Putnam patriot., 1923-11-30
LEAGUE GREAT AND GROWING
 SUCCESS, SAYS HAMILTON HOLT
FAMOUS WARRIOR FOR WORLD PEACE TELLS PUTNAM AUDIENCE OF WHAT GENEVA CONFERENCE
 HAS ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED
Pleads For Definite u S Foreign Poey-Deneunee Those
 Who Call League "Moribund"

Three years ago. on the night be- fore the election which sent Mir. Hard ing into office and defeated the League of Nations issue in the United States. Hamilton Holt of Woodstock and New York, noted advocate of the League then as now. addressed one of the largest gatherings that ever crowded into the limited space of Union hall Last Saturday night before a smaller, but no less interest ed audience. gathered under the aus pices of the Mindham County League of Voters. Mir. Holt again spoke of the League. telling of it's work since is foundation in 1919 and of his ob servation and contact with t as a working organization.
 Mir Holt's speech, in part. was as follows.
 What we need at the present hour is someone in control of the foreign affairs of the United States with the courage of Roosevelt. the humanity of Taft, or the vision of Wilson," This was the statement made by Hamilton Holt, viee-chairman of the Execu- tive Committee of the League of Nations Partisan Association h his address on Saturday night. Nov. 24. "The danger in Europe today is not so much revolution as dissolu- tien," he continued. Civilization is literally evaporating. Wise men told ne in Europe last summer that Europe is returning to another Dark Ages. If old England had not been stand ing in the breaeh while we have been playing on the side lines. do not know where Europe would be today Yet for every man we lost in the war England lost 20 and France lost 30."
 Mr Holt's lecture was plea that the United States enter the existing League of Nations and the Permanent Court of International Justice. Mir. Holt's definition of the League, which he said was the best brief formulation he could offer, was this. This League is scheme whereby sovereign nations can act together unanimously better than they otherwise could" The only two important words in the definition were sovereign" and unanimous" "How any nation could lose it's SOW ereignty who joined the League was beyond the comprehension of every member of the Assembly | met ia Geneva" said Mr. Holt Indeed, if any United States Senator had voted to bring the United States into n League that in any respect violated our Constitution he could have been impeached for treason, for the only people who can change the American Constitution are the American people. No foreign people or League can do ii and any Senator who voted to per init it would have violated his oath of office.
 League Acts ss One
 "When the League acts it can only act unanimously in otherwords, only as far and as fast as nations can agree on ways and means. One would not think under the cireum- stances" said Mir Holt, ''the pace would be so dizzy as to cause many nations to swoOn. The League there fore is not a super government. l. cannot compel, enforce or even legis- late ln every instance its function is to recommend, to advise and to purpose
 Mir Holt then took up the two main functions of the League pre- vention of war and the promotion of progress. Already since the establish mcnt of the League on February 10. 1920, much has been done along both lines. There are two main organs of the League already functioning designed to compose international differences-th court to settle justi. ciable questions and the Council to settle on-justiciable or political questions. Already the court has Is still on the docket. Ii will be remembered that when the United States Supreme Court was set up no contested case came before it for two and one-half years. But the World Court is already going strong. The establishment of this court has been the aim of every American adminis- tration, both Republican and Demo cratic. for the past 90 years. And now it owes its being largely to the genius of an American-Elihu Root. The Palace at The Hague in which it sits was given by another Amef1- ean-Andrew Carnegie And one of it's present judges is another great American,-John B. Moore Tn fact this court fulsills the prophecy of that old Connecticut blacksmith. Eiihu Burritt, who said three generations ago that when it came into existence 1t would be the highest court of appeals this side the bar of eternal justice
 The Corfu Dispute
 tfThe Council" declared Mf Holt, "has already taken cognizanee Of six major cases, every one of which threatened war and every one of which has been settled by peaceful means. These were the issues between Sweden and Finland over the juris- diction of the Aalgnd Islands, the boundary dispute in Upper Silesia be- tween Germany and Poland, the at- tempted invasion of Albania by Serbia, the bombardment of a Persian port by the fleet of Soviet Russia, tine Lithuanian Poland dispute and last September the Italian-Grcek dispute which threatened at one time Euro pean war and even the breakdown of the League"
 There has been much confusion of thought on the position of the League in the Corfu dispute Many people throughout the world seem to think the League Is q sort of super-state which imposes or claims the right to impose itself as an arbitrator of all d i