Evening star., 1935-01-28
International Justice,

Today limitation of debate on the
World Court begins in the Senate,
presaging an early vote. Opponents
of American adherence to the Per-
manent Court of International Justice
are engaged in desperate last
minute campaign to influence public
opinion and members of the Senate.
Their voices grow shrill as they pro-
claim that entry into the court means
American participation in the next
international war America entered
the last World War. These anti
World Court orators do not tell the
people that the United States was not
then a member of the World Court.
The court did not exist at that time.
Yet the United States went into the
war, and some o. the most persistent
opponents of the court did nothing to
keep the United States out of that
conflict. Indeed, some Of them voted
for entry into the World War and
criticized the late President Woodrow
Wilson because he did not earlier take
this country into the conflict.
The traditional policy of non-en-
tangling alliances and engagements
with foreign nations is brought into
the argument by the court antagonists.
America, they hold, should attend to
its own knitting and let the rest of
the world get along any way it can.
The American people have had a
recent and very depressing Illustration
of the fact that what happens to the
rest of the world has a definite bear
ing on their own prosperity and hap
pineSs. The crash of world markets
has meant destitution and despair
for millions of American workers Of
all kinds. The United States may
play the ostrich and stick its head
in the sand. What the results will
be time will show.
Here is no advocacy of the policy
of entangling alliances with other ma
tions. Here is proposed entry into
a tribunal set up for the purpose
Of adjusting international disputes
through peaceful means. That is its
sole purpose. Discussion Of interna-
tional questions does not commit this
country to entangling alliances. In
its proposed entry into the World
Court the United States makes no
alliance with other nations, not even
an alliance for peace instead of for
war. 1t merely agrees to make use,
along with other nations, of tribunal
to which the nations may take their
difficulties for adjudication. There
is no compulsion on the United States
to take any question to the court to
which it objects, and no other nation
can force the United States to adjudi-
cate a question against the will of
this country.
In their effort to keep the United
States out of the World Court some of
the court opponents have sought to
create in this country racial an
tagonisms such as have disturbed the
map of the world in the past, and
which continue to disturb it today.
1t is that kind of thing which
threatens the domestic peace and
progress of this Nation.
Perhaps tomorrow, or the next day,
the Senate will vote on the protocols
relating to American adherence to
the World Court. The whole world is
waiting the outcome with interest.
Rejection of membership in this tri-
bunal set up for the purpose Of OBJ
tanning international justice will be
interpreted as meaning that the
United States is not ready to 60 along
with the other nations in this at
tempt to eliminate war. Too much
selfshness, in the end, has never
brought an individual or a nation