Here, in brief summary, as prepared for a lesson, is the Covenant of the League. If it fails to-day, it will reappear. That idea is immortal, and it will come back purified and more beautiful. The fact, now unquestionable, of economic solidarity must bring about political solidarity. Nations will no longer be able to attack and dismember each other without injuring themselves.
Solidarity and cooperation; diplomacy frank and open, and at the service of the peoples, not, as heretofore, a false art of courtiers and lackeys; permanent freedom for navigation and commerce; economic liberty; general disarmament; equality among states, the great as well as the small, these are the ideas expressed, with the conviction and the prestige of an apostle, by President Wilson and which the universal conscience of mankind, although it had known them before, has now taken up as a new gospel.
The thinkers of the French Revolution could well be proud of having proclaimed the right of man. To President Wilson will belong the glory of proclaiming the rights of peoples, because the League of Nations does not mean the denial of patriotism, the denial of country, but the glorification of this sublime concept, as the idea of country does not exclude the mother idea of family and home, which was and ever remains its necessary foundation. These are the links of a mystic chain, not of oppression but of salvation, of unity and harmony. Build honorable homes and you will have a great country; ennoble your country through virtue and you work for the world.
I thank you all, especially Dr. Sherwell, for having been so good as to honor with your presence this simple ceremony.
II
Editorial Comment on the Georgetown Mission To Venezuela
GOOD TRADE AMBASSADORS
[From N. Y. Post Express, August 11, 1920.]
Georgetown University has a foreign service department in full operation, the worth of which this paper testified to when the project was first announced. Recently twenty-five students of this department were sent to South America to study trade conditions and they made their headquarters first at Caracas, Venezuela. Now note what has happened. These young people set up official and domestic housekeeping at the United States consulate; they went about among the Venezuelans, who found them likable, and soon the consulate became a rendezvous for business people of Caracas. And there have been more sales of household articles and of office equipment of various kinds in Caracas and throughout Venezuela than the regular commercial letter, and the traveling agent who rushes through the land have achieved in the past five years. Moreover, there is correspondence relating to bigger orders coming in to business houses which have been quick to communicate with Georgetown University. Here is the sort of trade embassy we need in South America and the world around. Train our young people to the idea and the knowledge needed for foreign service, both commercial and political. And then send them abroad to become known as well as to know. We are the least well known of any great nation outside our own borders, for we have been least well represented. It is time to change all this and other higher schools might well follow Georgetown's example.