The society has had four annual meetings, the proceedings of which have appeared in four substantial volumes. Besides, it publishes a quarterly usually limited to one article on the subject by some prominent man. The Proceedings have been translated, have been liberally quoted by foreign publicists, and have made a profound impression upon public opinion not only here but in other countries. The distinguished Foreign Minister of The Netherlands, Jonkheer Loudon, said we had demonstrated the feasibility and the necessity for this world court.

The Proceedings and the papers in the Quarterly published by the society have been of a scientific character designed to examine the project and to expose the principles which should guide the founders of the court and govern the court itself when established. But Mr. John Hays Hammond, an ex-president of the society, was not satisfied that this project should remain in the academic stage. He conceived the idea, with Dr. John Wesley Hill, of a public propaganda in the United States in favor of it. We have had several meetings in the West, a very large one in Akron, and a number in the East, all of which culminated in The World Court Congress held May 12, 1915, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Now, conjointly with this project there is in the minds of many of us a desire to have the world go a step farther and introduce the element of obligation.

Mr. Hamilton Holt is one of the principal advocates of this latter idea, which is nothing less than a league of peace. The subject was put forward by him in September in The Independent. Then he came to me with the suggestion that we should have a public conference. We first got together a group of about twenty scientific men, professors of political science, of international law, of history, of economics, threw the subject into the arena and had it torn to pieces by them at three meetings held at the Century Club in New York. In this way was worked out what we regarded as a “desirable” plan. We then took this “desirable” plan and on April ninth, laid it before men of wide practical experience, including Mr. Taft and Mr. A. Lawrence Lowell, in order to ascertain how much of it was, in their opinion, a “realizable” project. It was found that they were not ready to accept as realizable the whole of the plan of the first group, which was practically this: a league of peace which shall bind its members to resort to a tribunal for the settlement of all disputes to which a member of the league may be a party, and obligate them to use force, if necessary, both, to bring the nation law-breaker into court and to execute the verdict of the court.

Now, when you introduce the element of force into your plan you find that the unanimity of opinion to which I have referred as applying to the Court of Arbitral Justice as at present proposed, and to similar purely voluntary institutions, no longer exists; that there is very great diversity of opinion as to whether force should be used against a nation under any circumstances. The reason for this diversity of opinion is the shortcomings of the leagues of the past. The Quadruple Alliance, the Grand Alliance, and the Holy Alliance, all formed immediately after the Napoleonic wars, were by no means wholly beneficial. The Holy Alliance set up between Prussia, Russia, and Austria in 1815, ostensibly to promote Christianity, but really to support dynasties and combat the democratic tendency of the times, operated in fact to suppress liberty in Hungary, in Italy, and in Spain. You will remember that it was the Holy Alliance acting through France as a mandatory which overthrew the liberal form of government in Spain and restored full autocratic powers to the king. Then there were the partial successes and many failures of the Concert of Europe. The Concert of Europe has done some good things. It smashed the Turkish fleet in 1827 and liberated Greece. It has prevented more than one Balkan war. It has improved the lot of the Armenians in Turkey. But it has had many failures, this present disastrous war the most conspicuous of them. Then there were these groups like the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, which, though set up for purposes of peace, have really given to the present war its broad character. All of us felt that owing to their existence, when war came again to Europe it must be a general war. The breaking out of war surprised many people; its extent surprised no one.

Manifestly, then, the first step in planning a league of peace is to find out why the leagues of the past have failed. I think the answer lies in one thing: the narrowness of the group composing the league, permitting of the triumph of selfish interests, permitting of collusion, the swapping of favors, and resulting in injustice and oppression. That is what men fear.

Now, many of us believe that if we can set up a league so broad as to include all the progressive nations, big and little, it will be permanent and successful. I have defined what I mean by the word progressive. Such a league would include the eight great nations of the world, among them the United States and Japan. It would include the secondary Powers of Europe—Switzerland, Norway and Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, such as it was and such as it will be again, Spain, Greece, and in fact, all the countries of Europe, with the possible exception of some of the Balkan States and the certain exception of Turkey. The “ABC” countries of South America would also be included. It would not include the backward countries, because we feel that the country which can not maintain law and order within its own borders would bring no strength to the league.

Now, we believe that such a group would be successful. In the first place, it would embrace three great nations with common political ideals—England, France, and the United States. I put our country last for reasons of politeness only. These three peoples feel that democratic government is no longer a passing phase of political experiment but a permanent fact in politics. Therefore they would cling together. Then you have in the group two great nations—Great Britain and the United States—who may be said to be satisfied territorially; you have the secondary Powers of Europe who have no disturbing ambitions and whose voice would be for reason and justice, so that we think that if we could get these states associated together in a league, substantial justice would emerge, just as substantial justice results from the united action of the forty-eight states composing the American Union.

Whether you believe this league is practical or not depends on your answer to that question: whether justice would emerge from its united action. Unless it does justice it can not endure. Unless it does justice we don’t want it: we don’t want oppression. Injustice within a country—persistent injustice—sooner or later brings war; if not civil war then foreign war, or both; just as gross injustice in the conduct of a war will draw into the struggle an ever widening circle of nations, because there are irresistible forces which insist that justice shall emerge finally in the world.

Now, it was not proposed that this league should itself pass upon disputes. All it would do is to insist that members, party to the league, or any nation having a dispute with a member of the league shall not resort to war. It may refer the disputants to existing institutions at The Hague or to other institutions to be hereafter set up. They shall be privileged to go on with their dispute indefinitely if they choose, but they may not resort to war. The United States, under this plan, would have been permitted to continue the Fisheries dispute with Great Britain, as it did, for three-quarters of a century without interference; but if either Great Britain or the United States had shown a disposition to resort to arms the league would have been invoked and would have used its combined forces to prevent aggression.