Emerson McMillin discussed the composition of “The World Court.” He would not brook the thought that there was not patent and paramount need for such an institutional tribunal. The necessity for an International Court was so obvious that it was not a subject for discussion. The delegates of forty-five states would not have supported it at the Hague Conference if there had not been a great desire and a growing demand for it. He called attention, in his warm advocacy for the establishment of the Court, to the records of the two Hague Conferences. In 1899 it was but necessary to suggest the creation of a World’s Court to have it promptly put aside as impracticable. After a lapse of but eight years the 1907 Conference adopted the following: “The Conference recommends to the signatory powers the adoption of the project hereunto annexed of a convention for the establishment of a Court of Arbitral Justice and its putting in effect, as soon as an accord shall be reached upon the choice of the judges and the constitution of the court.” This received the unanimous support of all the conferees.
In a logical appeal for such a court, U. S. Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio, presented some startling facts. “My friends,” he said, “the other day the Cleveland Plain Dealer said, editorially, that according to the best estimates up to date there had been lost in this horrible war, 5,970,000 men. Think of it. In the great State of Ohio, which Senator Harding and I have the honor to represent, according to the last Federal census there were only 4,700,000 souls, men, women, and children. To-day there are, perhaps about 5,000,000 souls in Ohio. In other words, in the short space of about eight or nine months, nearly one million more men have been lost than we have men, women, and children in Ohio, all because the heads of governments are worshipping old Mars.”
Thomas Raeburn White presented to the Congress a series of technical provisions for the appointment of judges to the International Court of Arbitration. They could be easily surmounted, however, he thought, and in an address on “The Method of Procedure,” the Hon. James Brown Scott declared that great as these difficulties were in the selection of judges, they were not insuperable.
President Harry A. Garfield, of Williams College, in a discussion on “The Minimum Number of Nations Required to Successfully Inaugurate the Court,” thought that four of the great powers would suffice for an inaugural. He called attention to the fact that Mr. Thomas Raeburn White, speaking at the third national conference of the American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes in December, 1912, analyzed the articles of the convention providing for the establishment of the court and showed that the question was clearly left to the Powers represented at the conference, and could be adopted by any two or more of them when they saw fit. There appears to be no serious dissent from this proposition.
There were other numerous addresses by men of nation-wide importance. There were utterances that will go down through the aeons of a new history-making civilization.
Men who had come to the Congress with the air of dreamers went away surcharged with the inspired atmosphere of accomplishment. As Bainbridge Colby had said it was no new thought, no new ideal, this scheme of the World Congress for a World Court. It had come down through the centuries. But in the other ages, ay, even in the latter years there had been no such dire necessity for this purposed International Tribunal. To-day was a different day with a different need. Jew and Gentile, capitalist and laborer touched shoulders and joined hands in the common weal and the great cause at this World Congress for the World Court. The Rabbi pointed out in one breath that the arrow of the savage killed one man and the gun of civilization destroyed a whole city and all within! In the next the figures of a grave Senator pointed to the horror that in a few months of civilized warfare 1,000,000 more souls have been hurled into eternity than there is population in the Buckeye State. Small wonder that the cardinal, incontrovertible facts and figures so widely disseminated through the press of this country have staggered the comprehension and understanding of humanity the world over. For the wassail cries of the royal rioters in warfare of all other ages are but miniature in comparison with those in this era of infamy.
A word in conclusion to the Mayor Newton D. Baker, Bascom Little and the people of Cleveland. Partly by chance and partly by design this almost matchlessly beautiful lake city was selected for the initial sessions of the World Congress. By municipal experts the world over, Cleveland is counted one of the greatest accomplishments in latter-day city building extant. Environment is everything and I shall always believe that so much was accomplished at the Congress because of the perfection of arrangements and the fitting surroundings to say nothing of the incomparable hospitality of the city. Since my return to New York and the offices of the International Peace Forum, I have been besieged with inquiries in relation to these accomplishments. Beginning with the month of July, a great magazine entitled The World Court published under the auspices of the International Peace Forum will make its appearance on the book stalls. Many of these inquiries will then be answered. Its main purpose will be to advocate the establishment of a World Court which I am almost prone to prophesy is already assured. In addition the magazine will carry departments of Art, Music, Literature, the Drama and Information. Its editors and contributors will be eminent men of letters and it will carry a department under the title of “World Comment” which will hold and interest every thinking man in this and other lands. This magazine will have many kind words for Cleveland. That city itself may well feel proud of its achievements in behalf of the World Congress and a World Court.
And for a surety it was an epoch and an honor in the brilliant history of that great city. When the World Court is established the name of the city of Cleveland will ever be associated with it. And the two names will spell peace—International, national, commercial, and industrial peace—the peace that passeth all understanding and the peace that a tired world is crying for with that soul-racking wail that comes only from the soul of a strong and helpless man.
I shall never forget the evening of the last session of the Congress. As I wended my way out of the armory, the city arose before me in all its multicolored splendor—the passing throngs of men whose martial air proclaimed their success as plain as the gold lettering on the haberdasher’s windows, the beautifully gowned and garmented women and the streets and avenues in all their kaleidoscopic picturesqueness. And then another picture of the cities of the old world laid bare in want and woe and war.
God forfend such ill fortune to you, Cleveland, in the evil days for assuredly you have contributed your share to the Cause of Peace.