Word: borah
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Your editorial of the 13th on Senator Borah's recent speech in Boston has betrayed a misunderstanding I should hardly have deemed possible. It seemed to me that the Senator made it quite plain that his dislike for the League was due primarily to its guaranteeing of the Varsailles treaty--which is its chief purpose in the eyes of most continental powers. His emphasis upon the Court's status as legal adviser to the League was to drive home the fact that the Court was an integral part of the League in which we could not consistently enter while staying...
Defining as the important issue an antithesis which served his purpose well, Senator Borah declared: "The question is shall we have an independent, judicial tribunal governed by international law or a dependent tribunal governed by international politics?" He answered his latter question with a thunderous "No" by saying that the "fundamental objection to this court as it now exists, is the right or authority which the League of Nations is given to call upon the court for advice or counsel and to treat it in a large measure as a Department of Justice of the League...
...fundamental objection refutes its importance. To give advice on legal affairs or politico-legal affairs to the League or to any government is in itself not contrary to the primary purpose of the court: to aid in the establishment of world peace. The old Hague Tribunal to which Senator Borah can hardly object on principal went almost this far, and should certainly have gone that...
...national courts carry out national law, for the law of nations is by no means a fixed and unchanging body of rules. It finds its sanction for the most part only in public opinion, and therefore its very nature requires a close connection with the sphere of politics. Senator Borah's sheerly legalistic ideal world court is a myth and an impossibility...
...objection to a close relationship with the League valid. It is an advisory relationship solely. Furthermore, the League is not the horrible militaristic monster Senator Borah has pictured it to be. It has accomplished far more for the good of the world in refinancing central Europe for example than timid and provincial American Senators can ever hope to accomplish. And is the United States to believe forever that a valid interest in the affairs of Europe and the world brings with it the plague...