We are here to-night in sight of a league of peace, of what I have ever regarded as the “Promised Land.” Such a war as the last is a hideous blot on our Christian civilization. The inconsistency is as foul as was slavery under the Declaration of Independence. If Christian nations cannot now be brought into a united effort to suppress a recurrence of such a contest it will be a shame to modern society.

During my administration I attempted to secure treaties of universal arbitration between this country and France and England, by which all issues depending for their settlement upon legal principles were to be submitted to an international court for final decision. These treaties were emasculated by the senate, yielding to the spirit which proceeds, unconsciously doubtless, but truly, from the conviction that the only thing that will secure to a nation the justice it wishes to secure is force; that agreements between nations to settle controversies justly and peaceably should never be given any weight in national policy; that in dealing between civilized nations we must assume that each nation is conspiring to deprive us of our independence and our prosperity; that there is no impartial tribunal to which we can entrust the decision of any question vitally affecting our interests or our honor, and that we can afford to make no agreement from which we may not immediately withdraw, and whose temporary operation to our detriment may not be expressly a ground for ending it.

The difficulty of threading one's way through the intricacies of the organization of the Peace Conference is due chiefly to the fact that the conference is from one point of view a continuation of various interallied conferences and councils created for the prosecution of the war. In some cases the functions of these bodies have apparently been taken over by the conference, and in other cases the preëxisting councils and commissions have continued in operation as interallied agencies distinct from the organization of the conference. A brief review of the most important of these agencies will be of assistance, therefore, in making clear the origin and special functions of the conference.

The Supreme War Council was created by an agreement between Great Britain, France and Italy at a meeting held at Rapallo, Italy, in the first week of November, 1917. It was composed of the prime ministers and a member of the governments of each of the great powers fighting on the western front. Its purpose was to watch over the general conduct of the war and prepare recommendations for the decision of the governments. It was to be assisted by a permanent central military committee, consisting of Generals Foch, Wilson and Cadorna, but the decisions of these technical advisers were merely to be the basis of recommendations from the War Council to the several governments, leaving the general staffs and military commands of each power responsible to their individual governments. The United States subsequently adhered to the Rapallo agreement, and participated in the meeting of the council at Versailles on December 1, 1917.

The pathology of political parties is illustrated under especially illuminating circumstances during time of war. The internal political conditions of every important nation are influenced to some extent by its external relations. War on a world-wide scale is the external relation which has the most profound influence upon the internal political conditions of every participating nation. This influence varies in different cases, depending upon the proximity of the particular nation to the scene of the conflict, the extent of its participation, the relative danger of invasion by its enemies, the character of the internal governmental organization, the length of the conflict, and other factors. In normal times, it has been found by experience in nations operating under the two-party system that oscillations in the fortunes of the two principal parties occur with a surprising degree of regularity. This see-saw of party politics may have an injurious effect upon the continuity and constructiveness of the nation's foreign policy even in normal times; its continuation in time of war when the nation's fate may be hanging in the balance would be a serious, if not intolerable, danger. One effect of war upon the party system, therefore, is to bring about, at least for a time, a relatively greater stability of party control, if not complete quiescence of partisanship, either through coalition or through cessation of party opposition, or both.

There is little or no homogeneity to the questions to be considered under the head of retroactive legislation. A dispute whether a state has passed a law impairing the obligation of contracts may turn on a question as to the proper interpretation or application of language, or on opposing views of what is sufficient consideration or what agreements are against public policy. It was under the obligation-of-contracts clause that the Pennsylvania Hospital case decided that the power of governmental authorities to exercise eminent domain could not be bargained away. The crucial question is more often whether alleged rights existed than whether undoubted rights have been impaired. The Fourteenth Amendment and the doctrine of vested rights combine to make the obligation-of-contracts clause almost superfluous, as it is difficult to think of any impairment of the obligation of contracts which that clause inhibits which could not equally well be held deprivations of liberty or property without due process of law.

This is apparent from the fact that retroactive legislation by Congress is questioned under the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment, a contract being regarded as a property right that can be interfered with only when there is sufficient justification for what is done.

On March 4,1917, when the senate filibuster killed the armed neutrality bill, President Wilson issued a statement in which he said that the situation was “unparalleled in the history of the country, perhaps unparalleled in the history of any modern government…‥ The explanation is incredible. The senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”

Among the results of the recent great war will be the appearance of a number of important constitutional documents. These will include new constitutions for existing states, such as Russia and Germany, new constitutions for newly-created states, such as Poland and the Slav republics, and an attempt to establish at least a partial constitution for a world confederation. The first of these documents to be published, and one which contributes many new devices in government and new ideas in political theory, is the Fundamental Law of the Russian Socialist Federated Republic, adopted on July 10, 1918, by resolution of the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

We may still assume that the principal political effect of the war will be the enlargement of popular control,over the agencies of government. Second only to this, however, is likely to be the development of more economical and efficient administration. The exigencies of war have put the older administrative organization and procedure in the various countries to the supreme test; great tasks of administrative reconstruction have been carried out with an expeditiousness unknown in times of peace; the experience of even a few tense years has demonstrated the permanent value of many of the newer arrangements; unprecedented fiscal burdens will cause it to be more than ever insisted upon that for every dollar spent full value shall be received.

The epoch-marking proclamation issued by Queen Victoria in 1858 announced to the people of India that they were to be admitted freely and impartially to political office. The autocratic bureaucracy of foreigners, culminating in the régime of Lord Curzon, when only about 4 per cent of the members of the Indian civil service were natives, was hardly a fulfillment of the spirit of this proclamation. Nor did the peoples of India consider it such. The spirit of unrest finally took shape in the Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, to give expression to the ideas of the educated classes; and this body soon came to be regarded as the unofficial Indian parliament. Each year it brought forward a list of ills which the government of India as then organized could not hope to remedy.