The New York herald., 1921-08-10
The League Without America.

| q participating Uulteu otdteS, Zap
tain REGINALD BERKELEY, Secretary
of the British League OF Nations
Union, submits in the London Re
Uieic OF Revietos these cheerful and
! hopeful sentiments:
What we need to determine. see
ing that America will apparently
have none of the League. Is how far
the League can go without her. II.
II is rather difficult to take Colonel
HARvEY's root and branch rejection
OF the League at its full face value.
:. The Assembly has proved IT.
self to be practicable and useful
institution-indeed. the Assembly
has been one OF the outstanding sue
cesses in the history Of International
relations. 1t has perhaps not
too much 10 say that the past years
work Of the League Of Nations has
been productive of more serious in
ternationai endeavor than any
previous ten years in history.
And all that has been done
without America!'
The interesting thing about this
optimistic Secretary's remarks on
the subject is that he attributes the
failure of the United States to enter
the League to a misunderstanding
amongst Republican circles in Amer
lea" OF the purpose and scope Of
MIR. WILSON'S concept. He thinks the
belief has grown up" in this coun-
try that the League was intended lin
some occult and mysterious way to
exercise supernatural powers. "They
talk of it." he says, cas- superstate." /"
They envisage the Council, he thinks,
as "a kind of all powerful world Cabi-
net enthroned in glittering splendor
in a palace at Geneva, issuing edicts
here, setting down there rebellions
with a strong hand, overthrowing
dynasties, creating new States and
generally inf1icting upon distressed
mankind all the horrors Of efficient
legislation at which the German Gov
ernment is believed to have aimed
when it began the war"
Against what he calls "the night
mare OF disordered imagination, =
Captain BERKELEY sets his own realis-
tic picture Of a Council and Assem-
bly, engaged in amiable academic de-
bates, in bureaulike attention to
minor details Of world politics, and
in the tentative and even sometimes
timorous steps" of it's record since
the experiment began.
All this, il THE New YORK HERALD
may be permitted to say so, is in the
logical sense most certainly the put
ting of the cart before the horse. The
question is not what the League has
turned out to be under existing con-
ditions, but what it would have been
and could have done IL Mr.. WILSON s
prospectus had been realized, If his
statements at Paris about the de-
sires and mandate Of the American
people had been accurate, and if our
I Senate and our nation had accepted
\ the supernatural structure which he
\ designed and at the cost of infinite
world calamities persuaded the rep
resentatives of the other great Pow
ers to agree to on the supposition
that it was Americas demand.
1t is not necessary to cite once
more Mr.. WILSON'S repeated state
ments at Paris and elsewhere to show
that there was no misunderstanding
as Captain BERKELEY believes, of the
upergovernmental character of the
League that would have been erected
had he his way in world affairs.
Nearly seven years ago, in the very
first year Of the great war. keener
intelligence than his, that of JAMES
BRYCE, had discerned and declared
the futility Of any system of League
control which did not depend on
coercive power at the call of cen.
trail international authority. Writing
in 1914 Viscount BRYCE said.
"No scheme for preventing future
wars viii have any chance Of success
ur,,ss it rests upon the assurance
that the states which enter into It
viii loyalty and steadfastly abide by
il. and that each and all OF them
will join In coercing by their over
whelming united strength any State
which may disregard the obligations
il has undertaken"
What Captain BERKELEY is not mis-.
taken about is that in any world
crisis the immense moral forces OF
America would be ranged. as they
have always been ranged. on the side
OF law and order. The only difference
OF opinion is as to the mode and ex-
tent OF the application. the character
OF the obligations undertaken. That
is why the friends Of peace on eartn
are everywhere looking forward to
the conference called by President
HARDING at Washington for Novem-
ber and are not thinking much IL at
all of Geneva aud its perfunctory
academic utilities