is my end." It was the natural way of expressing the plain fact. I read yesterday a letter from a soldier at the front about the death of one of his fellow-soldiers, and the letter ended quite simply: "After all he has done what we all want to do-die for England." The man who wrote it has since then had his wish. Or, again, if one wants a phrase to live by, which would a few years ago have seemed somewhat unreal, or "high falutin'," he can take those words that are now in everybody's mind: "I see now that patriotism is not enough-I must die without hatred or bitterness toward anyone."

Romance and melodrama were a memory, broken fragments living on of heroic ages of the past. We live no longer upon fragments and memories; we ourselves have entered upon a heroic age. As for me, personally, there is one thought that is always with me, as it is with us all, I expect—the thought that other men are dying for me, better men, younger, with more hope in their lives, many of them men whom I have taught and loved. I hope you will allow me to say, and will not be in any way offended by the thought I want to express to you. Some of you will be orthodox Christians and will be familiar with that thought of One who loved you dying for you. I would like to say that now I seem to be familiar with the feeling that something innocent, something great, something that loves me has died, and is dying daily, for me. That is the sort of community that we are now-a community in which one man dies for his brother-and underneath all our hatreds, all our little angers and quarrels, we are brothers who are ready to seal our brotherhood with blood. It is for us that these men are dying, for us, the women, the old men, and the rejected men, and to preserve the civilization and the common life which we are keeping alive and reshaping toward wisdom or unwisdom, toward unity or discord. Well, ladies and gentlemen, let us be worthy of these men; let us be ready, each one, with our sacrifice when it is asked. Let us try, as citizens, to live a life which shall not be a mockery to the faith these men have placed in us. Let us build up an England for which these men, lying in their scattered graves over the face of the green world, would have been proud to die.

AFTER THE CONFLICT

A LEAGUE TO ENFORCE WORLD PEACE1

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT

[William Howard Taft (1857- -), twenty-seventh President of the United States, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. After graduating from Yale University, he entered upon the practice of law in his native city, rising steadily into positions of public trust and usefulness. Among the most notable of these were judge of the Sixth United States District, the first civil governor of the Philippine Islands, secretary of war in the cabinet of President Roosevelt. In November, 1908, he was elected to the Presidency, and was renominated at the close of his term. He was, however, defeated by Woodrow Wilson, and has been, since 1913, Kent professor of law in Yale University. He has always taken a great interest in the questions of arbitration and worldwide peace. This selection gives an account of one of the most widely discussed schemes for reducing the probability of war as much as possible.]

This is an assembly of those who direct the forming of character of the youth of the country and who, because of their intelligence and attention to the issues of the day and their standing in the community, exercise a substantial influence in framing and making effective the popular will. This meeting, therefore, gives an exceptional opportunity to spread to the four corners of the United States the consideration of a constructive plan for national and human betterment. I seize this chance to bring before you the program of an association already organized and active to promote a league to enforce world peace.

Our program is limited to the establishment of such a league after the present world war shall close. We are deeply interested in bringing this war to a close, and we would rejoice much in successful mediation, but, in order to be useful, we limit our plan to the steps to be taken when peace comes, and to an international arrangement between the powers after war ceases. 1From Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1916.

The league was organized on Bunker Hill Day, a year ago, in Independence Hall, at Philadelphia. Its program contemplates a treaty between the great powers of the world, by which the signatories agree to be bound to four obligations: the first is that all questions arising between the members of the league shall be submitted to a judicial tribunal for hearing and judgment; the second, that all questions which cannot be settled on principles of law and equity shall be submitted to a council of conciliation for hearing and a recommendation of compromise; the third, that if any member of the league commits acts of hostility against another member before the question between them shall be submitted as provided in the first two articles the remainder of the members of the league shall jointly use forthwith their economic and military forces against the member prematurely resorting to war and in favor of the member prematurely attacked; the fourth, that congresses between the members of the league shall be held from time to time to formulate and codify rules of international law to govern the relations between the members of the league, unless some member of the league shall signify its dissent within a stated period.

1. Considering the fourth clause first, the question arises: What is international law? It is the body of rules governing the conduct of the nations of the world toward one another, acquiesced in by all nations. It lacks scope and definiteness. It is found in the writings of international jurists, in treaties, in the results of arbitration, and in the decisions of those municipal courts which apply international law, like the Supreme Court of the United States and courts that sit in prize cases to determine the rules of international law governing the capture of vessels in naval warfare. It is obvious that a congress of the league, with quasi-legislative powers, could greatly add to the efficacy of international law by enlarging its application and codifying its rules. It would be greatly in the interest of the world and of world peace to give to such a code of rules the express sanction of the family of nations.

2. Coming now to the first proposal, involving the submission of all questions at issue, of a legal nature, to a permanent inter

national court, it is sufficient to point out that the proposal is practical and is justified by precedent. The Supreme Court of the United States, exercising the jurisdiction conferred on it by the Constitution, sits as a permanent international tribunal to decide issues between the states of the Union. The law governing the settlement of most of the controversies between the states cannot be determined by reference to the Constitution, to statutes of Congress, nor to the legislation of the states. Should Congress in such cases attempt to enact laws, they would be invalid. The only law which applies is that which applies between independent governments, to wit, international law. Take the case of Kansas against Colorado, heard and decided by the Supreme Court. Kansas complained that Colorado was using more of the water of the Arkansas River which flowed through Colorado into Kansas than was equitable, for purposes of irrigation. The case was heard by the Supreme Court and decided, not by a law of Congress, not by the law of Kansas, not by the law of Colorado, for the law of neither applied. It was decided by principles of international law.

Many other instances of similar decisions by the Supreme Court could be cited. But it is said that such a precedent lacks force here because the states are restrained from going to war with each other by the power of the National Government. Admitting that this qualifies the precedent to some extent, we need go no farther than Canada to find a complete analogy and a full precedent. There is now sitting, to decide questions of boundary waters (exactly such questions as were considered in Kansas versus Colorado), a permanent court, consisting of three Americans and three Canadians, to settle the principles of international law that apply to the use of rivers constituting a boundary between the two countries and of rivers crossing the boundary. The fact is that we have got so into the habit of arbitration with Canada that no reasonable person expects that any issue arising between us and that country, after a hundred years of peace, will be settled otherwise than by arbitration. If this be the case between ourselves and Canada, and England, why may it not be practicable with every well-established and ordered

government of the great powers? The second Hague conference, attended by all nations, recommended the establishment of a permanent international court to decide questions of a legal nature arising between nations.

3. The second proposal involves the submission to a commission of conciliation of all questions that cannot be settled in court on principles of law or equity. There are such questions which may lead to war, and frequently do, and there are no legal rules for decision. We have such questions giving rise to friction in our domestic life. If a lady who owns a lawn permits children of one neighbor to play upon that lawn and refuses to admit the children of another neighbor, because she thinks the latter children are badly trained and will injure her lawn or her flowers, it requires no imagination to understand that there may arise a neighborhood issue that will lead to friction between the families. The issue is, however, a non-justiciable one. Courts cannot settle it, for the reason that the lady owning the lawn has the right to say who shall come on it and who shall be excluded from it. No justiciable issue can arise, unless one's imagination goes to the point of supposing that the husbands of the two differing ladies came together and clashed, and then the issue in court will not be as to the comparative training of the children of the families.

We have an analogous question in our foreign relations, with reference to the admission of the Chinese and Japanese. We discriminate against them in our naturalization and immigration laws and extend the benefit of those laws only to whites and persons of African descent. This discrimination has caused much ill-feeling among the Japanese and Chinese. We are within our international right in excluding them, but it is easy to understand how resentment because of such discrimination might be fanned into a flame, if, through lawless violence or unjust state legislation, the Japanese might be mistreated within the United States.

We have had instances of the successful result of commissions of conciliation where the law could not cover the differences between the two nations. Such was the case of the Behring Sea controversy. We sought to prevent the killing of female seals