the other nations are under no obligation to act and there is no mention of their doing anything. There was such a suggestion in the first covenant but that has been now omitted.
Let's Get What We Can
That is not a complete and perfect plan for the settlement of differences. I could have drawn a better plan, I think; doubtless all who hear me could have drawn a better plan; but I was not invited to and neither was anybody else. This was a result of the conference of fourteen different representatives. It does grate me somewhat and I submit I have a right to object, from a personal standpoint, to find gentlemen who opposed the universal arbitration treaties—and who opposed the League of Nations recommended by our League to Enforce Peace in which there was a specific plan for the hearing of justiciable cases and machinery for determination of justiciable cases and bringing the nations in to abide judgment in such cases—to have these gentlemen that defeated those particular things or opposed them, now criticise this League because it does not contain those things that they opposed. I am in favor of getting what we can. I believe as we go on, if we get our foot inside the door, we shall open it up, and with the power of amendment of the League, we can so amend the League, as the Constitution was amended, that we can perfect its operation if we all go in sincerely to make it work. If we do not find sincere coöperation, then we can get out of the League on two years' notice; but here is the great opportunity to get a boon for mankind and to help this nation and the world,—and now are we to stand on mere technical objections, filed with all the meticulousness of a lawyer with a desperate case before the Supreme Court. That is not the spirit with which we should approach a great issue like this, affecting human kind.
A Chance for Public Opinion
Even if this is not war proof, as we admit that it is not, it provides a locus penitentiae for the parties in the hearing of the case when they all covenant to restrain war for three months after judgment. It provides for the operation of the public opinion of the world through the agencies of the League in knocking the heads of the parties together to see if they cannot come to some voluntary agreement. It enables the people of each nation to understand the attitude of the other quarreling nation and with the suggestion by recommendation as to what the right or wrong of the issue is, most threatened wars will be settled. That some wars will follow
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