The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1919-08-30
League of Nations a Beginning.

The League of Nations formed at Paris is
not the end of things. It is the beginning.
It is not the last chapter in the story of the
solidarity of peoples. It is only the title page
1t does not fulfill all the hopes Of democracy.
Neither do republics nor universal suffrage.
But these are the tools with which democracy
works and makes what it wishes:
The league did not disarm the world. It
made good beginning by disar1ning the Gen.
trail Empires, the former strongholds Of mill
tarism. It is the instrument through which
further arrangements for disarmament must be
made. AS it is perfected that disarmament be-
comes easier and more certainly inevitable. It's
destruction would postpone disarmament for
many years.
It does not establish international Justice.
That is probably centuries in the future. It
does abolish some very old and evil vested
wrongs It creates some new ones. But none
Of the new are as bad as the DID, Even Shan
tung but places Japan in Germany's shoes.
There has yet to appear the person who says:
''Because I protested against Germany at
S'hantung, now protest Japan there" On
the contrary those who protest today apollo
gized in 1914.
The league does not build fraternal Interna-
tionale that labor has so long visioned. But
it creates something far nearer that ideal than
a loose bureau and occasional international
congresses; or an association of imaginary
soviets calling itself the Third International
The body established at Paris is built upon
industries that are producing, and democracies
that are functioning. The Moscow body rests
upon an industry destroyed and dictatorship
proc4aiming.
Labor is not dominant in the league estab-
lished at Paris. It has as much power as it
has gained in the nations where it belongs,
and one direct representative in addition
Labor in democracies has whatever power it
is intelligent enough to take and exercise. It
is not competent to exercise any: other. When
it is capable of taking all power by education
and voting it will have prepared itself to exer-
else all power. Not before.
Labor can have majority and control the
labor council Of the League Of Nations when
labor controls the nations from which the coun-
ell members come. Before then it is a
safe prediction that if Russia and other
nations claiming |proletarian dictatorship
are admitted to the league that their delegates
will be less representative of labor than those
from the United States, Great Britain or
France: The **socialist'' government Of Ger
many was almost the only one that sent no
workingmen among it's delegation to Paris
The League of Nations is foundation stone,
not finished structure; machine with which
to work, not perfect product It will do
what we make it do. It will be what we build
it into. Like other institutions based on de-
mocracy it will be as bad, as good, as clumsy,
as competent, tyrannical, reactionary and pro-
gfessive as the people Of the nations that COM
pose it. -': :::.''* ~: :.-
. If we smash it and scatter the material now
assembled, we shall some day have to gather
that material together again to build another.