard Uni
versfty Gives His Views
on Ratification

regularity with which at the begin
ming of each century cataclysmic
world wars have broken out and
threatened the onward march of civ
desires of the great mass of the
worlds people. At the beginning of
the seventeenth century it was the
bloody Thirty Years War which de-
Tastated Europe like a plague; at the
beginning of the eighteenth century
it was the long struggle between Louis
XIV and the Allied States of Europe;
at the beginning of the nineteenth
it was the far-reaching Napoleonic
Wars which swept Europe like
consuming fire. At the conclusion of
every one of these wracking wa1s
the statesmen of an exhausted
Europe, sincerely anxious to guar
antee and secure the future peace
of the world, concluded experimenting
treaties, by which the map of Europe
was substantially remade, in the full
belief that the formula had at last
been found for a permanent and en-
during peace. Yet each peace proved
as transitory as the one which pre-
eeded 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 a cata-
clysmic struggle, recalling all the
savagery Of the Thirty Years Wa
three centuries before.
Cause and effect are changeless
and eternal; can any one who reads
history truly doubt but that If We
conclude a peace today. no different
IN substance or structure from the
Teace of Munster of 1913, the Treaty
Of Utrecht of 1913, or the Treaty Of
Vienna of 1915, it will be only a
question OF time till we are once
again engulfed in an even more ter
ribIe world war than that through
which we have just passed? II the
Treaty of 1919 does no more than
to rearrange boundaries and impose
indemnities. if it allows the contin-
uatien of the sid International law
lessness, and fss;g 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 az
surely as night follows day, within |
d measureable period of time we
shall have to face the same agony
again.
International lawlessness may have
suited well enough at time when
states were In fact self suficing and |
insulated units. But that time has
passed Whether we like 1t or no,
decentralization has como In fact. |
Since tho Industrial Revolution some
srsst nations have transformed
themselves from agricultural into
great Industrial communities: the
worry existence Of these nations de-
ysads upoa the uninterrupted inter-
national exchange Of their maru-
factured goods for raw products and
fDodstufs- n England were cut Oh
che would starve fnssds @ . nv
months. HeraAy I'D pspeAo2sEf-
s&lly. 10 hess than sssDsanAsAsy. ~
tons ha~s ceased to - issAasS1
eats. rns natsensl F1uAstAa tss7
q he Seats. ssd to Prsasaaa hs0k
t1at might h . Aores II ms,s yxae-
teal valns than efTnt, has bssns n
t1tsraasfonai hustass n ~ wvssan0
q homes All around IL wss4A- Ths
DoIshevfsm Of Russia h tAe vks1
concern Of America On he oppressive
hemisphere Dependency a>A insef-
play Of nation upon nation constr
tutes an actual insernst1osAnsR 49,
win not Be deniod; and II We VIA
have our law accord Win ths ,oEAsk |
ing facts which have Temporarily out.
distanced it, we must develop IN oul |
law as real an internattona1ism-
Otherwise, our international law
will be and can be only futile theory,
with no power to control actual con-
Duct. for no law which is out Of
accord with existing facts can prove
real factor in human development
If therefore there is to be such a
thing in the future as international
law, there must be some legal organ
ization Of international society; in
some form or other there must be
League of Nations.
Paradoxical as 1t may seem, free
dom can come only through law.
The absolute individual freedom
which the anarchist dreams of in .
society without government is in fact
logical impossibility; because the
removal Of all restraint by the social
organization could only mean that the
liberty Of each would be put at the
mercy Of every other Individual whd
cared to rob, or plumber or wreck
anothers home. It Is only by curb
ing the anti-social and criminal i'm
pulses of all that each member of
the community can attain that secur-
ity and freedom from intolerable in
reference which makes possible free.
dom Of action and liberty of life.