Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/103

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A Foundation of International Peace wholly representative. Another of the authors of the Federalist, however, points out that the Constitution does not for bid the substitution of other republi can forms for those then existing. It seems, on the whole, that ‘republican’ in the Constitution is ambiguous, and that a positive construction that it had a meaning so narrow as to exclude direct legislation cannot be supported. “But even if ‘republican form of government’ does mean representative

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government, it might well be contended that a slight tincture of direct democracy would not destroy the representative character of a state government. Further

more, it is probable that the enforce ment of the constitutional guaranty is a political question for Congress and the President rather than for the judiciary.” ’ Readers interested in pursuing the subject fur ther are referred to the full citations accompanying this article.

A Foundation of International Peace N

IMPORTANT event in the unwritten history of international

arbitration took place in New York on Dec. 14, when Andrew Carnegie trans ferred to a board of trustees $10,000,000

in five per cent first mortgage bonds, the revenue of which will be used to "hasten the abolition of international

war" and establish a lasting world peace. The informal trust deed presented by Mr. Carnegie to the trustees read as follows:— Gentlemen: I have transferred to you as trus tees of the Carnegie Peace Fund. $10,000,000 of five per cent first mortgage bonds, value $11,5(X),(X)0, the revenue of which is to be administered by you to hasten the abolition of international war, the foulest blot upon our civilization. Although we no longer eat our fellowmen or torture prisoners, or sack cities, filling their inhabitants, we still kill each other in

war like barbarians. Only wild beasts are excus able for doing that in this, the twentieth century of the Christian era, for the crime of war is in herent, since it decides not in favor of the right but always of the strong. The nation is criminal which refuses arbitration and drives its adver sary to a tribunal which knows nothing of righteous judgment. I believe that the shortest and easiest path to peace lies in adopting President Taft's platform,

who said in his address before the Peace and Arbitration Society, New York, March 22, 1910: “I have noticed exceptions in our arbitration treaties, as to reference of questions of national honor to courts of arbitration. Personally, I do not see any more reason why matters of na tional honor should not be referred to a court of arbitration than matters of property or of na tional proprietorship. I know that is going further than most men are willing to go, but I do not see why questions of honor may not be submitted to a tribunal composed of men of honor who understand questions of national honor, to abide by their decision, as well as any other questions of difference arising between nations." I venture to quote from my address as president of the Peace Congress in New York, 1907: “Honor is the most dishonored word in our lan guage. No man ever touched another man's honor; no nation ever dishonored another nation;

all honor's wounds are self-inflicted." At the opening of the International Bureau of American Republics at Washington, April 26, 1910, President Taft said: "We twenty-one re publics cannot afford to have any two or any three of us quarrel. We must stop this, and Mr. Carnegie and I will not be satisfied until all nineteen of us can intervene by proper measures to suppress a quarrel between any other two." I hope the trustees will begin by pressing for ward upon this line, testing it thoroughly and doubting not. The judge who presides over a cause in which he is interested dies of infamy if discovered. The citizen who constitutes him