Evening star., 1934-01-21
BY FRANK H. sIMONDS.
TT IS perhaps final evidence of the
degree to which American attention
is today concentrated upon the


i ploblems of domestic recovery that
the recent speech of Senator Will
liam E. Borah in New York City at
tracted but the smallest general inter-
est. The speech itself was of more than
passing importance, since 1t clearly re-
vealed a man who has been regarded
as a leading liberal in this country
squarely in accord with Mussolini and
Hitler in matters of foreign policy.
FascistS could quarrel with Senator
Borah's basic doctrine of nationalism.
Of course. as the Senator made
abundantly clear. he has no sympathy
with the domestic eXcesses of the
Italian and German movements. These
excesses. on the contrary, move him to
indignation and protest Nevertheless
in the matter of foreign policy he goes
forward with the Duce and the Fuehrer.
as in the matter OF isolation he goes
back to Washington and Jefferson. And
suppose no one will question that in
both respects he once more succeeds in
expressing American public opinion ac-
curately.
What is interesting at the moment in
the Senator's remarks is that they fall
, in upon a general even worldwide, dis
cussion of the future Of the League of
| Nations. And here two schools Of
| thought are plainly discoverable - one
urging that the League be scrapped al
! tcgether, another that it be reorganized
and remodeled in the light Of recent ex-
| perience.
Disagree on Reform.
Obviously both schools start from the
same point. They agree that in the
| light of the Manchurian flasco and the
disarmament failure it can no longer be
argued that the League can fulfill the
mission for which it was originally de-
signed They disagree as to the posi-
| bility of reforming the League so that 1t
may perform any part of the major task
of preventing world wars or even local
wars.
| The relevance of Senator Borah's re-
| marks lies in the fact that if he is right
| there is no place for a League of Ma
| tions of large stature in the world. For
| the present League was designed TO
serve and can serve only as the agency
! of the several nations ready to act in
| ternationally. II owes its very origin 70
the conclusion of woodrow Wilson -
nlomentarily backed by vast fractions
of public opinion in all countries
new cataStrophes like the old World
War can only be avoided by interna-
tional cooperation expressed not in
vague pacts or self-denying ordinances,
but in some international organization
having both authority to make decisions
and power to enforce these decisions.
That original conception to which
Wilson himself came a little reluc-
tantly during the Paris Peace Confer
ence. was fatally compromised when
the Unied States refused to Join the
! League and Great Britain declined to
ratify the protocol of Geneva. because
each in turn was unwilling to assent to
any modification of its own respective
sovereignty. Together these two &C
tions effectively destroyed the attempt
to establish the League as super
| state clothed with the means to enforce
its decisions.
Following these two refuSals Wlde-
spread attempt was made to replace the
idea of physical by moral force. The
League was to reach its decisions as
originally conceived but reliance was TO
be placed solely upon the public opinion
Of mankind to exercise coercion and 70
insure enforcement of the decisions OF
Geneva. For military sanctions moral
were to be substituted. But It was still
assumed that public opinion in all
countries would be equally alive to the
significance and equally emphatic to
denounce the purposes of any aggres-
sion.
Pooling Costs Necessary.
It is true that midway between the
old idea of military sanctions and the
new conceptions of moral coercion was
a proposal for financial and economic
| operations directed by the member ma
| tions of the League against any coun-
try guilty of aggression. The obvious
contradiction of terms involved in a
program of going to war to preserve or
to restore peace was thus to be avoided.
But it did not take any long discus
sion to prove that nations were quite
as unwilling to engage in economic as
in military sanctions. In the nature OF
things such course could only be fol-
lowed if countries were prepared to
pool the costs. Obviously these costs
would be far greater to some countries
than to others and would be proper
tionate to the trade of the several ma
tions with the area involved. The ulti-
mate futility of the whole idea of sane
tions either military or economic-that
is organized sanctions-was disclosed
bv the total inability OF the League
members to arrive at an acceptable
definition of aggression itself
Before the Manchurian episode it had
been pretty clearly demonstrated that
nations would not agree to modify their
ON1 SONeT6IellIltS VI IllOl JSdSe lIltll ONlI
economic and financial resources
much less their military and naval-to
insure restraint or punishment of an
aggressor But in the Kellogg pact
there had been emphasized the notion
of the moral sanction. Nations re-
nounced war as an instrument of policy
and thus seemed to place themselves in
situation where an act of aggression
would expose them at once to guilt be
fore their own nation and the world if
they violated the pledge.
The Manchurian affair. however. in
stantly demonstrated that what seemed
clear and Grass act of aggression to
the rest Of the world might seem a
iustifable act of Self-defense to the
country actually responsible The cir
cumstance that appeared a matter OF
national necessity and therefore of ma
tional right absolved what was in fact
an act of aggression from all unethical
taint for the japanese people.
This experience demonstrated beyond
all debate that the moral sanction was
also ineffective. 1t swept away the