The Administration's Case

Except for the brief statement which accompanied President Harding's proposal to the Senate that the United States join the World Court, the first expression of the Administration's attitude in that matter came from Secretary Hoover. Last week before the National League of Women Voters, at Des Moines, he delivered an address in explanation of the Administration's proposal. It was devoted chiefly to explanation of the court, and refutation of the arguments of the Court's opponents. Secretary Hoover set out to refute three classes of opponents of the Court: 1) Those who believe that the Court will lead us in to some "undescribed political entanglement." This objection, Mr. Hoover points out, is raised on ignorance, because there is absolutely no compulsory provision in the President's proposal. " We do not need to submit any case to the Court, unless we feel like doing so. ... No other nation can summon us into court. . . . The Court itself cannot summon us in--nor . . . exert upon us any kind of compulsion, not even moral." It is worth while noting that no politician of any prominence is making this first objection. 2) Those who object to the Court because it is connected with the League of Nations. This group may be considered to include such irreconcilables as Senators Johnson and Moses. These two are now abroad; so little has been heard from them. Said Mr. Hoover: " We are not by this act [joining the Court] entering the League in any sense. The connection between the Court and the League is indeed remote. Its sole relationship is that the judges are elected as provided in its own statute, not by the League, but by the representatives of the nations to the League acting as an elective body for this purpose." 3) Those who condemn the Court because it does not go far enough. These include Senator Borah, who wants a world court " with teeth in it," and those who believe we should join the League as well as the Court. Those who make this objection, according to Mr. Hoover, " are the ones who would have complained on the Wednesday night of Genesis, and would have gone to bed with a grouch because the Creator had not yet made a finished job of the sun and the moon, and would have called a mass meeting on Thursday morning to demand more forward action."

The World Court has, according to Secretary Hoover, advantages over the Hague Tribunal because the latter is only an arbitrating body, and the former is a real court, capable of building up a body of international law, and giving real decisions based on law and justice rather than on compromise.