Vol. I, No. 29
June 2, 1922
Suggestions in Order
This week we are sending to our members printed slips to be filled out with suggestions for membership in the F.PA. Please do not throw them aside. If you will send in even one name and address your suggestion may secure a new member.
A New Anti-Mexican Campaign
IT IS not surprising that the arrival in New York this week of the Mexican Secretary of the Treasury de la Huerta should be made the occasion for elaborate attempts to create the impression that President Obregón's government is endangered by revolution. The news dispatches from San Antonio of the last few days, reporting that seven Mexican states are in revolt and that the leaders hope to unite under General Félix Díaz, have all the earmarks of deliberate distortion by enemies of the Mexican government in this country. No authenticated news from Mexico gives credence to these rumors. On the other hand, from the most diverse sources during the last eighteen months, evidence is accumulated of the steadily increasing strength of the Obregón regime. Secretary de la Huerta's presence here, for the purpose of continuing, and we hope completing, the negotiations begun months ago with the International Committee of Bankers for the settlement of Mexico's external obligations, is in itself proof of the stability of the present Mexican government.
Why, then, should metropolitan dailies like the New York World and the Tribune feature with scare headlines "special dispatches" which are evidently nothing more substantial than Díaz's press agent material? The Tribune went so far as to print a map showing in detail the "disaffected" regions. Fortunately, many papers, including the New York Times, refused to print as "news" these flimsy concoctions.
The State Department, denying the allegations in these "special dispatches" that American governmental agents confirmed the seriousness of the Díaz conspiracy, characterized the current rumors as without substantial foundation.
Misrepresentation is always unjustifiable, but how reprehensible is misrepresentation obviously meant to thwart the pending financial negotiations, upon the successful outcome of which depends so largely the welfare of the Mexican people and indirectly the [reestablishment] of normal relations between the Mexican and the United States governments.
A German Loan?
FRANCE is not marching into the Ruhr June 1. The Reparations Commission has accepted the recent German reply as substantially satisfactory. Poincaré does not object. Instead, as was suggested in the BULLETIN last week, the forces working for an economic rather than a political settlement of this problem are so strong that even the French Premier is probably delighted to have an excuse not to carry out his repeated threats.
Germany promises "to make the most strenuous efforts to prevent any further increase in the floating debt; to balance her budget and to continue the cash reparation payments." She further accepts Allied financial supervision, with the understanding that this "in no way affects" her sovereignty. Any suggestion from the Allies as to methods to prevent the flight of German capital or to induce its return will be "willingly listened to."
The autonomy of the Reichsbank, the German note says, "is guaranteed by a law of May 25, 1922." But Germany adds, and the Reparations Commission tacitly agrees, that the balancing of the budget and the discontinuance of the use of the printing press are contingent upon "reasonable assistance in the shape of a foreign loan." Not even the French nationalists deny this. Whether such a loan is floated depends now primarily upon the willingness of the Allies to make it a first mortgage on Germany's resources, taking precedence over reparations; to agree tacitly, if not formally, to reduce the total reparations bill and to forego the further use of military sanctions. Possibly the formal endorsement of France and Great Britain may also be necessary.
If the United States government werre in a position to offer substantial [cooperation] to the Allies through the reduction of the Allied indebtedness, the success of the loan would be assured. But even without American governmental assistance, the prospects are excellent for a banker's rather than a politician's handling of the reparations problem. [page 2]
The National Student Forum
WHEN youth declares for a better world it is generally in the manner of Don Quixote, rarely that of Socrates. The recently organized National Student Forum, an outgrowth of the National Student Committee for Limitation of Armament, is almost exceptional in that it is non-dogmatic -- neither attempting to overturn the windmills of things-as-they-are nor defending them. The spirit of the National Student Forum is the Socratic spirit of a disinterested quest for truth that the leaders of tomorrow may be wiser; and the seekers must become imbued with the spirit of the search, that the leaders of tomorrow may be disinterested. In this it is carrying the spirit of the Foreign Policy Association into the colleges.Structurally the National Student Forum is a federation of the liberal clubs, social and political science clubs, forums, etc. which are already to be found in many colleges. The life of the organization is in the activities of these autonomous local groups where social problems are studied and debated, and where the questions of his own education are considered seriously by the student. It is planned to form such an intellectual nucleus in almost every college.
The central office exists as a connective, a practical convenience, and an inspiration. By joining students, East and West, into an intellectual community, it provides opportunity for them to vitalize each other. To this Service is devoted The New Student, a fortnightly intercollegiate journal. By maintaining a well-planned speakers bureau the central office is helping the local groups to make contacts with the world outside of college gates. And by defining problems and working out new methods in group thinking and investigation, the executives hope to increase the intellectual effectiveness of the groups. Offices have been opened at 2929 Broadway, near Columbia University. Membership is open to the faculty, graduates, and even those who are neither, for the object of the movement is not to set the student apart from those who are making this education but to bring him into more intelligent [cooperation].
Germany and Poland Agree
AFTER months of conference at Genoa, representatives of Germany and Poland have agreed upon a treaty which provides in detail for the regulation of all the intricate adjustments incident to the new boundary between these two states. The treaty, [modeled] on the recommendation of the League of Nations agents, is to remain in force for fifteen years. Irrespective of the ultimate judgment which may be rendered as to the justification for the boundary line, drawn by the Council of the League of Nations after all the other negotiations had failed, the acceptance by Germany and Poland of the results is tangible evidence of the value of the League machinery.
Outlaw War Itself
THE convention of the National League of Women Voters held at Baltimore, April 24-29, unanimously adopted the two following resolutions which are of importance to all who are interested in international [cooperation]:
I.
Whereas in establishing justice and amity between human beings, men have defined and repudiated crimes of individuals against the public welfare, and
Whereas the greatest crime against the public welfare is War, and
Whereas we applaud the progress toward peace in the recent reduction of naval armament and the curb on naval competition, and
Whereas we recognize that conferences alone as shown by those at The Hague have not prevented or ameliorated wars in the past, and that resolutions outlawing certain methods of killing, such as poison gas and submarines, are not only futile but imply that certain other methods are justifiable.
Therefore be it resolved that the National League of Women Voters in convention assembled at Baltimore, Maryland, April, 1922, asserts its conviction that the aim of all international peace efforts should be to outlaw war itself and to abolish it as a legalized institution, instead of to regulate it, and that to this end a code of international law, based upon equity and justice between nations, as municipal law is based upon equity and justice between individuals, be erected, by which the waging of war be made a crime, defined and punishable under the terms of the code, and in order to promote this ideal that the National League of Women Voters call upon the Government of the United States to take such action in [cooperation] with other nations as shall lead to a federation of the world for this purpose.
II.
Whereas the National League of Women Voters in Convention of 1922 assembled has adopted a resolution asserting its convictions that war should be declared a crime and outlawed as such, and that a federation to this end should be entered upon.
Be it resolved -- That the League of Women Voters adopt as an actual working program the initiating and supporting of measures to this end, and,
Be it further resolved -- That in the intervals of meetings of the entire League the National Board of Directors be empowered to designate what activities belong legitimately to such a program.
The United States and the Opium Traffic
IT HAS been generally known that the United States is one of the largest morphine manufacturing and exporting countries in the world. It is not, however, so generally recognized that America's [noncooperation] with the League of Nations has made very difficult the efforts which the Council of the League has been making to control the traffic in drugs and to limit the production of opium and other dangerous drugs.
Similarly, America's [noncooperation] with the League's efforts has seriously hampered the administration of international regulations against the white slave trade and the traffic in women and children.
He Misses Us!
"THOSE circulars {BULLETINS} bear it in upon me every time that there is something very valuable that we are missing through our absence from New York. I have not as yet found any like agency on the Continent which would enable me to study international problems in a similar dispassionate manner."
—From an American in Europe
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